Kiera Hudson & The Lethal Infected (11 page)

Chapter Twenty

Together we raced through the rain and across the lawns into the wood. Several times I tripped and slipped on the pencil-thin heels I was wearing. Twice I nearly went over and Potter had to take hold of me to keep me upright. He laughed.

“It’s not funny,” I pouted.

“You shouldn’t be wearing such impractical shoes,” he said.

“I thought I was going on a date not a hiking trip,” I said, not wanting to see the funny side. I was still mad at Potter. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. The rain beat off the leaves and branches that swayed overhead. My hair and dress clung wetly to me. I looked ahead to see that the trees were thinning out. I knew we were close to the clearing were the summerhouse was. Like so many places at Hallowed Manor, the summerhouse held so many memories for me. It was where I had secretly sat and watched Kayla fly for the first time. It was where I first met Isidor as he saved Potter and me from the vampires that were hidden beneath the trap door in the floor. It was where Potter and I had made love. It had been raining that day too. He had ripped open my shirt with his claws and pushed me down onto the floor. It had been the first time we had made love together since returning from the dead. I had been too scared to let him anywhere near me up until that point. I feared that if he had seen all the cracks forming over my body that he would have loathed me – been disgusted and repulsed by me. My skin had looked like Sophie’s as she now lay imprisoned back at the manor. I tried not to think about her. I didn’t want to be reminded. For now, for this single moment, I wanted to remember that one time I shared with Potter in the summerhouse. Those memories were all I had left of us together. I wanted to remember how Potter hadn’t been turned off by me. Our lovemaking hadn’t been rushed or frantic like it had so many times before – stealing snapshot moments so that we could be alone together. As Potter had laid me back onto the floor of the summerhouse, any fears that I’d had back then of those cracks appearing all over my body had vanished, cast aside as he brushed his hands over my body. I could remember that Potter had been unusually gentle, covering my face, neck, shoulders, breasts, and stomach with soft kisses to the sound of the rain drumming against the summerhouse roof.

“I love you, Kiera,” he had whispered against my cheek as he’d lowered himself onto me.

“I love you, too,” I’d smiled, running my hands through his untidy hair. I’d dug my fingernails into the small of his back, a sudden urge to completely let go. Potter had gripped my wrists, pinning me to the floor, his mouth pressed over mine. I had been able to feel his fangs with the tip of my tongue. They had felt sharp. I’d gasped slightly at the warm sensation of my own blood spilling over my tongue. The coppery taste of it in the back of my throat had felt sweet. My whole body had shivered beneath him. I could remember it all – like it had only happened moments ago, not in some other time and place – not in another
where
and
when
.

“You want the red stuff, don’t you?” Potter had asked me.

With my arms and legs entwined around him, I’d murmured the word, “Yes.”

Turning his neck so it brushed over my lips, Potter had said, “Well drink then…”

The taste of him, the smell of him against my skin had made my head spin. It was spinning now as we raced tighter through the woods and toward the summerhouse. I tried not to dwell on the past, but it was impossible not to do so. It was like my memories were racing through my veins, coming alive with every step I took toward the summerhouse.

I could feel a beating starting to build deep inside of me. It started in my head, down into my chest, racing toward my fingertips, and toes. As the beating grew faster and more intense, so did my desire to be with him again, like we had once been before. But I had to stop this madness, I tried to tell myself. This wasn’t my Potter. He belonged to someone else. He had bitten her and drank her blood, formed a union with her like I had once bitten him as we made love in the summerhouse. It was Sophie who now had cracks in her flesh. It was Sophie who needed our help.

I could see the clearing now through the trees. At its centre was the summerhouse. Just as I remembered it to be, it was painted white in colour. The roof was pointed, giving it the appearance of a medieval chapel. At the front there was a small covered porch and a swinging couch. The porch was raised off the ground, and to get to it there were several wooden steps. Surrounding the summerhouse was a white picket fence. The summerhouse looked like something from a fairy-tale.

