The Bloodlust Read online

  But instead I felt a stake plunge into my heart. My eyes fluttered open, and there stood my brother, laughing as he dug the wood yet deeper into me, the flower petals crushed beneath my prone form.

  My head lolled to the side, and my eyes snagged on the girl who was bleeding to death next to me on the grass. Her hair was fire-red, and her skin was moon-pale beneath her freckles.

  Callie! I tried to shout. But Damon snatched up my words in his fist before sinking a knife over and over into Callie’s back.

  “Stefan!” a voice called again, louder this time. I recognized the lilting alto. Lexi.

  “Nooo . . .” I moaned. I couldn’t allow Damon to kill her, too. “Go away!”

  “Stefan . . .” She came closer still, kneeling down beside me, holding a goblet to my lips.

  “No,” I said again.

  She shook my shoulders violently. My eyes popped open. The walls around me were painted with cracked red paint, and I saw a gilt-edged portrait on the opposite wall. I sat up, touching my face with my hands, then glancing down. I was still wearing my ring. I touched the stone. It felt very real.

  “Lexi?” I asked thickly.

  “Yes!” She smiled, clearly relieved. “You’re awake.”

  I glanced down at my body. My arm still throbbed, and there was dried blood underneath my fingernails. “Am I alive?”

  She nodded. “Just barely.”

  “Damon?”

  “We didn’t get him,” Lexi said darkly. “He ran off.”

  “Callie?” I asked. I didn’t want to hear, but I needed to know.

  Lexi looked down at her fingernails for a long moment, then lifted her amber eyes to mine. “I’m sorry, Stefan. We tried . . . Even Buxton tried to save her . . .”

  “But she was too far gone,” I finished for her. My head throbbed. “Where is she now?”

  Lexi pushed my matted hair off my temple. Her fingers were cool against my burning skin. “In the river. The whole city’s looking for her . . .” Lexi’s voice trailed off, but I understood everything that she wasn’t saying.

  The entire freak show knew of my friendship with Callie. So if people were looking, my presence was a danger to Lexi and her family.

  But even if my days here weren’t numbered, I wouldn’t be able to stay. New Orleans contained too much hurt and too many memories, ones that I hadn’t even begun to process.

  I flopped back against my pillows.

  “Before you rest, you need to drink,” Lexi murmured, helping me sit up again. “It’s your favorite, goat’s blood,” she said with a sad smile.

  I put my lips to the goblet. The brackish liquid tasted nothing like sweet, full-bodied human blood, but it was warm. And it contained something human blood never would: a dull spark of redemption. The more of this I drank, the less human blood would run through me.

  I wasn’t naïve, though. Guilt would always flow through my veins. I’d killed too many in my short time as a vampire, destroyed too many lives. Whether or not I drank from her, Callie’s death was on my hands as well. I should have turned my back on her, told her I never wanted to see her. But I’d been weak.

  “Good boy,” Lexi murmured as I finished drinking from the cup.

  I didn’t feel good. I felt sick and scared and unsure of what to do. Damon was still out in the world, somewhere, and Callie’s blood was running through his veins. My stomach tightened.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted, searching Lexi’s eyes for answers. But Lexi was silent.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said finally. “But I do know you’re a good man.”

  I sighed, ready to point out that I wasn’t a man at all, I was a monster. But Lexi stood up and gathered the mugs from the night table.

  “No more talking. Rest,” she said, pressing her lips to my forehead. “And try, my dear Stefan, not to dream.”

  Chapter 33

  When I woke up, I could tell from the light streaming through the crack in the curtains that it was daylight. I swung my feet onto the hardwood floor and grabbed the neat pile of clothes from the shopping trip with Lexi. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  I put on a new shirt, slicked my hair back, and put the rest of the clothes in a makeshift carrying case formed from my tattered shirt from Mystic Falls—the only item I still had from my old life.

  I glanced around the room, my eyes taking in the familiar layers of dust in the corners. I wondered how many vampires had passed through this house and whether Lexi would find another young vampire to take under her wing. I hoped, for his sake as well as hers, that he’d have a better time in this city of sin than I had had.

  Lexi was sitting in the living room. In her hands was the portrait of her brother. As soon as I stepped in, she glanced up.

  “Stefan,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I cut in. And I was, for all of it. For coming to New Orleans. For disrupting her life. For bringing danger to the tiny spot of security the vampires had managed to carve out.

  “I’m not. It was a privilege to have you.” Her gaze turned serious. “I’m sorry about Callie—and about your brother.”

  “He’s not my brother anymore,” I said quickly.

  Lexi set down the portrait on the coffee table. “Perhaps not anymore. But as you said yourself, he was for your whole human life. Can you remember that and forget the rest?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to remember Damon. Not now, not ever.

  Lexi crossed the room and put her hand on my arm. “Stefan, missing humans and your human life hurts. But it does get easier.”

  “When?” I asked, my voice cracking slightly.

  She glanced back at the portrait on the table. “I’m not sure. It happens gradually.” She paused, then laughed, the sound so innocent and lighthearted that I wanted to sit down and stay at the house forever. “Let me guess. You want it to happen now.”

