Creature of Habit (Creature of Habit #1)

by Angel Lawson

  "Elijah?" I asked and swung the door open. "Err…not Elijah." The largest teenaged boy I had ever seen stood in my doorway with a frightening grin on his face. I eyed him, trying not to gawk at his massive size. Once I moved past the fact he was a giant it dawned on me that he was gorgeous and way, way, wayyyyyy to young.

  Increasingly, I was suspicious that Grant grew-up in some strange foster care system of genetically superior people.

  "No, my other cousin, Ryan. I'm so sorry," he apologized, and broke me out of my ogling.

  "Its fine, Grant. I'll see you in a little bit."

  I slung my bag over my shoulder and took in the hulking man in front of me. "So you're Ryan." I tried to focus my eyes on his face and not the ridiculous size of his hands.

  "I am. And you must be Amelia." His voice was softer than I would have expected. He held out one of his giant paws for my bag. "Grant said I'm supposed to carry that."

  I rolled my eyes. "I know Grant thinks I'm helpless but I'm not. I'm actually capable of carrying my things on my own."

  He nodded, flashing me another brilliant smile. I walked past him, holding my head high. Too high, it seemed, since I tripped on the threshold, causing my bag and clothes to tumble to the ground. Fortunately, I never actually fell since I was being held several inches off the ground by the two enormous hands I had previously been studying. He gently placed me back on my feet and I sighed in embarrassment before stealing a look at Ryan, who was shaking with laughter. I took a moment to straighten my shirt and hair, my face turning ridiculously red. I picked up my bag and forcefully shoved it at him. He took it without a word and followed me down the hall. At the top of the stairs I turned to him, making as much eye contact as possible with our height difference, and said in my most authoritative voice, "Do not tell Grant this happened."

  A huge grin broke out across his face and he gave me the most adorable boyish grin. God. What a heartbreaker this kid was going to be. He winked and said, "Are you kidding? If I deliver you to his house with even a scratch, I'll never hear the end of it. This is strictly between you and me."

  I grimaced at the accuracy of his statement. I suspected he was right. Grant, for whatever reason, had definitely accepted the role of my protector whether I'd asked him to or not.

  "Good. Now, let's go before he drives over here to find out why we're late." I said, and we both laughed as we walked down the stairs to the parking lot.

  Chapter 38

  Grant

  Bracing myself for his arrival, Ryan bounding up the stairs immediately upon depositing Amelia at her desk.

  “I like her.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She’s feisty. Absolutely stubborn and has a classic combative personality. She’s perfect for you.”

  The gleam in his eye was a bit too intrigued. "Ryan, don't make me regret letting you drive her to work."

  He stood across from me, hulking in size, and rolled his eyes. "I won't. And you're welcome. I knew you weren't eating her because she was pretty. Don't even try to deny it."

  "I'm not denying anything. Or admitting anything. Not to you," I said, childishly. Ryan had this tendency to bring out my inner sixteen-year-old even after all this time. Like all of us, some extreme traits had seemed to freeze at the moment of our transition.

  We were in my bedroom. Elijah and Olivia were next door in the office on the computer. I had a stack of papers lying across the bed and skimmed through them for some notes I had taken earlier. Ryan, rarely invited to my house, looked at the shelf on the wall that held some personal objects. I watched as he picked up my signed Shoeless Joe Jackson ball and practiced his windup.

  “Do you think you would have gone to see him in the World Series if you hadn't changed?”

  Ryan loved to talk about baseball. He loved it as a kid, listening outside of bars or wherever he could catch it on a radio. When he discovered this part of my collection, he badgered me with questions for a month.

  "Probably," I answered even though he already knew this. We'd had this discussion a million times.

  "Would you have gone with your dad?" he asked, again knowing the answer, but obviously wanting to pretend he hadn’t. When you live together for over fifty years, subjects tend to come up more than once.

