“This?” He gripped the flame as I watched in fascination.“Some people like pain.” He let the fire die and stood.“Will you finally talk to me?”
“Talk about what?” I fell back as he appeared on the bed, then regained my composure and continued, “Why you won’t stop following me around and being weird? And why you won’t take those fangs out of your mouth? Halloween ended two days ago, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I’m a vampire. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.” He ran a finger along the chains around his wrist, his hazel eyes still on me. He was too close for comfort.
“Move over.” I tried to kick him off the bed but he caught my leg, making me almost fall from the stunted momentum. I wrenched it free with half a mind to cut his head off for being an asshole.
“You can’t behead a vampire.”
“Okay,” I heaved a sigh of frustration, “let’s say, hypothetically, youarea vampire. What do you want with me? I know I’m sexy and all, but the stalking was never necessary. You could’ve just asked for my number.”
“It’s not that simple, sweetheart. If it was, you’d be mine by now. Actually,” he looked me over, “scratch that. You already are.”
“What, yours?” I let out a humorless laugh.“I don’t belong to anyone. Slavery’s illegal, remember?”
“Yeah, but you’re not my slave. We’re blood bound, remember?” he countered in a mocking tone.“You agreed when you gave me your blood.”
“So you diddrink it!” I exclaimed.“Lemme guess, you’re also part werewolf and that mask you were wearing is really your second face.” He barely smiled, causing me to shift uneasily. I was hard to intimidate but there was something off about him. Like crazy, murder you in your sleep off. “Okay, fine. I’ll humor you. What does blood bound mean?”
“Blood binding is when a human willingly gives you blood after agreeing that it will make them yours. It can’t be reversed unless the vampire explicitly agrees to release the bind.”
“I didn’t ‘willingly’ agree to this. You tricked me. Does that count?”
“Of course it counts. You literally agreed. You said if I can get ten questions right, you’d be my property. And then you gave me your blood.”
“That still counts as tricking me—”
“Meaning,” he went on,“that you’re mine until I say I don’t want you anymore. I can hear your thoughts when they’re about me. I can sense when you want me around. I can tell when you’re nervous or when you’re excited.” He glanced at a part of my body that made his definition of‘excited’clear.“I can do whatever I want with you. I can make you my companion or my servant. You can be my pet—”
“Fuck off with that—”
“But I would never do that. I have my reasons for binding you and none of them include harming you in any way.” He waited while I brainstormed a thousand different ways to kill him.“None of those will work. You have to know how to kill a vampire to do it.”
“I’m gonna stop thinking about you ever, so you won’t know what I’m thinking.”
“That’s not gonna work, either. It’s subconscious.” He lightly tapped my temple. I didn’t flinch,nor did my glare falter.
“So how’d you know what I was thinking on Halloween? Because none of those answers were about you.” I was determined to find a hole somewhere in his twisted logic. It simply wasn’t possible.
“You kept thinking‘there’s no way he’s gonna figure this one out,’which automatically let me hear it. The bond was already starting, even if it had stipulations. If you think even the slightest thing about me, I can hear it. You mentioned me at the movies so I found you. And you thought about me when you passed that store a couple hours later, so I found you again. The bar was a coincidence. I go there a lot.” He was finished explaining but my mind was stuck on one thing, and one thing only.
“I don’t believe you’re a vampire,” I said. “Not at all. You’re gonna have to drink someone’s blood before I believe you. You know what I saw the other day?”
“What?” He didn’t sound remotely interested.
“I was watching the news and some people said they found real vampires. So I was like holy shit, that’s awesome. Well, turns out they’re some weird cult in New York where they sanitize a volunteer’s shoulder, poke it with a needle, and then lick a single drop of blood. Thenthey put a bandaid on the person and let ‘em go. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Dennis looked increasingly disturbed with each word I said. By the time I finished, his face was twisted in disgust.“It’s because of those shit vampire romance novels,” he said. “Nothing has been the same since they started coming out.”
“Someone’s mad.” I was trying hard not to laugh.
“Well those books are shit. The authors need to die.”
I watched for any trace of humor, but he was serious. He stopped toying with the bracelet and pulled the lighter from his pocket, flicking it on so the bright flame once again danced across his thumb.
“So you really kill people?” I asked. He nodded.“Every time your cult drinks from a volunteer?”
“I’m not part of a cult. I drink when I need to and kill when I’m annoyed.”
