Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Make sure you keep hydrated.”
I loved the way he was so attentive, with care in his eyes. It was quite an intense combination of authority and almost parental care, mixed with the unmistakable buzz of sexual attraction. How did that work? And that wasn’t the entirety of it, either. What other subtle dynamics were playing on different frequencies between us?
“Like I said, feeling not thinking,” Hans said. “Don’t try to fathom the unfathomable. Life is complicated. Souls are both too simple and too complex to understand all at once.”
I held my hands up. “Busted! I’ll try to keep my brain spinning to a minimum. Not sure how well I’ll succeed, though.”
I failed miserably in a heartbeat, since another question came out of nowhere.
“What happened to the people around you when you became a vampire? Did you have friends? A family? There must have been so much that changed.”
“That’s a deep one to answer at 5 a.m.” He yawned but I’m sure it was faked.
“Maybe give me a condensed version?”
“Hmm.”
He looked wistful as his mind turned inwards, no doubt looking back a long, long time.
“I was devoted to the Church and my role in the Templars. One of the vows was celibacy, so I didn’t have a family. My parents were in Normandy. I wrote letters but hadn’t seen them in years. I had grief for the people I lost, yes, but that grief was mainly for the brothers being interrogated to death all around me. Plenty of us got taken down.”
I felt like I’d overstepped the mark by probing so deep into his past, but he took my hand.
“You can ask questions. As I said, I’m happy to answer them. Just make sure you want to know the answers before you voice them aloud.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I squeezed his fingers. “Your life is fascinating.”
He looked straight into my eyes, and something in his expression made it clear once more that he knew an awful lot I didn’t. It made sense that he would do, clearly, since he’d been alive seven hundred years to my measly eighteen, but it didn’t feel like it was purely historical knowledge he had over me. It felt like extra knowledge about me.
The trapdoor.
“And there we go with the thoughts again.” He let go of my hand and patted it. “Be careful.”
I wanted to ask him straight out just what the hell I was sensing in my subconscious that was scaring the shit out of me, but I kept my mouth shut this time.
I’d figured that the trapdoor had only appeared since meeting Hans, but had it? Didn’t I have a sense of it from a long, long time ago, when I was a kid asking Mum and Grandma questions? It was just a whisper of the past, but whispers often tell more truth than shouting.
I’d always been shouted down and told to stop living in fairy tales. My questions about the depths of my dreams had always been met with nothing.
Did I want to know now? Did I want to know the answers from Hans?
The idea gave me an eerie tickle up my spine.
No. I didn’t. Not yet.
I stretched my arms and yawned, finally accepting my exhaustion.
“Time for bed,” Hans said.
We headed up the stairs hand in hand. My vampire guided me to an armchair in his bedroom and sat me down while he went to the fridge and poured a fresh glass of water for me.
Again, I felt like a little girl, so looked after it was beautiful. Safety in the care of a vampire, who’d have even considered it? I’d have expected to be either dead or a vampire myself by now.
I hadn’t voiced that to myself before…
Dead or a vampire?
I drank my water while Hans bolted us into the bedroom, and my mind kept going through those same two outcomes.
Dead or a vampire?
Well, I certainly wasn’t dead yet, and didn’t think Hans was going to suck my blood completely dry anytime soon, but what about the other option? What about being a vampire myself?
“I can hear your thoughts, you know,” Hans commented as he hung his robe up on a hanger. Of course my eyes went straight to his naked butt… and then to his beautiful cock when he turned to face me.
“Yes, I do know you can hear my thoughts,” I said, my gaze eventually meeting his. “So, are you going to make me a vampire one day?”
I wasn’t really asking the question seriously, not right then. I was still so heady from a bloodthirsty fucking and a huge steak.
“That would be a massive commitment,” he told me, his eyes so serious.
I felt like an idiot for asking. Yes, it would be a massive commitment, he’d likely be stuck with me clinging onto him for all time…
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “Not a massive commitment for me, but for you.”