“I can’t,” I panted, coming to a standstill at the edge of the clearing.

“Can’t what?” Potter said, his hair and suit wet through with rain. The jacket was open down the front and I could see how the black shirt underneath was plastered like an extra layer of skin to his muscular chest and stomach. I watched how drops of rain ran down the length of his pale face. I saw them as if in close up as they dripped from the strong curve of his jaw. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to be repulsed by him for what he had done tonight – for how he had changed Sophie. But I couldn’t be disgusted by him, he hadn’t found me disgusting when my skin was scarred with cracks and I was breaking apart. He had loved me then, and I still loved him now. However hard I tried not to – I just couldn’t stop those feelings. It was agony seeing him standing there in the rain, just feet from the place where we had once made love. The memories, the feelings were just overwhelming. I wanted to run to him – pierce his skin with my fangs like he had pierced Sophie’s. I wanted that special union with him. And he was right. I was as jealous as hell. And somewhere deep inside, I knew he was jealous too.

He came toward me. I stood stock still, shivering with cold and trepidation. I wanted to run toward him – I wanted to turn and run far away. I could feel my claws growing from the tips of my fingers. I remembered the times I had dragged them down his back as he moved faster and faster above me. I screwed my eyes shut, desperate now to push those memories away.

Potter came closer still. I could feel the warm sensation of his breath against me just like I had so many times before. I screwed my eyes shut tight still as the sound of my racing heart matched that of the rain thumping against the leaves overhead. He was so close now, I curled my hands into fists, fighting the desperate urge to pull him to me, let him smother me – never wanting to let him go. I felt his hands fall gently against my hips. He eased me toward him, my shivering body against his. I could feel his heart racing too. What was happening here? It was wrong.

“Stop,” I whispered against his chest.

“Come into the summerhouse, Kiera,” he whispered in my ear. My skin prickled with excitement.  I crossed my arms about his back. A sudden memory of feeling the warm sensation of his blood beneath my claws burst into my mind. That beating inside me grew faster as I remembered pulling him down on top of me, never wanting to let him go.

“Lets’ get into the warm, you’re soaked through and freezing cold,” he said, holding me tighter still against him.

I wanted to open my eyes and look into his, but I knew not to, for fear of succumbing to my feelings. To do so might lead to happiness, but it would be fleeting. It wouldn’t be true. This was not my Potter, I kept telling myself over and over again. If I told myself that often and loud enough then it might stop those memories flooding my mind.

With my head spinning and my skin feeling as if it was on fire, I fought the urge to lunge forward and sink my teeth into his neck. I wanted to feel his blood gush into my mouth. I wanted him to bite me too. I wanted my blood to wash away Sophie’s from his lips. I felt my fangs slide out. Readying myself to bite. But I couldn’t. I mustn’t. I bit down into my bottom lip. A thin trickle of blood ran from my mouth. I felt the tip of Potter’s tongue as he licked it away. His lips brushed over mine. I could feel my blood rushing through my veins. I wanted to let him take me. But I couldn’t.

“Stop,” I said, pushing him away, still unable to look into his dark unforgiving eyes. “You love someone else.”

“It’s you I’m in love with, Kiera Hudson,” he whispered. “And a part of me says that it’s always been you.”  

Chapter Twenty-One

Potter closed the door on the summerhouse. I stood with my arms by my sides, rain dripping from my bedraggled fringe and down the sides of my ashen face. I shivered. Potter came toward me, his suit soaked through.  I stepped backwards, into the centre of the summerhouse. He sensed my hesitation and stopped just short of me. I looked at him.

“What did you mean when you said you were in love with me?” I asked him. Half of me now wondered if he had said it at all. And if he had was it just his way of regaining my trust in him so we could relive those few stolen moments we had shared in the corridor back at the offices of The Creeping Men? 

Potter stood stock still, his face lined with water, his eyes darker than I had ever seen them. Rain pelted the windows of the summerhouse. “I meant what I said.”

“But you’re in love with Sophie, aren’t you?” I looked hard at him, my chest hitching up and down as I tried to steady my breathing and rapidly beating heart.

