Chapter 4 #2
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “This isn’t going to work. You have to—whatever—untether us, because I have to go teach third graders in six weeks at a new school, and I can’t exactly bring a terrifying vampire to Career Day.”
The look he gave me somehow managed to combine pity and irritation. “You believe I control it? If I could sever it, we would not be having this conversation.”
He was infuriatingly calm. Not cold, exactly. Just… steady. Like nothing I said could touch him. Like the world could collapse, and he’d still speak in complete sentences. I’d never met a man like that. It was impressive and wildly annoying.
I stepped closer without meaning to. He shifted back half an inch. His eyes flicked to my throat, then away so fast I barely caught it.
“What’s a third grader?” he asked.
The question was so sincere I almost laughed through my panic.
“A student,” I said. “Children who are eight or nine years old. I teach them.”
“Teach,” he repeated carefully. “As in… educate?”
“Yes. Reading, math, spelling. Life lessons. I mainly try to keep them from eating glue.”
He studied me as if I was speaking a foreign language. “In my time, only the wealthy educated their children. The rest were sent to work.” His voice wasn’t wistful, softened with curiosity that almost sounded like reverence. “Do you teach wealthy children?”
“Some,” I said. “Some are better off than me. Some aren’t. It’s a mix. But all children go to school now.”
He seemed to consider that. “Times have changed.”
“You think?”
His voice stayed even, but there was a quiet restraint under it, like he’d practiced calm until it became armor. “The connection will calm itself if we remain near each other,” he said. “Distance will cause distress. That includes your… third-grade institution.”
My throat went dry.
I was bonded to a vampire. A naked vampire.
This could not be real.
“Look,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “I don’t know what cosmic nonsense this is, but I’m on a healing journey. I’m journaling, crocheting, and eating cereal for dinner. I don’t have time to be spiritually leashed to Count Broodula.”
“I cannot leave,” he said simply. “Nor can you. It binds us both.” He glanced around the kitchen. “And I have nowhere to go. I know no one. I understand nothing of this place.”
There it was—the smallest glimmer of emotion, buried beneath all that composure. Loneliness, stark and brief, before his face went still again.
And because I’m a sucker for tragic eyes and historical trauma, guilt flared right through my annoyance.
“Fuck me,” I muttered.
He straightened. “Excuse me? You want me to do what? I do not understand this concept of—”
“Oh my god,” I groaned, covering my face. “It’s an expression.”
I went to the counter for something to do with my hands. Coffee mug. Cracked. Perfect. Pretend to care about that. Don’t think about the half-naked man explaining metaphysical bondage like it’s a weather report.
My hands shook. The mug clinked against the counter.
Then I felt him move closer. Not touching. Just near. And suddenly, my shaking slowed. The tightness in my chest loosened.
“When you stand closer,” I said quietly, “I stop shaking. That’s fucked up.”
“Useful, though,” he said.
I looked up. He wasn’t smiling. Neither was I. We just stood there, too close, not moving, like our nervous systems had made a pact without consulting us.
The air stretched.
He swallowed, his gaze dropping to my throat. For a moment he looked confused, almost startled.
His stare locked on my neck.
“I am… so hungry,” he said, low and rough. He leaned in, seemingly drawn forward like it was instinct.
“Absolutely not.” I shoved at his chest, stumbling back. “Personal space. We use that here.”
He blinked, as if pulling himself out of a trance. “I did not intend to move. The bond reacts before I do.”
“Great. Love that for me.”
He hovered where he was, rigid, fighting whatever had taken hold of him his gaze holding mine.
Finally, I broke it. “I can’t deal with this. I’m going to bed.”
He followed me down the hall. Apparently, privacy died in 1650.
“What are you doing?” I asked, glancing back.
“You appear unstable,” he said matter-of-factly. “It is not wise to sleep alone while unguarded.”
I glared.
“While we are bound together, it only makes sense to collaborate to ensure our well-being, no matter how little either of us want to. I meant only that I will keep watch. Nothing improper.”
“Oh, sure, that helps,” I said.
I bolted into the bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it. My heart thudded against the wood.
From the other side came his voice, deep but steady. “You lock me out, you suffer. That is your choice.”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I said.
I shoved a heavy chair under the doorknob, wedging it tight.
My stomach growled. I hadn’t finished my cereal. Perfect. Trapped in a haunted house, tethered to a vampire, and still hungry.
I scanned the room for holy water. Nothing. No crosses either. I grabbed the nearest substitutes: a bottle of hairspray and a pair of scissors.
“Try me, Nosferatu,” I whispered, even though part of me—the traitorous part—was already aware of the pull in my chest, that strange, invisible thread humming toward him.
I didn’t want to feel it. I didn’t want any of this.
But when I closed my eyes, the tether thrummed once, low and steady, like it was laughing at me.
Motherfucker.