Author’s Note: I should stop updating so quickly, because that’s all you guys comment on. :P

With that said, off you go to read.

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“The human heart is a strange vessel.” — Scott Westerfeld

CHAPTER TWELVE

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The concert hall was quiet—so quiet that not even shuffling could be heard in the audience. Everyone waited with bated breath as the maestro raised his baton.

Stefan readied himself into position, violin in place. The 1699 Lady Tennant Stradivarius nestled comfortably under his chin as the bow hovered over its strings.

His Lady Tennant never failed him.

It was the final day of the Ambrogio Contemporary Arts and Technology Symposium. This was the first impromptu orchestra to play on this stage, designed by Clemens C. K. Jacobs. Rivaling the beauty of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, this particular performance hall had built-in technology that amplified and manipulated sound waves to give the audience a very—as it claimed—unearthly musical experience.

On the downward stroke of the conductor’s hand, chords of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony began to swell from the orchestra.

Stefan closed his eyes and let the melody guide him. Even though the fourth movement was more widely known, the first touched something deeper inside of him.

This was his escape, his shelter from the world. As much as numbers and codes fascinated him, they didn’t compare to the hypnotic rapture music could induce—both in its player and its listener.

Yet, he couldn’t savor the moment the way it was meant to be savored. Gabe’s warning still nagged at the back of his mind.

Stefan knew that Gabe wouldn’t keep this from Adam unless he had good reason to do so. But something about this mission just wasn’t clicking. All the pieces appeared to fit the puzzle, but the picture made no sense. He just couldn’t grasp why.

As the chorus of violins rose, Stefan pushed all thoughts out of his mind. There would be time tomorrow to work through the kinks.

Johannes Brahms deserved better than a second-rate effort.

He felt the instrument hum with vibrations as the bow slid across it with deft expertise. Years and years of practice climaxed on this one moment, flowing from him to the violin. But just as the music heightened to its peak, his eyes snapped open and he felt it.

Beneath his fingertips, the string snapped.

-

Jesse sat back on the plush recliner, hands behind his head, gazing at the sunset. The spacious terrace sat on the roof of the west wing, overlooking the estate.

Watching the sun as it slowly dropped behind the horizon, he had to admit that he liked the pink hues best—pink like cherry blossoms. And cherry blossoms reminded him of spring in Tohoku, which reminded him of geisha.

But it was the combination of all the warm colors that put him at peace.

Nature’s overture to man.

Stefan would be proud of how poetic he had become over the years. Yes, he had come to appreciate the arts very much.

A lazy bastard, Gabe often liked to call him. But Gabe just didn’t understand.

For Jesse, there would always be enough time to partake in all the sweetness this poor world had to offer. Why live at all if not for pleasure?

He studied the makeshift skyline created by the bordering forests, slipping into memories of 16th century England. Ah yes, the Elizabethan era—when he used to... trifle with the duchesses. Proper, high-classed women were even more fun to seduce than the ritzy prostitutes at the bordellos he’d frequented.

He still remembered the way they would slide demure and coy looks at him, under the radar of their rich, senile husbands. Then, when they danced, he would pull them closer than proper, and they would bristle as if he had committed something outrageously scandalous. Then, when alone, away from the prying eyes of society, they sought him out to give him the time and location of where they wanted to meet. Often, it was a note, inconspicuously placed in the palm of his hand, or a messenger boy of some sort. Though he liked it best when they came to him personally. How they whispered so deliciously in his ear.

And like the gentleman he strove to be, he accepted their propositions.

This was why dusk would always touch a soft spot for him. Dusk concluded the sweet twilight wherein these genteel women turned into carnal harlots, deprived from their wild fantasies of lovemaking. And if there was one thing Jesse liked to do, it was to engage in sensual creativity.

Yet, lately, he’d found himself bored.

The brunette this morning had been a decent, but momentary distraction. He couldn’t quite recall her name. Clara, or Kara, something like that. She was easygoing, vulgar, and as curvaceous as an hourglass. Best of all, she didn’t cling. He enjoyed taking the energy she so willingly gave up.

