Page 3 of Hungry for the Vampire

I took it from him, brushing it off. "Thanks." For being a huge slab of a guy capable of scaring off wolves, I was starting to find him surprisingly endearing. His mouth hadn't twitched toward a smile even once, but something about the way he spoke was a lot warmer than his exterior offered.

Not that his exterior is bad, either, I thought, gazing at him before he turned and we started walking. I forced my eyes off of him. Why had I just been ogling the guy? It must have been the adrenaline still working its way out of my system. It had made me burst into laughter for no reason at all, and now it was making me appreciate Roman's body.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. I just didn't typically spend any amount of time admiring dudes' bodies. It wasn't a way I'd ever swung before. Maybe part of it was just how impressively huge Roman was. Like, he had close to a foot of height on me, and everything he outweighed me by was solid muscle. If he really wanted to, he could have just tucked me under one arm and taken the two of us to the cabin like that.

Picturing that made my face hot. I swallowed.

"So, um, you're a vampire?" I asked him, looking at his costume.

Roman gave me an inscrutable look, not answering for a moment. Then he said, "Do you like the costume?"

"Yeah," I said instantly. "I think you wear it really well."

I wasn't sure exactly what I meant by that. It just felt right to say.

Roman tilted his head a little at that, but that was the most reaction I got. He replied, "My roommate helped choose it. I think it is too...old-fashioned."

"It definitely looks good," I assured him. "This is the classic vampire look. You're nailing it."

"Mm. Well, that is good. This way, be careful of the roots."

Roman walked between a pair of trees, and I followed him. His shiny black cape glistened in the moonlight. I wasn't sure exactly what he meant by old-fashioned, but his costume definitely looked newly purchased. Maybe he had wanted to go as a sexy, shirtless vampire? He definitely could have pulled that off.

No, that didn't seem like Roman's taste. But I was sure everyone at the party was going to love his costume. As good as he looked as a vampire, I was equally less impressive as a pirate. I was skinny, my pirate pants even baggier than they should ideally be, and if I walked the plank and then got pulled out of the sea, I would be 140 pounds soaking wet. I kept telling myself I would hit the gym and put on some muscle, and I just kept not doing it. My short brown hair was longer than Roman's, all hidden beneath my pirate hat.

The way Roman kept looking back at me, I wondered if he was judging my costume in the same way I was judging his. Nobody was going to be begging me to go shirtless.

"Stay close to me," Roman said, when I started to lag behind, and I hurried to stay with him.

"I can hear the party," Roman said, looking forward. "I would like us to go in together."

"Sure," I said, feeling my heart skip a beat for some reason. "But why?"

Roman glanced back at me, his dark eyes taking me in.

"To keep you safe," he said.

Chapter 3

When my friend Cecil had told me the party was going to be in a cabin, I had pictured something a little smaller. Especially considering how far out into the middle of nowhere we were. But this place was less of a cabin and more of a lodge.

I wasn't sure who exactly was throwing the party, but judging by the venue, they were definitely coming from money. We heard the place before we saw it, music thumping between the trees, and Roman and I emerged into the clearing where the cabin sat. Two stories tall, sleek wood siding that looked modern yet cozy, and a huge wraparound porch on which probably a dozen costumed people were dancing and chatting.

I followed in Roman's wake and saw the eyes on the porch turn toward us. Well, I'm sure they were turning toward him, probably not even seeing me.

"Thanks again, Roman!" I said to him—shouted, really, over the music—as we walked up the stairs to go inside. "I gotta find some people, but I'll see you around!"

Roman nodded and stepped graciously aside to let me in through the open front door. I took one more look at him, his huge chest filling out his fancy ruffled vampire shirt, the way his cape hung off his arm as he beckoned me forward. He may not have been doing it on purpose, but that pose he was striking really made the vampire look come together.

I grinned at him and walked inside, looking for Cecil and Greg and Malik and whoever else I might be able to find in this place. The music was as loud as the cabin was crowded, the throng inside explaining why people had spilled out onto the porch. The place was gorgeous, though it was hard to see it all through the haze of some fog machine that was pouring out ambience. The lights were low, the stairs on the left lit up for visibility where they ascended to the half-open second floor.

"This is sick," I said to myself as I pushed through people. I ended up shoving my plastic sword down my pants leg because it was too hard to navigate with it sticking out and banging into people. Why had I brought the damn sword?

"Hey! Jared!"

Malik's shout brought me over to him and Cecil. Malik was dressed as an MMA fighter, complete with some pretty cool prosthetic fight wounds that looked gnarly. Cecil was wearing some kind of superhero costume I didn't recognize, but it was black and gold and open at the chest.

"Pirate Jared!" Cecil clapped me on the shoulder. "Where's your parrot?"