Page 9 of Taste of Forever (Vampires of Sanguine #3)

Heather

A ll week during work, while running tests on crime scene evidence and compiling toxicology reports, I couldn’t stop thinking about vampires.

Well, one vampire in particular. The one that bit me.

And how I wouldn’t mind being bitten by him again.

Just him, though. No one else.

There was something about that whole experience, and my reaction, that felt too intimate to share with anyone else.

Just as quickly as my daydreams took me back there, guilt would snap me back to reality. I had a serious, long-term boyfriend, for shit’s sake. I had zero reason or excuse to be fantasizing about another person. Especially someone whose face I had never seen. Someone who wasn’t even human.

Justin and I were doing better this week, which made me feel even guiltier.

I could tell he felt bad about blowing me off that night I came home from Sanguine.

There were little things I noticed, like setting the timer on the coffee maker to start brewing when I got up for work.

The laundry I’d been nagging about finally got sorted, washed, dried, and put away.

When I came home from work at six a.m., he’d pull his headphones aside, say, “Hey babe. How was it?” and we’d get ready for bed together.

One morning while we’d been brushing our teeth before bed, he took hold of my wrist and examined the two puncture wounds that had begun to scab over.

“What happened there?” He’d asked, concern in his tone.

My mind stuttered with a rush of panic and guilt. I’d never expected him to notice or care. How fucked up was that? This was my partner, the man I loved. Here he was, expressing worry over my injury and it shocked me into scrambling for an answer.

“Oh! Just…hit a thorny bush on a hike.”

I’d never been good at lying. My already-heavy guilt folded over on itself, doubling in mass and density. If Justin sensed my bullshit, he didn’t comment on it.

He’d fall asleep immediately when we went to bed together, which meant sex still wasn’t happening. Still, these quiet, domestic moments were the most intimacy I’d had in recent months.

Breadcrumbs, my resentment demon whispered in my ear. He’s doing the absolute bare minimum. Tossing you breadcrumbs. And look at you, eating them up so gratefully.

The resentment wasn’t as strong over the past few days, so it was easier to ignore that voice. I was happier with the effort Justin was putting in. Besides, it wasn’t fair to expect perfection.

Lots of guys weren’t romantic. Plenty of men didn’t want to get vulnerable and talk about their feelings. That didn’t mean they were bad partners. They did their best, and I knew Justin was trying. I had to remember to appreciate the small things.

It took two to tango, as the saying went. I had to open myself up to him too. Months of arguments, rejections, and ruts had closed me off emotionally. If we were going to reach a better place in our relationship, I had to take accountability for my part.

A good girlfriend didn’t receive almost-orgasms from other people, period. A good girlfriend didn’t lie about wounds on her wrist. A good girlfriend would put a gag on that annoying little demon and address issues before they became resentment.

My obsession with that vampire and that world was a symptom of trying to run away from my relationship issues. Why was it so important to prove it was real, anyway? Because I needed something real and concrete to hold onto when it felt like Justin was slipping away?

Maybe some things were better off as mysteries. Blips and anomalies happened during scientific observations all the time. I was too curious for my own good, and maybe the two worlds were never meant to overlap. It would certainly be safer to leave well enough alone.

I closed my eyes to the sounds of Justin snoring softly next to me. My decision was made.

No more looking for escape from my own circumstances. No more searching for a vampire world.

It only took a week for everything to fall apart.

I was putting on makeup in the bathroom, excited for our first real date in months.

Justin and I planned to check out a new restaurant for dinner, maybe go for a walk by the water if the night wasn’t too chilly.

Something simple and lowkey, but another chance for us to reconnect and find the spark we’d lost.

So when he called out, “I’ll see you later, babe!” from the living room, I was utterly confused.

“Wait. What?” I came out of the bathroom laughing, because this had to be a joke. “Where are you going?”

Justin was putting on his shoes by the front door and looked irritated by the question. “Poker tournament at Mike’s. The same one I go to every month.”

My mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me? That’s tonight?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Did you forget that we also made plans for tonight?”

“That’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“No, Justin. We agreed on Saturday. You said you had nothing else going on.”

