Pulse. Part 15

"Stuart is my boyfriend," she said.

"Then why did you let me..."

"I don't know, okay?" She turned away from him. "It's not easy. The two of you...always around...all this pressure a I don't know what I think!"

"What do you feel, Kalina?"

She could not look him in the eye. How could she tell him what she felt, when she wasn't even sure herself?

"I feel worried that Stuart is going to be burned to a crisp at sunrise, okay? We have to go find him."

"No," said Jaegar. "It's too dangerous. Believe me, Kalina a I'd follow you anywhere a but that's just where Octavius wants you."

"Well, he'd better be careful what he wishes for, then."

"Octavius will drink your blood, become invincible! I can't let you..."

"You can't tell me what I can and can't do, for starters," snapped Kalina. "And I'll either go alone or you'll go with me a you tell me. But I can tell you that one of those choices is probably going to get me killed, but the other is definitely going to get me killed, so you pick one!"

"So you can be with your precious boyfriend?" Jaegar rounded on her. "So you can give him your blood and the two of you can grow human together and old together and make human babies together..."

"For Christ's sake, Jaegar a I'm seventeen! As far as I'm concerned, you can both have the blood a I just want to make sure someone I care about isn't killed! Is that so hard to believe?" She softened her tone. "In any case, I'd do the same for you. If it were you."

"It's not about the blood," said Jaegar softly. "It's about you. You're the only woman who can...match me."

Her face colored as they got into the car.

"I care for you, Kalina," he said. "And forgive me for that."

"Don't be sorry," she whispered. "Please don't be sorry."

"Do you love him?"

"I care deeply for him," she said. "But...I care for you too. It's different a it's so different, with each of you...I don't want to a I can't just pick one of you! My life has been so much richer with you both in it. And I can't say goodbye to either one of you. And I need to make sure you both stay alive. For Aaron a too. Because Aaron would have wanted it this way. He wouldn't have wanted either of you to get hurt. Family was so important to him...he always used to talk about it, how he wanted a family one day..." her voice trailed off.

They got into the car.

"For Aaron," said Jaegar. "I'll come with you. I'll do whatever you need." He sighed. "And, at the end of the day a or night, as it were a he is my brother."

They were silent.

chapter 19.

They drove onwards into the night. Jaegar had been making frantic telephone calls throughout the night, calling up favors from all the vampires he knew a many of whom, he explained, were or had been in Octavius's army. He spoke to them as he had always spoken to them a as a member of Octavius's loyal team a and implied that he wished to find Octavius for purely business-related reasons.

"It's dangerous to be an informant," he said to Kalina. "I hope Octavius doesn't find out who told me."

Kalina shuddered.

At last, Jaegar slammed his phone shut. "Drive faster," he said. "We're going to Beverly Hills."

"Beverly Hills?"

He shouted an address at her.

"Staying at the house of some film director he turned two decades ago. I should have known - Octavius could never resist glitz and glamor. During the Renaissance, he always had the gaudiest doublets, though he did look impressive in them..."

Kalina pressed down onto the gas.

They drove all through the night, alternating shifts at the wheel. As the time wore on, Kalina found that her strength was beginning to fail her, and when she was given blessed respite in the pa.s.senger's seat at the front of the car, she found herself beginning to doze off, despite her worries, despite her fears. She didn't have the energy to remain both awake and afraid.

She woke up with a gasp.

"Nightmare?" Jaegar asked her. They had stopped the car across the street from a large, stucco Tuscan villa, surrounded by an electric fence. "Afraid it's about to get worse. We're here."

"There are so many guards," Kalina said. She had a feeling the burly men scanning the gate with cruel, dark eyes weren't her standard-grade security guards.

"We'll never get past them."

"We'll have to come back in daytime," said Jaegar.

"But a without the ring..."

"I'll find a way," said Jaegar curtly. "But we've only got an hour until dawn." He sighed. "May I suggest we find a hotel?"

"A hotel?"

"It's either that, or you can lock me in the trunk of the car. And I'm really not in the mood to be stuck in a tiny cramped s.p.a.ce for who knows how long."

"A hotel sounds fine," said Kalina.

Jaegar nodded.

They drove up and down the strips of Beverly Hills until they came to a rickety motel, with a bright pink painted sign and peeling paint on the walls.

"The Sunrise Motel," said Kalina with a wry smile. "Fitting, I guess."

They checked in silently, and the proprietress of the establishment gave them a knowing smile. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I'm sure," she said.

"Uh, sure," said Kalina.

"We'll pay cash," Jaegar broke in.

She demanded a hundred dollars; he threw it down before her in five crisp views.

"Room with a view?" the woman asked, rubbing her eyes.

"No thank you," they said in unison.

"My husband doesn't like the light," Kalina explained lately. "Hurts his eyes."

"Yeah, sure," said the woman, in a voice that clearly betrayed her disinterest. She threw the key down upon the desk before them. "Be out by dawn tomorrow a hear me? And don't go messing up the rooms; we charge for extra cleanup."

