“Yes. Now go lay your big ass on that couch. I need to get to work.”
Lucian shot me one last blood-heating look, then went to stretch himself out on the cat-ravaged couch.
I grinned to myself, then sat down and tried—but mostly failed—to ignore the huge man lying just a few feet behind me and the pulsing thrum of my heartbeat. It was strange, like each beat of my heart sent out a little probe in his direction, checking that we were still close enough.
I started going through the motions of work. Removing samples from the fridge and spreading them on slides. Checking them under the microscope and running their numbers to gather data on various treatments I needed to test.
I’d been working for about an hour when a thought occurred to me. I glanced at Lucian, who was sleeping on the couch. I wasn’t sure if he was messing with me, but he was lying on his back with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs sticking straight out like the picture of a vampire in a coffin.
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help smiling.
When Anya wasn’t watching, I pricked my finger and put some of my own blood on a slide, then looked under the microscope.
At first glance, it was completely normal. Just the endless sea of red blood cells bobbing around like abandoned floaties in a huge pool. But there was something wrong.
Little black, spikey things were moving around the sample with purpose. They’d occasionally swarm a damaged cell, vibrate against it, and then it would look completely repaired when they moved away. But more oddly, I noticed they were all drifting in a certain direction. Each of them was moving to the right of the slide and beginning to gather at the edge of the sample.
I frowned down at it, trying to puzzle out what it meant for a while before I lifted my eyes from the microscope and looked to my right.
To where Lucian was lying on the couch.
I studied the sample again and confirmed the little black specks were now all crammed up against the edge of the sample on the right side like they were trying to get to him.
I sat back in the chair, staring at the wall, heart thumping away like I’d just run a marathon.
All day, I’d been letting the impossible facts Lucian presented me with to slowly sink in my brain. It had honestly been easier to turn it all into a difficult to believe joke. Just something to play along with while I tried to make sense of whatever was going on with my body and the weird craving I had to be near him. But seeing the sample of my blood made it all feel concrete in a way nothing else had yet. The proof was right there in my blood.
I’d drank the blood of a vampire, and now I was pretending he was my boyfriend. Oh, and some sort of magnetic magic black dots were now flooding my blood and drawing me toward him like he was a drug.
Wonderful.
9
Lucian
I knew I needed to get back to Alaric and Seraphina soon. They’d be worried.
Yet I found myself trailing after Cara as she gave a group of people some sort of “haunted tour” through the city of Savannah, which had grown considerably since I’d last seen it. In fact, I’d come to the city when it was little more than a town and I’d known many of the vampires who were prominent in the area at the time. I’d also been present for many of the events she described, like the mass burials when the yellow fever came or the hanging of Alice Riley in the town square.
I watched Cara as she went through the motions of the tour. She was a peculiar human, even by the standards I was coming to understand of these modern women. Cara dressed somewhat randomly. The night I’d seen her she had been clad in black and aggressive clothes that were at odds with her slender, feminine frame. Today she had worn a simple, pastel pink skirt and a white blouse that completely changed her look. She’d seemed like a woman who would speak her mind and never dream of apologizing the night before, and today she looked more delicate—as if the sharper edges were subtle things that would only be discovered upon closer inspection.
She was fascinating.
She wore her black hair just down to her jawline, where it swooped forward into two little points. A solid line of bangs hung just above her eyebrows, making her hair like a frame for the simple, clean features on her face. But the most arresting thing about her might have been her mouth, which seemed to telegraph her feelings as openly as a book, whether she wanted it to or not.
She pressed her full lips together when I was irritating her. When she was aroused, she breathed through her mouth, showing just the hint of two flat, slightly oversized front teeth. When she was amused, she always bit her lip before she smiled, as if she was trying to stop the expression from coming by force and failing all the same. My favorite might have been when she was angry, which seemed to set her lips into a silent, shifting state where she was half forming the words she was about to hurl my way.
The woman was a constant surprise and yet somehow comfortably predictable. She was full of life and energy in a way that made me feel more alive than I had in decades, too.
She was currently making up some nonsense about how the bumpy sidewalk outside one of Savannah’s many graveyards was actually caused by unmarked graves buried beneath our feet. I grinned, watching the members of her tour look down at their feet in horror.
I added a new expression of her wicked mouth to my list. When she was lying for fun, she held part of her lower lip between her teeth on one side.
The tour ended at the Mercer House, which woke a strange kind of bitterness in me. I didn’t enjoy thinking about the wasted years we had spent sealed in there or the oddness of knowing people like this were touring the house all these years.
It was hard to think of much beyond the blinding throbs of need I felt toward Cara. I’d been bonded before, but it had never felt this difficult to resist. Maybe it was my long slumber or maybe it was how Cara had been on the brink of death when I’d brought her back. All the blood she’d lost meant there was more room for mine, perhaps.
