He stared blankly at her. “Can’t I tell what?”
She shrugged. “I need to lose weight.”
His brows furrowed. “For what?”
She didn’t understand what was so complicated about it. “To be thin.”
“You’re not fat, Rose. You have breasts and an ass. There’s a difference,” he said bluntly. Then, under his breath, he added, “Very nice breasts and ass.”
Her eyes widened at that last part. “Kallias!” she exclaimed.
He smiled innocently. “Sorry. Did I say that out loud?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you did.”
“You humans today are so insecure,” he grumbled. “When I was human, women didn’t worry so much about their looks. They knew they were beautiful.”
“In the good ole’ days?” she teased. “You sound like an old man.”
Kallias laughed, “Shut up.”
Rose reached for her coffee cup, but she gasped in surprise as Kallias caught her wrist in his hand before she could wrap her hand around the cup. He leaned forward in his chair, pulling her wrist closer to himself so that he could see it. He pushed the sleeves of the black leather jacket up to her forearm. His eyebrows drew together as he traced the bluish, reddish ring around her wrist.
“Did I do this?” he said quietly, his voice tight with worry.
Rose tried to pull her hand back, but his grip was unrelenting. She glanced at him, her eyes softening as she saw the guilt in his eyes. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Theron grabbed my wrists many times, even harder than you did. And that other vampire grabbed them as well. It could’ve been anyone.”
He looked back down at her wrist, tracing the sensitive skin with his thumb. “Which means it could have been me. I said I’d protect you, but I hurt you.”
She rolled her eyes and jerked her wrist back. He abruptly let it go, afraid that if he didn’t, it might worsen the bruise. “Stop beating up yourself about it. You did not hurt me,” she snarled. “And even if you did, it was only an accident. You were asleep. I’m not going to blame you for something you couldn’t help.”
He looked away. “You shouldn’t trust me.”
“You only say that because you don’t trust yourself,” Rose blurted.
Kallias looked back at her, his wide, brown eyes unreadable.
Unable to make eye contact with him after what she’d just said, Rose reached out and grabbed her coffee. She watched the thin black liquid as she stirred in the cream and sugar, but even without looking, she could feel his eyes on her. She hadn’t meant to say what she said, but it was the truth. She knew it.
She sipped her coffee, listening to silverware clanging against plates and the voices of the people around them, the ambient noises blending into one another. The hot coffee soothed her, and she relaxed, slouching in her chair.
“How are you feeling?” Kallias asked after a few moments.
Rose looked up from her coffee, suddenly noticing how the amber glow of the candle in the center of the table complimented his golden skin. She cleared her throat as she tried to remember his question. “What? Yeah. Fine. I’m fine.”
His lips curved into a knowing smile at her nervous stammering, but he didn’t comment on it. “Your back, your legs, your head—it all feels fine?”
Now that he mentioned it, Rose realized that she did feel pretty sore, but after being thrown around by Theron several nights in a row, she’d grown used to the soreness. She set the cup of coffee on the table. “Yeah, I feel fine.”
He nodded, clearing his throat. “Good,” he said, falling silent again.
Everything suddenly felt awkward, and Rose felt the need to break the silence. “I hate not having my money with me. I never let people pay for my food.”
He chuckled. “You must be a terrible date.”
She’d intended to glare at him, but somehow she wound up laughing instead. “Yeah, I probably am, if my track record of second dates is any indication. But come on! It’s not like you would be any better! Let’s face it: you’re not exactly the respectful-old-fashioned-gentleman-that-opens-the-door-for-women type.”
“Old-fashioned?” he scoffed. “You forget that chivalry is brand new in my timeline. I was over a thousand years old before chivalry was thought up.”
“I see your point,” she said. “But you did live during the Middle Ages.”
“In the Middle Ages, I was killing vampires, not courting ladies,” he said.
She scowled at him. “You expect me to believe that you don’t date?”
“Why would I? It’s a ridiculous activity,” he scoffed. “Your modern dating customs are derived from the courting customs of the Middle Ages. The only difference is that your rules are modernized and lax in comparison. And courting was just a game of seduction, or rather…a drama in which each person had a part to play. The man played the part of the polite, chivalrous knight who rides in on his horse to save the damsel in distress, and the woman played the part of the pitiful little damsel in distress. But those are just the parts they were expected to play. It was not who they were. It was a game. Glorified dishonesty.”
Rose nodded in understanding. “And you think that dating is the same?”
“Well, it’s certainly similar,” he said. When he noticed her skeptical expression, he pulled his chair closer to hers, so close that his shoulders and thighs brushed against hers. “Here. I will prove it to you. Turn around.”
She frowned at the strange demand. “Huh?”
He gestured lazily toward the couple behind them. “Look at that couple.”
Rose turned in her chair, glancing at a couple in a booth behind them. A tall, curvy woman with her blonde hair pulled back in a sophisticated bun sat across from a stalky man with coarse, black hair. The woman looked overdressed in the little diner, wearing black slacks that clung to her figure and a wispy, white blouse. The man looked less out of place with his old, ripped jeans, but his white button-down shirt constricted his neck so much that Rose worried he might suffocate. The two chattered about something, leaving their burgers untouched.
