Lucky me, I thought. Raptor-like vision and yet, as the creature, I could read.
Had anyone bothered to look up, they wouldn’t see much. Just a shadow passing beneath the smattering of stars, briefly blotting out the celestial lights. Perhaps a stray strobe light might fall across me. This was, after all, Hollywood. But mostly, I was high enough and dark enough to go unnoticed, which I did, looking down at the mortals who went about their lives, idolizing stars, dreaming of stars, never guessing that something now flew among the stars themselves, directly overhead.
I banked to starboard and headed for the LAPD station, where I’d left my car earlier today.
As I flew, I turned my thoughts toward the person I had seen feasting on the young woman...and to the person I had seen step out of the shadows.
I had put off thinking about it.
I didn’t want to believe it.
But I had seen him clearly. He was wearing his own hoodie, and his eyes glowed softly from within the dark depths. Not all vampires could see the flame just behind the iris. I could. Again, lucky me.
Fang’s eyes had been glowing softly with twin flames of fire as he watched from the tree line. He did more than watch, of course. He soon came over and knelt next to the dead jogger, and when he lowered his face to her neck, I snapped out of the reverie.
But not before I’d seen Detective Hanner smile broadly, her lips coated with fresh blood. Another bitch.
I continued along, banking again and headed toward downtown.
Once there, I circled high above the police station, wondering if I would show up on any radar, but doubting it. I found an alley not too far away, and dropped down into it.
Yes, there was a bum sleeping in it. No, he didn’t wake up, even when a hulking, winged creature settled in next to him, a creature that I now knew was summoned briefly from an alternate world.
So weird, I thought, as I focused on the naked woman in my thoughts...the woman who was the real me.
She stepped forward, and I gasped, and the sensation that came over me was not entirely unpleasant. No, I didn’t go through a physical transformation. My bones didn’t break or elongate, and I didn’t twist and writhe in pain, all of which, I was sure, made for good TV or movies.
I’d come to understand the process of transformation as the slipping into and out of existence, slipping into and out of this world and another.
And, naked as the day I was born, as I unwrapped my clothing, I suddenly wondered where, exactly, I disappeared to. Where did this body go?
If I summoned the winged creature from another place and time, did I, perhaps, switch places with it? I doubted it, but now I suddenly wanted to know.
Where did I go?
I would tackle that question another time.
For now, I had Fang on my mind, and in my heart. Seeing him again, even as he approached a murdered woman, even as he gazed down upon her dead body with hunger in his glowing eyes, brought back a very intense feeling within me.
I remembered just how much I’d loved him.
Lord help me, I loved him still.
Chapter Eighteen
We were in bed together.
It had been a fun night. A sweet night. We had held hands and laughed and kissed. I needed this final, sweet memory, knowing what I was about to do, the heart that I was about to break.
I didn’t know much about anything, but I knew that I couldn’t live with myself knowing that another human being was supernaturally bound to me.
I don’t want another bound to me.
I want them to love me, for me.
Russell was on his side, his warm hand flat on my stomach. Being a bloodsucker had done wonders for my body, but I was still a little curvy, yet still had a small stomach. I liked my stomach. Washboards were overrated and not very fun. Russell had a washboard stomach. In fact, he might have just been the hardest human being I’d ever touched. Yes, hard looked good, but wasn’t very fun to snuggle next to.
Russell and I were still dressed. He had tried to undress me numerous times, and numerous times, I’d resisted. He didn’t complain. He didn’t get all whiny the way guys got when they didn’t get sex. Instead, he lay next to me contentedly. I sensed a smile on his handsome face.
Sadly, it wasn’t a natural smile.
It was a goofy smile that seemed oddly plastered on his face. It was a smile that reminded me of the body-hopping demon of a few months ago...but not evil. Russell’s smile was goofy. Like a man hopped up on love.
But maybe that was too much to ask for. Maybe I didn’t deserve love. Maybe it was selfish of me to love another, to bring them into my train-wreck of a life.
Yes, came a distant thought.
A thought, I was certain, that wasn’t my own. It was her. Except it sounded so much like me. It could have easily originated in my own thoughts. It could have been my own. But it wasn’t. This single word had been faint, distant, and slightly random.
It wasn’t going to be easy to distinguish her thoughts from my own, but I had to. If I wanted to stay sane. If I wanted to keep myself from going crazy.
She was changing the rules.
Never before had she made a direct appearance into my thoughts. Yes, her influence could be seen outwardly, by changing the chemistry of my body, the natural and supernatural state of my body.
But internally, she had stayed away.
Until now.
She was getting bolder, more brazen, more challenging. She had said “yes” just when I figured that I shouldn’t love again. I didn’t have to wonder why for long. Of course, she wanted me to feel lonely, to feel unloved, to feel less than what I was. And I knew the reason why. Low self-esteem, low self-worth were key components to her master plan. Most key was the absence of love. All of which made it easier to move in, to take over, to push me aside, or, perhaps, to remove me completely.
Love, I suspected, was the key.
However, I heard nothing further from her—thank God—and instead, turned my attention to Russell next to me, who was gazing at me even now with his big, round, puppy eyes. I could feel the love radiating from him.
No, not real love, I reminded myself. A semblance of love. Infatuation, perhaps. It was, in fact, a spell of some sort.
Very clever, I thought, directing my words to the thing that lived within me. And shitty, too. Give me a feeling of love, a sense of love, a hint of love, and I confuse it for the real thing.
When, in fact, it wasn’t.
No, I was controlling Russell. I was using him for love. What he really felt for me, I didn’t know. But it wasn’t real love.
Controlling others fed her. A lack of real love fed her. Low self-esteem and depression fed her.
All of which, I knew, would help her to eventually take control of me.