The sulking tone to his voice was too much, and I burst into giggles. I looked up into his not-amused face and tried to kiss him, but he pulled away. Sighing and shaking his head, he started heading towards the living room.
"Where are you going?"
He turned and showed me the finger that was still oozing a little. "I'm going to get a Band-Aid, thank you very much." I bit my lip again and tried to stop laughing at the image of my fanged, vampire boyfriend needing to put a bandage on his boo-boo. It was too entertaining of a thought though, and I was still giggling as he left the room, shaking his head.
Once my laughter subsided, guilt overwhelmed me. Sighing, I grabbed a towel and bent down to clean up the blood-red splash of wine on the once pristine ground. It took some elbow grease, and some seltzer, but I eventually got the stain out and tossed the towel into the sink.
I followed where my sulking vampire had disappeared to, and heard him still rummaging around for an elusive bandage in the hall bathroom. I stopped in the door and watched him eventually find a box of them in the very back of the largest drawer. He was still sucking on his finger, a little more enthusiastically than a regular guy would, as he opened the box and pulled one out. He tried to unwrap it with one hand and chuckling, I walked over and took it from him. Pulling his finger out of his mouth, I prepared the special "H" bandage used solely for knuckle cuts and tenderly placed it on his skin. His fangs retracted as he silently watched me. Once he was all wrapped up, I gently kissed his finger, and his wounded look eventually turned into a loving one. Just as he was about to lean over and kiss me, I blurted out the real thought that had been bouncing around my head all day.
"Turn Ashley."
He froze, millimeters from my lips, and pulled back to stare at me. By the look on his face, you would think I had just asked him to stake himself. "What?"
I searched his eyes as I almost frantically repeated, "Turn her. Make her a vampire. She'd be healed, Teren...completely healed!"
He backed out of the bathroom with a sickened look on his face, like any minute he was going to lose his lunch right on his shoes. "No, Emma..."
I followed him with furrowed brows. "Why not?"
He shook his head as he backed into the living room. "You know how they're created. I'm not draining a human."
I grabbed his arm to stop him from moving away from me. He glanced down at my hand and seemed as if he wanted to smack me away. He didn't though. He just continued to stare at me, his body rigid with tension.
"Teren? You wouldn't be killing her. You'd be giving her a new life...a better one."
Now he did smack my hand away. He turned and strode over to the glass wall of windows. I watched the last rays of the sun flash on his skin as he rested his hands on his hips. I knew I'd messed up this talk on so many levels, but we were in the thick of it now. I timidly walked over to him, but didn't touch him again. Finally, he twisted his head to talk over his shoulder.
"You don't know what you're saying, Emma." He sighed. "I don't even know if it would work anyway," he finished quietly.
"Why wouldn't it...?"
His voice picked up heat as he turned his chest to me. "I keep telling you-I'm not a full vampire. I don't know if my blood is enough to change her."
At his tone, I stubbornly set my chin. "It's worth a try. What's the worst that could happen?"
He turned all the way around to face me. "She could die! My blood could do absolutely nothing and she would die, Emma. Permanently!"
I swallowed as I considered that possibility. It was one I hadn't thought of before. "Maybe Halina could-"
He cut me off. "No, she won't."
"But...she'd be normal. She'd be happy..."
Teren took a step towards me and placed his hands on my arms. Squatting down, he searched my eyes. "She is happy...don't you see that?"
I brushed him off and stubbornly shook my head as I crossed my arms over my chest. "She wouldn't be looked at like a monster."
He threw his hands up and laughed once; there was no humor in it. He started pacing the center of the room. "No, she would actually be one."
I stood in front of him to stop his movement. I placed my hands over his arms this time and looking down at me, he clenched his jaw. "You don't believe that. I know you don't," I stated. He shook his head and looked away from me. I thought again of the image of my sister healed and fresh and fast and strong. Tears stung my eyes at the thought of what her life could be, if she didn't have to put up with the whispering, teasing and constant staring. I squeezed his arms. "Please...think of what she'd be gaining."
He brought his eyes back to mine and his body relaxed when he noticed my tears. His voice relaxed as well. "Think of what she'd be losing, Em. She wouldn't be like me. She'd be one hundred percent vampire, like Great-Gran. She'd have to quit school and her dream of being a nurse. She'd have to hide during the day and she'd be..."
"She'd be free of the scars she's had since she was a little girl. Her constant reminder of what Dad sacrificed for her." There was a begging note to my voice and I tried to blink the tears back inside my body, but one escaped me.
He tenderly stroked it off my cheek with his thumb. "She's dealt with all of that for a long time, Emma."
"Because we didn't know of this option..."