  I smiled. “You know me well.”

  Lexi frowned. “You need to learn to slow down, Stefan. You have an eternity ahead of you.”

  A silence fell between us, the word eternity clanging in my ears.

  With a jerk, I pulled Lexi into a hug, inhaled the comforting aroma of our friendship, then sped out of the house without a glance back.

  Once outside, I chastised myself for my sentimentality. I had much to atone for, and feeling sorry for myself was self-indulgent. I paused at the spot on the street where Callie had died. There was no bloodstain, nothing to mark the fact that she’d even existed. I knelt down, glancing over my shoulder before I kissed the pavement.

  Then I stood up and began to run, faster and faster. It was dawn, and the city was just waking up. Messenger boys zipped by on delivery bikes, and Union soldiers marched through the streets, their rifles nestled in their arms like infants. Vendors were already setting up on the sidewalk, and the air smelled like sugar and smoke.

  And, of course, like the tangy scent of blood and iron.

  I quickly reached the train station, where the platform was already bustling. Men in morning coats sat on worn wooden benches in the waiting area, reading newspapers, while women nervously clutched their purses. The entire station had an air of festive transience. It was the perfect hunting ground. And before I could help it, my fangs protruded from my gums.

  Bowing my face into my hands, I counted to ten, fighting the hunger that raced through me and waiting for my teeth to click back into their human form.

  Finally, I joined a wave of people who were headed to the platform and took a spot at the far end. Next to me, two lovers were entwined in an embrace. A soldier ran his hand through the woman’s strawberry-blond hair, and the woman, balancing on her tiptoes, held on to his shoulders as if she never wanted to let go.

  I watched them for a long moment, wondering if in a different life Callie and I could have played out that same scene. If she would have kissed me as I went off to battle, then waited eagerly on the platform for my return home.

  The whistle blew, and the train roare
d into the station, kicking up a cloud of dust and breaking me out of my reverie.

  I followed the soldier on board, wondering if he and his lover would experience a happy ending. I took solace in knowing, at least, that should they not, it would not be because of me.

  I entered the coach compartment.

  “Ticket, sir?” a conductor asked, holding out his hand.

  I locked eyes with him, my stomach turning with disgust at having to rely on my Power.

  Let me pass. “I showed it to you,” I said aloud. “You must have forgotten.”

  The conductor nodded, stepping aside to allow me on. The train lurched out of the station, taking me to a new life. One where I would never compel unless I had to, and one where I’d never again taste human blood.

  Epilogue

  Once I stopped drinking human blood, I became even better at hearing a heartbeat, knowing in an instant, from the speed of a pulse, whether a human was sad or annoyed or in love. Not that I was around humans very much. After I left New Orleans, I truly was a creature of the night, sleeping during the day and venturing into the outside world only when humans were safe in their beds, fast asleep. But occasionally I’d hear a quickening heartbeat and know that someone was climbing from a window or sneaking out a door to meet a lover, stealing a few moments of intimacy.

  That was the hardest sound to hear. Whenever I did hear it, I was reminded of Callie, of her fluttering heart and quick smile. Of how alive she was, and how she was not afraid to be in love with me despite my true nature. Now, when I think of our plan to escape, I can’t help but laugh bitterly at myself for ever thinking it could have been a possibility. It had been the same foolish mistake I’d made when I’d fallen in love with Katherine, believing that humans and vampires could love each other, that our differences were just a minor detail that could be easily solved. But I wouldn’t fall into that trap a third time. Whenever vampires and humans dared to love each other, death and destruction were sure to follow. And I had enough blood on my hands to last an eternity.

  I would never know the extent of the harm Damon was causing in the world. Sometimes I’d see a newspaper article or hear snatches of conversation about a mysterious death, and my mind would instantly jump to my brother. I’d listen for him, too, always waiting to hear him call “Brother” in his exaggerated drawl.

  But mostly I listened to myself. The longer I subsisted on animal blood, killing the odd squirrel or fox in a forest, the more my Power ebbed, until it was simply a faded thrum in the background of my being. Without Power, I lost the electric sense of feeling alive, but the guilt I would carry for the rest of my existence had dulled around the edges. It was a trade-off, one of many I’d learned to make, and one of many more I’d have to make in the eternity that stretched in front of me.

  So I made the vow to always keep moving, to never stay in one place too long or grow too close to anyone. That is the only way I’ll do no harm. Because God help us all if I ever fall in love with another human . . .

  Books by L. J. Smith

  The Vampire Diaries:

  Vol I: The Awakening

  The Vampire Diaries:

  Vol II: The Struggle

  The Vampire Diaries:

  Vol III: The Fury

  The Vampire Diaries:

  Vol IV: Dark Reunion

  The Vampire Diaries

  The Return Vol. 1: nightfall

  The Vampire Diaries

  The Return Vol. 2: shadow souls

  The Vampire Diaries

  The Return Vol. 3: Midnight

  The Vampire Diaries

  Stefan’s Diaries Vol. 1: Origins

  The Secret Circle

  The Initiation and The Captive Part I

  The Secret Circle

  The Captive Part II and The Power

  WANT MORE OF STEFAN’S DIARIES?

  KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT THE CRAVING,

  COMING MAY 2011.

  Perface

  Everything has changed. My body, my desires, my needs, my appetite.

  My soul.

  In seventeen short years, I’ve borne witness to more tragedy than anyone should—and been the cause of far too much of it. With me I carry the memory of my death, and that of my brother. The sound of our last breaths in the mossy woods of Mystic Falls, Virginia, haunts me. I see my father’s lifeless body on the floor of his study in our magnificent Veritas Estate. I still smell the charred church where the town’s vampires burned. And I can almost taste the blood I took and the lives I stole out of sheer hunger and indifference after my transformation. Most clearly I see the curious dreamer of a boy I once was, and if my heart could beat, it would break for the vile creature I’ve become.

  But though the very molecules of my being have morphed beyond recognition, the world continues to turn. Children grow older, their plump faces thinning with the passage of time. Young lovers exchange secret smiles as they chat about the weather. Parents sleep while the moon keeps watch, wake when the sun’s rays nudge them out of slumber, eat, labor, love. And always, their hearts pump with rhythmic thuds, steady, loud, hypnotic, the blood as alluring to me as a snake charmer’s tune is to a cobra.

  I once scoffed at the tediousness of human life, believing the Power I had made me more. Through her example, my maker, Katherine, taught me that since time holds no sway over vampires, I could become divorced from it, living from moment to moment, moving from one carnal pleasure to the next with no fear of consequences.

  But now the strength I have is a burden, the constant thirst for blood a curse, the promise of immortality a terrible cross to bear.

  Before I left New Orleans, I battled the monster my brother, Damon, had become—a monster I had a hand in creating. Now, as I remake myself up North, far from anyone who’s ever known me as either a human or a vampire, the only demon I have to battle is my own hunger.

  Chapter 1

  I picked out a heartbeat, a single life, in the near distance.

  The other noises of the city faded into the background as this one called to me. She had wandered from her friends and left the well-worn paths.

  The sun had set over Central Park, where I’d exiled myself since arriving in New York seven long days ago. The colors in this expanse of wilderness were softening, sliding toward each other, shadows blurring with the things that made them. The oranges and deep blues of the sky morphed into an inky black, while the muddy ground dimmed to a velvety sienna.

  Around me, most of the world was still, paused in the breath that comes at the end of the day when the watches change: Humans and their daylight companions lock their doors and the creatures of the night like myself come out to hunt.

  The heartbeat I pursued now began to recede, its owner moving away. Desperate, I took off, forcing my body to move quickly, my feet to push off from the ground. I was weak from lack of feeding and needed every spare bit of energy for the hunt. I crashed through bushes and trees, my chase growing far louder than I intended. My hunting skills had weakened along with my strength.

  The bearer of the heart I followed heard and knew her death was close behind her. Now she was entirely alone, cut off from her crowd, and aware of her plight. She began to run in earnest.

  What a spectacle I must have made: dark hair askew, skin as pale as a corpse’s, eyes starting to redden as the vampire in me came out. Running and leaping through the woods like a wild man, still dressed in the finery Lexi, my friend in New Orleans, had given me, the white silk shirt now torn at the sleeves.

  She picked up speed. But I wasn’t going to lose her.

  My need for blood became an ache so strong that I could contain myself no longer. A sweet pain bloomed along my jaw and I felt my fangs come out. The blood in my face grew hot as I underwent the change. My senses expanded as my Power took over, sapping my last bit of vampiric strength.

  I leaped, moving at a speed beyond human and animal. From rock to low branch I raced toward my prey, closing the distance between us in mere seconds. With t
hat instinct all living creatures have, the poor thing felt death closing in and began to panic, scrambling for safety under the trees. Her heart pounded out of control: thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump.

  The tiny part of me that was still human might have felt bad for what I was about to do, but the vampire in me needed the blood.

  With a final jump, I caught my prey—a large, greedy squirrel who’d left her pack to scavenge for extra food. Time slowed down to a standstill as I descended, ripped her neck aside, and sank my teeth into her flesh, draining her life into me.

  I’d eaten squirrels as a human, which lessened my guilt marginally. Back home in Mystic Falls, my brother and I used to hunt in the tangled woods that surrounded our estate. Though squirrels were poor eating for most of the year, they were fat and tasted like nuts in the fall. Squirrel blood, however, was no such feast; it was rank and seared my tongue. Still, I forced myself to keep drinking.

  It was nourishment, nothing more—and barely that. It was a tease, a reminder of the fresh, thick sweet liquid that runs in a human’s veins.

  It had only been one month since a vampire named Katherine had transformed me into a creature like her, but I’d crowded that time with too much horror and tragedy. Heady with my new Power, the limitless strength and speed of a vampire, I tore through humans as if their lives were meaningless. Every warm drop made me feel alive, strong, fearless and powerful.

  Even concentrating, trying to send myself back mentally to see the faces of each of my victims, all of those people I killed, I couldn’t. Except for one: