She glared at him. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was studying.”
“Studying,” he repeated darkly, staring at her as if he seriously doubted her sanity. “Who the hell decides to study after being released from the hospital after attack on her life? And that still doesn’t explain why you were alone at night.”
“My mistake. I thought it was the twenty-first century,” she gasped. She placed her hand on her chest, pretending to be alarmed. “How dare I leave my home without a male escort? Next thing you know, I’ll start thinking for myself.”
Kallias stared blankly at her. “How did I get myself into this?” he sighed.
Rose winced as her palms burned from the bite of the pavement. The cold, night air only seemed to make the peeled, raw skin sting worse. She blew on her hands to cool them. As they stood there quietly, Rose found herself fighting back tears again. “I can’t just leave her there,” she whispered, mostly to herself.
“You can, and you will, if you want to survive the night,” Kallias said.
“She is my teacher,” Rose said pleadingly.
Kallias spun on his heels to face her, noticing with relief that her lip had stopped bleeding. “Correction: She was your teacher. Now, she is dead.”
Rose glared murderously at him. “How can you be so heartless?”
Kallias felt his hunger ignite again as her cheeks flushed pink with anger, and he quickly looked away, choosing to focus instead on a dark, closed thrift shop. “I’m not heartless,” he muttered under his breath. Truthfully, he often wished he were heartless. It would have saved him a lot of frustration and suffering. “I am just realistic. People die. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
“She was a good person,” Rose added, trying to make him understand.
“And good people die,” Kallias snapped, turning to look at her. His gaze seemed dark and intense as he stared at her. “This isn’t one of your fairy tales where the bad guys die and the good guys live happily ever after. This is real life. And in real life, it’s the good guys that die and the bad guys that are immortal.”
She just stared at him for a moment. “My fairy tales?” she repeated. Her voice sounded quiet and measured, as if there were many emotions brimming just beneath the surface. “What makes you think that I ever believed in fairy tales?”
His breath caught in his throat as her thoughts suddenly flooded his mind. He blinked and looked away, stunned by the horrid memories. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed…” he trailed off. “I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.”
She raised an eyebrow at his sudden change in behavior. She nearly laughed at how uncomfortable he looked. “You don’t apologize much, do you?”
His lips lifted into a small smile. “No, I don’t.”
Rose watched as he returned to scanning the alleyways and streets for any signs of Theron or anyone who might be helping him. “So, she’s…dead,” Rose admitted to herself, her voice catching. “We still need to call the police.”
Kallias shook his head. “You underestimate Theron’s speed. By the time human police reach that college, Theron will have already disposed of the body.”
“Disposed?” she repeated, her face paling. “What do you mean by that?”
Kallias glanced at her. “I mean, if I were you, I wouldn’t expect an open casket funeral for your teacher, that is, if she ever has one at all,” he said bluntly.
Rose stared at him in disbelief. “Are you always like this?”
“Yes,” he answered easily.
She crossed her arms and nodded bitterly, her lips pursed. For a while, she just glared at him while he continued to busy himself with watching for signs of Theron. “Do you know what I can’t seem to make sense of?” she asked.
Kallias looked at her curiously, wordlessly urging her to continue.
“If you’re so cold and heartless, why would you save my life?” she asked. “If you really don’t care for others, then why would you care whether I lived or died?”
He stared at her, his eyes unreadable. “I’m not cold. I’m just…callous.”
“Why? What made you so callous?” Rose asked curiously.
He watched her for a moment, as if he couldn’t decide how to answer the question. Then, in just four long strides, he closed the distance between them. She let her arms fall to her sides as he moved so close to her that their bodies nearly touched. She gasped in surprise as his large, rough hand closed over her hand. He stared at her hand for a moment. It felt so soft against his. Then, finding what he was looking for, he ran his fingertip across a rough spot on her finger, calloused from writing. He looked at her. “When something endures injury, stress, or wear for too long, it hardens itself for its own protection. It’s natural.”
Rose swallowed as she glanced down at his hand wrapped around hers. His feverish touch caused her skin to tingle and burn, and she blushed as she saw the chill bumps rising on her skin. Almost as soon as she noticed it, he dropped her hand. She watched him as he stepped back awkwardly, putting an appropriate distance between them. Her chest tightened with sympathy as she wondered what had happened to him to make him harden his heart. She might have asked, if she thought he would answer. “Or,” she said quietly, biting her lip, “it can heal.”
“Some wounds never heal,” Kallias said darkly, unable to meet her gaze. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Come on. We have to keep moving.”
Rose frowned at his urgency. “Why?”
“Because if Theron has tasted your blood, he can track you by scent, and the longer you remain in one spot, the easier that will be,” he said. He pointed at the pavement near her feet. “And that blood on the ground won’t help matters.”
Rose frowned at the dry spot of pavement. “What blood?”
“It’s there,” Kallias muttered impatiently. “Let’s go.”
“Fine,” Rose sighed. “Just let me tie my shoes first, so I don’t trip again.”
