I plucked at my Wonder Woman pajama pants, which were so worn in some places that the yellow W symbols were faded to almost white. I traced one of the symbols with the tip of one chipped nail and shrugged. “I know that your name is Wei, no surname given, and that you can beat things up pretty well.”
I also knew that he had come charging to my rescue once they’d discovered where my mother had taken me, and that it had been Wei who’d been desperate to get me back. I had seen it in his face, felt it cross my skin. I was a necromancer, and that meant I had a little more insight into the undead mind than the average witch.
“Na.” he said.
I raised my brow. “No what?”
A flicker of some emotion passed through his eyes. I think it was amusement. Wei? Amused with me? Certainly not. Wei was the master of the stone face, the man who felt little. That was what made him so untouchably cool.
“I did not say 'no.' I said 'Na.' Na is my surname.”
“Wei Na?” I asked, trying out the name on my tongue.
“Na Wei,” he corrected.
I couldn't help it. I giggled. Perhaps it was those couple of years that I spent in California, but the idea that his name was Na Wei tickled me. “It suits you.”
“You are laughing at me.”
“A little,” I admitted, “but you rarely give me anything to laugh about; I'll take what I can get.” I tugged a pillow into my lap and shifted until I could lean over it. “What can you tell me about the Yunnan province?”
He frowned at me and then shrugged. “What do you want to know? That it is in the southern part of China? That it was once taken over by the Mongols? That its past was a hard one, a difficult one, but that the people born there are strong and proud and brave? Or would you rather know that it was beautiful?”
He sounded almost wistful, I thought, as he began to describe his homeland. “There are many mountains and rivers. Years of growing rice on the sides of the mountains has carved hundreds of ledges that change colors with the seasons, where small fish and frogs gather in pockets of wetness. Women roll up their sleeves and wash off dirt in one of the hundreds of small waterfalls, and the men watch for birds that sing the songs of springtime.”
I have to admit, I was a little caught up in it all. I didn't know that he could speak so poetically. “It sounds beautiful,” I said, once I knew that he wasn't going to say more.
“It was then; I do not know if it is now. The world has changed many times since I was alive.”
“You can sound so angsty; did you know that? Like, extra angsty.”
“Angsty?”
I rolled my eyes. “I do not have the ability to explain the depth and complexity that is angst.”
“I know the meaning of the word, but I don't think you mean it the way I define it.”
I shrugged. “Must be the generational gap. When was the last time that you went out into the world?”
“When we went dancing.”
“Oh, right.” I don't know why I blushed with the memory of the way Wei had looked in a simple outfit of jeans and a shirt, but I did.
“What are you thinking about?”
I could have been coy and said “nothing” but I wasn't particularly good at coy. Awkward and socially inept, that I could do. “You.”
He went still again. “What about me?”
“How you looked when we went out. It was a good look. Maybe you should wear that again, and I'd take you to the movies or something.”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
I shrugged, surprised by my own forwardness. “A little. Unless you are going to tell me no; then I definitely wasn't asking you out, and you should feel ashamed for thinking such a thing.” There was another flicker of amusement, and I considered myself on a roll. “You know, you don't have to keep hanging out in the doorway. You can come sit down.”
Another hesitation, and then he moved further into the room. It took a little encouraging on my part, but I got him to sit on the edge of the bed. It made my heart beat just a little faster to think of Wei in my bed.
“Well?” he asked, tucking his legs neatly beneath his body.
“The Order...uhhh,” I struggled to remember the name.
“Ordo Hermeticus Fidelis. The Order of the Loyal Hermit,” Wei supplied.
I waved my hand in gratitude and nodded. “Yeah, them. The ones that think I should just walk away from all this, ignore the prophecy or maybe even hand it off to Connie...little unexpected half-sister. They truly think that it's better to keep magic locked up, that releasing it is tantamount to setting off a nuclear bomb.”
“Do you agree?”
I had to think about that. Really think. I mean, I got where they were coming from. I really did. I was thinking about just unleashing magic. “I don't think so. I mean. On the one hand, I get where they are coming from. Magic is a power; it's a wildness, a creation. I dunno. It's not like I'm going to be handing everyone a gun...but I can see why they could think that.”
“So, you want to fulfill the prophecy?”
I laughed. “Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of magic. I dreamed of a world where all the things I read about existed. I have that chance and that pretty much rocks. But...”
“But what?” he asked.
I sighed and wrapped my arms around my legs. The tears sprang into my eyes before I even realized I was going to cry about it. “But what if they are right? What if I'm just unleashing a weapon?”
The mattress moved beneath me, and a moment later, Wei's arms were around me. I collapsed against him and just started crying. I had never thought of myself as one of those people who cried when things got tough, but there I was.
“Anything coming from you could not be a weapon.”
