by Alessa James
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t exactly wear the same size,” I laughed as he pointed toward the bathroom. “Is it all right if I rinse off?”
My question was hesitant—I didn’t want to disturb anything in that colossal bathroom.
“What’s mine is yours,” he said.
Blushing again, I smiled and hurried into the bathroom. I desperately wanted to believe that a few minutes out of Will’s presence would allow my brain to reboot itself. Stripping quickly out of my bathing suit, I stepped into shower, which was so big that it didn’t even have doors, much less a shower curtain. There was brand new soap, as well as shampoo and conditioner with exotic names. I studied the keypad before touching a button. Suddenly water shot from all directions, already steaming hot. With a sigh, I let the water beat down on me.
I didn’t stay in the shower as long as I would have if I hadn’t been so impatient to get back to Will—before he disappeared like a dream. I dried off with one of the fluffy towels and started putting on Will’s clothes, cuffing the pants several times so that I could walk. The arms of his sweater were absurdly long, but the material was incredibly soft and comfortable. Tying back my wet hair, I took a deep breath before opening the door.
Will had already changed into jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt that contrasted perfectly with his golden hair. He was reclined on the bed with his arms behind his head. His eyes remained closed, and I assumed he had fallen asleep. Looking around, I saw lunch—packed from ingredients I recognized from my refrigerator at home. At least I finally had an explanation for the cooler Will had been carrying earlier. Items were set out neatly on the table in front of the expansive sofa, and somehow they looked better than if I had made the same lunch at home. I jumped when I heard his voice.
“I took an educated guess as to what you might eat based on the contents of your refrigerator.”
“Thank you,” I said, realizing what a mediocre phrase it was to describe my gratitude for this day.
As I sat down to eat my picnic, Will sprang from the bed and came to sit down beside me. He continued to watch as I ate, which did wonders to suppress my normally voracious appetite. I looked over at him.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Will shook his head and continued to watch me, his features perfectly still. When I stopped eating and stared at him, he got up and walked across the room. Music started playing, and I stopped eating again.
“Are you stalking my playlists, too?” I laughed.
“Perhaps we simply enjoy the same music.”
When I finished eating, he walked over and gathered the remains of my lunch before disappearing. When he came back, he held out his hand. Pulling me up from the couch, he led me out of his room and down the stairs, stopping when we reached the fireplace. I could tell from his expression that he was hesitant to tell me whatever it was that he had promised to reveal. I settled on the rug and saw that Darcy had moved away to the concrete floor. When Will sat down next to me, the light from the fire licked his features, giving his bronzed skin an even more unnatural beauty.
As he continued to stare into the flames, any of the lighthearted ease from earlier disappeared from his features. I watched him, alarmed by the return of the same sadness that I had seen the first day he had appeared in class. Suddenly I was terrified that whatever he was going to say would shatter any happiness I had felt since waking this morning. It was selfish, but I couldn’t help it. I waited quietly until he turned away from the fire. Hesitating briefly, he reached out and took my hand carefully, his eyes burning with the suffering of a long-kept secret. It made his eyes look older, and his voice was barely a whisper when he spoke.
“Is there anything you’ve never told another person?”
There was a strange desperation in the way he asked the question. I looked down, nodding. My heart raced as I thought about the fact that I loved the person sitting in front of me, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I hadn’t told a soul, but who would understand? I barely knew him.
And that’s how I knew that time was different when I was in Will’s presence. The moments spent with him contained more weight and substance than others. He made me feel more in a single second than I had ever thought possible. By the time I looked up at him, his gaze had returned to the fire.
“I am … different,” he said deliberately.
“Yeah. I kinda noticed.”
Will exhaled before looking over at me, studying my face for something.
“It’s unfair of me to expose you to any of this … to what I am. But the way I feel about you—I shouldn’t …”
The remorse in his voice caused my stomach to drop.
“I’ve put you in danger, and I’ll have to live with that now. But I told you—I will keep you safe. I promise you that.”
I shook my head.
“Will, just tell me. I don’t care what it is. It couldn’t change what I feel for you, even if I—”
“Please, Aven. Stop,” Will said, his voice breaking. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You have to wait until you know everything about me before making rash declarations. You have an entire life ahead of you. I refuse to take that from you out of my own selfishness.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t listen to this a second longer.
“You know, I may be inexperienced, but I’m not that naïve. I know exactly what would have happened to me at that party if you hadn’t shown up.” Will’s knuckles cracked, but I kept going. “You say that somehow it’s your fault that this guy is following me—and that even Scott Adams is somehow your fault—but I don’t buy it. Whatever you think is your fault isn’t. Because you have no control what other people do.”
Will surprised me by laughing bitterly.
“What?” I asked humorously. “You mean what you were saying about mind control? Is that really why you think Scott Adams is a psycho? That someone forced him to be one?”
