Page 64 of How a Vampire Falls

“Glimpses of the future? Am I dating the world’s only magical vampire?”

He must be teasing her, except…he wasn’t. Unease slithered down her spine as her boyfriend continued to gape at her. “Um. I know you’ve never mentioned the glimpses, but I’ve never mentioned mine either. But that’s because you haven’t mentioned yours.”

“I haven’t mentioned them because I don’t get them.”

“A lot of the time, I see our hands. We have the tattooed rings.”

“Leslie, this is incredible.”

Laurence cleared his throat. Leslie’s gaze darted to his, and he hadn’t stopped smiling.

Senna’s eyes held both warmth and knowledge. “If you’d be interested in the expertise of two eternally bonded vampires…”

“Yes, please,” Leslie said.

“Wait,” Ryker said. “Y’all know what this is? I’m the only one in the dark?”

“Hush, son,” Laurence said kindly. “Your mama has the floor.”

Senna shook her head. “Not me, not yet. Leslie, why don’t you give us a few more details so Ryker can catch up.”

“Well…” She laced her fingers together in front of her and tried not to shrink against the back of the upholstered chair. Somehow she felt as if she were being inspected, though Laurence and Senna remained calm and accepting. “Since the first week Ryker came to Tennessee, I get these glimpses inmy mind’s eye. They’re really vivid. They last only one or two seconds, but I think they’re…us. In the future. Our ring fingers are tattooed.”

Both elders nodded.

“Is it something bad? If it’s never happened to Ryker…”

“Not bad at all,” Senna said. “It’s a vampire gift. Not too rare, but less than half of us have it. It shows up mostly in women, less commonly in men.”

“Why?”

“No one really knows. Apex genes are still far less understood than human genes.” Senna shrugged. “Maybe the probability of future-sighted vampires being female is something like the probability of wolves being male.”

“Except female wolves are less than five percent of their population.”

Ryker shook his head. “One of these days it won’t surprise me anymore when you rattle off wolf trivia with more confidence than you have discussing vampires.”

Leslie couldn’t tolerate further detour from the topic, kept her focus on Senna, whoknew. Senna knew what it was to see a flash of a thing that hadn’t happened yet. And Senna was sharing that knowledge with Leslie, trusting Leslie, watering a parched flower in her soul that lapped up every drop of open honesty from Ryker’s mom, a vampire woman like herself. Senna looked back at her, deep understanding in her eyes, because…because Leslie should already have known.

She hardly heard Ryker when he said, “But if y’all have this future-sight thing, why don’t I know about it?”

“I haven’t got it,” Laurence said. “This is your mama’s territory.”

Senna smiled, and Leslie felt it deep inside.

Ryker roughed one hand down his face. “Mama, for real? You’ve seen the future?”

“It’s been much less frequent for me,” Senna said. “Only a few times in my life. Sounds like Leslie is more in tune with the gift. But yes, everything I’ve seen has happened eventually.”

Everything she had seen. Ring tattoos. Hands entwined. Years in the future. No, decades. Leslie got to keep him.

“Then…” Her throat tightened around the words, though she wasn’t sure why. “Ryker…we’re going to be together a long, long time. And we’re going to be really happy.”

With his parents watching, Ryker wrapped his arms around her, swept her off her feet, and spun a circle. Then he kissed her. They kept it light, but Leslie felt his kiss all the way to her fingertips, to the ends of her hair. Electricity and ice. When they pulled apart, Laurence and Senna’s eyes were shining too.

“No more two-hour breakups,” Leslie said.

Ryker rested his forehead against hers, and a smirk pulled his mouth. “Or two-minute breakups, or two-second breakups.”

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