Page 13 of Blood Gift

I’d have to do a little silent convincing to get anybody to abandon their table to me. It wasn’t strictly within the rules to use my powers for such trivial things, but a seat was a seat. And nobody would know.

“You’re thinking about doing something you’re not supposed to do,” he muttered under his breath.

“Stop spying on me,” I hissed. “And it’s not like I would get in trouble.”

I was about to read him the riot act and maybe tell him to go to hell when a familiar pair of eyes stopped me from all the way across the room.

“What?” Holden asked when he noticed my reaction.

I looked down and saw that I was gripping his hand hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks in his skin from my newly manicured nails.

“I know that man.”

I looked up again, craning my neck to see past a couple standing with their arms around each other’s waists. They separated.

He was gone.

“What man?” Holden asked. “There are roughly twenty of them here.”

“He’s not there anymore. He was standing by the window.” I stood on tiptoe, then bounced up and down in the hope of seeing his head over the others. “Damn it, he couldn’t have left that fast!”

“Where do you know him from?”

My dreams. I’ve dreamed of him every night for a week. That wouldn’t sound insane at all. “I—I don’t know, really. He looked familiar.”

“You nearly tore my hand off.”

“I didn’t.”

Damn it, where could he be? I wasn’t imagining it. Was I?

I stepped up to the counter in a daze and rattled off an order without paying attention to what I was saying.

All I could think about was those eyes. Sharp, clear, gorgeous. Staring into my soul.

Yes, it had been a week.

I thought about it as we left the shop—I didn’t feel like sitting in a crowd, not anymore. Not with all that silly, cartoonish Halloween décor hitting me in the face. Not with so much uncertainty swirling in my brain.

I had slept well for a week, because my dream had changed.

He saved me every night. Whoever he was.

I wished I had gotten a better look at his face. All I ever saw were his eyes. But that was enough for me to know that the man I had seen in the shop was the man from my dreams. Somehow.

“You only went to one store, and you already want to go home?” Holden didn’t bother disguising his glee.

Big surprise.

“I don’t feel well now. I think I need to lie down and rest.”

“With your coffee?” he snorted.

I had promised myself I would never be nasty to a Nightwarden again, but he was pushing me too far.

“Shut up, already. I’m not in the mood.”

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