After… as in three years ago?
Not months?
Years?
Eric let out a hollow laugh and tugged at his hair.
“The first time Bennie let me out alone for a couple of hours, I… mysteriously found myself following you. I didn’t know why, I swear.” He held up his hands, even though I hadn’t said anything. Honestly, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to say. “It was… I don’t know. Something drove me to check on you. That’s how it started. In the beginning, it wasn’t an everyday thing. I occasionally needed to check in and make sure you were safe. I knew I couldn’t ask you out with me being a vampire. I never wanted you to get involved in this world, but a part of me couldn’t let go.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t really explain it. Why I couldn’t keep away from you. Why the need to check on you only got bigger over time. The need to make sure you were okay. I reasoned that you were my last connection to my human side. My friends moved on. I don’t have parents anymore, and the last one of my grandparents died last year. So there’s no one connecting me to my old life. No one but you.”
“But that’s not it?”
I bit my lip.
Why the fuck did everything he said sound weirdly logical?
Like… he should sound unhinged.
Threeyears.
He’d been following me for three years—and I’d never noticed a thing.
“No. You remember the part about Bennie and me both being very young, so we don’t know everything there is to know about vampires?”
“Yes?”
“What we didn’t know is that vampires have mates. The whole soulmate thing? Having one person out there who’s our perfect match?”
I blinked.
“And that’s me?”
Holy fuck.
Aries had called me Eric’s mate when we’d met.
“Yes. Bennie talked to Aries after that night in the club.” Eric let out a hollow laugh. “After we interacted for the first time, I kinda spiraled. Bennie was concerned and realized something had to be going on. He followed me, following you, and yeah. He talked to Aries, and Aries explained the concept of mates to me.”
Oof.
I looked at Eric.
That was… a lot.
My head was full of thoughts and questions and worries, and… I didn’t know where to start sorting everything. My temples throbbed, and I closed my eyes.
I thought about the betrayal I’d felt when I’d realized he’d been the one scaring me. When I realized he’d been my stalker.
And then I thought about a newly turned Eric sitting on the roof across the street, utterly confused about why he couldn’t stay away from me. Thought about him out there—for years—without ever speaking to me. Without ever finding an explanation for why he couldn’t let go.
It had to have been frightening to him.
“I knew leaving you a note was a stupid idea,” Eric continued. “I tried a drop of your blood when you were drugged to make sure you weren’t overdosing, and… well, I tasted that you were sick.”
And he’d had no way of telling me. Because he couldn’t very well walk up to me and say, “Oh, I’m a vampire and drank your blood, that’s why I know you need to see a doctor.”
Ugh.
I didn’t want to feel for him, but I did.
