Grace stared into his clear grey eyes and knew she needed to tell him something. He was getting too suspicious. The question was, how much was safe to tell him?
"My family is...different. When I was born, my parents belonged to a community of sorts. Kind of an off the grid commune-type thing. We lived there until I was about four or five, I think?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember, then she shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Then suddenly one day my parents picked me up from my friends’ house and rushed me home to start packing. My father...got held up, but Mom and I left town that same day, only taking what we could carry."
She fell into a thoughtful silence, remembering that day, and how scared she'd been when her parents had rushed into the house, screaming her name.
Her father had found her first, sitting outside in the midst of her friends' chickens. She'd been giggling as she'd watched them search for bugs in the yard, until she saw her dad. He'd run straight to her, scattering chickens every which way. Feathers had floated around in the air as he'd scooped her up and ran back into the house, yelling for her mother to take Grace in the car and go.
Aiden's voice snapped her back to the present.
"Where did she take you?"
"Um, we took a plane to Europe, and then we lived like vagabonds for a few months after we received word about my Dad. Now I know we were trying to stay under the radar. I couldn't even tell you where we were. We never stayed in the same place for very long, and my Mom would never let me go outside, never let me out of her sight, not even to use the bathroom." She took a breath, gathering her thoughts. "After...I don't know...weeks? months?...we finally landed here in China. She got a job teaching English, and I picked up Mandarin by sitting in on her classes. I was home-schooled there in other subjects as well. We always stayed together. I wasn't allowed to go to public school, or out with my friends when I finally made some, or even down the street to grab a soda. She never let me out of her sight. It was years before I could shower with the door completely closed, and I was never allowed to lock it. She always seemed terrified that I would just disappear into thin air." She gave a little cynical snort. "I had no idea what was happening back then. I was young, I just went with the flow. I thought everyone's Mom was that weird."
"But you know now." It wasn't really a question.
She stood up to pace to the other side of the room, needing some space. The warmth of his nearness, his clean smell, was entirely too distracting. She was too tired to keep her defenses up, and she needed to think through this next part.
He needed to know things, yes, but did he need to know everything? How much should she tell him? Her mom had never told her what to do if a handsome, virile, nosy male came to her rescue and demanded to know what he was getting himself involved in. Actually, she hadn't told her much of anything, except to keep their secret just that...secret.
And not to trust vampires. No matter what.
She stepped over Mojo as he scampered by and leaned back against the opposite wall, facing Aiden again. He sat patiently for once, elbows resting on his knees, giving her the time she needed to come to the correct conclusion.
That conclusion being, she was sure, to tell him everything.
She studied his posture. He seemed relaxed, not twitchy and impatient like someone would be if they were just trying to get information out of her.
Plus, her instincts were telling her that it was okay to trust him. And her instincts were usually spot on. Her mother's warnings echoed round and round in her head, but really, what other choice did she have? She needed his help. If not for him, she'd probably be dead twice over already. She could tell him this much at least.
"Yes," she admitted. "I know now."
He raised his eyebrows, silently urging her to continue.
Suddenly, she was nervous. What would he think of her when he found out what she really was? Who she really was? And then she laughed to herself. She was worried that a vampire wouldn't think she was normal.
Still, her voice came out stilted as she told him, "My parents weren't part of a hippie commune. They were part of a coven."
"Like a witch's coven?"
She took a deep breath. "Yes," she confirmed.
"Which means, you are a witch."
"Yes, if you can call it that."
"Grace?"
"Yes?"
"What is your last name?"
"France."
He grinned widely. "Grace France?"
"Yes," she confirmed seriously.
He nodded solemnly, but a trace of amusement lingered in his eyes. "Go on then with your story, Grace France," he told her, adding politely, "Please."
She clasped her hands nervously in front of her, seeing no sense in continuing the ruse that one of them was supposed to be injured. "So...my parents, from what they eventually told me, decided to leave so suddenly because a new High Priest had taken over. Our coven is old, and has had many leaders, but none were ever like this one. He was pure evil, and he brought his dark magic into the group by lying and pretending to be something he wasn't. He was so good at hiding what he truly was, the witches didn't catch on until it was too late. Many fled while they could, before he could 'convince' them that they should stay. And by 'convince' I mean threaten them with the deaths of their loved ones, those both in and out of the coven."
"He sounds lovely," Aiden told her sarcastically.
"Right? Anyway, we're one of the few families that got away."
"Where did the others go?"
She shrugged. "Don't know. They scattered, I guess."
"So, magic. That's how you fixed yourself." He indicated the bandages on her wrist and ankle.
