She smiled gratefully before heading towards the front door. I followed behind her, leaving Erie to poke and prod her brother in his unconscious state. She was probably more thrilled about her brother’s idiocy than she revealed to us.
“Isa,” Mel interrupted my train of thought. When she saw I was focused on her now, she continued. “If you want to stay here then stay here. Your brother may have power, but you still have free will in this world. Don’t let him control you. You are not weak. I’m not just talking about the color of your eyes, but the power you possess beyond that. Remember that, Isa. Remember and never let a man control you. Sibling or not.”
My eyes burned with the tears I wanted to shed from her kind words, but I held them back. I only offered a smile as she left the house. Doing a quick survey of the outside, I let out a sigh of relief that Lucien was not lurking outside before shutting and locking the door behind me. Erie had remained in the living room while still teasing her unconscious brother when I returned.
“How did you meet her?” Erie asked while laying atop her brother like he was a bed. “She was very nice. It was strange though, she didn’t seem to be affected by my charms.”
“Ambrose said he had a hard time getting into her head when we met her. We actually had tried to get into Agatha’s place of work here, but she had entrusted the code to Melinda. The two of us went to her dwelling to get it, but she ended up driving us there.”
The past flashed through my mind as I recalled the way she reacted to our secret. Chuckling, I went on about everythingthat had happened that day. Upon hearing her lack of horror or fear, Erie balked.
“You’re telling me that mundane just embraced it? A new reality that she wasn’t privy to before? She’s an odd one.”
“Ugh,” Ambrose groaned as he started to come after his incident. Erie was quick to remove herself from atop him, appearing by my side. His gold eyes searched the room for Melinda, but she had left a while ago. “Where’s the human?”
“She went to confront Lucien,” I answered. “After your display that the taser would in fact work against a vampire, she was more than happy to seek him out.”
“She’s a lunatic. Did you even try to stop her? Any of you?” he asked with slight concern. My brow raised at that, but made no comment about it. “Of course you didn’t.”
“Far be it from me to stop her. She’s more stubborn than Lucien,” Erie replied. “I’m going to find a meal. Care to join me, brother? With your humiliating display, I’m sure it won’t kill you now to feed with me.”
Ambrose snarled at her, but she just turned on her heel and exited out the back door with more pep in her step. I watched as he followed after her and waited until they were gone to head upstairs to get the last bit of peaceful sleep I would have for a while.
ChapterEight
Melinda and Lucien
Lucien observed the woman departing the house where she had left Erie with his sister. Something about this simple human compelled him to abandon his plans to confront his sister. He wanted to observe her a bit longer. He watched as she briskly jogged away from the driveway, forced to watch from behind.
Despite running here from wherever Erie had found her, her breathing remained even, and sweat glistened in the light provided by the subtle rays of the sun. Her form was great and he found himself wondering how often she ran. He would have thought she was from Shadowhaven if she wasn’t so clearly human.
As he watched her, his gaze was drawn to her features he could see. The subtle play of light revealed a smattering of delicate freckles adorning her semi-tanned skin, hinting at sun-kissed days. Her gray eyes, like storm clouds tinged with silver, held a depth that seemed to beckon him closer, drawing him into their enigmatic allure. Her soft pink lips formed silent words to a song, and he found himself wondering what they would feel like against his own.
How wouldtheytaste?
How wouldshetaste?
He vehemently rejected each invading thought.
They eventually made it to her property, made evident by the way she became more relaxed as she passed a beat-up maroon truck. Lucien watched as she stumbled her way up the steps of the small farmhouse.
The paint peeling with age while the steps creaked under each step she took. She opened the front screen door, causing it to groan with each inch she pushed it. Lucien lost sight of her momentarily once she entered the house, but heard her as she mumbled about needing to clean while shuffling further inside.
Melinda looked around the house, seeing the beer bottles that had been abandoned in the entryway and some that were left on the railing of the stairs. Dad had been distraught since that day he almost shot the man from the investment company. She knew he would take a moment to recover from what he almost had done, but the mess of alcohol made her realize it might be worse than she originally imagined.
“Dad,” she called out, but got no response back.
Following the soft sound of the television, she found her father asleep in his recliner with the remote still in his hand. Doing a quick check, she was met with relief as she saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Grabbing a nearby blanket, she threw it over him before heading upstairs to take a quick shower to head into town.
Melinda remained unaware that Lucien remained below, listening to her footsteps as she moved about upstairs. Once the sound of her shower met his ears, he quickly shifted his focus to his immediate surroundings to keep from overhearing something he shouldn’t. The monster within him wasn’t too thrilled for this sudden privacy Lueien was giving her.
The scent of coconut from her shampoo and conditioner filled the bathroom. The shower was quick, mostly for scrubbing the sweat from her skin that she had accumulated from her run.
It was strange to think that there were three, well four, vampires in her hometown, a place where the notion of the supernatural was met with religious skepticism. As she dressed, she thought about her conversation with Isadora at Saddleback. She had mentioned a brother, but from the trio of vampires in Agatha’s home, none of them were Lucien. Subconsciously, she found herself wondering what he looked like.
It was evident that vampires were all beautiful. But while she dwelled on the image she tried to create of Isadora’s brother, all she could envision was Isadora with shorter hair and a muchflatter chest. Shaking off the image she brewed, she stepped outside with the cool autumn air seemingly colder with her dampened hair. The feeling of someone’s eyes had her almost running to the truck and locking it behind her.
Lucien watched the skittish mundane as she nearly tripped into the battered truck. He waited until she was out of view before following after her, using his enhanced speed to keep up with the vehicle as it jounced over the uneven terrain of the dirt roads.
