Chapter 9
9
I walked right into her trap. How was I supposed to say no to meeting up when I’d already told her I’d canceled my plans for the night?
Seeing Grace tonight will be torture. Not seeing her would somehow be worse.
When I realized my feelings for Grace had gone from a manageable appreciation of her appearance and scent, to full blown infatuation, I knew I had to back off. Not only was I counting the hours to when I could see her again and bask in her warm, goofy presence, but my inner monster was becoming ravenous at the thought of her. So I made excuses and stopped spending time with her.
I thought months away had been enough to cure me of my craving for Grace. I finally wasn’t thinking about her all the time. I filled my time with work and shored up my mental defenses. I thought I was safe.
And yet, last night I spent every moment until dawn trying to push the sight of Grace walking away with Declan out of my mind, where it incessantly replayed, each time a fresh stab in the heart.
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
All the romantic, foolish notions drained out of me the night I was turned and abandoned by the person I thought loved me. I shouldn’t have a heart left to crush.
So why does it feel like Grace has wrapped her fist around it, compressing it against my will and resuscitating my capacity to feel those emotions? I don’t want them. They’ve only ever brought me pain.
This has to stop. The simplest option would be to tell her I can’t be her friend. Cut her out and move on. But I’m weak. Losing Grace would mean losing Mona. I know where I stand in the hierarchy of friendships. Mona cares about me, but she’s known and loved Grace for decades.
I don’t want to be alone again.
Telling Grace how I feel would most likely have the same result—ending our friendship and making things too weird for Mona to want to spend time with me. Working to distract myself and making excuses didn’t work, either.
There has to be another solution. Too bad I don’t have time to think of it before I see her.
Grace is sitting at the bar when I arrive at Nightlight, her golden hair a beacon under the dim Edison bulbs. She’s talking to the owner, a mothman named Tomas, allowing me a moment to watch her unobserved. The predator in me freezes me in place, my vision heightening and my chest squeezing painfully as I drink in the sight of her.
She’s a ray of sunshine in a tight yellow dress, blonde waves bouncing as she laughs at a joke Tomas makes, her smile blinding in its brilliance.
Grace is sunshine, and she makes me burn .
Tomas notices me first, raising a hand in greeting. I force myself out of my stupor and approach, cutting off my breaths before I get close enough to Grace to catch her scent.
“Good to see you, Blair. It’s been a while.” Tomas smiles at me as he wipes the bar top.
Slight guilt flickers inside me. I’ve never been friendly to the bartender, and yet he’s been nothing but sweet to me. He even invited me to his New Year’s Eve party. The one where I thought maybe Grace…
Don’t think about that.
“Nice to see you.” I don’t miss the hint of surprise on Tomas’s face when I give him a small smile. “How’s mated life treating you?”
He lets out a dreamy sigh, and I know if he were shifted into his mothman form, his wings would be fluttering with delight. “Perfect. Better than I could’ve ever imagined. Last night Caleb got mad at me.”
My brow furrows. “You like him being upset?”
Tomas’s grin widens. “Yes. It shows that he trusts me enough to not hide his uglier emotions.”
Grace clasps her hand over her heart. “Aww, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. ”
“I also have a fun time apologizing to him,” he says with a wink and Grace snorts.
“What can I get you to drink? I have a new, uh, vintage that you might be interested in, Blair.”
I raise a brow. Tomas stocks blood at his bar for the few vampires that have made Moonvale their home. Most of the time, what he gets is from a paranormal-owned company that sources donated blood from monsters looking to get some easy cash.
“Sure, that sounds good.” Maybe having a drink will help me keep my composure.
“I’ll have a soda water with lime,” Grace says.
“No cider tonight?” I ask, and then immediately regret it. It’s not that weird that I know her usual drink, but it’s weird to ask someone why they ordered something non-alcoholic.
Grace doesn’t seem phased. “Nope. I’ve been cutting back on alcohol.”
