Blood Kiss - Ward J. R. - Страница 38

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Primus, my ass, she thought.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head when the words came out. Not what she had meant to reply. “Actually, I’m all right.”

“Last night was a lot to go through.”

“We made it,” she murmured. “Go, us.”

“Yeah.”

As her friend went quiet again and stared at the back of the headrest in front of him, she could only imagine what he was thinking of: throwing up, getting bagged over the head, the pool … the longest walk of their lives.

That fight with Craeg.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “You seem better.”

“I’m going to need to feed.”

As he rubbed his face like he was trying to stop more memories of school, she felt a stab of guilt—because unlike Craeg, who she’d been in a big fat hurry to offer a vein to, helping her friend wasn’t foremost in her mind.

Plus also, she wasn’t sure she could go through that with Peyton … if he had the same response Craeg had.

Not that she was some sexpot to males, but because maybe that kind of lust was just a natural by-product of feeding and she didn’t want to cross that line in her friendship.

“I texted my dad.” Peyton patted the front pocket of his coat. “He has someone waiting for me. Gonna be the first time I don’t have sex when I take a vein.” He frowned and glanced over at her. “Sorry. TMI.”

What was he talking about? Oh, right. “It’s okay. I’m not offended.”

You want to cover the TMI bases? she thought. What was really TMI was what she and Craeg had done in that clinic. Or rather … what he had done to himself.

She looked away just to be sure the blush that hit her face didn’t get noticed.

“You’re different,” he remarked.

That brought her head back around quick. “How so?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I remember how great you did.”

As he stared over at her, she knew he was saying sorry again, and without thinking, she leaned in and gave him a hug. “Thank you for that—”

A series of bumps and then a noticeable decrease in speed made her break away. “Are we there already?”

Peyton took out his phone and checked the time. “Forty-five minutes since we left. So yeah, probably.”

The doggen who was driving announced over the loudspeaker that their destination had, in fact, been reached, and one by one, they all stood up, filed out, got off.

The night was cold, very cold—and for some reason, she thought that if the color light blue had a scent, it would be what was in her nose as she breathed in the bracing, dry air.

Turning to the others as the bus left, she found that everybody was just standing around in the open farm field as if no one quite knew what to do.

Anslam was the first to say good-bye, although only to Peyton, and then he took off. Axe didn’t speak to anyone before dematerializing.

“Until tomorrow then,” Peyton murmured as he looked at Novo and Boone.

Before he ghosted out, he came over. “You’re going to be hearing from me in about two hours. I really hope you answer that phone.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

With a brief smile, just like that, he was gone.

Paradise said something to the others; she didn’t know what—and they said something to her; which she didn’t quite track.

And then she shouldered her satchel and was gone, gone, gone, spiriting away in a jumble of molecules that somehow fit her mental and emotional state far better than being in her corporeal form.

As she came back into her body on the lawn of her father’s mansion, she stayed where she was and stared up at the magnificent facade of the Tudor’s great sprawl. Lights glowed from indoors, the buttery illumination passing through the diamond-paned windows, creating the illusion of a fireplace’s warmth. From time to time, through parted silk drapes, she saw a doggen walk past, carrying a silver tray, a feather duster, a bouquet of flowers.

The wind was fierce here, and the longer she stood on the browned, frosty grass, the more it got through her jacket, her clothes, her skin.

She and her father had lived on the estate for a very long time, and there wasn’t a room that she didn’t have a memory in—even the hidden ones.

Yet tonight the manse seemed as the objects in her satchel were: someone else’s.

Amazing … how a journey that started and ended in your hometown, and didn’t actually require you to leave your own zip code, could distance you so completely from your life.

When she began to shiver, she forced herself to walk forward. It was about two a.m.—and though it made her feel guilty, she was so glad her father would still be working down at the audience house. She just didn’t have the energy to tell him all about her “studies.”

More to the point, she hadn’t really processed anything for herself yet—so it was just too early to explain the experience to anyone else.

Coming up to the front entrance, she reached out for the doorbell—and had to stop herself.

Really, she thought. You’re going to ring the bell on your own house?

And yet she felt like a stranger as she put her forefinger on the print reader and sprang the lock.

Stepping into the warmth, she closed the heavy door behind her and took a couple of deep breaths. There was no sense of calm as she looked around at the familiar oil paintings and the Orientals. Instead, she felt a creeping unease—

“Mistress! You return!” As the butler, Fedricah, rushed over to her, he was all smiles—and he bowed so deeply his forehead nearly Swiffered the floor. “What may I get you? Would you care for a meal—no, a bath. I shall have Vuchie run you a—”

“Please, no.” She put both hands out as his face fell so fast, so far, he was liable to start talking out of his bow tie. “The Brotherhood fed us very well—and honestly, I need to retire to bed.” Words, she needed the right combination of words here. “Will you please tell my father it was a wonderful learning experience … tell him I’m okay—I’m very well, in fact, and I made it into the program. We’re doing classwork. It’s all very safe.”

And the last two things technically weren’t a lie. Rhage had said they would be in the classroom tomorrow evening, and no one had gotten seriously hurt.

“Oh, of course, mistress! He will be so pleased! I do not believe he slept during the day—but please ring if you require aught. We are always at your service.”

“I will, I promise. Thank you.”

She escaped up the stairs quickly, some irrational fear of her father getting home early driving her to her room. When she closed herself in, she looked at the canopied bed and the needlepoint rugs and the antiques …

… and really wished she were crashing in an anonymous, clean hotel room.

Walking over to her bed, she sat down on the super-soft mattress and put her satchel down by her feet. Then she laid her palms on her knees and stared at the wall.

Craeg wasn’t the only thing she thought about. But there was a whole lot of him in her brain.

Shoot. Now that she was up here hiding, she felt trapped—

As her phone went off in her bag, she cringed. Undoubtedly Fedricah had called her father the moment she’d come up here, and the question was whether it would be worse for him to go to voice mail … or for her to try to force an everything-is-normal across the connection.

Later was not much better, she decided: If she didn’t talk to him now, he was liable to come knocking on her door as soon as he got home. And then she’d have to do it face-to-face.

Fishing her iPhone out, she frowned as she saw the picture of a five-pointed weed leaf on her screen. “Peyton?”

“Hey. I couldn’t wait two hours. I’ve got a serious case of the heebs.”

Even though he couldn’t see her, she nodded. “I know. Me, too.”

When there was a pause, she waited for the customary sound of a bong being drawn on. Instead, there was only silence.

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