Wicked Secrets Page 5

  His expression darkened like a thunder cloud, and she bit her lip to keep from laughing. Still standing by the window, Sherry had her knuckles pressed against her mouth, half bent over from stifling her own laughter. A tear slid down Sherry’s cheek, and suddenly she gasped, clutching her ribs as she laughed. Ember’s will broke and she burst into laughter too. Reid, looking stony, glared at them both until they started to calm down.

  Then, in a very flat voice, he said, “Vampires do not get STDs.”

  For some reason, that set the girls off again, and Reid gritted his teeth, clearly not amused. Eventually, the girls got themselves together and stopped laughing, wiping tears off their faces. Ember’s ribs ached, and Sherry was leaning against the wall as if she might fall down. Reid still stood next to Ember’s bed, unnaturally still, his expression lethal. “Are you quite done?” he asked, his voice deceptively calm.

  Ember nodded, wiping away another tear that escaped her eye. “Yeah…yeah, I think so,” she said. She lay back against her pillows, sighing. All that laughing had sort of tired her out. Sherry, across the room, slumped onto her own bed, pink-faced. “Okay, we’re good. So, what’re we going to do now?”

  Reid looked at her for a long moment, as if waiting for her to start laughing again, and then he said, “I think we need to figure out just how far your vampiric abilities extend. For example, we need to know if you can control people’s minds, heal quickly, levitate things, et cetera.” Reid glanced at Sherry, who was slowly pulling herself together and creeping to his side warily. He shot her a glare and she cringed back. Ember snorted.

  “Mind control. You can test that first…on me,” Sherry said suddenly, her voice a little uncertain but her green eyes determined. Reid glanced at her again, and she scowled at him. “Stop glaring at me. She was the one who said it!”

  He grimaced. “You laughed,” he said accusingly.

  She pulled a face at him. “Did we hurt your feelings, Reid?” she asked mockingly.

  “Have I ever said I don’t like you? Because I’m seriously starting to think I don’t,” Reid replied, glaring at her again. Sherry just smiled blandly back at him.

  Ember laughed, amused. “Um, Reid, I think you should just give it up. You’re not going to win this round.”

  He scowled. “This isn’t over,” he told Sherry. Then he turned back to Ember, and behind him, Sherry flipped him off. Without turning, he said, “Do that again, and you will miss those fingers.” Sherry scowled at his back.

  Ember grinned. “Okay, if we can all focus for a minute here? Yeah. Sherry, are you sure you want me to test Compulsion on you? I mean, I don’t know what could happen,” she said, wary of using her best friend as guinea pig. She’d much rather use Reid as her test subject – he was just less…breakable. Plus, she wasn’t sure Ricky wouldn’t kill her if something went wrong and Sherry ended up in a vegetative state.

  But Sherry was obviously set on it. “Yes, I’m sure,” Sherry said, putting her hands on her hips and meeting Ember’s gaze determinedly. “We need to know what you can do. It’ll help you adjust once we know what abilities you have. Do it.” It was clear in Sherry’s expression that there was no fighting her, and Ember gave her a quick grateful smile before turning to Reid.

  “How do I do it?” she asked, wondering if she really was just slightly insane. But then, she already knew she was – she was going out with Reid wasn’t she?

  *

  Reid explained how Compulsion worked, giving her step-by-step instructions, and she thought she understood what to do. She was still nervous, but Reid promised if anything went wrong, he could fix it. That was little reassurance to her jangling nerves, and it didn’t resolve the butterflies in her stomach, but she agreed anyway.

  So, doing just as Reid said, Ember focused her mind on Sherry, trying to pick up her friend’s brain waves. After a few long moments of feeling nothing but like an idiot, she felt something prickle at her mind. It was a bizarre, itchy feeling, like the prickling she got at her temples when one of the boys tried to read her mind, only it was inside her skull now. And it was warm and it…it was violet…it felt like it was a deep purple colour without really being a colour at all. It wasn’t something she could describe.

  “Ember, have you got it?” Reid whispered, his voice soft, not breaking her concentration. His voice had taken on a blurry, underwater kind of quality.

