Chapter 4
T essa worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It felt strange to work three nights in a row without a visit to Amos breaking up the routine. In only a week, he had become a very bright spot in what was otherwise a dull existence. She felt bad for thinking so. Her mother and brother and extended family all loved her dearly, and such a close-knit family was a blessing that a lot of people would love to have. If only it didn’t feel so much like a burden lately.
“So, you can’t watch the kids this Wednesday?” her brother Rob asked, repeating the exact words she had literally just said to him. “I want to take Sarah out for her birthday. Ma said you were off on Wednesday.”
Tessa pulled the phone away from her ear for a moment, taking a breath and resisting the urge to chuck it across the room. “Ma was wrong. I’ve been picking up overtime.”
Rob was quiet for a moment. “You’re going to run yourself into the ground, Tessie. ”
“What am I supposed to do? Let our mother be thrown onto the street?”
“No, but medical debt is different than regular debt. They can’t—”
“It’s not just medical debt anymore! They remortgaged the house! They maxed out the credit cards! We talked about this, Rob!”
“Calm down! Jesus, you’re going to give yourself an aneurysm.”
“ You ’re going to give me an aneurysm!” she snapped, but she lowered her voice, glancing at the hall. Had Ma heard her shouting about money? God, she hoped not.
“Listen, you know me and Sarah’d help with the bills if we—”
“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” Tessa said quickly, instantly feeling terrible. “You’ve got your kids and a mortgage and your own household to worry about. I don’t have…you know. Any of that. I can handle it.”
“Yeah, well, you’re still taking on too much.”
She shrugged. “The faster this gets resolved, the sooner we can all stop being stressed by it.”
“You still need to take a break now and then. The kids miss you. They keep asking when they can see their Auntie Tesita.”
Just like that, Tessa’s temper flared hot again. Babysitting your children is not a break! she wanted to scream at him. And don’t use your fucking kids as emotional blackmail! But she loved her niece and nephew, and didn’t want to say anything she’d regret, so she swallowed the words and forced herself to speak levelly. “Sorry, Rob. I’m already committed for Wednesday. Don’t you have a babysitter you can call?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he sighed .
Not one who’ll work for free, huh? she thought bitterly. “Alright, well, sorry about that. Anyway, I gotta start getting ready for work. I’ll talk to you later.”
“You’re working on a Sunday, too?” he asked, incredulous.
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “I’m a nurse. This schedule is nothing new.”
Rob grumbled some more about her overburdening herself—without offering any meaningful solutions for un burdening herself—and then finally let her off the phone.
When Tessa stepped outside to make her way to the train, she paused on the sidewalk, prickling unease running down her spine. She’d been feeling it all weekend. Any time she went outside, it felt like she was being watched. Giving in to the paranoid impulse, she looked around, searching windows and stoops, trying to figure out who was staring at her.
But she saw nobody. It was late, the sky was dark, there was nobody else around. Unsettled, she tried to ignore the feeling as she began walking. Her mind started sorting through a rolodex of medical conditions that caused feelings of paranoia, of being watched. As she reached the train station, she pulled her phone out and called Ma.
“Hey, would you do me a favor and check to make sure the stove is turned off? Does the furnace run on gas?”
Ma reassured her that there was no gas leak. But as Tessa slid her phone back into her pocket, she couldn’t shake that watched feeling.
Once she reached work and stepped inside the sanitized, florescent-lit halls, the feeling faded. As she sat in the locker room, changing her street shoes for her comfy, clean working shoes, she started to wonder if maybe her brother was right. Maybe the strain was getting to her. Anxiety and stress could cause feelings of paranoia, agoraphobia.
But what could she do about it? She couldn’t quit her job. And she wasn’t going to stop going to Amos. At this point, even if she wasn’t being paid, she’d still show up. Could she offer pro-bono visits during the other days of the week? She suppressed a small laugh. Anxiety briefly forgotten, she got up and started her shift.
Midway through the night, things were relatively quiet in her ward. She checked in at the nurse’s station, got the okay from her supervisor, and ducked out for her meal break. At two in the morning, there wasn’t a lot of choice for hot meals. But there was a 24/7 corner shop a few blocks down from the hospice that sold cups of soup from the neighboring Ukrainian deli.