“Yes, in part. The weak-minded are far easier to manipulate, but I believe you are correct. He is clearly a sociopath in his own right.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
Will nodded and closed his eyes. Still confused, I reached toward him and touched his shoulder.
“Okay, but even if the guy following me has some connection to you and can,” I swallowed, “control people’s minds, how is that your fault?”
He opened his eyes.
“Because I can, too. I am the same as he is.”
A small bead of sweat trickled from the back of my neck down my spine as I watched his face, but I forced my lungs to maintain an even rhythm.
“No … you’re … not,” I snapped. “You said you would never hurt me, and I believe you. And if you can control minds, then prove it. Make me walk around and cluck like a chicken.”
Will laughed in surprise.
“I can’t.”
“Well? That kind of puts a dent in your claim then, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do because you, Aven, are special.”
“Right,” I snorted.
“You said you wanted the truth.”
“I do.”
“The whole truth, even if it is uglier than you can imagine?” he asked.
I swallowed and nodded again.
“Are you certain? Because far from setting you free, it will only put you at greater risk.”
I felt a tickle of doubt, but I couldn’t back down now. I had to know the truth.
“I’m sure.”
“You, Aven Casey, are an empath,” Will said carefully.
“You mean I’m empathetic?”
Will shook his head.
“It goes well beyond the ability to empathize with another human being. As an empath, you feel other beings’ emotions. You also know things you shouldn’t know. You know when someone is deceiving you. You’re intolerant of narcissistic personalities like Scott Adams. You’re tired often. You need solitude; in fact, you prefer it. You’re
overwhelmed in large crowds, and you feel more comfortable one-on-one. … Shall I go on?”
I swallowed.
“Okay,” I said shakily. “I’m an agoraphobic shut-in. And?”
“Like the man you saw the other day, I can perhaps inhibit your energy briefly, but I cannot control your mind because yours is stronger, more perceptive than most people’s. Scott Adams? I could manipulate him easily. You? It’s much more difficult. It makes you special, and it makes you valuable to individual’s like myself.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because whereas you feel other people’s emotions too strongly, I feed off of that energy. Being near you strengthens me and weakens me.”
“What?”
“I exist off of other creatures energy, and I have to expend an extraordinary amount of energy resisting the impulse to drain you of every ounce of yours. At the same time, any energy I take from you is concentrated, stronger than anything I could take from a normal person.”
“I’m not normal?”
“No, you’re not normal,” Will said dryly. “And there’s no excuse for what I’ve done. I was wrong to convince myself that I wasn’t putting you at risk, despite my best intentions.”
The anguish and inevitability in his words made me ache.
“Will? Do you want to hear my secret? The one I haven’t told anyone?”
His eyes shot to mine.
“Aven, don’t,” he whispered, pleading.
I ignored him.
“I have never in my life felt this way about anyone, and I don’t think I ever will again. I love you.”
Even as I spoke the words, it surprised me how true they felt. I could feel tears spilling down my cheeks, and before I could wipe them away, Will pulled me against him. I wound my arms around him as his lips came down on mine. The electric energy I had felt earlier surged between us, and I nearly whimpered when Will broke our kiss. The look in his eyes was apprehensive, but determined.
“And you are all I have ever wanted in this existence,” he said raggedly.
I blinked, stunned by his words and the intensity in his voice. Shaking my head, I wiped at my eyes. I still needed the entire story, whatever it was.
“Then you have to trust me. I promise I’ll be fine, whatever it is.”
Doubt flashed in his eyes, and his lips pressed into a line, like he was bracing for an inescapable, but unpleasant task.
“I’m very skilled at taking only the energy I need to continue existing, but there will always be a temptation …”
“Temptation?”
“The impulse to drain someone. To kill them.”
I shivered.
“You can … kill someone by taking energy?”
Will nodded.
“I was telling you the truth, Aven. I would never hurt you intentionally,” he said, defeat leaking into his words. “But I could, without meaning to. I’ve been careless. I’ve put you at risk.”
He looked down.
“So, you’re saying you’re—what? A vampire?”
I laughed, but when Will looked up at me, his expression was perfectly serious.
“Of a sort, yes. Many terms exist for what I am. Energy vampire, energy predator, energy parasite, energy eater, psionic vampire, pranic vampire … empathic vampire.”
He truly believed this. I could see it in his face. And suddenly I felt a spike of fear. Was it possible that Will was just … crazy? It didn’t explain all of the unusual things about him, but insanity was a more likely explanation than him being an empathic vampire. His eyes searched mine, and I could tell he knew I was thinking he was nuts.
“Why is it so difficult to accept?” he asked with true curiosity in his voice.
“Because …”
Because I didn’t want to accept that the person I had fallen in love with was a vampire—any type of vampire. It just wasn’t possible. I frowned.
“Because I need proof,” I said finally.
“Aven, you already know the truth. You can feel it. You felt it the first time you saw me.”
