Page 58 of The Royal Street Witch
Go find yourself
I loathe lying to her, but I’ll come clean to her once and for all when we’re back and just pray she’ll keep our secret. I push the daughter I’m supposed to have out of my mind for the time being and pack my bags while Freddie Mercury croonsWe Are the Championsin my ear.
I’m a calculating witch that plots every move. There are many that are impulsive—my mother for one, Chantal for two. So when Bastian calls me on the actual telephone and says in his deep voice, “You ready to fly?” I can’t help but lose my breath, ripples of goosebumps feeling like a village of ants running along my skin. The spontaneity is foreign to me, yet exciting.
“I think so, yes,” I say, and his breath can be heard over the receiver.
“Let’s get outta here.” I swear my heart stops at those words. I asked Chantal if she wanted to run the shop, but she decided to take the time off too, so I close it. Chantal’s feeding Mercury for me and will collect the mail. It’s just two weeks of forgetting, and then we’ll face reality when we get back.
We take a redeye to California, landing at a small airport in San Jose, and I realize how restrictive traveling as a vampire can be. Everything must be perfectly calculated and planned out so they are tucked somewhere safe during the day. It’s still dark in California as we fly over a sea of lights, elation bubbling in my chest from being somewhere I’ve never been.
Once we touch down, Bastian thanks the flight attendants with a beaming smile and then reaches back and grabs my hand. “Get used to it,” he says through a crooked grin as we walk up the tarmac. I squeeze his hand tighter and bring it to my lips.
Bastian arranged for a car to pick us up and we slide into the cool leather seats of a black Escalade, chills waving through my body. “Cold,” I say, zipping up my sweatshirt.
He stretches his arm along the top of the seats saying, “Scoot in,” so I pull my body next to his, snuggling in his arms.
“Zero humidity and cold mornings. You brought some warm clothes, right? We can always shop.”
I nod, my head on his chest, my eyes drooping from the late hour. There’s a safety I feel when I’m with him now, a trust I’ve handed over to him. I don’t know where we are or where we’re going, but I know that with him I am taken care of, I’m not on my own. And I’ve been on my own for so long, it’s a feeling I want to get used to, but shouldn’t.
“Baby,” he whispers so gently, “Baby, we’re here.” A kiss is placed on the top of my head as I come to, realizing I fell asleep in the car, wrapped in Bastian’s arms.
I wipe my eyes and sit up. “Already?”
He nods, his teeth glinting through the darkness of the backseat while the driver unloads our things in front of Bastian’s house. There’s an assumed luxury I tie to Bastian and vampires in general, a way of living that I am not accustomed to. But the home that stands before me is not the grand mansion I envisioned. It’s a smallish residence that resembles a cottage more than a mansion. The yard is tiny—just some grass and a large oak tree, and I can’t even see the front door. Bastian thanks the driver and tips him then turns to me.
“It’s around the side,” Bastian says, gesturing toward a sea of darkness, and that’s when I realize the sound I’ve been hearing is the crash of waves. Bastian pulls our rolling suitcases around the side of the house and stops in front of a small white gate.
“My dream girl at my dream house. This is insane.” He kisses my lips slow and sweetly and I wrap my arms around his waist, caught up in the moment. Of being in California, of the echoes of waves in the distance, the smell of the sea in the air.
“Ladies first,” he says, stepping away from me. The gate swings open, and I step onto a patio that wraps around the back of the house. Walking forward, I squint in the pitch black trying to see what lies behind Bastian’s home, but it’s nothing but darkness.
“That’s the ocean?” I squint in the distance, and he nods with a grin.
“We have a private beach, just down those steps.”
“Wow. And to think I was almost unimpressed with your beach house.”
“Come on,” he sighs and glides to the front door, unlocking it. “It’s small, but it’s only usually me, so it works just fine.”
And it is small, but he understated its charm. Floor-to-ceiling windows face the ocean in the dining room. The kitchen is compact but modern in typical Bastian fashion. And the family room is lined with sofas that look soft enough to sink into for a weekend with a fire and a stack of books.
Once we put our bags in Bastian’s room, I sigh at the shaded windows, closed tight from floor to ceiling. “You’ve never seen the view during the day in this house?”
Bastian grabs a remote and clicks a button, and the shades unwrap from around the windows. “Not once. But that will change in a couple of hours.”
I look out as the shade opens, seeing nothing but darkness while fingers run along my waist. A flutter of nerves shivers through my body about what this trip means, how deeply I’ve fallen.
“This was my first purchase with my own money. Small and quaint and everything I wanted. When you become a vampire, so much of yourself dies, but there are still pieces of who you were, fragments of yourself embedded in your blood for eternity. The beach has always called to me, and it’s sick in a way because the water took my brother, but it’s also where I had the best memories with him.”
I spin in his arms, my hand reaching the back of his neck, thumb running along his hairline. “Thank you for bringing me here, for sharing this with me.”
He places his forehead on mine and inhales deeply. “You are why I’m here.” And then he pulls me so tightly, fingers tightening on the small of my back. His lips fall to my shoulders, running them along the sensitive skin.
It feels good and right, but I pull away, yawning.
“I need some sleep,” I whisper, and his mouth spreads in a grin, nodding in agreeance.
