Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE CRUST
For once, Mother Nature is on my side.
It’s warm tonight, warmer than it has been lately when I get off my evening shift at H?tel Chateau Blanc.
Unfortunately, the weather is the only thing going right.
How I decided that tonight of all nights would be the night I forgot every shred of professional training and common sense I possess will forever remain a mystery.
One minute I was inspecting a broken shower and the next, I was making out with a guest.
A guest.
I bury my face in my hands for half a second as I walk.
What is wrong with me?
When he opened the door and I recognized him—one blue eye and one brown—from the street outside my apartment, my brain simply stopped functioning.
Completely.
There was no logic.
No caution.
No little voice reminding me that kissing strangers at work is generally frowned upon.
There was only the overwhelming need to know what he tasted like.
Which sounds completely unhinged when I think about it for more than five seconds.
The weirdest part?
My skin had been burning the entire time. Not painful. Not exactly. More like a fever simmering beneath my skin. Starting somewhere near my right thigh, crawling up my spine, and spreading through the rest of my body until every nerve ending felt too awake.
I blame adrenaline.
Or hormones.
Or temporary insanity.
Any explanation is better than the alternative.
Didn’t help that he was tattooed, dangerous-looking, and unfortunately very enthusiastic about the whole thing.
After recovering from my temporary lapse in judgment, I looked up his name.
John Smith.
I immediately concluded it was fake.
It was too clean. Too forgettable. A name specifically designed to be searched and find nothing.
Which meant he was either a spy, a serial killer, or both.
I snort at the thought of John Smith and immediately feel guilty.
It took Casey nearly dying for me to finally let some of my walls down.
Yet somehow tonight I kissed a complete stranger at work.
A complete stranger.
Actually, that's not entirely true.
I'd seen him before.
Outside my apartment.
Watching.
Being mysterious and annoyingly attractive.
Which somehow doesn't make the situation better.
If anything, it makes it worse.
Because the scary part isn't that I kissed him.
The scary part is that I wanted to.
For years, I was focused. Disciplined. Working toward a plan.
Sure, I was lonely, but at least I wasn’t making questionable life choices every time a handsome man looked in my direction.
Now?
Now I apparently collect dangerous men like it’s a hobby.
I stop short in front of Fangerella’s Pizza.
The windows are still boarded up. The door is still chained shut. Disappointment settles heavily in my stomach.
Damn it.
My chest aches at the memory of Stark’s face when I slammed the door. The way I’d looked him right in the eye and chosen survival over that strange, magnetic pull. A smart choice. A necessary choice. And now, because of it, I might never see him again.
His dark eyes.
His deep voice.
The way he caught me whenever I stumbled, like I weighed absolutely nothing.
The impossible strength.
The impossible speed.
The impossible—
My thoughts grind to a halt.
The nightmares haven't stopped.
Not since the attack.
Red eyes.
Fangs.
The sound of hissing.
I spent my lunch break searching the internet for answers.
Vampire.
The word had stared back at me from the screen.
Ridiculous.
Completely ridiculous.
Except it fits.
Which was incredibly inconvenient.
Because I’d much rather be having a nervous breakdown than discovering folklore might actually be real.
The strength.
The speed.
The eyes.
The fangs.
Everything fit together with horrifying neatness.
The worst part?
Some small, stubborn part of me wasn't even surprised.
Grandma used to tell me tales of magic, witches and shifters in my youth.
Vampires who made deals in blood, men who could change into beasts, women who had instinctual affinities with the elements of earth.
I’d ask her for a new story every night, loving the way she weaved the tales and made them fantastic and scary all at once.
My heart squeezes at the thought of my grandma. I can picture her long white hair in its side braid and the red polka dot apron she always wore. I kept it; the worn cotton is a familiar weight when I bake.
A familiar ache settles in my chest.
Grandma was a great storyteller. The best.
And now I can’t help but wonder if her stories were rooted in some truth. Maybe Grandma knew more about the world than I do.
A prickle starts at the base of my skull, the kind that says you’re in someone’s line of sight. It's the same ugly hum I've been noticing lately, a weight in the air that means I’m not alone.
Goosebumps rise on my arms and the back of my neck and I have just enough time to turn before I’m slammed into the brick facade of the building beside me.