I blinked, and before my eyes, Will’s appearance began to change, as though I was becoming aware of him for the first time only now. His skin began to glow like gold, and his eyes suddenly became a brighter, electric shade of blue. And suddenly the flawless marble-like texture of his skin seemed like just that—marble. Unyielding and even more beautiful. Not human. My eyes flashed to his face, which was suddenly too perfect. Painfully so. My thoughts began to swim, and I had to look away before they became more muddled.
“Do you see now?” Will asked sadly.
I stared uncomprehendingly at him.
“H-how?” I gasped.
“You are seeing me for what I am, not filtered through your own expectations. It’s easy for us to project our appearances according to your reality—an illusion …”
“But you said you couldn’t control my thoughts.”
“I can’t, but I can influence them briefly, and I can take advantage of your perception.”
I nodded.
“Okay, but that still doesn’t make you a vampire.”
His eyes flashed with frustration before his arms locked around me like bands of steel. My feet left the floor as he lifted me. He kissed me again, but this time his touch wasn’t gentle. His lips coaxed my mouth open and then his teeth nipped my lower lip, causing a sharp spike of pleasure to travel through my entire body. Will growled deep in his chest, and I felt blackness swimming through me. A void. I gasped for air as he pulled back and then tucked me against his body.
I never felt his feet touch the cement floor as he moved, but suddenly we were flying up the stairs to the second floor. Our surroundings blurred as he darted forward and then shot upwards, breaking through a hidden panel in the ceiling. Within seconds, we were balanced precariously on the roof of the house, Will still holding me casually in one arm. His breathing hadn’t altered. I looked around carefully, at once digesting both the height at which we stood and Will’s casual manner. Will’s muscles flexed again, and my stomach pitched violently as he leapt forward.
I couldn’t even scream as I watched the scenery—the sky, the trees, the ocean in the distance—blur again as we hurtled through the air. It felt like we were falling straight down. Then I heard a thunderous crack, and suddenly we were standing on a marble patio that stretched from the back of the house to the cliff’s edge.
Will very gently lowered me to the ground, his arm still supporting my weight, since my legs refused to hold me up. I looked down and saw the marble stone we had landed on—cracked into thousands of pieces and disintegrating into sand beneath Will’s feet. When I looked up at him, Will’s expression was unreadable. His appearance had melted back into how I remembered him from before, still beautiful and perfect, but not as otherworldly. Filtered through my own expectations.
“The cumulative energy I have acquired makes me capable of feats well beyond the realm of human ability. Even more so now that I’ve fed off of your energy.”
His arm released me, and I started falling toward the ground before he caught me again.
“And you are weaker because of it. Now do you understand why I am so dangerous to you?” he asked, his tone low, almost menacing.
I nodded and then remained quiet for a moment, trying to sort through my spiraling thoughts. Searching my feelings, I realized that they hadn’t changed in the last few moments. I still loved him. It was that simple. But I did have questions. My voice sounded strange and far away when I spoke again.
“Do you kill people?”
“I haven’t for a long time.”
The ease of his answer startled me into silence again, and I contemplated for several seconds.
“But you did … take energy from me on Friday night?”
“And just now,” he said, his expression regretful.
“How do you control it, though? How do you make sure you don’t kill someone?”
“Self control, practice,”
he said carefully. “And after time, it’s possible to achieve a kind of equilibrium.”
“Equilibrium?”
“Yes. I can take energy, but I also can return it.”
He reached out and touched my cheek with his fingers. Suddenly I felt a rush of energy.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“That was nothing,” he smiled.
A million questions filled my head, causing my brain to short-circuit.
“So, wait. Are you even human?”
“Certainly less so than you are.”
I shivered.
“When were you born?”
“In 1777,” he answered without hesitation. “One hundred and twenty years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published.”
Which would make him more than two centuries old.
“Then you don’t age … just like a vampire,” I whispered.
My teeth began to chatter, and I shivered involuntarily. The weather was starting to calm, just as Will had predicted, but the air around us remained freezing. Before I could say anything, Will pulled me against his chest and swept me into the house, past the pool and back in front of the fireplace. He sat down across from me, and I looked toward the fire, trying to absorb everything. A jolt of adrenaline hit me, but it had nothing to do with Will.
“I totally forgot about my homework!”
Not surprisingly, I had completely lost track of time in Will’s presence. He shook his head and stared at me.
“What?” I cried.
“I’ve told you a secret that I haven’t shared with a single human in more than two centuries—and you’re more concerned with your schoolwork,” he laughed.
“I am not,” I said indignantly. “But I am going to have to go back to the real world eventually.”
“You don’t have to,” he said so quietly that I nearly didn’t hear him.
My eyes shot to Will’s.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Forgive the selfish creature in me for speaking out of turn.”
When I frowned, Will reached out and grasped my hand, bringing it to his lips. He looked up at me, his eyes sending my thoughts spinning again. I shook my head, trying to clear it as Will’s lips skimmed over my knuckles.
“It’s hard to think when you do that,” I reminded him.