“Ah.” I keep my tone as neutral as possible, but I can’t help wondering why. Not that her choices are any of my business.
She leads us to a booth and slides in, the hem of her dress sliding up to show off the tops of her thighs. I pull my eyes away even though they want to linger on her legs and sit across from her.
Grace gestures to her glass. “I know it’s weird to invite someone to a bar and then not get a drink, but I wasn’t sure what else was open at this time of night. Plus, there’s something about this place that always relaxes me.”
“There’s a charm on the building.”
“Huh? Really?” Grace’s eyes go wide and she leans forward, lowering her voice despite no one being nearby. “Like magic ?”
I smirk. “Yeah, like magic. It’s meant to make the space welcoming and soothe stress. ”
“Wow! That’s amazing.” Her eyes sparkle with awe at the concept of magic.
It’s adorable. Sometimes I forget Grace isn’t aware of most of the supernatural elements that are woven throughout Moonvale. I wonder how she’d react if I told her that her favorite bakery is owned by an incredibly powerful fae. Or that currently, Nightlight has more monsters inside it than humans.
A pang of guilt sours my amusement at her excitement. She wouldn’t be aware of them at all if it weren’t for me.
The night Grace found out I was a vampire, and that monsters exist, wasn’t my fault. I know that. I had to help Mona and Max. That doesn’t stop me from blaming myself.
I was riding the high of post-performance excitement and seeing Grace on stage. I thought she felt it too, when she agreed to get a drink with me. The way she looked at me across the table, like the one we’re at now, made me wonder if my feelings weren’t one-sided. She said she wanted to ask me something. I’d decided I’d tell her about my attraction to her and if she reciprocated, broach the subject of me being a monster.
Then Mona called, needing my help, and that was the end of that delusion. Grace was terrified of me. She pretended not to be, but I could tell. She’d tense, her pulse would spike, and her pupils would dilate any time she saw me for a long time.
Once someone finds out you’re a vampire who could easily rip their throat out, no matter how understanding they are, things change. Yes, Grace has become more accustomed to me, but you can’t ignore base instinct. I’m a predator. And if she knew the things I’ve done, she wouldn’t be here talking to me at all.
“Tomas is smart to put a charm like that on his bar.” Grace takes a sip of her drink and grimaces. “Though I may need to ask him for some better non-alcoholic recommendations.”
I hesitate to pry, but she’s talking about it again, so it seems like she wants me to ask. “What prompted the choice to not drink as much?”
She looks down at her hands, cheeks burnishing slightly. “I’m trying to take better care of myself.”
“Please tell me you’re not on a diet.” It’s none of my business, but I detest the thought of anyone trying to force their body to be a certain size.
Grace laughs. “No! I mean, I’ve gained a lot of weight, but no. Diets aren’t for me. I love food too much and don’t want to ruin my relationship with it for the sake of making my stomach smaller.”
“Good.”
She leans forward to whisper again. “Would be nice though to be an immortal being who would stay the same no matter how much they ate. Or, uh, drank. It’d save on having to buy new clothes.”
Her pulse ticks in her throat and I fight to not stare at it while she’s discussing me feeding. When she leans back, I force a small smile onto my face.
“Staying the same has its issues.” A lot of them, actually. I don’t want to ruin the conversation by bringing some of the darker ones up, so I choose an innocuous one. “My hair, for instance.”
“I love your hair! What’s wrong with it?” Grace says it like she’s affronted by the thought that my hair is a problem.
I try not to preen under the compliment, but it’s difficult when she gives it so enthusiastically. “It never grows, and it will always be relaxed unless I curl it, because I died with it that way. Imagine being stuck with bangs for eternity.”
“Oh damn. That sucks… not that they don’t look incredible! You could have a bowl cut and still be hot.”
I give her an incredulous look. “I doubt that. ”
She snorts and waves her hands at me dismissively. “You would!”
“Sure.”
She narrows her eyes. “You would.”
My heart thumps in my chest, creating a dull ache I want to rub away. I take a sip from my glass of blood to distract myself from the sensation.