  "Yes, he loved baseball. He worshipped the Yankees. He was the one who told me to keep an eye on Babe Ruth even though he was still in Boston." I said, trying to remember as much as I could. It no longer hurt to remember but it had become difficult to place the memories from before I turned.

  "I would have loved to have seen Babe Ruth. Just my luck I became immortal the year he decided to retire,” he said wistfully. I laughed at the irony of the fact we can have anything we want unless it is bound by time or humanity.

  Mid-pitch he said, “So how long has it been.”

  I flipped through the papers, barely listening to him. “What?”

  “I’m curious. How exactly is this going to work, you being a vampire and Amelia being a human? You know, sex and stuff.”

  “You’re kidding me.” I glanced up. "Really? That is where this is going?"

  He nodded and I was shocked to see his face was completely free of humor or mocking. I shouldn’t be surprised. Ryan and Sebastian grew up in a world of loose morals. Sex was a daily part of their lives from a young age. A job even. That was how their mother put food on the table.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. I mean, we’ve all thought about it at one time or the other. Not you and Amelia—just humans.”

  "Look, I'm not going to deny I've thought about it." I shifted my gaze away from Ryan down to my hands. "I thought about it, a lot, but I don't know the precedence on this. If there even is one."

  “Vampire-human sex isn’t new, Grant.”

  I thought about his history—how he was created. “No, it’s not. I apologize if I’m being insensitive."

  “You’re not and whatever this is with you and Amelia, it’s not the same thing that happened to my mother. You’re giving her the choice.”

  “I don’t know if I even want this to be a choice—if it should be.”

  “Sebastian will have a hard time with this. He’s not as open-minded as I am.”

  "Undoubtedly.”

  “He’ll come around.”

  “Look, you're way ahead of the game here. I’ve kept my distance—barely even allowing myself to touch Amelia right now, not until she knows the truth about what I am. It’s not fair to trick her into something she doesn’t understand. Beyond the ethics of the situation, I don’t exactly trust myself with her.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “If you mean amazingly good, then yeah, that bad.” I swung my chair around and gazed out the window. The sun was already out full force. It would be a warm day. “I’m going to have to tell her at some point. Sooner than later.”

  I already regretted those words. I wasn’t sure if I ever could tell her the truth. I wanted to, and I had promised not to lie to her anymore, but I was terrified of her reaction.

  ~*~

  I assessed myself in the mirror as I buttoned the cuffs on my shirt. The fabric was pale green, one of Olivia's selections. She picked it out, along with an entire outfit, laying it on the dressing table for me to see when I walked in. Now I found myself analyzing the mop of hair on top of my head. It was its usual catastrophe, sticking up and in total disarray. There was little I could do at this point, yet I continued to poke and prod it into some kind of submission. Nature made my hair this way, while immortality froze it in place. Nearly a century later I continued to fuss over it like a school boy.

  Amelia was downstairs changing for our evening together. With every passing minute, I was convinced this was the longest day I'd ever lived. The afternoon was spent discussing the tokens left by Caleb and what they could mean. Elijah hacked into the police system. We quickly determined that the necklace and cross was definitely Jenna’s. There was an inscription on the back that said, ‘Love, Mom and Dad
’ which matched the information in her file.

  The brooch was harder to determine, as Amelia had not made a police report or told me of any missing items from the break in. We suspected it must be hers, but had no concrete evidence. I was hesitant to bring it up—an ugly reminder of the violation of her home. Elijah searched the files of the other missing people and murder victims that matched our profiles and wasn't able to connect any of them to the brooch, which only convinced us further it was most likely Amelia's. At this point it didn’t really matter if we confirmed the jewelry or not. Caleb had targeted Amelia. It made the most sense.

  I hid upstairs all day, away from Amelia, terrified to face her before tonight. What if she changed her mind? Or came to her senses? What if she realized after all this time that I was truly a monster—a demon—who should be feared? Part of me almost hoped she had a revelation before the evening came and I could put this entire fantasy to rest.