“I thought I was,” he said.

“You bit her tonight, didn’t you?” I reminded him. “You turned her. Why do that if you don’t love her?”

He drew a deep breath, as if trying to steady his own nerves, then said, “She’s carrying my child…”

“Then why are you here with me?” I breathed. “You should be with her. This is wrong…”

He came forward, taking one of my hands in his. “It doesn’t feel wrong to me…”

I pulled my hand away.

“I didn’t plan any of this…” he said.

“Any of what?”

“Falling in love with you…” he said as if struggling to make sense of this himself.

“In love with me?” I scoffed. “You don’t even know me.”

“But I feel as if I do…” he said, scratching his head. “I don’t know how to explain it, Kiera. I can’t find the right words. I’ve not felt anything like this before.”

I stared at him as he stood before me. He looked suddenly lost and bewildered. Was this my Potter after all? Was there a part of him that was starting to remember? But was he beginning to remember too late? And what if he did? What would happen then? How would that change this – not just for the both of us – but for this
where
and
when
? Potter wasn’t meant to remember – that had been part of the plan.

“How do you feel? I dared ask him, my voice barely a whisper.

“Like we go together,” he said. “Like we’re a team.”

“We are a team,” I said. “We work together.”

“More than that – much more than that,” Potter said, sounding frustrated. I’d never seen him like this before. “From the moment you arrived at the office, I felt it…” he trailed off as if once again he was struggling to put his feelings into words.

I was desperate to know more. “You felt what?”

“Like there was another part of – another Potter inside of me that was struggling to get out – come forward and have his feelings heard.” He looked at me. “That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

What did I say? Dare I tell him everything? Tell him all about what we had once shared – what we had once meant to each other? Although I desperately wanted to, I was also terrified. What would happen if I did? I’d
pushed
my friends away so that they could be happy – so that I could defeat the Elders for all time.

“Yes, it does sound crazy,” I lied to him, and as I did, a little piece of me felt like I was dying. “You’re happy with Sophie, remember…”

“I thought I was,” Potter said. “I really did. But since you came to work for The Creeping Men, I’m not so sure. It’s like there has been this other side of me hiding away, but the moment you showed up, that other part of me came alive. And that’s the thing, Kiera, I’ve never felt so fucking alive as I do right now – standing here with you – my heart racing – not being able to find the right words – feeling as if I’m losing my fucking mind…”

“Stop,” I whispered. Although I’d longed to hear Potter say these things to me – it wasn’t right. This was a different
where
and
when
. This time around he was with Sophie and they were having a child together. I couldn’t come between that. After all, it had been me who had
pushed
them together. “This has to stop.”

“Part of me says you’re right,” Potter said. “But that other part – that other me…”

“She’s having your baby, Potter,” I suddenly felt like screaming at him. “Aren’t you happy about that?”

“Sophie didn’t think I was at first,” Potter said. “But I was. The day you arrived at the office and caught us arguing, she had just told me she was pregnant.”

“Weren’t you happy then?” I asked.

“Yes, I was happy, but I was scared, too,” Potter started to explain. “Sophie knew what I was. She arrived early one morning at the office. I had no idea she was there. I’d been sleeping in the cellblock, my wings were out…”

“Wasn’t she scared?” I asked, remembering how Sophie had once rejected him because he was a Vampyrus. She had called him a freak and a monster.

“Quite the opposite,” he said. “I’d never seen a woman so excited…”

“Please,” I said, looking away. “Spare me the details. I don’t need to know.”

“So when Sophie came to the office that day you showed up, she told me that she was pregnant, and yeah, I was scared,” Potter said. “Not because she was carrying my child, but what that child might become. I’ve heard of other children that had been born out of Vampyrus and human mixing. They’re called half-breeds. They are born weak and sick. They don’t live for very long. There is a whole fucking graveyard on the other side of the wood full of dead half-breed children. But Sophie mistook my fear for regret. That’s why she stormed off that day – throwing the ring back at me. But I wasn’t unhappy about the child – I was scared for it. I’d heard that Hunt and Ravenwood had been trying to develop a cure – something that would help the half-breed children survive and have good lives. But they hadn’t succeeded yet. So when we had killed the Leshy at Bastille Hall, I brought Sophie here. I told Hunt and Ravenwood everything.”