Her face heated. "Um, yeah, guess I can go ahead and take these off now."
"May as well," he agreed with a slight twist of his lips.
She heard the amusement in his voice and knew that he was laughing at her. The bastard.
Joining him back on the makeshift couch, she took off her sneakers and unwrapped her ankle, then her wrist and hand. She bent her wrist back and forth, testing it.
Aiden reached a hand towards her. "May I?"
After a moment's hesitation, she placed her healed hand in his open palm. His skin felt warm against hers. She thought vamps would be cold to the touch, their skin smooth and hard, like in Anne Rice's novels. But it was nothing like that. He felt like the human he used to be.
He turned her hand over in his, probing the healed bones with his fingertips. "Amazing."
She tried to pull her hand from his, but he tightened his grip, refusing to release her.
Catching and holding her eyes with his, he slowly lifted it to his mouth, and pressed a soft, warm kiss to the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Running his nose lightly along the veins there, he inhaled deeply, smelling her skin. His eyes closed in pleasure as he scented her, for she knew that was exactly what he was doing.
Her breath caught at the simple, yet erotic gesture. She wondered what she smelled like to him. She wondered how he could be that close to the blood he craved and not bite her.
Adrenaline rushed into her veins at the thought, and her heart began to thud heavily in her chest as her body instinctively prepared for flight.
As if he could read her thoughts, his eyes flashed open again to catch hers, imprisoning her where she sat.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that this was all just a part of his allure. It was how he ensnared his prey. At least the logical part of her knew this, but the not-so-logical parts of her couldn't care less. So she sat as still as a statue, unable to move if she wanted to (which she didn't).
He was pure, raw seduction. And she was completely and utterly captivated by him.
Opening her fingers with his, he slowly brushed his lips down her hand, his wet tongue snaking out here and there for a little taste.
A deep, pulsing ache began in her lower belly, increasing with every touch of his lips as he kissed each fingertip in turn. He sucked the last one into his mouth before pressing a final, firm kiss right in the center of her palm.
He closed her fingers into a fist, capturing the kiss he'd placed there.
"It's called a hand kiss," he told her softly. "Now, whenever you are lonely, all you have to do is press your palm to your cheek, and you'll feel my kiss, and know that you are not alone."
How did he know she felt lonely? That she often felt alone even in a room full of people? The loneliness was unavoidable. It had always been a part of her, living away from the coven. It was because she always had to be careful what she said, and what she did. She always had to hide her secret.
But I don't with him.
She gave him a small, tentative smile.
"You don't ever have to be alone again, Grace," he whispered.
Still holding her closed fist, he lifted his other hand and encircled her throat. Leaning in, he pressed a soft kiss on her forehead, and then her nose. With his thumb under her jaw, he gently tilted her lips up to meet his.
He paused for barely a moment, searching her face, asking permission and giving her time to say no.
She didn't try to pull away again, and his eyes glowed with triumph as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Grace moaned at the first touch of his kiss. His lips were warm and supple as they molded to hers, his tongue flicking out to tease her. As his hand moved to the back of her neck to pull her closer, she opened for him, and his kiss went from teasing to raw need in the span of a heartbeat.
Her free hand pressed against the hard muscles of his chest, then gripped the front of his tee shirt as she gave in to what she was feeling. She kissed him back with all the passion inside of her, and reveled in the moans she drew from him as he took it in and returned it to her.
Lost in the feel of his mouth on hers, she groaned unhappily when he suddenly drew away. She tried to resume their kiss, but he turned his face away and tucked her head against his chest and held her there.
"Just give me a moment, love," he rasped, bunching the back of her shirt in his hand.
They sat like that until their heartbeats returned to normal, and Grace's sanity returned.
Holy shit, what the hell was she doing?
She tried to sit up, and this time he let her do it. Embarrassed, she kept her head down, wishing her hair was unbound so she could hide behind it.
With a finger under her chin, he tilted her face up until she had no choice but to look at him.
"Don't hide from me, love," he said. "There's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I just...I don't know..."
He gave her a small smile. "It's all right. It was just a kiss."
Just a kiss.
"Is there anything else I need to know?" he asked abruptly, ruining the moment in typical Aiden fashion.
She blinked a few times, a little thrown by the sudden change in him. "Um..." she bit her lip, undecided.
"Poppet," he chided her. "I can tell you're still hiding something. Come now," he ordered. "Out with it."
"Well, I don't know if it has any relevance."
"Why don't you let me decide whether it does or not, all right?"
She twisted her hands in her lap until he covered them with his own, effectively stilling them. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. I've been around for a long time. There's little that would manage to surprise me these days. So, just tell me."
