“Are you coming?” Kallias snapped impatiently.
His voice tore her from her thoughts, and she suddenly realized that the bags were in the cart already. She glanced at Kallias, meeting his glare with her own. “Yes, sir,” she snarled with a sarcastic salute. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the cashier gaped at her, as if she thought Rose was out of her mind, but Kallias just chuckled at her snarky response. Rose pushed the shopping cart out of the aisle and headed toward the exit. She felt Kallias behind her, and she heard his heavy footsteps as he followed closely behind her.
As they stepped out into the parking lot, the cool air enveloped them, cooling Rose’s skin. She suddenly realized how stuffy it’d felt in that store. Only a few cars scattered the parking lot. The moon provided most of the light. She noticed Kallias relax, relieved by the darkness after being in such a bright building.
They were almost to the car when Kallias abruptly placed his arm in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. She frowned at him, her brows creasing with worry as she noticed the difference in his countenance. Like an animal, he seemed on edge, his body rigid and straight, causing him to look even taller than he already did. His stance seemed defensive and protective, more intimidating than usual.
“What’s wrong?” Rose asked nervously.
His brown eyes scanned the parking lot, searching for something out of place. He sucked in a deep breath, inhaling deeply, and then, his eyes fluttered closed as he studied the scents and listened closely to the sounds around them. “Nothing,” he said finally, opening his eyes. He seemed surprised by his own answer. “I could have sworn I smelled a vampire, but then, there was nothing.”
Kallias dropped his arm, allowing her to start walking again. He walked next to her, in step with her, as if he were afraid that putting too much distance between them might result in her death. He’d yet to relax even the least little bit.
“Do you think Theron might have followed us this far?” Rose asked.
His eyes continued to scan the parking lot around them. “I highly doubt it,” he answered without looking at her. “I’m sure Theron is still in Florida.”
She slowed as they neared his car. “Then, why do you seem so worried?”
“I’m not worried,” he stated. When she gave him a skeptical look, he sighed, “I’m not. But no vampire is good news, Rose…especially not for you.”
He’d said that last part under his breath, but Rose had still heard him. She scowled suspiciously at him. “Especially not for me? What does that mean?”
His eyes darted toward her briefly. “Nothing,” he answered, a strange edge to his voice. They stopped next to his sleek, black car. “It means nothing.”
Rose continued to stare suspiciously at him as he pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the car doors. She stayed near the shopping cart as he rounded the car and lifted up the trunk. “It must mean something,” she argued.
His eyes darted toward her again as he returned to the cart and grabbed nearly half of the shopping bags with just one hand. He tossed the bags into the trunk and returned to the cart for more bags. Before he could grab the rest of them, Rose snatched up all that she could and added them to the trunk as well.
“What is it that you don’t want me to know?” she asked.
Kallias slammed the trunk of the car closed. “Nothing.”
Just as she expected him to get back inside the car, he suddenly jerked his torn T-shirt over his head. She sputtered and glanced around at the empty parking lot as she tried to figure out why he’d suddenly decided to be half-naked.
“Uh,” she stammered. “Is this really the place for this?”
He opened the back car door and tossed the torn T-shirt inside. “I got a few weird looks in the store. I need to change,” he said as he sifted through a duffel bag and pulled out another black T-shirt. He tugged the shirt over his head.
“I thought the weird looks were about the vampire thing,” she said.
“That’s a different kind of look,” he said as he pulled his shirt down.
Her frown deepened as he pressed the button to lock the doors. The car beeped twice. “Wait, we’re not getting in the car? Where are we going?”
He motioned for her to follow him. “We need to eat.”
Rose froze mid-step, her skin suddenly paling. “We?”
Kallias turned to frown at her and then rolled his eyes as he understood why she suddenly looked so worried. “Oh, for goodness sakes, Rose, I am not going to bite you,” he assured her, “no matter how much I want to.”
“Oh,” she laughed. She frowned again. “Wait. What was that last part?”
13
Intoxicated Vampires
“I should have grabbed a pair of clothes to change into once we get inside the restaurant,” Rose sighed, grimacing at her torn jeans and the leather jacket that covered her from her neck to her thighs. “I feel gross walking around in these torn, bloody clothes. Besides, I’m sure you probably want your jacket back.”
The parking lot of the Wal-Mart they’d just left extended to the end of the street, conjoined with the long, empty parking lot of a strip mall that consisted mostly of dark, empty stores that had probably closed hours ago. But near the end of that strip mall, a well-lit, twenty-four-hour diner set alone, casting light out onto the black asphalt. Rose assumed that they were headed to the diner.
“I don’t need it,” he said easily. “Besides, the jacket looks good on you.”
Rose blinked in shock at the unexpected compliment. He’d said it so nonchalantly that she wondered if she’d just imagined it. “I doubt that.”
Kallias frowned at her. “It does. It looks natural on you.”
She glanced up at him, her eyebrows lifting as she realized that he really had complimented her. She wondered if he’d been possessed by some kind of nice demon. “I guess I missed my calling then,” she muttered. “All of this time, destiny has been calling to me, telling me that I was meant to be a biker or a dangerous, leather-clad vampire, and I was like, ‘You said nerd, right?’ Close enough.”
