Chapter One: Stalk Much?

I sighed as I pushed myself up in the bed, and leaned back against the soft, downy pillows. I couldn’t sleep. It was a first for me. I’ve been able to sleep through pretty much everything: hurricanes, tornados, thunderstorms, all my life. You name it, I could sleep through it.

 

But I couldn’t sleep.

 

I turned and looked at Bane lying on his side in bed. I was still spitting mad at him, but I didn’t really have a choice where I slept. After finding out that Bane’s sister led some kind of rebellion way back when, and that she was acting in his stead for some stuff, I clocked out. I’d been exhausted, and I still was. Luther and Samantha had called it a night around one in the morning, and I’d been desperate to copy them.

 

I’d walked to my room, but Bane had banded a hand around my middle and pulled me back against him. We’d fought for a second or two, partly because I was still mad at him, and another part because I was now a teeny, tiny bit scared of him.

 

But then the man had said he never went to bed angry, and that I would never sleep in a bed that wasn’t his. He’d offered Samantha and Luther my old room, and told Casper to sleep on the sofa. The vamps could have gotten their own rooms, but they stayed and followed Bane’s orders. Which left me with two choices: sleep with my husband or sleep on the floor.

 

I studied Bane harder, needing to distract myself. God, why do men have such long lashes? I mean, why do they need them? Bane’s got long, thick lashes, the kind that Maybelline promises but just never quite delivers.

 

His skin was also smooth, like, baby smooth. I wondered how old he was when he was turned a vampire. I sighed loud and long, hoping at the same time that Bane would, and would not, wake up. I was torn. I wanted him to get up because my ADD was starting to act up, and I was about two seconds away from hyperfocusing on all the issues I’d been having a great time stuffing into a box, but I didn’t want him to wake up at all because Bane was a part of those issues and I really needed to deal with that.

 

I wished I could sleep, because I was pretty terrible at distracting myself.

 

“But I can’t,” I muttered, and forced myself out of bed. Bane didn’t move, didn’t twitch a muscle. He was like me, dude slept like a rock.

 

I dragged on some clothes, slipped on shoes, and I was out the door in a few minutes. I was hungry, starving actually. The food I ate earlier was probably miles away in some sewage treatment plant becoming safe drinking water. Ha, I wouldn’t drink that.

 

“Where is a McDonalds when you need one?” I groaned as I left the hotel and searched, in vain, for the bright yellow M announcing that delicious, artery clogging, heart-attack-inducing food was just a little ways away.

 

No such luck. I snorted. I was never lucky. Freaking never. Everyday, or most days, I used to do one of those scratch off lottery tickets. Most I ever won was twenty-two dollars. That couldn’t even cover the money I’d spent on them.

 

So, I was awake at whatever-o'clock-in-the-morning, starving, with a case of insomnia. I also had a case of denial, like need-to-go-to-the-emergency-room bad.

 

Yeah, I admit it, I was a little stupid. I definitely had my dumb blonde moments, but I’d like to think those were few and far between. I was also a liar, though I only lied to myself. I’d become really good at it, too. Like, I’m not stupid, and I totally know what’s going on; and I trust Bane, my husband, because he’s the only thing I’ve got.

 

I was the queen of bullshit.

 

“Okay, okay, okay, Peaches,” I rambled to myself as I strolled down a dark street, and spied a black and white sign. Oh! Sephora! I loved their stuff, best brands. I was a sucker for Urbans Decay. Their eyeshadows were to die for, just … .

 

I snapped my attention back. “Focus. Come on. Focus.”

 

I’d been going in circles for a while, not literally, but in my head. Bane. Mysterious, ancient vampire Bane. What was he really after?

 

Sure, I wasn’t basing the majority of my experience on TV anymore (only because that turned out to be a bust), but I knew men. Simple creatures, sort of like me. I wasn’t a real complicated girl. Plop me in front of a Law and Order: SVU marathon with a bucket of wings and a tub of double chocolate ice cream, and I was set.

 

I understood men, or at least I thought I did. I wasn’t sure anymore. Bane wasn’t like other men, at least not like the other men I’d slept with. When I’d gone to a bar, it was knowing full well I’d be hooking up later that night. Of course I wasn’t a s**t, so that never happened. I just sat in the back fantasizing, like all the other desperate, single women in the club.

 

I was getting off topic. Surprise, surprise.

 

I got guys. They wanted sex, food, and sleep. Simple creatures. But Bane? He’d been a guy for--yeah, I’m gonna assume this one--centuries, and had had plenty of time to get enough of all three. Wouldn’t he want more? Wouldn’t he want excitement and something interesting?

 

I scratched at the black fur on my arm again. “Well, I sure am interesting.” No denying that.

 

I turned a corner and walked down a hill. I smelled salt-water, and for a second imagined myself diving into the sea and becoming a mermaid. I could swim, swim, swim away from everything, eat burger wrappers, and get caught in those plastic six-pack things. Ah, the life.