The walk was well lit and well-trafficked. It had never made Tessa nervous before. But as soon as she stepped out of the hospice, that tense, watched feeling hit her again. If she hadn’t been feeling it all weekend, she’d have chalked this particular moment up to woman’s intuition and dipped right back inside the safety of the hospice building. But she was tired of her life, she hadn’t been able to get her vampire fix in three days, and she just really wanted some fucking borscht.
She reached the corner store without incident. Ivan, the owner’s college-aged nephew was sitting at the counter, staring at his phone, ear pods in. He raised his eyes briefly to acknowledge Tessa’s entrance, then went right back to his phone. She went to the cooler where the deli soups were stocked. There was only one cup of borscht left, and she snapped it up with a delighted sigh. It was tragic that the high point of her day was soup , but she’d take her dopamine hits wherever she could find them.
On the walk back to work, excitement for her lunch overshadowed the anxiety that had been plaguing her all weekend. She forgot about the feeling of eyes on her back, instead caught up in a repetitive thought loop where she envisioned herself microwaving the borscht and then sitting down to eat it in a perfectly empty break room where she could quietly read on her phone instead of being pestered by extroverted coworkers.
She was only two blocks from the hospice, crossing in front of a parking garage that served the nearby hospital when she noticed a dark shape huddled against the base of the shadowed structure. Her first thought was that someone had dumped a bag of garbage. But as she got closer, vague lumpeness resolved into more detail—bare white feet sticking out of tattered pants. Matted, long hair tangled around a pale, hollow face. Thin, raw-knuckled fingers clutched a ragged shirt close to his throat. He had nothing even close to reasonable outerwear. The early Spring weather was way too brutal for that kind of exposure. If he wasn’t dead already, he would be soon.
Tessa approached the slumped body cautiously. Her born-and-raised-on-the-South-Side instincts were telling her to walk away—call an ambulance and let the trained first-responders deal with it. But her life’s work had programmed her to respond differently. She stopped beside the prone figure, just out of arm’s reach.
The man’s thin, bony chest moved faintly up and down in rapid, shallow, almost imperceptible pants. Alive.
“Hello?” she said clearly, loudly. “Are you okay? ”
No response.
She sank down to a crouch beside the body, setting her borscht aside. “I’m going to check you for injury,” she explained.
Careful not to shift his head or neck, she examined his ears and nose for any leaking fluid. She pressed her fingers to his carotid artery, checking his pulse. It fluttered faintly, far too rapid. She lifted one eyelid, using the light on her phone. His pupils were so dilated, his iris was just a thin ring around huge black circles.
Shit. She opened up her keypad to dial 9-1-1, but before she even tapped the first number, a cold, bony hand closed around her wrist. She gasped, caught by surprise, dropping her phone.
“Hello?” she said loudly. “Sir? Can you hear me?”
He winced, eyes squeezing shut. A raspy groan rattled in his chest.
“Sir, you need medical attention,” she said in her no-nonsense, professional voice. “I’m going to call for an ambulance, okay?” She didn’t wait for approval, picking her phone back up.
“No,” the man said hoarsely.
Drugs , Tessa figured. It could have been anything from psychosis to severe dehydration, but in her experience, it was usually drugs—and in this guy’s case, his pulse, respiration, and pupil dilation all indicated amphetamine use. Overdoses could be hard to convince to seek medical attention, out of fear of criminal charges. Tessa had pretty fucking strong feelings about the criminalization of addiction, but regardless, she had to get him medical help. The legal issues could be dealt with later. Life and death weren’t so negotiable .
She started dialing, but only managed to get the first digit before the phone was snatched out of her hands.
“Hey,” she said gently, using her de-escalating Nurse Voice. “That’s my phone. I need you to give it back to me.” She reached for it, but he jerked it out of her reach, his movements twitchy, almost inhumanly fast. He stared at her, his eyes like black holes.
Trying to keep him calm, Tessa said even more gently, “Will you let me help you?”
He continued to stare at her. “Who are you?” he rasped in a dazed tone.
“My name’s Tessa. I’m a nurse. I’m going to help you, okay? But you have to give me my phone.” She reached for it, gently, cautiously.
A vicious, inhuman snarl of outrage tore through the night, coming from a few blocks away. Tessa startled, looking in the direction of the sound. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just as she turned back to the stranger, he lunged at her.
