by E E Everly
“Great. I can’t wait to meet dear old daddy.”
“Sasha, I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”
“Oh, believe me, I am.”
Killian stirs, after sitting the past few minutes as rigid as a statue. Daybreak is creeping through the curtains on the room’s far side. My side has blackout blinds, so he should be safe. Slowly, at a painstaking human speed, Killian kicks his shoes off and slides under the covers next to me.
What? Did that really just happen? Sasha, you have a vampire in your bed! And he’s not sniffing you or trying to bite you.
I have to return to my body now. This conversation is over.
“Mom, you laid a lot on me. Give me a minute to process it.”
After a moment of stiffness, Killian curls around me. For some reason I grin. I’m not scared of this. I hope my confidence is not because I’m hovering outside my body. I swear I feel his warm body pressed against mine though it’s impossible to feel anything in my current state. Even so, I long to jump back into my skin to end this inane conversation.
Actually, just to feel a sleeping vampire cuddled against my back.
Did he believe I wouldn’t find out because I’m sleeping?
Has he done this before? I’d never know if he left before I woke.
Mom still hasn’t released me. “Just be careful.”
I smirk at her. “Hey, I have a vamp watching my back.”
Mom smiles.
“That doesn’t bother you?” I thought having Killian constantly skulking around would worry her, especially after all her cautions.
“I trust him.”
Whoa. She can’t be serious. “Even after knowing he’s sucked my blood and dreams about sucking my blood until I become a dried up corpse?”
“Even then.”
“All right. We’re done.” I eye my lumpy bedspread. “I won’t be the least bit rested.”
“Please retrieve the amulet.” Her image flickers. “Bye, sweetheart.”
I’m sucked back into my skin as Mom winks out of existence. I relax into heavenly comfort as heat seeps under my skin, relishing the sensation.
Killian’s arm is draped over my midsection. His chest presses to my back. His thighs touch my hamstrings. Our bodies are molded together like two lovers. His breaths are nonexistent, but I feel his heartbeat. Steady. Calm. Mine races. My muscles tense. I am supposed to be asleep. I was asleep until Mom yanked me out of my body.
Can’t Killian tell I’m awake? I can’t tell if he is asleep. Is this how it would always be if my vampire slept with me?
I need to relax. Soften into him. Just let go.
He can’t know I’m awake. What if that makes him leave?
This is so unsafe.
I make a sleep moan and pretend I’m lost in a dream. The sound is more euphoric than I intend, but with it, I shift and stretch my legs. As I lean back into his embrace, Killian tangles his legs with mine and slides his arm between my breasts, resting his palm on my sternum.
I can’t fall asleep. I have to just lie here. I never dreamed of something like this. I didn’t know how much I’d love his arm around me.
I try to force myself to sleep, but thoughts keep turning in my head. Something is most definitely going on with my vampire to make him so audacious. Unfortunately he’ll never tell me, no matter how much I pry.
Think of him as only a man. These are not the actions of someone who only craves your blood.
These thoughts are what finally let me drift off.
One last thing filters through my consciousness. I’m part human. Oh good grief. Wait until Killian learns this.
TEN
Blinding sunlight floods the room, and I’m accosted by Killian’s howl. He instantly rolls off the mattress to the safety of the bed’s shadow, pulling my comforter over him.
While he quivers on the nasty dorm room carpet, I launch out of bed and glare at my roommate, who stands before the rolled up blinds with the opened curtain in her hands. Her brows arch with mortification, and her mouth forms a horrified O.
Well, duh! What did she believe would happen if she opened a curtain in front of a vampire?
“What the nosy gnomes, Lexa! Are you trying to kill him? Shut the accursed blinds!” I rip the blinds back into place and yank the curtains closed.
Lexa backs away. Her hands covering her mouth won’t buy her innocence. She’s never liked Killian.
“I didn’t think he’d really get hurt.” She stares at Killian trembling under the comforter. I hope she’s terrified he’ll emerge and sink his fangs into her in the most gruesome fashion possible. “I didn’t know sunlight would actually do anything.”