His voice was so soft, whispered right in my ear. I heard the softness of his accent. It sent an unexpected thrill down my spine.
I lifted my head and found myself looking into his face. At first glance, his eyes looked empty and emotionless, but I knew better. Wei hid everything about him beneath a layer of stillness. But this close, I could see there was something moving beneath those obsidian depths. It was only because I was watching him so carefully that I saw his gaze flick down to my lips.
My heart jumped.
My hand went to his cheek. It was warmer than I expected and soft. I had never known a guy to have such soft skin, but there it was. The golden tones of it made my fingers look pale, or maybe it was the other way around. There was the tiniest patch of hair on his chin, just a few shades lighter than the hair on his head, no wider than the pad of my thumb. I ran my finger across it, and his lips parted.
He was still beneath my touch, like a statue, as if he were afraid to move. I don't know why, but I was totally into it. I went up on my knees and laid the tiniest kiss on the broad line of his forehead, and still he stayed still. He didn't reach out for me. He didn't clutch or shift to make it easier. He simply let me touch him. I would have thought him utterly passive were it not for the way he seemed to vibrate beneath my hands. Every touch fed this ball of electricity that built inside my belly.
Everything in my life was so wild, so crazy. But here, in my room, with a thunderstorm rolling outside, he was a wave of calmness beneath my touch.
I bent my mouth to his, and the world seemed to shift. His lips were like satin beneath mine, warm and soft and pliant. For a moment, it was just my mouth moving against his. Then, his hands went to my hips, and the electricity turned to fire.
He levered himself up and over me, keeping our mouths fused together, and the next thing I knew, my back was against the bed. My arms went around him, and I drowned in the sensation of his kiss. I didn't know that this man, this vampire, could hide so much passion beneath that cool exterior. His hands were a blur along my skin, leaving a trail of flame in their wake.
I arched towards him, and he pushed against me; for a moment, I thought that I would burn. His mouth went lower down my neck, nipping along my skin. Then, I felt the
brush of his teeth, and I knew they were fangs. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but right then and there? I was totally okay with it.
I turned my head, offering my neck to him, and I felt his teeth scrape along the skin. I shivered and made a sound that I had never made before. Everything in me felt alive, awake, and hungry. I had never felt quite like that before. I placed my hand on the back of his head and pulled him towards me. The sound that came out of his throat was more beast than human, and I liked it. I felt the barest press of his fangs against the fluttering in my throat. My free hand slipped inside the robe he wore, touching the skin of his stomach, feeling the lines of his body beneath.
I was absolutely sure that this was going to be it. That in a moment of unexpected passion, something incredible was going to happen. To be honest? I was totally ready for it. Maybe it was all the stress, all the pressure to choose or not choose or whatever. I pulled him to me and whimpered for more.
The next thing I knew, he was across the room. Not just pulled away, but all the way back at the door. His eyes, normally a deep obsidian, were a shade of ruby so bright they cast shadows across the room. His fangs were visible over the fullness of his lower lip. It was not a terrible look, but it was ruined by the shame splashed across his face. That look was better than a cold shower.
“What did I do?” I asked.
He didn't answer. He looked at me, sitting in the middle of rumpled sheets, in my equally rumpled pajamas, and whirled away like the creature of the night I knew him to be.
“What the hell?” I muttered, not sure if I was speaking to myself or the man who was no longer there.
It took me a full two minutes to get out of bed. I thought, at first, about going back to sleep. I even laid down and pulled the sheets back around me. But it was pretty much futile. All I could think about was how incredible I had felt and how awful it had turned.
Had I done something wrong? I couldn't say that I had the most hands-on knowledge of more intimate relationships, but I read enough fanfiction to know how everything was supposed to go. This was not it. Right? He had wanted me; I was pretty much sure of that, I thought, as I tossed back the coverlet and plodded over to the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror, wondering if something repulsive had happened to my face while I slept. Nope, same face I'd had all my life. Same ash-brown hair, same pointed nose. There was a yellowing bruise along my forehead and another on my shoulder. Maybe Wei just really disliked bruises? Yeah, I didn't think so. It had to be something else.
I looked a little lower at the tiny scrape on my neck. No, I decided, it wasn't a scrape. It was two pinpricks, like someone had bumped me ever so lightly with a bar-b-que fork. A tiny trail of blood had leaked out of one; the other wasn't even deep enough to offer that.
Is that what he freaked out about? Blood? Seemed a little weird for a vampire to be anti-blood. Or maybe that was the issue. Maybe he was really pro-blood. I remembered that look of shame on his face. Crap, he was freaked out about biting me. What the heck was that about? Then again, maybe I was wrong. I was human; a witch, sure, but human nonetheless. I could be wrong. It happened.