 

“But I’m a werewolf.” I tried the words out on my tongue, needing to hear them"because I was alone and it was creepy--and needing to say them.

 

Vampire’s didn’t burn or explode in the sun. Maybe werewolves spit acid and could read vamp minds. But Bane had said I wasn't a werewolf. I rolled my eyes at my own idiotic thought. Bane had said a lot of mess I just barely believed.

 

I walked past a Starbucks, down the steps around a fountain, and up till I hit the railing of the boardwalk. I took in a deep breath of water that was likely more polluted than the poop coming out of my butt.

 

I missed talking with my mom. Granted the conversations were usually a jumble of a hundred different topics, but we still managed to circle back around to the issues I was having. But trouble with Lisa at K-Mart didn’t have anything on me accidentally killing a person.

 

I was still dealing with that hot mess. It wasn’t like Ariel hadn’t deserved to die: b***h had it coming; but I don’t know … . A part of me wanted to actually face her and knowingly kill her, instead of her just dying because her fangs cut the poisonous artery instead of the blood one. But that made me feel awful, because shouldn't humans not want to kill other creatures?

 

Mrs. Shift, my ninth grade Creative Writing teacher, used to say that we all walked a fine line. That good and evil, insanity and sanity, right and wrong were all just sides of a coin. Or did I read that in a book? Whatever. Point was, I was always walking a fine line, throwing a coin up and hoping it landed on the good side. My big fear was what if it landed on the bad side, the wrong side. Or did that already happen?

 

When I died and came back, did I somehow become evil? Was I like a werewolf demon monster thing? Was I going to doom the world like all those heroines on TV and in the books? Where was that gypsy fortune teller, or prophecy on crinkly old paper, telling me the future?

 

“Georgia?”

 

I spun around, lost my balance, and started to fall back over the railing. I flailed my arms, but a small hand wrenched me back and I crashed into her.

 

“Careful, there.” The woman I fell against rubbed my hair comfortingly. I took a deep breath in as my heart calmed down. I looked up, and sure enough it was Samantha.

 

“Oh my globs!” I pushed away from her and gripped my chest. “You scared me to death.”

 

She was dressed in a long white dress that looked turn of the century, with a dark brown shawl around her shoulders. The petite woman smiled and linked her fingers in front of her. “Then you’d be dead.”

 

“I am.”

 

She smiled at me, the sort of smile my mother used to give me when she knew something I didn’t. “What are you doing out here, Georgia?”

 

I straightened, and ran a hand through my fading red hair. “Don’t call me that.”

 

Samantha frowned and tugged the brown shawl closer around her. “But isn’t that your name?”

 

If vampires could change their name, I didn’t see any reason I couldn’t, especially with everything I’d gone through. “It's not the name I want to go by anymore.”

 

I turned around and gave the woman my back. Samantha didn’t take the hint, and instead moved closer to me and leaned against the railing.

 

Man, I was tired and hungry. The water smelled like fish and chips. Man, I could go for some fish and chips.

 

“What are you, Georgia?”

 

I rolled my eyes. I’d heard that question more times in the last five days than I’d heard all my life. “I don’t know. Isn’t that why everyone is here? To try and figure out what I am?”

 

The woman shook her head, and some of her brown hair came loose from its bun. “No. Some are here to just use you.”

 

“Is Bane one of those?” I asked. Maybe she could use tarot cards to divine my future. Hmm … Peaches, I’m seeing you losing twenty pounds, and having a sudden ability to eat all the fast food and chocolate you want and not gain an ounce.

 

That was something I would not only get behind, but pay to have.

 

“I’m not sure,” Samantha sighed. “Malik is … complicated.”

 

“Why do you keep calling him that? I mean, I get that it means king, but it’s not like there’s a castle or a crown laying around.”

 

She turned to me and reached for my hand. “I say that because that is what he is. In our world, Bane is a king, his sister is a queen, and you are also--”

 

“Don’t you say it,” I warned.

 

“--a queen,” Samantha finished. “You might not like it now, Georgia, but that is what you are.”

 

Turning into a mermaid was really starting to seem a lot better than a werewolf. Hell, turning into a were-pigeon or something, so I could fly away, sounded better. Of course, I’d sort of known Bane was a king, he’d told me himself. But it was one thing hearing from a king who was a king but didn’t really have any of the king qualities, and another hearing it from a subject. Ah, that was confusing.

 

Point was, I could say I felt like a queen, but not really be one. But now, I could feel like the nastiest, meanest person on earth, but the vamps would still have to put “queen” in front of my name. I didn’t want that. Actually, I didn’t want to be queen.

 

I hadn’t played with Barbies when I was growing up, or dressed up like Disney princesses. I hadn’t imagined that my perfect guy was going to sweep me off my feet and carry me to his castle. I’d been a tomboy, the type of girl to dance in the rain, make mud pies, and chase a boy down and rub sand in his hair instead of telling him I liked him.

 

I was not cut out to be a queen, and especially not Bane’s queen or a queen of vampires.

