Page 17 of A Vampire Bewitched

“Yeah. A blood bag. I have a friend who works at a blood bank. I get my nutritional requirements from people who donate it willingly.” He gave her a big, fang-free, smile.

“Are there more like you? So…so…human-like?” She was almost afraid to hear the answer.

His forehead wrinkled up briefly as he confessed, “Yes. There are a lot of us, Emma. All over the place.” Then he added, “You can ask me anything you’d like. I’ll answer anything you’d like to know, and I won’t lie to you.”

“Do you all drink from blood bags?” It was a silly question. But, stupidly, she dared to hope. It was dashed with his honest answer.

“No. Actually, I think I may be the only one.”

“Why do you do it?” she asked.

“I have my reasons.” Judging by his tone, he was not going to elaborate.

“The others? Do they kill people?”

“Some of them,” he said softly. “But I’m not one of those.” He opened his mouth like he was about to say more, but then changed his mind.

After a moment of silence, he told her reverently, “I swear to you, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Could she believe him? Now that the shock was wearing off and her nerves were calming down, she found she could think somewhat rationally again.

She was sitting on her porch, in the middle of the woods, with a…vampire. There. See? She could say it without passing out. “I guess if you were going to kill me, you would’ve done it by now.”

A look of amusement passed over his face. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

She thought it over. “Can you go out in the sunlight?”

“No.”

Morbid curiosity getting the better of her, she asked, “What would happen if you did?”

Grimacing slightly, Nik told her, “I would catch on fire and burn until I was nothing but a pile of ashes.”

“Can you change form?”

“Like into a bat?” He laughed. “No.”

“Is it true about the garlic and crosses? And holy water?”

“No, although I’d rather not eat garlic and I’m not big on religious decor. The only thing that can harm me besides the sun is a debilitating injury to the heart or being beheaded. That part of the lore is true.”

Another question popped into her head, and she opened her mouth to ask, but caught herself just in time and snapped it shut.

“Is there something else you wanted to know?”

Her face and neck were burning, and she knew they were red, giving her thoughts away. She quickly looked away in an attempt to hide it. “No.”

Chapter 10

Nik bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Actually, he found her innocence endearing. Old-fashioned would not be a term he would use to describe himself, yet he thought most females these days were much too bold. And judging by the variety of colors she was turning, he could easily guess what she had been about to ask. “Yes, I can do that too.”

“You can do what?” she asked, her eyes wide and innocent.

“I can have sex. That’s what you were wondering, right? I wasn’t lying when I talked about being in your pants before.” As she got impossibly redder, he couldn’t hold back his grin anymore.

“That’s not what I was going to ask!” she exclaimed.

“You’re lying again,” he countered.