Cryptic Cravings

El en Schreiber

Vampire Kisses 8

Cryptic

Cravings

To my husband, Eddie, for being my high school crush

“Rumors are spreading that there are vampires living in Dul svil e!”

—Becky Mil er

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Epigraph

Chapter 1 - Blood Exchange

Chapter 2 - Dead End

Chapter 5 - Sneaking In

Chapter 6 - Club Rumors

Chapter 7 - Ghouls Night

Chapter 8 - Interior Decorator

Chapter 9 - Freak Factory

Chapter 10 - Ghoul Fight

Chapter 11 - Buzz Kill

Chapter 12 - Mortal Makeout

Chapter 13 - Midnight Madness

Chapter 14 - Rumor Mill

Chapter 15 - Birthday Bash

Chapter 16 - The Crypt

Chapter 17 - Familiar Visitor

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise for Vampire Kisses

Also by Ellen Schreiber

Copyright

About the Publisher

I had to admit it, Dul svil e was no longer dul .

In fact, for me, Raven Madison, the morbidly monotonous town I’d grown up in had final y become the most exciting place on earth.

Not only was I madly in love with my vampire boyfriend, Alexander Sterling, but I’d witnessed for the first time in my vampire-obsessed existence an actual vampire bite. The only problem was that it wasn’t my neck being bitten.

This wouldn’t have been such a tragedy for me if the recipient of the bite had been Onyx or Scarlet, the superfabulous Underworldy friends I’d met at the Coffin Club, but the bite was given to my own vampire adversary, a real vampire and gothic beauty, Luna Maxwel .

I’d been waiting almost a year to be bitten, since I’d met Alexander, not to mention my entire life of immortal dreaming, but for Luna it happened within hours of meeting another vampire. That night, on Alexander’s lawn, there had been an amazing group of partygoers—a handful of vampires mixing with the mortal local students. It was something I’d never thought would happen. While playing spin the bloody bottle, Luna and Sebastian, Alexander’s handsome and hapless best friend, had locked eyes and gone in for more than a juicy lip-lock. His fangs pierced the soft flesh of her swanlike neck. Luna had stared up at me, her eyes dreamy, as if she were some hippie tripping at Woodstock. She glowed even more radiantly than she normal y did as a morbid fairy girl fashionista. Most of the partyers missed the action, but those who saw the bite passed it off as a macabre prank.

Sebastian had since moved out of the Mansion, and the rest of the vampires were perhaps back in Romania, or haunting the Coffin Club several towns away in Hipstervil e. We hadn’t gotten word of their whereabouts, and I hadn’t seen any signs of them at Dul svil e’s cemetery.

For the week fol owing the love bite, I tried my best to get Alexander’s mind off his disappointment. He was suffering because his best friend’s impulsive behavior had put not only himself and Luna but even Alexander’s secret in possible jeopardy. Happily, tonight Alexander was final y obliging.

We were lying in the grass on a hil top that overlooked Dul svil e. From there we were able to see the glamorous sites of Hipstervil e, such as the graveyard, but I didn’t notice them because I was lost in Alexander’s lips.

I hadn’t broached the tender subject of receiving my own love bite with Alexander in a while. But I saw this evening, alone with him and without distractions, as my chance for another try.

Fiddling with a link chain hanging from his black leather belt, I asked, “Do you think it’s easier for Sebastian to fal for a girl and to take her blood?”

Alexander furrowed his brow.

“Or was it easy to do what he did at the party,” I continued, “because Luna is already a vampire?”

“I can’t speak for someone else.”

“But I want to know what you think.”

Alexander paused. “Then yes, I think it’s easier for him. He is very impulsive.” His tone was clear and matter-of-fact.

I sighed.

Alexander reached for me and guided my hair back from my face with his fingers. “It means more to me than that,”

he said directly.

“Me too,” I said, touching his shoulder. “But what if I were already a vampire?” I asked thoughtful y. “What if someone else turns me—not on sacred ground—so I won’t be bonded to them forever. But—”

Alexander withdrew his arm. “That’s what you want?” he asked, his voice almost cracking. “To be turned—by anyone? Sebastian? Or Jagger?”

“I was just thinking out loud,” I quickly refuted. I didn’t realize I’d hurt him.

“It would be that easy to have someone turn you? Just like that?”

When Alexander posed it to me like that, my fantastical solution didn’t seem so romantic or practical in its reality.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Are you so sure? You’d have my best friend bite you? Or worse, my longtime enemy?”

“But now you are friends with Jagger,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

“That’s not the point.”

“Of course not—I only want you. . . . I was just trying to take the pressure off of you. I was just thinking out loud.”

Alexander didn’t seem pleased with my response and continued to stare off into the distance.

“Let’s be clear,” I said, turning his face toward me. “I want to be a vampire. But I want to be one with you.”

He barely broke a smile.

“I’m turning eighteen soon and you’l be seventeen,” he final y said. “It’s something I think about, Raven. You. Me.

Our future. I want you to know that. But this is something that is life changing—especial y for you.”

“I know.” I gazed up at my dreamy boyfriend’s eyes. His face was so handsome in the moonlight. “But wil you real y be eighteen? Or something else, in vampire years?”

“I wil real y be eighteen,” he said.

“And then the next year?”

“Uh . . . nineteen,” he said as if I should have known.

“But you are immortal.”

“The aging process wil slow down. But that’s many, many years from now. Is that what you are worried about? Us not being able to be together unless you are immortal, too?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a vampire, since I was born,” I said to him urgently. “But then when I met you, I wanted to be one—to be turned by you. To have the covenant ceremony that you didn’t have with Luna in Romania. A beautiful wrought-iron lace trel is with a coffin and two goblets, on sacred ground. I’d be dressed in a black corset dress and hold black roses. You’d be wearing a black suit and have a black rose in your jacket lapel. We’d say a few Romanian words and drink from each other’s glasses. Then, you’d turn me.”

“Wow!” he said with a laugh. “I guess you have thought about it, too.”

“But it’s not about me living forever. It’s about me being romantical y bonded with you and experiencing the world as a vampire.” I stared up at him, the stars shining above him.

I waited for him to laugh, to think my ideas were childish and naive.

Instead he leaned into me and stared straight into my eyes, his chocolate ones dreamy and seductive. “There is a yearning that I have for you—that goes deeper than love,” he said. “It’s a desire that is palpable.” He took my hand and raised it, exposing the inside of my wrist. “This desire courses through my veins,” he said. He traced a prominent vein with his fingertip. “And yours. But I’d never put you before my own needs. What I struggle with isn’t something that you should have to as wel . It’s a complicated life—more so than you realize.”

“I know it’s complicated. If you don’t want to talk about it . . .” I figured it was best to drop the subject. I didn’t want to be a nagging girlfriend, and Alexander had been through so much already with Sebastian’s antics. Why couldn’t I be more patient and not spoil our pure quality time alone together?

“Wel , you already know it’s complicated,” Alexander commented. “I’m not sure how I can keep convincing you.”

I smiled. “I like it when you try,” I teased. “But sometimes I worry that you’l leave the Mansion and return to Romania. And I’l be stuck here, alone for the rest of my life.”

“Wel , I am not planning on leaving.”

“But you weren’t planning on coming here, were you?”

“No . . .”

“See?”

“But I didn’t have the same reasons to stay there as I do here,” he said. “Is the only way I can convince you how much I care to . . .”

I waited. Maybe this was my chance to demand my need to be a vampire. But it had to be a decision he was ready for as much as I was.

“It isn’t something we need to decide tonight, is it?” he asked.

If I said yes and his answer was that he wasn’t going to turn me, what was I to do then? Normal y I was daring.

Adventure ran through my blood just as much as oxygen did. But this kind of risk—the emotional kind—was far different than sneaking into rumored haunted houses or cemeteries. This was my love life.

I gave him a puppy-dog face. “Of course not. But I wonder if it is something you want,” I said with trepidation, “or is it only my fantasy?”

I waited. I knew Alexander had thought about it. We’d discussed it before. But as he said, he was going to be eighteen and me seventeen—and, most important, I was now being faced with watching other vampires bite. It wasn’t something we could put off forever.

“I can guarantee you it’s not just your fantasy,” he re-assured me. Then he glanced away, looking in the direction of the Mansion sitting atop Benson Hil . “You are so much like my grandmother . . .”

“But wasn’t she lonely? For the rest of your family? Is that the fate you’d wish for me?”

Alexander faced me and stroked my cheek. “The only fate I’d wish for you is for us to be together.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Slowly and seductively he leaned me back on the blanket. I gazed up at Alexander, the starlight fil ing my eyes. He began tickling me.

When I’d wrestled with Bil y growing up, I’d learned to relax my muscles, which resulted in my no longer being ticklish. My little brother would run off, disgruntled, and I’d claim victory. But Alexander was no Bil y Boy. I squirmed in my vampire boyfriend’s powerful clutches and giggled like a little girl.

My head whipped side to side and my face hit something jagged on the ground.

“Ouch!” I cried.

Alexander released his grip. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He helped me sit up. I felt only a slight bit of pain. But it was Alexander’s reaction that disturbed me.

He was staring at my mouth.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Alexander didn’t speak. Instead his gazed was fixed.

I touched the corner of my lip.

A mixture of lavender lipstick and dark red liquid stained my ultrawhite fingertips. Oozing blood. To Alexander it was like an exotic perfume. Tantalizing and irresistible. Fresh blood to a hungry vampire.

I’d only been in this situation with Alexander once before, when he had come to my house to take me to the Snow Bal . I’d nicked my fingertip on the corsage pin. He’d had that same intense expression as he did now, only then I hadn’t known he was a vampire, and I’d just quickly wiped the blood away.

But tonight was different. I knew that Alexander was a vampire. And the way he stared at me, so transfixed and intense, slightly frightened me but also made me feel wanted and alive.

Though this blood was my lifeline, Alexander needed my blood—or anyone else’s—for his own existence. Others’

blood was his lifeline.

Alexander wasn’t repulsed by the sight and scent but intently attracted to it. I’d never witnessed it as much as I did today. It was apparent he was fighting his impulses. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to.

He shut his eyes and turned away from me.

“What would it be like?” I asked.