Kallias laughed. “Well, we could fix that, you know.”
Rose glanced up at him, her bright blue eyes widening in shock. “Uh,” she stammered worriedly. “Fix which part, exactly? The vampire part or the…”
He scowled at her. “The motorcycle part, obviously.”
“Oh, no,” she complained, grimacing. “You have a motorcycle?”
His brows furrowed. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Ugh,” she groaned, “you’re just so stereotypical.”
They slowed as they reached the entrance of the diner. The restaurant seemed small, almost as small as the café where Rose worked. A white sign with the words Open 24 Hours printed across the center hung inside the glass door.
Kallias pulled open the glass door. “How am I stereotypical?”
“Oh, come on. You’re clearly an adrenaline junkie,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The fighting. The weapons. The ridiculous daredevil stunt you pulled with the car. The leather. And now, I find out that you even have a motorcycle.”
He frowned. “I’m not sure any of those things are actually related.”
“You ran over someone and jumped a barricade onto the Interstate. Normal people are terrified by things like that. You were laughing,” she pointed out.
“It was just innocent fun,” he said defensively.
Her eyes widened. “Innocent?! Innocent?!”
“You’re overreacting,” he said. “You didn’t die.”
“Yeah. I should wait until after I’m dead to freak out,” she muttered.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”
She rolled her eyes at him. Remembering that he still held the door open, she stepped inside. Several groups of people scattered the restaurant, filling the booths and tables. Some appeared to be college students, dressed in collegiate hoodies and jackets, equipped with their textbooks and notebooks for a la
te night of studying, while a few others looked to be night shift workers, dressed in work uniforms and wearing the tired expressions of people on a brief break from a long, late shift. The diner seemed too small and too understaffed to accommodate so many customers. Rose heard the door close behind them and felt the all-too-noticeable heat that seemed to radiate from Kallias’s body as he neared her.
“Just so you know,” she added, “I will never ride a motorcycle with you.”
He smiled wryly. “Why? Are you afraid?” he taunted.
“No,” she scoffed. “I’m just smart. Do you know how much higher the likelihood of death in a motorcycle wreck is compared to a car wreck?”
“Do you just sit around and memorize statistics all day?” he asked.
“I do a lot of things during the day,” she said defensively.
He nodded, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips. As they stood near the hostess stand, waiting for someone to seat them, Rose felt him lean closer to her, until his mouth was almost at her ear. “I think you’re just scared,” he teased.
Rose made a frustrated noise in her throat that sounded somewhere between a gravelly growl and a mousy squeal. She stepped closer to him, obliterating the tiny bit of space that had separated them. She raised herself on her toes and, poking his chest with her finger, hissed, “Besides, if you think I would ever climb on the back of a motorcycle, wrap my arms around you, all close to you and clinging to you and all that, then you, sir, are severely mistaken.”
He glanced down at her finger pointing so threateningly at his chest, his lips curving tightly as he fought the urge to burst into laughter. He leaned over so that his deep, melodic voice poured seductively into her ear as he said, “I seem to remember that you have already been that close to me, clinging to me and all that.”
Rose shuddered. She wasn’t sure whether it was the way his breath warmed her ear or the memory of that intense kiss, but whatever it was left her breathless and overheated. She took a step back and turned back toward the hostess stand, avoiding his gaze. She watched as a young woman, dressed in a black polo shirt and black pants with shoulder-length purple hair falling around her shoulders, glanced up, noticed them standing there, and hurried toward them.
She could still feel his eyes on her. “You know, for someone who says that kiss didn’t mean anything, you sure do mention it a lot,” she said without looking at him, her breathing still a little unsteady. “I had practically forgotten it.”
“Liar,” Kallias said.
The hostess stopped in front of them and flashed a bright smile. She glanced back and forth between Kallias and Rose, and her round green eyes sparkled with excitement. “Oh, yay, a couple! I love couples!” she chimed in a sing-songy voice, gazing at them with the doe eyes of a hopeless romantic.
Rose frowned. “Oh, no, we’re not…”
“Just two?” the hostess asked, not hearing Rose’s attempt to correct her.
“Yes,” Kallias answered.
The hostess gathered two menus into her arms. “Table or booth?”
Kallias looked at Rose expectantly, waiting for her to answer.
Rose felt his eyes on her, and she scowled at him. “What? I don’t care.”
“Booths are more romantic,” the hostess sang.
“Table,” Kallias and Rose both responded in unison.
The hostess blinked in surprise, her smile fading. She’d obviously been expecting the opposite answer. “Oh. Umm…okay. Sure. Follow me.”
Kallias and Rose followed the purple-haired hostess to a table near the center of the dining room, just feet away from the kitchen. As they walked, the hostess cast several shy, curious glances at Rose. The table seemed safe enough from the dreaded romance, certainly not as dark and secluded as the booths. Kallias took a seat on one side of the table, and Rose took a seat on the other side. The hostess set their menus on the table, and as Rose busied herself with looking through it, the hostess cast another curious glance at her. Kallias snorted.