However, now that it was over, he felt dull idleness sink in again. The most fun he’d had all week was when Honey walked in on him after his shower. His ego had lapped up every second of her reaction.

Jesse moved his finger in an absentminded way from side to side, like the hand of a grandfather clock. The breeze moved with him, caressing his skin in a back and forth motion.

Ah, Honey.

He should have let the damned towel fall. That would have entertained him very much.

She was his only source of amusement these days.

Since it was the weekend, he had tried to seek her out, to ask her to join him in the pool, or to go cherry picking in the fruit orchards, but to no avail.

Recently, she had seemed distracted, and was always internally fretting and worrying about something. He thought it would have been a pleasant break for her to come play with him, but Adam kept her under close watch. Like an eagle, he was.

Jesse had found the two of them sitting at the breakfast table with Teddy and Gabe. And it was obvious to everyone except the two of them that they were in a heated telepathic discussion. Their faces looked so intense as they stared at each other, mouths twitching and eyebrows wiggling expressively in their silent dialogue.

Teddy was polite enough to focus on his pancakes, but Gabe was watching the pair with subdued curiosity—which, considering Gabe’s personality, translated into avid interest.

When Jesse piped in to ask if Honey would like to join him for the day, Adam promptly drove a cold stake through his heart with a firm “No,” followed by a glare that could have given Hades a run for his money. He insisted that she was busy, because he needed to discuss things with her. And poor Honey. It didn’t look like she could protest over the beast.

So Jesse had accepted her apologetic smile with grace.

Watching the dynamic duo since Honey had moved in with them always left him half amused, half puzzled. It was obvious that Honey was attracted to the domineering bastard. And if Jesse was honest with himself, his ego felt a little achy.

And wherever Honey was, Adam was sure to go. Like a ghoul that had attached himself to her spirit, he hovered over her even when she was performing the most menial of tasks.

How bothersome.

Something about Honey keeping secrets from him, Adam had said.

So here Jesse was, all alone on a Saturday night.

He looked up at the sky. A few dark clouds hovered above him, threatening to ruin his later star-gazing. He stopped himself from frowning at the dark masses. It wouldn’t do to mar his face with lines and creases.

With a dismissive wave of his hand, the grey clouds retreated, obeying his command and revealing the clear sky above.

Venus.

Bright and beautiful Venus twinkled her eyes at Jesse. She was perhaps his favorite star, the one that outshone all others.

He raised a languid index finger. A tiny spark of fire burst from his fingertip, shooting up toward the sky.

A tribute to Venus.

Jesse smiled. If there was a Goddess of Love, she would surely be able to keep him preoccupied for weeks, maybe even months.

He produced another flame, watching it burn like a candle in the darkening night. The air remained still as he sat there, admiring the golden glow.

Without warning, a small gust of wind blew out the fire, leaving the tip of his finger cold.

And that was when he felt it.

-

Water lapped in gentle waves, rippling past the perimeter-overflow edge, onto the flagstone deck. The underwater and landscape lighting illuminated the water, making it glow a crystalline blue. Although this wasn’t the biggest pool in the manor, it was still Teddy’s favorite.

After a hard run, he liked to relax here, just making leisurely backstrokes.

For more intensive swimming, he preferred the fifty meter lap pool. Thinking back, he still remembered the day he fell in love with the butterfly—September 24, 1933 at the Brooklyn Center YMCA. He had been completely entranced, watching Henry Myers fly out of the water like a dolphin.

Teddy slowed his strokes and let the water carry his body. From his vantage point, he could see a shadow move behind the window of the west wing study.

Gabe.

Since the school year had begun, something had been amiss with Gabe. They all knew something was on his mind, but no one could get it out of him. It seemed Gabe was determined to keep this one to himself, and it was putting Adam on extreme edge.

