AN: Feedback = Kei Love.

inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com


************** Curiosity Killed... Chapter Thirty Three ***************



“No, phone bad!” I mutter and nestle closer to Kevin’s sheltering warmth.  
He rumbles with laughter at my ill temper and strokes a bare shoulder 
lightly as I shiver in automatic response.  The other hand reaches over 
my smaller form to grab the cell phone I left on the bedside table like 
a good captive before I let myself be seduced.  

I don’t need Kevin’s suddenly tense body to know that something is terribly 
wrong.  A rolling sense of nausea does that for me just fine.  I bolt 
upright and reach for the phone before he manages to say a wooden hello 
to the caller, my face white.  “Give me the phone.”  

“Cat…” he starts to chide gently but stills as Dracula’s coldly spoken 
command spills across the distance between us.  

“Give her the phone, Kevin.” 

My numb fingers take the grudgingly offered cell phone.  I cradle it to 
my ear and swallow my premonition of doom.  I wet my lips and wait for a 
Vampire I have forsaken for a round of sex with a Backstreet Boy to speak.  
But this call isn’t about us, about what our convoluted relationship has 
become or not become; I can feel that in my bones.  

“Catherine, darling,” Dracula states, voice as cold and richly beautiful
as ever, but gentle too and I shudder.  I’ve never, ever, known the Prince 
of Darkness to be soft.  To comfort.  It frightens me, a LOT.  “There’s 
been an… accident.”

Kevin carefully places supporting hands on my hips to steady me as we sit 
in a rumpled bed we’ve made love in for most of the night.  “What kind of 
accident?” I demand thickly, the words pulled with unwilling slowness from 
my dry lips.  

Dracula sighs and the sound is worldly, weary, the sigh of someone who has 
borne bad news for centuries.  Who has crippled so many spirits with the 
tidings only he has had the strength to carry.  “It’s Stephen.”  

My blood is roaring in my ears suddenly, screaming, but not loud enough to 
drown out the gory details Dracula is giving me.  Not loud enough to stop 
Lydia’s words from playing on repeat in my mind, ‘A little squirrel told 
me where you hide you real heart and it walks and talks and screams just 
like you… I’m not so cruel as to take your heart without warning…’

“Oh god…” I whimper as the cell slides from my hand.  Lydia called to tell 
me that she was going to kill Stephen.  Lydia warned me.  And she told me 
who gave her the idea; who told her my weakest link the chink of Dracula’s 
protection.  The best way to break me.  Squirrels, only Marquis de Leonce 
has the ability to communicate with squirrels.  The bastard.  I know I’ll 
feel the steadying influence of rage later but right now, now I don’t feel 
anything at all.

I don’t remember much else for a very long time.  

******************************************************************

“Get out of my way Kevin.”  He reaches for me and I dart away, not wanting 
him to touch me, not able to let him touch me.  Not now, not when I know 
that I was making love to him while his Sire was killing my best friend.

My heart.

Funny thing is, I’ve given my heart to Kevin Richardson and I don’t know 
where that leaves us, except for the fact that I can’t be touched.  Not 
right now.  Not when my hands are shaking so badly I can barely pack.  

“You can’t go,” he says softly.  

My head snaps up but I don’t care how grave and serious he looks.  There 
are some things I won’t be denied.  The right to say goodbye to my best 
friend is one of them.  Not even by the Council, and certainly not by the 
Backstreet Boys.

“You can’t stop me,” I reply, steely, coldly, denying all the warmth, the 
compassion, on his face.  

“Catherine…”

I swallow tightly.  “Don’t Kevin, don’t try to stop me.  It won’t end well.  
I… you’ve gotten what you wanted.  You’ve bagged me just, let me go.  I have 
to go to him.  I have to tell him…” I gasp and swallow more tears, “I have 
to tell him how sorry I am for failing him.  For not keeping him safe enough.”   

He uses his damn Vampire speed to capture me in a gentle embrace that’s 
almost my undoing but I won’t take comfort in his arms.  Not when that 
comfort has cost me Stephen.  So I stand stiffly as he hugs me to him, to 
the body I’ve marveled over.  “It isn’t your fault Cat.”  

I laugh bitterly because they will never, ever see, or understand the world 
of Vampire.  “It can never be anything but my fault Kevin.”    

I can feel him sigh around me.  “You’re more than a conquest,” he finally 
whispers slowly.  

I raise my chin proudly, denying my grief, and the stupid, stupid hope his 
words kindle.  “I… I lov…”

He stills absolutely and my breathing sounds loud between us.  “Do you love 
me?” Kevin Richardson demands as he holds me.  As he tilts my chin higher so 
that my stubborn amber gaze clashes with his pretty, pretty green.  

I shake my head no even as I grant him the truth, not because he’d sense my 
lie, but because he deserves the truth.  “Yes, but that isn’t what matters.”

His embrace tightens.  “I can’t think of anything that matters more.”

I meet his eyes bravely as I ask, “Do you love me?”  

Watch as emerald eyes flash black and dwindle like a dying flame.  Watch as 
his jaw clenches and locks; a vein throbs on his temple.  

“No.”  

I look away and close my eyes, carefully letting my hope die before 
swallowing the rest of my tears resolutely.  They have no place here, with 
him, and I don’t either, not anymore.  

Stupid Mr. Dumb Pants.  

“Then that’s what matters.  Nothing else ever can.” 

He doesn’t even try to stop me from leaving this time because he knows he 
can’t.  I’m stronger than him, than them all, and I’m afraid I’m going to 
be grieving for five more friends before long.  But first, before I try to 
save them, I have to say goodbye to the one I couldn’t save.

I have to tell Stephen I love him one more time.