Vampire's Kiss (13 page)

Ronan was back to normal, dunking fries in his curry sauce and chowing down as though he discussed vampire affairs every day, which I guess he did. “What do you think?”

With a sigh, I tossed back my little shooter of blood. A shiver rippled across my skin, the feeling like rain soaking parched land. “I think no.”

“There’s a good Acari,” said Amanda.

“I’ll swim,” I said with a frown, “but I don’t think I need the lessons anymore.” My protest was weak, and mostly out of habit.

He pushed his tray away and met my eye. “Do it for me.” His voice was gravelly and firm. I reminded myself that Amanda was right there and that his irresistible accent was
her
territory.

But his gaze didn’t waver, and at the command in those deep green eyes, I felt myself waffling. Maybe swimming wasn’t such a bad idea. I squinted hard at him, not trusting the notion. “You’re not doing your trick, are you?”

His brows furrowed. “My trick?”

“You know, the persuasion thing. I hate swimming, but you told me to do it, and now, all of a sudden, I’m thinking it might not be that bad.”

He laughed, and I think it startled us both. “That’s you just wanting to swim.” Lowering his voice, he added, “I’ve explained it before—
you
I need to touch for my ‘trick’ to work.”

He was able to persuade people to do his bidding using his voice alone. Everyone, that is, except for me. Apparently a high IQ was good for something. It made my brain like Teflon.

“Lucky girl.” Amanda gave me a playful scowl, and I felt suddenly annoyed with the both of them. I didn’t want to contemplate how his persuasion might work in a relationship.
Ick.

He pressed the issue. “Why? Did you want me to persuade you?” He reached a hand out as if he might give it a try, and I flinched away. He was being reckless, and I didn’t understand.

Rubbing my hand where he’d almost touched me, I brought the conversation back on track. “You can’t mean I actually
want
to go swimming.”

Though I supposed it did make a sort of sense. Swimming gave me the alone time with Ronan that I’d begun to crave.
Not even knowing he had a thing with Amanda could staunch that.

It’d snuck up on me, but Ronan was one of the few people on this island I trusted. That he was letting me glimpse these stolen moments with Amanda only solidified it—he may not have liked me in
that
way, but it seemed at least he trusted me.

“Is it so surprising you might actually fancy a swim?”

“Not so much surprising as miraculous.”

Amanda reached over and patted his shoulder. “He’s just a good teacher.”

Ugh.
This time I almost said it out loud. Glimpsing their stolen moments was one thing; having my face rubbed in it was quite another.

Her words and that cloying expression echoed in my mind until, later that afternoon, I spat them back at him. “
Good teachers
don’t lure students to their untimely death.”

Ronan was rowing us beyond the breakers in nothing more than a little dory. It was going to be my first deep-water swim lesson. My knuckles were white as I gripped the lip of the boat. Its paint was old and peeling, and I used my thumbnail to scrape brown flakes into the water, contemplating when and how I might go about vomiting over the side.

“Comfort in deep water is crucial for every swimmer.” Every pull of the oars tightened his already-snug sweater around his biceps.

I forced myself to look away from his flexing muscles. Unfortunately, that left me staring into black water. I estimated there was one-foot visibility, max. “Isn’t deep-water training for more advanced swimmers?”

“You’re thinking of breath-holding exercises.”

Panic pulled my skin into goose bumps that even the thick neoprene of my wet suit couldn’t prevent. “You’re going to make me hold my breath, too?”

“You’re an advanced swimmer, so you are ready for both.”

I opened my mouth to protest but clacked my teeth shut again as a thought hit me. The island was receding in the distance. If I had skills like Ronan claimed I did, why couldn’t I just escape? As in, skip out even before Alcántara and I went on our mission?

It silenced me. The only sound was the
slap-slap
of his oars in the water as my mind raced. How big was the island? I’d seen the middle of it during my midnight punishment, but why had we never been to the other side? What was there? Somewhere there’d be larger boats to be found—was that where they were docked?

I craned my neck, studying the jagged coast. There were gray rocky beaches, towering cliffs, misshapen chimney stacks carved of million-year-old granite. But what was on the far side?

“Why don’t we ever go the other side of the island to swim?”

“It’s just cliffs over there.”

“Well, don’t I need to learn how to cliff dive or something?”

My mentioning cliff diving would understandably put him on his guard. Pinning his eyes on me, he warned, “You’ll want to stay away from the far side of the island.”

We’d gotten far enough away that I could begin to trace the curve of coastline with my eyes. It seemed to be just more rocks and cliffs, disappearing into gray mist in the distance.
But what if I stole a boat? Would there be someplace to row to? And why was he warning me away from the other side?

He dipped his oars in the water, dragging the boat to a stop. “I think
this
is far enough,” he said, implying so much more.

I squinted harder, and my heart kicked up a notch. Small white dots had wavered into view. Was I imagining it?
Houses?
“Do people live here?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

I shot him an exasperated look. “Seriously, Ronan, it’s me you’re talking to. You can trust
me
.” I gave an exaggerated look around. “Nobody can hear us. Now please, do people live here? I thought I saw houses.”

His answer, when it came, was careful. “There are some people on this island, aye.”

“You’re shitting me.”

He glowered at my language.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just…” I peered into the distance, seeing them clearly now. Tiny cottages dotted the coast, like a little fishing settlement visible in that spot just before the island curved out of sight. “Who would live
here
?”

“People who were born here.”

