When I woke, it was already late afternoon, shadows edging sharply over the lake below and turning the water slate grey. James was gone, and my thighs were still sticky. I didn't want to shower and remove any of his words, so after sponging myself clean I dressed in a soft pair of leggings and a roomy shirt and went looking for my hostess.
"Hey, Aura?"
She turned to look at me and smiled shyly. "Hey, another late riser, I see. And thank god. I didn't want to wake up early for you." Laughing as I took a mug of tea from her, I fidgeted while taking the first, searing hot gulp.
"Um, I was wondering, do you have a hand mirror?"
If she thought my request was odd - after all, there was a gigantic mirror that stretched half the length of the guest bathroom - Aura didn't show it, heading into hers to grab one for me.
Making a hasty retreat back to my room, I took a deep breath as I turned my back to the reflective wall and dropped my shirt. Lifting the hand holding the little mirror, I examined my back.
It was a manuscript. A novel. A river of beautiful, perfectly shaped characters that flowed over my body. "Oh..." I sighed, and began to read.
Chapter 15: Stares into Space Like a Dead China Doll...
The arrival of a vicious, 800-year-old vampire is never a happy thing. Especially when she wants to kill Meghan for being James' precious pet.
Meghan…
I spent the rest of the afternoon in a misty kind of happiness, but by the time Aura and I began to prepare dinner, we were both unsettled. Moving around each other with tight smiles and endless glances out the kitchen windows until she put down her knife with a ‘thunk!’
“Okay. I’m just going to blurt this out and assume you don’t think I’m crazy,” she began, “I was stalked long enough to get a sixth sense when things go sideways. I know James is off handling some … uh, thing. But I still feel itchy and kind of anxious. What about you?”
“Oh, I think I love you!” I blurted, “I mean not really, not like that, but yes!” Relieved that Aura was laughing and not edging toward the stairway and screaming for Steve, I rubbed my eyes. “It feels wrong. I don’t have your spidey sense, but yeah.”
Opening a drawer, she pulled out a gun as my eyes widened. Popping in a clip and sticking another in her pocket, Aura carefully held it up. “Do you know how to shoot?”
Vaguely embarrassed, I shook my head. “Apparently I have only defended myself with my wits in the past, and that was clearly unsuccessful.”
Blessedly, Aura laughed at this. “C’mon, let’s take my pistol out back and practice. It will at least feel like we’re doing something constructive, right?”
Which was how Steve, her gigantic-ass lumberjack vampire boyfriend found us an hour later.
“I thought I told you not to leave the house,” he was sternly looking down at Aura, who was slapping in a new clip.
“Hey, honey. You have to see how good Meghan is already!” I silently admired her, she had no fear. The woman was badass. I was so grateful that she was the first person since James took me who’d actually used my name. Like I was a human being, not a pet, or a doll.
Blue eyes flicked to me and back again to Aura, he was clearly unimpressed. “I gave my word to James to protect her,” he said, voice heavy with disapproval. “Do you think shooting up our pine trees is a slick, undercover move?”
I was marveling silently at their exchange, keeping as un-noticed as possible. How did she have this kind of relationship with a bloodsucker? Where she stood up for herself and didn’t have to make decisions about who lived or died because it meant her captor would be drinking her blood?
His blond head bent over hers and they were whispering together, and my heart suddenly hurt. Physically hurt like it was being squeezed by a fist. How was it that Steve and James were both vampires, but while mine was off attempting to kill his blood daddy, Aura’s was here, smiling down at her as they communicated, almost silently? I would never have this. What would James do when he was finished with me? When his story was told? A chill wind came roaring up the mountain and I shivered. Steve looked at me again, brow furrowed.
“Come on, ladies. Inside.”
It was a good night.
Steve and Aura kept me laughing with stories from how they’d met, how she’d thought he was just the irritating handyman until he admitted he owned pretty much everything on the mountain, right down to the dirt.
“So, how do you and James know each other?” I was still chuckling, so I didn’t see the sudden chill in his eyes.
“I didn’t, until his assistant booked the cabin for Aura and asked me to keep an eye on her.”
He was lying. He was fucking lying and Aura, who seemed so smart and badass, obviously was totally buying it. Please. Two bloodsuckers and they met up because of one endangered author? I’d heard the low urgency James had used when they’d spoken on the phone, the familiarity of long acquaintance when they’d hung out on the deck here. Why was Steve lying? Avoiding his gaze, I watched Aura instead, her eyes warm and one small hand on his beefy forearm.
“This mountain was my refuge,” she was saying lovingly, “Steve was my refuge.”
Taking an unsteady gulp of wine, I nodded. “That sounds crazy … romantic.”
