Page 14 of Road Trip with a Vampire
“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes and bracing myself for the argument I knew we were about to have. I’d spent enough time around vampires to know exactly what the look he was giving me meant. “You feed directly from the source. Right? You think drinking blood from bags is gross.” None of the vampires who chose to drink their meals that way liked it better. They did it out of scruples, not taste preference.
Peter winced at my blunt language but didn’t deny it.
I was having none of it. “I’ve built a respectable reputation for myself here. The last thing I need is for some vampire to leave a trail of bodies leading right to my front door.”
He looked affronted. “When I feed, I am in complete control.”
Bullshit. For vampires—especially new vampires—feeding directly from a human was euphoric. Sexual. Vampires who were new to the business tended to be at their mostoutof control during—and right after—feeding.
I didn’t know how long Peter had been a vampire. But if he was suffering from amnesia and had no memories from before a few weeks ago, it was safest to assume he fed like a newborn.
“If you’re staying here tonight,” I said, “you will get dinner from a blood bank. My house, my rules.”
“But—”
“If you don’t like it, you can sleep in your coffin.”
He paused, considering. Then he nodded. “Fine,” he said. Was hepouting? “Tell me where to go.”
After a minute of internet sleuthing, I found that the nearestfacility was less than three miles away. I held up my phone, showing him the address.
“I’ll see you later tonight,” he said.
Without another word, he opened the door to my apartment and left.
After I no longer heard his quiet footfalls going down my stairs, I sighed and collapsed against the back of my chair.
Just when I’d thought I was rid of vampires for good, here I was again, stuck with one.
For one night, anyway.
Gods, it had been aday.
It was barely ten, yet I could barely keep my eyes open. I stumbled into my bedroom and forced myself to stay awake long enough to do my candle ritual. Peter showing up when he had had kept me from noticing the telltale shaking hands and jittering nerves I’d come to associate with twenty-four hours without magic. Now that he was gone, though, I realized I felt exactly the way I had right before accidentally setting that greeting card display on fire a few months back.
That wasn’t good. I needed to start cataloguing my symptoms at the end of each day so I’d be forewarned if my magic was about to spontaneously burst out of me again. Right now, though, my racing heart and sweaty palms were so bad I couldn’t have even held a pencil.
By the time I lit the final candle, the relief from expelling some magical energy and the fatigue from my too-long day had me already half-asleep. Moments later I was properly in bed, with the covers pulled up to my chin and the candles on my nightstand the only source of light.
My front door opened and then closed again. Peter’s footsteps were ghostly quiet across the wooden floor of my living room, which normally creaked in half a dozen places.
He hadn’t been gone long. Maybe he had a car and that’s how he’d gone between the blood bank, the bus terminal, and my home so quickly. Then again, most vampires had unique abilities that set them apart. Perhaps he could run really fast. Or maybe, like Reggie, he could fly.
It didn’t matter. All I hoped was that he’d been discreet enough that none of his blood bank activities could be traced back to me.
I heard him rummaging around in something—his duffel bag, probably—and then there was the unmistakable creak of the springs in my old love seat as he sat down.
A moment passed. Another.
There was nothing but silence from the living room, and we were physically separated by more than twenty feet of space and a closed bedroom door. But I was as aware of his presence as if he were in my room with me.
It had been months since I’d last had another person in my apartment. It had been years since someone had spent the night. The mental and physical relief from my candle ritual was gone now, replaced with an uncomfortable hyperawareness that had nothing to do with magic.
I needed to distract myself or I’d never fall asleep.
With a shaking hand, I summoned a small whisper of power and created little eddies of nearly undetectable wind that fit neatly within the half inch of space beneath my bedroom door. That would soundproof things should Peter make noise in his sleep.
Then I reached out with my senses to double-check that myjust in caseequipment was still in its box in my closet. The special items I’d always kept secret from everyone. When push came to shove, they let me extend my magical abilities beyond the elemental and into the truly badass.
