A Shade of Vampire 8: A Shade of Kiev (12 page)

I had more work to do.

I might have been out of touch with my social skills, but I didn’t need to be a genius to understand that Mona still didn’t consider me a friend.

And I didn’t want to get Saira to ask her the question until I was confident that Mona would respond positively. I didn’t know if the erratic wolf would give me another chance if the witch gave the wrong answer. I had to tread carefully, because I had no idea if Matteo would stand up for me if the wolf ordered me off the island. I certainly couldn’t expect him to, and I wasn’t in a position to risk finding out.

Now that I had gotten my apology to Mona off of my chest, at least that felt like some progress. My next step seemed obvious to me.

The following evening, I paid another visit to Brett. To my relief, I didn’t have to waste minutes waking him up this time. I arrived to see him sitting at the entrance of his cave munching on a hunk of meat.

“You again?” he said, looking up from his meal.

“I’d like to know who does the carpentry on this island.”

Brett’s round face split into a proud grin, his teeth stained with grease. “That’d be me.”

“Ah, good. I expected as much.” I said. “You see, I’m in need of a small table.”

“Oh? How small?”

I indicated the approximate dimensions with my hands.

“What for?” he asked.

“For… Mona, actually,” I said.

Brett’s grin widened.

“Got feels for her, have you?” he chortled, winking at me while wiping fat off one of his tusks.

“No… No. I-I just broke her table accidentally. I owe her a new one.”

“Well, if it’s just a simple four-legged table,” he said, chewing thoughtfully, “I could have that ready for you in a few hours. I’m still on break. Haven’t got much else to do before my round starts again, other than finish eating this beauty.” He waved his meat in the air.

“I appreciate it.” I was about to hold out my hand to shake his, but had second thoughts when I saw how filthy it was. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“In case you’re late returning, I’ll just leave it for you in there,” he said, gesturing toward his cave.

I left him in peace to finish his meal.

My next stop was the beach. Remembering the shell Giles had tried to gift Mona, I reasoned that perhaps he’d done that because he knew she liked them. When I reached the wall, I located the nearest exit to me. A vampire on guard duty sat next to it.

He looked up at me questioningly as I approached.

“I should be back in less than an hour.”

The vampire nodded and let me out.

“Just be careful,” he called after me. “It’s never a good idea to stay outside these walls for long.”

It was a calm night. A breeze caught my hair as I made my way toward the dark waves lapping against the shore. There was not a single cloud in the sky to dull the shining moon. The air had a purity to it that I’d never experienced anywhere back in the human realm.

I walked barefoot along the beach, scouring the sand for shells. While I collected some, I found so many objects of far greater beauty.

What a fool Giles was for bringing Mona a shell, when if he’d just strayed a little further, he could have brought her pearls.

Before I knew it, my pockets were filled with precious stones of all colors, shapes and sizes. Other than what was obviously a giant pearl, most of them I couldn’t even put a name to. I lost all track of time. I must have walked for miles, enticed further and further away from the wall by the treasures I kept finding. It seemed like the further I strayed, the more gorgeous the jewels became.

I was brought to my senses only when I looked up at the sky and noticed its color beginning to warm. I’d been out all night. I cast my eyes back toward the direction of the gate I had exited and gauged the amount of time it would take me to get back there if I ran at full speed.
Ten minutes, at most.

I still had time to bathe in the sea before I returned. I took off my clothes and placed them on the sand, careful not to let any stones fall out of my pockets. I waded into the cool sea until the water was up to my waist before diving in. I swam faster and deeper, enjoying the full stretch of my limbs.

Something smooth brushed against my foot. A dolphin surfaced in the water next to me. It was Kai. I’d spent enough time with him during my journey with Mona to recognize his features.

The dolphin nuzzled his thick nose against my chest. I wasn’t sure how to react. My first instinct was to push him away. But instead I brushed my hand along his back, the way I’d see Mona do. He stayed still in the water, relishing my touch. As soon as I stopped, he nuzzled me again.

