Page 18 of Hungry for the Vampire

The smile got bigger still. And was that a hint of a blush in his cheeks? My big, strong Roman? I think that it was.

"Thank you," he said. "Though it is still my custom and my duty to care for you until you're no longer in danger. And I promised you dinner."

"Ooh." I sat up, finding new energy. "Lasagna."

"Lasagna," Roman said. "After I get us a new towel."

Epilogue

One Month Later

It had been a while since I'd had someone take care of me the way Roman did. Looking out for me. Concerned for me. Feeding me. Damn, that lasagna had been good. I wanted to ask him where he'd gotten it, but I kept forgetting. In the grand scheme of things, it just wasn't very important.

That same night, late into the evening, Roman had taken care of the werewolves. He had actually brought me with him, saying I would be safer at his side. And that was probably true, but I also think that neither of us wanted to be apart from each other that night.

I didn't know what I had expected—some big fight, a showdown maybe? But it turned out the matter wasn't so spectacular. There was no bloodshed, no fangs bared on either side. He and I went back to the woods where I'd first come across the werewolves, and we met with not a wolf, but a man. Well, a werewolf in his human form, apparently, whom Roman had agreed to meet with when they'd 'spoken' in the parking lot at my building. He was older than us, and he did have gray wolfish eyes and dark, shaggy hair, though he was dressed normally enough.

It turned out I was the only partygoer to get so lost as to stumble into their territory. They weren't going to hurt me when they'd first seen me; they had just wanted to scare me off. But when Roman had gotten involved, the wolves had assumed it was an attack. The stories of vampires and werewolves not getting along were pretty accurate, it turned out. So they'd followed me, and things had escalated.

Nothing is more powerful than diplomacy, though. Roman cleared up the matter with the werewolf, who I'd assumed was the alpha or something, though I didn't ask. He was plenty intimidating in his human form, but he did shake my hand and Roman's. Water under the bridge.

Now, a month later, there was a bigger problem gnawing at me. Roman and I were dating. That wasn't the problem. It had been a ridiculously amazing month, the time had absolutely flown by, we'd ruined some sheets, we'd ditched some classes together, and we'd learned how to cook some passable meals with the help of his roommate Todd. The guy knew his stuff.

No, the problem was that the semester was ending, and Roman hadn't been planning on staying in the states once it wrapped up. He was just here for a year, and he'd started in the spring semester. Then it was back home, back to whatever duties awaited him as a vampire. I hadn't learned a lot about that part of his life. We had mostly been focused on us.

It was the last day of classes, a chilly day in early December. Most people were rushing to their next class, or to their cars, to get out of the cold. Roman and I didn't mind it so much. We walked the campus. It felt almost private, mostly devoid of people, with a dusting of snow on the ground. The snow wasn't bad. It was the wind chill that scared people inside.

Roman had a black peacoat and red scarf on, an outfit that suited him so perfectly that he could have been on the cover of a fashion magazine. I'd gotten pretty into scarves lately, too, because Roman tended to go a little crazy sucking on my neck. We were working on that.

"Let's sit down," I said as we came up to a bench on the quad. I brushed the snow off the seat and we sat down together, like we'd done the first night we met, and like we'd done a lot since then. It was cold, but it was cozy.

The problem was that I didn't know what to say. I liked him. A lot. But what was I supposed to do, hang onto his legs and tell him not to go home? I didn't want to be that guy—I didn't want to be that boyfriend. Thing was, I didn't want to be the long-distance boyfriend, either. I just wanted...

I sighed. The air puffed out of my mouth and drifted away. Roman turned to me.

"I'm trying to figure out how to do this," I said.

"Do what?" Roman asked me. His look was curious; concerned. Even though there wasn't any real danger anymore, he was still protective over me. Not overbearing. Just caring. I loved that about him.

"How to..." I pursed my lips, hating how hard this was. "How to have a difficult conversation with you."

"Ah." Roman nodded sagely. "Because it is the end of the semester."

"Yeah," I said. The fact that he was leaving was a big elephant in the room. It wasn't a secret. He'd had people say goodbye to him right in front of me, friends giving him fist bumps and quick hugs. Picturing myself doing that to him wasn't something I could find the strength to do.

"I told you the other week I've been in talks with my family," Roman said, "did I not?"

"Yeah, yeah, you did," I told him. "Getting your schedule in order, or whatever."

"Something like that." Roman's face had been deadpan, heavy and serious. But there, just now, was the smallest twitch.

"Hey. Hey." I poked a finger into his arm. "I saw that."

"It's been difficult to plan," he continued, but he was weakening. Something was coming through.

"Roman, I swear to god," I started.

"So many pieces to arrange," he said, raising a hand in the air and twirling it. "Accommodations. Transferring of moneys. Matriculation. Visits back home, because I cannot remain gone all of the time."