Page 48 of To Love a Vampire
She just wouldn’t.
After all we’ve been through. After last night… She loves me.
Then why isn’t she here?
I drop to my knee’s as the strength to stand starts to become too much. Water trails up in smooth, lazy waves, lapping at my jeans and drenching my thighs in cold salty water. My eyes trace the surface of the sea and I find myself leaning toward it.
“Where is she?” I whisper to the ocean, knowing it can hear me.
My heart pounds a nervous beat. I know what I’m asking for. I’m disturbing a race that would murder me just for addressing them, but I don’t care. I have to know if she’s safe.
The waves begin to still, the body of water becomes motionless, and I lean into it a bit more, looking into the clear blue water.
A long mass of white movement slithers up the coast just beneath the surface, rippling the stillness with every twist of its spin. The water fae slips through the ocean until it’s in walking distance, it crawls up to me on spindling colorless limbs. Slick white flesh covers its bony body, from its thin, lengthy feet to its smooth hairless head. Blank orbs stare into my eyes, she’s just inches from my face and studying me intently. Her lips part, each small tooth comes to a jagged point that she’s raking her pale tongue across as she breathes me in. Slits at the side of her neck move rhythmically as she inhales and exhales.
“You dare to call on me?” she seethes in a scuttling whisper. Eerie, clear eyes narrow on me, pinning me to the sandy shore.
My hands drape lifelessly in my lap, my shoulders pulled low with vulnerability. I clench my jaw at the weakness that’s slipping into my body as my heart thunders through my chest. “Where did she go?” I ask again in a hollow voice.
The water fae extends her willowy arm, running an eager and glossy wet finger over the black lines that now scar my forearm.
“We witnessed the offering yesterday. The two of you crashed into our world, wishing to find our blessings on your bonding.”
I wouldn’t have let these things take Fallon away. We jumped to make the Wanderers happy but if the water fae believe they’re entitled to the woman I love they’re in for a rude awakening.
“She flailed in the water like she might kill herself without our help. She released your bonded hand the moment she was able to.” I jerk my arm out of her clenching reach, her slender finger hanging hesitantly before she brings her hand back to her side.
“Where is she?” I ask again through clenched teeth.
The fae lifts her smooth face toward me, the sun drying her features as the waves continue caressing her legs and arms. Her boney spine twists, curving her body unnaturally as she looks at me with a playful smile.
“She left.” A mysterious light flickers in the hollowness of her eyes as she points a lengthy finger in the direction I already know Fallon went. “A look of emptiness was all the girl possessed. Perhaps she escaped our ready claws yesterday but the girl has more demons than meets the eye.”
A shaking breath slips through my tight lungs, my fists clenching at my sides, a battle of helplessness and anger fill my body. I stand from the water, staring down at the creature that kneels at my feet.
“Disrupt my morning again and I’ll rip your pretty face from your chiseled jaw and eat it for breakfast, my darling.” Giving me one more long stare she slips back into the calm waters, her body snaking into the waves as she swims toward whatever hell she resides in.
I race up the cove, running in a blur as fast as my feet will carry me. I need help and the only mystic that will help me is the only friend I’ve had since my brother died.
Gabriel’s white eyes fall on me with a smile marring his smug face.
“I thought you’d hole up down there with you wife for weeks. Didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
He almost laughs but his face falls. Without even seeing me, he knows something isn’t right.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, rushing to my side.
I push my hand through my hair that still holds the smell of the sea we dove into yesterday. My breath is ragged, not because of the run, but because of fear. Fear of losing her. Again.
“She’s gone. I—I don’t know where but she’s gone.”
He grips my shoulder, grounding me with his worried and cryptic stare.
“Gone? You would have heard her if she left, Ash.” He nods, trying to calm me with reason, but it doesn’t help.
“I didn’t hear anything. I slept with her in my arms. Not a sound was made but when I woke up this morning I was alone.”
The word alone comes out as a broken and pitiful sound that makes me cringe.