“I like your jacket,” the hostess told Rose.
“Thanks,” Rose said, a surprised smile curving at her lips. “But it’s his.”
The hostess turned her curious gaze toward Kallias for a moment, her brows furrowing as she tried to figure out the relationship between Kallias and Rose. She smiled at Rose again. “If you need me for anything, just ask for Starr. Your waitress will be Leslie. She’ll be out here soon. I hope you enjoy your food.”
Rose smiled. “Thank you, Starr.”
The woman nodded and walked away, returning to her podium.
Rose glanced back at Kallias. He’d already begun scanning the menu. “Wow. I think that’s the first woman that didn’t stare at you like you were a god.”
“Probably because she was busy staring at you,” he muttered.
She frowned. “What?” she sputtered. She glanced back toward the door where the hostess stood at her podium, and sure enough, she found the sweet, purple-haired girl staring at her. The hostess blushed and looked away.
“You didn’t notice?” Kallias asked as he flipped through the menu.
“No,” she said, frowning. “She must think I’m weird or something.”
“Or,” Kallias offered, “maybe she just thinks you’re attractive.”
Rose blinked in shock. “What?”
He shrugged. “She likes women.”
“Seriously?” she said. “Did you see that in her mind or something?”
He nodded and turned to the steak section of the menu. “She likes you.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Rose scoffed.
He looked up at her, rolling his eyes as he noticed her staring at the hostess. “You know, instead of staring at her like an idiot, you could just go talk to her,” he suggested with a playful grin. “Tell her you want that booth, after all.”
“What?” she said, turning her gaze back toward him. “No.”
He chuckled and returned to reading his menu.
A waitress appeared at their table, her brown eyes on the floor as she pulled her notepad and pen from her apron. She wore the same black polo and black slacks that the hostess wore, and her brown hair was sleeked back in a high pony tail. “Hi, my name is Leslie, and I will be your waitress tonight,” she recited distractedly. “Can I… Oh, my goodness.” Her question ended in a gasp as she suddenly looked up at Kallias, her brown eyes widening in stunned awe.
Rose frowned and looked up to find the woman gaping at Kallias.
Kallias continued to read his menu. “I want Coke, and she wants coffee,” he answered, not waiting for the waitress to complete the question.
“Oh. Uh…okay,” the waitress stammered, her cheeks reddening in embarrassment as she quickly shifted her gaze to the notepad. She scrawled their order on the notepad and slid it into her pocket. “I’ll be right back with that.”
“You ordered for me,” Rose complained.
He shrugged, still not looking at her. “You wanted coffee.”
“You don’t know that,” she argued stubbornly.
“I do know that, actually,” he said, pointing to his head.
Rose flushed. “Oh, right. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
“I thought humans drank coffee in the mornings,” Kallias commented.
She bristled. “Coffee isn’t restricted to a time of day.”
His eyebrows lifted at her seriousness. “I guess I was mistaken then.”
“I guess you were,” she agreed, flipping open her menu.
He chuckled. “You’re testy about your coffee, aren’t you?”
She glared at him. “Coffee is awesome,” she stated. When he continued to stare at her with that amused half-smirk, she added, “It’s better than blood.”
Kallias raised his eyebrow, still smiling. “Not better than your blood.”
She gaped at him. “W-what?” she sputtered.
Rose nearly jumped out of her seat when the waitress suddenly set the cup of coffee in front of her and set the g
lass of cola in front of Kallias.
“Are you ready to order your food?” Leslie asked. She smiled brightly at Kallias as she pulled out her notepad. “I can give you more time, if you want.”
“I want the steak,” Kallias said, staring at the menu. “The biggest one.”
She jotted something in her notepad. “How do you want it cooked?”
“Rare, probably,” Rose joked. “As rare as it gets. Still full of blood.”
Kallias looked up from his menu, narrowing his eyes at her.
Rose ignored the murderous glare he gave her and continued, “As a matter of fact, he’d probably like it best if you just brought him the cow’s artery.”
The waitress grimaced, obviously appalled by Rose’s attempt at humor.
Kallias, on the other hand, pressed his lips tightly together, suppressing a smile. “Medium rare will be fine,” he told the waitress, still glaring at Rose.
Rose just smiled cutely at him.
Leslie looked at Rose with obvious distaste. “And you?”
Rose glanced at the menu wistfully, but then sighed, “Salad.”
Kallias stared at her, his brows furrowing. “No. That’s not what you want,” he said in a confused tone, regaining their attention. He looked up at the waitress. “She doesn’t want salad. She wants the grilled fish with macaroni.”
Leslie nodded, as if Rose’s answer didn’t matter. “I’ll be right back.”
Rose glared at Kallias. “What the heck was that?”
He still seemed confused. “You didn’t want the salad.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” he argued, pointing again to his head for emphasis.
“Yeah. Yeah. I get it. You’re telepathic,” she sassed. “That doesn’t mean I need you to order for me. I had a reason for ordering the salad.”
“You’re on a diet,” he said, reading her mind. “Why are you on a diet?”
She frowned. “Can’t you tell?” she asked, gesturing to her body.
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 36