“Let go of me,” I said, my voice rough.
He dropped his hand from my face; he seemed surprised, like he hadn’t expected such resistance from me, especially after we’d shared such a heated embrace. But his expression also revealed disappointment. Whatever he’d just been doing had not had the desired outcome.
“Jolie …”
It was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to go away if I didn’t tell him what the hell I’d seen. Well, fine, let him make sense of it.
“I saw what looked like a battlefield and it was dark out, nighttime I guess. People were fighting and I could feel death all around.” I took a deep breath; this next part caused a lump to form in my throat. “But the part that doesn’t make sense to me is that you and I were both there.” I glanced away, feeling like an idiot for disclosing such outrageousness. But when I focused on his eyes again, they looked victorious, smoldering.
“Go on,” he said softly.
I couldn’t look at him. “I could feel pain burning my insides and when I looked down at myself, I realized I’d been stabbed.”
He nodded and sighed sadly, as if he was reliving this story as I was telling it—as if he’d been there. “Was there any more?” he asked.
I couldn’t help it, so I looked up at him again. He was still wearing a small, triumphant smile. It made no sense. Why wasn’t he insisting I was a charlatan, that I was full of it? “You were crying,” I finished in a small voice, crossing my arms over my chest. “You were holding me and crying.” I shook my head, suddenly exhausted. “It makes no sense to me and you shouldn’t even consider it a vision. It’s just a bunch of mumbo jumbo.” I brought my gaze back to his and sighed. “Are you satisfied now?”
He didn’t say anything; he just stared at me for two seconds before nodding. His hands twitched at his sides as if he wanted to reach out and touch me, but he restrained himself. “I am. Thank you.”
But his lack of surprise suddenly bothered me, worried me. “Does that make any sort of sense to you?” I inquired, wondering why he was acting relieved by what I’d told him.
He started to answer, but then stopped himself, his striking eyes softening with his smile. God, why did he have to be so completely beautiful? And why did I need to fight my feelings for him? Why did part of me want nothing more than to be close to him? Maybe he’d bewitched me? Maybe he was some sort of witch doctor or wizard or magician or something equally crazy.
“No,” he said almost sadly as he shook his head. “No, it doesn’t make any sense.”
But somehow I didn’t believe him. “Why are you here?”
He seemed surprised that I had asked. “Isn’t it quite obvious?”
There was no point in holding back now. I’d already demonstrated the fact that I was anything but sane by relating the whole bizarre vision to him. I might as well complete the lunacy by asking him what the hell he was. “No it’s not obvious at all. Why is it that when you touch me, I feel this energy traveling through me? Why do you have an electric blue aura? For that matter, why is it that I seem to have no willpower whatsoever when you’re … close to me? You must have some sort of psychic power?”
He smiled but said nothing. I didn’t get the chance to further question him, though, because he suddenly stepped away from me, like he was finally ready to leave. “Thank you for your time, Jolie.”
I didn’t say anything, figuring he was going to walk out of my life just as quickly and easily as he’d walked into it—and if this was one mystery that was never solved, I was fine with it. I mean, I already had enough weird and random stuff going on in my life; I really didn’t want to make room for more. So if he was determined to walk right out of my life, I wasn’t about to stop him. I watched him smile almost apologetically as he turned and walked out of the reading room, opening the front door and disappearing down the street.
At the end of the following day, I drove the fifteen minutes from my store to my house, still constantly replaying last night’s strange events in my already muddled head. If I didn’t have a stroke soon, it would be a wonder.
Sinjin is a vampire, and the man I met last night, Rand, must be something otherworldly too.
It was the only way I could make sense of how I’d acted like a complete and total Froot Loop around him. He must have bewitched me; that’s all there was to it.
I mean, I kissed him! A complete stranger!
I inhaled deeply and then exhaled the pent-up frustration inside me, wondering what the hell had become of my life. In less than two weeks, everything I knew had been completely turned on its head and I was acting like a crazy person.
I pulled into my garage, put the car into park, and turned off the engine. I didn’t move, though. Instead, I just sat there, staring at the wall in front of me as I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
Why did Rand show up at my store? What does he want from me? What is he after? And why did that so-called vision seem to please him so much? And furthermore, why did I meet Sinjin the week before? Why are supernatural beings suddenly seeking me out?
There were just too many unanswered questions and I instantly felt like I was going to be sick. I opened the car door, then reached over to grab my purse. Glancing up, I saw Sinjin standing in my driveway, bathed in moonlight.
My heart climbed into my throat.
“Poppet,” he said with a wickedly sexy smile. And if I’d never appreciated how incredibly gorgeous he was before, it now hit full-force over my already aching head.
He was dressed in black as usual, but with the moonlight glowing around him, he almost looked angelic. Of course I knew better. This was no angel I was dealing with.
I felt my hands go clammy as my heartbeat started racing. I unfastened my seat belt and stood up, taking a few steps from the car. “You stay away from me,” I said, throwing myself forward and slamming the button on the wall that closed the garage door. But just as I’d expected, Sinjin moved much faster than the garage door did and before I knew it, he was standing right in front of me. The door closed on us both and we were bathed in darkness.
