Page 7 of Vampire Runner

“Thank you,” Ashe says and continues forward. When we pass through the small wooden gate, he pauses again without being asked and I raise the ward once more.

“You’ll be able to leave whenever you want,” I assure him. “It only keeps things out.”

He inclines his head, his eyes full of mischief. I narrow my own with suspicion but whatever the vampire was considering saying, he must have thought better of. With his long stride, we’re across my small yard quickly and I fish my key from my pocket, blushing as I’m forced to wiggle against him.

It brings us into much too much contact, and it only makes me more frantic to free the iron key from its prison of cotton. Finally, I’m able to raise it triumphantly, as if I’ve completed a Trial of Heracles, and Ashe bends enough that I’m able to unlock the door.

He carries me across the threshold, and I point to the padded bench between my cluttered kitchen table and the stone hearth that divides my small cottage. He lowers me with unexpected gentleness, straightening my skirts so my modesty’s preserved.

“A vampire gentleman,” I tease without thought, and my eyes go wide. My mouth has always been faster than my mind.

Ashe barks out a laugh. Thank the goddess he isn’t offended. I may be powerful, especially in my own cottage, but with his unnatural speed, he could rip out my throat before my power ejected him from the wards. He looks around, clearly curious about my home.

“It’s nothing as grand as I’m sure you’re used to,” I say, but not with shame. I’m proud of the life I’ve carved out here on my own.

My cottage had once belonged to Agnes, the elderly hedge witch and midwife of the area. She’d taken me in when I’d wandered through the area after leaving my coven. It was a modest size, with a sleeping loft accessible by a ladder. I’d slept downstairs, on the right side of the divided cottage, on a pallet near the double-sided hearth. That side of the cottage, Agnes had set up her small kitchen, round table with two chairs, and another more plush armchair angled towards the four-paned window on that side of the front door. The left side of the hearth was dedicated to her craft, and it doubled as a workspace for when the locals sought her medical assistance.

In exchange for room and board, Agnes taught me everything she knew about using wild magic, being a healer, and even her midwife and medical skills. When anyone asked, she told them I was a granddaughter who came to assist her since she was getting on in years. It always amused me when people thought she was approaching her eighth decade of life. In reality, Agnes was nearing two hundred.

She’d taught me everything she knew and within a year, we both knew I’d be taking over her duties when she made her way to the goddess. The night I’d lit her funeral pyre, I’d cried for the first time since I left my coven.

“It reminds me of my childhood home.”

I cock my head at Ashe’s words. “A humble beginning then?”

The vampire gestures to the wood pile and the banked coals in the hearth in silent question. When I nod, he crouches before the hearth and coaxes the fire back to life as he answers. “My father was a logger who died when I was five or so, leaving my seamstress mother with four of us to feed. My uncle was the stable master of the local lord, so I was sent off to him along with my two older brothers to work for him.”

Satisfied with the fire, Ashe rises and brushes his hands off on his thighs as he turns to face me. He’s grinning and my breath catches at the beauty of him.

“I slept in the hayloft with the other littles,” he says without an ounce of shame. “To me, it might as well have been a palace. My bed was as comfortable as I chose to make it with the hay, and I had a pillow and blanket all to myself. Worked in the stables, learned to ride better than any noble. And I had a habit of sneaking into places I shouldn’t be.”

A grin twists my lips and I raise my brows at him. “Let me guess, like young ladies’ beds?”

Ashe shoots me a rakish grin. He moves around to the other side of the table, taking a seat on the other bench. “When Lord Rivington took notice of my skills, I became a personal messenger.” A shadow darkens his eyes, and he looks away before back at me, his expression back to easy joviality. “A minor war happened, Ambrose found me, and I’ve been with the Nightshades ever since.”

There’s pain hidden in his words, but I know better than to press. My stomach decides to remind me that lunch was hours ago. Loudly.

Before I can say anything, Ashe stands again. “How about this,” he says, giving me no chance to speak. “Why don’t you tell me what you need to fix that ankle of yours and, in return, I’ll make you dinner.”

I jerk my head back at the suggestion. “That is entirely unnecessary, and not even a fair trade. You get nothing out of it.”

It sounded all too much like the type of deal my parents often sought.

Ashe cocks his head, a lock of sable hair falling across his forehead and my fingers twitch with the urge to push it back. The slow, lopsided grin he gives me offers a teasing point of a fang. “I don’t consider the pleasure of your company nothing.”

My cheeks flame; the heat quickly spreads to my ears before rushing down my entire body and pooling between my legs. I duck my head and straighten my skirts unnecessarily as I compose myself.

“Well then,” I say after clearing my throat. I point towards a clay pot on one of the shelves along the far wall. “Please get me the salve labeled willow bark and arnica.”

Chapter Three

ASHE

I’m avoiding my wife.

The hot water is near scalding as I stand under the rainfall shower head in the middle of a restored clawfoot iron tub. I have expensive taste when it comes to modern transportations, but when it comes to my private sanctuary, I crave the familiarity of ages past. Though once I experienced a rainfall shower head for the first time, I knew I could compromise to a degree.

Each of our suites in the Nightshade clan house are nearly identical when it comes to layout, but otherwise our rooms reflect our natures.

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