The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

were laughing and cruel. I could see everything that had been hidden to me before. He had mesmerized me. Damn him. He had tricked me.

But I was free now. And he didn’t know it.

I gave Antonio’s hand a squeeze, hoping he understood what I was going to do. I walked forward, a smile on my face, heart pounding out of control.

“Beloved,” Jack said, when I was just a few steps away.

He had called me that before, but this time I blushed out of embarrassment instead of excitement. Out of the corners of my eyes, I could see the other vampires. They wanted me dead. I could feel the hatred coming off of them in waves. More than that, though, they wanted Antonio dead. I understood it all now. I had just been the bait.

If I could kill Jack before they could stop me, then Antonio would have a fighting chance. An owl hooted not that far off, and I did my best not to turn my head. None of the vampires seemed to notice, but I knew that it wasn’t a real owl—it was our classmate, Jamie. It was a message: You are not alone.

And I smiled even more broadly. Jack had his grupo and I had mine. This then was the final lesson. We were not alone, not just single hunters against many vampires. We had friends who would fight and die with us, and for us. It was something not talked about in the Universidad because it was something that they couldn’t teach. It was camaraderie built out of shared pain and adversity. I understood everything now.

“Did you miss me?” Jack purred. I came to stand before him. He reached out to me, wanting me to take his hand. I kept my face turned coyly to the ground. When I finally raised my eyes to his, he was still smiling, confident I was still under his spell. Bastard.

I ripped the stake free of its holder in a flash. “No, I didn’t!” His eyes suddenly widened as I raised the stake and ruthlessly drove it straight through his black vampire heart.

His eyes flickered in surprise for a moment that suspended me somewhere humiliating and shameful. I would never let anyone use me again. Never believe in a vampire’s lies again.

Then he was gone. I spun around to ward off the next, nearest vampire, but it threw me to the ground, knocking the wind out of me. Then it leapt in for the kill. Its fangs brushed my throat.

This is it. This is how I die.

Suddenly, something grabbed my tormentor from behind, and he went flying thirty feet through the air. The only thing strong enough to do that was another vampire. And as I struggled up onto my elbows, that was exactly what I saw.

Antonio turned toward me. I knew it was no trick of the light. The fangs he was baring were real. I gasped and he smiled sadly at me. Then I understood exactly what he had meant that first day at the Universidad when he had said the vampires took everything from him. His family, his friends, his life. No wonder he hated them. And no wonder they hated him—one of their own kind who hunted them.

Jamie and Skye burst into the clearing. Antonio turned as another vamp came running toward us. Eriko and Holgar emerged into the battle, bloody and brutal. Vampires turned to ash around us. Our ferocity knew no bounds. This time we would take them all out! Jamie ran toward us, now covered in the blood of the vampires he had recently staked. He skidded to a halt when he got a good look at Antonio.

“Something new?” Jamie asked warily eyeing Antonio’s fangs.

“No, something old,” Antonio said.

“Bloody hell.” Jamie lunged to stake him.

But I stepped in his way.

“No. He saved my life,” I heard myself saying. I was trembling. “He’s … one of us.”

I want to say that then and there, we became a team. Five crazy humans and one vampire. But it took a long time, and we were tested over and over again as the nights unfolded.

But as we stood together on New Year’s Eve, I turned and saw another half dozen vamps emerge from the trees. Their long teeth gleamed in the moonlight, and they were hissing in anticipation of the kill.

“I don’t remember Jack having a group this big,” I said.

“Looks like someone’s been recruiting.”

“Building his own little army,” Antonio added.

I grabbed a stake in each fist. “Good thing we’ve got a vampire of our own.”

“Let’s get this party started!” Eriko shouted.

Antonio spared one look at me, and I felt a strange mix of horror and excitement. Antonio was a vampire. He’d said he loved me.

And I knew it was not a lie.

The knowledge propelled me into battle. I moved like whirlwind, fighting as I had never done before. I was almost crazy, I was so fierce. I felt my stake slam into vampire chests, taking vampire lives.

Miraculously, it was over in under five minutes. Even more miraculously, we were all bloodied but still standing.

“Everyone bandage up.” I set to work on my own wounds. Antonio stood a safe distance away, and by his stance, I knew he was trying to regain control over his vampire self. I had so many questions, but they could wait. When I killed Jack, his power over me had vanished completely. At that moment, I remembered that before I met Jack I had loved Antonio. And not as a brother. Jack had twisted that emotion for his own ends. He had made me forget who I was for a moment. But that was all over now.

I had loved Antonio, and I loved him again. The idea was strange, and new, and yet it felt old. I thought of my parents and my grandparents, and felt a dizzying connection. Was I going somewhere in my heart that they had never been? Or were the hearts of humans and vampires more alike than different?

I had other questions. Some were for my classmates. Except for Jamie, they seemed fine with the idea of a vampire as comrade. I had fully expected them to turn on Antonio after we had dispatched the rest of the vampires.

I cleared my throat. “Are we going to have any problems?” I asked my new grupo.

“With Antonio?” Jamie frowned.

I nodded.

“He’s okay with me,” Holgar said. But Jamie said nothing.

I stared at them all in disbelief. After two years of training to kill vampires, of witnessing the horrors they were capable of, I didn’t know how the rest of them could let this go so easily.

“Why? How?” I blurted.

Eriko smiled. “If Father Armand let a vampire study at the Universidad, then he must be one of us.”

Us. Not one of us humans. One of us hunters. I hadn’t thought about that. Father Armand personally screened every student for admission. He was a very kind, but intense, priest with a twisted sense of humor. Still, would he have even been able to tell Antonio was a vampire?

“You think Father Armand knew?” I asked.

“He knew I was a witch,” Skye said calmly.

“And he knew I was a werewolf,” Holgar added, as if it was common knowledge.

I stared at them all in shock. Finally I pivoted to face Jamie and Eriko. “Anything about the two of you I should know about?”

“No,” a deep voice answered from the shadows behind us.

I spun around, my hand on a stake, and slumped in relief when I saw that it was Father Armand.

“Each pairing has one normal student, and one with special abilities,” he explained. “It’s safer for everyone that way.”

“But—”

He raised his hand. “You think humans are the only ones who wish to fight evil? No. This war against the vampires has pulled in many people from many groups. A very few vampires retain enough of their original self that with meditation, study, and discipline they can control their bloodlust. Antonio is one of those. Skye is kin to some friends of mine and I recognized her talents when we met. Holgar, years ago, learned how to safeguard himself and others from his wolf aspect. This war touches us all and, I’m afraid, it does not stop here.”