Page 26 of Hunting My Vampire

“We will?”

“Of course! Life is so messy; it is so fucked up. You never know what is coming your way. But there is something between us, something real, you can feel it too, right?”

She was kissing me then. Her soft mouth on mine. Those luscious lips seeking me out and her delicious tongue darting in and out of my mouth as my arms closed around her in an embrace that I did not want to leave. Ever.

Chapter 11

Kaya

I felt different, somehow. My head was clearer and it was as if a weight had been lifted off me.

I could hardly believe how well-behaved Jack had been, keeping his distance and never even trying anything with me. Even my usual paranoid self couldn’t come up with a nefarious reason why he would do so much for me. If he had wanted to get his teeth into me, so to speak, he could have done that at any point over the past few days. He didn’t have to go to all the trouble of setting up the meet with the medicine man or of taking time off to help me sort out my life.

There was no way around it. He had helped me more than anyone else had, ever before. He’d taken time out of his life to fly me across the country, put me up in a hotel and wiped my face when the night sweats came. In the hotel afterwards, he had been so sweet, so attentive.

I slept most of the way back and Jack dropped me at the house, asking me if I was up to coming over to his house later. He wanted to show me the castle, apparently. Words I never thought I’d hear, to be honest.

But I did want to see it. Or rather, see him.

Something had happened between us on this trip, a kind of connection that went beyond the physical attraction. I was beginning to think there was something between us, though I couldn’t imagine what. After what I had been through, he was the only one I really could handle seeing and that had to mean something. I agreed to see him later that evening.

He dropped me off at Grandma Tina’s house.

It was still early but I wanted to see Princess, to show her I was all right.

I knocked and went inside; the house was unlocked as usual.

Princess and Aunt Tina were in the kitchen. The radio was on and some pop music was playing. There was the usual smell of a proper fry-up breakfast and I smiled at the cozy scene. Princess looked up and saw me.

“You’re back!” She jumped up and ran towards me, giving me a big hug.

Tina looked on from the table.

“You good?” she asked me, giving me a sharp look.

I nodded.

“You look tired,” she said, almost accusingly.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “Can I come back for coffee after I’ve dropped Princess at school?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, shrugging.

I took Princess to school and on my return, found that she had made breakfast. Again. Realizing that I was starving, I wolfed it down, thanking her. It was different to the hotel food, somehow. Home-cooked food, made with love and plenty of real butter.

Then I told her about the old man in the desert and the experiences I had out there. She listened attentively, not interrupting me once. When I got to the end of the tale, I took a big breath.

“I wanted to ask you, did Steph ever talk to you about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she tell you about my family, about what happened to me?”

Tina looked down. “She was worried about you, about what would become of you. She loved you, you know.”

I did know. Steph couldn’t have children of her own so when I came to stay with them, she lavished affection on me. After what I’d been through, she had helped to make me feel safe. But she had only wanted to talk of happy things. She never wanted reminders of my family or what had happened to me. When I did ask her about them, she was vague and I had learned to stop asking.

“Did she ever say anything about my parents? I knew so little of them.”

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