“Dream?” The inky black brows above those stunning eyes drew down into a frown. “Fuck, Zoe… This isn’t a dream.”
Someone in the vicinity chuckled. “She thinks you’re a dream, Fall. That’s funny.” Mr. Dreamy shot a glance over his shoulder and the chuckles stopped. I couldn’t see the other man, but if I was a betting woman, I’d wager Chucklehead had his hands up in an ‘I surrender’ gesture.
A gentle tap on my left cheek brought my attention back to the man hovering above my right side. The corners of his lush, full lips tipped up, but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. “You were attacked. Noah and I took care of the minion, but your wounds need tending. I’m going to move my hand now so we can get a better look at you. Okay?”
I moved my head to nod and hot, vicious pain slashed through me. Memories flood back in: dark blue skin, empty white eyes and pain—so much pain. I winced and reached up with my left hand, the fingertips brushing against Mr. Dreamy’s wrist as I felt for the wounds on my neck. “Shit. That was real? Nightcrawler’s cousin really attacked me?” I frowned. “But, wait… I’m not dead?”
Dreamy snorted and my gaze shifted to his. “No, Zoe, you’re not dead. Give us a sec and Noah will heal you. Then… I’ll explain everything. Okay?”
This time around I knew better than to nod, and blinked to show him my agreement. I didn’t understand what was going on, but there was plenty of time for questions after this Noah person did whatever he needed to fix me up.
Noah, whom I assumed was the chuckler, stepped into my field of vision. He knelt to my left, on the opposite side of Mr. Dreamy, and graced me with a mega-watt smile from beneath the brim of his baseball cap. I had a Riddick moment as his eyes flashed silver in the moonlight. That one I chalked up to blood loss and an overly active imagination. No one had eyes like that in real life.
“Close your eyes and just relax.” Fingers grazed the skin beneath my ears, callouses scratching over on either side of my neck as he probed the wounds Nightcrawler Jr. had left behind. “This shouldn’t hurt… Much.”
I cracked my eyelids open, glaring at him from beneath my lashes, and he flashed me another smile. Funny guy. If I hadn’t been laying in a puddle of my own blood, I might have laughed. As it was, I shut my eyes and waited.
“All done,” he stated a moment later. Large hands wrapped around my right wrist, and cupped the elbow on the same side. I looked up, gaze colliding with that of Mr. Dreamy as he pulled me to a sitting position. A shadow loomed over us and I turned to find Noah standing on my other side. He nodded and tipped the bill of his ball cap. “I’ll leave you in Fallen’s capable hands. My boy’s got some ‘splaining to do.”
Fallen, as I’d learned was Mr. Dreamy’s name, nodded. “You going back out?”
“Yup,” Noah waved and walked off, blending into the shadows as if he’d never been there.
“Come on.” Fallen helped me up, one hand on my back and the other on my bicep, to steady me. He slung the heavy leather jacket he’d been wearing around my shoulders and stared me down when I opened my mouth to protest. “Your t-shirt’s covered in blood, Zoe. Wear it.” I shut my mouth, but refused to tamp down the mutinous glare directed at him. “I’ll get you another one of those… Whatever it was you were drinking and we’ll talk.” He nudged the empty cup with the toe of his boot as he turned toward Let’s Scrabbalatte. “I figure you’ve got a million questions going through that pretty head of yours right about now. Yeah?”
I shook my head and dug my heels in. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to take a break from Zombie Crunches for a while. Can we…” Glancing over my shoulder, I tilted my head toward the Tim Horton’s further down the street. “Would you mind?”
“Zombie… What?” He blinked at me and then shook his head, waving away whatever he’d been about to say. “Nevermind. Yeah. Tim’s is cool.”
The hand cupping my elbow dropped away as we fell into step together, but the one warming the small of my back remained, spreading goosebumps over my skin as we made our way to the coffee shop.
Chapter Three
With a large black coffee in hand, I ushered Zoe to one of the window side tables. The coffee shop was empty at this hour, but would fill up once the bar crowd let out in an hour or so. I took a seat across from her, popping the lid off my cup and taking a sip of the scalding liquid inside.
