Page 13

My eyes snapped open and darted all around, trying to orientate myself.

"What in the hell was that?" I asked, looking around.

I held my hands up and it was most likely eye crust distorting my vision, but it honestly looked as if a shadowy black length of staff was dissipating from my hands like smoke.

I sat up in a panic and looked at my hands; they looked completely normal.

"What in the hell am I on this time?" I asked.

It took longer than it should have for me to recognize my own room.

I was in my room and nicely tucked into bed, and not currently sucking the darkened souls from the Devilry.

"Maybe I should have gotten some healing because I am losing it," I said. "How the hell did I get here?"

I looked at the alarm clock, the blue numbers glowing bright in the darkness mockingly told me I would be stuck dining on instant noodles and shrimp chips.

"Ugh! I'm so hungry," I groaned, kicking out of the covers. "Angelina's would be so good right now, but it closes at seven, and it's an hour away. Even with the greatest Wizard in the world of thaumaturgy with a readied teleportation spell, I couldn't get there before they closed..." I looked around again. "How did I get back to my room? The last thing I remember was I took a nap in the library and Viggo was keeping watch for me, and then I was in nightmare land... But it wasn't that scary this time, not really. We'll count that one as a win," I said, getting out of bed, and that's when I realized that I was wrapped up in Viggo's Stockholm Academy uniform cape.

Creepy, awkward, and kind of romantic?

I looked around to make sure I was alone before I sashayed around my room, dramatically sweeping my arms away from me, holding the edges of his cape as I did. "Look at me, I am big, bad, and scary Prince de Babineaux, sexy, socially awkward, Vampyre extraordinaire," I proclaimed, speaking in a terrible French accent before giggling.

Okay. If I don't eat, I'm going to get even loopier than I already am.

When I headed from my room, I stretched my arms above my head to work the stiffness from them, stretching my new, borrowed, cape out so I could do a Batman impression while no one was home, when something occurred to me and I stopped in mid-stretch.

"There's no pain," I mumbled.

I lifted my shirt up and checked my abdomen where I had some Viggo fist-size bruises from earlier, but they were gone.

"Huh, did Slevin force-feed me a healing tonic again?" I groaned. "I hate it when he does that. The last time I was up for six days straight before passing out for five because he got the dosage wrong."

A loud knock came at the door.

If it was a Sentinel requesting an audience for assaulting Arthur Hedge earlier, I'll kick their ass next.

Without thinking about the awesome, borrowed fashion accessory I was still donning, I pulled the door to our suite open and was surprised to see Viggo standing there with two craft paper bags in his hands.

I pulled my arm across my face, hiding the lower half of it with the cape. "Can I help you with something, Vampire?" I asked, mockingly, trying not to eye the bags in his hands because I knew exactly what was in them, but my stomach growled rather loudly.

"Dinner," Viggo said with a sigh, holding the bags up.

"Huh?" I asked, lowering my arm.

"Dietary supplement. I do believe I got everything that you wanted from the order that you requested in Professor Clark's class," he said.

This guy is completely insane... But that garlic bread smells so good.

"Is this your not-so-subtle way of asking me to dinner without actually asking me?" I asked, pushing my hand through my hair, causing it to stand up on one side.

"Would you have said yes if I asked less subtly and more directly?" he asked.

"No."

"Then yes. And technically, you already said you would provide awkward dinner conversation when discussing the nightmares you have been having," Viggo reminded me. "And since I brought dinner, you will provide the awkward conversation."

Honestly, I have never met such a mentally exhausting creature in my life, and that was saying a lot considering who my mother and brother are.

The food smelled amazing, and there was no way I would catch dinner service in the dining hall.

"Do I need to formally invite you in, Nosferatu?" I asked, whipping his cape around me.

"Really?" he dryly asked.

I smiled. "I am the Darkness, but you may enter my humble abode, Nosferatu!" I said, sounding as if I fell out of a bad Transylvania vampire creature feature.

Viggo sighed, shaking his head. "I was unaware questionable dinner theatre would be involved in this date," he said, stepping around me, and I eyed his denim-covered backside with a smile as I absently kicked the door shut behind him.

Honestly, I don't know what made me do it, maybe it was hunger, perhaps it was because I was losing my damn mind, or perhaps it was the fact that I just fought back for the first time in my nightmares.

Or perhaps it was because Viggo commented on this awkward dinner including dinner theatre.

But I did it.

I ran and jumped on his back then wrapped myself around him; legs around his waist and arms around his chest. "Ah, you let your guard down!" I taunted.

My Viggo impression was pretty terrible.

Viggo sighed, shaking his head, looking over his shoulder at me when I hissed at him, and then he motioned towards my side.

I looked to my right side and stopped hissing then pouted.

Somehow, the annoying Vampire was able to relocate the bag of food he was carrying in his right hand to the left, then pulled a stake from somewhere, and pressed the stake against the side of my ribs before I even noticed.

"Oh come on!" I whined. "I have the Vampire cape, the high ground, and the hunger, can't you give me this one?"

Viggo shook his head, causing his long hair to fall in his face.

"Fine, then I'll die well-fed as a mosquito," I informed him, pulling his hair away from his neck on that side and then pretended to bite him. "Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom!" I said, softly chomping against his neck.

Viggo huffed, not at all impressed. "Are you finished?" he asked, not amused.

I pulled away from his neck. "But you taste like chicken!" I informed him.

His eyes widened. "Pardon?"

I smiled wide.

He glared at me. "You are being ridiculous."

"I'm hungry," I whined.

"And I brought dinner," Viggo reminded me, holding the bags in his hand up. "See, dinner. No need to randomly attack the innocent gentleman that brought said dinner."

I rested my chin on his shoulder. "True. But you do taste good, better than you smell, and it is fun to tease you, Little Prince de Babineaux."

"Do not call me," he grumbled. "And I want my cape back now that your terrible and prejudicial desecration of the entire Romanian race of Strigoi has defiled it."

"Ugh! You suck," I complained then, not entirely sure why I did it but I did, I bit him on the neck, harder this time, causing him to gasp, and the stake fell from his hand and clanged against the floor.