Le fucking ouch.
My ears ring from the force of the blow behind my head and I try to look at my assailant but everything is blurry.
“Bossss will be pleasssed when I bring him someffing ssso ssweet.”
A threatening hiss greets me and when I finally focus, all I can see are sharp fangs, and red eyes.
My stomach tries to crawl up my throat. Every muscle locks, every instinct screams that I’m prey, pinned to the wall by something that sees me as nothing more than a meal.
No regular man has teeth that sharp or long or eyes that red.
Fuck. What should I do?
A strange heat blooms from my right hip, not painful exactly, more like a muscle unknotting that I didn’t know was clenched, and it spreads outward through my arms and legs until I notice with surprise that I’m glowing a faint purple.
What is happening?
I don’t have time to think about it any further, because the hissy vamp gets back to his feet. His eyes dart around, confused.
“I can sssmell you, little thing. Can’t hide that blood from me.”
He turns in a slow circle, sniffing the air like a dog on a scent. His head sweeps my way, and those burning red eyes look straight through me—not past me, through me, like I’m a ghost in my own body.
Huh.
Can he not… see me?
“Run, Kallie!” A familiar voice booms from my left.
My eyes widen when I see Stud Muffin Alek tackle the red eyed vamp to the ground.
What is he doing here? Was he following me again? Questions flood my mind, but there’s no time for answers.
“I said run!” he yells again, then grunts when the hissy vamp lands a blow.
I sprint around the corner, pushing myself as fast as I can toward my apartment, keys already in hand.
My legs carry me up the stairs before my brain catches up, and I swear I don’t breathe until I’m safely behind my apartment door, the chain and deadbolt firmly locked.
I stand panting, my back pressed to the door, chest heaving. My eyes catch on the entry table mirror, and I freeze.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I’m... gone. The mirror shows the entry table, the door behind me, the scuff marks on the floor—everything but me. Yet when I look down, my hands are there, solid and real, shimmering with a faint purple light, like my whole body is wrapped in a strange, colored static.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Make it stop! How do I get back to normal?
I chant that over and over in my head until—
“Good, you’re home! I was about to reheat some spaghet—“
Casey stops short and stares at me. Right at me.
“Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet and your hands are shaking.”
Wait. He can see me?
My gaze swivels to the mirror and I find that I am, in fact, visible again.
The breath I was holding punches out of me in a ragged gasp. My hands fly over my own arms, my legs, a frantic inventory confirming I’m all here. Solid. Real.
Fucking hell. What was that?
Casey is still staring, his brow furrowed. His green-hazel eyes, the ones I know so well, are filled with a concern that feels a hundred miles away from what just happened.
I’m about to tell him the weirdest tale ever when there’s a firm knock at the door.
I squeak and jump away from it, like it might try to eat me. That is until I hear, “It’s Alek, Kallie. Open the door!”
I let out another breath and rub my face.
Alek knocks again, urgently, so I unlatch the chain and open the door.
His trench coat is torn at the shoulder and a dark slash of... something... across his cheek. His frantic eyes land on me, searching for injuries.
“I’m okay,” I say, though the words sound thin and reedy even to me.
That’s when I see them. Just the tips, peeking past his lips.
Fangs.
My mind goes very quiet, the way it does right before something breaks.
It’s real.
Vampires are real.
Oh, shit.
“What the fuck happened tonight?” Casey’s voice behind me takes on an edge of anger. He’s so close, his breath ghosts across the back of my neck.
“Let me in and I’ll fill you in. Kallie will need extra protection from now on.”
I go completely still. What do I need protection from? Vampires? But isn’t he one? Why? Why me?
I’m about to tell Alek that we can go somewhere else to discuss this but Casey beats me to the punch.
“Yes, please come in. I’d like to know what happened.”
My foot scuffs backward on the floor without my permission. Bile and a single, frantic word—no—rise in my throat, choking me.
It all hits me at once, a sickening collision of warnings. A dozen browser tabs flashing the same rule. Grandma’s voice, low and serious for once. The gruff stranger on the phone. Three different sources, one single, absolute law I’d dismissed as folklore.
You never, ever, invite a vampire into your home.