  “Yeah, I think I’ve got it,” Ember whispered back, her eyes still locked on Sherry’s but not really seeing the girl. She was seeing inside her friend’s mind to the swirling purple mist of her thoughts, sparkled here and there with the silver glitter of memories.

  “Good. Now let your will connect to hers,” Reid instructed calmly, and Ember frowned, about to ask how to do that. “Just relax and the bridge will form,” he said, anticipating her question. Trying to do as he said, Ember relaxed, letting herself feel the presence of Sherry’s mind, letting her own consciousness trickle out to the strange purple brainwaves of her friend. She could feel Sherry’s thoughts slow down, feel how the purple began to stop swirling, feel how her own thread of consciousness was holding Sherry’s mind still. It wasn’t a very pleasant feeling, and Ember shuddered, knowing she was manipulating her friend’s mind.

  “Now, use your mind to tell her what you want her to do. Something simple that won’t cause any damage…” Reid’s voice was soft and echoing, like it was coming from the bottom of a very deep well; it barely registered in Ember's ears, but she obeyed the words anyway. She felt the trickle of her own mind seeping out of her skull, like a flowing wire connecting her to her best friend, and she could see, without really seeing anything, the soft command running down the wire.

  She thought to her friend, Sherry, you want to tie your hair up. A chill ran down Ember’s spine at the creepiness of what she was doing. Sherry very rarely tied her hair up – of her own volition anyway. It felt all kinds of wrong to command her to do it, knowing she wasn’t giving Sherry a choice.

  “Okay, now release your link to her.” Reid’s voice was barely audible but Ember heard it clear enough. She let the mental-wire linking her mind to Sherry’s dissolve, and she saw the violet haze begin to swirl again before she was pulled back into her own brain with a snap. She gasped and laid back, dizziness overwhelming her the second the connection was completely gone. She blinked and saw focus return to Sherry’s eyes. Ember frowned, half-hoping that the mind-control hadn’t worked. As handy as it could be, it was such an invasion, and to force someone to bend to your own will…well, she certainly wouldn’t want it done to her.

  Then Sherry smiled at her and murmured, “So, did it work? I don’t think I felt anything. What did you tell me to do? Nothing too embarrassing I hope, you know, just in case it really works…” While she spoke, Sherry absently picked up the hair bobble on the dresser and scooped her hair up, tying it into a ponytail with the bobble. Ember grimaced and Sherry stopped talking, looking puzzled. “What?”

  Reid was staring at her too, and he asked, “What did you tell her to do?”

  Ember hesitated, shooting Sherry an apologetic look. “I told her to tie her hair up,” she muttered, a strange wave of guilt and joy mingling through her. She was glad to have a funky vamp power – one she’d wished for several hundred times in her life – but God, to be able to control her best friend was awful.

  Sherry gasped in shock, but Reid just smiled slightly. “Okay, so you can control minds. One power down,” he said, his smile transforming into a grin. Ember could see enthusiasm building in his lovely blue eyes. She thought about asking him why he found this so awfully exciting, and then she realised she was probably the first vampire he’d known aside from his friends – there couldn’t have been too many other vamps wandering around Acorn Hills, or someone would get suspicious.

  Sherry was gaping, her hands still raised from tying her hair up. “Oh my God, I…I don’t even…you made me tie my hair up? But, I just felt like doing it. It didn’t feel like I was being controlled.�
� She seemed to realise she was still holding her hands in the air, and she scowled. She pulled out the hair bobble, letting her pale hair fall onto her shoulders again.

  “That’s the point. If it felt like you were being controlled, you’d be suspicious or reluctant to do it. It wouldn’t work then,” Reid explained, still smiling boyishly, like a kid with a new toy.

  “I am never, ever doing that again – at least not to you. I promise I’ll never do that to you again. It makes me feel…ugh.” Ember shuddered. She reached out and gripped Sherry’s hand hard, making sure Sherry knew she was serious.

  The green-eyed girl smiled back and shrugged. “I know. I trust you,” she said simply. Sherry’s eyes told Ember the girl was sincere.

  “If you two are done with your moment,” Reid interrupted, “We need to know what else the newbie can do. I’m guessing levitation won’t be much of an issue, but whether it comes from your vamp half or your witch half, I’ve got no clue. Either way, a skill’s a skill. Give it a go.” Reid was looking more amused and arrogant than he had in days, more like himself. Apparently, he was enjoying this.

