Page 23 of Those That Don’t Exist (Hidden Vampires #1)

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R ed keeps a hand on my back as we walk side by side down the stairs to her room. It's like fire licking at my skin where we’re connected. Since she placed her hands on me in the shower it's like she doesn’t wish to stop. I don’t want her to stop.

How I ended up here I have no idea. I remember getting into the city, then walking aimlessly as I thought over the events of the last few hours. The fight with Ronan had brought my mind back into focus. I was bound to another, I’d given up the choice of having someone for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I still hated Ronan - the misogynistic prick - and was glad I had got the opportunity to beat the shit out of him. I loathed Adicious most of the time too.

Maybe after I delivered Aurora to the pack I could get out of the city for a while. There was research to be done on the mainland. With plans spinning in my mind I’d blindly walked the dark winding streets, trusting my shadows to keep me hidden. I used them to guide me.

The fuckers, however, led me to her house. I’d popped out onto her street before I realised in which direction I’d been heading. Their dark embrace fled away from me, making me look up and see the house. Her house.

Fine, I’d thought. I’d be ending this tonight.

I was taking a couple of minutes to steel myself for my task when I remembered the state of my appearance. I was pretty sure if I turned up bloodstained and with torn up clothing she wasn’t likely to open up to me. I needed to shower and clean up first.

I probably should’ve gone onto campus, used the gym or whatever, but I was here and the window had been left open. In my haste I hadn’t even thought about locking the bathroom door.

Stilling when she’d walked in, and dropped the glamour she’s been using, the fresh resolve I’d built over the last hour turned to dust.

As we reach her bedroom, her hand drops.

My disappointment is short-lived though, she only turns to make sure the door is closed before her hands are on my naked torso again.

She’s careful to avoid the bruises and cuts as she helps me to sit on her bed.

As it's pushed into one corner of the room, I sit across it, legs outstretched and back against the wall.

I’m not that injured, although my arm still hurts more than I want to admit. Still, I could easily manage. Am I leaning in to this? Maybe a little . I like this caring side of her, especially if it means she touches me.

Thankfully she was careful to keep my boxers dry as she cleaned and dressed my wounds.

Out of all the scenarios where I’d pictured her getting me naked, for medical purposes was not on the list. The blood loss, and pain, killed any chance of me getting hard whilst in my underwear.

Not that they’d hide anything anyway. And as if to prove I’m not gravely injured my dick gives a valiant kick.

I quickly grab a pillow to stuff on my lap, pretending I need it to support my injured arm.

I could use some blood to help this healing hurry up.

“Shit, I’ve left my stuff in the bathroom…” I blurt, remembering I stuffed some blood packets in my backpack, which I’d left beside the shower along with my clothes.

“I’ll go grab them.” Red quickly dashes out the room, leaving me alone. I take a second to get comfier on her bed. Fuck it smells good. Like her. I take a quick scan around the cosy space.

It’s homely, lived in. The light from the bedside lamp makes it cosy. I’m eyeing the titles of the books on her desk, a new stack from my last visit here, when the door reopens.

She steps through holding my stuff. Her hair catches in the lamp light but I can't see a single strand of red.

A Glamourer.

She’s a Glamourer.

Really not one of my smartest moments. I should’ve figured that one out.

Whilst not overly common it's a power I should have thought of when I didn’t see her cast any magic.

The fact she holds it in place at all times means she’s fairly powerful.

Still, the constant use will be draining for her. Fuck, I got this so wrong.

One look at her emaciated body and my protective nature took over. Like hell I was delivering her to the pack. After I got over the shock of being able to count every single rib, and every vertebrae of her spine, my first thought was one of fear.

Adicious has already succeeded, he’d made the mate he so desperately wanted. I could return to the pack right now with her and he could complete their bond. Bile rises in my throat. Over my dead body.

“I grabbed some water and painkillers too.” She breaks my thoughts.

She joins me, sitting on her bed, although it's big enough we aren’t touching. She sits, legs crossed near the foot of it. She hands me a bottle of water and a pill packet.

“Thanks.” I take them from her outstretched hands and look at the pills. They are the kind you buy over the counter. Not strong enough to eliminate the pain but they’ll do to take the edge off. I quickly pop a few and chuck them down my throat before popping a few more.

“Woah.” She grabs my wrist. “You can’t take that many.” She gives me a concerned look. Cute.