"Vampirism isn't an option." His tone stated that as a fact and his voice hardened back up. A part of me got really ruffled. It was easy to say something wasn't an option, when you were swimming in that option. I was pretty certain that his views would be different if he had to look at things through Ashley's eyes-if he'd suffered the numerous painful surgeries, if he'd been brought to tears countless times throughout puberty, when boys and girls were at their meanest, and if he still had to endure life without the simple, loving companionship of a mate, something most couples took for granted every day.
"Yes...yes it is an option! She'd be healed." I dropped my hands from his arms.
Teren narrowed his eyes at me. I could see anger swirling in the paleness and I wasn't quite sure why this topic pushed his buttons so much. With a still heated voice he told me, "She wants to help people. You want to turn her into something that hunts people."
I had a little trouble spitting out my reply to that comment. "Your family doesn't. You could help her. She wouldn't...she would never hurt anyone. Just like you and the others."
"That's not true."
"What?"
Never removing his eyes from mine, he calmly stated, "Some of us have killed."
I felt all the blood drain from my face and watched his eyes take in my sudden paleness. I was instantly assaulted with images of my sweet, gentlemanly boyfriend draining whores in a back alley. I wasn't sure why I automatically pictured trashy women in that scenario, but whatever the woman, the picture was turning my stomach. I had to sit down. It wasn't a voluntary decision, I just sort of dropped down. Luckily, I was close to the couch and most of my body made it down there safely.
"What?" I breathed the word.
He sat down close to me, but didn't touch me, maybe sensing that I would bolt from the room if he did. His voice softened, but it was still laced with anger. That only increased my unease.
"The instinct is there...always. We all ignore it for the most part and for Mom and me, that's a pretty easy thing to do. It's pretty diluted in the both of us." I started breathing again, as I realized that he had just cleared himself as a killer. My stomach tightened as he continued on with who had killed in his family. "Gran has caved on occasion. She's not proud of it and she won't talk about it, but she has taken a life before...a couple times before. Great-Gran is not so hesitant or remorseful."
My pale face surely paled even more, as he confirmed that the one vampire who kind of scared the life out of me was the one vampire who would be the most inclined to take it. Teren watched me closely as he continued. "True, she lives mainly on animal blood, but she gets...bored. Every so often, she'll run into the city, find a lone human, usually a male but not always...and drain him dry. I have no idea what she does with the bodies, but she's very discreet."
"Why are you telling me this?" I felt tears rise again as I studied his steel face. He could have been telling me tomorrow's weather for all the emotion that resided in his features.
"Because I want you to understand that vampires and mixed breeds are different...and if I do what you ask, she will be different. She won't be like me. I want you to understand what you are really asking, because I don't think that you do."
Still, my stubborn streak continued. "You're different...your blood could be different. Maybe she'd be a mixed breed too..."
Teren shook his head. "Even if that were true...and I don't think it works that way, she'd be miraculously healed. How would you explain that to your mother, to everyone?" His lips turned down as he considered things I had not. Things I didn't want to think about because they were inconvenient to my end result.
"I don't know, I don't care-"
"And it will hurt...there is no way around that. She will panic. She will scream and thrash about, trying to get away from me, a man you've convinced her to trust. Are you going to hold her down while I suck the very life from her?"
I clasped my hands together and stared at the pinkness of the blood in my fingertips as I squeezed them together. "Seven seconds isn't so long...it would be quick."
Running a hand through his hair, Teren sighed with irritation. "I said I've heard it can be done that fast-by experienced vampires, who routinely kill." I looked up as his narrowed eyes searched my face. He brought his hands to his chest. "I've never done it. I've never even bitten someone. What if I don't get the exact right spot, in the exact right artery?" He shook his head and his face seemed to pale at the very thought. "It's a lot of blood. What if I can't get it out fast enough? It could take a few minutes. Do you really want to put her through that?"
With a quiet voice, I stubbornly persisted, "If we prepared her..."
He turned his face away from me and his voice went ice cold. "This conversation is pointless. I will not drain a human."
"Not even for me?" I knew I shouldn't have said that...guilt trips were generally not my thing. I realized I was sounding like his desperate grandmother, trying to beg him to get me pregnant. Hmmm, I guess, in a different way, I was a little desperate too. I was starting to understand the older woman better...although, now that I knew she had killed before, I found her a lot less grandmotherly.
"Not even for me," he said in his cold, even voice.
I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I could hear the heavy iron door swinging closed on this conversation, and I knew once it closed, it could never be reopened. "Teren..."
His face snapped back to mine. "It is not your decision to make. It is mine and it is Ashley's. You cannot condemn her to a life you don't fully understand, simply because you think it will make her happy."
"But..."
"I will not kill a human. Do not ask again."
He stood up and strode from the room. His hands were clenched into fists as he turned the corner and I clearly heard each angry footstep as he went upstairs. A few seconds later his door slammed shut and I sat and stared at my hands. I never in a million years would have imagined that the first time Teren got really angry with me would be over him refusing to turn my sister into a creature of the night. How vastly different my life had become, in such a short period of time.