Page 58 of Burn Falls
“No.”
I kissed her again, and then left to discard the empty condom.
After we showered and cleaned up, we cuddled on her couch and watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. It was an older one she’d said, one where there was a McDreamy and a McSteamy. I didn’t understand it, but I got the impression that Calla thought she was living in her own episode by dating McNaughty.
We also had round two after I’d finished off another blood bag, but this time I let her be on top. I still wanted to ram up into her, but I let her pick the pace, and after she came and I had an orgasm, I tucked her into bed. After Calla had fallen asleep in my arms, I crawled out of bed and got dressed.
“Hey.” I brushed a piece of her hair away from her face and bent at the knee so I was eye level with her. “Wake up for a second, sweetheart.”
Her green eyes darted open, and her heart started to beat a little faster. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
I smiled to try to put her at ease. “Everything’s fine, but I have to go.”
“You do?” I knew she’d assumed I was staying the night, and I felt bad that I wasn’t, but I couldn’t risk the chance that sunlight would get to me somehow.
“I wish I could stay, but Martin called, and he needs my help sooner,” I lied.
“What time is it?”
“Almost six.”
“Will I see you later tonight?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ll try.”
Calla sighed. “Right. You were coming to see your friend—”
“Hey,” I said again and rubbed the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip. “I promise to see you before I go back to Burn Falls. You need to meet Martin, remember?”
“Right. My traveling bodyguard.” She chuckled slightly.
I smiled warmly at her. “Yes, and I’d feel better since it will take you a few days to drive there given it’s almost twenty-three hundred miles.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Valencia. We can make a road trip out of it, and then I’ll put her on a plane when I drive through Anchorage.”
“You think Valencia can protect you?”
She thought for a moment as though two girls on the open road was actually safe. Maybe in the normal world it was, but not in the world I lived. A world where a vampire had tried to kill her father and could be looking for her.
“You’re right.”
“How about this? You meet Martin. If you don’t like him, I’ll pay for a moving company to drive your stuff to Burn Falls and fly you to Anchorage.”
Calla’s face brightened in the moonlit room. “You’d do that?”
“I’d do anything to protect you.”
“You know I’ve lived on my own since college, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, but that was before a monster tried to kill your father, remember?”
“I wish they’d catch the guy so I could get some peace.”
“Me too, sweetheart. Me too.”
“Uncle Draven!” I woke to the piercing scream of my name, and loud footsteps running down the wood stairs to where I was in the basement. “You’re here!”
I turned over in the twin bed that I barely fit in and saw Martin’s youngest daughter, Millie, running toward me. After I moved to Burn Falls, he’d had this wild child, making him a father of three girls, and each month I would visit, the youngest would always wake me.
