Page 40 of Blood Lovers (American Vampires #1)

Hollers and hound dogs.

Ryet talks a lot for those first few hours of driving, telling me things the way… well, the way a man might tell a woman on a first date. He describes his house, and his land, and the people he considers his only family.

I want to ask about Jane—because he mentioned her when he was telling me this new story of his life—but I don’t. I get the feeling that something has changed. That his bond with her has been bruised somehow, or maybe even broken.

I’m pretty sure it has something to do with his transformation—which seems to be in some kind of arrested state—but I can’t find a polite way to push the issue without coming off as needy and desperate.

But I am needy and desperate. Because he doesn’t feed on me again. It’s been almost two days and it’s driving me crazy wondering what happens to me when he no longer needs my blood.

I’m going so insane with these insecurities by the time he clears his throat and asks, very politely, if he could just have a few sips after we cross into West Virginia that I let out such an obvious breath of relief, even he can’t miss it.

But he does misinterpret it. “It’s OK. I can go a little longer.”

“No.” He thinks I’m upset that he wants to feed. “That’s not it.”

“Then what’s wrong? You look kinda distressed. You’ve looked that way for a couple hundred miles now. If you don’t want to come to my house—”

“I’m just—” And I’m about to tell him the truth. I’m about to let it all spill out. That I’m becoming as addicted to his teeth in my neck as he is my blood and I’m so uncertain about who I am to him—friend, girlfriend, Happy Meal?—and I so, so, so want to be the middle one. Which is weird too. Because wasn’t I just kicking myself two days ago because I didn’t dump him in a ditch to die?

But everything about this admission is just too much, even for me. So I correct him. Rather, misdirect him. “It’s just… I’ve got this serial-killer gig going and—”

His laugh is immediate and his smile is broad. He shows me his new teeth, but in a different way than before.

I don’t really have a comeback after that first opener, and he almost misses a turn onto a lane that really doesn’t look wide enough to accommodate this truck, so that’s as far as the banter gets.

He takes the turn wide, flattens a sapling as he angles into the dirt road, and then straightens us out. It’s so narrow that the bare branches are slapping against the sides of the truck as we slowly meander our way forward.

He picks up our conversation in a new place. “This is called a holler.”

“What is?”

“The road.”

“Why? Does it talk back?”

He’s still smiling from my serial killer remark, but even though my new joke is dumb, his smile doesn’t wear off. “It’s just what we call them here.”

And now I smile as well. We . I like that word. Even though he’s not talking about me in that we, I still like it. Because it feels… like he’s part of something. Something that isn’t the vampire Paul. And he’s inviting me into this something.

He’s… including me.

And even though I’m still a little insecure about how much longer he will feed on me—how much longer he will absolutely, positively need me—I kinda push it down and try to live in the moment.

Because it’s a pretty good one.

“We live at the end of the holler.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. So if you live at the mouth of the holler—that’s the top, where we came in—then you’re in charge of the info that comes down the holler.”

“Hmm.” I think about this as we pass a run-down old farmhouse. Several large hound dogs come bumbling out into the road, baying at us like we’re raccoons. “Can you give me an example, please? I’m having a hard time following.”

“Sure.” We’re only inching forward now because the hounds are doing their best to get run over and Ryet is doing his best not to do that. “Let’s see. Someone enters the road in a truck the people in the house at the mouth have never seen before. Dogs start barking, slowing the truck down a little. This gives the people who live in the mouth house time to get on the horn—” He looks me in the eyes for this next part. “Folks still have landlines here. They get on the horn and call the neighbor next door so they know there’s a stranger comin’. Can you guess where this is going?”

“I think I can. That neighbor calls the next neighbor. Like a phone tree.”

Ryet points at me. “Exactly. And that neighbor calls the next, and on, and on, and on so…” We stop in front of a driveway that leads… up. Even though it’s winter, and cold, and the wind is blowing pretty good, there are at least ten people blocking that driveway.

Ryet puts the truck in park, then turns it off and looks at me as he continues his thought. “So that by the time Ryet the-man-who-doesn’t-age-at-the-top-of-the-hill gets to his driveway, they can be there to welcome him home. Because he’s been missing for about three years now.”

Then he opens his door, gets out, and walks over to the group of people. I watch as they all smile, and shake his hand, and pat him on the back. Several women are holding casserole dishes. How the hell did they have time to put that together?

I get out too, unsure what else to do, but I don’t want to be unfriendly. In fact, I am eager to meet these people who live in these hills and know what he is, and are OK with that.

As as I say hello—and learn, in the moment, that I am Ryet’s girlfriend when he introduces me—I stop seeing him as the monster I’m turning him into and start seeing him as Ryet the-man-who-doesn’t-age-at-the-top-of-the-hill.

Who just so happens to be the same man I met in a diner parking lot a couple weeks ago.

Charming. Quick to smile and laugh. Funny, and beautiful, and careful not to startle or scare. Using humor to put people at ease.

He’s so. Not. Paul.

And this is the moment I know, with a hundred percent certainty, that I made the right choice to save him.

Because he will never be Paul.

And I don’t have to worry about how long I will need to feed him.

Because that’s not why we’re here.

We’re not here to hide.

We’re here to live.