  “Yeah, I’ll just levitate you out the window,” Ember muttered and rolled her eyes. It was actually really good to see some of his carelessness again, after the concern that had been plastered on his face for the past few days. Carelessness suited him better.

  Reid just beamed wider and murmured, “Try it.” It was a clear challenge and Ember resisted the urge to give him the finger. Instead, she shot him a glare, which had absolutely no effect on him except to make him raise his eyebrows at her expectantly, waiting.

  Sighing, Ember focused on her hairbrush across the room on her dresser. She wasn’t sure how to do this, but having successfully Compelled Sherry, she felt confident enough to try. She relaxed her mind and slowly, slowly, felt a tendril of power surging out from her like an invisible extra limb. It reached across to the dresser and wrapped around the hairbrush. Then it seemed to snag on nothing. This extra limb was tricky to control, and God, it took a lot of energy to lift that damned brush. It felt like doing press-ups on her fingertips, only it was her mind getting the work out.

  Eventually, feeling an on-coming headache and the tight scowl of concentration on her face, she saw the brush rise off the desk a few inches. She pulled the invisible limb back to her little by little, the brush still clutched in the invisible grasp. Her head was pounding. God, how could a hairbrush be so heavy? The brush reached almost to the end of her bed and a sudden sharp pain shot through the back of her head and the brush dropped.

  “Ah! Ow!” Ember groaned and clutched the back of her head, feeling her brain pulse painfully against the inside of her skull.

  “Ember, are you okay?” Sherry put a hand on her arm, worried green eyes searching her face.

  “Yeah,” she gasped. “Yeah, I’m okay. It just hurts – headache.” She sighed, waiting for the pain to subside so she could stop pulling her hair by the roots.

  Reid frowned at her. “Okay, so levitation is possible, but not easy. Do you want to relax for now, Emz?” he asked quietly, but Ember shook her head. She wasn’t going to stop now, just because her head hurt. She needed to know what she could do and if she stopped now, she’d lose her nerve.

  “Here, try this.” Sherry’s voice held a smile and Ember looked up, letting go of her head. She smiled weakly at what Sherry held. Yet another glass of Coke. Ember took it gratefully and downed it quickly, feeling the pain in her head prickle and numb.

  She sighed in relief. “Thanks. That actually helped,” she murmured, putting the empty glass down on the bedside table.

  “Doesn’t it always?” Sherry laughed. “I’ll get you some aspirin too. Give me a second,” she added, scrambling off to the bathroom where they kept the aspirin in the bathroom cupboard, taking the empty glass with her.

  A moment later she came back with the glass full of water and fizzing with the effervescent tablets. Ember eyed it with distaste, before taking it and gulping down the horrid tasting fizzy water. Why did aspirin and other medicines have to taste bad? They could at least taste like chocolate; they were meant to make you feel better, weren’t they? Chocolate made everyone feel better.

  “Ick,” she said, making a face and putting the empty glass down on the nightstand. Reid looked at her and then at the glass with something akin to confusion. She wondered if full-blooded vampires ever got headaches. Pushing the thought aside for now, she turned to Reid and asked, “Okay, what’s next?”

  Hesitantly he said, “Well, testing your healing speed would be the logical next step, I guess. But…” His blue eyes flickered around the room, avoiding hers. Ah. She understood. He didn’t want to have to hurt her, especially if only to find out her healing wasn’t any better than before. Well, she wanted to know this bit most of all, so she quickly raked in the drawer of the bedside table while Reid and Sherry watched in confusion.

  “Emz, what’re you looking…oh…” Sherry caught on, obviously remembering that there was a pair of scissors in the drawer. Sherry reached out to pull the scissors from Ember’s hand just as she yanked them out of the drawer, but Ember was too fast for her – super-speed or just faster reflexes? We’ll have to test that next, she thought with faint amusement, as she opened the scissors and slashed her arm. It stung a little, but it wasn’t a deep cut. It’d stop bleeding in a minute or so, even if she didn’t have amazing super-healing. Sherry bit her lip on a little gasp and Reid snatched the scissors from her the second the cut had been made.

