10. Rina
TEN
rina
Back in the car, I rubbed my stomach, feeling stuffed. I’d devoured my food, not realizing how hungry I was until I took my first bite of the mouthwatering burger.
“You’re really not going to eat anything?” I asked him as I buckled my seatbelt.
“No,” he answered, his tone cold, leaving no room for argument.
Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him eat before. I’d known him for less than a week, but still. “Can you eat food?”
He turned to look at me, red eyes bright, like he couldn’t quite figure me out. “Of course.” The sunglasses he’d worn earlier in the day were on his head now, no longer needed since night had descended all around us.
“Oh. Alright. Just wasn’t sure if you could like, only digest blood or something.”
Ezra chuckled, clearly amused by my line of questioning. “Has anyone ever told you that you ask a lot of questions?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Sorry that I’m naturally inquisitive.”
He let out a sigh.
“Look.” I probably should have held back on account of the fact that this was his car, and he didn’t like me any more than I liked him, but I couldn’t. “It’s not my fault that all I have to go off of is a few stories and vampire media.”
“If it helps, Twilight got it all wrong,” he offered.
“You know Twilight?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t born this year,” he reminded me.
“Right. Not even this century.” I grimaced. This was all feeling a little too much for me.
His fingers massaged the bridge of his nose.
“Yes, we can eat. We don’t derive nutrients from it like we do blood, but many vampires still enjoy the act of eating food.
Especially those that used to be human.” Ezra read the surprise on my face and kept going.
“Vampires can be born—or made. Some things are true. Lingering fragments of what humans saw and shouldn’t have remembered.
But some memories are too strong, persuasion or not. Natural born vampires are stronger.”
“Like you?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes.” It seemed like he anticipated what I was going to ask next without me actually saying the words.
“A born vampire can turn a human into one, and the process is almost seamless. The made vampires…” Ezra shook his head.
“Let’s just say humans don’t make it through the transition as well when they bite someone. ”
I frowned, looking down at the mark on my arm. “But I…”
“Won’t turn into a vampire,” he reassured me. “I drank from you, but without my blood in your system, you would never turn. And that will never happen.”
“Right.” I looked away. I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was relief that I’d never become what he was, or disappointment that he didn’t want me.
Wasn’t that the most fucked up part of all of this?
I was actively trying to untangle myself from him, and I still felt like a teenager who had just found out her first crush didn’t like her back.
“What else?” He looked deep in thought. “As you guessed, vampires don’t age like humans do.
I was born in nineteen-sixteen, but physically I’m only in my twenties.
Born vampires age normally until twenty-one, and then are frozen in time.
We’re immortal—but not invulnerable. We can be killed, and we can die.
” His hand flexed around the steering wheel.
“How?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Trying to kill me now, my sweet? Because I have to warn you, it will be harder than you think.”
I shook my head. “I might not like you, bloodsucker, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you in a coffin.” A mental image of him lying in one sprang into my head, and I giggled.
“What?”
“Please tell me you don’t sleep in a coffin.”
“What? No.” Ezra’s eyes bugged, and he dragged a hand through his blond hair. “That’s an old wives’ tale, back when newly turned humans would wake up in a coffin, changed after being presumed dead.”
“Okay, that… surprisingly makes a lot of sense,” I said, frowning. “And I’m assuming that it got spread around because of memories being altered?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Probably.”
I hummed. Maybe Ezra wasn’t so bad when he was actually choosing to be nice and not antagonizing me. Dinner had been like that, too. I wasn’t sure how to feel when he was acting like this.
“You can do it too, you know.”
Turning to look at him, I couldn’t help my confusion. “I can do what?”
“Affect people. Manipulate their auras. Change their moods.”
Frowning, I shook my head. “My power doesn’t work that way. I can see auras, but I can’t mess with other people’s.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Was I? “Well… No. But I’ve never been able to before…
” I trailed off. I didn’t really know enough about my gift, or how it worked.
But somehow, he did. And it seemed like a damn shame for me to spend all this time with him and not take the opportunity to learn more about my magic.
“What do you know about aura magic?” I asked him, feeling skeptical.
“I’ve met an aura witch before,” he said, aura shifting from dark red to black and back.
Pulsing, dark energy rippling through him.
I didn’t like the way it felt. A shiver ran through my body.
