Empath (Book 1 of The Empath Trilogy)

  Ch. 11

  The next day I felt out of sorts all day. It was fortunate that I had three classes and was able to keep my mind busy in increments. I vacillated between giddy, butterflies in the stomach excited to nausea, gloom and doom fear all day. I was starting to wonder if I would even make it to tonight’s big date without having a breakdown. Correction, study session. Best not to even let my mind wander that direction. I couldn’t handle a human relationship much less one with an even more complicated creature who far outpaced me on the social scale.

  Upon booting up my laptop in my room during lunch break, I saw that Henry had emailed my new work schedule and, true to his word, I was off evenings for the next few weeks bringing us to Thanksgiving break and the time James anticipated the new coven’s arrival. Hopefully, no one noticed my boon of day shifts and got upset. Although I wasn’t friends with her, I hoped that my sort of friendship with Heidi wouldn’t suffer.

  Last night on the way home I had gleaned what I could from Stephen about James, aka James Thomas. He worked for the Star Tribune, the main Minneapolis newspaper as a travel writer, which gave him a valid cover story for his travels keeping up on vampire “business” all over the world. He wouldn’t tell me more than that, saying James’ story was his own, and anything more personal would have to come from him. Most of the supernatural crowd was like that, he said, there were some unwritten guidelines that everyone followed. Though a bit put off, I had to admit the idea of hearing his story in that melodic voice of his had a strong draw to it. Giggling to myself, I wondered if he had ever done one of those phone sex lines. He could make a fortune at it.

  Eventually classes were through and, after trying unsuccessfully for about two hours to study, the clock finally reached four. James had advised me to eat before going to his house. My guess was he probably didn’t have any people food if I did get hungry. I wasn’t sure if I could get or keep anything down though, so I figured it was safest to try my favorite snack, peanut butter toast and a cup of tea with cream and sugar. That would hold me and wouldn’t make me sick if my nervous stomach decided to rear its ugly head.

  As I tried to figure out when it would be decent to head over to meet James at the library, I looked at myself in the mirror. Blech! It wasn’t looking good. My dark, wavy brown hair was sticking up from being in and out of the wind all day, I had circles under my eyes from not sleeping well last night and my clothes were rumpled from being sat in. There was no way I was going to be taken seriously by anyone looking like this.

  My closet was not stocked with much for me to work with. Clearly I was not a Cosmo girl, nor did my lifestyle have much call for party attire. While I was washing my hair in the bathroom down the hall, I was clicking through fashion ideas. I finally settled on my favorite jeans and a cream v-neck sweater that accentuated my dark French features and lighter brown eyes. The clothes fit my petite athletic build well, but having heard that my eyes were my best feature, I decided to draw attention to them and throw a touch of dark eyeliner on. My hair was proving difficult, so I gave up and pulled my shoulder length hair back into a loose ponytail. Functional and hopefully reasonably attractive, that was the best it was going to get tonight.

  Five thirty. I could leave now and be justifiably early without appearing eager. It would only take about ten minutes to get to the front of the library. But he might be early so that would be reasonable, I justified to myself as I shrugged into my light green down coat. It was dark early now and with the wind up it was downright chilly. Winter was already bearing down on us. Every Minnesotan has at least three coats for all of the different flavors of fall and winter. This one was my favorite. I almost looked forward to colder weather so that I could add my fluffy cream scarf, hat and gloves that looked so good with it. I sighed, only here in the frozen north.

  Zipping up, locking my door, and putting my keys in my pocket had never felt so final. What if things went wrong and I died tonight? How long would it be before someone knew I was missing? Stephen would probably be the only one who would even notice my absence here on campus. My stomach gave a turn. Stephen wouldn’t let me go if I was in danger, he’d told me as much as had Troy when he’d offered clan protection. That extended to their allies, right? That was where the undeniably strong draw to James kicked in. I had to see him again. The idea of he and I together, alone, was both terrifying and irresistible all at once. Maybe I was one of those girls drawn to “bad boys.” No, there had been plenty of bad kids at my high school that did nothing for me. It was just this one. The sane part of my brain hoped for my safety that his allure would wear off as I spent more time with him. It looked like I would find out very soon.

  He was early. As I walked up to the library’s front doors from my side of campus, I looked to the curb just beyond and saw a sleek black car under the streetlight. Silhouetted in the foreground against the bushes across the road behind it, the car caught my attention, but that wasn’t what held it. There he stood, arms crossed and leaning against his car. He wore a light blue sweater, a glimpse of white undershirt visible at the open neck and dark blue trousers. How did he do that with his hair? He was pale, but not as pale as last night. Curious. Upon seeing me, he stepped forward a few feet and spoke to me without a readable expression on his face.

  “Claire, are you ready to come with me?” His voice sounded even better than I remembered. It was husky, as if he had lowered it for privacy; not that he needed to, this edge of campus was deserted this time of night. Everyone was either at dinner or evening classes.

  All of my breath left my body. Heart racing, stomach flipping, I nodded a “yes” as I stepped forward to meet him. James uncrossed his arms and turned gracefully to open the passenger door for me. I stepped in and buckled up. As I clicked my seatbelt, he was already in on his side and turning the key in the ignition. He was so quick it was unsettling. The movies had gotten that part right. What else had they been right about? I felt my stomach lurch.

  We drove quickly off campus and reached the freeway in less than a minute. His A6 was the nicest car I’d ever been in and it was hard not to relax into the butter soft leather of my seat as the engine growled its way out of the city. It didn’t take long, and before I’d gotten too comfortable, we were getting off the freeway at the Penn Avenue exit. I was relieved when we turned off and headed into the nicer area. Though I wouldn’t usually care if he lived in a nice neighborhood, I’d lived in some dicey military housing along the way, this was already a stressful situation and I felt just that little bit better knowing we would not be in a tough part of town should I need to make a run for it. He surprised me again by turning into a driveway just off the main drive in the upscale Kenwood neighborhood.

  The driveway was short, as they were in this older neighborhood. It was herringbone paving stones with a low stone retaining wall between his house and the neighbor to the right, which was the side the garage touched on and we now pulled into. The house itself was a Tudor style with a sweeping roofline and a higher peak over two stories. The stonework on the front made it look very storybook. It was hard to see the landscaping given the darkness, but I could see that he had a purple leaf sand cherry surrounded by roses in the front garden, uplit for effect. This was my kind of house, complete with a round topped wooden door.

  I must have sat too long, because by the time I took a breath and unbuckled my seatbelt, he was at my door opening it for me again. Not usually one for chivalry, I found myself a tiny bit pleased with his gentlemanly manner. Shaking my head, I tried to ignore the small voice in my head suggesting maybe that meant he wouldn’t eat me.

  When I looked out to stand up, he was just inches away, waiting. His effect on me was a repeat of the night before. It was going to be a challenge not to act like a total goober around him and convince him I was worth his time.

  James held out his hand to me, his eyes so intense I found it hard to breathe. “Are yo
u coming?”

  Breathe you moron, I told myself. “Yes, just give me a minute, I’m a little nervous. This is kind of new to me.”

  “What, going to a strange man’s house?” His lips twisted into an uneven grin, teasing me.

  “No, a vampire’s,” came blurting out before I could think.

  His features hardened and his eyes went dark. “Let’s go inside so that we can speak freely.”

  I wished the floor would open and swallow me whole. Vampires were real; why couldn’t people-swallowing-vortices be too? Why would I say such a thing on a public street in his neighborhood? I was guessing he didn’t want to be outed right here or he would have posted a sign.

  Deciding it was best to just keep my big mouth shut, I hung my head and followed him dutifully into the house.