  “Jesus, if I’d known that’s what you were going to do…you’re a lunatic, you know that Ember?” Reid sighed shakily but his eyes were fixed on the cut on her arm. It wasn’t bleeding much, just a few drops squeezed out and rolled over her pale skin before the cut sealed and the skin repaired itself. She grinned. Yup, she definitely had vampiric healing going on. Awesome, she thought.

  Only, Reid didn’t look like he thought it was awesome; he looked like he wanted to bite her, and not in a good way. Tentatively, she said, “Reid?” Ember had never seen him look like that before. She’d seen the dangerous glint in his eyes, seen the fangs, but she’d never seen them combined with that look on his face – it was something like hunger and violence and anger. It was scary, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit that. But, scary as he looked, Ember wasn’t scared of him.

  “Sherry, pass me a cloth,” Ember said calmly, and Sherry scampered away, eyes wide. She returned from the bathroom with a cloth in a flash, and tossed it to Ember. Ember wiped off the blood from her arm and tossed the little, damp square of fabric into the bathroom. “Fill the sink and leave the cloth to soak, please. I don’t want the blood to stain,” Ember instructed Sherry, who immediately obeyed.

  The water rushed in the other room for a moment, the taps humming. Then Sherry came out, shutting the door behind her. “Thanks,” Ember said. She looked down at her arm, not a trace of cut left on her skin. Frowning, she said, “I guess that wasn’t the smartest idea with a vampire in the room.” Ember sighed, returning her eyes to Reid, who was still crouched by the side of her bed, apparently frozen there. He blinked, looking dazed, but he didn’t move. He appeared to be in shock or something. Or thinking. Either way, it wasn’t like Reid, and it made Ember nervous to see him so…still.

  “Maybe you should slap him?” Sherry suggested nervously. Ember frowned but reached out a hand, not to slap him but to ruffle his hair. The fine, silky strands brushed across her fingers, but still he didn’t move. Ember grimaced, wondering what the hell Reid’s problem was.

  “Hello? Earth to Reid? What is going through that pretty head of yours?” Ember waved a hand in front of his face. When he just blinked again, she rolled her eyes. Then she saw a spark light in Reid’s eyes and he flinched away from her hand as she tried to stroke his face. Ember glanced at Sherry. Sherry shrugged.

  Finally, Reid seemed to come out of his daze, and he scowled up at Ember. She raised her eyebrows. “You want to explain what that was about?”

/>   He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  She stared at him for a second, trying to figure out if he was screwing with her. But he just looked confused. She lifted her hands in a gesture of exasperation. “Uh, you zoned out. I thought you were going to try and take a bite out of me.” As soon as she said it, she wondered what she would have done if he had bitten her. The idea held a certain appeal…Focus, Ember, She told herself stubbornly.

  Reid looked away, hesitating. “Well…I was sort of thinking about it,” he admitted, a little sheepish. She blinked at him, and he cringed. “It’s just that your blood…” he shrugged.

  Ember frowned, not sure if she should be embarrassed or not that her vampire boyfriend had been considering biting her. Not sure if she should be embarrassed that she sort of wanted him to. Confused, she asked, “Haven’t you smelled my blood before? That night when you saved me from Joseph, I was bleeding, but you looked like you didn’t even notice.” She had been bleeding that night, she remembered; she’d cut her hands on the ground when Joseph had tossed her down. But Reid hadn’t reacted to it at all. Of course, she’d still thought he was human back then – just a frustrating, attractive human guy.

  His expression changed at the mention of Joseph Rian, and he muttered darkly, “Yes, I remember that. I knew I should have beaten him to pulp right then.” Then he shook his head, sighing. “But yeah, I didn’t react then because human blood is different to vampire blood, or even witch blood. It’s weaker – less potent. But witch blood is stronger, full of magic and history, like a finely aged wine I suppose. And vampire blood is…well, it’s got even more power. It’s more addictive. Vamp blood gives a kick. Witch blood is less intoxicating. The combination of vamp blood and witch blood…” Reid shook his head as a hungry expression began to blossom again, and Ember was sure she saw him retract his fangs.