Page 17 of Blood Lovers (American Vampires #1)

The escape is still very much on.

What am I doing?

What. The fuck. Am I doing?

Well, it’s not really a mystery. I’m running and I’m taking Ryet with me.

But who am I running from, exactly? The vampire, Paul? No. He can find me anytime he wants through the dreamwalk. And I’m sure he can find Ryet that same way too.

And besides, if I was running from Paul, I wouldn’t need to leave the backpack and the truck behind. Because if I was running from Paul, those two things wouldn’t matter.

I’m not running from Paul. At least not yet.

I’m running from the Guild. Because they sent me here. They sent me here. There was some agreement between them and the vampire. And who was here waiting for me?

I look over at Ryet. He’s smiling as he drives the snowy mountain roads of Northern Idaho. When he notices me looking at him he smiles bigger.

How can this man—this charming, beautiful, careful man—be the scion who has been hunting me for my blood since I was born?

And how did I fall in love with him the moment we locked eyes in that stupid diner parking lot?

Fate, maybe.

Or magic, more likely.

And he has no idea who I am.

Which puts me in a precarious position.

Ya think, Syrsee ?

How do I tell him? I have to tell him. He’s going to find out.

How do I explain any of this, actually? I fed him my blood last night. I fed him .

And I wasn’t even coerced.

He will make promises, darling. They will be magnificent promises .

But the vampire didn’t even do that. Not really. All he said was that Ryet was dying and I was his cure. It wasn’t a promise at all. It was something implied.

Save him and I get to keep him.

But the vampire never said that, Syrsee. He never said that .

And now that I think about it, I’m not saving Ryet for me. Not in Paul’s mind.

I’m saving Ryet for him .

That’s why we’re really running away.

Because Ryet is mine now and Paul can’t have him.

We don’t stop for lunch , just gas about an hour and a half out of town. Ryet turns the engine off and looks at me. “Want a snack?”

I’m glancing around, reading the temperature outside on a large digital sign. It’s fourteen degrees. So my answer to his question is one of sarcastic distraction. “Hmm. Gas station food. That’s sooo tempting.”

He chuckles as he opens his door, letting the frigid wind blow in. “Stay here. And we’ll skip the food. We’re about halfway to where we’re going. I think we’ll survive.”

He’s just about to close his door when I say, “Wait. Where are we going?”

He winks at me, grinning. “You’ll see.” Then he closes the door and I watch him—the way he walks, the way he shoves his hands into his black biker jacket, the way he pulls the gas station door open and checks on me over his shoulder, grinning again, then disappearing inside—before letting my breath come out in a rush because I was holding it.

What am I doing?

I don’t know. I really don’t know. But I’m gonna keep doing it.

He’s hunting you like prey. You’re feeding him like a pet . And there has been a deal made —

“Yeah, yeah.” I swipe my hand through the air as I say this out loud, huffing as I stare out at the snow-covered road we’re traveling on. “I already know all this.”

Ryet comes back before I can have this silent debate for the hundredth time since we got on the road. I watch him as he pumps the gas. Fourteen degrees is seriously freezing and the wind tossing his hair around must be bitter and biting. His face is a little flushed and anyone just glancing at him would call that a little bit of windburn. But he’s not even wearing gloves. He’s not hopping from foot to foot to stave off the cold. He’s not shrugged up into the collar of his jacket trying to keep warm. He’s just standing there like the cold can’t touch him.

Because it can’t. He’s hot, like a furnace.

Sick, actually.

When he puts the pump back and gets back in the truck, I’m starting to wonder how long it will last. How long before he needs more blood?

Paul’s words in my dreamwalk dorm room come back to me now. ‘Little sips here and there are fine if you don’t mind feeding him all day long. But if you just let him drink you from the throat, he will be able to go a day or two without needing more.’

A day or two. That’s how long we have if I let him drink me.

How long ago did he drink now?

Twelve hours? Twenty?

It’s hard to tell because the day ended and a new one started. But we’re getting close to the edge of his reprieve.

But what if Paul is lying? What if Ryet will be fine? What if this whole story is bullshit? Everything about me, the Guild, the vampire, the hunt, the Black blood, all of it—what if it’s all just a fantasy?

Wishful thinking, Syrsee .

These words enter my mind in my grandma’s voice.

This is actually the worst day of my life. If this is all true, then I just lost everything. Not just my best friend and the safety of the Guild. But my entire past. My entire purpose. If I ever had one of those.

“Do you wanna guess?”

“Huh?” I look up at Ryet.

“Where we’re going.” He’s grinning.

And for some reason, that grin of his makes all of this OK. He makes all of this OK. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Well, it’s close now. We’re about halfway there.”

“Is this a place you go often?”

“Yeah. I’ve been there.”

“What do you do there?”

“When I’m alone?” He looks over at me real fast, a look of complete infatuation on his face. “I swim—”

“Swim?” My eyebrows are up, interest officially piqued.

“I sauna.”

“Steam…” This word floats out of my mouth like I’m hungry for it.

“Sounds nice, huh?”

“It’s a spa?”

“See, you’re not a horrible guesser.”

“We’re going to a spa. Wait. Are we going Dutch?”

“What’s Dutch?”

“You know. I pay for me, you pay—”

“No.” Then he laughs, like this is the most ridiculous idea ever. “You’re not paying for anything. So don’t worry about that.”

“Hmmm.” I settle back into my seat, kind of angling myself against the door as I cross my legs and arms.

“What’s that for?”

“I’m starting to think you’re loaded and I might’ve just hit the jackpot.”

“Are we getting married?”

“How big is the diamond?”

He’s smiling so big, and even though I know he’s running hot and that’s why his face is flushed, I think he’s a little bit excited about this new fantasy of ours. “How big do you need it to be?”

