Chapter 24
Sunday came and went, and I had another phone call from Erin.
No more overnight visits until the stalker had been dealt with.
Our lunch dates would be supervised by either her or Ben, if they happened at all—the jury was still out on that one.
Based on the unhappy grumbles I caught coming from Ben in the background, he had little say in the matter and was guilty only by association.
For the first time in forever, I cried. A fact I’ll deny to my deathbed.
So when I walked into work, I totally didn’t have a sniffly nose or red-rimmed eyes.
James wasn’t giving me a pitying look as I made my way behind the bar, and I didn’t have to tell Dani multiple times that I didn’t want to talk about it.
I powered through my shift, making drinks without flair and still managing to spill things at every turn. I wasn’t my usual, outgoing self, but I was too damn stubborn to admit out loud that I wanted help.
James only put up with it for so long. Once the doors were locked, my tactic of avoiding his gaze stopped working. I busied myself with cleaning and piling away dishes, aware that he was watching me the entire time. I think he was hoping I’d be the one to break the silence.
“Ryder,” he finally called, “do you want to come talk to me?”
“Not really.”
“Ryder!” he commanded in a tone of voice I couldn’t ignore.
I wrung the towel in my hands, casting a glance toward Dani, who was in the process of restocking the clean glasses behind the bar. “Are you good?”
“Of course.” She inclined her head toward James. “Go.”
I tossed the towel onto the bar, sulking across the room and entering the hallway ahead of James. As we entered his office, I hovered awkwardly in the middle of the room until he stepped in and closed the door behind us.
“James…”
He locked the door, then sat down on the leather couch against the wall, settling right in the middle. I suspiciously eyed the small amount of space he left me on either side, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I only knew what he wanted when he glanced at his lap then raised a brow at me.
“I’ll crush you,” I joked. Anything to avoid being too serious. Truth was, I could feel my foundation cracking. I feared that if he touched me, it’d crumble completely.
“I’m not buying this self-conscious act for a second. Get over here.”
With a sigh, I relented. I climbed onto his lap, a knee on either side, and he spread his legs, giving me more space to sit back.
His hands traveled up my thighs until they landed on my hips—which I loved.
I could feel his body heat through my clothes.
His hand traced my birthmark through the fabric.
He stayed quiet, waiting for me to guide the conversation. I dropped my gaze, part of me expecting him to pick my head back up. I was relieved when he didn’t.
“Have you ever had your heart broken?” I asked, voice so quiet that if he hadn’t been a vampire, I was certain he wouldn’t have heard me.
“Once,” he said without hesitation. “A long time ago. Would you like to hear about her?”
That made me raise my head. “Her?”
He smiled, lightening the mood. “Funny enough, homosexuality wasn’t widely accepted in the 1600s.”
I ran my hands up his biceps, coming to rest with my arms around his neck, fingers twisting into the hair at his nape. “Tell me.”
He continued stroking my birthmark, almost as if it soothed him. “Her name was Elizabeth.”
“Liz’s,” I whispered. Like the bar.
“Mm-hmm. She was twenty-three, which was old for a bride at that time. Quite a bit younger than me, mind you, but that never fazed anyone. The pressure to marry fell on women, all too often.” He took a deep breath.
“My family was well-off. Really well-off. We were some of the richest in Massachusetts. I wouldn’t say our marriage was ‘arranged,’ exactly, but her parents asked me to meet her, so I did—and I became smitten with her.
I asked her dad for her hand, and we married that winter. ”
“Why the rush?”
“It wasn’t a rush back then. We had nothing to lose, and her parents had a daughter to marry off, to bear them grandchildren.”
My brow furrowed. “I didn’t think vampires could have kids.”
“We can’t,” he confirmed. Then with a deep breath that was clearly out of discomfort rather than necessity he added, “Which is why Liz couldn’t conceive.”
He paused, waiting for the pieces to connect in my mind. “She was a vampire?”
“In fact, I was human, she wasn’t. She confided in me the night before our wedding in case I wanted out.”
The corner of my mouth kicked up. I loved the far away, nostalgic look in James’s eyes when he talked about her. He really loved her. “What happened to her?”
The mood in the room turned somber. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the trials.”
“The Salem witch trials?”
He nodded. “After two years of marriage and still no children, people became suspicious. We had a lot of people watching us very closely. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but I started to think I couldn’t love a vampire, a monster that, for centuries, we’d been taught to fear.
Then I came home one day, and… she’d spent all day preparing my favorite meal.
I realized she knew me better than I knew myself.
How could someone with so much love in her heart be a monster?
I wanted to love her for as long as I could, so I asked her to turn me.
” He absentmindedly twisted the silver chain around his finger.
My eyes tracked the movement. “Was that hers?”
“No, hers was its more feminine twin, but she gave me this one. I was, uh…” He laughed nervously. “I was a bit of a nightmare at first. I didn’t know how to control myself.”
That didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “Pfft, you? Never.”
He pinched my thigh—lightly, but enough to make me squirm under his grip.
“I was insatiable, feeding multiple times a day. I didn’t know it, but Elizabeth began skipping meals to give me more blood.
One day, a child from the town was playing in the woods, and found her drinking blood from a dead animal. ”
He fell quiet, and I picked up the story. “She was tried?” I guessed, my voice barely a whisper. “People were hung back then, right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But a hanging wouldn’t kill a vampire—you’re too durable for it to snap your neck, and you don’t breathe.”
“Which is why she didn’t die. Unfortunately, that only made the village more upset. Have you heard of being burned at the stake? It came from an old European practice, but it wasn’t a common practice in Salem. The villagers, frightened, grew desperate.”
A gasp forced its way out of my throat. “Fire.”
