Page 64 of Accidental Vampire

“So, Princess. You sit up here,” he left the antique cigarette case and a zippo on the ledge, “Make your choice. And if you decide you want an exit ramp, let me know.”

He vaulted off the edge of the building and made his way to the door.

“Hey, can I ask you one more thing?”

He paused with his hand on the door, looking back at me. Warmth spread all through me. Yeah, he was attractive, tall, dark, handsome and all that. And scary as all fuck when he wanted to be but… he just let me be, be wherever I was, let me have all my messy thoughts and didn’t fix it. Acceptance was sometimes sexier than great abs.

“How do you know…” I struggled for the right words. And he let me, waited unmoving until my thoughts all came together. “How do you know that your feelings, your emotions, are real? And not part of the magic or anything?”

“Part of the magic?”

“You know, part of the magic that… your maker used to make you a vampire.”

He let go of the door, a chime rang in his pocket and he checked his phone.

“There’s no magic there. That’s vampire fiction, that there’s some innate tie between you and your maker. Most of us…” he took a sharp breath in through his nose, “Not every one has warm fuzzy feelings towards their makers. Most of us came to this life under terrible circumstances.”

He dug his hands in his pockets and looked up at the night sky. He muttered a fuck and looked at me straight on.

“Any feelings you have for Lachlan aren’t borne of some magical, mystical vampire crap.”

My eyes went wide. Fuck, no one was supposed to know.

“Yeah, I know, we’re not supposed to know Lachlan is your maker.”

“How’d you figure it out?”

“The second Lachlan Venier showed up on my doorstep with a baby vamp in his arms.”

“Oh. Have the others…”

“Probably. They probably figured it out a long time ago. They’ll keep quiet about it.” He took a step forward. “Silence is our only safety here. Don’t underestimate the amount of danger you’re in. People are going to die because you exist. Not because of you, but because of who he is. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Never mind,” he tried to shake off whatever he was going to say.

“No. Unless what?”

“You didn’t deserve to be made this way.” His voice was oddly fierce. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him, either. Lachlan has the capacity to destroy everything. And that might not be a bad thing.”

“Capacity.” That was an interesting word choice. “Capacity but not desire? Ability?”

Shaw shrugged. And after a few moments, he sighed heavily.

“Lachlan is…” He paused, and I filled in all sorts of things in my brain - dangerous, mean, an asshole, sexy, sweet, scary. “Complicated. We are all made by our pasts and live out that consequence on the daily, him more than most, maybe. But he’s crippled right now…”

“His maker?” I interrupted.

Shaw didn’t answer. “Even before, when he was young and had no sense, he was…” I couldn’t tell if Shaw kept pausing to rewrite the script because there were things he didn’t want me to know, or if he couldn’t put those things into words. I felt like I had already pushed this conversation as far as it could go.

“Let me put it this way… We had all better hope that Lachlan never discovers something he would kill for. Die for? Yeah, there’s a lot he’d die for right now, but I’m not sure the world can sustain that kind of carnage.”

Well fuck, how do you follow that kind of statement up? I swung my feet off the edge of the roof. Lachlan killed me. He took my mortality and brought me into this world without my knowledge or my consent. And yet… I sighed.

“So, no, how you feel about him is how you feel about him. That’s your reality, magic or no.”

I fumbled out another cigarette and tapped it on the case, just like he did. A small smile played on his lips.

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