Naomi's chin suddenly rose, and her eyes dimmed to a pale blue. "It seems I must leave you now, Oliver. She's awake," she said. "You know what to do. And remember, if you fight me, I'll make the punishments I've given you already seem like a caress."
She vanished like smoke. Surviving my attempt to destroy her, in the chaos of the final battle with the draug, had made this one stronger, faster, more coldhearted than ever.
I waited until I sensed Amelie's approach, and then I turned with a false but convincing smile; it ripped at me like razors to betray her so, because even after allour years of rivalry, I had finally come to realize her worth, and now...now the smile was no longer mine. It was a lure, a lie, and it sickened me to see her return it.
She walked on bare feet down the path, hands stroking the petals of flowers as she came; her thin white gown blew like mist in the moonlight.
She was beautiful, and desirable, and I despaired inside as her hands touched the bare skin of my chest, because I was going to be the death of her.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing at all. I wanted to warn her, to tel her how dangerous I was to her now. How destructive.
"You strayed," she said, and kissed me very lightly.
"Yes," I said, and felt myself smile that warm, chal enging smile that had charmed her into trust. "But I'll never go far."
Until I killlyou. God forgive me.
Chapter SIX
CLAIRE
Claire really wanted to confront Eve about what Miranda had overheard-she and Michael couldn't really be considering moving out, could they?- but in the morning, Eve was gone early, and Michael was sleeping late; she wasn't quite gutsy enough to go knock on his door and demand to know the truth. Michael was grouchy in the mornings.
Miranda, of course, had kept Claire up talking into the wee hours; she'd been getting more and more chatty since taking up residence, which was great in a way, because the kid had been so repressed and isolated before, but bad for Claire's sleep cycle. It also cut into the time she could spend with Shane; he tended to steer clear when Miranda was around, and although he wasn't above just moving the girl firmly out of the room when he felt it was necessary, he hadn't done it last night.
So Claire woke up short of sleep, yawning, and a little cranky. Not her best morning ever, but in a matter of minutes it got drastically better; she was still stretching and trying to wearily decide what to wear, when there was a thumping knock on her door, one very different from Miranda's tentative taps.
She grabbed her robe and threw it on as she answered. She didn't open up allthe way, just peeked through. There was Shane, balancing one coffee cup precariously on top of another. He'd given her the giant Snoopy cup this morning, which was nice. "What's the password?" she asked him.
"Um, you look hot with your hair standing up?"
"Good enough." She stepped back and relieved Shane of the Snoopy cup as he came inside; then she set it hastily down when he stepped in to slide his free hand around her waist and kiss her. She had morning breath, but it didn't seem to matter to him; he tasted of mint toothpaste and coffee, but she forgot allthat in seconds and then it was just allincredibly delicious. Her whole body tingled with warmth.
"Morning," he murmured, his lips close to hers. They were so tasty, she licked them, which made him smile and kiss her again. "Too bad you're dressed."
"I'm not dressed. I just have on a robe."
"Oh?"
"Hey," she said, and put a hand flat on his chest. "None of that, mister. A girl's got to have boundaries."
"You'l let me know when I get there," he said, and untied her robe. "You lied. You've got on jammies."
"Wel , yeah, those, too." She was short of breath, and when his hands found their way under the flannel of her pajama top, the air in her lungs rushed away. "You really shouldn't..."
"Do this? Yeah, I know." He undid the first button on her pajama top and put a kiss in its place. "But I've been thinking about doing it allnight."
So had she, actually, and allthe logical objections to why this wasn't a good idea kind of vanished under the heat of his touch...until Claire realized he'd left her bedroom door wide-open, and someone was standing in the doorway.
"Your coffee's getting cold," Eve said. She was clearly on her way to the bathroom, arms ful of black clothes, hair untied and in a multicolored mess around her pale face. She blew the two of them a kiss.
Claire yelped and jumped away, rebuttoning her top and retying her robe at light speed. Shane hardly seemed bothered at all, but she could feel the hot blush staining her cheeks. "Um, hi, Eve," she said. "Sorry."
"I'm not sorry," Shane said, and gave Eve a mean glare. Eve gave Shane a wicked grin. "Don't you have better things to do?"
"Than mess up your morning sexytime? Nope, never. Dibs on the shower! And you might want to remember this thing actually swings shut. Pro tip." Eve slammed the door between them.
Shane picked up a handy book and started to throw it, but Claire grabbed it out of his hands. "Not the advanced calc book!" She searched around and found a history text instead. He shook his head sadly.
"Moment's over," he said, and he wasn't just talking about the opportunity to throw something. He retrieved his coffee and sipped it, and she tried to get her racing heartbeat under control as she tasted hers. It was good and strong, and although it wasn't as good as what might have been her morning wake-up, it wasn't shabby. "What was Miranda in here gabbing about last night?"
"Things." Claire shrugged. "You know. She's lonely."
"I know the feeling, believe me." He gave her a puppy-dog look, and she aimed a kick in his direction, which he dodged.
"But she did say something weird."
"Miranda? Go figure!"
"She said-" Should she even repeat this? Somehow, saying it aloud, to Shane, made it more...real. But he needed to know. "She said Michael and Eve were talking about moving."
"Moving," he repeated, as if he didn't know the word. "Moving what?"
"I guess out. To another house."
"Why would we move?"
"Not we, Shane. Them. Michael and Eve. As a couple. Moving."
"Oh," he said, as if he still didn't get it, and then he did. "Oh." He looked as if someone had shot his dog, and he sat down on the unmade bed and stared down into his coffee cup. It was one of Eve's, black with purple bats allover it. "You mean, leave us behind."
He'd just distil ed it down to the sharp, hurting point: leave us. Because that was what it was, really: not that they needed space, but that Michael and Eve were leaving Claire and Shane behind, in their past.
"They need space, is what Miranda said. Y'know, together-type space."
"They're not the only ones," Shane said. He didn't look up. "Hel . Michael didn't say anything."
"Neither did Eve. So maybe it's just, you know..."
"Talk? Maybe. But if they're talking about it, it's real enough to matter." He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. "I've been thinking about it myself."
"Michael and Eve moving out?" Was she the only one who hadn't seen this coming?
"No. Moving out myself."
Claire couldn't have been more stunned if he'd announced he'd decided to turn vampire. She sat down too fast and just managed not to slop coffee allover herself; even that barely registered as a blip, because her attention was suddenly and completely on her boyfriend, and there was a sick, hurting knot in her stomach. "What?"
"It's just-" He gestured vaguely at the door. "We're in one another's pockets around here. Sometimes it'd be nice to just have it be..."
"You want to move out," Claire said. "By yourself."
"No!" Shane finally glanced up, startled. "I mean-we could...find a place-"
The moment froze, with the two of them staring at each other; this was a conversation Claire had never expected to have, and certainly not in the early morning in her pajamas with her hair in a mess. It clearly wasn't something Shane had thought through, either. The whole thing suddenly felt raw, fragile, wrong. And she didn't know why. It made the aching lump in her guts hurt even worse.
"Anyway," Shane finally said, in that we're-going-to-pretend-that-never-happened kind of tone, "it's just that this is Michael's house. It ought to be Michael and Eve's, if it's anybody's. I could always-we could-" He couldn't seem to get his words together, either, and she saw the same growing panic in him that she was feeling. Not ready for this, she thought. Really not ready. It reminded her of what her mother had said, so prophetically, last night on the phone. Are you sure you're not moving too fast? She hated it when her mom was right.