“People have
babies
here?” I remembered the day, so long ago now, when an old man with questionable dental hygiene had picked us up at the airstrip. Did he have grandkids running around? Did that mean there were things like schools and gas stations and grocery stores?

He paused for a moment. “I was born here.”

“You
what
?”

“Leave it, Annelise.”

But how could I? He might as well have just told me he was
from Mars. I held his gaze, trying to read the truth in his eyes. He’d mentioned once before that he was from here and that his sister had died here, but I’d just assumed he’d meant they’d come later. Not that he had
relatives
here.

Did
Amanda
know that about him? But of course she did. Maybe he’d even snuck her home to meet the folks.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it all. “Your family is here? Do you…Do you, like, go home for Christmas and Sunday dinner and stuff?”

Pain flickered in his eyes.

I’d hit a nerve, and I regretted it. “I’m sorry.” A sizable swell rolled under us, and I had to grip the edge to steady myself. “But…” I knew I shouldn’t press the issue, but I had to know. Questions hurtled scattershot into my brain. “If you and your sister are from here, and she was an Acari and you’re a Tracer, then are there vampires from here, too?”

“Naturally,” he said, his voice clipped.

Naturally.
There was nothing natural about it. He’d expressed wariness about the vampires before. But if there were some he’d known growing up, some with his same accent, who’d had the same friends, the same neighbors…“Do you trust them more than the others? I mean, if you’re all from here…”

“Those I knew did not survive the change. Although folk have talked of one…an elder, of clan McCloud…” His expression shuttered, as if only then did he realize he was telling me these things. “No more questions,” he told me in a flat voice. “We’re here for a purpose. If I’m to get you back in time for your next meal, we’d best get to it.”

Ronan set about giving me deep-water instruction as
though he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me. I mean,
people
lived here. Like a community. Among the vampires and Draug and whatever other beasties that lay in wait. How did they stay safe… or did they?

I shivered.

“Dive in before you get too cold,” he ordered.

“Huh?”

“You’re not getting out of this. So get in and get it over with.” He’d stowed the oars and sat there, looking all business, arms folded across his chest. “Remember what I told you about treading and rhythmic breathing techniques. It’s different in deep water.”

I glanced over the side of the boat. “Yeah, there’s, like, one-inch visibility.”

“Just because you’re not seeing the stripe at the bottom of the pool doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”

He’d sounded so stern, I had to laugh. “Jeez, it’s as though you’re mad you told me about your childhood.”

“You’re unbelievable.” He shook his head, softening. “I haven’t even begun to tell you about my childhood. And I never will.”

“Unless I get in the water?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, but it didn’t hide the humor I saw there. “Are you afraid you can’t do it?”

I looked over the edge again. Was it possible for water to
look
cold? “I didn’t say I
can’t
do it. I said I don’t want to.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

I talked all brave, but secretly I did worry I couldn’t do it. As I remembered our earlier conversation, an idea struck me. “Maybe you could, you know, use your trick on me.
Make it easier for the both of us.” I gave him my best winning smile.

“My trick.” His flat tone matched his irritated look. “This again?”

“Yeah, do the trick. Please? Convince me to get in the water.” I was actually excited now. Maybe
hypnosis
would make me want to dive into a black, fathomless, frigid sea. “Do it. Give me the googly eyes.”

I’d expected him to laugh, but instead his smile disappeared, his whole expression shutting down. “I will not. And I am certain the vampires would not look kindly upon your speaking so freely of my gift.”

I peered hard at him, trying to detect a conscience at the bottom of those deep green eyes. “You don’t like doing the trick, do you?”

“I don’t. And stop calling it that.”

“Can the vampires do it?” I recalled Alcántara, and how my thoughts had gone to such unsettling places the last time we were together.

“The vampires can do many things.”

And how, or so I’d learned at lunch. “Yeah. Who knew
girls
were also on their can-do list?”

“Annelise.” He spat out my name in a scathing, chastising tone, and it made me feel like a disobedient child.

I swung my arm, gesturing to the wide-open sea. “It’s not as if anyone’s around to overhear us. Anyway, don’t act so innocent. I can tell you and Amanda have a thing.”

A dozen expressions crossed his face, but the clearest were shock, then discomfort, and finally anger. “That’s complicated.”

“Sorry.” I felt stupid for pushing as I had. I hated when we argued. I hated that I was having these feelings of inferiority when I’d known from day one there could never be anything between Ronan and me. And, at the moment, I mostly hated that he might take his mood out on me while in deep, freezing seawater.

He nodded curtly toward the water. “You’ve postponed long enough. Get in.”

“Okay, okay.” I rose to a squat and sat on the edge of the boat. It wobbled and bobbed with my shifting weight. “I’ll get in without the trick.”

Before he could scold me one last time, I rolled backward into the water.

The cold was a fist seizing me, tightening across my chest, and stealing my breath. A sharp ache shot from the soles of my feet up my calves. I began treading water at once. Ronan was right—deep water was very different from any pool.

Swells that’d seemed small from the boat felt huge to me now, splashing water in my face and whisking me away from him. The sea was so totally vast around me. And—
oh God
—beneath me. Panic kicked in my chest at the thought of the terrifying things lurking below the surface, eager to take a bite out of me. I was dangerously close to hysterical, and it came through in my voice. “Are there sharks?”

Ronan, however, was as maddeningly calm as ever. If this was his way of getting back at me, he was doing a bang-up job. “You’re on an island with a bunch of vampires, and you’re worried about sharks?”