Cayson has dark brown hair. It’s cut shorter on the sides and longer on the top, but it’s not long at all—just long enough for me to run my fingers through.
Uhh… stop it, Riley. You can’t think about these kinds of things.
Cayson’s eyebrows are perfect. Like, truly perfect. Maybe he grooms them? But I don’t know about that. He seems too grumpy and cynical to ever care about his looks. But you never know these days. I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to groom his eyebrows. They’re sexy.
I resist the urge to smack myself.
Did I seriously just think that his eyebrows are sexy?
Cayson’s eyes are a deep, emerald green. When I look into his eyes, I feel like I’m looking into his soul. And Cayson has a good soul.
The thought almost makes me snort. There is nothing good about Cayson.
I hope his nose has a flaw. Even if it’s one tiny bump or maybe it’s a little crooked, but nope. I’ve never seen a more perfect nose in my life.
His lips.
He’s frowning at me, but his lips are so inviting. They’re not plump, but they’re definitely not thin. I find myself wanting to lean forward and kiss him, just once, so I can see if his lips feel as soft as they look.
He stands over me by about six inches. I’m 5’8” and have met a lot of guys shorter than me, so I’m glad he’s taller. I could wear heels when I’m with him and he’ll still be taller—not that I’ll ever wear heels.
“What the heck is wrong with me?” I realize I’ve whispered the words out loud, but I don’t care.
Cayson raises an eyebrow. One perfectly groomed eyebrow.
“If you’re done checking each other out, we should probably go,” Asa says.
Oh my gosh.
I was just checking Cayson out very slowly. But he was doing the same to me. He was checking me out too! And I don’t know why that excites me, but it does. I have butterflies in my stomach and my heart is…
Wait a minute.
I put a hand over my chest.
“I have a heartbeat. Does that mean I’m not a ghost?”
Asa laughs his deep laugh, slapping a hand over his stomach.
“You’re not a ghost. You’re a vampire.” Cayson speaks so calmly that I almost believe him.
I open my mouth to protest, to call him crazy, to… something. But I can’t deny the rightness in the word vampire.
But that’s crazy, right?
“Shouldn’t I go home?” I finally ask, looking at Cayson. “My dad is probably worried about me.”
“Your family buried you a week ago. If you show up back there now...” He shakes his head. “Well, you can’t. It’s not allowed. You can’t see anybody from your old life.”
I feel a weight lift off of my shoulders. I’ve never felt such relief in my life.
I never have too see my step monster again?
Or Cassie?
I will miss my dad, but… he hasn’t really been a dad to me in a long time.
“Where will I go?” I ask, now grinning at the prospect.
“Shouldn’t you be sad about not seeing your family? I expected crying and screaming and maybe a little begging.”
“I can beg if you want me to,” I say, hearing the seductive done of my voice. I slap a hand over my mouth. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
Asa laughs again.
Cayson even cracks a smile. “It’s a vampire thing. When you first turn you feel very liberated and you tend to say whatever you’re thinking.”
“And apparently you’re thinking about sex.” Asa is still laughing.
Cayson glares at Asa.
“I’m a virgin.” I shrug, realizing I’m just going to go with whatever this is. “I don’t know why I just confessed that to two strange men, but nobody in my old life liked me very much. And that includes my family. Seriously, the farther away from this town I am, the better.”
Asa is smirking.
Cayson is frowning.
These two boys are like night and day.
I walk between them, neither of them touching me, as we head toward a car that is parked on the side of the gravel path by my grave.
“Where are we going?” I ask, as Cayson opens the back door for me.
“Mystic Academy,” he answers.
“What is that?” I climb into the back seat and look up at him.
“Vampire school.” He shuts the door and gets in the front passenger seat.
Vampire school?
I have so many questions.
I hope this is a long drive.
5
1:30 am
The jury is still out on whether you’re crazy.
We end up at an airport which worries me a little bit.
“Dude, you’re not, like, gonna sell me into sex slavery or something, right?” I ask, looking between Asa and Cayson. “I shouldn’t have told you guys I’m a virgin. I heard those guys don’t like brunettes anyway. Dang… I wish my eyes weren’t blue. I bet they like girls with blue eyes.”
Asa laughs.
Cayson just rolls his eyes. “I honestly don’t think I could pay somebody to take you off my hands right now.”
I blink.
Was that an insult?
He and Asa get out of the car and a few seconds later, my door is opened. I get out, but I look at Cayson.
“Seriously, though. I’m not going to end up in Mexico in some dude’s basement, right?” I ask. “My stepsister is much prettier. She even has blonde hair.”
“Seriously,” Cayson emphasizes the word, probably trying to make fun of me again. “I doubt your stepsister is prettier than you. And we’re not selling you. We’re going to Mystic Academy. I’ll tell you all about it on the plane. We need to get out of this town before the recently dead girl is spotted.”
Great.
Fine.
Wait a minute… did Cayson just inadvertently call me pretty?
