Mist curls at my feet like a rippling tide. The air is still but smells of rain. All around me, the wheatfield is quiet, save for my pounding heart, the sound echoes in my eardrums. I slowly turn a three-sixty, trying to make sense of which direction I’m supposed to be heading in. The wheatfield is set up like a garden maze, the stalks standing taller than the average five feet.
“Max?” I call out, testing the range to see if he responds.
Lately, each night, I’ve dreamt of him and wake up feeling all flustered and bothered in areas I never thought possible. Valdine told me Max and I have become what is called Blood Bonded. A basic principle that determines a vampire’s only way of existing. Without my blood to sate his thirst, he’ll die.
“The Blood Bond will also heighten your emotions and pheromones. Both of yours.” Valdine had added when I’d woken up the first time after experiencing a fiery sensation stirring in my gut and two new puncture wounds in my neck.
“Max?” I call out again, starting to walk forward. The stalks of wheat sway in a now gentle breeze, as if guiding me toward my destined partner. I stop after several long minutesof walking and spy my professor crouched on his knees, his back to me, he’s drawing something in the dirt in front of him. Curious, I walk up beside him and look down. My eyes flicker in surprise. Max has drawn a portrait of me, and in the dirt of all things. I clear my throat before speaking. “I called for you.”
“You did not need to shout my name, I heard you my little siren.” He stands and turns, offering me a crooked smile.
My insides clench at the expression on his face. “You didn’t answer back.”
“You would come to me. Our Bond is becoming stronger.” Max reaches out to caress my cheek with his cool palm. I lean against his hand, fluttering my eyelashes. “We cannot keep meeting like this.”
“But it’s better than not meeting at all,” I whisper.
His dark eyes sweep over my face and then he cups my chin and brushes a kiss against my forehead. “This is true, but I would prefer to be awake when I hear those little mewls of yours.”
My face heats up at his words. He chuckles low under his breath and plants another kiss, this time on the tip of my nose.
After learning just how much our bodies become affected in this dream-like state, we haven’t been close to doing anything remotely sexual. A fact he’s made well known; there’s a huge age gap along with being hexed, which makes being together both in our dreams and the waking world near impossible.
“Something troubles you,” his warm breath fans my face. “Tell me what it is.”
I avert my gaze, staring out at the wheat stalks before answering him. “The hex, it’s driving me crazy! I just want to be with you?—”
“Even if there were not a hex,” Max starts and gently turns my face back toward his. “Having any relations with you at all will spell trouble for us.”
My brows pinch together into a frown the longer I stare into his dark gaze. “I don’t understand. Why would it be a problem?”
He sighs and bends his head to press our foreheads together. “I am your professor and there is an enormous age gap between us, my little siren.”
I can feel my pulse quicken at his words, especially the nickname he’s given me over the course of the past few months. “And interspecies don’t mix,” I add as an afterthought.
He’s made it perfectly clear with multiple reasons about why we shouldn’t be together, and yet, that doesn’t stop him from stealing a kiss or some blood from me every now and then when his patience wears thin.
“Little siren?—”
“Why do you call me that?”
Max is silent for a moment. “Because your blood calls to me the way a siren lures men to a watery grave.”
I pull back to quirk an eyebrow at him. “Are you saying I’m trying to seduce you?”
He gives me another crooked smile. “Quite the opposite. You will take me to your watery grave and I will rest forever in your embrace.” When he says it like that, any word he describes is poetry to my ears. Even when I do understand the extent of what he’s saying.
“Max—”
“Shh,” he presses a slender, pale finger against my mouth to silence whatever I’d been about to say. “You’ve slept long enough and Valdine is a very impatient witch.” He lowers his hand and takes a step back, creating distance between us.
“One day, I’m going to break this hex.” The words leave my mouth but he doesn’t hear, because when I blink, I’m looking up at the ceiling in my dorm room.
Fenugreek
Calendula
Thyme
