To Love a Vampire - A.K. Koonce Page 0,61

obviously cares for you. You have friends in high places. We need to take advantage of those friendships.”

With every breath, his smooth, bare chest moves casually against my shoulder blades, a minor movement but I realize my own breaths are now matching his. I relax a little in his strong arms, the swift movements of his palm resume up and down my side, lulling comfort into me with every sweep of his fingers against my skin. I close my tired eyes once more.

Asher’s right. Tomorrow is a new day. With enough time we’ll fix everything. Everything will be different tomorrow.

Twenty-One

Emptiness

Asher

Restless fingers traced her beautifully jagged scar long into the night. Soft skin met my palms, trembling beneath my touch. I couldn’t believe it was real. I couldn’t believe she loved me, that she’s my wife.

I fell asleep with that thought circling my tired but bliss-filled mind. It was the most peaceful sleep I’ve ever had, her light breathing and restless movements lulling me into quiet dreams.

Until now.

My frantic eyes search her out in the dark room, hands pushing at the covers to find her slim body that warmed my side during the night. But she’s gone.

Shadows and silence are all that accompany me. I’m across the room and flinging open the heavy door in an instant. A muted sunrise greets my squinting gaze as I assess the miles and miles of blue crashing waves.

Panic floods me, clenching my lungs and crushing my chest with each passing second.

Something is wrong here. My human intuition mixed with my mystic heritage is enough for me to know immediately that something is very wrong.

Fallon wouldn’t have left me.

Would she?

I tramp the illogical doubt down. My kind is a scar to this imperfect and disfigured world but Fallon has never seen me that way… Maybe in the beginning, at the compound but that was before… Before our lives tangled and twisted around each other, forcing us to see each other clearly.

Throwing on a clean shirt and jeans, I tug on my boots as I walk down the makeshift sidewalk to the shore.

I can smell her here. Against the salty smell of the sea is her calming scent.

What the hell was she doing?

Up the winding coastline, I follow her scent, the strong morning waves of the sea push against my footsteps, against the trail of her.

Why would she have walked the shore? Did she need space away from me? A breath of air from the cramped house I built her? Did she hate it?

I wish I knew where all the festering doubt is coming from. My instinct is to push it down and smother it out before it crawls deep in my mind. Harsh words of the world have always been thrown my way. This time it’s different. This time I care what this human thinks of me. More than she will ever know.

Her scent fades in the breeze as the cliff that surrounds me ends and opens to the place that the Wanderers cast out their dead to the greeting ocean that will swallow them up—if the water fae don’t get to them first.

I kick at the smooth rocks, trying to make sense of what the hell is happening.

Fallon wouldn’t have left me.

She just wouldn’t.

After all we’ve been through. After last night… She loves me.

Then why isn’t she here?

I drop to my knee’s as the strength to stand starts to become too much. Water trails up in smooth, lazy waves, lapping at my jeans and drenching my thighs in cold salty water. My eyes trace the surface of the sea and I find myself leaning toward it.

“Where is she?” I whisper to the ocean, knowing it can hear me.

My heart pounds a nervous beat. I know what I’m asking for. I’m disturbing a race that would murder me just for addressing them, but I don’t care. I have to know if she’s safe.

The waves begin to still, the body of water becomes motionless, and I lean into it a bit more, looking into the clear blue water.

A long mass of white movement slithers up the coast just beneath the surface, rippling the stillness with every twist of its spin. The water fae slips through the ocean until it’s in walking distance, it crawls up to me on spindling colorless limbs. Slick white flesh covers its bony body, from its thin, lengthy feet to its smooth hairless head. Blank orbs stare into my eyes, she’s just inches from my face and studying me intently. Her lips