He looked out over the hills, then back at me. “So, you know the Applebury Reserve is the only place that grows blue roses, right?”
“Um, yeah—I guess?”
“Okay. Don’t be scared.” He inched away, holding up his index finger. “Please don’t scream when you see this?”
My eyes locked to his. He smiled, standing so tall and so sure of himself. It was hard to doubt him when he looked like that. I almost hoped he could do what he claimed. I’d hate to think he was actually insane.
He scratched his temple for a second then held his palms out. “Nothing in my hands, right?”
“Right.”
He turned them over a few times; I nodded to confirm—again. “Now, don’t move?”
“Okay,” I started to say as a cold rush of air blew into my eyes. I closed them, feeling a tickle down my cheek, and the sweet, vibrant perfume of roses filled the air around me—flavouring my breath with a walk in the garden.
“Look.” His hot breath brushed right against my ear. When I opened my eyes and they met with his, he watched expectantly, a ghost of anguish pinching his brows.
“Huh!” My quick gasp made him smile. “How did you get that?”
“I told you. I run very fast.” He smoothed the petals of the blue rose over my cheek again.
“Yes. That is fast. I am jealous.” My eyes narrowed with scepticism. “Now, tell me how you really did it.”
David groaned in the back of his throat and took a step away. “I can see this is going to be a little more of a challenge than I anticipated.”
“What is?”
“You know, if this was the early nineteen-hundreds, you’d already be screaming.”
“Oh, and you speak from personal experience, do you?”
Without even a smile at my joke, he placed the thornless rose in my hand and pulled me along. “Come. Sit down.”
I plonked onto my feather quilt and dug my toes into the carpet. David stood before me, then looked over his shoulder—in the direction of my wardrobe. “You ready for this?”
“For what? A fashion show?”
He flashed a cheeky, lopsided grin, and vanished into thin air, appearing a second later by my wardrobe door.
“How…?”
“Do you believe me now?” He sprung up right in front of my face.
A quick, half-breath reached my lungs as I launched for my bedroom door, but his strong hand covered my mouth before my cry for help ever reached the ears of its intended. I convulsed violently, wriggling to break free from the intensifying hold.
Let me go! Get off me!
I tried to stomp on his toes but he moved his foot, and my heel struck the ground with knee-jolting force—sending instant tears into my eyes. I cried out under his iron grip.
“Ara! Look at me!” He shook me once, pinning the back of my skull to his chest, his forearm firmly caging my collarbones. “Just stop struggling. Look at me!”
Heaving lungfuls of air came through my nose, dragging strands of my hair with it, but with each passing breath, I managed to calm myself enough to stop struggling, but not enough to stop shaking. David’s hold relaxed a little, but stayed firm.
“If I let go, will you promise not to scream?”
I shook my head. He was a monster. A killer. Oh, my God. How did I not see this?
“Ara, please?” His deep, milky voice set my heart on fire with the hurt beneath his calm tone. I turned my head and forced my gaze upward, meeting the painfully detached ache behind the emerald eyes I loved so much.
“Mm-bm-mm-nn,” I muttered under his grasp.
He released me instantly and air entered my lungs in a grateful gasp. I folded over slightly, rubbing my chin.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m not hurt, I—” I bolted for the door again, reaching the handle as he pressed his palm flat to it, stopping it from opening. “No!”
“Ara, don’t.”
“Let me go.” I tugged the handle, bucking him with my hip.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I need you to calm down first.”
My fists tightened. “I’m calm.”
He just smiled, shaking his head. “You’re not calm.”
“Er!” I growled, shoving his chest; this time, unlike our fight on the field, he didn’t shift—not even a little bit. “Get away from me.”
“Make me.” He laughed, pinning my wrists against my chest.
My eyes darted over every inch of his face; his dark pink lips, his emerald eyes, so kind, so loving, and his dimple—the moon shape one above his lip. It was all David, but none of it was the boy I went to school with; he was never real. He never even existed.
David stood back. “Ara?”
“No.” I shook my head, dropping my hands to my knees.
“Ara, let’s talk about this.”
“What’s to talk about?” I stood up, pressing my spine to the door. “You—you’re a…you have fangs, and I can think of only one thing they would do.”
He touched his thumb to his tooth. “Yes.”
“Kill?” I confirmed.
“Yes.”
“Oh, God!” I folded over again, hiding my brow in my hands. “Why?”
“For…to survive.”
“Isn’t that a little selfish?”
He laughed once. “You’re serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious!”
“Uh, Ara, I don’t have a choice but to kill.”
“Everyone has a choice.”
“Not in this instance, sweetheart.” He wandered over and sat on my bed; I wanted to tell him not to call me sweetheart, but didn’t have the guts to say that to a vampire.
He smiled—his secret smile. “Do you really hate it when I call you sweetheart?”
My mouth hung open. “Did I say that out loud?”
“No.” He grinned, rubbing the tops of his knees. “I can read minds, Ara.”
I slid down the door and sat on the floor with my head in my palms. “How is that…possible?”
“I’m sorry,” David said.
I looked up quickly to his hand on my shoulder. “Get away from me.”
He evaporated, appearing by my window. I dusted my arm off, scraping away any vampire germs that might’ve been left behind, then looked over at him; he looked so conflicted yet so comfortable as he considered the world below. The muscles in his arms, with the way he folded them across his chest, looked bigger, more defined. And I had once wanted them on me, wanted to feel him against me. Now, I only felt anger at myself for that—for ever loving him when he was such a vile, disgusting monster.