In emergencies, Tessa had always found that the fear-center in her brain seemed to shut off. When she’d been an ICU nurse, she’d always been praised for how coolly and efficiently she responded to coding patients, belligerent patients, violent patients, and the equally aggressive, belligerent family members of patients. She’d never quite thought she deserved the praise because it wasn’t like she was struggling through her own emotional turbulence to do what needed to be done. She just felt… nothing. She acted on autopilot.
The same thing happened to her as the stranger tackled her to the ground. Stupidly, her first thought was for her borscht. Her foot hit the container as she went over backwards, sending the contents exploding across the sidewalk. She felt a moment of outraged despair for her ruined lunch before the detached fearlessness took over. She reacted with a numb calm, taking in the situation as if she were watching it happen to someone else from far away.
The stranger’s emaciated body crouched over hers, arms wrapping around her and hoisting her upwards. He was shockingly strong, which solidified Tessa’s confidence that stimulants of some kind had contributed to his current condition. With snarling grunts, he began dragging her into the dark of the parking ramp. With an unflustered, pragmatic sense of survival, Tessa thought mildly to herself, Welp. Can’t let him get me in there.
She tried to scream, but a big hand quickly covered her mouth, the skin shockingly cold. She bit at it, sinking her teeth into dirty, salty-tasting flesh. Her attacker hissed in pain, but kept his freezing hand firmly clamped over her face. She kicked at his shins and thrashed against his hold, doing everything in her power to delay what seemed to be inevitable. The mouth of the parking ramp was getting closer, the sharp edge of darkness waiting like a knife.
That terrifying snarl sounded again, so much closer now, and a dark shadow passed beneath the dull, yellowy lights of the parking garage. It moved so swiftly, Tessa barely registered its presence before it was on top of them.
Suddenly, she was free. She hit the pavement hard, pain jolting up her spine. Above her, two dark silhouettes were locked in a violent struggle. Tessa scrambled back from them, praying they’d keep each other occupied long enough for her to get away.
But then they broke apart. One of them, the leaner of the two, hissed like an enraged cat as he disappeared back into the darkness of the parking garage. The remaining figure spun to face Tessa. The lights were at his back, shadowing his face in darkness. She had an impression of broad shoulders and strong arms—enough to know he was dangerous. Tessa struggled to get her feet beneath her.
“Are you okay?”
She froze. That voice—
“Tessa?” The stranger drew nearer and the light shifted over his face until he was no longer a stranger. He crouched in front of her, his pale face taut with worry.
“ Amos? ”
“Are you alright?” Amos repeated, reaching for her. Tessa was unresisting as he pulled her to her feet. His hands slid to her shoulders, bracing her as he looked her over. “Did he bite you?”
“Bite me? No,” she answered faintly. Realization dawned suddenly. “ Wait . That was a vampire?”
“Not quite. Let’s get off the street.”
She let Amos walk her to a diner a few blocks over. She’d eaten there once before and been unimpressed, but with her soup splattered all over the sidewalk, it’d have to do. Taking a booth as far from the diner counter as possible, they sat in relative silence until after the sole waitress on duty had taken their orders. A BLT for Tessa, nothing for Amos.
“You’re sure you’re alright?” Amos asked after the waitress had walked away.
“I’m fine. What did you mean, that guy was ‘not quite’ a vampire?”
In the fluorescent lighting of the diner, Amos’s blood-red irises looked especially unnatural. When he spoke, the tips of his fangs were much more noticeable than in the cozy lighting of his home. His pallor, his rigid posture, his watchfulness—all of it screamed predator in a way that she hadn’t fully appreciated before.
“He was a thrall,” Amos said. “A sort of half-turned vampire. Only very old, very powerful vampires can make them—and it’s never done on accident. It’s not an ethical practice. Thralls are little more than slaves to their sires.”
“That’s horrible,” Tessa said, brow furrowing. “Can something be done to… help them?”
“There are only two choices for a thrall to escape their enslavement. Find a vampire who will turn them fully, or…die.”
The waitress reappeared with coffee. Tessa and Amos were silent. Even after the waitress left, Tessa was quiet, taking in what Amos had told her while she added cream to her coffee. She winced as she sipped it—burnt and bitter—and reached for the sugar packets.
“So if thralls are slaves… did someone order him to attack me?”
