Page 39 of Secret of the Vampire
He didn’t go to his car as I expected. Instead, I followed Alex as he walked past the high-rises all the way through the Warehouse District and under the expressway. Past the homeless humans living in tents. Hanging back, I watched with a mixture of feelings as Alex stopped and said hello, handing out cash like it was Monopoly money, even staying a few minutes to chat with one elderly man before continuing on his way.
Waiting until he got a couple of blocks ahead, I followed him, running past the humans too fast for them to see me.
At the corner of Jackson Ave and Saint Charles Ave I stopped, unable to follow him any further as he continued down the street. Magic pulsed in the air around The Garden District neighborhood like a forcefield, sure to alert the witches if I dared to cross the boundary. But that was okay because I’d found out what I’d needed to know. Alex was just going home.
With a sigh of relief, I turned down Saint Charles, following the tracks that ran down the center of the street all the way to Lee Circle. There, after making a face at the statue of Robert E. Lee, I took a seat on the steps of the monument and pulled out my phone. By some miracle, no one had tried to find me yet. Perhaps they assumed I’d come home with Brogan and was now tucked safely away in my bedroom for the day with a book. Brogan assuming I’d called Jamal, of course, and gotten home way before him.
Relieved, I set my cell phone on the step beside me. I needed some time to think away from the curious minds of my coven, where I didn’t have to constantly monitor my thoughts for fear someone would accidentally—or purposely—pull something out of my head I wasn’t ready for them to know.
I just needed a minute to figure out what I was feeling so I could shove those emotions way down before I was around the guys again. Because right now, I felt like a hundred different emotions were buzzing around inside of me, and the only commonality between them was that they all had something to do with a certain warlock named Alex Moss.
With a frown, I pushed that thought away. Though I really wanted to know, how he chose to identify himself wasn’t important. Leaning back on my elbows, I watched a lonely pedestrian walk quickly down the sidewalk as I thought back to all of my interactions with Alex since he’d healed me. My mind quickly going over everything he’d said, the way he’d looked at me, the way he’d touched me.
His kisses.
His reaction when I’d kissed him back.
I squeezed my thighs together as I remembered it all in great detail. Surely, he couldn’t have been faking that. I tasted nothing false in his kisses, felt nothing deceptive in his touch.
Or perhaps he was just a really good actor.
I pursed my lips, thinking about that. No. No, he couldn’t be that good. And much as everyone liked to think otherwise, I wasn’t that naive. There was honesty in the attraction between us. I’d felt it filling my hand tonight, for the sake of the gods. Saw it in his eyes and the way his entire body trembled in his effort to keep his need for me under control. Surely, he couldn’t fake that. I knew I could trust that much at least.
Attraction, a funny word that didn’t come close to describing the unceasing desperation I felt to be near him. All the time. Every moment. Even now, it was like there was an invisible thread connecting us even though we were far apart, pulling me in his direction. Like, somehow, when he’d reached inside of me to remove the curse, he’d left something of himself behind. And now he was a part of me.
And the way he played my body…gods. My heart began to race just thinking about it. I yearned to feel him against me, skin to skin. Dreamed of the taste of his blood. The way he moaned in my ear.
Or even just the way he watched me from across the room.
And he was always watching me.
Taking off my glasses, I closed my eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose with my fingertips as I tried to tune out the physical reaction Alex invoked in me, set my emotions aside, and think about what was happening with us in a logical manner.
But it was impossible to separate the two. My physical need for Alex was inexplicably woven into my perception of him and what he told me to be true. It colored everything he said. Everything he did. And the way I reacted to it.
If I were to be truly logical about it though, I knew that we couldn’t keep on the way we’d been. Sneaking around like teenagers. It was ridiculous. But what were my other choices?
Simple, I told myself. There was only one. To stop seeing him. My heart plummeted to my stomach, but I knew I was right. I wouldn’t…no, Icouldn’trisk my family because my lady parts had the hots for a warlock.
Vivid memories of my human life assaulted me. Always poor. Always alone. None of the families who took me in ever formed any sort of attachment to me, nor I to them, really. I was never good enough to be someone’s daughter. Or someone’s sister. Though I desperately longed to be both of those. And I changed schools every time I switched foster parents, so I never had any chance to make friends. I was the shy kid with the ugly glasses who always had my nose stuck in a library book. Sometimes the kids were nice enough, other times they weren’t. But most of the time they just ignored me. And on the rare occasion one of my classmates reached out to me, I would have to move before we could truly become friends. So, books became my constant companion. The characters in them the only friends I needed.
But the night I woke up as a vampire, all of that changed. Killian became my father, my friend, and my teacher. And what was more, he accepted me and cared about me even with all of my imperfections I carried over with me into my immortal life. The other guys took me under their wing, too. And before I knew it, I had an instant family who truly cared about each other and looked out for one another. Something I’d never known before.
They were the only ones who’d ever stuck their necks out for me. And I wasn’t going to blow that all away now.
So tonight, I was going to go home and tell them all what was going on, and this time I wasn’t leaving Alex out of the picture. Surely, once Killian and the others heard everything he’d done to keep me—and them—safe, they wouldn’t be able to do anything but thank him. And Jamal could back up my story.
Mind made up, I was anxious to get home and stood up to leave. Before I could, however, I felt it. The dark magic that had been hunting me the other night. It slithered along my skin, worming its way beneath my clothes and leaving shivers in its wake.
The djinn was here.
I froze, my heart pounding in my chest. I needed to get the hell out of there, and I needed to do it now.
A man with dark hair and eyes appeared at the bottom of the monument, directly below me. Like a vampire, one second I was alone and the next he was there. He wore nothing but a dark long-sleeved sweater and dress slacks. Black shoes. Not what I was expecting to see on such an infamous supernatural creature. He looked…normal, harmless, except for the waves of ominous sorcery hitting me.
“Hello, vampire,” he said in a pleasant voice. “It seems we meet again.”
I ran. Spinning around, I took off up the steps to the statue and down the other side of the monument. My mind numb with fear, I didn’t go in the direction of Killian and the others, but back down Saint Charles Ave.
