“Actually,” Audrey said, twirling a strand of brown hair around her finger with a guilty smile, “I was thinking…maybe…food, first? It’s been a few hours.”
Erik laughed. “Follow me, and I’ll cook you whatever you want.”
Audrey straightened, her golden eyes lighting up with delight. “So hot.”
Erik winked at her. “Just wait until you see the other things I can do.”
Rose wrinkled her nose. “Someone, please end the madness.”
—
“No coffee?” Audrey asked Rose, as she sipped at her own cup of coffee.
Rose leaned against the kitchen counter, next to Audrey, tilting her head toward her friend, so that Zach couldn’t hear her. “I don’t drink it much anymore because,” she paused, lowering her voice to a whisper, “you know.” She shrugged.
Audrey gaped at Rose. “You don’t drink coffee? But you love coffee!”
“I know,” Rose sighed, staring longingly at the coffee in Audrey’s hands, even though it had far too much cream and sugar for Rose’s taste. “I miss it.”
Audrey’s brows furrowed. “So, you can’t drink anything but blood now?”
“Shhh!” Rose hissed, her eyes wide. She glanced worriedly at Zach, but luckily, he was too absorbed in Rose’s new phone to notice. Apparently, he found the updated technology pretty fascinating, after five years without a cell phone.
Audrey leaned even closer, until her head nearly bumped Rose’s. “Sorry.”
“Technically, I can eat or drink anything I want, and it would be burned off instantly,” Rose whispered, snapping her fingers for emphasis. Audrey glanced up at her with wide eyes, and Rose smiled and nodded. “I know, right? If only I could do that when I was human,” she laughed. “But that’s just it. I don’t want it. Not anymore. The only thing I crave is blood. Eating or drinking anything else just seems pointless. Like…eating air when what you really wanted was cake.”
Audrey gave her a scathing look. “Eww. Do not compare blood to cake.”
An amused smile pulled at the edges of Rose’s lips. “Sorry. But you get the point,” she said quickly, waving her hand. “I just don’t want it like I used to.”
“What will the coffee companies do now?” Audrey teased as she took a sip of her coffee. “Don’t you know you were the one keeping them in business?”
Rose laughed and nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Owen scrolled through his e-mails—hundreds of them…from Jared. With a concerned frown, she stepped closer to the barstool, where he sat, and she leaned against the stool next to him. “Hey, Owen,” she said, quietly enough that neither Audrey nor Zach heard her. Owen looked at her, his hazel eyes wide with panic, and he closed out his e-mail quickly. She offered him a sympathetic smile. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. You’ve been through a lot the last two days.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She looked away, her brows creasing with sympathetic pain. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I really am sorry about your parents, Owen.” Her bright blue gaze shifted back toward him. “And I’m sorry that I ruined things between you and Jared.”
Owen snorted, “He tried to kill me, Rose. I don’t blame you for that.”
“I’m glad,” she sighed, gazing sadly at her shoes. “I just feel bad, I guess. I wish I could save everyone from the pain, but instead, I just seem to…cause it.”
“Rose, you’ve saved me from pain plenty of times,” Owen told her. “All of those late-night phone calls when I didn’t know who else to call. All of those times when you said the right words at the right time. You’re an amazing friend.”
“Until I died and turned into what your boyfriend hates most,” she said.
“You’re still a great friend,” he said. “You have no reason to feel bad.”
Rose gave him a skeptical look. “You’d be blissfully unaware of Jared’s insanity without me. You’d probably be cuddled up, watching movies, right now.”
Owen raised an eyebrow. “We couldn’t even agree on a movie genre.”
She laughed and spread out her hands, “Blissfully arguing over movies?”
He snorted, “That’s closer.” He gazed thoughtfully at the countertop for a moment, his smile fading. “Listen. I feel like shit for never returning your calls.”
Rose shrugged. “It’s all right. I get it,” she assured him. “You’d just found out that I was a vampire, and you didn’t know what to think or how to react.”