But Gabe wasn’t the only person who was provoking Adam’s ire. Honey also held a fair share of Adam’s attention.

Teddy did not know how much more Adam planned to tell Honey about their existence, or how safe it would be to bring her deeper into this. He was going to warn Adam, but Adam had sought him out first. Their conversation yesterday afternoon had surprised Teddy, and had left him feeling disquieted.

He had been in the Fishbowl when Adam came to him, and with no preamble, asked if he could shield Honey.

Out of the five of them, Teddy probably exercised and practiced his power the least. Since the end of the Second World War, rarely had a situation severely called for his protection.

“From what?” he asked.

Adam glanced away for a second, apprehension and insecurity shrouding his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “She has dark patches of bruises on her arm and God knows where else on her body, but they’re not from physical injuries.”

“Is she low in—”

“I transferred a large dose not too long ago.”

Teddy recognized the look on Adam’s face. It was the same expression he wore the night Elizabeth passed away.

“Adam.” Teddy stepped forward. “It could just be a coincidence.”

“No,” Adam said, dismissing the idea vehemently and without thought. He ran a shaky hand through his hair.

Teddy saw how hard he was trying to control the tremor.

“Elizabeth wasn’t a coincidence. Bessie wasn’t a coincidence. Louisa wasn’t a coincidence. None of them were coincidences.” Adam looked at him with the eyes of a lost boy, and said, “It’s happening again.”

Louisa’s bright blue eyes and gap-toothed grin popped into Teddy’s head just then, and a deep, age-old hurt rose in his chest—like it did every time. Centuries may have passed, but he remembered that year like it had happened yesterday. She had just turned four when the illness ravaged her body without mercy.

If Adam was right, then no shield would be able to stop Honey from…

Teddy didn’t want to remind Adam that his shield hadn’t worked on Louisa, Elizabeth, or any of the others. So the chances of it being effective for Honey were slim at best.

Instead, he laid a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I’ll protect her.”

Teddy sighed. He hated making empty promises, but as Jesse always said, little white lies never hurt anyone. And he was sure that Adam knew it was going to be a futile effort on his part.

He took a few more strokes, giving himself some extra momentum. The feeling of water sliding over the contours of his body soothed him both physically and mentally.

He was expending a lot of energy with the barrier that surrounded Honey. Yet, so far, he hadn’t felt any force trying to break through.

After his talk with Adam, he had checked for general disturbances in the area, but could detect nothing. It also worried him that Stefan would be gone for the rest of the month. The sooner he came back, the sooner he could temporarily heal Honey of her injuries.

A ball of light shot up into the sky, like a backwards comet, catching Teddy’s attention.

A fireball.

How very Jesse.

His brother’s familiar antics, however insignificant, brought him temporary consolation. But the comfort was short-lived as a sudden spasm hit his Achilles’ heel, pulling him under the water.

And then, as the waves rushed in around him, he felt it.

-

“Stop following me,” Honey warned one last time, pointing a very sharp finger at him.

Adam pushed her hand away. “I’m not. We’re walking together.”

She waved her arms in the air. “How is me walking and you stalking behind me in any way classified as ‘walking together’?”

The in-ground lighting lined up in two neat columns, creating a lit walkway down the length of the green tunnel. Only thin rays of the dying sunset shone through from the grape vines that climbed the scaffolds of the pergola.

Honey was wearing a pale yellow summer dress and a light sweater that complemented their green surroundings. Coupled with the lighting both from above and below, Adam couldn’t help but be struck by the picture it painted.

Even the riled up annoyance in her eyes was kind of… winsome and disarming.

“Can we talk?” he asked, hoping that it sounded like a truce, or a white flag.

She sighed, her chest rising up so high that he thought she would burst, and then falling back down again until her shoulders slumped. “That’s all we’ve been doing these past few days. Talking. You’ve been stuck to me like duct tape since that night. I can’t even go to the washroom without you ‘accidentally’ knocking on the door. Do you have any idea how hard it is to relieve your bladder when someone is listening? I already told you, I’m not going to run away or commit suicide or sleep with Jesse.”

He assessed her, remembering that night. It was the night she started avoiding him. That afternoon, he had felt their connection break. He didn’t know how he knew. It just happened. He had become so used to feeling her presence that the moment it was severed, he knew. No more loud ramblings, no more clumsy accidents. A part of him missed counting the number of times she would hit her thigh on a desk corner or ram her shoulder against a door frame or slam the side of her waist into a doorknob.

When he told her that they were no longer bound, she had been, to say the least, ecstatic. She even hugged him out of her own free will. Then, after blubbering with newfound joy for the next five minutes, she ran off to tell Jesse and Teddy.

It annoyed the hell out of him.

Now, she was keeping something from him.

Not knowing how to approach the topic for the umpteenth time, he started with, “Okay. You win. I’ll leave you alone.”

That got her attention. She stood up straighter, but her stance was warier.

“What’s the catch?” she asked, eyeing him with suspicion.

He smiled, glad she understood that her freedom was conditional. “Tell me what you’ve been keeping from me.”

She pursed her rosebud lips, as if to say, “I knew it.”

“Deal?” If he was enough of a nuisance, maybe she’d cave in.

Her body shifted weight from one foot to the other, but her determination did not waver. “Just because you’re standing there with your pretty green eyes and black dress shirt with the top buttons undone and shirt-sleeves rolled up does not mean I will give in. That’s playing dirty. If you dare try to seduce the information out of me, I will… I will…” She paused in concentration. “I’ll do something horrible.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at her last declaration of rebellion. “Like sleep with Jesse?”

She narrowed one eye at him, mouth scrunching to one side. “And Teddy! And Gabriel! And Stefan! I’ll sleep with every last one of you Elite Five and show you just how horrible I can—” Her speech halted. “Wait.” She tipped her chin to one side in confusion, as if reassessing what she had just said.

Adam put on a pensive expression. “What was that again? Something about sleeping with every last one of us?”

Her ears glowed a bright pink. “Minus you,” she mumbled.

“That is indeed horrible.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. The fleeting embarrassment was gone and replaced with curiosity.

The girl was as fickle as a tropical thunderstorm.

“If you want to know so much, why don’t you just read my mind and get it over with?” she asked.

She had a point. If he wanted to know, he could just unlock her thoughts. It would take seconds. Less.

But he wouldn’t. His stubbornness needed to hear Honey tell him herself, and he didn’t quite understand why.

“I’m doing it your way,” he explained.

Her face drew a blank. And then as if hit by a monstrous realization, she slapped her forehead. It looked like it hurt. “Are you still stuck on what I said that night? About mind-reading being a copout for you, taking the place of real human empathy? Is that what this is about?”

I don’t stick my head in your thoughts! Is that the only way you know how to understand people? How would you like it if I invaded your personal space without your permission? Huh?

Her words echoed in his mind.

Is that the only way you know how to understand people?

“No,” he said immediately, pushing the sound of her voice away. “No, it’s not.”

Was it?

“No,” he said again. The sudden softness in her expression, as if she understood him ticked him the wrong way. In a clipped voice, he said, “But since you’ve granted me permission to peruse your mind, excuse me while I gather the information I need.”

“Wait!” She held out both hands to stop him. “Tell me what you are first. And I’ll… reconsider.”

“What I am.” It wasn’t a question.

She wanted to strike up a deal, did she?

“Like…” She made a few meaningless gestures in the air. “Do you carry the bloodline of an ancient vampire race? Or are you faeries that wander the Earth for solace? Or are you the descendants of a species of dark gnomes?”

Dark gnomes?

He was about to scoff at her absurd imagination when one sleeve of her sweater fell back as she was waving her hand in the air, and he saw the green and purple contusions on her arm. Images of Elizabeth on her death bed accosted him, just as they had the first time he saw Honey’s bruises.