“Diamonds are overrated. When we get married, I would like our promise to come in the form of bl—”

And I almost say it. I almost say ‘blood.’ What the actual fuck, Syrsee !

“A what?” Ryet is laughing at me.

Blood lovers, blood lovers, blood lovers…

“Syrsee?”

“Huh?”

He’s looking at me with a new kind of interest. “Are you OK?”

“Fine, why?”

“You kind of… spaced out for a moment.”

“Oh, no.” I wave my hand through the air. I don’t know why I do that. It never clears anything away. “I was just stuck on the image of us getting married.”

The next thing I know Ryet is veering the truck into a scenic pulloff that overlooks some too-gorgeous-to-describe snow-covered mountain valley.

“What are you doing?”

“I just…” He shakes his head, then puts the truck in park and turns in my direction. “I know we’re having a good time, but if this is getting weird—”

“ Getting weird?” I almost guffaw.

“Just tell me. We don’t have to do this, Syrsee. We’re not really running away. It’s an overnight, right? We’re gonna have a nice dinner, and maybe dance a little, drink, go back to the room and fuck—”

“Wait.” I put up a hand. “We have to have dinner and drinks before we can fuck?”

It works. I’m deflecting, but it works. Because it stops him, and his serious declaration, and the flashing red lights that are going off in both our heads, which we are choosing to ignore. He closes his eyes for a quick blink. This is his version of me sweeping my hand through the air to clear things away. Then he continues. “And then… we’re gonna go home tomorrow.”

I deflate.

“What?”

“I just…” I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now, so there is no chance I actually have words to describe it to him. So instead, I lie. I play it off. “I know all that, Ryet. I’m just teasing you. And you’re teasing me. And—”

He places his hand on mine and he’s so hot, I almost pull away from the shock of it. “I know we’re joking, but I need you to know that I won’t hurt you.”

Oh. He couldn’t be more wrong. “And I won’t hurt you either.” And I am such a liar too.

His smile is one of relief and he lets out a breath. “OK. But we’re still eloping, right?”

I chuckle. I like him so much. “The escape is still very much on. And for the record, I’m not the kind of girl who needs dinner before sex.”

He puts the truck in gear, shaking his head at my silliness, then pulls back onto the highway. “Noted.”

An hour and a half later —just as the sky is turning the color of tropical fruit—Ryet turns onto a long blacktop driveway.

“Hey. How come there’s no snow on the ground?”

“The road is heated.”

“Wow. That is fancy.”

“Oh, you have no idea. Just wait.”

I lean forward in my seat, eager to get a glimpse of where we’ll be staying tonight. I already know it’s a spa. He admitted that much. But we are literally in the middle of nowhere. Like no cars. And once we turned off that highway where the gas station was, it was some scary shit. There were even the remnants of an avalanche, which Ryet just drove around like it was no big deal. And the twisty roads—not to mention the long drop over the cliffs on my side of the truck—were enough to make me grip my seat and hold my breath more than a few times.

When I told him, “I’m not cut out for mountain driving,” he just laughed at me.

“Trust me. When you live in places like this long enough, you don’t even have nightmares about sliding over the side of an icy cliff anymore.”

I slapped him playfully, then spent the next five minutes wondering how long, exactly, he’s been up in these mountains. How old Ryet really is. And what kind of life he had before the vampire, Paul, stole it from him just because he was beautiful—and Paul could.

“Well, here we are.”

I snap out of my introspection just in time to read the sign we’re passing. The North Star Spa and Hot Springs. And then we’re approaching the lodge. It’s all lit up with lanterns. Like, real lanterns with fire in them and everything. And there’s snow on the road here, but only in strategic places. Like piled up along the walkways and the circular driveway. Like some designer planned that and left certain spots of ground unheated for dramatic effect.

The lodge—well, now. This is a proper lodge. Everything you think of when you tell someone you’re going on a luxury mountain retreat. The logs that make up the portico are massive, maybe three feet in diameter. And there are more fires burning in large pots that line the wide alcove leading to a set of nearly equally massive doors.

There are windows in the doors, teasing me with a small peek of what’s waiting inside. Ryet stops the truck, leaves it running and drops his keys in the closest drink holder, then looks me in the eyes. “Ready?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the valet?”

He doesn’t answer. Just smiles and gets out of the truck. The wind is still blowing, but not as bad as it was out on that pass where the gas station was. But the temperature is a whole new level of low when he opens the door.

I’m instantly freezing. But when Ryet takes my hand to help me out, all his considerable heat passes right into me.

We walk hand in hand to the doors and they open, the valets—two of them—greeting us as they hold the doors, then go outside to take care of the truck.

We don’t stop at the desk. But I watch the faces of the two women as we pass through the warm, cozy lobby where about a dozen people are sitting in large, overstuffed leather couches or lingering in front of a piano where a man in a tuxedo is playing slow, somber music. The room is dominated by the fireplace mantel—a log as massive as the ones outside holding up the portico—and the chimney made of river stones that start at the hearth and climb all the way up to the top of the cathedral ceiling.

“Don’t we have to check in?”

“Nah. I know where I’m going.”

Maybe I’m not all that worldly. I mean, I was pretty protected all growing up by a magical guild. But I’m not stupid. We don’t have to wait for the valet. Don’t have to check in. He knows where he’s going.

That can only mean one thing. He’s treating me to a spa night on the vampire’s dime. Maybe the vampire doesn’t live here, maybe he does, I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. This place is exquisite. And wasn’t that monster bragging about his pretty things?

I’m both intrigued and frightened that I have just walked into the vampire’s territory.

No. That’s not quite right, is it?

I didn’t walk in here, I was led .

I was led in here holding the hand of his hunter.