Page 2 of Kentucky Nights
“They aren’t rumors, Mr. Jones. I am what they fear.”
I push her off me, grabbing husks of long grass to pull myself away from the woman I thought I loved.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I could have already. Over all these months, have I ever harmed you?” Audrey stands, lifting her dress off the ground so it doesn’t drag across the dirt. “Have I ever done anything that would make you afraid of me?”
“No, but I am afraid right now,” I admit, my heart hammering in my chest.
She inhales deeply, tilting her head back until she can’t suck in any more air. “Your fear is making me thirsty.”
Faster than I can blink, she pins me to the ground, and air whooshes from my lungs. Her hand presses against my chest, keeping me down with her supernatural strength.
I can’t move.
“You smell delicious.” She buries her nose into my neck, inhaling as if I’m a meal she can’t wait to have. “Spend the next one thousand years with me, Kentucky. We can travel the world. You’ll never age. You’ll never get sick. You’ll be stronger than everyone. We can do what we want, when we want. Doesn’t that sound beautiful? We aren’t fated mates, but I’ll love you for the one thousand years we will get together.”
Peering into her blood-ridden eyes, I face the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my years with. “That doesn’t sound like a life to me, Audrey. I don’t want to live forever. I don’t want to be stronger than humankind. I don’t want to wield that kind of power. I want to grow old one day. I want to die and be buried underneath that big Kentucky Coffeetree in front of my home. Livin’ for a thousand years sounds more like a curse than a blessin’ to me. I want a human life. I want the life I have, and I don’t want it to change.” Her fangs gleam in the light as an iridescent tear drips down her cheek. With a shaking hand, I wipe it away. “If you love me at all, you’ll respect that. I can’t be a vampire, Audrey. I don’t want that.”
She shakes her head, pressing her lips against my palm. “You don’t mean that. You don’t understand. That’s just your mortality talking. Once you have lived as a vampire, you will want nothing more. You’ll wonder how you have lived such a boring human life. You’ll be faster, stronger, smarter, and you’ll have the ability to mystify. Some even get extra powers like mind reading, healing, taking away pain, but not me. I’m just your run-of-the-mill vampire.”
“Mystify?” I question.
She bends down, her hand gliding down my chest. “To alter the human mind and make them believe anything you want them to.”
“Have you done that with me?” I dare to ask, wondering if everything between us has been a lie.
Only yesterday were we walking hand in hand in town, popping into the local candy shop to get the saltwater taffy she likes so much. The way she smiled was so human compared to the woman I’m looking at now.
Hungry eyes are the color of a blood moon. Her fangs are sharp and delicate, lethal in a way I’d love to feel them across my skin if she had gone about this another way.
I don’t care that she’s a vampire. I only care that she made me fall in love with her when we want different things. All I care about is the lie that has been woven between us.
She eases the pressure on my chest, and I no longer feel like I’m sinking into the ground. “You’re holding onto a life that is insignificant.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart,” I say. “I do not see my life as insignificant. I love knowin’ all the work I’ve done, the people I’ve met, the wrinkles I’ll gain, and the pain I’ll endure will all be worth it when I’m old and grey. I would have lived a life filled with all the good and all the bad. Why would I want an eternity of that? Why would I want to outlive everyone I love? That sounds like a long time to feel pain, Audrey. Eventually, the good will blur after so long, and everything will feel bad.”
She cries, small sobs shake her shoulders, and she cups either side of my face. “Not everything. I’ve waited a hundred years to love a man like you. You made all the bad feel so good, Kentucky. Please, want this. Want me enough to love you for the next thousand years.”
“I don’t understand your sense of time.” I push her away from me and stand, lacing my hands behind my head as I stare up at the sky.
“You’re afraid of me. I can smell it on you.”
I drop my arms and turn around, her eyes still the brightest shade of crimson. “Of course I am. You think because I love you that I’m magically going to be okay with you being a”—I lowermy voice—“a vampire? People are huntin’ you. You’ve been there with me at the town meetings. Remember William? He’s leadin’ the damn charge, Audrey. He has half the town convinced, and I didn’t believe him. I didn’t…” I laugh at myself. “I didn’t believe him because I thought it was insanity. It was too hard to believe. You’re stories told at bedtime. You ain’t supposed to be real. You’ve killed people.” I take a few staggering steps away at the realization that I’m standing in front of a woman who has killed and who could easily make me her next target.
“No. Listen. Listen to me,” she continues to cry those beautiful, shimmering tears. Audrey is nothing but a blur as she eats the space between us.
I hardly recognize her like this.
“My kind, we have something called fated mates. You humans would probably know it by the term ‘soulmate.’ Where do you think the saying ‘It was love at first sight’ came from? All supernatural creatures know at first sight. It has to do with smell.”
“You just said I wasn’t your fated mate. Why are you tellin’ me this? I don’t want that life,” I roar, slamming my hand so hard against my chest, I cough. “I don’t want this.”
“You aren’t my fated mate, but vampires, we can choose to mate with someone. It prolongs our two-hundred-year life to a thousand. Vampires who find their mates live forever, but a thousand years? It will feel like eternity, Kentucky. Imagine all you could do. You could be anything you wanted. Take anything you dreamed of. Everything will be easier.”
I scoff, looking at her up and down in so much disappointment. My heart breaks realizing that the woman I’ve loved is a stranger to me.
“I don’t want any of that. I’m an honest man. I am who I want be. I am livin’ my dream. I don’t need forever to promise me what I already have. That’s the difference between us.”
“You didn’t seem to find any differences last night when my fangs went in your dick and your come heated my hand.” Her eyes burn brighter, and her tongue licks over her fangs.
