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Chapter Five
The full moon was directly overhead when Stefan came back to the boarding house. He was giddy,
almost reeling, both from fatigue and from the glut of blood he'd taken. It had been a long time since
he'd let himself feed so heavily. But the burst of wild Power by the graveyard had caught him up in its
frenzy, shattering his already weakened control. He still wasn't sure where the Power had come from.
He had been watching the human girls from his place in the shadows when it had exploded from
behind him, sending the girls fleeing. He had been caught between the fear that they would run into the
river and the desire to probe this Power and find its source. In the end, he had followed her, unable to
chance her getting hurt.
Something black had winged toward the woods as the humans reached the sanctuary of the bridge,
but even Stefan's night senses could not make out what it was. He had watched while she and the
other two started in the direction of town. Then he had turned back to the graveyard.
It was empty now, purged of whatever had been there. On the ground lay a thin strip of silk that to
ordinary eyes would have been gray in the dark. But he saw its true color, and as he crushed it
between his fingers, bringing it slowly up to touch his lips, he could smell the scent of her hair.
Memory engulfed him. It was bad enough when she was out of sight, when the cool glow of her
mind only teased at the edges of his consciousness. But to be in the same room with her at the school,
to feel her presence behind him, to smell the heady fragrance of her skin all around him, was almost
more than he could bear.
He had heard every soft breath she took, felt her warmth radiating against his back, sensed each
throb of her sweet pulse. And eventually, to his horror, he had found himself giving in to it. His tongue
had brushed back and forth over his canine teeth, enjoying the pleasure-pain that was building there,
encouraging it. He'd breathed her smell into his nostrils deliberately, and let the visions come to him,
imagining it all. How soft her neck would be, and how his lips would meet it with equal softness at
first, planting tiny kisses here, and here, until he reached the yielding hollow of her throat. How he
would nuzzle there, in the place where her heart beat so strongly against the delicate skin. And how at
last his lips would part, would draw back from aching teeth now sharp as little daggers, and –
No. He'd brought himself out of the trance with a jerk, his own pulse beating raggedly, his body
shaking. The class had been dismissed, movement was all around him, and he could only hope no one
had been observing him too closely.
When she had spoken to him, he had been unable to believe that he had to face her while his veins
burned and his whole upper jaw ached. He'd been afraid for a moment that his control would break,
that he would seize her shoulders and take her in front of all of them. He had no idea how he'd gotten
away, only that some time later he was channeling his energy into hard exercise, dimly aware that he
must not use the Powers. It didn't matter; even without them he was in every way superior to the
mortal boys who competed with him on the football field.