Still thrown from his kiss and not thinking properly, she decided he was probably right. Besides, it could have nothing at all to do with anything they were dealing with right now. But then again, it just might.
Pulling her hands out from underneath his, she slid her backpack over to her. Unzipping one of the larger sections, she reached in and unzipped a hidden pocket inside. Pulling out an old piece of parchment paper, she handed it to Aiden.
"Be careful," she cautioned him. "It's very old, and rips easily."
"I can see that." Handling the paper with a delicate touch, he opened it, and scanned the words inside. "Grace, what is this?"
"As far as I can tell, it's an old spell, but I'm not sure for what. However, it must be important. My parents practically came back from the dead to let me know where it was."
He studied the words, barely legible on the parchment. "It's written in a very old language. A language that was ancient before I was born."
"Do you know it?" she asked excitedly.
"Not well," he answered, "Just a few words here and there."
Her excitement fizzled out as fast as it had come on.
"I can't translate it either, but whatever this is, my parents needed me to have it, so it's got to be important. I mean, they literally came back from the dead to tell me where it was hidden in our house."
"Literally?" he teased. "Really?"
"Yes. Literally," she insisted. "They appeared to me in a dream, just a week or so after my mom's funeral, and they were like, screaming at me to knock a hole in the wall by our T.V. So I got out of bed and grabbed a hammer and started pounding on the wall. And lo and behold, there was this fireproof box in there, and it took me forever to find the keys. But I did find them, a full day later, taped underneath the windowsill in their room. When I opened the box, there it was. Just this one piece of paper with words written on it in a language I couldn't read. I searched online for days, trying to find a match so I could interpret the spell written there, but I didn't have any luck. And it's definitely a spell, I can tell by the way it's written."
She stopped babbling long enough to notice that Aiden had become unnaturally still as he stared down at the paper.
"Aiden?"
Nothing.
"Aiden, what's wrong? What is it?"
She touched his forearm to get his attention, and his head whipped towards her in surprise, only she had the strangest feeling that it wasn't Aiden looking back at her.
Dark shadows swirled through his normally bright grey eyes, and his expression was tense.
Grace felt a stab of the pain reflected in his eyes hit her right in the center of her chest. He looked like he'd just lost someone close to him.
He cocked his head, looking her over as if he'd never seen her before.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck. Slowly, she rose up off of the bed, not making any sudden moves, and backed away until she hit the desk chair. "Aiden? Why are you looking at me like that?"
He followed her movements, his head tilted at that strange angle, like she was some kind of new species of insect he was studying.
"Please talk to me," she whispered. "You're scaring me again, dude."
"Did you just call me 'dude'?"
His words were strange...rusty...like he hadn't spoken in a long time and was unused to forming the sounds. And his accent was gone.
"Aiden! Stop it!" she yelled, not knowing what else to do. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
He blinked rapidly a few times and looked down again at the paper in his hands. When he lifted his head again a few seconds later, he frowned at her in confusion.
Had she just imagined the weird shadows in his eyes? She moved closer, and leaned down for a closer look.
He cocked an eyebrow. "Grace? What's wrong, love? Why are you staring at me like that?" He set the paper down beside him, a crease forming between his brows. "Were you just shouting at me?"
As her heart returned to its normal speed, she shook her head slightly. "No. No. Not at you. I just thought I saw...something." Clearing her throat, she glanced over to the other side of the room where Mojo was sniffing around. "I'd better get him a litter box set up."
She could feel his eyes on her as she walked over to the cabinets and found a box with low sides that had cans of food in it. Putting the cans back on the shelf, she took the box over to the corner by the bathroom door and set it on the floor.
Glancing over at her backpack, which was sitting on the floor by his feet, she hesitated. A small bag of litter was in there, but she was still feeling too creeped out to go near him.
So instead, she just stood there, trying to get up the nerve and telling herself she was being silly.
"Why are you suddenly so afraid of me?" he asked.
She swallowed, and forced herself to look directly at him.
He sat where she'd left him, the paper folded in his hands, his expression concerned. She studied him closely, but saw no remnants of whatever that was she had seen before.
"I'm not," she insisted, striding over to her backpack. Yet she only got as close to him as she had to, and her hands shook as she reached for her pack, sliding it over to her and putting it up on the desk chair to find the bag of litter. Pulling it out, she filled Mojo's box. She scooped him up and placed him in it, and he immediately began digging around to do his business.
She smiled timidly at Aiden. "Close call."
"Mmm," he affirmed, still looking at her strangely.