Chapter 19
Eric
The call ended, and I let my head fall back, suppressing the urge to scream.
I’d fucked up.
Again.
Possibly worse than ever.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I took a second to stare up into the grayish sky that’d be pitch black within an hour. It’d been a long couple of days, and I’d just… I’d just had to reassure myself that Finn was okay.
Though I had no idea why I’d given in to that stupid urge to leave him another note.
I straightened, focusing on the window across from me. Finn was still staring at his apartment door, his expression torn, his whole body tense. My heart ached as I watched him take a step forward, his hand trembling so badly that he only managed to get the key into the lock after five tries.
The lump was back in my throat, bigger than ever, as I watched Finn taking a stuttering breath through his nose, his jaw locked tight. He pushed the door open, raising his arms as if he were trying to shield himself and…
No more notes.
Fuck.
I watched him disappear into his apartment, but instead of heading over to the other roof, I stayed frozen in place, staring at the empty hallway.
The first notes hadn’t been that bad. But now… he wasn’t just a bit unsettled. He was scared to death. I’d heard it in his voice when he’d asked to come over. I’d scared him into not wanting to be home.
And I needed to make it right.
But first… I needed to send him my address. And then I needed to run the fuck home as fast as possible because I was pretty sure our house was not convincingly suited to be inhabited by humans. And then… shit. Then I needed to figure out what to do.
Because I didn’t want to have to see Finn afraid like that again—ever.
“This is a nightmare,” I mumbled, taking in our kitchen. It was pristine. Straight out of some kind of lifestyle magazine. Perfect. And completely and utterly empty.
Oh, we had all the right appliances. We even had a fucking air fryer on our counter, a blender right next to it, hell, even one of those fancy-shmancy ice-cream makers. And none of them looked like they’d ever been used.
Which, granted, they hadn’t.
I opened the first cabinet, then another one, and another one.
Cringing, I looked around the kitchen.
At least we had cutlery. And pots and pans—yeah, sure, the labels were still attached, but we had them. However, what we didn’t have was food. Like at all.
No cereal, no pasta, no flour, no sugar, no spices, no anything.
We did have a fruit basket on the counter, but it was as blissfully empty as the cupboards that we were supposed to store our non-perishables in.
“What’s going on?” Bennie asked. He was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed in front of him. “You’ve been projecting so much anxiety through our bond, I was about to go out and search for you.”
I grimaced, running a hand through my hair.
“I fucked up.”
Bennie snorted. “Tell me something new.”
Glaring at him, I shut one of the drawers with way too much force. The cutlery clattered loudly in the otherwise quiet room.
“I fucked up again. Like so bad. And now Finn is on his way over, and there’s no fucking way I can convince him that this is our normal kitchen, the one we use regularly to cook. There’s nothing here.”
I ripped open the door of our fridge, just narrowly managing not to rip it off its hinges, then cringed.
Great.
We didn’t have any food in our fridge. However, we did have bagged blood.
“Oh yeah, so we don’t have food for you, but we have food for us. Blood. Did I forget to mention that I’m a vampire?”
“Yeah, you might want to keep him away from the fridge,” Bennie said with a snort.
I whirled around, a snarl escaping my throat before I could stop it.
Did he need to turn everything into a joke?
This was a fucking disaster.
A complete and utter disaster.
And he was standing there laughing.
I felt my claws popping, the sharp pointers digging into the skin of my palms.
“Stop it!” Bennie’s eyes flashed, and for once he stopped grinning or joking.
Instead, he placed his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. Hard. Until I felt the rage slowly ebb away enough for my vision to return to normal. Huh. I hadn’t even noticed it’d turned red.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
I was spiraling.
And Finn would be here in a couple of minutes.
“No, I’m sorry. I can literally feel how anxious you are, so goading you wasn’t nice. When is Finn gonna be here?”
I bit my lip, trying to calculate how long it’d take him to get from his apartment to our house.
“That depends. If he’s walking, he’s gonna need about half an hour. If he’s taking an Uber… probably fifteen minutes?”
Bennie groaned. “That’s not a lot of time. Can’t you meet at his place?”
I grimaced.
“What did you do?”
“Why do you think it’s something I did?”