“Have there ever been any moments in your life where you really wanted something, and then it just… happened?”
“Do you expect me to remember specific moments where I might have subconsciously, accidentally influenced someone’s mood?”
“Well… yes?”
I let out a groan of frustration. There was no way. “I can’t keep track of what I ate for dinner last week, let alone when I might have inadvertently affected people with my magic. I own two pairs of the same boots because I forgot I’d already purchased them.”
“So you’re forgetful and nosy,” he cut in.
“Hey!” I frowned. “I thought we were having a moment.”
He flicked my nose. “Don’t get used to it, witch. I’m not a nice vampire, remember?” He showed his fangs, but the action was all bark and no bite.
“Gods, I can’t stand you.”
Ezra narrowed his eyes. “The feeling is mutual, believe me. There’s nothing I want more than to break this infernal bond so I can drop you back off in your little town and never see you again.”
I needed the reminder that he was an asshole—to keep my head in the right place. This man wasn’t some Prince Charming here to sweep me off my feet. No matter what fate said, he wasn’t the man who I was going to spend my life with.
No matter how long that life ended up being.
Doing my best to ignore him, I pulled out my phone, finding the coven’s group chat was blowing up.
I’d briefly told them all I was leaving town on a trip, but hadn’t really explained why.
After how happy Willow, Luna, and Eryne were with their mates, I didn’t know how to explain that I wanted nothing to do with mine.
Especially when I’d signed up for a multi-day road trip with him that had no end in sight.
Damn, if only I’d had Luna to look into my future. That would have come in handy.
Willow
Are we still on for the annual coven Halloween party?
Cait
After last year, do we really think it’s a good idea?
Willow
To be fair, it wasn’t the party’s fault that Luna disappeared.
That would be my brother-in-law’s.
Wendy
What are the odds someone gets kidnapped a second year in a row, anyway?
Eryne
Wends, you’re gonna jinx us.
Wendy
No I’m not.
Cait
Oh, you definitely are.
Rina
Hopefully I make it back in time.
Miss you all already.
Willow
You better. And you still owe us an explanation, missy.
Running away with the hot vampire??
Cait
Willow, you’re literally pregnant. And married.
Willow
So? Doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes.
Back me up here, girls.
Rina
He’s not hot. He’s arrogant, and insufferable.
And I’m not running away with him. I’ll explain everything when we get back.
Willow
Damien read over my shoulder and is now annoyed.
How many pumpkin treats will it take to throw him off my trail?
Cait
Maybe you should just distract him with a trip to the demon realm.
I’ll come with, if you need moral support.
Willow
And that has nothing to do with you wanting to see hot demons?
Cait
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Wendy
Sure, babe.
Whatever you need to tell yourself.
Rina
What about you and Cassius, huh?
Wendy
No comment.
Her reaction to the ghoul had been strange, and I’d never gotten a chance to question her more about it. I’d been more focused on the strange mark on my wrist—the one that tied me to the vampire—than I had my best friend.
Which was shitty of me. She’d always been there for me, and was I being there for her?
Somehow, I’d make it up to her once we returned from our road trip.
“What’s wrong?” Ezra asked, seeing my slight frown.
I didn’t know how to explain what I was feeling. That I missed my coven already, even though it had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d left them. After everything we’d been through lately, I felt even closer to them.
And the further we drove away from Pleasant Grove, the more the sinking feeling in my stomach increased.
Like my life had changed—whether I liked it or not.
The thunder was bad enough that the car shook, rain pouring down around us, blocking out all visibility.
“Fuck,” I said, gripping the door, holding myself in place as lightning streaked across the night sky. “This is bad.”
Ezra grunted in agreement, his grip on the wheel making his fingers bone white.
“There has to be some place to pull over,” I said. “At least until the storm passes.” It was late, but he hadn’t shown any signs of stopping, so I’d just let him drive.
“We need a room,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to stop anytime soon.”
He was right, and I’d definitely feel safer not being in a giant metal box, especially as another flash lit up the sky.
“Okay,” I agreed.
After another fifteen minutes of creeping along the road, we finally found somewhere to pull off.
It was a seedy motel, one I would have never stayed in under other circumstances, but even the vampire seemed like he couldn’t keep driving much longer, especially when we’d already been on the road for almost an entire day.
Plus, the sun would be back up in just a few hours, and Ezra didn’t seem like the kind of man to let someone else drive his car—especially considering it was a classic sports car.
