Page 69 of Vameer

I drop my gaze to the tabletop.

That’s possibly the biggest difference.

In all my years, I’ve never been attracted to… anyone. Never had a crush. Not on a person I knew, not on a celebrity. And as I got older, I realized that wasn’t normal.

I’ve touched myself. I own toys. I like to read erotica. But I’ve had zero interest in dating. Boys, girls, gender fluid, fictional, didn’t make a difference. I assumed I was asexual. Or something else completely.

So having this constant, all-day, unrelenting need…

I shift in my seat.

But now this never-ending state of arousal is directed at someone.

A vampire.

And I don’t know what to do with it.

The pull. The draw. The clawing urge to run down the street until I find him… It all makes me think of Nix and Volik.

It all makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I’m mated to a vampire too.

Only, unlike Volik, my vampire is unknown to mankind.

When The Gallery was empty today, I looked up the artist who did that painting. He’s long dead, but I thought maybe I could find some clues. About the vampire he hid in plain sight. Some family connection to vampires. But there was nothing. Just your typical two-hundred-year-old bio.

Then I looked up neoclassical paintings in general. Staring at every image, trying to see if I could find my vampire again. But I couldn’t.

It’s like he doesn’t exist.

The weight in my chest pulses, and I lean forward against the table, my body physically rejecting the very thought.

Just like my body rejected the idea of approaching any of the men sitting around Coffee Box.

I thought in my psychosis I’d possibly had a sexual awakening. That I’d find myself attracted to… a human. I lift my gaze, making one final sweep around the coffee shop. And… no. I have no desire, whatsoever, to see any of them naked.

The only person I want to see naked is my long-haired, sword-wielding, smells-of-storm-clouds, possibly-a-figment-of-my-imagination vampire.

My core clenches as I picture him.

I stand.

I need to go.

Chapter 27

Vameer

In the waning light, I jump straight down.

My gravito catches me a moment before my feet hit the earth, making my landing silent.

I’m in an old town in the northeast of the States. The blue building I’m standing behind is a small, two-story home. Similar homes are on either side, their walls just feet apart. And the backyard is a small patch of dying grass surrounded by a fence.

No lights are on back here. No signs of people occupying the neighboring homes. No one to see me.

The other thing about this house…

I take a deep inhale.