Survivor - By Kaye Draper Page 0,60

the door. “How are you holding up?” His tone was light, but I knew he was serious. I knew he was close to Leah. She had probably sent him to check up on me.

I waved away his concern. “I’m fine, just going stir crazy.”

He reached into the bag he was carrying and brought out a stack of books and movies. “I thought you might like these.”

“Thanks.” I took his gift into the living room, and Haine followed. He arched his eyebrows when he saw the new layout of the room.

“You’ve redecorated…”

I laughed sarcastically. “Someone broke the couch. So we had to get a new one.” I shrugged. So I broke things. Big deal. It was Peter’s fault for provoking me. “Since I don’t have anything better to do, I re-arranged the room.”

Haine laughed, his beautiful voice filling the room with warmth. “I see.”

I sifted through the pile of books, stopping when I found a graphic novel in the mix. “You read this stuff?” I was surprised, as always, to find that the other vampires had as many human quirks as I did.

He ran a hand through his silky hair, embarrassed. “Well…I wasn’t sure what you liked, so…”

He held out his hand to take it back, but I didn’t give it to him. “C’mon. I’ll show you the library.” I led the way to the little guest room that Peter and I had converted to the library. He already had a huge book collection before he took me in, but with me being housebound, it had grown so much it needed its own space.

“This is nice,” Haine said, looking around. Most of the room was floor to ceiling bookshelves, lined with neat rows of books. A massive roll-top desk and computer took up most of one wall. A couple of overstuffed chairs and a footstool were arranged in the middle of the room. I went to my side of the room and pulled out a few slender, hard cover books, replacing them with the ones Haine had brought.

I handed him the books, grinning like a geek. “I’m sure you’ve read both of these series, but these are the newest volumes. I don’t think they’ve been officially released yet.” Peter had pulled some strings.

His fingers curled around the spines as if they were a rare treasure, and he returned my grin. “I don’t have them yet.” He flopped down in one of the chairs and started leafing through one of the graphic novels with the urgency of a fellow geek. I took the other chair and shoved his gigantic feet out of the way to make room for mine on the footstool.

“Peter teases me for reading about fairies.” I had explained to him that they were evil fairies, and thus way cooler than your average Tinkerbell, but he still laughed. “He said I should just watch cartoons if I was going to read picture books like a kid.”

Haine grunted a reply and kept reading. It was warm in the library, and the quiet sounds of sliding paper combined with Haine’s strong aura were comforting. I didn’t mean to doze off.

I snapped awake and stared into big sparkling pools of blue. Haine’s face was inches from my own. “What….” I belatedly realized that I must have fallen asleep. How could I have done something so stupid?

“Melody, are you okay?” My head started to clear and I realized he had been calling my name for a while now. We were on the floor, and he held me in his lap, cradling me in his arms.

I sat up straighter, pulling away from his broad chest. His nearness and the scent of his emotions- fear, and something tender- weren’t doing me any favors.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to pull it together. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” My voice had dropped, and it came out all sultry. Crap, I was thirsty. I clamped down on my instincts and focused on the fear. Shit, I had just fallen asleep in front of another vampire. I had just revealed a huge weakness. Peter would be pissed.

I slid off his lap, and he let me go, breathing a sigh of relief. “You were just sleeping?” He shook his head and looked down at his hands. “Sleeping…” His eyes met mine and one corner of his mouth turned up in a weak smile. “I thought you were dying or something. I’ve never seen a vampire do that. It never even occurred to me you were…just sleeping.” He laughed.

I nodded. “I’m