The Craving

I had a perfect view of her bare white neck. Her heart pumped quickly, giving her skin a hot, rosy glow and filling my senses with her blood. I could smell it all over her, salty and warm and human. A shiver went through my body as her chest pressed against mine, and I could feel the pain begin along my jaw. Such a sweet pain – and it had been such a long time since I’d had human blood…

It couldn’t hurt, part of me said. She wouldn’t mind me biting her, even without compulsion. It didn’t have to be painful, and she might even enjoy it. Before I knew what I was doing I had pressed my lips to her shoulder, just to feel the skin, to take a little lick…

She felt me moving beneath her and misinterpreted it, kissing me and getting into a more comfortable position, entwining her legs in mine.

‘No!’

I managed to get control of myself and shoved her off me.

I didn’t mean to do it so forcefully, but even in my weakened state I was still several times stronger than a human. She fell to the end of the bed, against one of the posts, looking shocked.

And then she began to cry.

‘You…don’t want me…’ she wailed, fat droplets of tears rolling down her cheeks.

‘Bridget, no, I…’ My fangs retracted and I was aching with the pain and my need for blood. ‘It’s just…we’re getting married tomorrow, Bridget. Just one more day. If we wait until it’s…uh…proper, it will be even more special. Just think, we’ll have completed a…beautiful day…with you in your beautiful, uh…’

‘Cream brocade with Flemish lace on the sleeves and bodice and an ivory satin sash with a veil of matching ivory silk flowers,’ she sniffled.

‘Right.’ I touched her elbow delicately and tilted her chin up so she had to look at me. She wiped the tears off her face with a piece of her robe. ‘Let my first night with you be with that image of you in my mind, my blushing bride.’

She nodded, sniffing again, giving me a faint smile. ‘All right.’

Then she giggled again, back to her old self, and flounced off the bed and to the door.

‘Goodnight…lover,’ she cooed before exiting.

As soon as she was gone I fell back on the bed, muffling a groan in my pillow. It did nothing to abate my frustration. I stood, pacing from the window to the door, wanting to leave, to escape, to hunt, to do something. But I had no choice, no option. I was trapped in this room, in this situation, in the terrible in-betweenness of being neither a human nor a monster.

I ripped the pillow straight in two, feathers exploding around the room like a white powder keg.

Damn you, Damon, I thought violently, for putting me in this position. And damn you, too, Katherine, for beginning all this.

CHAPTER 16

November 12, 1864

Life with Damon is like playing chess with a mad person. I can think of a thousand different possibilities to defend against, a thousand different moves he could make, and then he goes and changes the rules of the game.

It’s not just his newfound predilection for casual violence that makes him so incalculable, but the way he revels in it. Though blood is our diet, we as vampires at least have a modicum of self-will. Damon doesn’t have to let his dark side win, and yet he embraces it.

I view this change in him with horror and guilt, as I was the one who set him down the path of the vampire. Katherine was the one who changed him, but I force-fed him his first human.

After seeing his message to me I can’t consider leaving the Sutherlands until I have figured out a way to keep them all safe. What my brother did to Callie…it obviously isn’t beyond him to just dispose of the entire family once they serve their purpose.

But when will he take action? At the wedding? After the wedding? After the honeymoon? Next year? Could I spirit the girls away somewhere? Could I convince them to hide? Could I compel them to? Damon managed to find me here, could he find me – or them – anywhere?

I have to come up with a plan, in case Damon doesn’t just leave town with his newfound fortune.

Of course, the simplest solution would be to kill Damon.

Voila – one maniacal, insane, unpredictable, murderous vampire gone, the world, and myself, a thousand times safer. That’s assuming I could do it. I am so much weaker than he is, it would have to be done by surprise or guile or something equally underhanded, like a knife in the back. Like he killed Callie.

There isn’t any point in thinking that way. I will not stoop to his level. He is my brother. And as awful as he is, he is the only relative left to me.

The next day, time flew by as if it had nothing better to do than gallop me towards matrimony. Before I knew it, I’d been stuffed into my suit, force-fed pancakes and spirited over one hundred blocks north to the altar, where I stood awaiting my fate, as the Sutherlands unknowingly awaited their own.

Damon and I stood side by side in Woodcliff Manor’s great hall – the pretty family chapel nearby was far too small for Bridget’s tastes. The Richards were kind enough to let her use their home at the tip of Manhattan Island. It was really more of a castle than a home, with grey towers, parapets and decorative portcullises, all made from the grey rock that jutted seamlessly out of the rocky promontory on which it sat.

Not so far from there, outside the arched gothic windows, were the remains of Fort Tryon, the site of a sad defeat of Continental forces under George Washington by the British.

My thoughts drifted as I imagined redcoats and scrappy American soldiers and puffs of gunpowder…and then something occurred to me. Katherine could have witnessed such a battle. I never asked how old she was – perhaps Damon did – but she was far older than her appearance suggested. She had probably witnessed events I’d only read about in history books.

I shivered at the thought, but the chill was instantly dispelled by the incredible heat in the room. Damon and I stood in front of a crowd of more than two hundred of New York’s finest socialites, all sitting uncomfortably in hastily pulled together pews. They had no idea how dangerous it was for them to be there.

I pulled at my collar and tie, which suddenly felt too tight, my vision blurring. The room shifted and morphed, and for just a second the finery and skin of every wedding attendee melted off as though they’d been caught up in a blaze. Skin flaked off like corn husks, leaving behind pure-white bone and twisted tendons.

‘Stefan!’ Damon hissed, elbowing me. I realised then that I was clutching his arm. ‘Do I need to call a medic for you?’ he asked sarcastically.

I shook my head, wondering what illness had overcome me. The crowd came back into focus, alive, happy, laughing, and fanning themselves discreetly.

Even I had to admit that Mrs Sutherland had done a fantastic job working with Mrs Richards and her housekeepers. A rich red carpet had been laid out, and it was scattered with so many rose petals you could scarcely see the fabric beneath. Pink, white and deep, deep red, it looked like a beautiful trail through a magnificent rose garden. Garlands of expensive and exotic flowers hung along the pews, and the scent of orange and lemon was heavy in the air. Overhead hung giant balls of flowers like fireworks in petals. Vases in every gothic arched nook and cranny held elegant arrangements of grasses and blooming branches of quince, enhancing the woodland effect.

Everyone wore full formal regalia, tailcoats for the men, some with diplomatic sashes. Heavy moire silks for the older women, lighter for the young women, yards and yards of fabric swirled around their feet like more rose petals. Hats were decked out in plumes and gems and sometimes entire birds. And the real heirloom jewellery had been pulled out for this occasion, pearls and diamonds and rubies on every neck and wrist, some gems the size of my thumb.

All the women had fans, of course, made from silk and painted in Japan or England, and they tried to flutter them delicately, but most wound up flapping them as fast as they could. The ladies’ countenances remained