I looked up at her, shocked.
“You can tell?”
I thought I had been handling them well, waking up and turning away from her. As a vampire, she didn't need to sleep, but she still kept me company at night. Being able to wake up and have someone there helped with the nightmares.
They were worse when she wasn’t there.
Vesper gave me a small smile.
“Your heart rate increases. You know, vampire hearing and all that.”
I swallowed thickly and nodded.
“Ever since Max showed me the vision of my parents, that's all I can see. But I'm tired. Let me just?—”
She pushed me back down onto the bed and wrapped her arms around me.
“Sleep, witch. I’ll protect you from those bad dreams.”
I managed a small laugh, but inside a feeling of dread came over me because I wasn't sure if she could save me from them.
“I’m sticky and sweaty,” I said and pushed myself away from her. “I’ll shower quickly and come back.”
I sweetened my words with a kiss to her lips, and she smiled.
“You have ten minutes, then I’m coming after you.”
Wishing I could tell her I’d be waiting for that, that I could be that carefree because I was just taking a random shower, I nodded before practically running to the bathroom.
I turned on every faucet to the max, hoping to drown out the sound in my head, then the shower to as hot as it would go.
I stripped, and only as the steam started to coat the mirror did I allow myself to turn and look at the scars that ran across my back.
Angry. Red. Pulsing.
My stomach twisted at seeing them. I could still feel a part of his magic running through me. Normally, the scars were barely there, but it was like my dreams called forth his magic, allowing it to show through my skin.
Jumping into the scalding hot water, I grabbed the nearest rag and started scrubbing my back as hard as I could in an attempt to rid myself of the dirty feeling.
Wishing Vesper would barge in here like she promised while knowing there was nothing she could do to help me.
Vesper
Iwas getting antsy as the vampires started to fill the small space.
Our meeting place of the day was a random, seemingly abandoned bar on the edge of a desolate town on the outskirts of Atlas’s clan borders. It was run by a human, looked like it had had no customers for decades, and there was a special backroom that we used for this illicit meeting.
It smelled of stale beer and dust. My nose itched, and I fought to stop myself from sniffling. The tension rose as vampire after vampire ducked through the small doorway, their eyes always landing on me first, then Cedar, then Atlas.
Even though I was a vampire now, my training had me on edge and watching all of them on the off chance they’d attack.
My mind supplied me with some of the names and lineage, but mostly I had no idea who they were and how Atlas found them. The boarding school the hunter organization put us through had extensive backstories on the most prominent families, but we skipped over any they thought unnecessary.
My eyes shifted to Atlas, trying to use her as a gauge, but I couldn’t tell whether she actually liked any of them. They were all met with the same deadpan stare.
She was wound extra tight after the wedding. If I was being honest, we all were.
Aurelia had offered no explanation. She simply told us to trust her. Given that she had left in the middle of the night to pledge her allegiance to her brother, it was hard to.