It could also have had something to do with the fact that I pushed my will on her that first night we escaped from the room at the Mercer House. I’d heard stories of extremely powerful vampires bonding humans with nothing more than a suggestion. I supposed being dormant didn’t stop me from becoming more powerful while I was trapped, and maybe I’d jumpstarted the bond before I even realized as much.
Whatever the cause, it was taking every ounce of my control to stop from kissing her. Touching her. Taking her.
Cara felt like a precious thing. Watching her walk around unclaimed was as hard as passing by a diamond ring lying on a busy sidewalk. Surely at any moment, another hand would snatch out to grab her if I didn’t first.
But I knew what would happen if I gave in to my impulses. I’d be damning her to the existence I lived. To an eternity of watching the world grow to dust around her, where her only companions would be others like me. The deadly, the deranged, and the ones who hadn’t quite lost their minds yet.
That was all there was in this world.
“You’re looking better,” Cara said when the last of our tour group was gone.
I pointed to the moon and stars above us.
She nodded. “So how do we do this last part? If I’m not home, my roommates are going to send out a search party. But I’ve never… taken a guy home with me. I’m not sure how that will go over with them.”
“Your roommates? Who are they?”
“Zack, Niles, Mooney, and Parker. They’re guys who go to the same school I do.”
“Men?” I asked, feeling my temper flare. “You live with four men?”
She smiled. “It’s nothing like that. I am dirt poor. They had an extra room and put an ad out. I met all of them before I agreed to stay there, and they all seemed super nice. None of them have ever tried to make a move or anything like that. They’re basically like little brothers to me.”
“I see,” I said. “And you’re worried these little brothers will not approve of me?”
“They’re protective. They might interrogate you. So
it’s going to seem weird if you don’t know the first thing about me.”
“Okay,” I said. We began walking in a direction I assumed was toward her house. I knew I’d need to drag her back to my world tomorrow and make sure Alaric and Seraphina didn’t end up going on some sort of suicide mission assuming Bennigan had taken me captive.
“You’ve got to try really hard to talk normal, okay?”
I nodded. “What do I need to know about Cara Skies, the abnormally short human?”
She gave me a wry smile. “I didn’t know vampires were teases.”
“I was a person before this was done to me.”
She looked curious but appeared to decide the most pressing issue was getting me to pass this pending interview with her roommates and didn’t push for details.
“Then I should ask questions about my new girlfriend,” I said, watching the little tick of frustration and amusement on the corner of her mouth.
“You should.”
“Do you have family?” I asked. “I imagine someone with close family ties might not resort to living with four men.”
“You imagine correctly. My family is dysfunctional, at best. I have a dad who cheated on my mom and now lives in Wyoming with a woman he calls his sugar momma. Then I’ve got a mom who never stopped feeling sorry for herself and gambled away everything she got out of the divorce. She lives in Florida and her only passion in life is going on sunset casino cruises when she gets her social security checks.”
“Should I pretend I understand what most of those things are?”
Cara smiled a little sadly. “Probably better if you don’t. The short version is my parents are in no position to be involved or really care about what I’m doing.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“Nope,” she said. “It’s pretty much just me. At least that’s how it feels.”
I didn’t plan on it, but I put my arm around her and pulled her into me as we walked. I felt her stiffen at my touch, but she relaxed a few steps later, surprising me by allowing the contact. “For the duration of our bond, that won’t be true,” I said.
“Maybe that’ll be nice for a change. A temporary one,” she added.
I had enjoyed teasing Cara and testing her to see how she’d react to provocations, but I felt myself in danger now. I liked how it felt to walk with my arm around her. I liked listening to her speak and studying the many different ways that tempting mouth of hers spelled out her thoughts. Most dangerously, hearing that she was alone in the world made me want to protect her some way. To give her the bond she was missing.
I wanted to fill that space for her, except I knew I couldn’t. I was poison and she was a fertile plant in need of water and sunlight. It didn’t matter how much I might’ve wanted to be that nourishment she needed. All I would bring her was decay. More pain. More heartache.
“And what about your interests?” I asked, hoping to draw myself from my spiraling thoughts. “What does Cara Skies do for fun?”
“Well, I had this friend in high school named Lana. She ended up getting diagnosed with a rare blood disease. I remember when I first found out, I figured they’d say they knew all about it and they had a cure. Or at least there would be some experimental treatment they were going to try. Except they just had no idea. Like there was absolutely nothing they could do, and she ended up wasting away.
“I didn’t exactly have the grades to make it into any kind of medical program at a college. I also didn’t have the money. But watching that made me realize I wanted to do something worthwhile with my life. Even if it was just figuring out how to help people who were diagnosed with what she had. So I took all the part time jobs I could find, saved money, and eventually got into the cheapest community college I could. Then I knocked out the pre-req courses and applied to basically every hematology program in the US until I got in here.
“So as far as ‘fun’ goes, I’ve been too focused on making this happen to stop and smell the roses, I guess. My life has just been school and chasing after this goal, no matter the cost. Well, until some asshole decided to bleed in my mouth.”