“Yeah,” Owen sighed, wincing, “but I also kind of did it out of spite.”
She glanced at him curiously. “What do you mean?”
“You sounded so worried in the voicemails,” he said, “about Riley.”
Rose nodded. “I still am,” she admitted quietly. “I just wanted to know if she’s okay. I understood that you all needed space, but…I worried about her.”
“I know,” Owen said, nodding, “and I kind of…wanted you to worry.”
She frowned, confused by that comment. “What do you mean by that?”
“I kind of thought,” Owen paused, shrugging, “that you deserved to feel that way, you know?” Regret burned in his wide, hazel eyes. “She was nearly killed by a vampire—a vampire that was somehow connected to you. I blamed you.”
Rose nodded, her eyes burning with sadness. “I blame myself.”
“Like I said, I haven’t always been a great friend to you,” Owen muttered regretfully. “It shouldn’t have taken me so long to come to my senses. It wasn’t fair to leave you in the dark like that, knowing that you were blaming yourself.” He ran his hand through his brownish-blonde hair. “She did survive, by the way.”
Rose felt as if she might crumple to the floor with relief. “She’s all right?”
“I didn’t say that,” Owen corrected quickly. “She thinks she’s insane.”
“Oh, no,” Rose breathed, horrified by the thought. A new hole of guilt opened up in her stomach. “Maybe Kallias could do something? I could ask…”
“A telepathic vampire did this to her,” he reminded her, “and you want to let another one mess with her head? I don’t know, Rose. I think it’d be best if we just left her alone to deal with it on her own. I tried to tell Jared that, but…”
“Wait, what?” Rose interrupted. She slid onto the barstool, next to him. “Why would you need to tell Jared that? He doesn’t even know Riley, does he?”
“No,” Owen sighed, “but Rose, she woke up from a coma, screaming about vampires. Pretty major red flag, don’t you think? The Assassins of Light showed up in her room within hours. They have people everywhere, you know.”
Rose frowned worriedly. “They didn’t hurt her, did they?” she asked.
He scowled at her. “Their mission is to protect humans, not hurt them.”
“That didn’t stop them from trying to hurt you and Audrey,” Rose said.
Owen shrugged. “I still think…that must have been a mistake,” he said uneasily. He looked away, tracing the design of the countertop with his forefinger. “Jared said that Riley didn’t tell him anything. She refused to talk to them because, in her words, ‘the vampire warned her about the ones with suns on their clothes.’”
Rose frowned bewilderedly. “Alana knew about the Assassins of Light?”
“She was a telepath,” Owen muttered. “She probably read my thoughts.”
Rose shook her head. “Riley was already unconscious by then, though.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly, Rose, she’s probably just seeing things. Jared said that she kept talking about ghosts, too. A white-haired ghost.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past couple of months,” Rose said, running her fingers over the Stone of the Eklektos, “it’s that anything is possible.”
“Like your criminal brother starting a Facebook account?” Zach asked.
Rose whirled around, blinking worriedly at him, as she wondered how much of th
eir conversation he’d overheard. But he was still focused on the phone.
Zach frowned. “Lizard shape-shifters are taking over the government?”
Rose rolled her eyes. She marched over to him and snatched the phone out of his hand. “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” she said.
“Those people that are trying to kill you,” Zach said. “Are they lizards?”
“Yes,” Rose said sarcastically. “I am being hunted by human lizards.”
He scowled at her snarky attitude. “Why are you so annoying?”
“Because I’m a smart-aleck with no social skills,” Rose answered.
“Well, we agree on that, at least,” Zach muttered. He spun around in his chair to look at her and held out his hand. “Now, can I have your phone back?”
Rose smiled and slid her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “You can have it back when you learn how to use the internet wisely,” she told him.
“What’s wrong with reading an article about lizard people?” Zach asked.
Rose lifted her eyebrows. “Everything,” she muttered dryly. She heard the door open, and the scent of Emma’s perfume—soft and bright, like sunshine and flowers—wafted into the room, blending with the scent of Erik’s cooking.