“I doubt it. He would have kept fighting me instead of running off if he was under orders to attack you. Thralls can’t resist an order from their master, but they aren’t mindless. If their master has no task or order for them to obey, they can act on their own will. Most likely, the thrall who attacked you was half-starving—neglected by whatever asshole created him—and just trying to find a meal.”
A meal—her. Like she was for Amos. Tessa looked up from the half-opened sugar packet, meeting Amos’s gaze. Despite the terrifying encounter that had led up to this moment, pleasant heat spread through her veins. Amos’s jaw clenched, his pupils dilating wide as he held her gaze. But she had more questions that needed answers, and she couldn’t let herself be distracted. She broke eye contact, dropping her gaze back down to her coffee. She tipped the sugar in with overly-attentive focus.
“Do you think he might have been following me for a while?” she asked.
“Possibly. Why? Have you seen him before?”
“No. But the thing is, I’ve been feeling sort of…paranoid? All weekend, I’ve had this feeling that I’m being watched. It’s probably just stress, but—”
Tessa lifted her gaze and caught Amos’s expression. At first, she thought he was feeling fear on her behalf. But then she realized, no. That was guilt. He looked guilty.
“Oh my god.” Her hand clenched on the coffee mug. “Have you been following me?”
The guilt deepened, his pale face stark with tension. But he held her gaze, unflinching. The hungry intensity faded from his eyes as his pupils slowly returned to normal, blood-red iris reappearing. “Yes,” he answered in a low voice.
Tessa stared at him, not sure whether she should be afraid or angry. “Amos,” she said, her voice choked with disappointed hurt. “Why?”
He sighed, brows drawing together. He didn’t answer her immediately, but Tessa waited while he found the right words. “I wanted to see more of you. I wanted to watch over you. Guard you.”
“‘Guard’ me. Like a possession?” Tessa asked, anger stiffening her spine. She’d never been able to tolerate jealousy in men. It frightened her, made her feel caged.
“No,” Amos said quietly. “Like a queen.”
“Oh.” And just like that, her anger deflated. No man had ever called her a queen, or wanted to treat her like one. But Amos had done just that tonight—protecting her from an attacker and seeing to her welfare afterwards. But she had to be sure. “So you weren’t following me to make sure I wasn’t doing something you wouldn’t like?”
Amos frowned. “What would you do that I wouldn’t like?”
Tessa searched his face. “I don’t know…feed another vampire?”
His gaze snapped with sudden intensity, pupils dilating wide, inky blackness stretching his iris to the thinnest ring of red. “You’re right,” he said, fangs flashing. His voice was so low it was practically a growl. “I would not like that.”
She should have been alarmed by his possessive reaction. Instead, her breath caught and her thighs clenched together. Embarrassed, she looked away, staring at their reflection in the window. Despite his possessiveness, she was reassured by his reaction. It hadn’t occurred to him until she’d brought it up that she might do something he wouldn’t like. He wasn’t following her to try to control her.
“I wouldn’t do that, you know,” she said.
Amos let out a breath, seeming to collect himself. “I know you wouldn’t. The thought is just…upsetting.”
“Why?” She could guess, but she wanted it out in the open.
His expression softened, the tension falling away to reveal vulnerability that bordered on despair. “Because I like you, Tessa. You’re beautiful and sweet and clever. You smell like heaven and taste like paradise. I spend all my free time counting down until your next visit, and then I spend every visit despairing that soon you’ll leave.”
Tessa didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t expected anything beyond, I like you.
Amos drew back, expression closing off. “That was too much. I’m sorry. I don’t…” He dropped his head back until it th unked against the booth divider and stared up at the ceiling. “Is it possible you could forget everything I just said?”
“No,” she answered, watching Amos’s shoulders tense. “I don’t want to forget it. I like you too, Amos.”
He lifted his head, brows raised, meeting her gaze.
“And I would like to see you more often.”
A hopeful, boyish smile tugged crookedly at his mouth, exposing the tip of one fang.
“But you can’t keep following me at night,” she said firmly.
The smile faded.
“It’s creepy.”
A stubborn look entered his eyes, but he didn’t argue.
