Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I immediately took his side.
As of this chapter, she’d begun to suspect he was undead, whatever the fuck that meant. “I grabbed the crucifix my grandmother had left me, clasping it around my neck,” I read, gently rocking the swing with every push of my feet against the porch. “It was my best defense—” I snorted.
“What?” Grace asked.
“This author thinks that the symbol of the Christian faith is going to protect her from vampires?” What the hell else kind of nonsense was in here?
“Well, yeah.” Grace stared up at me like I was a fool.
Fuck, her eyes were beautiful. “That’s just…ridiculous. A crucifix won’t protect her from a vampire.”
“Oh? And what would?” she asked.
“Sunlight or another vampire,” I answered.
“So you’re an expert on vampires now, are you?”
“I would consider myself one, yes.” I turned the page.
“Why? Because you’ve read Dracula? Every author is allowed to make up their own rules. It’s fiction. Keep going. I want to see if you blush at the steamy parts.” Her eyes sparkled.
“It’s hard to make me blush at anything when you’ve lived as long as I have.” I started reading again, rolling my eyes as the detective armed herself with a root vegetable and went out into the night, seeking her killer.
Naturally, she was sexually attracted to the vampire. Our species used our looks to our advantage when it came to our human prey. At least that was realistic.
Grace’s breathing evened out as she lay in my lap, listening.
When the vampire cut open the lip of the detective in an ill attempt at a kiss, I shook my head.
“What?” Grace whispered, her blinks coming slower and slower. “Not realistic?”
“I guess if you’re only a hundred, it makes sense,” I muttered. “But no respectable vampire is going to be so careless the first time he kisses someone. Shows a total lack of self-control.”
“I think it’s kind of hot,” she said.
I stared down at her, fighting the ache in my own fangs to descend, to bite, to taste, and claim. But I wasn’t a hundred-year-old youngling. I had some fucking control. “Of course you would. You’d probably run up to the first vampire you found and bare your neck in offering just so you could feel like you lived your life to the fullest.”
“Hmmm. Not a bad idea.”
My eyes flared, and I jerked my gaze from hers and back to the paperback. I wasn’t going there. Nope. Not even thinking about it.
I read until the rhythm of her breathing slowed with her heartbeat, then kept going until I was certain she was deeply asleep. She was so trusting. Too trusting.
Mine. In the quiet of the night, my instincts rose.
Not yours, you asshat.
I pocketed the paperback and then carefully stood, lifting Grace into my arms. Her head rolled against my chest, but she didn’t wake, only proving my point that she needed sleep. Then I opened her front door and headed toward where her scent was strongest, up the stairs and through the first door on the left.
Her bedroom was a little cluttered, the decor utterly feminine, and I had to smile that she’d left her bed unmade. It made it easier to slide her between the covers.
I tucked her in, lifting her blankets to her neck, and then listed every single reason it would be wrong to sit in that armchair by the window and watch her sleep, settling for reason number thirteen: it was creepy as hell.
Then I checked the locks on every window and the deadbolts on the front and back door before wending out of her living room to where I’d parked the car.
My instincts roared that I was leaving her defenseless, and in a way, they were right: I couldn’t protect her from the very thing killing her from the inside.
4
GRACE
“You still drinking this nonsense without cream and sugar?” Maria asked as she held up the communal pot of coffee in her office building.
“Yep,” I said, smiling at her as she poured me a cup of the good stuff.
She shook her head, handing me the paper cup. “Here’s your hot bean water then,” she said, then fixed one for herself, loading it up with sugar and peppermint creamer.
“And there is your cup of hot sugar,” I teased right back, and we tapped our paper cups together before heading through the hallway to her office. “How are things going this week?” I asked once I sat down on the other side of her desk.
Maria was my only family, but she had an extended one of her own that included as many children in need as she could home. She’d started out small, but had eventually expanded her offices to include a certified estate where those who couldn’t be placed in a foster home right away could stay and have some sense of stability before they transitioned to the next.