He nodded and waited as she lifted the black Converse shoe to her knee and bent to tie the thin shoestrings. He cast a quick glance at her and froze, his eyes widening at the sight. He suddenly realized that with everything going on, he hadn’t really looked at her…because if he had, he would’ve definitely noticed that.
Her long, red hair fell over her head, shielding her face. Dirt and rocks clung to her jeans that were torn at the knees from her fall. And…well…her shirt was torn, too. It hung open, revealing nearly every inch of her shapely breasts.
After Rose finished tying her shoes, she glanced back up at Kallias and frowned as she noticed him watching her with a mischievous smirk, amusement gleaming in his wide brown eyes. “Why are you smiling like that?” she asked.
Kallias didn’t answer her. He just shrugged off his jacket and held it out.
Rose scowled at the proffered jacket. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Kallias asked, still offering the jacket.
Her frown deepened. “You don’t really strike me as the chivalrous type.”
His smile widened. “I’m not.”
She gestured at the jacket dangling between them. “Then, what is this?”
His eyes drifted downward again, and his lips twitched, as if it were taking all of his strength not to laugh. “Your shirt is torn. I can see your breasts.”
Rose’s eyes widened, and she quickly looked down at her shirt. She blushed profusely as she realized that the first several buttons of her shirt had been ripped off, leaving only a blue cotton bra to shield her breasts from his gaze.
“And you have very…distracting…breasts,” Kallias added.
Surprisingly, her face managed to turn a darker shade of red than before. Unable to look at him, she started fumbling nervously with her shirt, pointlessly trying to pull it closed. “That stupid psycho ripped my shirt,” she complained.
Kallias pulled his jacket back toward him and teased, “I mean, if you don’t mind me staring at them, then, I certainly d
on’t mind…”
Rose glared at him and snatched the jacket from his hand. “Pig!”
Kallias laughed as she pulled on his jacket angrily, zipping the jacket all the way up to her neck, covering the torn shirt and everything else. The black leather jacket hung nearly to her knees, and the sleeves hung well past her hands. Shooting him one last glare, she marched off in the direction they’d been running.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and caught up with her in two easy strides. “Hey, I could have just kept my mouth shut and kept looking.”
She looked at him, her blue eyes narrowing dangerously. “Now you’re just digging yourself into a hole. You should have stopped while you were ahead.”
Kallias laughed, “Yeah, I probably should have stopped at ‘distracting.’”
She surprised herself by actually laughing with him. “Probably.”
He watched her as she laughed, stunned by how attracted he was to that cute, playful smile of hers, and the way her face flushed when she felt embarrassed or angry. He looked away, falling silent as they wandered through the city.
After a few minutes, Rose realized that they were circling the town. She looked up at him curiously. “I have a question,” she said suddenly.
“You seem to have a lot of them,” Kallias muttered.
Rose pursed her lips at that comment. Then, she started speaking rapidly, “Anyway, I know it might sound like a bad question, but I promise I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just want to know. I am not prejudiced at all. I’m just a really curious person. And I ask a lot of questions, and it irritates people, I know, but…”
“Are you actually going to ask this terrible question, or are you going to keep rambling to me about why you shouldn’t ask it?” Kallias interrupted.
Rose exhaled slowly. “Are you Greek?” she blurted.
Kallias suddenly froze and burst into laughter. He laughed so hard that he doubled over, his hand clutching his stomach. “That was your question?”
She turned toward him, scowling at his sudden fit of laughter that seemed just a little too melodramatic, in her opinion. “What is so funny about that?”
“Well,” he said, still laughing, as he straightened and grinned, “with all of that build-up, I was afraid you were going to ask my penis size or something.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? No! No! No. I would never ask about your… I don’t want to know your…” She gestured blindly toward his crotch throughout her incoherent sputtering. “I’m not interested in your… I’m not interested!”
Kallias stared at her with a raised eyebrow as she continued her loud, mortified stammering, never managing to finish a sentence. He glanced at the man and woman on the street who had turned to watch Rose’s strange outburst.
Rose followed his gaze and blushed, her cheeks turning nearly crimson. “Why does this always happen to me?” she whined, turning away from the couple.
“This has happened before?” Kallias snorted, still laughing at her.
She spun back toward him, glaring at him. “The point is: I couldn’t care less about how big or small your…” she trailed off, apparently still unable to finish the sentence. She marched off in the direction they’d been walking, wanting get as far away from those people as possible before she died of embarrassment.
Kallias followed, easily catching up with her. He leaned toward her with a playful grin. “I’m offended that you would even think small is an option.”
Rose grimaced and snarled, “You are a vulgar, repulsive, perverted…”
He smiled and interrupted, “Yes, I’m Greek. How did you know?”
She shrugged, temporarily forgetting her long train of insults. “Well, I didn’t actually know. I just suspected. I noticed that you have an accent, although it doesn’t sound Greek exactly, and then, I noticed that you seem to have some Greek features. But that doesn’t mean much because we’re all from somewhere originally, right? And then, I noticed that you have an unusual name, specifically a Greek name. Of course, your parents could have just liked Greek names…”
“You’ve been thinking about me an awful lot,” Kallias interrupted.