She watched me from across the small tabletop, her eyes narrowed and lips pursed. Yeah, I thought. I’d be wary of me, too.
“So,” she tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear and fixed her gaze on the table for a moment, brows creased in thought. “If that thing was what you call a minion, what does that make you?” Zoe met my gaze, chin lifted and eyes blazing. By the gods, she was brave. Facing down a minion not an hour ago, and there she sat across from me taking it all in as if it was just another Sudbury Saturday night. “I saw the way you moved out there. You, and that other guy—Noah. No one carries a sword like that; not in the 21st century, at least.”
I took a sip of my coffee, letting the warm liquid complete a slow roll around the interior of my mouth before I swallowed. Did I dare tell her? I glanced at the glass behind her, Noah’s broad back pressed against the bricks beside it as he kept guard over us. We’d each been warned by the gods: Tell no one of our nature, nor our origins. Guard the humans who worshiped them, and stay below the radar while doing so. Draw attention, and face a slow, agonizing death.
Mentally shrugging and flipping the bird in the faces of the gods, I made my decision. They’d made theirs by neglecting the deal and allowing the minion to attack Zoe. Hell on a stick—they let it happen right in front of him. If that’s how the gods wanted to play it, he’d play their little game, and seize the opportunity. Carpe diem, buddy. Carpe diem.
“I’m a vampire.”
Zoe scooted back in her chair, eyes wide and hands raised in a defensive posture. “You’re a… a vampire?” she hissed, eyes scanning the shop behind me to ensure no one heard her.
“No, I just play one on T.V.” I snarked at her, leaning back in my seat. My fingers drummed once against the warm side of the coffee cup I held, tapping out a four fingered ‘Ha, how’d you like that one?’.
She examined me from shit kickers to crown, and narrowed her eyes as they settled on a point just beneath my own. I smirked. Zoe wouldn’t meet my gaze. Interesting, and stereotypical. “Funny guy. So… Undead, allergic to garlic and the sun. All the usual lore?”
“No, Zoe.” I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my tired face. Fucking Hollywood and their idiotic tropes. Vampires lived, breathed and tanned the same as everyone else. Except zombies. I shuddered. Just… no. There wasn’t a soap invented yet that could cover the stench of a sun warmed zombie. The thought alone woke up my gag reflex and agitated the contents of my stomach. I swallowed and took a deep breath. “I’m not dead, but rather perpetually alive for the last two thousand years. Give or take a century, and the foreseeable future.” Tiny frown lines appeared between her eyebrows as she processed the information. I gave her a minute before continuing. “Garlic is my favorite food, and my tan?” I shot her a smirk followed by a wink. “There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t have a sun-kissed Coppertone glow.”
Zoe gasped, her eyes involuntarily flicking up to meet mine. Yes! I gave a mental fist pump and widened my smile. “Well, hi. About time.” She lowered her gaze and I chuckled, reaching out to bump her chin with the tip of my right index finger. “You can look me in the eyes, Zoe. As cool as that would be, I don’t have the power to enthrall you. That’s another of those damnable myths perpetuated by books and movies.”
“But…” She hesitated, biting her lower lip. I brushed my thumb over the plump flesh, freeing it from her teeth. Gods, did the woman not know how tempting it was when she did that? If she kept it up my jeans would be perpetually snug in the crotch. That sexy little tick? Shit. I shifted in my seat, adjusting the fit of my pants to relieve some of the pressure. Zoe continued on, oblivious to
what I had going on beneath the tabletop. “How are you a vampire then?”
I buried my fingers in my hair, and took a deep breath. Did I give her the full truth, or a watered-down version? I had a Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men moment. You can’t handle the truth! I smirked and shook my head to clear the thought. Full truth. Lying, even by omission, came back to bite you in the ass eventually. “A schmuck who swore his allegiance to a bunch of sick as fuck gods and ended up with eternal life. Oh, and a wicked nasty need for blood.” I shrugged, extending my right hand across the table. “Immortal warrior. Defender of mankind. Otherwise known as Fallen. Or, if you’d prefer to use the name my parents gave me, Alexander Leka. Which, incidentally, means defender of mankind. Ironic. I know.”