“I know what you are,” I said, but my voice was shaking. I started feeling along the wall for the door that led into the house, suddenly remembering how I could save myself. “I withdraw your invitation to enter!”
Sinjin chuckled heartily, but I didn’t give myself time to consider his reaction. Instead I found the doorknob and opened it as quickly as I could, the light from my kitchen cutting through the darkness of the garage. Sinjin was suddenly standing directly in front of me, maybe two inches of air separating us. I screamed and threw myself into the kitchen, tripping over the step I’d forgotten about in my haste. Hauling myself upright, I turned around, watching him to see if my annulled invitation had prevented his entry.
“Poppet,” he started and shook his head like the joke was on me. Then he took a deep breath, which I assumed was for show because vampires can’t breathe, since they’re dead, right? I didn’t have much time to debate that fact because Sinjin stepped into my house, just like that.
He didn’t do anything right away. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting—maybe that he would dissolve into my floor or burst into ash right in front of me? But no, that didn’t happen either. He just continued staring down at me. A few seconds later, he threw his head back and chuckled. And that was when I realized I was as good as dead.
“Why didn’t it work?” I screamed and started to back away.
“Because it is a fallacy that the vampire requires an invitation to enter someone’s home, love,” Sinjin replied and stared down at me with a twinkle in his eyes, which were now fully white. His fangs lengthened as I watched, gaping up at him.
At the mention of the word vampire, something inside of me burst. I was filled with fear and anger.
I won’t go down without a fight. I won’t let him kill me without at least trying to do some damage of my own.
I took a deep breath and then lunged for my kitchen counter, reaching
for the knife block. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking because, of course, Sinjin was much faster. He bowled into me and knocked me off balance, grabbing me around the waist to keep me from falling over. Holding my hands at my sides, he turned me around until I was facing him.
He smiled and cocked a brow. “I am impressed, little poppet.”
“Stop calling me that,” I said as I tried to keep the tears at bay, my heart thundering in my ears. I would not allow myself to cry. This bastard could torture me and kill me but I wasn’t going to give him the benefit of my tears.
“I can smell your fear,” he said. I could only imagine the perverse pleasure he was taking in this whole situation.
“Let go of me,” I seethed. I pulled against his stranglehold on my arms, but it was useless. I was beginning to regret the fact that I hadn’t taken Christa up on her offer to stake him.
“I must admit I expected it to take longer for you to sort out exactly what I am.”
I shook my head and glared at him. “Well, you underestimated me.”
He shrugged and appeared indifferent, bored even. “Perhaps I did, love.”
I suddenly felt a wave of panic wash over me and the tears were building in my eyes again. “Whatever you’re going to do to me, please make it quick,” I said in a small voice, hoping he wasn’t going to take some sort of sick joy out of draining me, eating me.
There was a sudden expression of surprise on his face. “Do to you?” he repeated and then shook his head. “Are you suggesting I would harm you?”
“Um, yeah,” I said with a frown. “Isn’t that …”
“I would never hurt you,” he said, as if the mere thought angered him.
“Don’t play games with me, Sinjin,” I yelled at him. “Respect me enough not to play games with me!”
He grabbed the back of my neck and forced my head upright, making me look into those eerie white eyes. “I am your protector, poppet. I would kill any man or creature who ever threatened you.”
“But you … you’re a vampire?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Vampires eat people,” I finished, swallowing hard.
He chuckled. “We do not eat people as you would suggest, love.” Then he smiled down at me in a sweet sort of way, which sounds ridiculous because he was a monster and could easily have ripped my throat out. “We drink from donors, yes.”
“Donors?” I repeated. “People willingly …”
“Quite so. A vampire’s bite is not necessarily painful.” The way he said it caused shivers to run up my spine. But not from fear.
“It wouldn’t hurt?”
He shook his head and smiled. “It can be a quite … pleasurable experience, pet.”
The last thing I wanted to think about was pleasurable experiences. Not when I still hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that (1) Sinjin really was a vampire, and (2) he didn’t appear to have any plans to kill or maim me, at least not for the time being.
“Unless the donor in question is a witch, in which case, it can be quite painful,” he added with a grin that said he thought the whole conversation was comical.
But I wasn’t concerned with witches and painful vampire bites at the moment. Instead, I was concerned with the more important thing. “You promise you won’t hurt me?” I asked again, trying to decide whether I was truly safe.
“Of course not!” he said with another chuckle, as if he was thoroughly amused by the whole exchange.
“I … I don’t understand,” I said, my voice breaking.
He pulled away from me and allowed me to find my balance. “What is there to understand, love? I am a vampire, yes, but no, I would never harm you. And as to drinking from you …” He smiled that devilishly handsome smile and looked me up and down. “I would only do so if you asked.”
I exhaled a pent-up breath of anxiety and tried to make sense of everything he’d just said. “Why are you here?”
“I came to inquire as to whether you received the bouquet I sent.”