Rose rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t flatter yourself. It took maybe a total of three or four minutes for me to make all of those connections,” she scoffed.
“But I was still on your mind,” Kallias said, raising an eyebrow.
She threw her hands up. “Well, yeah,” she said, as if it were obvious. “A strange man showed up at my work, asked me a weird question, and then attacked me. Then, I realized that the same rude jerk that attacked me and said he didn’t care whether I lived or died actually saved my life and even went to the trouble of dropping me off at the hospital. So, yes, obviously, you were on my mind!”
Kallias sighed irritably, “I thought we established I did not attack you.”
“You established that. I didn’t,” Rose clarified. “You forcefully grabbed me. The definition of the word attack is an act of aggression that…”
“Do you always define words in the middle of an argument?” he asked.
“I…uh… Yeah, sometimes,” Rose admitted. “What’s wrong with that?”
Kallias shrugged. “I didn’t attack you.”
“Fine. Then what would you call it?” Rose countered.
“Restraining,” Kallias replied. “Restraining is defensive, not offensive.”
Rose glared at him. “I didn’t need to be restrained!”
Kallias raised his eyebrow. “Speak for yourself,” he muttered. “I don’t think there is a person alive who has the patience to deal with you.”
“Funny,” Rose snapped. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Kallias chuckled. “So, what else made you think that I was Greek?”
“Well, if you hadn’t interrupted me, you’d know I was almost finished,” Rose sassed. She shrugged. “You spoke in Greek. After that, I kind of figured.”
Kallias frowned. “When did I speak in Greek?”
“You said the Greek equivalent of the S.H. word,” Rose reminded him.
“S.H. word? You mean shit?” Kallias laughed. “Do you always refer to curse words with vague letter references the way a five-year-old child would?”
She glared at him. “Do you always say the words?” she countered.
He laughed. “I do, actually,” he answered. “You see, my father used to tell me that respectable, high-class men should avoid vulgarity, but I never much cared for his political, self-righteous, prejudiced bullshit, so…” He completed the sentence with a sarcastic bow to no one in particular.
“There were a lot of adjectives in that sentence,” she noted playfully.
“A lot of adjectives come to mind when I think of him,” he muttered.
Rose stared at him, surprised that he’d actually revealed something about himself, even if it was only his dislike for his father. “Where is your father now?”
“Dead,” Kallias answered with no emotion whatsoever.
“Oh. Crap. I’m sorry,” Rose said sympathetically.
“Don’t be. The world was better off without him,” Kallias said coldly. No emotion, not even anger, showed in his expression. “I only wish that I had been the one who had the privilege of shoving the sword through his heart.”
Rose froze. “Your father was murdered? With a sword?”
Kallias grimaced, mentally cursing himself for saying too much. He wasn’t accustomed to making such ridiculous mistakes. “It was a metaphor.”
“Oh,” Rose laughed. “Of course.” But her smile faded again as she thought about what he’d said. “You didn’t really mean that you wish you could have killed him, though, right? Because even if you don’t like him, that’s a little…”
Kallias turned to look at her. He sighed, and she thought he looked sad, all of the sudden. “Rose, I am not a good guy. I thought I made that clear already.”
Rose watched him with a frown. “Yeah. I guess you did.”
�
��Come on. We have to keep moving,” Kallias reminded her.
Rose followed him as he continued to lead her down random streets and alleys. She struggled to keep up with his brisk pace. His boots pounded harshly against the pavement, and his intense body language betrayed his frustration.
Rose fiddled with the sleeves of the black leather jacket as they walked. “Where did you get this jacket? Giants-R-Us?” she muttered, breaking the silence.
Kallias laughed. “It’s custom made.”
She sighed, “It was Theron who murdered her, right?”
He didn’t even seem surprised by the sudden change of subject. “Yes.”
“And he killed her because of me,” Rose said quietly.
Kallias glanced at her, his brown eyes softening. “It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Rose asked, her voice cracking. “He wanted to kill me. He wouldn’t have even encountered her if he hadn’t been looking for me.”
Kallias came to a stop suddenly, turning toward her so abruptly that she collided with him. He grasped her shoulders to steady her, vaguely noticing the way her cheeks flushed at their closeness. “You cannot do that,” he said, enunciating each word harshly. His voice softened. “Believe me, Rose. No one can shoulder that kind of guilt. Theron killed her. He is to blame. Not you. Not anyone else. You didn’t choose for him to come after you, now did you?”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t even understand why he wants to kill me.”
“Then, like I said, it’s not your fault,” he said.
“There was blood on her neck,” she commented.
Kallias watched her warily. “Yes.”
“But Theron can’t be a…” Rose trailed off. “Tell me it’s not true.”
“But it is true,” Kallias said. “Theron is a vampire.”
She shook her head in denial. “It’s impossible. Vampires don’t exist.”
Kallias sighed, “If I thought you truly believed that, I would let you continue to believe it. It doesn’t help anyone’s cause for humans to know about the existence of vampires. But there’s no point in denying it when you already know. You saw his kill. You saw the blood on her neck. You felt his fangs when he bit you. You already know what he is, whether you want to believe it or not.”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 16