Another somber nod, and he signaled for me to move my legs. He went to his desk, unlocking the bottom left drawer and removing a small box.
He handed it over. “This was all that was left of her by the time I got to Gallows Hill.”
I accepted the box, my heart racing. I didn’t want to look inside, but James was being extremely vulnerable with me. I tried to stem the shaking of my hands as I took the old, faded box from him. I lifted the lid.
A silver chain lay inside. Thin, daintier than his.
The main difference was the small blue sapphire pendant hanging from it.
Something about it was too sacred to pick up, so I reverently ran my finger over the metal instead, feeling the ridges of the sapphire under my fingertip.
After a time, I closed the lid and handed the box back.
“James…” I trailed off, at a loss for words.
“You don’t have to say anything.” He returned the box to his desk and locked the drawer.
Almost out of instinct, I placed my legs in his lap again after he sat back down.
“I don’t know the extent of your history with Erin, but I see how it’s hurting you to think Hannah might be taken away from you.
You’ve been so vulnerable with me. It was time for me to return that trust. And to remind you that it’s okay to feel emotional about things that matter to you, love. ”
“I’m not usually like this. All those years ago, when Erin and I broke up, I closed off my heart.
I became everyone else’s rock. It’s always easier dealing with someone else’s emotions than your own.
Now?” I swallowed. “I don’t know what to do with this feeling—the feeling that being a rock isn’t enough.
That I’m not enough. I’d never wanted to be enough for someone.
” I was talking about Hannah, of course. Only about Hannah, definitely.
“I don’t know much about being a parent, but something I’ve picked up on over the years is that no one’s perfect. Erin’s not perfect, and neither is Ben. I’m sure they’ve made plenty of mistakes in the last seventeen years. It might take Erin a while to realize that, but she’ll come around.”
I rested my head against the back of the couch, unsure what to say. Eventually, I settled on a quiet, “Thank you.”
I grabbed him around the neck and pulled him in for a kiss.
My lips lingered on his, the kiss growing in passion.
James lowered me to the couch. He parted my legs with his knee, grinding it into my hard length.
I gasped for air, breaking the kiss and arching into him, exposing more of my neck.
He licked a path over his fading mark. I wiggled underneath him, needing more—so much more.
“You sure?” he asked, his tongue darting out to tickle my earlobe.
“I’m sure,” I panted. “Please.”
I felt raw, splayed open for the entire world to see, and the only thing I wanted to soothe that feeling was him. It was a new sensation, but damn it, his hips grinding into mine felt too good to choose that moment to overanalyze our relationship.
As James licked over his mark again, I felt his fangs come out to play. I closed my eyes, preparing for that familiar high…
A gunshot tore through the quiet room.
Glass shattered. James cradled my head, pulling me into his chest. My heart pounded so hard that I feared it would burst right out of my chest. I held onto James like a scared kid, forgetting to breathe.
James cupped my face in his hand. He stroked my cheek, saying something I couldn’t make out over the ringing in my ears.
I missed the weight of him when he stood.
I sat up, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands.
Slowly—too slowly for my liking—my hearing started to return.
James stood next to me, rubbing soothing circles over my back.
His voice was muffled at first, like we were underwater, but finally I could make out what he was saying.
“Can you hear me, love?”
I nodded. “Head hurts,” I mumbled into my palms.
“I need you to come back to me.” His serious tone made me look up.
Gone was the vulnerable man from five minutes ago, replaced with a hardened version of him.
Something dangerous lurked behind his eyes, something I couldn’t quite discern, but it wasn’t what I expected.
He didn’t look scared—or even surprised—that a fucking bullet had just shattered his window.
He looked angry. “I need you to go home.”
“What?” I shouted, confused. I stood on shaky legs. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not going home. Someone shot at us! I’m not leaving you here.”
“Only one of us can survive a gunshot, and I’m not keeping you in danger. You have a daughter to think about.”
“James—”
“Ryder. Please don’t fight me on this.” He brushed sweaty curls from my face. “I need to deal with this, and I can’t while I’m concerned about you. I need you to get out of here.” I opened my mouth to protest again, but he cut me off. “Please.”
His thumb stroked my cheek until I looked at him again. “Okay,” I finally relented.
He pressed his lips to mine. “I promise I’ll come to you as soon as I’m done here.”
“If I don’t hear from you in two hours, I’m coming back.”
“I can deal with that.”
I looked at the shattered window, but James guided me to the door.
“Go. Home. I’ll see you soon.”
Reluctantly, I left him alone in his office. I stumbled down the hall, reminding my legs how to work as I headed into the main bar area.
The room was dark, the only illumination the spotlights over the shelves, and the room was too quiet.
It was the kind of silence that makes you check around corners and behind shower curtains for lingering psychopaths.
A chill crept down my spine, and I looked for James out of instinct—but he was nowhere to be found.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
It was only once I was halfway home that the feeling of danger faded away—and I realized I hadn’t seen Dani anywhere.
Suddenly afraid for her, I fished my phone from my pocket and dialed, only to reach her voicemail. Her car hadn’t been in the parking lot, so I had to hope she’d made it out before the gunshot went off.
I drove the rest of the way on autopilot. I let myself in the door, walked Carlos around the block just to keep myself moving, then paced in my foyer.
Waiting…
And waiting…
And waiting. My phone remained silent. No vampires appeared at my door or window. One hour passed, then two.
Keys in hand, I was marching toward the front door when I heard the knock. I rushed to answer it so fast that I tripped over my own feet, catching myself on the doorjamb. I threw the door open relieved to see James standing there.
The relief faded as I took in his stance, his expression. He stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes downcast. He didn’t look at me as he said, “I’m sorry, Ryder.”