“Oh.” He had the nerve to wince. “I didn’t realize.”

“We talked about it on Tuesday. I literally had my calendar out on my phone and asked if you were sure .”

“Yeah. Sorry, babe. I just didn’t think.”

A long, tense silence passed. I crossed my arms, waiting. Surely he would do more than say a lame Sorry, babe. Surely he would take this opportunity to make his priorities clear.

After a few more seconds of awkwardly staring at each other, he broke eye contact to tie his shoes.

“You’re still going?!” I cried out in disbelief.

Are you really surprised? my resentment demon whispered.

“I paid my buy-in already,” Justin argued. “I’ll lose money if I don’t go.”

“Not as much as you’ll lose when you show up to play.”

“Oh, come on.” He finished with his shoes and stood to full height. “I don’t always lose. You sure don’t complain when I come home with an extra three hundred bucks.”

“Oh yeah. Wow , three hundred whole dollary-doos.” I widened my eyes to lay on the sarcasm even thicker. “That’ll go a long way toward getting us out of this apartment and into a house. Oh wait. Actually it won’t because that money will go right up in smoke in the next poker tournament.”

Justin only muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “I don’t need this shit,” as he shrugged on a jacket.

“You’re actually doing this?” I said. “Playing cards with your buddies over the dinner that we planned?”

“I seriously thought it was tomorrow,” he said, like that excused his actions right then.

“Because you were tuning me out while I set the date! Is it so hard to just listen to me? To prioritize me?”

“When you’re being like this,” he flung an arm in my direction, “yeah, you make it kind of hard.”

I turned my back to face him so he wouldn’t see the hot, angry tears brimming in my eyes. “Whatever. Just go.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. The door opened and then closed behind him without another word.

With him gone, it felt slightly easier to breathe. My chest didn’t feel like it was going to explode with every moment of disappointment I’d swallowed in this relationship. But I was restless. Angry. I had pent-up frustration that I needed to let out.

And I was all dolled up with nowhere to go.

Moving on autopilot, I put on my hiking shoes and grabbed my longest coat from the closet. An hour later, just after dusk, I stood at the base of the hill, watching the lively vampire city wake from a daytime slumber.

I barely remembered driving or trekking through the woods.

In my blinding frustration at Justin, it almost felt like the vampire world put me in a trance and drew me here with the tug of a gentle string.

I fully intended to stay away from this place.

But I couldn’t stay in that apartment, and I was already here.

Exploring would certainly burn off some energy.

Turning to a shop window, I did a quick check of my face and hair to make sure I didn’t get dirt anywhere embarrassing.

“You look lovely, darling.”

I startled at the voice, then tried to smooth over my embarrassment with a laugh. “Oh, thank you.”

The speaker, a woman with dark red, almost burgundy eyes, smiled broadly as she unlocked the door of the shop where I’d been checking my reflection. She looked middle-aged and her grin was full of fangs.

“Whoever drinks from you tonight is a lucky one. Have a nice evening.”

She went inside before I could reply, flicking on a light switch that powered a red neon sign in the front window. The sign read Costanza’s Finest Darakt.

What the hell is darakt? I wondered, watching as she turned more lights on inside. I gathered it was some kind of tobacco or marijuana product from all the smoking paraphernalia on display.

I kept walking, trying to keep track of where I was going, and not get so distracted by my surroundings that I ended up lost. Luckily the blood bank was a good landmark, being the tallest and brightest structure in the general area.

Keeping the stark white building in my periphery, I made my way deeper into the city.

Buildings became smaller and more packed together, the sidewalks and streets narrower.

I sidled my way past dozens of red-eyed vampires, hardly any of them giving me a second glance.

Some were smoking cigarettes that produced red smoke with an herbal and metallic smell.

It wasn’t a bad smell, but I couldn’t shake the idea that blood was in those rolled-up pieces of paper.

The area was well-lit thanks to tall street lamps and the various shops and businesses throwing off their own lights.

Some restaurants had outdoor patios with fire pits and string lights around their perimeters.

Whether by all the lights or the weather or the hundreds of people out and about, the night air was comfortably warm.

“Coming up on your right!” someone called over the roar of a motorcycle engine.