“Why do you think they creep around in the dark? That they’re trying to avoid skin cancer?”
To Killian’s credit, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t whimper, aside from his waking screech. Only his face and hands were exposed, but he must be in agony. Vamps feel as much pain as humans do.
“You should leave.” I glance across the room. Mandy’s already gone. I’m going to assess Killian’s damage and don’t want Lexa to see it.
“Please forgive me, Killian…” She’s still moving toward the door. She stoops to grab a pair of sneakers and a backpack. “It was stupid.”
After she clicks the door shut behind her, I swear under my breath. The room is bathed in gray so I click on a light, preparing myself for a blistered and bubbling face. I debate whether I might need to donate blood again.
I crouch beside him. “Let me see.”
Killian hisses. “Go away, Sasha. Please.”
“Pull the blanket back before it gets stuck to your wounds. The burns won’t faze me.”
He groans. “Please.” A charred hand emerges with his cell phone. I note phases of healing and several round fluid-filled pockets under the skin. “Please, can you just call Lauren? Speed dial seven.”
He can’t see me, but I nod in understanding. She must be one of his regular freshies. I’m on the phone in less than a minute, and Lauren says she will be here in ten.
“Are you going to let me see the damage?” I ask.
“Nothing to see, literally.”
I tense. “Uh, what?”
With a feeble voice he says, “The sunlight burned right through my eyelids to my retinas.”
“Cynical centaurs. Okay, what do you need from me?”
“Don’t even suggest it.”
“All right.” No storm sprite blood. “What about hefty painkillers? I have some old narcotics around here somewhere.” Ah, human drugs. Narcotics work well on storm sprites. Or perhaps that’s because I’m half human. I’m not sure why anymore.
I get up and rifle through the side-table drawer above his head. “I’ll start keeping bags of blood in my mini fridge. Maybe I’ll fill a few vials of storm sprite blood too. That way you can’t drink too much at once and you’ll have it in emergencies.”
His muffled voice emerges above my shuffling around. “Are you nuts? You’ll get me hooked on the stuff. Not a good idea.”
“That stuff is a magic elixir. I should charge the supernaturals five grand for a pint.” I find the narcotics and drop into the chair beside the table, highly considering my idea. “Once a month I could be five grand richer from black-market storm sprite blood.”
“I’d charge ten grand.”
I smile, relieved my dumb idea distracts Killian.
“By the way,” he says from his cocoon. “Unless you have about fifty times the dosage for mortals, the narcotics won’t do a thing.”
“Oh.”
A rap on the door propels me from my seat. So Killian doesn’t think I’m completely naïve, I ask who’s there, though I’m sure it’s Lauren.
“Hi.” A cutesy, dimpled brunette stands in my doorway. She does a quick scan of my room, hardly paying attention to me, and sees the bump that is Killian. She gestures toward him, and I urge her to go ahead.
I pretend to busy myself by rummaging for a change
of clothes in my dresser, but my attention is riveted on Lauren and her actions.
She kneels beside Killian. She doesn’t touch him, probably because she doesn’t know where he’s hurt, but her hand hovers above his shoulder. “Hey, hot stuff. What trouble have you gotten into now?”
Killian’s voice is husky. It’s because he smells her blood and he’s giving over to his carnal appetite. “Nothing your A positive can’t fix.”
Lauren folds over her knees, which are barely covered by a skimpy skirt, so her mouth is right where his ear would be. “Where do you want to bite me?” she asks with a softness meant for a lover.
I suddenly feel as if I should be somewhere else, but I’m disturbingly curious. She can’t think a partially burned vamp drinking her blood is sexy, can she?
I picture his lips all cracked and crispy. Not quite what I’d want skimming over my skin.
Before I can scamper out of here, Killian lifts the blanket and pulls it over Lauren.
Narcissistic nymphs!
