Page 22

Yet beyond the more fantastical worries I have, ‌more mundane thoughts slip between the cracks.

Since moving to Moonfell less than a week ago, I feel I've been teleported into an alternate dimension. One where everything before that moment at the gas station simply stops existing.

The mundane thoughts have begun biting at the forefront of my mind. Thoughts that make me want to take my brain out of my skull and bash it with a baseball bat, then promptly put it back in and let out a sigh of relief.

For the past few hours, despite my sudden need to write, I’ve been listening to the same question whirling around in my head.

Am I an asshole?

I had walked out on Richard nearly a week ago. Xander blocked his number, and since then I've promptly fallen head over heels for Mr. Dark and Mysterious, who is totally a teddy bear with fangs. Maybe I should know better than not to be so trusting, but my soul sings when I'm around Xander.

Plus, it doesn’t help that I've hidden inside the house for over 48 hours since the night at the club with Tyler, and I haven't even begun to wonder how he’s going. Xander had let me know yesterday morning that Tyler was back at work. But I hadn’t stepped foot out the front door to go see him at the cafe.

Maybe it’s the fact that I'm terrified of ever witnessing him seizing the way he did in the club. The echoes of his broken voice bounce inside ‌my skull.

Someone’s already holding a piece of you. If they break it, you’ll break too.

I shiver as I finish the sentence I'm writing and look up from my laptop. The living room is eerily quiet despite the footsteps that occasionally clatter above my head from the second floor. Whatever haunts this house clearly can't sit still.

Nyx has been patrolling the house. Her meows echo through the rooms and hallways, and I swear I've caught her walking through walls from the edge of my vision. Pumpkin makes a clear effort to follow her everywhere she goes, and I completely understand. I’m also infatuated with my larger, handsome, peculiar man.

Just as I turn back to my laptop, there's a sudden knock at the front door.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I push my laptop away and stand from my spot on the sofa, my knees cracking from sitting cross-legged for the past few hours.

Xander didn’t mention anyone coming by for a visit. He’d simply left a note on the kitchen bench with his name marked as an ‘X’ — that I still pretend is a kiss—stating he’s out for the day. I rather enjoy his notes. And little to his knowledge, they are all saved in my underwear drawer.

I amble down the hallway and reach the front door. With my hand on the doorknob, I begin to turn it when a ferocious hiss explodes behind me. I jump with a shriek and let go of the door to find Nyx arching her back with her fangs flashing and her red eyes glowing. She’s huge when she puffs herself up, and her hiss is deep and pronounced. She doesn’t need to speak for me to understand what she means.

Fuck off.

I raise my hands and step away from the door, yet she still scowls from her spot, her eyes transfixed on the square frosted glass cutouts in the door.

I watch where she looks as a shadow moves over the gap and blocks the light. Whoever is out there, they don’t speak or knock again. Their footsteps shake the floor beneath me as the air in the hallway grows icy cold. I shiver and back away even further, finding myself hiding behind Nyx.

She licks her lips and lets out a few more terrifying hisses and snarls until whoever it is at the door backs away, letting the light filter back into the hallway. I hold my breath as panic claws at my chest.

As the minutes tick by and Nyx slowly relaxes until she’s grooming her paws and letting out a gentle purr, I remember the list of rules Xander had left on the fridge. If someone knocks on the front door three times, do not answer it.

I sigh. “I need these rules tattooed on my arm or something.” I chuckle at the idea and turn back to the living room, my book now long forgotten as I find something to watch on my computer instead while I wait for Xander to get home. In any other situation, I’d have been absolutely terrified, but for some unexplainable reason, I just ‌don't feel that scared. Sure, the ghostly footsteps that bound the hallway are unnerving, and the strange shadows that have a knack for knocking on the front door are uncanny, but maybe it’s the constant leathery smell that occupies my lungs with every breath that grounds me.

The entire house is imbued with Xander’s energy. From his constant smell in the air to the hand-painted portraits that hang from the walls. Those ‌Xander had delightfully explained, he was the one to paint them. Apparently, he went through a painting spree in the early eighties.

Nyx jumps up onto the sofa, purring loudly, while Pumpkin is quick to sidle ‌up beside her, give her a few kisses, and nudges. I smile down at the creatures and wonder if Pumpkin is aware that his girlfriend is a badass demon Hellcat who fights evil spirits.

I doubt it. He’s a little slow in the whole ‘awareness department’.

My heart still thumps in my chest as the afternoon grows old and my eyes grow heavy as I watch a few movies and catch up on my latest shows. It isn’t until my head nearly hits the back of the couch when the telltale rumble of a motorbike fills the house.

I smile and my stomach swoops as it grows louder until I can feel the growl of the engine in my chest. It rattles the walls, and the cats look around curiously until Xander kills the rumble and is quickly rushing through the door that connects to the garage.

For a moment, my breath catches in my throat at the sight of wide shoulders, covered in a black leather jacket and matching armored pants. I’m sure he just wears it to look cool, given he can be decapitated and still live.