“Have you?”
The front door opened, and the officers yelled her name.
“Yes.”
“This will be worse.”
As she opened her mouth to demand what he meant, he disappeared into a puff of smoke, and then she lurched into the air to the sound of screeching bats.
And before she could utter a scream, she landed hard on a pile of leaves.
“Ooof!” The wind was knocked out of her, and she gasped for breath on her hands and knees. She squinted hard as she dragged air into her lungs. She was alone in the woods. No… Rows of gravestones broke the uneven ground, and the iron fence behind her was familiar.
But she was alone in the cemetery. Horrified, she scrambled backward, but her back hit the fence. Above her, on a low-hanging, gnarled branch of a monstrous birch tree, crouched the man.
“Don’t be scared.”
“I know what you are!” Her voice echoed through the emptiness of the cemetery, and chills rippled across her skin.
“I’m a vampire. My name is Evan Dawe, and I’m the Third in the Winterset Coven. I’m not the monster who attacked you. I’m not like him at all.”
“Then…then…what do you want from me?”
A frown marred his face as if her question had confused him. “I thought I knew what I wanted with you, but now I’m not so sure.”
“To feed on me?”
He jumped down from the branch and landed in front of her with barely any impact and nary a sound. He stayed crouched there, studying her face. “You’re worried about the scar he left.”
Breath trembling, she touched the painful cut and nodded.
“You shouldn’t worry about it for the reason you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s quite beautiful on you.”
Ahh, the compliments of a monster.
He cracked a crooked smile. It was a very handsome, surprisingly white, shockingly charming smile. “Dudes dig scars.”
She froze.
“That was a joke,” he murmured.
She shouldn’t have laughed. She shouldn’t have. He was here for bad intentions; all vampires were killers. But perhaps shock was playing with her emotions because a soft giggle left her lips.
He sighed a relieved sound and scooted closer, reached for her. Terrified, she closed her eyes and remembered how the monster had reached out for her just like this and cut her face. This vampire, however, only tucked the hair behind her ear and exposed her scarred cheek.
“I look like Frankenstein’s monster,” she whispered, opening her eyes.
He seemed to take in every facet of her face before he said, “You do not. And even if you did, Frankenstein’s monster was a badass.” Another crooked smile.
She nodded for a while like a psychopath because well…she was pretty sure her adrenaline was crashing and she was on the verge of a panic attack.
“You’re still scared of me?” he asked.
More nodding.
“I suppose that’s understandable. You’ve been through a trauma.”
“I didn’t like you bloodsuckers before he tried to kill me and my neighbor. So you can understand when I say I like your kind even less now.”
“Fair enough. I shall let you in on a little secret. Ready?”
“Okay.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t like humans.”
“And yet you need us to survive.”
“Oh, I like the taste of you just fine. It’s the entitled, better-than-everyone-else-on-the-planet, killing-off-everything-you-see-as-different, simple-minded, opinionated, claws-out mentality you creatures covet that I don’t like.”
She snorted. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“Look, if that monster came into these woods right now, I would keep you safe. That’s a promise.”
“The promise of a vampire.”
“It’s more trustworthy than the promise of a human.”
“Hmmm.” Interesting.
“Pinky promise not to hurt me?” When she shoved her pinky at him, he flinched back and glared at it suspiciously.
“I don’t play your thumb-war games. That’s for simpletons.”
“It’s a swear.” She stretched her pinky closer. “Lock your pinky with mine, kiss your thumb, and swear not to hurt me. And if you ever break a pinky promise, you will definitely go to hell.”
“Too late, humey.”
“To late for what?”
He smiled brightly, flashing sharp canines. “I’m already in hell.”
But before that sentence could scare her, he locked his pinky with hers. She nearly laughed at how big it was. The giant man had hands twice the size of hers.
“Your hand is cold,” she observed as they stayed there with their fingers locked.
“That’s because I’m dead, my dear. You’re holding hands with a corpse.”
Her blood ran cold, but before she could flinch away, he leaned in and kissed his thumb. “I swear not to hurt you.”
It grossed her out at least forty-seven percent that he put it like that—holding hands with a corpse. Ew. But she did it because pinky promises were everything here in the dark cemetery where she definitely didn’t want to get drained by a vamp. A very handsome vamp, who probably had a really enticing six-pack if the curves of his muscles and the trimness of his waist were anything to go by, but a vamp nonetheless.
“Did you bring me to the cemetery to be cliché and creepy?” she asked.
He looked around and shrugged, released the grip of her pinky from his. “Honestly, I didn’t know where we would land. I have no idea why I brought us here.”
“Well, Halloween is next week, and I definitely feel like I’m living in a scary movie. And now I’m spending a terrifying evening in a cemetery with a vampire.”
“You could look at it like that,” he murmured, coming to sit next to her against the fence, “or you could look at it like you are being protected on hallowed ground somewhere that monster would never look to find you. And not just with a vamp. I have a name.”
“Evan the Vamp.”
He snorted.
“Why would that monster still be looking for me?” she asked softly.
Evan rolled his