What is it about this guy that makes my pulse race and my stomach flutter? He doesn’t even act like he can stand the mere sight of me and I’m basically drooling over him. I’m planning out our future in my head.
I’ve had crushes before—that’s nothing new. I crushed on one guy in my school for two years, then he dated Cassie and I got over him real quick. Especially when I heard the two of them going at in in the room next to mine. But this is different than that and I can’t explain it.
I follow the shirtless stranger onto an airplane, hoping that my gut feeling is right and that I can trust him—not my smartest move ever, but hey, I did just die.
Am I really just accepting this vampire story? I mean… I did wake up in a casket. In that ugly dress the step monster most definitely picked out for me. Even in death my father couldn’t side with me and pick out something else. He knew I hated that dress because we fought about it for weeks before the wedding. And then I frowned in every single picture they made me take at the stupid wedding. I think there is even a picture of me flipping off the camera at some point. I was a rebel when I was thirteen.
“So… what date is it?” I ask.
“November twelfth,” Cayson answers.
“November twelfth?” My eyes widen. “The last I remember it was November fifth.”
“We had to wait until the full moon to dig you up.”
I take a seat by the window and Cayson surprises me by sitting next to me.
“How does all this work anyway? I mean… wouldn’t they have embalmed me or whatever they do at the funeral home?” I ask.
This is by far the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had.
“I compelled them not to.” Cayson looks annoyed.
“How did I become like this?” I ask.
Asa, who is sitting behind us, laughs. “Yeah, Cayson. Why don’t you tell her how she’s a vampire now?”
Cayson rolls his eyes.
My mouth falls open. “Wait. You did this to me, didn’t you?”
He shrugs.
“You killed me?” I am now yell
ing, but I’m sitting next to my murderer right now. I go to get up from my seat to do… something… anything… but Cayson grabs my hand to keep me from walking away.
When Cayson’s skin touches mine, everything else fades away. I can’t even remember why I’m mad at him anymore. All that matters is that he’s touching me. Cayson Ingram is touching me and it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
Mine.
Cayson Ingram is mine. And I am his.
He shoves me back into my seat and lets go of my hand.
Ah, now I remember why I’m mad.
He killed me!
“The plane is about to take off.” He reaches over me and grabs the seatbelt, buckling me into my seat. And I just watch as he slowly buckles me in. I’m aware that I’m only wearing his shirt right now. And he’s not wearing a shirt at all. There is something really intimate about this whole thing.
When Cayson is done buckling me up, he looks at me and for a moment, I think he’s going to kiss me. But then the plane moves and I realize… he was just trying to distract me so I wouldn’t get off the plane.
He smirks.
I want to slap that smirk off his face.
“Will you at least tell me why you murdered me?” I ask.
The smile falls from his lips. “You’re not dead, technically. I just gave you immortality.”
Immortality?
Is he serious?
My mouth falls open as I look at him. “But why me? There are a lot of girls in my town who you could’ve turned. Why did you do it to me?”
He sighs, a look of defeat in his eyes. “I didn’t want to turn you. You were just so miserable that your soul literally called out to mine. I followed you around that dark park for three hours hoping you would leave. But you didn’t. You stayed there and I didn’t have a choice. I had to turn you.”
Tears press against the back of my eyes, but I know from experience that it’s not actually tears. It’s blood. So I hold them back.
Cayson must see how miserable I am, so he grabs my hand. “When we get into the air, I’ll get you something to wash away the blood under your eyes.”
I have blood under my eyes and he’s just now telling me?
No wonder he thinks I’m a hot mess. Because I am!
Literally the first time I meet this guy, he’s forced to kill me because I’m so miserable that my soul literally calls out to him, then he digs me up from my grave and the first thing I do is nearly knock him over and then I rip my dress off.
My eyes widen. “Oh my gosh. Are you taking me to a psych ward? I swear, if my step monster made me go crazy, I will murder her.”
Asa laughs again, so I flip him off.
Cayson shakes his head. “You’re not going to a psych ward. However, the jury is still out on whether you’re crazy.”
I can’t argue that.
6
2:00 am
Capri Sun… er… blood?
Once we’re in the air, Cayson and I go into a private room in the back of the plane and he grabs a washcloth and cleans the blood from my face. He does it so gently, which confuses me. Which Cayson is the real one? The one who is kind of cruel or the one who does sweet things, like hold my hand when I’m about to cry, give me the literal shirt off his back, and cleans my face so softly? His personality is confusing.
“Are you hungry?” He throws the washcloth into the sink.
Now that he mentions it, I’m more hungry than I’ve ever been in my life.
I nod. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week.”
He smiles and I realize that’s probably the closest I’m going to get to a laugh from the guy.
The facts are, I haven’t eaten in a week. Because I’ve been dead. Or ‘in transition’ as Cayson explained. I also learned that when somebody is turned into a vampire, their transition isn’t complete until the full moon, which is why they dug me up tonight.