If only the witch were so easily befriended.

Leaving the dolphin, I swam back to the beach and pulled on my clothes. As I was about to head off toward the wall, I heard an odd noise coming from behind me. The sound of someone choking. I turned round to see a young woman crawling out of the ocean about twenty feet away. Her clothes were tattered, her hair a matted mess. Cuts covered her body and face.

“H-help,” she croaked. “Ogres… escape…I… need… water…”

Her words barely registered in my head. All my mind could focus on was the blood that had begun to drip from her wounds now that she was out of the water. I walked closer, breathing in her scent.
Human blood.
My stomach flipped. I could barely remember the last time I’d feasted on a human.

“P-please… help…”

Within a split second, I was by her side, gripping her neck with one hand.

“N-no. Please! I need—” she squealed.

I covered her mouth and lifted her closer to me. The scent of her blood now bringing my senses into overdrive, I didn’t hesitate for another moment. I sank my fangs into her soft flesh and drank deep. With each gulp, I felt the life draining from her. I didn’t pull away until I’d sucked her dry.

Grabbing hold of the corpse’s leg, I dragged it back into the ocean. Once I’d swum into deep enough waters, I let go and watched it sink to the seabed. I hoped that some kind of ocean predator would eat the remains of her body before it managed to wash up on the shore.

Before climbing out of the water, I made sure to wash away all traces of blood. Though I supposed that I didn’t need to worry about it too much. She clearly hadn’t been a resident of our island, so I wouldn’t face banishment for killing her.

My whole body tingled with energy as I raced back to the wall. Even the pang of guilt I felt over claiming an innocent’s life couldn’t distract me from the pleasure I was experiencing. Finally, I felt fully nourished. Animal blood simply didn’t compare.

It occurred to me that the only thing stopping me from drinking from the witch up until now had been the threat of banishment. Had it not been for that, I was sure that I would have already claimed at least a litre from her. Granted, a witch’s blood wasn’t nearly as appealing as human blood, but compared to animal blood it was appetizing.

I reached the gate and knocked twice.

“I thought something might have happened to you,” the guard said as he let me back in. “We had reports of ships floating close to the island last night. You were lucky to have missed them.”

I hadn’t noticed even a single ship all night. But perhaps that was just because I’d been so absorbed in my treasure hunt. Still relishing the aftertaste of the girl’s blood in my mouth, I cast my eyes back up at the sky. If I ran, I still had plenty of time to travel to Brett’s cave and back without needing an umbrella. I whipped through the trees and arrived to see that Brett had already returned from his night duty. He lay sleeping on his bed of straw. But Brett was a man of his word. As he had promised, a new table stood at the entrance. It looked just the right size to me, and sturdier than the one I had broken.

A smile escaped my lips as I noticed a grease mark on one of the table’s legs. I ripped some moss from a rock and wiped it off.

Later that day, as evening drew close again, I walked with an umbrella toward the well. Carrying the table under one arm, I placed it directly in front of the spot Mona normally stood in to lower her bucket. I plucked two broad leaves from a tree and I spread them out on the table, emptying my pockets of the stones on top of them. After folding the leaves over the gems to form a pouch, I retreated into the forest—a different part than I had stood in last time to avoid her spotting me.

The witch approached soon after the sun had set. On reaching my gifts, she put her bucket on the ground and gazed around the forest. I had to duck and close my eyes so she wouldn’t notice me. She turned back to the gifts. I watched as she unfolded the leaves and stared down at the gems. She moved them onto the grass and examined the table, picking it up and running her hand along the wood. Then she picked her bucket up and filled it with water. Balancing it with one hand, she picked up the table with the other and made her way back toward the lake.

I felt indignant that she’d left the gems after I’d spent so many hours collecting them. I wondered whether she didn’t take them simply because she had too much to carry. I retrieved the gems and returned to my room in the tunnels.

The next evening, I placed only the package of gems in front of the well. But she ignored them again, even though it was clear that she had noticed them. The only conclusion I could draw was that perhaps she simply didn’t like the precious stones.

