“You know what I mean! Like, anemotionalheart attack. From not connecting on a deep level with anyone else, or, like, processing your trauma.”
I give her a skeptical look.
“Whatever, I tried!” she says, putting her empty glass down and throwing her hands up. She catches the eye of a breather across the dance floor, who gives her a little wave. “Well, I’m going to enjoy myself, because I’memotionally mature!”
She disappears into the crowd.
I can’t believe she actually made me feelworsethan I did before.
I have too many siblings.
Cementing my bad mood, I catch a movement on the couch to my left. It’s a member of our vampire guard, entangled in his latest breather, their limbs wrapped up like they want to absorb each other. But the vampire isn’t drinking from him. They’re kissing. A deep, passionate kiss that stirs a pain inside my chest. I realize that I’ve actually seen them together before.
With all my might, I pull my gaze away. And I’m greeted by awonderful, familiar smell.
It’s the bartender, picking up the empty glass that Lexi discarded and putting it on her tray. She’s only a few feet away from me, looking over at the pair kissing on the couch.
It takes all of my willpower to dampen the urgent, powerful desire that rises inside me.
There’s something vulnerable, something longing, in her expression. A strange thought comes to me. I wonder if she’s feeling the same way I do.
She looks at me. Her lips part slightly, her eyes softening. Then she sets the tray down on the table. Her hands are trembling. Something shifts between us, almost imperceptible.
Slowly, she comes over to me, as though we’re the only two beings in the entire world. All that I can hear is her thrumming heart, like a drum pounding out an ancient rhythm. Primal and sacred.
She’s facing me, lit by the red and purple lights from behind. She looks like a goddess.
I have another strange thought. That I could look at her forever.
But breathers have such short, fleeting lives. I can’t entertain such silly fantasies.
Well, maybe just for one night.
She moves closer to me, and climbs on my lap, straddling me. She puts her hands around my neck and I reach around her waist. Her body steadies me, grounds me. Reverses my bad mood in an instant.
She whispers, her voice like the wind of a storm picking up. “I changed my mind.”
I tilt my head slightly.
“But…I still don’t want you to bite me,” she adds, her voice quivering slightly on the word ‘bite.’
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
She swallows, a smooth ripple down her neck.
My initial instinct is for her throat - if not to sink my fangs in it, at least to gently suck the soft, vulnerable skin there. But as I look into her hazel eyes, full of sunshine and strength, I’m struck by an unfamiliar feeling in my chest.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say, before I can stop myself.
“Sure.”
“What’s your name?”
She tilts her chin down a little, like she’s deciding how much to reveal. Something about the gesture comforts me. She understands that her name is as precious for her to give as it is for me to receive.
“Amara,” she says, her lips dancing over the word.
It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve heard in a long time.