“This is their first date. They met through a dating service,” Kallias explained, his voice in her ear. “First lie: The man told the woman that he is good at his desk job, so good, in fact, that they’re looking to promote him, but that’s not true. In reality, he is lazy at his job, so lazy, in fact, that his supervisor threatened to fire him this evening. Second lie: The woman told him that she’s waiting for marriage to have sex, but that’s not true either. As a matter of fact, she had sex with her landlord in her apartment an hour ago. I’m not sure how she plans to hide the fact that she’s not a virgin since she’s planning to have sex with this guy in a few hours as well. The truth is she’s addicted to sex. She lies because she’s ashamed of her addiction. You can’t really blame her, though. Her uncle molested her when she was a child, and now, she feels like she has to have sex with people in order to earn love. Third lie: The man said he’s looking for a relationship, but he’s not. He’ll break up with her after she has sex with him.”
“That’s awful,” Rose gasped.
“Which part?” Kallias asked. “The truth or their dishonesty?”
She considered that for a moment. “Both. But mostly, the dishonesty.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. He took a sip of his drink.
“It must suck for you,” she commented.
He looked at her curiously. The glass clanged on the tabletop as he set it down. “What? Knowing all this random shit about people I don’t know?”
Rose watched him for a moment. “No. Knowing that everyone lies.”
His impassive expression faltered for a moment, and she noticed that sadness again, softening his eyes. He shrugged. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“Ignorance?” she assumed.
“No. Trust,” he said. “It’s better to know everyone lies than to trust and have your heart shredded into billions of pieces when you finally learn the tru
th.”
“Congratulations on that vivid imagery there,” she muttered.
Two plates clanged on the table as a man in a long white apron suddenly set them on the table in front of them. He smiled at Rose as she looked up at him, and he nodded toward the plate of grilled fish. “That’s my favorite. It’s really good.”
Rose returned the smile. She had to admit that it really did look delicious.
The man turned to head back to the kitchen, but before he reached the door, their purple-haired hostess pranced over to him. “You need to get back to the kitchen before you scare away the customers,” she teased, smiling playfully.
He rolled his eyes. “Who died and made you the boss?”
She smiled sweetly. “This is my domain. Yours is in the kitchen.”
“Go bother someone else, Starr,” he said, but he smiled as he said it. He brushed the purple hair out of her face and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead.
The hostess turned and smiled at Kallias and Rose. “Need anything?”
Kallias paid her no attention because he was already busy eating his steak.
Rose scowled at his rudeness. She smiled at Starr. “We’re fine. Thanks.”
The hostess blushed and nodded, quickly returning to her podium.
“You shouldn’t smile at her like that,” Kallias said as he cut up his steak. “She thinks you’re flirting with her.” He glanced up from his food and flashed a wry grin at her as he added, “I mean, that is, unless you are flirting with her.”
She pursed her lips. “I wasn’t flirting. I was being polite. But then, how could I expect you to recognize politeness? You’ve probably never been polite.”
He chuckled as he took a sip of his drink. “Probably not.”
She watched as he chewed a bite of the steak. “You’re eating.”
Kallias swallowed his food and raised an eyebrow at her. “It is so impressive to see your genius mind in action,” he muttered sarcastically.
“No. I mean, you’re eating human food,” she said. She leaned forward and whispered, “I just assumed that vampires couldn’t eat human food.”
His lips curved into a full smile as he cut another piece of steak. “I ate a very large plate of food in your café the night that we met. Don’t you remember?”
She rolled her eyes. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t staring at you all night like a lovesick puppy,” she sassed. “I didn’t know whether you ate your food or not.”
“Lovesick puppy?” he repeated bewilderedly.
“It’s an expression,” she said. “You know…puppy love? Infatuation?”
Kallias nodded as he cut up another bite of his steak. “It is hard to keep up with the modern idioms sometimes,” he said defensively. “To answer your question, yes, I can eat food. But…unfortunately, it does nothing for the hunger.”
She frowned. “Then, what’s the point of eating it?”
When he looked at her, his eyes were dark with hunger. “The point is that, for just a moment, I’m distracted from the urge to rip the throats out of every person in this room. I’d say that’s a good enough reason, wouldn’t you?”
Rose swallowed nervously. “Yeah. Great reason.”
He returned to eating his food. “The metabolism of a vampire is astronomically fast,” he continued explaining, still speaking too quietly for the other people in the restaurant to hear. “So, when we eat or drink anything other than blood, it’s burned away too quickly for it to make a difference. Blood is the only thing that our bodies hold on to long enough to extract nourishment.”
“Does food taste the same to a vampire?” she asked curiously.
He frowned, considering that. “My senses are far more advanced than yours, so no, I suppose it doesn’t. I can taste everything, every individual flavor.”
“Does that make it taste better or worse?” she asked.
“Both, I suppose,” he said. “It’s better because I can appreciate the flavors more than a human can. It’s worse because the only thing I want is blood.”
Rose nodded. “But does it…”
“I refuse to answer any more questions until you eat,” he interrupted.