It doesn’t help much. Drinking blood can be as intoxicating as alcohol in some instances, and the zing of fae energy in the blood I ordered makes my skin tingle. But it tastes wrong with Grace sitting across from me. It isn’t what I want.
Good thing I’m used to disappointment.
Grace purses her lips. “Hold on. I thought hair and nails kept growing even after you die. Why is that not the case for you?”
I wish I knew. I’ve heard of vampires that can channel the blood they drink into the energy needed to grow hair and nails, but I’ve never bothered to figure it out. It felt silly to worry about cosmetic things when I could be figuring out how to harness my ability to charm people and make sure I have a reflection so humans don’t freak the fuck out when I stand in front of a mirror.
I shrug.
“Well, you look great. I stand by my assertion. I’d give anything to not have my body become any more decrepit than it already is.” She follows up her statement with a soft laugh, but the humor doesn’t reach her eyes. There’s real worry and pain there.
Grace is hardly what I’d call decrepit. She’s not even thirty yet. I wish I knew if it’s the normal fear of aging or something else that’s scaring her. I have no clue what to say to assuage her fears, and I’m not the right person to help her. She says she’d give anything to stay eternally young, and I know I’ll get to the point where I’d give anything to stop living. I don’t want to get into an argument over which is worse—living forever or getting old and dying. That won’t go well.
Another reason why I need to put my infatuation with Grace behind me. Knowing that she’ll be a drop in the bucket in the endless well of my life makes it unwise to get attached. I’m already set up for future pain because of my love for Mona, and she’ll live twice as long as a normal human. Maybe longer with Max’s magic. I can’t handle more than that.
I settle for giving a vague compliment. “You look good.”
She blushes, but shakes her head. “I know I look good. Appearances are deceiving.”
I go still, the smile falling from my face. “What do you mean by that?”
She looks down at her drink, sighing, then takes a sip to stall, even though she visibly grimaces again at the taste. “My spine hates me. To put it more officially, I have degenerative discs in my cervical spine. The pain has gotten worse over the past six months, and I can’t seem to figure out how to make it better. Not that it can ever get completely better. The best I can do is fight to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible.”
“Shit.” I don’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry” would be trite. Waving it off or saying she’ll be okay would be worse.
“Yep.” She pops the “p” and goes to take another sip of her drink, but stops halfway and sets it aside. “I’m only letting myself drink on special occasions, because I don’t want it to turn into my solution for the pain. My grandpa was an alcoholic. I can’t…” She swallows heavily. “I don’t want to be like that. I won’t.”
Her adamance strikes a chord with me. “I understand. The addiction part, at least.”
Shit, I shouldn’t talk about this. If I tell her who I truly am, she’ll run away screaming.
Maybe that’s for the best.
Grace looks at me expectantly, gaze filled with compassion. I’m compelled to speak even though it might ruin our friendship. “I’m a monster,” I begin.
She shakes her head. “No, you’re n?—”
“I am.” The words are clipped, and I have to clear my throat before I continue to get rid of the emotion that’s clogging it. “Ever since I was turned, I’ve had a hunger inside me that will never be satiated. I feed to give my body the fuel it needs to function. But I will always want more. Every day, I have to choose to not give in to the predator that lives inside me. That will never change. I have to always be in control. If I let myself give in to that feral need, I…”
I want to confess my darkest sins, but I’m too much of a coward to say them aloud. Besides, she doesn’t need to be burdened with the knowledge of my monstrous actions.
“Like you said. I won’t,” I finish. I stare into the blood in the wineglass in front of me. Facing down what makes me a monster and reminding myself I’m strong enough to resist the pull of my hunger. Unable to look at Grace and see her fear.
A warm hand rests atop mine and I jolt, inhaling sharply and getting a lungful of her tart berry pie scent. Grace squeezes my hand as I look up in surprise and meet her gaze.
Determination, not terror, blazes in her eyes. “We won’t.”