“I know you’re going to worry about my safety, especially after what happened tonight.” Hell, she was worried about her safety. Signing up with HemoMatch and meeting Amos had led her to believe that vampires were all civilized, upstanding members of society. Now she knew otherwise. “So I have a compromise. On days when I don’t come by for feeding, we can hang out during my lunch break. And on days when you’re not with me, I won’t leave the building for lunch.”
Amos considered it. Slowly, the boyish smile returned. “I accept your compromise.”
The waitress appeared with Tessa’s sandwich, and she tucked into it happily, the mood suddenly much lighter.
“You have a healthy appetite for somebody who was just attacked by a thrall,” Amos observed in an approving tone.
“I’d have a healthy appetite in the middle of my own vivisection. Nothing puts me off my food.” She had the ass and thighs to prove it—and that wasn’t a complaint. Tessa appreciated her curves and, suddenly, she realized that Amos did too. His gaze swept subtly over her body. The more lush half of her was hidden beneath the table, but he’d already been acquainted with the feel of her thighs wrapped around him, so it wasn’t any kind of mystery.
That awareness seemed to strike them both at the same time. Amos’s gaze sharpened as it returned to hers. Tessa felt her cheeks heat. Suddenly shy, she turned her attention to her sandwich, taking a massive bite. Amos chuckled.
Despite the sensual tension lingering between them, the conversation turned to safer avenues. Amos asked how her shift was going, listening intently as she detailed the annoyance du jour—that the hospice had switched to a different brand of nitrile gloves and all the staff absolutely hated the new ones.
“They’re made for alien hands, I swear,” Tessa complained. She went still, her frown shifting from annoyance to speculation.
“What?” Amos asked.
“Now that I know vampires are real, I’m wondering if all those stories about aliens are a lot more credible than I thought.”
Amos shrugged. “I can’t help you there. I’ve often wondered myself how many mythical creatures are actually real. But the only ones I can confirm for certain are vampires and werewolves.”
Tessa shouldn’t have been shocked by that revelation considering who she was sitting across from, but she absolutely was. “Werewolves are real?”
Amos nodded, looking suddenly grim. “And mindlessly vicious. If you ever have any inkling that you’re near a werewolf or in their territory, get the hell away. They will tear you apart without a second thought. ”
“How would I know if I was near one?”
“You probably wouldn’t,” he said uneasily. “They don’t come into cities much, so it shouldn’t be a problem. In their animal form, they look like incredibly large wolves. In human form, they look like any other human. Taller than average. More muscular, maybe. They smell…doggish. I don’t think you’d pick up on it, but for my kind, it’s very off-putting.”
Tessa had a thousand more questions, but she was out of time—she needed to get back to work. She waved the waitress over, asking for the check. When it came, Amos grabbed it.
“Amos,” Tessa objected. “You can’t pay. You didn’t even eat anything.”
“I will later,” he said, flashing her a dark smile.
A hot flush spread over her body. She shot an embarrassed look at the waitress, but the older woman seemed totally unfazed and uninterested. Amos handed her his card.
When lunch was paid up, Amos walked Tessa back to the hospice. She hesitated at the staff entrance, not sure how to say goodbye to him. They’d both acknowledged that there was…something…between them. They hadn’t really clarified what exactly that was, though. Tessa wasn’t sure if they were in a hug goodbye, kiss goodbye, or playful-slug-on-the-arm kind of dynamic.
“Thank you for the sandwich,” she said, fidgeting with her hospital ID card. “And thank you for, you know, saving my life, probably.”
Amos’s expression hardened at the last part. He didn’t respond to her immediately, seeming to need a moment to collect himself. “There’s no need to thank me,” he said finally. “I’ll see you tomorrow? ”
Tessa nodded. “Yeah.”
For a taut, electrified moment, Tessa thought Amos might kiss her. Instead, he stepped back, snapping the tension like a broken string. “Goodnight, Tessa.”
“Goodnight, Amos.”
He waited while she let herself inside. When the door swung shut, he finally walked away. Tessa leaned against the potted plant in the entry, peering through the transom window, watching him go. Anticipation and confusion danced over her nerves. Had she imagined the sexual tension? He’d only said that he liked her and wanted to spend more time with her. Maybe he just wanted a buddy.
She immediately scoffed at the thought. He got as hard as a tire iron every time he fed from her. That man wasn’t just looking for a pal. With a self-satisfied smile, she finally turned away from the window and got back to work.