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe I don’t want to eat.”
“Of course. That explains why your stomach is growling,” he said sarcastically. He smiled. “Your food will get cold, koukla. You need to eat.”
She blushed, both at the fact that he’d heard her stomach growl and at the not-so-innocent way her body responded to him purring that Greek pet name.
She grabbed her fork and cut into the grilled flounder, mentally chanting to herself over and over, “You do not find his voice sexy. You do not find his voice sexy.”
Kallias looked at her, doing his best to suppress his laughter as he heard her thoughts. She never noticed him smirking at her, though, because, at that very moment, she took a bite of the best flounder on the entire planet. She moaned at the taste and quickly cut up another bite of the buttery fish.
Kallias choked on his drink. He stared at her as she closed her eyes and chewed another bite, again moaning softly. “I take it you like it?” he snorted.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she murmured. “What is this sauce? It’s so buttery and…” she trailed off. She opened her eyes and looked at him, suddenly realizing that he was staring at her, grinning at her, really, and amended, “I mean, it’s okay.”
He smirked, clearly gloating. “More okay than the salad would’ve been?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Fine! Yes! It’s freaking amazing,” she admitted. “Thank you for being a total jerk and changing my order without my permission.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, ignoring her glare.
She took another bite. “The sauce on this fish is so delicious.”
They had been eating in silence for several minutes when Kallias suddenly dropped his fork, the loud clang of the silverware against the plate causing Rose to look over at him. He straightened in his seat, and his eyes darted toward the window of the diner. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the scents of the diner and the outside parking lot, a worried scowl twisting at his face.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked hesitantly.
“Yeah. Fine,” he grunted, still watching the window anxiously.
She continued to watch him with a skeptical frown. “Because you got all straighter and taller in your seat, and that’s saying something because you were already pretty tall,” she added. “Kallias, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Do you remember how I said that I thought I noticed the scent of a vampire?” he asked. “Well, I may have dismissed that a little too soon.”
Rose leaned forward, toward him. “As an animalistic creature, don’t you think it would be wise to rely on your instincts, instead of dismissing them?”
He glared at her. “Yes, Rose. Thank you. That is very helpful right now.”
Rose flashed him a fake smile. “You’re welcome.”
His brown eyes darted toward the door again. “We need to go. Now.”
“What? We haven’t even paid yet,” she reminded him.
Kallias pushed back his chair, preparing to stand. “Now, Rose.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That is stealing, and I don’t steal.”
He glared at her, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You have really fucked up priorities! You know that, right?” he snarled in a furious whisper.
“Whoa. What’s with the F-bomb all of the sudden?” Rose complained.
His eyes darted toward the door, widening in alarm. “Shit.”
“It’s been said that people who use excessive profanity are filling in the gaps of their lackluster vocabulary,” she said. “Maybe you should try reading…”
“Rose!” he interrupted. “We have bigger problems here!”
As if to prove his point, a cool rush of air suddenly invaded the diner as someone opened the door. Kallias looked toward the door, his eyes narrowing at the people who entered. Rose followed his gaze. In the doorway, two men st
ood, one half a foot taller than the other. The taller man seemed young, just out of high school. A blue ball cap covered his shaggy brown hair, and he wore faded jeans and a blue T-shirt that matched his hat. The shorter man looked to be in his mid-twenties. His pressed navy blue shirt, slacks, and neatly combed black hair set him in stark contrast with the younger man. Both of them, however, looked unnaturally attractive. The two men laughed obnoxiously and made rude, inappropriate comments to a young, blonde woman sitting in a booth near the door. The woman smiled shyly at them, conflicted between being offended at their crudeness or flattered that these attractive men were interested in her.
“They seem drunk,” Rose noticed, scowling at their obnoxious behavior.
“Not drunk. Intoxicated,” Kallias corrected quietly, “on blood.”
She swallowed uneasily. Both of the men were vampires. One was bad enough. Two were a nightmare. “Intoxicated on blood?” she repeated, confused.
“Shhh!” he hissed, his eyes narrowing. He leaned closer to her so that he could whisper in her ear, “It means they’ve consumed too much blood, and it has dulled their senses, which is lucky for us, considering you are talking so fucking loud!”
She jerked back abruptly when he shocked her by suddenly snarling that last part. She glared at him. “I wasn’t that loud. And don’t talk to me that way.”
He glared back at her. “I don’t think you understand how bad this is.”
“Two vampires attacked us earlier,” she whispered.
“Yes, but that was in a secluded alley, not in a crowded restaurant,” Kallias reminded her, watching the vampires warily as they turned their attention to the hostess. He sighed, “I also took on each of them separately.”
Rose nodded. “So you’re worried about people seeing?”
He scowled at her. “Of course I’m worried about people seeing. Humans cannot find out about vampires. I don’t know how to make that any clearer.”
“I get it,” she said between clenched teeth. “I’m just thinking.”
He sighed, “The people in this restaurant could die, if I fight them here.”
“Okay, so, you obviously can’t fight them here,” she agreed, watching as the hostess spoke to the vampires. “Would they follow us if we left now?”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 37