I stare at him as I direct another piece of steak in my mouth and chew.
“Did you not hear me? I want to eat you. You should be halfway home by now.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah… I heard you. But you’re insane if you think I’m concerned about you just eating me, Marcus. Do you want to drink from me? I really don’t care.”
“What? No! First off, I’m not allowed to just drink off my coworker. Second, no! You shouldn’t even offer. I could hurt you.”
This man. “Marcus, if you didn’t kill me when you were bleeding to death and shot full of bullet holes, I’m positive you’re not going to kill me now.”
“But I could.”
“But you won’t!” I pick up my fork. “I could kill you with my fork. Doesn’t mean I will. I could shoot you in the head. Doesn’t mean I will. Do you get me? You’re not some baby vamp who can’t control themselves. If you want to drink, I’ll more than gladly offer up my blood. You don’t need to drink that often, do you? Like twice a week?”
“Once.”
“See?”
“No. We will just have to stay away from each other until this wears off.”
That stops me. “Why?”
He slams his hand down on the table. “Dammit, Finnigan, get out of my house!”
I glare at him. “Fine. You’re so fucking stubborn sometimes.” I get up and set the knife and fork down before heading to the door. I grab my coat, stuff my feet into my shoes and head through the door before slamming it shut. I know I’m not angry about the blood thing. I know that he’s right about it, even if I don’t mind. I know this boils down to him always being obstinate about me being a human and him thinking I’m ridiculously breakable. I’m not breakable.
I reach for my car handle and it hits me hard.
That dreadful feeling that I get in the pit of my stomach. It’s like I can feel him watching me. Was I so distracted by Marcus that I didn’t even notice? It’s dark, too dark for me to see anything as winter threatens snow. I feel insurmountable fear rise up inside me until I can’t breathe. And I can’t help but wonder…
Has he finally come for me?
MARCUS
I’m such an idiot.
It’s not Finn’s fault any of this happened, and here I am yelling at him. But I didn’t like the way I was drawn to his blood, almost obsessed with it. The moment he opened the door, the smell hit me so fucking hard I nearly grabbed him right there.
I look over at his half-eaten steak. He was enjoying it so much too. Why do I feel so awful about this?
“Fuck, Artemus. I’m such an idiot. Why do I even care? Why do I keep dragging him along, letting him come over if I want nothing to do with him? How is that even fair to him? And why is he nice enough that he just lets me tug him around?”
Honestly, I’m old enough that I could sit in this room with him, and even if I was hungering for his blood, I could put up with it. So why did I snap at him? And why do I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything? Is it because I know I can’t have him? Or shouldn’t have him? What if I attack him? What if I hurt him? What if he grows to fear me?
Artie rushes over to the window and starts barking. I stand up and walk over to see what he’s noticed since I doubt he’d be barking at Finn.
When I look into the driveway, I see Finn standing next to his car, completely still. Even from here, I can tell something’s wrong. His posture is different, strange even.
I rush to the door and pull it open. That’s when all thoughts of Finn and his blood rush away, and I realize that I can feel something. Feel someone. Is there someone here? Where? I don’t see them, but I can feel their presence and I can feel Finn’s fear. He knows they’re here too, but who could have an aura this oppressive?
I rush to Finn without thinking and grab him, yanking him to me and pinning him against myself as I turn around, trying to see who it is. “He is mine,” I growl without thought because whoever it is has to know that this human is mine and only mine. And I will slaughter anyone who thinks they can take him from me.
But if I can’t even pinpoint the source… can I really stop them? Is there actually someone that much stronger than me out there? There can’t be, can there? I’ve only met very few who were older than me, and I know at least one of them is now dead.
Finn lets out a strangled sound and suddenly the aura dissipates. “You can sense him?”
I look down and catch his eyes and am shocked to see how devastated they look. I know the next thing I say will ruin these eyes if I don’t lie. But I can’t lie to him. “Who is he?”
He looks away. “I thought it was in my head. I thought it was… but it’s not. He’s really here. I need to leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say as I quickly pull him back into my house and slam the door shut like it could keep that thing out there and Finn safe in here, but I’m not sure that’s true.
Finn reaches up and cups my face, all fear gone from him and determination in its place. “I’m fine. I need to go.”
“You’re not going,” I growl.
His expression hardens. “You just told me to go.”
“Dammit, Finn, enough of these fucking secrets. Who is that?”
He’s quiet for a moment, clearly deciding what he wants to share and what he’s choosing to keep from me.
“There’s a vampire who… I guess loves harassing me. I don’t know if he wants to kill me or if he likes making me live in fear of him. I don’t know. I mean, if he wanted to kill me, there’s nothing stopping him. I knew I couldn’t stop him alone, so I decided to join VRC. When they wouldn’t let me in as a human, I paid off the analyst to prick his finger, which I knew would get the new vampire to attack him. Then, once I was inside the department, I decided that I would use the oldest vampire and get him to like me to help me kill that asshole.” There’s a lot of bite to his voice as he tells me all of this, but I’m not stupid. His eyes are always so expressive and right now, his face shows nothing but pain. He wants me to get mad and think he was using me. Yeah, I’m a bit surprised about the analyst thing, but does he really want me to believe that he’s tried for over two months to get close to me just because of this?
No, he’s not that good of an actor. And he wouldn’t look this damn pained if it was true. He wants to push me away, drive a wedge between us because he’s afraid this vampire will hurt me.
I reach out and cup his cheek. “I’ll keep you safe, alright? I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“No,” he says as he tries to pull back. “Be mad at me. Hate me.”
“What’s his name? I’ll stop him.”
Finn shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know who it is,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. “Just… he’s done this for a while. So forget about it, and we’ll move on.”
“Did you come across him during a case?”
“Marcus… please?”
I nod. “Alright. Finish your steak.”
“I’m not hungry,” he says, but I push him over to the table and cut off a piece.