A tiny ahh—her release of pleasure—reaches me. I assume he went for her neck. I blush from head to toe. This is the most I’ve witnessed Killian feed, clustered together over a few days, than in the entire time I’ve known him.
A strange sense of jealousy wafts over me, so I duck out and head to the bathroom—the upstairs bath. I won’t be showering on my floor for a long time.
ELEVEN
Lauren’s coming out of my dorm room when I return with my hair all wet and drippy. “He’ll be fine. His eyes are hypersensitive, even to the artificial lights, but once he sleeps it off, he’ll be right as rain.”
“Uh, thanks,” I mumble. Lauren’s a head taller than I am, and it makes me hate her. That and the way she met Killian’s needs when I couldn’t. Not because I couldn’t, because he wouldn’t let me.
She smiles.
It’s so sweet and laced with sympathy that I turn away. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
“Not a problem. For Killian, anytime.”
I want to ask her how often is anytime, but I don’t. Instead, I close the door to her exuberant but slightly wobbly walk down the hall. How much blood did he drink?
Killian is still under the covers.
I purse my lips, standing in the room’s middle. Somehow I need to discuss with him everything Mom told me.
Somehow I need to discuss why he crawled into bed with me.
His lips, which are not cracked and scarred as I feared, poke from the covers. “Sasha, the wards.”
I sputter to life. “The wards?”
“If I have to lie here all day while you’re traipsing about campus, flaunting your I’m-a-vampire-tasty-treat self, I want you to have wards up.”
“How did you know I was going to class?”
“I know you, Sasha. You’re compelled by the whole school girl thing.” He wants to talk about compulsion?
“Hey. I am not.” I’m not a college student because I think it’s fun. I’m trying to make the best of my situation while on Earth. Finish school. Get a job, and focus my efforts on staying alive. “Besides, I can’t put wards up on the whole college.”
“Can’t you do a pendant of sorts?”
I consider that. His idea could work. “A buffer zone around myself. Brilliant.”
“Do your dorm as well, so no one will stab me in my sleep.”
“Aye aye, Your Vampiness.”
I gather my supplies. A few herbs that dismiss and confuse the senses and a piece of ancient text scrawled on an even more ancient piece of paper. I mostly know the warding spell by heart, but I want to make sure I remember everything, especially since I’m making a slight change, excluding a certain vamp so he can come and go as he pleases.
I crush the herbs in my mortar. They’re ready. I need just one more item. “Killian.” I kneel beside him with a straight pin. “Give me your hand.”
He folds the blanket back. I’m relieved his face is as smooth and sultry as ever, except for his dark brown facial scruff.
“Whatever for?” He’s wearing the most ridiculous sunglasses—the kind with giant lenses that movie stars would wear.
I wrinkle my nose. “Where’d you get those?”
“Lauren.”
My voice trips. “Right.”
“Don’t start. You’ve already lost too much blood from the other night.” He grimaces. “Because of me.”
“It’s not that.” I choke on that, rubbing my fingertips over the straight pin in my hand, focusing on the smooth metal instead of my swirling insides.
What has me so hormonal, as my roommates would say? How about, you crawled into my bed last night but this morning a freshie gave you a quick thrill? My forehead binds with tension. I work my mouth to keep from sobbing.
“Hey.” He sits up. His voice has adapted that don’t-cry tone. “What is it?”
How do I say, ever since you bit me, ever since you saved my life and nearly killed me all in the same day, I feel this strange connection to you, this crazy draw, and I want to lance anyone who touches you, anyone who looks at you, including your freshies?
I can’t. I can’t say it, so I stare through his brown-tinted glasses, itching to rip them off so I can look at the gorgeous silvery blue of his irises. His gaze holds mine, and I’m certain he’s thinking the same thought about his stupid glasses. Stupid Lexa for maiming him.
“I love how innocent your eyes are.” His hand cradles my jaw with his fingertips brushing my ear. “The browns and greens are so dark and pure. I don’t want to ruin who you are.”