  I took one last look over my shoulder into the mirror, compulsively trying to make the hair on my head do something other than what it was. It was mostly nerves, I knew, I'd looked exactly the same for the last ninety years. Some things never change. That’s enough, I told myself, forcing my body out the door and pacing myself at human speed, one step at a time. I stopped at the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

  I smelled her before I saw her, lemons mixed with shampoo and adrenaline. It was her specific, delightful scent and I begged the vampire in me not to respond. I followed her trail to the library where she stood before the shelves, scanning my books. She touched each spine gently, using the soft pads of her fingers. I soaked her in. Her hair was knotted up on the back of her head, loose tendrils falling haphazardly down her neck. I could see my favorite spot, the one under her ear, and it was all I could do to keep my distance. Amelia turned around, letting the skirt of her black sundress flutter around her legs. The fabric was pitch-black, with white embroidered designs. The color accentuated her pale flesh and showed more skin than a vampire could ever resist. I smiled when I saw her and rejoiced when her entire face lit up in response. She was possibly the most beautiful creature I had ever seen and I opened my mouth to tell her these very words.

  Except I couldn’t. Warring desires choked me, lodging the compliments in my throat. When she turned in my direction, I floundered helplessly. She smiled, lifting her eyebrow in anticipation. Oh god, I’d failed already.

  "Grant," she said, cutting through the palpable tension, by pulling a thick, black binder off the shelf. "Is this what I think it is?"

  Huh? I tried to focus on the book in her hands and not the gentle curve of her neckline. "Umm…what do you think it is?"

  She opened the book and held it up. "Comic books. Lots of them. Individually wrapped and numbered and tagged." She was now flipping through the plastic folders, running her fingers over the covers with an excited look on her face.

  "Oh, yes. Those are mine." Her excitement amused me. Only Amelia would find this to be the most interesting thing in a room full of first editions and rare books. The comics were a loaded subject if she asked me where and when I acquired them. The weight of my promise to be honest with her weighed heavily on my mind.

  I cleared my throat to get her attention and she closed the book slowly before looking up. She took in my appearance for a moment, starting with my hair, (my godforsaken hair) and ending at my feet.

  She took a step forward, her lips curved evilly. "Have you already forgotten our conversation about trying new things?"

  I pulled up the hem of my pants and said, "No, look. Not boots. Shoes. Brown yes, but not boots." I couldn't help but succumb to her infectious laugh. "I'm changeable, and with the right motivation, I find I can do almost anything."

  I dropped the hand holding my trousers. My words hung in the air. It had been so long since I was around someone I cared for, if I ever really had, and now I’d said it out loud.

  We stood in the library, me in the doorway, Amelia still near the shelves, neither knowing exactly what to do next. Her hands smoothed the fabric of her dress, and mine were precariously close to running compulsively through my hair. It was clear she was waiting for me to do something. Anything. For a brief second, I considered running. She could never catch me. I caught sight of myself in the mirror across the room. I was shocked at the actual panicked expression on my face. I focused on my freakish purple eyes and wondered if I could pull this off. Like Ryan implied, there was no way this could possibly work. I was a monster and she was an angel.

  Oh god. What the hell was I doing?

  "Grant, do you know who my favorite superhero is?" Amelia asked, snapping me out of my spiraling breakdown.

  "No." I answered.

  “The boys were arguing about this at the bar a couple weeks ago. The night you showed up to save me from Sasha.” She took a step closer. “Since Drew is dating Jess and they’re around all the time, I’ve managed to now see every current and not-so-current superhero movie available. But that night they fought about Superman vs—“

  “Captain America,” I said.

  “How…”

  I shrugged.

  “After you showed up in that dark alley and saved me, I knew who my favorite superhero was.”

  “Who?” Me?

  “Batman.”

  “I don’t think that was one of the choices,” I said, utterly lost.