Bennie raised an eyebrow at me. “Because a minute ago you just told me you’d fucked up. So… what did you do?”
“I might’ve left another note.”
“Might have?”
I threw my hands up, then walked around the kitchen island.
“Fine. I did leave another note, okay? And it freaked him out badly. Like so badly. And now he’s coming over because he’s afraid to stay in his apartment.”
Bennie let out a laugh, but quieted as I gave him another dirty look.
“You have to admit, it’s quite funny that you scared him so much that he’s running to you for comfort.”
“It sounds like I’m a fucking psychopath.”
Bennie shrugged. “It sounds more like you’re a manipulative, stalking lunatic, but again, what’s new?”
I sighed, turning around and heading out of the kitchen into the living room.
At least this room looked like someone actually lived here.
There was the big, brown leather couch, the huge smart TV with all kinds of consoles hooked up to it, and a ton of fake plants that looked surprisingly real.
But, you know, with having to have the whole thing blacked out during the day, no plants would get enough light to actually survive at our place.
Shit.
Would Finn expect to spend the night?
Considering it was already past six p.m., I’d think so. Which meant… I had to explain to him that he could not, under any circumstances, open the curtains during the day.
Easy peasy.
It’s not like he’d ever question that.
“You’re spiraling again,” Bennie commented. He dropped onto the couch and patted the spot next to him. “Sit down.”
“I can’t. I need to go and buy groceries, and…”
“Sit. Down.”
I hated it when Bennie used his authoritative tone. It’s not like it actually forced me to do as he said, but the strong urge to comply was there. Apparently, it was a sire thing. The effect was actually fading the older I got. As a fledgling, I’d had to obey him, but by now my body just wanted to.
I sat down with a heavy sigh, burying my head in my hands.
“I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
“Royally so,” Bennie said, patting my shoulder.
I turned my head, glaring at him, but he just laughed his fucking grating, amused laugh.
“What? Do you want me to coddle you? Nope, not gonna happen. You royally fucked up. But I’m still gonna help you get out of it as okay as you possibly can.
So… we need a plan. And we need it fast. I suggest you go to your room and make sure you don’t have any empty blood bags lying around, okay?
I’ll go buy groceries and bring home pizza.
Then we’ll eat on the couch, and Finn will have no reason to even enter the kitchen. ”
I sighed.
“That plan’s not solid.”
There was so much that could potentially go wrong. Finn could ask for a tour of the house. He could want to go and grab a drink from the fridge. He could…
“We’re on a time crunch. It’s the best we can do in a couple of minutes. Go upstairs, get your room ready, and I’ll get food and drinks for your mate. But Eric?”
“Hmm?”
“As soon as Finn’s gone tomorrow, we’ll have a conversation. A serious one. Because this whole stalking thing… it’s getting messy. And I’m worried it’ll all blow up in your face.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t think he was quite that far off.
Finn practically threw himself into my arms as I opened the front door.
I held his trembling frame firmly pressed against my chest and carefully guided him inside so I could close the door behind us.
We still hadn’t managed to find the fledgling, but we’d heard bits and pieces about him asking questions about us.
I didn’t like it, and I didn’t want Finn to possibly be seen by that guy until I knew what he wanted from us.
“Your house is really nice,” he mumbled against my chest, even though he hadn’t seen anything but the outside.
He wasn’t wrong, though. We were living in an old town villa, and Bennie had done a lot of updates during the last three years that it’d truly been ours.
The white stone outside had been cleaned and sealed, and the new front door might look old, but it was in fact brand new.
It appeared to be dark brown wood, but that just hid the fact that it was reinforced metal.
We even had one of those antique golden door knockers in the shape of a lion’s head.
But no matter how antique the outside looked, the inside was a lot more modern.
“Thanks,” I whispered, inhaling deeply, my heart dropping as I noticed the sour, bitter notes of Finn’s scent. I was responsible for his fear. I’d been the one who made him feel that way, and it left me feeling cold and awful. “Do you want to see my room?”
Best to get him out of the common areas.
Finn let out a weak chuckle. “No matter how much I’d love for you to distract me with your body right now, I don’t think I’m up for sex today. Sorry.”
