Page 73 of The Human’s Heart

He waved me away. “We were already planning on guarding either you or Zay, but since you’re my fledgling, we all, including Alec, decided a while ago that I’d stick with you when you guys went back to your normal lives. That was already the plan. We were just waiting for you to be ready.”

“Oh. Um… okay, then. That’s awesome. Um… when should we start?”

“We can start tomorrow if you’d like?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Yes. That’s great! Thank you so much!” I ran over and hugged him, then I hugged Thayer too before I rushed out of the house to find Zaos and tell him the good news.

He was probably going to be worried as hell, but he’d also be happy for me because he knew I didn’t like just sitting around at home all day and night.

For my first day back, Drin gave me a super short shift. I’d told him everything that’d happened—hell, the attack and being-bitten-to-turn-vampy all happened in his bar, after all—so he wanted to make sure I could handle all the noise and everything before he put me on a long shift.

All of this was coming after giving me nearly a month straight off to adjust to my new body.

I appreciated him working with me on this.

The second I walked in, I was overwhelmed with so many sensory things that I got dizzy and had to close my eyes.

There was music and people yelling over it and so many conversations going on at once… and I could hear every single thing. It was terrible.

And then the smells. Holy hell, the smells were… so fucking gross. Beer and sweat and a million other alcoholic drinks, food and perfumes and just. So. Many. Smells.

It was disgusting.

And overwhelming.

I peeked one eye open and slammed it shut because holy crap, even the lighting with its flashing lights and bright moving mini spotlights was overwhelming. What the hell. As a human, I hadn’t even thought the bar was bright. At all.

Toby put his hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear, “Take a deep breath and focus on only your own breathing. Listen to it, feel it, smell your own scent.”

That was super weird, but I did what he asked.

“Okay. So you’re gonna need to block everything else out, okay? I know it isn’t easy, but if you focus on the things directly in front of you, like me right now, it’ll get easier. It takes a lot of practice to block things out when you need to, but you’ll get there.”

“My head hurts.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty common when you’re getting used to blocking. Like I said, it takes time. If you need to leave, we can go at any time.”

“No, I… I just need a few minutes.”

“Alright, kiddo. I’m right here if you need me.”

I nodded and did as he suggested—concentrated on the things right in front of me. So… him. I took in his scent, ignoring all others. I smelled his blood along with his natural scent, and I held it there in my nose.

He was familiar. He was my sire.

He was family.

Nothing was overwhelming about my sire.

Finally, my nose seemed to stop trying to inhale every single thing in a two-block radius.

Then I listened to his breathing. Vampires didn’t technically have to breathe, but most of them did as a habit developed when they were human.

I blocked out the music and the billion conversations and focused only on my sire.

When I felt like I had a little bit of a handle on those two things, I turned my face toward my sire and opened my eyes. I squinted, but I also focused on him standing there, all intimidating and serious-looking. He smiled and laughed so easily at home that it was almost surreal seeing him like this.

He sent me a small smile, but when he looked around at the other patrons, his serious face was back in play.