Page 42 of Ophelia's Vampire

“Slightly more than a few decades,” Cas says quietly. “As far as I know, I’m around four hundred years old.”

As far as he knows?The obvious question bubbles up on my lips, but I bite it back. We fall silent, both lost in our individual thoughts.

Mine bounce from silent admonishment about getting too personal, to the meal I shared with Cas in his huge, beautiful kitchen.

Last night was… weird. Really weird. Like, abducted by aliens and plopped down in some bizzaro alternate reality kind of weird.

If someone had told me two months ago that I’d be in Casimir’s house cooking pasta, chatting over dinner with him, doing dishes with him, I would have laughed straight in their face.

Though, that doesn’t mean I had a bad time.

I enjoyed myself. With Cas. I enjoyed myself with Cas.

I have to turn the words over in my mind a couple of times for them to make sense.

The unexpected realization has brought a whole host of other feelings with it.

Confusion, for how quickly the dynamic between us has changed. Wariness, because I still don’t know Cas, not really, and don’t know how much I can trust him.

And guilt, because we still haven’t talked about how everything went down between us seven years ago, and I’m really starting to think we should.

Hanging out with him last night in his house that feels so strangely empty, seeing a side of him I didn’t know existed, enjoying his hospitality and generosity, reminded me again of how wounded he seemed when I made him think all I wanted to do was use him.

I’ve never apologized, not really, and the further we get into the investigation and this tentative friendship we’ve formed, the larger that elephant in the room becomes.

In some ways, being at odds with him was easier, simpler. But trusting him? Partnering with him and staying in his driveway? Wearing the fading mark of his bite on my throat? Reckoning with a past that still has the power to lodge a sour ball of shame squarely into my gut?

Not easy. Not simple. Not in the slightest.

“Your stepfather is a vampire?”

The question pulls me out of those thoughts, and I glance over at him. His face is cast half in shadow, half in the warm yellow glow of the streetlight we’re parked under, and the focused crimson of his gaze makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat.

I tip my head back against the headrest and let out a long breath.

“Yeah, it’s all a bit complicated. My mom is human, and so’s my dad, but the two of them split before I was even born. Mom is bloodbound to Samuel, and they have Cleo together. Kind of a whole dramatic secret baby thing, but it worked out for them in the end.”

He studies me for a few long moments, and I’m glad for the darkness. I’m glad for the tiny bit of protection it offers me as I keep talking.

“It’s how I wound up in that world in the first place. At the Raven. With other paranormals. Through Samuel and Cleo. And my mom, too, since her bloodbond.”

Cas still doesn’t respond, and I mentally kick myself for rambling.

Again, stupid. So stupid. I’m not sure what it is about this vampire that rattles my nerves so much, but I make myself stop talking and wait for him to say something.

“And where does that leave you?” he asks softly.

“What do you mean?”

“With a vampire father and a bloodbound mother. A half-vampire sister who has her own bloodbound, I believe? Where does that leave you?”

My stomach drops to somewhere near my feet.

So much for worrying about asking inappropriate questions. Apparently Cas has absolutely no problem going straight for the emotional jugular.

I make myself shrug. “It leaves me here. Human. Just Ophelia.”

“Just Ophelia,” he murmurs. “Somehow I don’t think that’s entirely accurate.”

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