 

I sighed and turned to Samantha. “It’s getting cold out. Ready to head back inside?”

 

She nodded her head and smiled at me like my grandmother used to.

 

“Seriously,” I asked, “how old are you?”

 

We started walking back down to the water fountain and up the stairs. “I’m three hundred fifty three.”

 

“Really?” I stumbled on a step, almost fell, but caught myself. “Do you know how old Bane is?”

 

Samantha twined a brown strand of hair around her fingers. “Malik is complicated. No one knows exactly how old he is, or even if he is the original vampire.”

 

“You mean like the first one turned?”

 

She nodded. “The very same.”

 

I frowned as we walked up the hill. God, why were there so many steps over here! I’m not saying I hate walking, but it’s not like I suddenly love it now that I’m dead. “Why’s that?” I wheezed out.

 

“Because he adapts more quickly to the changes of time. Malik is able to assimilate easily.” She looked at me, but it was too dark to see her eyes clearly. “It is much harder for some of us to relinquish the ways of the past.”

 

I understood that. Before my grandmother died she always referred to Black people as “colored people.” It wasn’t like she was trying to be rude or anything; it was just her generation, and she didn’t want to change, because she was going to die anyway. I noticed the closer my grandmother got to her death, the more she just didn’t give a damn what she said.

 

“So vampires are turned?” I asked, because I’d been wondering it for a while. “Not like born?”

 

Samantha sighed. “Perhaps they were born once upon a time, but I’ve only met those who have been turned, and I have never heard about a vampire being born.”

 

“How do vampires die?” I’d been wondering that for a while, too, but Bane had yet to tell me. Garlic, crosses, and that other vampire lore was useless, and I couldn’t even push him out into the daylight if he suddenly thought I was a great snack, because the sun did nothing but give him a tan. But he was pretty dark already, so it probably just made him darker.

 

We turned a corner and weren’t going up a hill anymore. I was so happy, I could have kissed the uneven cobbles under my feet.

 

“Sever the spinal cord.” Samantha drew her shawl more firmly to her. “Vampires’ hearts no longer beat, so stabbing them through the heart is useless. Beheading and severing the spinal cord is, more or less, the only way to kill them.”

 

It was now officially going to be impossible to kill Bane. I was fine with punching him, but beheading? Um, yeah no. I frowned. “But I killed Ariel with my blood.”

 

Samantha stopped and gripped my arm tightly, backing me against the front of a store. Her voice was low, rushed, and filled with fear. “You must never say, or think, that. If others of their kind found out what you cando, they would kill you.”

 

I looked down at Samantha. Girl didn’t look older than seventeen but she acted like she was nearing sixty. However, it was this weird flow of--I wanna say magic?--coming off of her that really had my eyebrows shoot up. She looked like a strong wind would knock her over, but she still had my five foot eleven, size ten--oops, I’m off by a few digits there--I mean size sixteen butt, pinned to a wall.

 

I tried to push, but she wouldn’t budge. I sighed, exhausted. “Okay, okay, I won't say it, but I can’t help if my mind wanders.”

 

She frowned slightly then pulled back. “You must.”

 

“I can’t must anything.” I rolled my eyes so far back it gave me a mini headache. “If you haven’t noticed, telling me what to do hasn’t worked out so well for Bane, and it didn’t end well for Ariel.”

 

Samantha’s brown eyes darkened and I swear something moved in them, but that could have just been the electronic commercial sign flickering at the bus stop near us. I kind of hoped it both was and wasn’t, because (a) her being possessed would be pretty cool, and (b) I hoped it wasn’t, because her being possessed might not be good for my health.

 

I heard her voice, but it seemed different, like she was speaking through a phone in a blizzard. “They all have different methods, Georgia. The people that want you will hurt you, they will use you, they will"”

 

“Look,” I said, cocking my hip and giving her my best ‘this is my life, deal with it’ look, “every villain is going to have similar plans and goals and ways of getting information. I don’t give a s**t about them, because I know they’re bad. I know I can’t trust them.”

 

I looked her up and down critically. “Isn’t it the supposed ‘good guys’, the ‘heros’, I should be  looking out for? Bad is always gonna be bad, but good can change sides easily, without anyone knowing.”

 

Samantha’s expression cleared and she blinked: surprise, confusion, and then astonishment crossed her face. “You--you are quite right, Georgia. Very insightful, in fact.”

 

The woman looked at me like I’d suddenly become some kind of law professor. I was both insulted and proud of that look. Did I really come off as being as dumb as bricks, or did my short attention span cover up my brilliance?

 

I yawned, full on, jaw-cracking, eye-watering yawn. I didn’t give a damn if she thought I was stupid or smart or a queen or whatever. I still had to come to terms with what I actually was. I wasn’t a vampire, that was for sure, so maybe I was a werewolf? I was hoping that was the case, at least.

“All right.” I stretched, shook my body and slapped my cheeks. “Let’s hurry to the hotel before I keel over on this street and become rat food.”