“What the what?” Zoe spluttered, coughing to dislodge the coffee she’d been in the process of swallowing when I dropped the truth bomb in her lap. She ignored my hand, choosing instead to focus on my face. “Immortal warrior and defender of mankind? You’re joking, right?”
I dropped my hand back to the chipped tabletop and sighed. There it was. Tell the girl I’m a vampire and that pill goes down without a hiccup. But confess to immortality, with the task of defending the world, and that’s not believable. What the actual hell would happen when I dropped the rest of the twisted tale on her?
“Afraid not.” She cocked a well-kempt auburn brow at me and I shrugged. “I was young and in love. This was the price I volunteered to pay so that my beloved would continue to live. My life, for hers.”
Zoe reached out, her delicate hand coming to rest on top of my much larger one. She gave it a light squeeze. “You must have loved her very much to make such a huge sacrifice. I can’t imagine you knew what you were getting into when you did it though.”
“Not a damn clue,” I growled. Her eyes widened at my rough tone and I cursed the bitterness I felt toward the gods. She was alive, once more, and here. I should be grateful. And yet, I wasn’t. How could I be when the greatest love of my life was sitting across the table from me, and she had no clue who I was, who I’d been to her? “I’d do it again though. In a heartbeat. I love her that much.”
***
He loves her that much. Interesting, I thought and took a cautious sip of my café mocha. The super-hot liquid scalded my tongue and I wrinkled my nose, pushing the cup aside. “You used the present tense there. Did you mean to?”
Fallen’s unique amber eyes flicked up to meet mine. I felt the impact like a ten-ton weight on my chest. “Yes, I did.” He lowered his gaze, freeing me from the intensity, and I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I tilted my head, silently asking ‘Why?’, and he responded with a small smile. “Because she’s alive. Reborn once per century as a test of my loyalty to the gods. I can resist the temptation she presents and continue with my duty to them, or find her and lose her permanently. No more reincarnation. I would remain immortal, bound to the vows I took, without the comfort of knowing she lives on.”
“That’s… tragic.” There was more to the story, I could sense it, but decided to move on to another topic and press for the remaining details another time. Something else had been niggling me since the attack, and I needed an answer. “So… How is it that you know my name?” I pulled my cup over, fiddling with the lid. “I’m pretty sure we’ve never met before. I’d remember a guy like you.”
He shrugged, the fabric of his t-shirt stretching to accommodate the movement of the big, burly shoulder beneath it. Fallen avoided eye contact, choosing to study the lid of his coffee cup instead of looking at me. “It’s complicated.”
“That’s original.” I snorted and shook my head. “Try something else. Like, I don’t know, the truth.” He started to shake his head, but I reached across the table and placed my right hand on his left. “Come on. It can’t be worse than the other stuff you’ve thrown at me tonight. How much more farfetched than cursed immortals, mean-ass gods, and deadly minions can it get?”
Fallen snorted softly and lifted his gaze to meet mine. Amber collided with brown and I flinched; bleak, dull eyes stared back at me. He looked away, coughing to clear his throat. His voice, when he finally spoke, was flat—monotone. “You’re her, Zoestrella Mesha. The woman I sacrificed everything for so that she could live.”
Oh. I sat back, my hand sliding off his to rest against the cool tabletop. “That explains the dreams,” I muttered as I tried to absorb the truth bomb he’d dropped on me. I, or a previous incarnation, was responsible for the curse afflicting him. Did I really believe all of this? Even with the memory of the minion attack fresh in my mind, I couldn’t help but question the validity of what Fallen was asking me to believe.
“What dreams?” Fallen leaned forward, his big elbows framing the expanse of his chest between them. “Zoe?”
He snapped his fingers beneath my nose and I blinked, breaking from my inner musings. “What? Oh, the dreams. Yeah… those.” I brought my hands up, scrubbing them over my face as I tried to piece together what to tell him. The words wouldn’t come though. I was stuck on his claim that I was the woman he’d pined over for two thousand years. Out of everything Fallen had told me, this bit stuck and wouldn’t go down. “Me?” I cocked my head and met his gaze. “Really?”
“Yes, Zoe. Really.” He gave me a small, tight lipped smile. “Now, about these dreams?”
