To Kill a Vampire - A.K. Koonce Page 0,28
the door, my anxiety slipping away at the sight of her beautiful face.
On silent steps I cross the large room, kicking off my boots and slipping into bed with her. My knee barely touches the luxurious mattress when Fallon pushes me off the bed in one quick move. The old floorboards protest loudly as my back slams into the floor.
“Asher, you can’t be here,” she mumbles into her overstuffed pillow, as if she might just fall right back to sleep.
Gaping at her from my low position on the floor, a smirk threatens my lips. I stand and consider joining her once more, but decide better of it. Reluctantly, I lean against the farthest edge of her bed, a polished mahogany beam from the footboard supports my weight as I stare at her for a few seconds. Her hair is a tousled mess, curls wound tightly around one another in a thick tangle of softness against the white sheets.
“You’re a terrible vampire,” I whisper with a smile.
“Why do you say that?”
“You’ve slept almost the entire time you’ve been a vampire, for one.”
She laughs. She actually laughs. It’s the most beautiful sound I might ever hear.
“It’s just exhausting, I guess. It’s easier to sleep. To avoid … all of the issues.”
All of the happiness dissolves from the room with her statement. I swallow hard, my hands sneaking into my pockets to stop myself from crawling closer to her.
“The mortals are here. Right here in this camp.” My voice reaches to find a sound of achievement. A sound of astonishment that the statement deserves. With every breath I want to raise her falling morale. “Can you believe it? I never thought I’d see the day when a mortal would willingly stand side-by-side with a mystic …” I pause, but she doesn’t move from beneath her tangle of blankets. “They didn’t even look twice at me.”
I sigh, the breath making my smile falter just slightly.
“What do you think will happen to us?” she finally asks, her voice dipping with more sadness than I remember it ever holding.
The mortals would never accept her. She brought them all together, and they don’t even realize it. Not even Lord Raske has had the nerve to seek her out. But … he hasn’t pushed her out, either.
More than anything I wish I could lie to her and tell her we’ll live happily ever after once again, promise her we’ll grow old together, say we have the rest of our lives to figure it out …
But we won’t.
“I don’t know.”
Her body heaves with a shaky breath that makes me bite my cheek so hard I taste blood. If I could fix all of this for her, I would. But I can’t.
My chest tightens as I speak again. “Whatever happens, it’ll happen to us though.” My heart crumbles, breaking apart like an offering to her. “You’ll never have to do this alone, Fallon.”
A beat passes through the quiet, slipping between the cracks of the old floor boards and settling into the dirt. The silence makes me crazy, making me want to pour my heart out to her.
“I love you, Asher.” Her voice wavers just enough to make my pulse soar to life.
“I love you, too.”
My feet shift beneath me, but I manage to keep the space between us. I find myself almost calculating the minimal space between us.
“What you said earlier, was that the only thing that makes me a poor vampire?”
I try to think of something, anything to make her laugh again. “Well, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve snuck up on you.”
“If I recall, the last time you snuck up on me didn’t end too well for you.”
My chest warms as I smirk down at her. She hasn’t bothered to look at me once, and I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of her.
“My back does kind of hurt.”
A hum of laughter rumbles through her, her slender body shaking as she laughs into her pillow.
“You didn’t drink my blood the last time we were alone and you had the chance, either.”
The insinuating comment lingers around us, and she finally moves a little, twisting beneath the sheet but never turning to me. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing I am. My heartbeat roars through my chest, reminding me that she can hear more than the average mystic.
“Good night, Asher,” she says with finality, a hint of a smile in her voice. I roll my eyes at her dismissal before turning on my