You’ve already ruined me. For anyone else. For myself.
“About that.” I pull his hand off my face and sit back on my bottom. “My parents already ruined me.”
“Explain.”
“My mom came to me last night.”
Killian’s eyebrows go up. He has no idea about this astral projection ability. I summarize briefly how my spirit leaves my body so my mother can talk to me from the fae world. “That’s when my heart rate dropped, and you came into the room.”
“I sensed something different about you. You didn’t feel you.”
“I was pretty much an empty shell.”
“That’s eerie,” Killian says.
“Anyhoo.” I blow hair off my forehead. “Mom knows why the seed demons killed the storm sprite.”
“Wait a minute. You skipped something. You can’t lead in with ‘my parents already ruined me’ and change the subject.”
“Gee,” I ruffle his hair, wishing I could sink both hands all the way into the thickness. “I love how keenly observant you are.”
“Cut to the chase, babe. This is hedging in on my beauty sleep.” Dang vamp, always so deadly serious about his sleep.
“Right. Right. How would you feel if I told you my father was a seed demon?”
He lowers his glasses and peeks over the rim. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not in the least. Oh, so seed demons murdered Serena—the girl,” I add when Killian questions me with forehead wrinkles, “because she was bringing an amulet to me.”
“What’s the amulet do? Why would seed demons kill for it?”
“It holds my long lost demon power.”
“I see.” Killian rubs his chin, being overly dramatic. “So you inherited power from daddy dearest.” I smack his hand, and Killian grins. “Why was Serena bringing you an amulet? Why was the power lost?”
“You seem to be taking this news rather calmly.” I stick out my bottom lip. “You’re making fun of me.”
“Me? You seem to be taking this news rather calmly.”
“Should I be freaking out? I’m a seed demon! Apparently I had their powers and stuff.”
“Including their wings? You already have wings. Thanks, by the way, for finally showing me.”
I scrunch my nose. “It’s a big secret. It was stupid of me to show you, and my mom didn’t say anything about demon wings when she mentioned the other powers.”
“
Well, regardless, you’re not half demon. Powers or not.” Killian leans back on his elbow. “Seed demons are parasites in human hosts. If anything you’re half human.”
“That’s what I said!”
“How’d you get the demon’s abilities?” Killian makes himself comfortable on the floor, readying for sleep.
“I stole them,” I say matter-of-factly as I roll the straight pin between my fingers. “Apparently the demon is trapped in his aging host all because his powers, which were in me, are now in an amulet only I can use.”
Killian stops with the comforter up to his chin. “Hold on. Only you can use? Oh, Sasha. This is not good.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“I’m not letting you go anywhere.” His hand flicks out and seizes my wrist.
“Fat chance.” He’s not clamping down with his vamp strength, so I wriggle my wrist free and stand. “I have to eat, and I’m going to class. You can’t tail me in the daylight anyway, so get over it.”
“Your fridge is stuffed full of ambrosia.” He rises to his feet and kicks the comforter back.
“I eat other things. My diet isn’t just one thing like someone else’s I know.”
“Ouch.”
I grab his hand and jab the straight pin into it. Killian doesn’t protest but glares with devious wonder.
“It’s for the ward, you kook.” I pull on his arm, and reluctantly his feet follow me toward my warding-spell set up. I realize the folly in my plan. His wound has already healed over. I huff. “Why don’t you just drip a few drops of your blood into the diffuser for me.”
His cheeky grin makes me want to do something devilish to him, but the jury is out on what. Maybe if I get my demon strength, I’ll put him in a headlock. Killian opens his mouth and flashes his fangs. I can’t tell if his eyes have gone black behind the sunglasses. He bites down on the meaty part of his palm and blood bubbles up. But he stops before letting the blood drip. “Are you blocking me with my blood or does this allow access?”
“You’ll have to wait to find out.”
“Sasha,” he pulls his hand back. His voice has a lisp because of his extended canines. “I’m not giving you my blood unless you tell me.”