Of course, he didn’t need to know that I’d barely passed my driver’s license test...
the fourth time I’d taken it. I’d never needed to drive around Pleasant Grove, and when I’d studied in Boston, I’d relied heavily on public transportation to get around the city when I wasn’t at the campus. Driving wasn’t my forte.
“Hello.” I approached the front desk, covered in raindrops from the short walk from the car into the small, run-down lobby. “We’re looking for rooms for the night.”
The man working looked at us, his aura a dark blue color. I’d noticed a long time ago that the brighter the aura, the more pure their soul was. This human practically stuck his nose up in the air at us. “Two?”
“That would be preferable, yes,” I said, smiling sweetly.
Ezra gave me a look, one eyebrow raised, and I could tell what he was thinking. Really, here? He wanted me to experiment with my magic now? I wasn’t even supposed to use it around humans.
I hesitantly pushed against his aura, surprised to feel it bend and flex around my magic. Huh. It was like I could reach out and almost touch it, as if I was feeling his soul. One that had once been kind, before years of hardship and toil had affected him.
It was easy enough to coax some brightness back into his aura, driving away the shadows—for now. I could tell it wouldn’t be permanent, though I had no idea how.
Still, the man perked up.
“See,” Ezra murmured against my ear. “I told you.”
I shivered, feeling his breath against my skin, but didn’t say anything.
The receptionist, now wearing a warmer expression, looked at both of us. “Unfortunately,” he said, sounding much more chipper, “I only have one room left. Storm’s pretty bad out there.”
“It is,” Ezra agreed, gruffly.
Please tell me it has two beds, I begged the universe.
“Only one bed, though,” he said to my companion. “Seems like you and the little lady will have to share.”
I furrowed my brow. “Little lady?” I repeated.
“Relax.” The vampire’s voice soothed me. “If you get angry, your mood will only affect his.” I looked up into his red eyes and nodded.
“We’ll take it,” I said, taking the key from the man as Ezra sorted out the payment details.
We were in room thirteen—which felt like a sign, though I hadn’t decided what it meant—and I trudged back out in the rain to grab my bags before stomping to the room. Once again, I didn’t wait for Ezra to grab them, not needing his help. I was a strong, independent woman, thank you very much.
“He was slimy,” I told Ezra as we slipped inside. “I didn’t like the way his aura felt.”
“But you did it,” he said. Was that… pride I detected in his voice? No, it couldn’t be. “You were able to influence his mood, even if only short term.”
I felt a little hopeless, even after the new revelation. Staring down at my hands, I let my shoulders fall. “Sure, but how will that help me against real threats?”
Ezra slipped a finger under my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You’ll learn how to control it,” he promised.
His tongue darted out, swiping over his lower lip, and I tracked the motion, unable to look away as I wondered what it would feel like to have them pressed against mine.
“We should sleep,” I murmured, turning away from him—my eyes locking directly onto the singular bed in the room. One queen sized bed to fit me and the one-hundred-and-ten-year-old vampire who was over six feet tall.
Great.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “This cannot be happening right now.”
“Relax, little lady,” Ezra said, mocking me. “I won’t do anything to you, I promise.” He sat in the chair, watching me as I rang out my hair, somehow sopping wet even though I’d barely been outside.
“What, you’re going to sit in the corner and watch me sleep?” I frowned at him, looking way too comfortable there. “I thought you said this wasn’t like Twilight?”
Ezra scoffed. “No. I need sleep too, Sabrina.” He looked tired, I realized.
His skin was paler than normal, his aura seeming somewhat dim.
It didn’t sparkle like it normally did, even with the shadows that clouded the deep red color.
“We can share the bed without biting each other’s heads off for one night. ”
Could we? I wasn’t sure. There was absolutely no chance I was offering to sleep on the floor, though.
He watched as I pulled the extra pillows off the bed—and stuffed them down the center, creating a pillow dam. “There,” I huffed. “You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.”
“Fine by me,” he said. “You can use the bathroom first, if you’d like to change.”
“Fine,” I said, grabbing a pair of pajamas from my bag.
“Great,” he bit out, crossing his arms over his chest. He was still wearing that suit.
With a huff, I headed towards the bathroom, wondering how I was going to make it through this road trip with him—let alone the night.