I turned the water on full blast and, while it was heating up, I sent a message to Jenny.
“Hey,” the text read. “Have you ever had someone bail out on you right before getting to the good stuff?”
I hit send, stripped out of my pajamas and stepped under the spray. The hot water felt good on my muscles and pushed away the last bits of lust simmering under my skin. I needed a plan for the day, and part of that plan was to keep some distance between Wei and I because I just had no clue what to do about him.
In a flash of inspiration, I decided to switch from shower to bath. I wanted to soak, to think about everything. Not just about Wei, though the look on his face was going to be haunting the back of my mind for the next eternity or so. I added some of the multitude of bath salts to the water and watched the froth bubble up.
Two months ago, I'd never added expensive bath salts to the tub. Heck, in most of the super cheap apartments my dad had set us up in, there was rarely ever a tub involved in the first place. Cheap stand-up showers for everyone. Lounging in a bath had been a rare luxury.
Thinking of my dad chased away my worry about Wei. My dad hadn't called since our last conversation, the one where I had pretty much snapped at him. That worried me. He used to call every day. It used to be suffocating how much he had worried. But not hearing from him in three weeks? That was actually a little scary.
Great. Another thing to worry about. Maybe I should think about making a check list. Distant dad, weird mom, cult sister, prophecy baby, weird dreams, vampire boyfriend. While all of those might make for decent indie trash band names, they made for a daunting checklist. Add in learning magic and I was pretty sure that I was ready to pass everything off to someone else.
I slipped into the water, laying back my head, and asked myself the most important question any geeky girl could ask herself. What would Wonder Woman do?
My phone chimed, and I picked it up. Speaking of wonder woman...
The text from Jenny was short. “Sweetie, do you even know how many girls think they wanna smooch another girl until the shorts come off?”
She had a point. I wasn't a lesbian. I would probably never know what it was like to have someone I liked refuse my attentions because I had boobs. More often than not, I got attention because of my chest, not in spite of it. I sent a response along the lines of her deserving all the ladies in the world.
She said she'd settle for one.
“But it's not about me, prophecy girl; what happened? Who ran out on you? I need details.”
I wasn't ready to give details. Mostly because I didn't know what the heck was going on with me. What was that dream about? Did it have meaning? Or was it just my subconscious working out the huge frag-fest that was my current life?
My phone went off again. I assumed it was Jenny. But the sender was marked as Unknown. I frowned. There were maybe seven people who had my cell phone number, and most of them were currently living under the same roof as me. I opened the message and frowned. It looked like gibberish to me, as if someone used emojis that my phone didn't understand. I couldn't quite ignore the sense of uneasiness as I closed the message, assuming that someone had sent the wrong person a text.
Whatever…there was just too much going on for me to worry about that kind of thing. Besides, my hands were starting to get wrinkly. I sent a final text to Jenny telling her that I needed some best buddy time and went off to find something to occupy my mind until I could get a little more sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Ultimately, I decided to take some time for myself in the library. I loved the library. It was totally Beauty and the Beast. There was a big fireplace and shelves and shelves of all kinds of books. And when I couldn't figure out what was going on in my own life, I liked to turn to the literary world.
I wandered the shelves, letting my fingers glide over all the different books. Some were made of leather, some were cloth, and some were flimsy paperbacks. The collection was as varied as it was astonishing, and I loved it.
My father had moved us around a lot. I always thought that it had been because of work, but recently I had reason to believe that work was only part of it. I plucked my way through different sections of novels, remembering that, for the better part of my life, books and their cousins, comics, had been my best friends. That, I hoped, was changing, but only a little. Even so, there wasn't anyone I could chat with at two o'clock in the morning after a nightmare and the weirdest version of hot and cold ever. Too bad.
I picked up half a dozen novels and plopped myself into the world's most comfortable chair. I had a little bit of everything in my mini collection of novels, mostly because I didn't know what I really wanted to get into. Eventually, I settled on a book that I had already read before. There was something comforting about re-reading a novel, as if you were having a conversation with a friend.
&
nbsp; I was just getting into it when I realized that someone was watching me.
I shouldn't have been surprised to see Dmitri there. After all, the library was as much his escape as it was mine.
“Hey,” I said, using my thumb to mark the page I was on. “I didn't expect to see you up yet.”
In fact, I hadn't expected to see him up at all. He'd been pretty badly wounded during the great escape from the compound of the Order. He looked tired, a little worn around the edges, but he was up and moving. He still looked a little out of it, and there was a paleness to him that I didn't like. I mean, he was a vampire, and therefore always pale, but this went a little too far.
He still continued to stand there and just stare at me, almost like he didn't expect to see me either. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but there was a brightness in his eyes that normally wasn't there.
House Of Vampires 2 (The Lorena Quinn Trilogy) Page 2
