Page 44 of Fanged Embrace
At the sound of light pattering outside, my eyes drifted toward the window.
Beads of water had begun to freckle the glass, soft at first, tentative taps that soon grew into a gentle percussion. The room dimmed to a deeper blue. I sat perfectly still, listening to the shush of Laurie’s steady breaths and the rain picking up outside.
Under the pillow, her voice slurred in deeper drowsiness. “I love the rain.”
“Yeah?” I murmured, keeping my eyes on the stream trickling down the glass.
“It’s my favorite sound. The night I got free…it was pouring. Loud enough to drown out everything else. Thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world.”
I didn’t dare so much as whisper a response. Anything uttered aloud would shatter the moment.
I stared out the window, taking in the pitter patter from her point of view, savoring what that sound must have meant to her. I barely noticed the weight rolling off my shoulders, the last gasp of her frantic aura melting away under mine.
After a long while, I risked leaning over and gently lifted the pillow.
Laurie was out cold, head turned against the mattress.
The hard lines of tension had melted from her face, and her dark lashes rested soft on hollow cheeks. In sleep she looked younger. Peaceful. Not ground down by the world around her. Her features were still sharp as cliff edges, everything from her nose to the slice of her jaw, but she no longer looked so… angry. Afraid.
This was who she could have been, had she been dealt a different hand in life.
I decided it was probably time to make my exit, so I tucked the blanket a little tighter around her shoulder and quietly slipped off the bed. Laurie didn’t stir, deep in a dreamless sleep that I suspected she desperately needed.
I was halfway to the door before I paused. Looked back.
She lay like Sleeping Beauty now, but the nightmares would return. One night of casual conversation wasn’t enough to chase them away for good.
And so, instead of walking myself back to my own bed like I probably should have done, I untangled one of the blankets from her booby trap and settled down in the chair near the foot of the bed.
I pulled the blanket over my legs and got comfortable, keeping one eye on the sleeping figure and conscious of anyripples in her otherwise peaceful aura.Just for the rest of the night,was what I told myself.Guard duty—nothing more.
Laurie murmured something inaudible before her breaths came easy again. Raindrops tapped the window and I clutched my proverbial sword, ready and waiting to fend off whatever nightmares dared come for her.
22
Laurie
When I opened my eyes that morning and sat upright in the massive guest bed, I was aware of three things: River had been here, River was no longer here, and I had risen from a dreamless, dare I say,peacefulsleep feeling… not good—let’s not get ahead of ourselves—but definitely not as shit as usual.
I flopped down on my back, staring at the ceiling and doing my best to recall exactly what had happened last night. The memories were hazy, but I could remember River’s presence.
She came in through the wardrobe—like a creep—and she rambled a lot, doing her best to distract me from my usual night terrors. How she knew I’d been thrashing through a nightmare in the first place, I had no idea. Maybe I’d been screaming. How I’d managed to fall asleep again, in the presence of avampire, was also beyond me.
Thinking about it now, the patchwork snippets I could recall were absurd enough that I had to wonder if I’d simply dreamed the whole thing up.
And if it was real, I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it. Mortified that she’d seen me in that state, maybe? Furious that she’d wormed her way in despite the locked door and my carefully laid tripwires? If I allowed myself a brief moment of weakness, I could admit that some part of me was simply grateful for the slight reprieve.
Unfortunately, the gracious part of me was very small and the rest of me was a complete bitch, so I settled for being indignant about the whole ordeal.
I was also growing vaguely aware of a new sensation, a scent like fresh bread and something sweet floating through the crack in the door. Vampires don’t eat anything remotely close to that, so I could only assume that whatever was exuding that tantalizing aroma was intended for me.
And God, it smelled good. But I refused to take the bait. Still committed to being indignant, I folded my arms and sank deeper into the pillows, determined to ignore whatever my vampiric hostess had in store for me.
Until my stomach gave an impromptu rumble, and the subsequent hunger pangs eventually dragged me out of bed.
Unwilling to admit defeat I settled for frowning about it, even as I huffed in more of that mouth-watering scent. How long had it been since I’d eaten anything at all? I couldn’t remember—but the faint dizziness that emerged when my feet hit the floor was an indicator that I was long overdue for a dose of my standard cheap noodles.
I swiped my cell from the nightstand and shuffled toward the door, nudging aside half the linen closet still tied together across the floor, and followed that delicious aroma out into the hall.