“Oh, uhm… you don’t have to be sorry for that.” Especially since it’s all my fault. “But that’s not why I asked you if you wanted to see my room.”
“Oh.” Finn took a step back, eyeing the entrance hall.
His eyes wandered, taking it all in: the polished wooden stairwell to the second floor, the dark hardwood floor, the cream-colored rugs, the fake plants on side tables, the lamps, pictures, and the warm mocha and cream painted walls.
He peeked into the living room, smiling as his eyes found the couch.
“Can I get a tour of the place?” he asked, wrapping his arms around himself. “I kinda want… I don’t know.”
How could I say no to that?
I couldn’t.
“Sure.” I smiled, even though I felt like screaming, my insides all twisted up.
“You wanna take your shoes off?” I nodded to the closet where we’d stashed our coats and shoes.
Finn nodded, quickly kicking off his shoes, taking off his coat, and putting them away.
Then he stepped up to me, lacing our fingers together.
His were almost as cold as mine and still trembling.
I gave them a light squeeze that I hoped came across as reassuring, then I pulled him into our living room.
It was big, the biggest room on this floor, and it seemed as if Finn really liked it.
“Wow,” he said as he stepped further into the room, dragging me with him. “How much money does your friend make with his IT stuff?”
I laughed.
“More than enough.”
That’s something that happened if you were alive when the internet first became a thing. Bennie had lived through it all, and he’d developed a keen sense for things that were gonna take off and things that were gonna be a bust.
“Must be nice.” Finn turned to me, a grin on his face, pointing at the dark green wall. “Is that one of those millennial-green walls?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“It’s an internet thing. Doesn’t really matter because I, too, like it. Oh, and you have books!” He let go of my fingers and headed over to one of the bookshelves, perusing the selection displayed. I felt the loss of skin contact deep in my chest.
“We actually have a whole library set up on the second floor,” I explained, pointing at the ceiling before stepping up next to him until our shoulders brushed against one another. His scent was less acidic now. Calmer.
“Nice,” he said, swaying against me a little, but he didn’t even turn his head my way, his attention focused on the books in front of him.
Fine, if it helped, he could explore our fucking house all he wanted.
Just not the fridge.
Because I really did not have any idea how to explain the bagged blood away.
“Do you want to see it?” I asked, in one last attempt at inconspicuously guiding him away from the kitchen.
“Want to see what?” he asked, blinking as he turned his head to me.
“The library.”
“Oh, sure.” He shrugged. “Do you want to show me the rest of the house first?”
No.
I shrugged. “There’s not much to see. We uh, don’t cook often, so the kitchen looks pretty barren.”
Understatement of the year.
Still, I walked him to our dining room area and opened the sliding doors into the kitchen, waving at everything, then turning back around without actually entering.
Finn let out a laugh.
“What did you do? Did you hire an interior designer to set up the kitchen and then never use it?”
Of course he had to step into the kitchen, his eyes shining with amusement as he took everything in.
“Pretty much.”
That was exactly what’d happened.
“Oof. And here I thought you were some kind of health nut.” He came back to me and patted my stomach. “There’s no way you’re not working hard for that body, even if you insist you’re not working out to maintain it. I thought for sure you were into clean eating or whatever.”
I laughed. “I’m not.”
Hell, I regularly fed on addicts. I definitely wouldn’t call their blood clean.
“Damn. One day, you’ll have to let me in on your secret,” Finn said, tipping onto his toes to plant a quick kiss on my mouth.
“Later,” I mumbled against his lips, chasing after them. I didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to have to think about what would happen if I told him.
I sighed, pulling him against me, burying my nose in the nape of his neck and inhaling deeply. His scent was so calming. So him.
His pulse was strong and even, the copper notes almost tangible to me.
My gums ached, my stomach cramping as I remembered our last encounter. When I’d fucking lost control and bitten him.
It’d been heaven.
It’d been hell.
“Okay. You can keep your secret for now.” Finn’s tone was playful as he reached for my hand again, taking a step back. “Now come on, if your kitchen is basically a showroom, I don’t need to see it. Show me the parts that you actually live in.”
I could do that.
“Let’s head upstairs.”
Where it was safer for him to explore.