Zach looked at the vampire and instantly froze, as if he were in a trance.
Emma just offered him a sweet smile and continued into the kitchen, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor. “Erik, can I have one of your movies?”
Erik looked up from the pan he’d been watching. “Which kind?” he said with a suggestive grin. “The dirty kind? Or…just one of the romantic comedies?”
Rose wrinkled her nose. “There isn’t a shred of shame in you, is there?”
“Nope,” Erik snorted as he turned to grab some flour from the cabinets.
Emma frowned thoughtfully. “The romantic comedies, probably,” she said after a moment. “Geoff might be a little uncomfortable with the other kind.”
“A little?” Rose repeated, suppressing a laugh. She nudged her brother’s shoulder to break him from his trance, but he just continued to gawk at Emma.
Emma circled around the counter, frowning curiously at Rose. When she finally reached Rose, she leaned in close and—of course—sniffed Rose’s neck.
Rose blinked as she felt Emma’s breath on her neck. “Oh, how I’ve missed your unapologetically peculiar behavior,” she said with an amused smile.
Audrey, Owen, and Zach watched with wide eyes, not sure what to think.
“You smell different,” Emma told her with a frown. “Not like Kallias.”
Rose paled a little as she realized what Emma meant—the blood bond, that faint taint that warned other vampires that she’d fed from another vampire, that she may even be protected by that other vampire. “Uh, yeah,” she mumbled.
Erik, thank goodness, came to her rescue. He darted over to Emma and took her by the arm, leading her aside so that he could whisper to her. With her sensitive hearing, Rose could hear him, but Zach, Audrey, and Owen could not. “I know this is next to impossible for you, but you need to be careful about what you say. There are humans here, and one of them doesn’t know about vampires.”
Emma stared up at him, blinking innocently. “I can be careful,” she said indignantly, as if she’d never given him any reason to think otherwise. She pointed one of her bright red fingernails at Rose. “She smells different, don’t you think?”
Erik glanced past Emma, meeting Rose’s gaze, and his lips tilted into a taunting smirk. “Yeah,” he told Emma, “that’s because she has a new girlfriend.”
Rose narrowed her eyes at Erik, but unfortunately, she couldn’t object to his declaration out loud because that would seem strange to Zach, considering he didn’t know about her superhuman hearing—or anything else, for that matter.
“Really?” Emma whispered. She spun toward Rose, then, her hazel eyes wide and bright with surprise. “You have a girlfriend? When can I meet her?”
Every eye in the room was suddenly on Rose.
“I thought you were with the big, tattooed guy,” Zach said, confused.
“I am with Kallias,” Rose muttered, shrinking lower in her seat. She shot another glare over her shoulder, at a very amused Erik. “Erik’s…exaggerating.”
“But if she’s in your blood, she must mean something to you,” Emma said.
Zach frowned, glancing back and forth between them. “In your…blood?”
A tangible tension settled over the room, suddenly, as Owen and Audrey exchanged a look, and Rose and Erik both stared worriedly at an oblivious Emma.
“Emma is…not from around here,” is the excuse Erik wound up giving them. “She says odd things sometimes. And somehow, it’s a weird kind of sexy.”
“Stop it!” Emma giggled. “Geoffrey gets jealous when you flirt with me.”
Erik snorted, “If Geoff’s not used to how I am by now, he’s hopeless.”
Zach shrugged. “None of you sound like you’re from around here to me.”
Erik chuckled. “I’ve been here an entire century longer than you,” he said under his breath—quiet enough that no one but Rose and Emma heard him.
Emma leaned toward Rose. “I knew you were into women, though, after you almost bit me that day. But Geoff said it was impolite to ask, so I didn’t.”
Zach stared at them, his eyebrows high. “You tried to…bite…her?”
“All right. Come on, Emma,” Erik said, grabbing her arm and dragging her toward the door. “Let’s just get you away from the…er…guests, all right?”
