He eyes me a moment like he wants to say more, but then he turns away. I frown, wondering what that was about. I hear the front door close and sigh in relief. I haven’t been by myself in days, and it’s showing. I need a little bit of time without people around. I pocket my phone and make my way out to the kitchen and open the fridge. I eye the nearly empty fridge except for my blood bags. I stare into the fridge and frown. “Something wrong?”
Hunter’s voice makes me jump, and I crack my head on the top of the fridge. I’m irritated I wasn’t paying attention enough to sense him. “Ouch. Would you make noise and not sneak up on me all the time?”
He moves towards me. “I do make noise; you just aren’t very observant. You need to work on that.” He reaches his hands out, and I step back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m checking your head.”
Right before his hands touch my head, I jerk my head to the side. “I’m good.” He studies my face for a moment and then drops his hands.
“What were you staring into the fridge for?”
I debate telling him that blood bags keep disappearing from the fridge, but I don’t. It sounds crazy. Why would anybody take blood bags? “Nothing,” I tell him and walk past him. “Oh, and you need to order groceries for yourself. The fridge is almost empty. Or if you have a list somewhere, I can do it for you.”
He stares at me. “You’ll order groceries for me?”
I shrug. “It can’t be that hard, right? Ava always gets hers delivered. I figure I can do something like that for you.” When he still doesn’t respond, I tag on, “Or not.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“You want me to?” I ask in surprise.
“Or did you just offer, hoping I wouldn’t follow through?” he asks with a smirk.
I scowl at him. “No. Of course not. Just let me know or just text me, I guess.”
“Okay. I will. I’ll be around all day. Text me if you need anything.”
I head back to my room, thankful to have something to do besides drive myself crazy. I do enjoy the alone time, but I also need something to do with my time. When he texts me a list alittle while later, I skim through the list and then text Ava and ask what store she uses. She calls and explains her system to me. I find it pretty easy to do. It takes a little while, but I get an order for delivery placed using the numbers Hunter gave me for his credit card. When the groceries come later, I work on putting them away. I honestly don’t really know where he wants everything, but I make it work. If I knew how to cook, I would cook something for him. But I’m not sure I’m ready to do that for multiple reasons. One, it might look a little too domesticated for him to come to a meal I prepared. Also, who wants a vampire cooking for them? But at the top of my list is, I don’t know if I could. I’ve sort of avoided food over the years, but it’s still painful for me. Losing the ability to eat is not something you just get over. Never being able to take a drink of a soda, snack on a cracker or some chips, enjoy a home-cooked meal...it’s not something I’ve ever gotten over.
I leave the kitchen and those depressing thoughts behind and make my way to my room. The rest of the day passes rather slowly. Hunter doesn’t come home before I get ready for bed for the night. I find myself listening for him to come home and then get annoyed with myself. The next morning, I get dressed and throw my hair up into a messy bun before making my way out to the kitchen. I stop in surprise when I see Hunter standing at the stove. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” I walk past him to the fridge and grab a blood bag. “I didn’t hear you come in last night.” I immediately regret my words, but there’s no taking them back.
“I was out late.” He doesn’t expand on that, and I find myself feeling disappointed. I remind myself that what Hunter does with his time is none of my business. I start to walk past him and head back to my room. “Thank you.” I turn back. “For ordering groceries. I can’t remember the last time I had a full fridge.”
I shrug. “You paid for them; I just ordered them.”
“Well, I really appreciate it.”
There’s a knock at the front door, and I step out of the way so Hunter can go answer it. I’m almost to my room when I hear an angry voice. “Where’s the vampire?”
What in the world?I turn around in time to see several men push past Hunter and storm into the house.
“There it is!”
“Grab it!”
“Stop it!”
In the chaos and confusion, I don’t even try to defend myself. Somebody grabs my arm, and I’m too shocked to do anything to fight back. “Let her go,” Hunter demands. Somebody wrenches my arm behind my back, surprising me. The guy is ripped away from me, and Hunter shoves him against the wall. “I said to let her go.”
Several more men surround me, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to fight them, but I’m also not going to allow them to hurt me. Hunter shoves the guy away from him and is in front of me a second later. “Back off.”
“You can’t protect it from this!”
The words burn through me, and I don’t miss the way Hunter’s body stiffens. “If you want to be able to walk out of here, I suggest you get out of my house.” There’s no way to miss the threat in his words. Nobody listens to him, and somebody grabs my arm again. This time, I spin around and use my momentum to break the hold on my arm. I get the guy on the ground a moment later and put my knee on his back. The door opens, and more men come inside. They take one look at me keeping one of their own on the ground, and they come at me. There are too many of them. Without hurting them, there’s nothing I can do. Somebody rips my shirt, and I’m hit in my back. I stumble forward and try to blindly push away the hands grabbing for me.
