“Wanna get out of the house?” he asked, and it sounded amazing. I was going to go crazy if I didn’t get out of this house soon. I needed to move, to hunt again now that I was feeling better.
“I’m pretty sure if I try to leave, Bastian will hunt me down himself. His words, not mine.” I shrugged.
“Well, there’s a difference between you leaving alone or leaving with one of us. He knows I’ll keep you safe,” he replied with that gloriously cocky bad boy smile.
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes at him. Could he tell I was going stir-crazy?
He walked over to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for me. I hesitated when I ran my hand over my thigh and found neither my gun nor stake were there.
The movement was so subtle, but one I knew Nox noticed as he watched me, waiting to see what I would do. I had never left anywhere without my weapons on me. No judgment showed in his eyes, and it was something about that that seemed to put me a little more at ease.
“If you’d like to go grab your weapons,little monster, be my guest. It doesn’t hurt to be careful,” he said, using the nickname they all seemed to have for me now.
“No, no, it’s fine. Let's go,” I said, walking under his arm to get into the car, trying to hide the tension in my muscles from feeling defenseless.
He shut the door and made his way to the other side, sliding into the driver’s seat. He then started the car and took off down the long driveway. Once we got on the main road, he leaned over, opening the glove box and pulling out three stakes before setting them in my lap.
“What’s this?” I raised a curious brow.
“Exactly what it looks like,” he retorted, leveling me with a side glance before returning his gaze to the road.
My eyes raised to look at him. “For?”
“Whatever your little heart desires, though I’d rather you not shove them through my heart,” he said with a grin. “I want you to feel safe around us, Serina. I know what we are makes that hard for you, but I want you to be confident that we won’t hurt you, and if that means you need your weapons to feel more confident, then you’ll have them.”
My icy heart thawed a little more at that.
All the little things that they did to make me feel more safe, more comfortable, made the cold that I had encased myself in slip further and further away.
I cleared my throat, trying my best to bring back some of the ice. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“Out.” He glanced over at me. “No funny business; we’re coming back to the house afterwards.”
“Sounds like a great, boring time,” I drawled, running a finger down the stakes in my lap. One slipped into the floorboard, and I leaned down to pick it up, sliding a little something under the seat.
“Good,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his pack with his teeth before offering the pack to me. I took one, and he lit mine and then his.
I didn’t smoke regularly; I was more of a social smoker. Which, considering howantisocialI had been lately, it had been a while. But with the windows down, the wind flowing through my hair, music playing, and the sound of the engine, everything was just too perfect not to.
We drove for about half an hour, singing along with the windows down without a care in the world. You’d never know we were a Vampire and a monster hunter duo. The wind blowing my hair as we curved around all the backroads made my stomach flutter when I glanced over, and he was eyeing me with his hand on the shifter.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” I spat, but he only grinned.
“How can I? This view is much more appealing,” he teased, and heat flushed my neck.
I hurriedly looked away from him.
A few minutes later, he spoke again. “We’re here,” he said, pulling into a small pub parking lot.
The creak of the old pub's door was muffled by the conversations and clinking glasses wrapping around us when we walked in.
Nox glanced at me, a knowing twinkle in his eyes.
“Thought you might need a change of scenery,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“God, yes,” I exhaled, relieved to be out of the confining walls of that house for the past week.
The air was tinged with aged wood and spilled ale, an oddly comforting aroma that made the corners of my mouth twitch upwards.