I shook my head. “No, I mean, why are you in my life? I can’t imagine that you walked into my store by sheer accident.”
He smiled down at me and shook his head. “You are quite observant, my love.”
“Answer the question,” I insisted, feeling a new wave of courage growing inside of me, probably given the fact that I was no longer worried about being Sinjin’s dinner.
He nodded. “I cannot explain everything at the moment, poppet, but I will tell you that you are correct. I did not happen upon you by chance.”
“So?”
He ran his fingers through my hair. There was something in me that still wanted to shrink back. Maybe it was just because he was a vampire, the cat to my mouse.
“I am your sworn protector.”
“My sworn protector?” I repeated, shaking my head in doubt. “Why would I need a protector, Sinjin? What would I possibly need protection against?”
His jaw went tight. “You have many enemies.”
I dropped my head into my hands, frustration eating me from within. “Enemies?” I asked, finally looking up at him. “Sinjin, I barely even have friends!”
“I know this is difficult to grasp, poppet, and you do not realize your own abilities yet, but in time, you will.”
“My own abilities?” I couldn’t stop repeating every thing he said. An ache began throbbing behind my eyes, promising a migraine. I needed nothing more than an early night and a few Tylenol PMs. A sworn protector who also happened to be a vampire did not figure into my plans. “Abilities in what sense?”
Sinjin sighed as if he didn’t have the patience to explain. “You are a witch, love.”
“A witch?” My voice broke into an acidic laugh. And at that exact moment I realized that I wanted no part of this. Witches, vampires, men who seemed to radiate energy … I wanted nothing to do with any of it. Instead, I wanted my life to go back to how it had always been—predictable, yes, but also stress-free.
“Poppet,” Sinjin started.
“No!” I interrupted and stepped away from him. “I want you to leave and never come back again, do you understand?”
“Love …”
I shook my head and crossed my arms against my chest. “I’m not a witch and I never will be. That’s all there is to it.”
“Do not fight what you are,” he said, and his eyes were narrowed, angry.
“I don’t ever want to see you again.” I headed for the front door and pulled it open, signifying that I wanted him out of my house and, more pointedly, out of my life.
Sinjin frowned, but he started for the door. Instead of leaving, he paused at the threshold to turn and face me again. “I will leave you this evening because I believe there is much on your mind.”
“Never mind what’s on my mind. This ends here and now.”
He cocked an irritated brow and was quiet for a few seconds before he finally spoke again. “When you are ready for my assistance, I purchased the home you found on Potter Street.” He paused for a second or two. “I believe you know the address.”
I was surprised that he’d already bought a home. I mean, it had been only a few days since I’d given him all the information on each property. But that really wasn’t my concern anymore. “Fine. Good. Now I want you to leave.”
He didn’t say anything more, but he nodded and disappeared into the darkness.
“So he didn’t try to attack you?” Christa asked. Her mouth had been hanging open ever since I told her that Sinjin had shown up at my house and admitted that he was a vampire. Sitting on the stool behind the counter, she watched me as I paced back and forth.
“No, he didn’t attack me,” I said, feeling my heartbeat escalate as I dredged up the memory. “He said he would never hurt me and that he was my protector or some crap.”
Christa smiled dreamily. “That’s so romantic.”
I eyed her dubiously and shook my head. “You’re insane. A few days ago you wanted to stake him.”
“I?
??m over that,” she said dismissively before her eyes lit up again. “Really, Jolie, it’s not every day a girl gets an incredibly hot man, er vampire, who’s also her sworn protector.” She paused for a second or two, as if she was imagining what she would have done in my position, then faced me again. “Why did you tell him to leave?”
I frowned at her. “You’re seriously asking me that, Chris?”
Christa shrugged. “Vampire sex sounds like it could be super-hot.”
“Oh my God, that’s all you think about,” I said, striding from the front door back to the reading room door, only to turn around and repeat.
“Sounds to me like there was nothing to be worried about and you got rid of a perfectly good man.”
I stopped pacing and threw my hands onto my hips. “Vampire, Chris, he’s not a man. He’s a vampire.”
She waved away my concern with nails that were now polished lilac. “He said he was your protector—I mean, what more do you want? If you ask me, you shouldn’t have told him to leave. There’s obviously a reason he came into your life.”
I’d also reached the same conclusion last night after Sinjin left but I still wanted nothing to do with any supernatural creatures, no matter how appealing they might be. “Chris, who could he possibly protect me against? Who could be after me and for what? For not feeding my cat on time or for watching too many reruns of Lost? I mean, seriously, I have no life!”
Christa shrugged and raised her brows, offering me a wounded expression. “You don’t have to yell at me, Jules, jeez.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. This whole thing is just incredibly frustrating and I have no idea why it’s happening to me or what I’m supposed to do about it. I just want it all to end so my boring-ass life can return.” I took a deep breath and faced her with a smile. “FML, Chris,” I muttered. “Fuck my life.”
She laughed, no doubt pleased that I’d stolen her phrase. “Well I guess you put the kibosh on the whole thing by telling the hot vamp to take a hike, so end of story, right?”