“You said you’d only told me about the baby,” I reminded him.

“I promised that I would never tell anyone that they knew,” he said. “They feared that if the agency ever found out that they had helped me they would be… well, let’s just say they wouldn’t be part of The Creeping Men anymore.”

“So how did they plan on helping you?” I asked.

“Even though my feelings were all over the place since meeting you – since kissing you – I knew that I had to do the right thing – by the child at least. I know I can be a real jerk at times, and most people despise me, but I’m not the sort of man that would shirk his responsibilities when it came to a child. I’m not the kind of guy that would ever walk way – I could never stand back and let a child suffer. And suffer the child would if I didn’t try and do something. It was then that Hunt suggested that I turn Sophie. That if she was like us, had Vampyrus blood running through her veins, then perhaps the baby would be born healthy. It was designed to help humans who had been bitten by a Vampyrus to turn without the lust for human flesh and blood like other vampires had. I knew it was a risk and so did Sophie. But she was adamant that she wanted to take the chance if it meant saving our child. Ravenwood wanted to make sure that the baby was healthy enough to survive Sophie’s change. So while Hunt and I put the rest of the plan in place, Ravenwood carried out an examination of the baby by using that weird-looking camera of his.”

“How did you get the others – Murphy, Uri, Phebe, and Mrs. Payne to go along with you plan if mixing between humans and Vampyrus is forbidden by the agency?” I asked Potter.

“It’s not forbidden as such, just frowned upon,” Potter said. “But sometimes, an exception is made for a Turning Ceremony to take place. Only one takes place each year, a kind of amnesty. It’s usually only the people at the very highest ranks of the agency who get permission from Lois Li to do so. Perhaps I’m not as hated as I first thought. Someone somewhere must like me.”

“Or not,” I added.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Somebody tried to murder Sophie,” I reminded him.

“And what about you?” he said. “How do you feel about me?”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about you,” I said, wrapping my arms about my bare shoulders as if hugging myself. I shivered again with the cold and damp.

“It matters to me,” he said, inching closer again, closing down that gap between us.

“Sophie matters,” I said, flinching as he held me in his arms again.

“There is a part of me that says you matter more,” he said.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, you said that yourself.”

“I made a mistake…”

“And you said in the grounds of Bastille Hall that people have to live by the mistakes that they make…” I whispered, my head resting now against his chest. I knew I had to let go of him. He wasn’t mine to hold onto.

“I was trying to convince myself when I said that,” Potter confessed. “I was angry with myself. If only I hadn’t met Sophie, if only I had waited to look for love until you had come into my life. I knew that as I saw you for the first time as your true self when we fought the Leshy. I knew you were like me more than Sophie could ever be. And if I’m to be honest with myself, that’s one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to turn Sophie. I knew she could never be a Vampyrus like us – but a vampire is the next best thing. I thought that if she was more like me, I would be happy to be with her. I hoped that my feelings for you were nothing more than an infatuation and they would pass. And at first, during the few days we’ve spent apart, I thought my feelings for you were growing less, but when Murphy told me about your date, I couldn’t bear the thought of you with someone else.” Then easing me away from him so he could look into my eyes, Potter added, “You were right about me, Kiera. I was jealous. I hated the thought of you being with another man.”

“But…” I whispered.

“My feelings for you aren’t fading, Kiera, they grow stronger with each passing moment I’m with you,” he said, leaning forward and crushing his lips over mine.

However much I wanted Potter to kiss me, I turned my head away. I wasn’t going to be the
other girl
, not in this
where
and
when
or any other. Before I’d had a chance to slip from his arms, the sound of screaming came from the direction of Hallowed Manor.