Rather than have them go to waste, I gave the package to the ogre. He squealed when he parted the leaves with his fat fingers.

“Oh, my. Thank you, Kiev!” he enthused, gratitude shining in his eyes. “Gonna try using these in my carpentry… see if I can make my carvings more pretty.”

For the next week, each night I roamed the island, hunting for more gifts she might accept. And the following day, I placed them in front of the well before sunset.

Sometimes she took the gifts, other times she left them. At first I felt confused—and agitated—that there appeared to be no rhyme or reason for which she would take and which she would leave. Though I supposed that I should have been grateful she was accepting anything from me at all. It meant that I had established at least some kind of rapport with her.

Still, I tried to use whatever observations I was able to make to better understand her personality, and improve my presents. It was only after the seventh day that it hit me.

While accepting a clay pot, she would reject a pearl. While taking rope, she would leave behind a bracelet.

At least one thing had become clear to me: she chose practicality over beauty.

On the eighth night, I was sure that I’d managed to find something that would make her happy. A dagger I’d found washed up on the shore.

But on the ninth evening, she didn’t show up.

Unsure of what to do with myself, I waited around the well until late into the night. But when it was clear that she wasn’t coming, I ran through the forest and stopped at the edge of the lake. A lantern hung near her front door, but no lights glowed through the curtains of her cabin.

Questioning whether I was making the right choice, I jumped into the water and swam toward her house. Climbing onto the balcony, I smirked as I noticed her new table in the same spot her old one had been. I bent down and placed the dagger outside her front door.

I spent the next few hours cleaning the exterior of her house, using coarse leaves I’d found on plants growing in the water. I scrubbed the windows, the roof, the railing… anywhere that looked unkempt. I worked as silently as possible so that I wouldn’t wake her and give her yet another fright with my eyes.

After I was satisfied that I’d done a noticeable job, I dipped my hand into the water and plucked a handful of bright blue water lilies. I left them outside her door, next to the blade, hoping she’d find them in the morning before they became too wilted.

But as I swam back toward the mainland, I wondered if that had been a mistake. She might not have wanted me to pick her lilies. She might have preferred them to be growing in the water rather than dead on her porch.

That might have made her hate me again.

What the hell have they been putting in that vampire’s blood?

I still couldn’t shake the feeling that Saira was behind all of this. After all, if it hadn’t been for her hot-headedness, he wouldn’t have been on this island in the first place. But, of course, when I visited her tree house to question her, she’d denied having anything to do with Kiev’s behavior.

“Maybe he just really likes you,” she’d said innocently, while knitting a scarf on her lap. “Maybe he’s had a change of heart.”

I’d scoffed, wondering how she could take me to be so naive.

The truth was, the vampire’s attention unnerved me. Deeply. I didn’t understand where it had come from, or why he was doing it. His own explanation was an insult to my intelligence. I’d spent the last night sleeping on a hill top, in the open air, because I’d felt so stifled. I wanted to get away from the island. Wash myself of its presence. Of
his
presence. Even if only for a few hours.

I didn’t tell Saira or Matteo that I was leaving. They’d only attempt to convince me not to venture out alone. I told the werewolf guarding the gate that I wouldn’t be gone for long. I ran across the hot sand and splashed into the cool waves. Ducking underwater, I relished the feeling of weightlessness for a few moments before calling out to my dolphins. Both came racing toward me, their heads bobbing up to the surface. I strapped them into the harnesses of one of the small sail boats moored in our port, and, gripping the reins, urged them forward.

I didn’t know where I would go. Any direction would do. I just needed to be alone. I didn’t slow down until I could no longer see the shorelines of any islands. I slowed the dolphins to a stop and tied their reins securely around a post. The dark color of the water surrounding us betrayed how deep we were now. I shuddered a little, reminding myself of the type of creatures that lurked in these depths. But at that moment, the solitude was worth the worry.

I lay down in the center of the boat and gazed up at the clear blue sky, the sun beating down on me.