Мелисса де ла Круз - Masquerade

Bliss and Schuyler impressed the Red Bloods among the gang with their ability to drink everyone under the table. Vampire genes, natch.

Schuyler looked out at the dark beach, the full moon shining over the long shoreline, and the gentle rumbling of the surf. It was gorgeous. She had arrived early, half expecting to be greeted by Jack Force. But he was not among the male models, and she felt a pit of disappointment at his absence.

But as she wished him there, she felt a soft nudge on her elbow, and there was Jack standing at the stool next to hers.

"What are you drinking?" he asked. "Nothing too absurd, I hope," he said, as if it had been just yesterday that they had spoken in the Repository.

"It's a pretty awful concoction. Some kind of coconut rum and pineapple juice, but it isn't a piña colada. Taste?" she offered, handing him her glass.

Jack took a sip and made a face. "It's awful.”

"Told you.”

"I'll have one," he told the bartender.

"Brave man," she said, saluting him with her glass. Jack stirred his drink.

"How's Lawrence?”

"He's well." Schuyler wondered if Jack knew about his father wanting to adopt her. She didn't want to bring up such an awkward subject.

"Do you still believe they've returned?" Jack asked, meaning the Silver Bloods.

"I have to," Schuyler said simply. "It's the only explanation for Dylan—for what happened to Cordelia.”

Jack looked down at his glass and shook it so the ice cubes clattered. "The Committee doesn't believe it. The crisis in Rome was abated, Lucifer was destroyed by Michael himself.

There's no way they could come back.”

"I know." She looked down at the dregs of her drink. "But I think The Committee is wrong.”

Jack looked as if he was about to reply, but a hoarse voice called from the other side of the bar, where a raucous drinking game was underway.

"Schuyler! Jack! We need two more oars for Viking Master, c'mon!”

The next day, the whole team trekked to a hidden nature reserve on an isolated side of the island. The crew had set up makeup tents to shield the models from the heat. Bliss emerged from her cabana wearing a zebra-striped bikini with cowrie shells on its string ties, a transparent silk caftan, and jeweled thong sandals.

"Where're the parrots?" Jonas asked behind the camera.

The shot called for Bliss to hold two large, brilliantly plumed Scarlet Macaws on each arm, in homage to the ones Talitha had owned.

The animal trainer released the birds, but neither cooperated with any of his commands.

One perched on Bliss's head while the other flew around her, squawking loudly.

The trainer was finally able to free Bliss from the bird's clutches, and Jonas compromised by staging the shot with Bliss underneath a tree, next to the birds.

"Thank God that's over with," Bliss groused as she walked carefully in the tall grass back to the haven of the makeup tent.

Schuyler was called next. She was wearing a black Gucci maillot, a one-piece that could only be described as two strips of fabric down the front, culminating in a tiny V at the bottom.

The stylist had taped the fabric to her chest, but she still couldn't help but feel way too naked.

"I'm going for a Blue Lagoon type of thing here," Jonas explained. "I want hot. Smoldering. Sexy. But innocent.”

Schuyler eased into the cold pool underneath the waterfall.

"Ready?" Jack Force asked from the other side of the pond.

She nodded. She had known they were going to be partnered for the photo, but the sight of Jack's toned, athletic body, in his low-waisted Vilbrequin board shorts, was making her blush.

Especially when Jonas admonished them to stand closer together. "Didn't you hear me?

It's Blue Lagoon! You're obsessed with each other! Try to show it! Jack, put your hand on her thigh. Schuyler, arch your back, move so that your body is next to his. There. That's more like it.”

"Sorry," Jack said, as he drew Schuyler closer.

"All part of a hard day's work, I guess," Schuyler said, trying not to let him know how much his presence affected her.

The camera snapped.

"Next!" Jonas yelled.

That night, when Jonas took out the entire crew for dinner at an outdoor restaurant, Bliss found herself seated next to Morgan, the seriously cute photo assistant. Morgan had been paying her a lot of attention all weekend. He was a sophomore at RISD, nineteen, and had an arsenal of bad jokes that kept Bliss giggling despite herself. He poured her drink after drink, not realizing that Bliss was immune to alcohol's effects.

Bliss leaned back on her wicker chair and draped her feet over his lap. After months of winter in New York, she felt free here, with the cool ocean breeze blowing through her hair, no parents to nag her, and even better—no nightmares since she'd arrived on the island.

"Wanna take a walk?" he suggested.

Bliss nodded. A "walk on the beach" sounded pretty suspicious. Wasn't that just a nice way to say "Wanna hook up?”

They walked hand in hand on the beach, Bliss dipping her feet into the rolling waves and feeling the cold water over her skin.

The lights of the hotel grew fainter and fainter. "Morgan's a girl's name," she teased.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, hugging her and pulling her to the ground.

Bliss pretended to struggle as he pinned her arms down. "You're not getting away from me," he said.

"No?”

The boy began to kiss her, and Bliss kissed him back. This was different from kissing Dylan, or from kissing Kingsley, she thought. This was a human. A Red Blood. She could feel his heart thumping in his chest, smell his ripe human scent. And suddenly, she knew what she was about to do.

He lifted up his shirt and tossed it to the side. Bliss helped him unbutton her blouse. Her whole body tingled as he slipped a hand underneath her bikini top and untied the strings. He was moving so fast…but then, so was she.

She rolled him over so that she was straddling him, her knees pressed on the sand on either side of his hips.

"Nice," he said, ever the frat boy, admiring Bliss sitting astride, topless in the moonlight.

"You think?" she asked coyly. Then she bent her head down, kissing upward from the dark line of his torso, up to his chest, then to his neck, to the warm spot underneath his chin. She kissed him slowly with her tongue.

He sighed and held her head with his hands, pressing her closer to him.

And that's when she bit him with her fangs and began to feed….

TWENTY-NINE

The Committee maintained that all one needed to learn about one's past lives was to sit in a chair, close your eyes, and meditate, letting the mind wander down the endless hallways of memory, perusing a catalog of a thousand lifetimes.

In the dark privacy of her bedroom, Mimi snuggled on her princess divan, put a fur mask over her eyes, and began to concentrate.

The visions couldn't be clearer. Every iteration of her past showed her the same story: she and Jack together, happy, bonded, in love. She analyzed the history of their recent past: Plymouth, Newport, but neither time nor place offered a hint of a clue.

Try as she might, she couldn't find a reason for his withdrawal, for his doubt, for his hesitation. Or could she?

With a shock she remembered the look on his face at the Four Hundred Ball. That look of total and complete adoration. At the time she had tried to dismiss it as mere infatuation. Nothing more than mere curiosity, even. That was stupid of her. She had allowed herself to be blinded by her pride. She had been too long in denial.

The answer had been in front of her all along.

Schuyler Van Alen.

The little half-blood. Or more correctly, a Blue Blood without a past. A new spirit. This was the anomaly in their universe. This was the unknown factor that was keeping Jack off balance.