Jaegar took her aside on their way to the room. "I need to go find something to eat. It's almost dawn. And somehow I don't get the sense this place stocks Vampire Wine."

"Eat," Kalina grimaced. "Like a person?"

"That waitress at the diner where we refueled a few miles back a you were asleep. I think she's a feeder a I can smell it on her."

"That's disgusting!"

"Would you rather I take it from someone unwilling?" Jaegar snapped.

"Just a just be back before sunrise," she said. "You can't be out late, not without your ring."

"Jealous?" He forced a grin at her before ducking out, leaving his bag on the room dresser.

Kalina sat down and buried her head in her hands. The exhaustion was getting too much for her. At the same time, she found Jaegar's absence something of a relief. Without his powerful presence commanding the room, she had time to think, to reflect, to gather herself. Jaegar needed another ring a that much she knew. She searched through her possessions, trying to find something that would suffice. She tossed aside gum wrappers and loose change until she found what she was looking for.

Aaron's cla.s.s ring.

He had given it to her when they had first begun to go steady a it had been a sign of his affection for her. A garnet a the cla.s.s stone a sat grooved at the base. She pried it off with her nails. Praying the scent of her blood wouldn't be picked up by all the vampires in L.A., she found a stray safety pin in her bag, p.r.i.c.king her finger just enough to let two drops of her blood fall into the groove where the stone had been. She then pressed the stone back into place, sticking it with an end of gum. Not quite as elaborate as the gorgeous antique Jaegar had been wearing previously, but it would have to do. Then all that was left was to sit and wait. At last, moments before the rosy fingers of sunrise spread out across the sky, Jaegar barged in.

He stopped; he sniffed. "How dare you!" he bellowed. "Knowing how I feel a what are you playing at?"

"What?"

"You've been bleeding a you know, you know what I have to do to control myself a and you just parade your blood around the room!"

"Would you keep your voice down?" Kalina locked the door. "It's for your own good..."

"What are you talking about?"

Kalina held out the ring. "I made you a ring," she said. "I had to wait until you were gone a in case you...pounced."

His jaw dropped. "I see," he said. He put out a hand gingerly and slipped the ring onto his ring finger, which had healed. "Thank you." His voice was gruff and hard. The tension was still in the air, thick enough to strangle both of them.

"You could at least be grateful," she said.

"I am grateful," he shouted.

"You don't have to shout at me!" she sat back down. "I'm only helping."

"By rubbing it in..."

"Rubbing what in?"

"Isn't it bad enough," he said, "knowing the blood that consumes my thoughts a all night and all day a is going straight to my brother? Watching you go to him?

Watching myself lose you a I, who had never lost a woman in my life!"

"It isn't like..."

"Watching the woman I care for go to my brother, to make him human a to take everything I want a and then having to smell that blood!"

"I'm sorry!" Kalina shouted. "But if I didn't do it there's no way we'd make it to Octavius's alive."

"And you'd never save Stuart," said Jaegar with a sneer.

"Would you just stop it?" Kalina stamped her foot in rage. "You're acting like a child! You think it isn't complicated enough already?"

"What's so complicated about it. You love my brother..."

"Jaegar." She placed a hand on his shoulder. She knew now could be the last chance she'd ever get. "I feel a lot for you, too."

She couldn't stop herself. She had been drawn to him from the start, her body craving him ever since she met him. His blood coursing through her made her instinctively pull closer to him. She kissed him, wrapping herself so tightly into him that she couldn't breathe, bowled over by the force of her own pa.s.sion. He stopped short. "Kalina." His eyes burned into hers with unspoken need. He reached out to touch her face so gently, so softly. She had penetrated his last resolve.

"If, if it were you in the legend, only if a and not Stuart - would you? Would you become human? You always said..."

"For you," he held her tightly. "For you a I swear. Centuries of women a and none of them has ever compared to you."

He pulled her down to the bed; she allowed herself to melt into his arms.

Kalina slept curled into his arms until the sun was high over the horizon. Then they woke together. It was time to strike. They tested out Kalina's ring, opening the curtains slowly to make sure Jaegar's skin didn't burn.

"How is it?" Kalina asked.

"Not comfy," said Jaegar. "But it'll do."

They drove to Octavius' house. The guards had vanished in the light of day a and there was only the electric fence to contend with.

"Remember," said Jaegar, wincing at the sunlight. "Be absolutely silent."

It was far less difficult than they thought to break into the mansion, to climb over the electric fence a Jaegar was able to fly her over, evading the alarms a and into an opened window on the top floor. The house was large and opulent, with enormous windows casting baroque shadows on the floor, filled with gaudy chandeliers and gold inlay on the walls.

"Clearly a millionaire's palace," whispered Kalina.

They made their way down the corridor, stakes in hand, checking one room then another for any sign of Stuart. Jaegar raised his head and sniffed. "This way!" he said. Together they followed the scent until they came to a small, dark room at the end of the corridor.

"Stuart!" Kalina cried as he opened the door.