Page 15 of Illuminated

His voice was the kind of voice that makes you want to break open your chest and bare your beating heart, but I just shook my head. I’d learned the hard way that being open about your feelings gave other people ammunition to use against you, and I wasn’t about to make the mistake I had made with my ex with this vampire I’d just met, under less than ideal circumstances, mere hours ago.

“Should we get going?” I said instead.

For a moment longer, he kept holding me, kept looking at me in the darkness. “All right.”

He stepped back, and I pulled away from the wall. He handed me my bag and the flashlight, took my hand to lead me safely out of the forest. Not a wolf to pull me in deeper like the fairy-tale Red Riding Hood, then, but what exactly he was, whether he was a monster or not, I still wasn’t sure. What I did know was that my feelings for him made no sense, no sense at all.

* * *

When we got to the car, I felt the weight of too many hours of the night spent awake, even for me. I just wanted to get back to my hotel room and collapse.

I deflated the moment I sat back in the passenger seat. Auris started the car and turned the heat on high, then did what felt like a very neat three-point-turn.

“Where are you staying?” he asked as he was slowly driving out of the forest.

“Cromere,” I said. “The Three Roses.”

“That’s a nice hotel. But how about you spend the night at my place? Well, one of my places, at any rate. You’re tired, and it’s closer.”

I was about to open my mouth to protest, but then he reached over and brushed my cheek with his knuckles, and I just gave in. “Sure, that sounds good.”

“Good,” he said, and sped the car down the dark, lonely road.

* * *

I had trouble keeping my eyes open, and so catching the sign that told me this was Brightam was coincidence.

“Do you own property everywhere? Or just in the area?” I asked to keep myself awake.

“Here and there. It accumulates, but I do own several places around Cromere. I told you, I’ve been here for so long. On top of that, even when I left, I have always returned over the years. Here we are.”

He pulled up in front of one of the cottages that usually were rented out to tourists in most of the seaside towns I had seen over the past few days. The place was neat, with flower boxes in front of the windows and a fresh coat of paint, but that also made it unassuming in a touristy seaside village; it looked just like any other cottage.

Once more Auris was faster than me and opened my door, holding it for me as I sluggishly got out. This time, I grabbed my bag. I had learned to keep a few essentials in there, a toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste and soap, and spare socks and underwear. I had worked long hours away from home before, and nothing taught you preparedness like a night spent working with a day of work ahead and no shower in sight.

Auris pulled a key ring from his pocket, quickly flicked to the correct key, and opened the door. When he switched on the bright light inside, it blinded me for a moment. My eyes probably looked red and puffy, not to mention I had been hiking through the woods. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have cared that my pretentious tee smelled of sweat and cold weather.

The décor in the cottage surprised me, just another surprise to add to my list. The wood paneling on the ceiling was white as were all the shelves, many of them inbuilt. A massive light gray couch surrounded the fireplace in a U with the one side facing the windows shorter than the other side of the U. The windows offered up what was probably a stunning ocean view at daytime, because one wall was mostly glass. I had expected something more antique, something with massive flower print, a rocking chair maybe, not this.

“Come on, the bedroom is through here,” Auris said, and led me down a hallway that continued the color and design scheme of straight angles and grays and whites.

There was another fireplace in the bedroom, and a thick dark charcoal carpet right in front of it. The bed was made, a cream-colored comforter inviting me to fall into it. I knew I definitely needed a shower first, though.

“Where’s your bathroom?” I said to Auris, who was pulling the curtains shut in front of another set of wall-length windows. “I think I need a shower before I collapse.”

“Of course. Just across the hall. You should find everything you need.”

I walked out of the bedroom and across the hall. The bathroom was white, perfect, and spotless. Neatly folded gray towels sat on a shelf by the door, along with a selection of soap and shower gel, shampoo and conditioner. This might not have been a place rented out to tourists, but it certainly felt like that. Perhaps Auris did rent it out when he… wasn’t getting chased by priests. Maybe, if I could muster the courage, I’d ask him about it.

I took two towels and some lavender-scented shampoo and soap, stepped into the shower, and let the hot water run over my exhausted body, welcoming the way it soothed my muscles. I washed the woods out of my hair and soaped up my skin to rinse away the remnants of the day. The hot water steamed up the mirror and made my reflection look like a ghost when I was done.

I was relieved I wouldn’t have to use the survival kit in my bag, apart from the underwear. It was so relaxing that everything here just seemed to be prepared for a sudden overnight guest. There were toothbrushes, wrapped in cardboard, unused, tiny tubes of toothpaste, a shiny unused comb and a hairbrush that looked new. I wrapped the towel around my waist, scrunched the water out of my hair with the other, then let the damp waves run down to my shoulders and the inch or two farther.

Was I supposed to be embarrassed now, naked apart from the towel? Or did the fact that I was staying in the house of a vampire who had given me two of my top ten sexual experiences in just one night allow me to abandon modesty? I wasn’t sure, but decided that I was too tired to care, and also a lot had happened, and I was not getting back into my filthy clothes.

When I stepped back into the bedroom on my bare feet, Auris had taken off his jacket and vest. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves and was sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace, his legs crossed at the ankle. In the fireplace flames were tonguing the air, and the room was warm with the fire’s heat. He turned and looked at me with his dark eyes. The way he did it, I felt desired.

“You should get into bed, because seeing you like this tempts me to take you again.” He said it in a matter-of-fact way that ran contrary to the words themselves, and I could feel the color rising to my cheeks. “I mean it, Ethan,” he said when I didn’t move.

---