Bracing a hand on the kitchen island, I asked knowingly, “Looking for something?”
Miranda closed it again, a water bottle now in hand, shaking it at me. “Just for something to...drink.”
I suppressed the need to roll my eyes. That’s all she’d find in there. No bags of blood or anything else. While I could still eat human food, I didn’t miss it all that much.
She cracked open the top and leaned a hip on the island as well, facing me. She took a long swig then gestured with the bottle at me. “Tell me everything.”
A wry chuckle escaped me. “Man, this is a far cry from the girls’ nights we used to have with Vivian.”
Miranda shrugged, her expression even and unapologetic. “She was always the fun one.”
My brows screwed up in offense as I laid a hand on my chest. “I thought that was me.”
Her amused smirk faded. “What the actual hell, Aaron?”
My brow raised at the sudden attack.
“You’re back in town for months, you’re suddenly a—” she gestured up and down my body, “—vampire. What? How? Why? How?”
Watching the normally cool Miranda get tongue-tied would be more amusing if she weren’t bringing up everything I wanted to avoid.
“It's a long story.” I started to walk by her, but she slammed a hand to my chest, forcing me to look her in the eye.
“I got time,” she said in a tone that probably would scare the Cheez Whiz out of anyone else.
I wasn’t sure if she developed that voice of command when she served in the army or out of necessity as a single mom.
Even though I was equipped with fangs now, I had to admit to a little Cheez Whiz escaping me when she pulled the authority card.
“You better sit down,” I huffed, knowing there was no way out of this.
Situated on the green leather couches that faced each other in my sunken living room, I leaned my forearms on my thighs.
“Two years of trying to forget everything that happened here in Vegas by rafting in Costa Rica, jumping out of planes in Switzerland, and rock climbing in Australia, it was when I was surfing in Japan that I realized I couldn’t let it go.”
“Let what go?” Miranda asked, eyeing me with suspicion.
Timothy.
Instead, I said, “The lifestyle. The excitement of being near such incredible power and beings. I saw vampires attack, battles between gods. The supernatural turned out to be under our noses all along, and I was on the front lines of it unfolding into the public eye then I just...left it behind.”
“And that spiked your adrenaline-seeking behavior?” she asked flatly.
“Probably,” I shrugged. “Being mortal is cool, but being immortal? Armed with strength and dexterity like nothing else? I knew I wasmeantfor that kind of life. So I decided I’d find a way to become a vampire.”
Miranda groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. I ignored her and kept going.
“It took a long time to find someone who would help me do that. And the only way I could achieve that was by coming back to Las Vegas.”
Face still arranged with incredulous doubt, Miranda asked, "And you didn't think to ask your good friend, Vivian? The vampire we know and love?”
I raked my nails through my hair. “By the time I got here, she was gone. So I had to resort to someone else.”
“Seth?”
Unable to sit for any longer, I stood and paced the sunken floor. “He found me. He’d heard I’d been asking around. Asking how to get turned. But, as you know, most vampires are too new. So new to their own fangs they don’t know how to function, much less turn someone else. So after another failed attempt of trying to find a vampire to turn me in a bar on the outskirts of town, there was this guy. Full of charm and promises, he told me he could help me with my little problem.”
A sound resembling the snort of a bulldog escaped Miranda.