  "He has such a sense of conviction and drive. He was overcome by the tragedies of his past but decided to help people instead of hurting them. I know he doesn't have real super powers but he uses discipline, strength and intelligence to fight for those in need. But he has such conflict in his life and it shows in how he chooses to live. Batman chose his path, which kind of makes him more awesome than someone like Superman. He lives with darkness, not just the light and righteous, like Captain America. Living a solitary life but also surrounding himself with people he trusts.” She closed the remaining distance between us and handed me the book she still held in her hands. With a cocky grin she said, "Not to mention he drives the Bat-mobile, which is pretty much the coolest car ever.”

  “Batman,” I repeat.

  “Oh and don’t forget, he has a jawline the ladies swoon over."

  Placing the book on the table by the door, I returned her smug grin with one of my own. "The Bat-mobile, huh? What if I told you I could possibly challenge your idea on the coolest car ever?”

  She rolled her eyes. "Doubtful. But if you want to try, I'm game."

  "Follow me," I directed, leading her to the garage. Amelia's shoes clicked on the floor behind me and I flipped the light switch. Walking across the garage to the far side, I stopped at the sea of blue covering the car. I hesitated for a moment, thinking about what I was about to do. I glanced at Amelia. She waited eagerly to see what was under the cover. So eager to experience what I had to show her. I rubbed my jaw and grabbed a fistful of the tarp in my other hand, yanking it off in one quick swoop.

  I’d forgotten how beautiful she was.

  I turned and looked at Amelia, whose eyes were wide and had the most gorgeous smile on her face. I placed my hand on the slick, canvas roof and said, "Amelia, this is the coolest car ever."

  Chapter 39

  Grant

  I stood over by the car, tarp in hand, and looked at Amelia with what I'm sure was the widest grin I may have had on my face in years. Instead of a smile back, her head was cocked and her expression a bit skeptical. She finally said, "This is the coolest car ever? Better than the Batmobile?"

  I nodded and ran my hand down the side of the car before placing my fingers on the door handle.

  "Your convertible? I mean, it's beautiful and hot, but superhero-worthy? I'm not so sure." She scoffed in the direction of my baby.

  "Amelia, I can assure you this car is more than just superhero-worthy. Let me show you," I informed her and walked around the car, opening the passenger side door for her. "The Batmobile is a fine machine, but it's a bit flashy for my taste. I think something a bit more u
nderstated is appropriate."

  She had a gleam in her eye that was absolutely wicked, and she followed me around the car, quickly ducking in, saying, "Thank you."

  To my dismay she adjusted her dress, covering her alluring legs, when she sat down on the shiny, soft leather.

  Her scent whirled around me, making me heady and warm. I shut her door and walked around the car in exaggerated human speed. I needed to compose myself. I had been on the precipice of ruining the evening when Amelia had managed to soothe me by pulling out those comic books of all things, making everything right. She made everything right.

  Stopping behind the car, I contemplated the new emotion spreading through my body. I couldn't be sure, because I had no experience with this, but I was almost positive what the feeling was. I'd seen it in movies, read about it in books and heard others think of it for years. I had even forced myself to pretend I had these emotions on my own, trying to make it work, to fit in with the rest of my family. But it always felt false. And now, I knew for a fact that it had been.

  Just because I knew what it was didn't mean I was ready to admit it out loud. What if she didn't feel the same way? What would I do then?

  I watched Amelia sit in the car and marveled at how this woman had changed the course of my life by simply being herself. I opened the driver’s side door and slid inside next to her.

  "You want the top up or down?" I asked, pretending like this wasn't the most important night of my life.

  "Whatever you want, Batman," she said with an arched eyebrow, still not looking completely convinced.

  I suppressed a smirk at the irony of her calling me Batman, if she only knew, and pressed the lever that folded the top into itself before easing down into the back of the car.

  "I thought you didn't drive this anymore," she said.

  I gave her a sideways look, my fingers on the key inside the ignition. "I didn't, but I told you, Amelia, I can change with proper motivation."