That moment… It had been like a flashback, transporting him back to that humid summer night of 1890.

Since he and Honey weren’t physically bound anymore, there was no longer any reason for her to live with them. It had been a fluke of nature, and that was that. But she hadn’t mentioned leaving, and after seeing those bruises, he wasn’t going to either. He would make sure she stayed until he could guarantee her safety.

“I’m human,” he said, looking her in the eye. If she wanted to know so much, he was no longer in any position to keep it from her.

Something in the sudden change in mood made her drop her arm. She didn’t shrink away from the eye contact. “Human, but immortal.”

“But immortal,” he confirmed, not sure if she believed him or if she was just humoring him.

A sudden whooshing noise sounded from above, followed by a small flash of light, much like a singular firework.

Honey looked up, even though the leaves from the vines blocked out most of the sky.

Adam took that brief moment where her guard was down to step closer to her. Acting on impulse, he took one of her hands and placed it on his chest, right above his heart.

Startled, she met his gaze and tried to pull away, but he held her hand in place. “What do you feel?”

Her brows lowered in bewilderment. “What do you mean what do I feel? If you want me to compliment your nicely toned muscles—”

“No.” He pressed her hand harder against him. “What do you feel?”

“I don’t know—I—” She stopped.

He watched the awareness dawn on her, like an arrow had struck her.

This time, when she pulled her hand away, he didn’t stop her. She cradled one hand in the other and looked at him with those flustered brown eyes.

“Nothing. I feel nothing.”

They looked at each other in silence.

Then out of the blue, like a bolt of lightning out of the sky, it hit him.

-

Gabriel stepped back from the window.

Sitting on the edge of the large mahogany desk, he reached behind him into the drawer and took out a small wooden sword the length of his finger. Holding it up against the skylight, he turned it from side to side, examining the craftsmanship. The edges were smooth and the details intricate and precise. Inscribed into the hilt were his initials.

He had only been seven when Adam carved it for him. Now, many, many years later, it still looked the same.

Gabriel had been the only one out of the five who had not been converted with his family.

Rules were strict among their kind. Once transformed, mating was discouraged. The child would be born human, and if their creator did not wish to change them, then the child would eventually have their memory erased and be sent away.

He had been a lucky exception.

And since the day he was born, Adam had acted the part of an elder brother. Sometimes, even like a mother. On his eighteenth birthday, when their creator finally rectified his mortality, Adam bestowed a real sword upon him. Yet, something in Gabriel hadn’t wanted to throw away the old one, so he’d kept it.

He held the small ironwood sword in the palm of his hand, feeling the weight of it.

Soon…

The anticipation. The wait.

It was near, so near that he could taste it.

Life had long taught him not to toy with fate, but this time, he wasn’t going to heed destiny’s warning.

It had been his first vision. And since then, it came to him again and again, as an ominous reminder that it wasn’t a dream. Still, he was able to dismiss it, finding reassurance in the fact that it wasn’t going to take place until the distant future—the twenty-first century.

When he had caught Honey Smith’s name on the school’s Incoming list in August, he’d known immediately that it was her. Asking his aunt and uncle to offer her housing had been done on a whim. But in hindsight, he saw that it had been a barren effort to quarantine the trouble.

A miniature star exploded into the sky.

There was no stopping it now. The time had come.

He waited in silence as the desolate seconds ticked by. A daunting sense of expectation and annihilation rose with each subsequent breath he took, but his body remained motionless. The air ceased to move, like death.

And when the pain came, he welcomed it.

-

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Author’s Note: This was quite a challenge to write. In fact, it’s probably the most difficult chapter I’ve written to date. So feedback would be delightful. What tickled your fancy, what didn’t tickle your fancy, if you thought it was effective, thoughts in general, feelings, everything. :)

Lots of love to Mae and Nota, and to everyone who has read, reviewed, critiqued, PMed, and enjoyed. S2

I am also up on twitter now. Lol, I don’t know why this amuses me so. Link is up in my profile.