I still had my arm around her, and I gave her arm a little squeeze, grinning at that. “You are quite the impressive human, Cara Skies.”
“That’s highly debatable,” she said. “Goals and accomplishments are two dramatically different things. So far all I’ve accomplished is absolutely nuking my social life and focusing on nothing but school for most of my adult existence.”
“I’ve lived a very long time, and I’ve never seen someone truly determined fail to accomplish something impressive. It may not always be the goal they set out to reach, but energy tends to create outcomes. Put enough in, and something comes out.”
She smiled a little wryly, then pulled herself from my grasp and backpedaled to look at me as we walked. “And what is it you’ve put your energy in for your long, geezerly existence, Lucian? I imagine somebody doesn’t go on living for a million years without some sort of grand purpose?”
“I imagine we are close to your apartment,” I said abruptly. “I should make sure I know as much about you as I can before we arrive.”
She gave me a knowing look but let me continue asking any questions I could think of without turning the subject back to me.
“You know,” she said. “I looked at my blood under the microscope today. It’s fascinating. Have you ever seen what your blood does to a person? On a microscopic level, I mean?”
“No.”
Cara started trying to explain her findings to me, but I found I only understood about every third word of what she was saying. I instead lost myself in the fullness of her lips and the glimpses of her pink tongue pressing against neatly arranged, white teeth.
She was clearly passionate about blood, because she spoke about it for nearly ten minutes before I interrupted. “Will your roommates ask about anything else?”
“Oh,” she said. “What else… Okay, well, this is embarrassing, but I kinda told all of my roommates that I wasn’t going to date at all until I was done with school. So they are probably going to wonder why the sudden change.”
“And what do I tell them?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “Tell them you made me suck your blood and now we can barely stand twenty feet apart and the urge to let you fang me dirty is kind of all-consuming.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, cheeks going red.
“Fang you… dirty? Is that some sort of slang?”
“Does your blood normally make people say things they only planned to think?”
“No,” I said, grinning. “But if it makes you feel any more at ease, I am also finding it very hard not to dirtily fang you.”
Cara snorted. “I really didn’t expect a vampire to exist. But if someone had told me they were real, I wouldn’t have imagined it would be so much fun to hang out with one—even against my will.”
“You’re not so bad for a human, either.”
10
Cara
I let Lucian into the apartment and silently prayed the guys would be asleep or out. Instead, I found all four of them standing around the kitchen. They stared at us wordlessly, clearly in a state of pure shock.
“Guys,” I said. “This is Lucian. My… boyfriend.”
“We have very strong feelings for one another,” Lucian added. “And she’s deeply interested in the study of blood. Her parents—”
I elbowed him. So much for the whole smooth vampire charm. He was about as subtle as a baby bull.
“Boyfriend?” Mooney choked. “When did you even have time to meet somebody?”
“He was in my class. He’s really into blood, too,” I said, spit balling.
Lucian nodded. “It’s true. I love blood.”
“Talk less,” I hissed out of the side of my mouth.
“Do you play ball?” Zack asked. He moved a little closer, confirming Lucian was almost as tall as all of my oversized roommates. “You’re pretty tall.”
/>
Lucian hesitated. “Ball… Yes. Quite often.”
The guys exchanged a look. I could see the idea forming in their heads and knew he would’ve been better off saying he didn’t play. “We’ll have to get you out on the court soon,” Zack said.
“The court. Yes. I have a great deal of experience in the court,” Lucian said.
I blinked, trying to get his attention so I could urge him to shut his stupidly hot mouth.
“Is that right?” Niles asked. “Did you play in Europe or something? You’ve got a kind of funny accent.”
“Yes. I was present at several courts across Europe. But it has been some time.”
They were all frowning. I could see they were on the verge of getting too suspicious and asking the wrong questions.
Lucian appeared to sense it too. “Gentleman,” he said in a deep, more confident voice. “Look into my eyes, please.”
What is he doing?
“You will forget you met me tonight.”
“Hey!” I said, whacking his arm. “What are you doing?”
Lucian looked down at me, ignoring the glazed-over faces of my roommates, who were still watching him. “I’m wiping their memories. We can try again tomorrow. And again, if needed.”
“You can’t just wipe people’s memories when you make a bad first impression.”
He gestured to my zombified roommates. “It’s quite easy. I can do this every night until we get it right, actually.”
“No,” I said. “Jesus. We need to teach you some etiquette or something. I don’t care if you can. You shouldn’t.
Lucian frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know? What if you’re scrambling up their brains every time or giving them cancer? No more memory wiping. Okay? That’s a rule from now on.”
He appeared to chew over my command, then shrugged. “Unless it’s to prevent direct danger to you, I won’t wipe any more memories.”
“Good enough, I guess. Now come on. I’m going to show you where you’re sleeping on the floor in my room.”
Kiss Kiss Fang Fang: A Sucky Vampire Romantic Comedy Page 5