Rose ran her fingers through her hair, her eyes wide.
—
It was only a few minutes after midnight when Geoffrey and Emma left. After Rose said her goodbyes, she grabbed her bags and carried them upstairs. Her brother and her friends were eating a late dinner in the kitchen downstairs, and she didn’t really want to explain to her brother why she wasn’t eating with them. She dropped her bags beside Kallias’s bed and breathed out a long sigh.
“I should have asked Kara to teach me how to lie,” Rose muttered.
Just saying Kara’s name opened a deep ache in her chest. She’d never known distance could hurt like this. But then, it wasn’t so much the distance as it was the not-knowing. She didn’t know if they’d see each other again, and as much as she hated to admit it, the possibility of never seeing Kara again was something she couldn’t bear. How could she admit that? It sounded so ridiculous and pathetic.
She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the handkerchief. The quiet darkness of Kallias’s room, paired with the soft coolness of Kara’s cloth, soothed her nerves, until she could think clearly again. Her pulse began to slow.
Until a low, familiar voice startled her. “I prefer this time of the year.”
Rose shoved the cloth back into her pocket and spun around. “Hmm?”
Kallias closed the door. “I prefer this time of the year,” he said absently, as he unbuttoned his black shirt, “because there are more hours of darkness.”
“Oh,” Rose said, straightening. “Yeah. I suppose it will be winter soon.”
“A few more weeks,” he agreed. He barely even looked her way as he headed toward the closet. “Did you show your friends to their rooms yet?”
“No, they were eating,” she said, “but I should probably do that now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kallias muttered distractedly. “Erik will do it.”
“Oh,” Rose said hollowly. “Okay.” She leaned against the bed, fidgeting nervously. “That’s…good. Because that means we have a moment to talk, right?”
Kallias turned to look at her, his expression wary. “About…what?”
Rose shrugged. “Well, I just needed to tell you,” she sighed, “thank you.”
His brows furrowed. “For what?”
“You didn’t even think about it,” Rose said with a soft smile. “You just brought my friends and my brother here to pro
tect them. It means a lot to me.”
Kallias looked away uncomfortably. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“Sure, you did,” Rose said, “but you made the right one. You always do.”
His intense, brown eyes shifted back toward her. “Do I? I’m not so sure.”
Rose didn’t know how to respond to that, as she watched him turn away from her, pulling clean clothes out of his closet. Her stomach knotted with dread, and her chest fluttered with anxiety, so much so that it took her a few moments to gather up the courage to question him further. “What is it that you regret?” she asked quietly. “Turning me into a vampire? Or…falling in love with me?”
He froze, his broad, muscular shoulders stiff. “Don’t ask me that.”
Rose shrank back, pain splitting through her chest, almost as severely as it had when she’d been staked, except this time, there was no physical injury to explain it. “Oh,” she said, staring at the hardwood floor beneath her feet. “I see.”
Kallias turned to look at her, a shirt wadded up in his hand. She noticed the pain and regret that burned in his light brown eyes, letting her know that he’d, of course, felt her pain. He was still bound to her, after all, even if she was bound to someone else at the moment. He opened his mouth, clearly wanting to say something to her, but then, thinking better of it, he closed it again and turned away. He set his clean clothes aside and kicked off his boots, preparing to change.
Rose leaned against the bed, watching as Kallias tugged his undershirt over his head, revealing the scarred and tattooed skin beneath. “I miss you.”
He froze, once again, his entire body stiffening. Then, he tossed his shirt aside and glanced over his shoulder at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Rose tucked her hands behind her and shrugged. “I just miss you,” she told him. “It feels like it’s been so long since you and I were actually…together. It feels like there’s a wall between us now. And the wall grows taller every day.”
Kallias watched her. “And what do you suggest we do about it?”
“Break it down,” she said easily. “I want to break down the wall.”
He looked away. “What’s stopping you?” he asked, his jaw clenched.
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