Page 61 of Crimson Born

Bodyguard

There were too many clouds to see the stars.

Still the fresh October air was cool in my lungs, and the breeze felt heavenly on my skin. It carried the fragrances of dogwood blooms and tart crabapples and woodsmoke from a far-off campfire.

Somewhere close by fall raspberries were nearing ripeness, and the meadow under our feet was covered in sweet-smelling clover.

The chirps and chitters of small nocturnal creatures serenaded us as Reece and I walked together through the dew-dampened grass of the hilly land surrounding the caverns. I almost felt human again. Actually, tonight I feltbetterthan that.

One thing I hadn’t appreciated before was how much better everything would smell—and how much farther my new vampire nature would allow me to walk.

Neither of us was even breathing heavily, though we must have gone ten miles uphill tonight, and at a brisk pace too.

Reece, who’d been quiet as usual during our hike, glanced up at the skies. “We should head back. It looks like rain.”

“What? Worried you’re going to catch cold?” I teased, skipping ahead of him then turning around to face him as I walked backward a few paces in front of his feet. “Or maybe you’re worried that tight leather uniform’s gonna get even tighter, and you won’t be able to move.”

I stiffened and made a comical face, tottering around like my arms and legs would no longer bend.

Reece cracked an unwilling smile, and I heard a low chuckle.

“Aha. So youcanstill do it,” I said.

“Do what?”

“Smile. I haven’t seen one from you in so long, I was beginning to wonder.”

“I smile,” he protested. “Sometimes.”

“When? You haven’t given me so much as a smirk the past few nights. I know... maybe you smile when you’re running twenty miles every night with the Bloodbound. Or when you’re lifting weights and doing hand-to-hand combat training and marksmanship practice for hours on end. What about when you’re so dead-tired every morning after your shift you fall onto your little cot fully dressed and pass out? How big do you smile then?”

He shrugged as if the brutal schedule was no big deal. “It’s part of the job—or it was untilsomeoneconvinced my commander I’d be more useful as a ladies’ maid, traipsing around the countryside owl-watching and collecting daisies every night.”

He sounded so disgruntled I had to laugh. “You’re welcome, by the way. Come on, you have to admit this is more fun.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged again, and then he laughed.

“So whatdothe Bloodbound usually do for fun?”

He gave me a funny look before answering. “We have our rare opportunities for... recreational activities.”

“Like what?” I asked, trying to get him to open up to me about the mysterious group of men he now lived and worked with—something he’d steadfastly resisted.

“You can’t date. You can’t swim with girls. What else is there to do—when you’re not working on your big muscles, that is.” I bent my arms into a comical bodybuilder pose.

That got a small grin out of him, but he shook his head in refusal. “I wouldn’t want to shock your delicate ears.”

The remark both titillated and offended me. I’d changed a lot since the night we met, but he seemed to want to continue viewing me through that same narrow lens, to keep me in the role of an innocent who needed protection.

“I’m not that same naïve little Amish girl you met at the bonfire, you know.”

The grin stretched to cover more of Reece’s face. “Oh really? How many other vampires do you see going for nature walks?”

He held his arms out to the side in an invitation for me to look around. Finally, his eyes met mine. “You still seem the same to me. And I wouldn’t be in too big a hurry to change—I liked that girl I met.”

Something warm and sweet curled in my abdomen. For a few minutes we walked in pleasurable silence, side by side.

Our path back down took us alongside a sparkling lake tucked into a high mountain valley, and the hazy reflection of the cloud-covered moon on its surface took me back in time.

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