When I told Cayson it was terrifying to wake up in a coffin, he said he knew the feeling. He also said nobody was there to dig him out and I’m wondering how he got out. I feel bad for him. I can’t even imagine how scary it must have been.
Cayson walks over to the mini fridge and bends down to open it. I can’t help but notice Cayson has a very nice butt. His jeans aren’t super loose and I’m glad about that. He grabs something from the fridge and turns around.
“Were you just checking me out?” He raises and eyebrow.
I nod. “Most definitely.”
He rolls his eyes and shoves something cold in my hand.
I look down and see a literal bag of blood. Like the kind they have in hospitals for transfusions. I nearly drop the thing, but he catches it.
“What the heck?” My eyes are wide as I look at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“What else do you think a vampire eats?” Cayson looks at me, waiting for an answer. He’s still holding out the blood bag. He pulls on something and stabs a straw into it like it’s some kind of Capri Sun.
Actually… it does kind of smell good.
What is wrong with me? Blood smells good?
I look at Cayson, almost like I’m trying to get his approval. He nods at me and that’s all it takes. I put my mouth to the straw and I take a sip. The second the taste hits my tongue, I realize this is exactly what I want. Before I even comprehend what I’m doing—drinking blood—I finish the bag and am literally slurping up whatever drops remain like some kind of heathen.
I go to push my glasses up my nose out of habit and I realize they’re not there.
But I can see perfectly fine.
“You look confused,” Cayson says.
“I’m not wearing my glasses.”
He nods. “Vampirism heals everything, even poor eyesight.”
Well, that’s nice. I didn’t mind my glasses, but it’s nice to not need them anymore.
Cassie always referred to them as nerd goggles.
But Cassie doesn’t matter anymore because I’m dead.
“Do you think my dad is okay?” I ask, frowning. “Whenever I left the house that night, I said something really mean to him.”
Cayson takes the empty bag from me and tosses it into the trash. “What did you say?”
“We were just fighting. My stepsister had a bunch of jocks dump the cafeteria trashcans over my head during lunch, so I drove our car home early from school. She wasn’t stranded. She has friends. But my dad was pissed off because the step monster was pissed. He always took their side. And I told him I’d rather be dead than be in their house a minute longer.” I look at Cayson. His eyes are narrowed as he listens to my story.
“Your dad knew your stepsister was bullying you and he didn’t put a stop to it?”
I nod.
“Your funeral makes so much more sense now.” He shakes his head. “There was this blonde woman who was crying over the top. I’m talking mascara running down her face. But it was hard to notice anything over the fact that her fake tits were hanging out of her dress.”
“That’s the stepmom, or as I like to call her, the step monster.”
“Then there was a slightly younger version of her who didn’t look sad at all unless one of her friends was there consoling her.”
“That’s the evil stepsister.”
“Your dad looked genuinely sad though. I almost felt bad for him, but after what you said…” Cayson shakes his head.
It feels really good to have somebody take my side for once in my life. I haven’t had that since before my dad got married.
“Why do you look like you’re about to cry again?”
I swallow hard. “I just… nobody has taken my side in a long time.”
I throw my arms around Cayson. He stiffens when I first do it, but then he hugs me back after a few moments. He strokes my hair, which is kind of sweet.
“I’ll always take your side.” His voice is tight and gruff.
His words nearly make me cry, but I really don’t want blood running down my face again, especially n
ot in front of Cayson.
“Let’s go back and sit in our seats,” he says, once we pull apart.
Cayson walks out of the backroom first and I follow him. Asa is doing something on his phone and doesn’t even look up when we walk past him.
I guess now I get to hear all about this mysterious academy he keeps talking about.
7
2:30 am
Do you want to make out until we get there?
“We’re flying to Mystic Academy,” Cayson tells me, once we sit down.
“Vampire school.”
He nods.
“How come the world doesn’t know that vampires exist?”
Cayson reaches out and grabs a piece of my hair. I don’t know if he does it on purpose or absentmindedly, but I like it. “Vampires aren’t the only supernatural beings that exist. There’s is an entire society. Vampires tend to stick to themselves more.”
“What? Like werewolves?”
“Wolf shifters,” he corrects.
My mouth falls open.
No way. There’re really freaking werewolves!
“Are they our enemy?”
He laughs. “No. Wolf shifters are nice.”
“What other kind of creatures are there?” I can’t stop myself from smiling because this is exciting—probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever heard.
Cayson is still playing with a piece of my hair. “There are fae… fairies… umm… there are succubi and witches and… dragon shifters… You’ll learn more about them all at Mystic Academy.”
My eyes widen when he says dragons.
I mean… witches and fairies are cool too. But dragons are… well, they’re huge. How have the managed to stay hidden?
“Are succubi super seductive?” I raise an eyebrow.
He shrugs. “I’ve met a few, but they’ve never tempted me.”
“Can confirm that,” Asa pipes up from behind us. “Can also confirm succubi are very seductive and they definitely live up to their hype if you know what I’m saying.”
I glance behind me and see Asa wiggle his eyebrows.
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