She pursed her lips. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.” She bumped her shoulder into me, eyes twinkling with mischief. “You’re saying you wouldn’t date me because you’ll be too pretty for wrinkly old me in ten years?”
“It would be a cruelty to both of us if we pursued a relationship. Just a promise of loss that would hang over both our heads.”
She nodded, studying her lap. “Yeah. I was just kidding, obviously. Besides, I’ve said since I was a little girl that I would never, ever date a vampire. So…”
I chuckled. “I’m sure you did.”
“Well, um, we’re not technically supposed to bring friends to our classes,” Cara said. “So if my professor asks, you’re a foreign exchange student, okay?”
We didn’t talk as much for the rest of our walk, partly because the sun was draining me more quickly this time. I suspected the more I exposed myself in a short period of time, the more it would tap my reserves of strength. If the bond didn’t fade soon, I thought we might need to find another arrangement to keep me from day walking as much as I had been.
I was grateful when we reached the shade of a tall, sleek building that was swarming with young students wearing bags on their backs or carrying books at their sides. “What is a foreign exchange student?”
“It’s like when someone from another country comes to live with you. They sort of have to follow you around like a puppy since they’re out of their element. So maybe they’ll let it slide. We can say you’re from Transylvania.”
“Now it’s you who is the tease.”
The hint of red that crept into Cara’s cheeks made me want to pull her close. The bond thrummed inside me, pounding with a physical force in my chest and head, practically demanding I reach out to her. Demanding I have more.
I closed my eyes, calming myself and controlling the urges.
“By the way,” she said once we started walking again. “Were you able to sleep last night?”
“Yes,” I said. It was a lie. I’d been awake the entire night while I did my best to suppress the urge to go to her. In fact, I hadn’t truly slept since my brief nap on the smelly couch in Anya’s basement. I could feel the heaviness of sleep calling me, even now.
“And you?”
“Yes,” she said, biting the inside of her bottom lip. A lie.
We sat in a large auditorium where a small, bent over woman proceeded to drone on about some scientific jargon I couldn’t begin to follow. I blinked heavy eyes, then stifled a yawn.
I was not going to fall asleep in a room full of humans. If I forgot the obvious danger, I could at least think of the indignity of it. My kind had always gone to great lengths to protect ourselves when we slumbered. Resting now would be unconscionable.
It was a complete and total embarrassment I would not allow.
12
Cara
Lucian’s head was heavy on my shoulder and I could see his eyes were closed behind his sunglasses. The weirdo had slumped over, then crossed his arms over his chest and forced his huge body into a sitting version of the stiff “vampire in a coffin” look.
I tried not to notice the looks he was generating, especially when he started snoring softly.
Seriously? What kind of vampire snored?
I hardly heard a word my professor said because I was too distracted by the man who had his head against my arm. He had great hair, I noticed for about the hundredth time.
I looked down at the silky, thick black hair that was against my arm, then chewed my pencil, feeling my hand twitching upwards.
No. You are not going to sneakily feel his hair. You are not—
I took a small lock of loose hair between my fingers and gently stroked it. Soft.
I pulled my hand away, shaking my head. Get a hold of yourself, Cara.
I lasted about two more minutes before I had my entire hand on his head, drinking in the cool, soft smoothness of his thick hair. God, he was so gorgeous it wasn’t even fair. I wondered if that was a vampire thing, or just a Lucian thing. Did those little black specks in his blood go through his system and find ways to make him more irresistible? Straighten out a nose here, thicken an eyelash there. Sculpt a ridiculous jawline here, fill up some ridiculously kissable lips there.
But then I remembered the Jezabel woman. She hadn’t been unattractive, but she wasn’t the picture of beauty like the other vampires I’d seen. Maybe the pretty ones just lived longer? Except that made Vlad an anomaly. Though he would’ve been strikingly handsome if he made an ounce of effort, I suspected.
The more time I had, the more I found myself wanting to ask Lucian a million questions. How old was he, anyway? How did he become a vampire in the first place? Had he ever been married? Had kids?