I help up my right hand, index finger signaling him to give me a moment. Fallen’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. I knew I was testing the man’s patience with my stalling. Could he blame me though? The bombs he’d dropped on me in the last hour would take a minute, or twenty, to digest. I brought my hands up, closing my eyes as I rubbed my temples with my fingertips and put my thoughts together. How much did he know? Were the details of each reincarnation the same, or similar? There were so many questions I needed him to answer.
Fallen coughed, clearly we’d reached the limit of his patience. Funny, considering he’d waited thousands of years for this moment. I lowered my hands, wrapped them around my cup and trained my gaze on the brown liquid inside. This was a story few people knew; one I preferred not to tell. To my neighbors, I was the night owl in apartment 307 who watched Walking Dead at four in the morning. I was the pale skinned girl with dark red hair who never went out during the day. I was the loner, the ghost no one saw.
Chapter Four
“They started when I was a little girl. I don’t remember the exact age, but I can’t think of a time when I didn’t see you in my dreams.” I took a sip of my drink, the chocolaty concoction coating my mouth. “You were a comforting presence in my life.” I paused to consider how best explain the previous statement without making my parents out to be villains, or my childhood unpleasant. “As a little girl, I was forced to stay indoors—a lot—because of a serious allergy. The sun is harmful to me, burns my skin and makes me super sick if I’m exposed to it for even a short period of time. We tried everything, saw all the doctors and specialists. Nothing worked. Nothing,” I paused and glanced out the window at the moon in the sky above us. A narrow haze surrounded the silvery orb, my nocturnal sun in a midnight sky. I shook my head, smirking at the poetic turn of my thoughts. “It makes for a solitary existence when you don’t have many friends to play with because they’re all busy eating dinner and doing homework when you’re waking up for the day. They’re all having baths and getting ready for bed when it’s your time to go out and play. So, I stayed out of the sun, learned to live in the dark with my imaginary friend... the man with the amber eyes.”
Fallen reached out, his warm hand coming to rest on my forearm. He gave me a weak smile when I looked up from my cup, and I gave him the same in return. His lips parted, as though he was about to say something, and then promptly shut again.
“It’s okay.” I slid my arm from beneath his hand and shrugged. “How were you supposed to know that a decision you made two thousand years ago would affect the life of a girl who wasn’t even a glimmer in the universe yet?”
He flinched and gla
nced out the window. “Well, that’s just it. I did know, Zoe. Sort of.”
Oh, really? I cocked an eyebrow at him and waited for Fallen to continue. He pulled his hand back across the table, bringing both up to scrub over his face. When he lowered them again, his amber eyes met my own brown ones.
“The original Zoe suffered from the same condition, but to a lesser degree.” I blinked and sat back in the flimsy plastic chair. He gave me a moment to digest the news, and then continued. “I often wondered if any of her reincarnations would inherit the allergy as well.”
I held up a hand, pausing his explanation. “Wait. You mean you don’t know?”
“No.” He sighed and gave me another small smile. “I’ve never encountered one—until now. For obvious reasons.”
The coffee shop door opened to admit a group of late night partiers, and a blast of cool air swept through, ruffling my hair. I shivered and tugged Fallen’s jacket tighter around me, thankful for the warmth and cover it provided. The t-shirt I’d been wearing earlier now resided in the bathroom trash bin, too blood stained to be considered salvageable. My jacket hadn’t fared much better, nor the front portion of my bra. Which sucked, because it was one of my favorites, and bras weren’t cheap. I kept the bra, my girls weren’t small enough to go free willy and not be noticed, but the jacket joined my shirt in the trash. The minion’s grip had pierced both carotids from what I could tell by the bloody trails left behind on my skin. Noah had healed the wounds—a fact I still couldn’t wrap my head around—but the gory evidence remained on my unblemished skin.
I returned my attention to Fallen as the worm of curiosity won out over my deliberate attempt to not probe further. My reality bubble was stretched pretty far as it was already. Much more, and the thing might blow to smithereens. I couldn’t help myself though and asked, “You weren’t curious? Not even a little?”
Fallen (Northern Bites Book 1) Page 2