“Trust me, the whole pack wouldn’t be enough to overdose me.” I give her a smirk and she lets my wrist go, scooting back on the bed once more.

“What are you?” she whispers. She asked me this the night of the party. I put off telling her then. I have no excuses anymore. I’m about to rip her world apart.

“I’m a vampire.” I look at her as the words leave my mouth, I watch intensely for her reaction.

I wait for the panic, the fear. The disbelief.

She gives me nothing. I add the second, and bigger revelation to get it over with.

“My pack has had me watching you for the past few months because our leader thinks you might be one too.”

Again I wait again for the rage, denial, fear, anything. She just sits there, across from me. Has she gone into shock? Her heart rate is surprisingly level, far slower than mine is currently. Her gaze never leaves mine.

Her lips do shift subtly as if framing an “oh” but no noise leaves her mouth. I sit for what feels like an age. I was anticipating a freak out, not this.

“Vampires survived the cleansing war.” She sounds awed. Is this what she’s focusing on? It’s a statement not a question but I answer anyway for something to say.

“Yes,” I elongate the word, not sure where this is going.

“I always suspected. I’m writing my final paper on it.”

She’s talking so casually I think I might be the one starting to panic. Seriously, I’ve just confirmed the creatures wiped from the earth nearly fifty years ago aren’t dead and we’re chatting like it's an everyday conversation.

I try to speak but I’m honestly shocked at how well she seems to be coping with this bombshell.

“Not on their survival, but on the unjust persecution,” she continues as I scramble to pull myself together.

“I know. I hacked into your emails and have seen the plans you sent to your advisor,” I tell her. She goes quiet again but hell, I’ve just admitted one length I’ve gone to in stalking her and she’s still sitting there like we’re having a nice chat.

“You’re really a vampire?” she finally asks. I give her a small nod, still at a loss of how well she’s taking this.

“Prove it.” She gives me a look I can’t decipher. Half of me thinks she’s questioning my sanity, but the other part thinks she looks curious.

It's the first part that has me hesitating. As much as I think I know her, she could call the authorities, or the newspapers. I’m trusting her with the fate of my entire species right now.

“Can you show me?” she adds, after I’ve been quiet for too long.

I think of the best way I can do this right now.

I go with the most obvious. I will my fangs to extend, which is normally as natural as breathing, but it feels a little forced in this moment.

It’s the only proof I’m willing to offer right now despite feeling my shadows itching to play.

I look into her eyes and pull back my top lip, revealing the elongated canines.

I see it, a flicker of fear. I quickly zip my lips again.

“You mentioned a pack?” Her voice is level but barely audible. Her questions are all over the place, but I roll with it. Now that she knows I want no more secrets between us. Anything she asks, I’ll tell her. Although there is one thing I’m still dreading to say.

“As I’m sure you know, even before the war many vampires lived in groups, we call it a pack – it's just a term which stuck. Packs offer protection and company. We’re bonded by blood.

” I pause to try and read her reaction, again she isn’t giving me anything.

“Before the war packs were generally run by mated couples or poly groups, they’d have several other vampires bonded to them, to form a pack.

It’s an old behaviour from when vampires used to fight for territory.

Blood bonds seem to stabilise and enhance our magical abilities. ”

This information wasn’t shared widely even before the Fae broke through the veil but as she’s one of us I have no hesitance in telling her.

“We can't cast each other's powers but collectively it allows the magic to flow more freely, like having these bonds grounds us to wherever it is the power comes from. For the leaders it enhances their magic, but they have the responsibility to protect those they take on.”

“And you’re part of one of these packs?” It’s like she’s interviewing me for an article, I want to know what she’s feeling right now.

“Yes, I’m bound into the pack here in the city. It's got a single male leader. The war decimated so many of our mated vampires, solo leadership has become the norm.”

“And…” She takes a shaky breath this time. I know this is it, the one question I am dreading. “You think the accident changed me into one of you?”

Of course she’s already putting the puzzle pieces together.

I take a second to breathe deeply. This is it. The final secret that’s going to shatter her world.

“Your car crash last summer wasn’t an accident.

” This sentence might be the hardest for her to hear, it's certainly the hardest for me to say.

She lost her father. I wait to see if this is it, the moment she explodes, or crumbles.

She does neither, but blinks as if expecting me to carry on, so I do.

“My pack leader, Adicious, has been trying to turn additional vampires in the last few years, to grow our numbers, and to stabilise the pack with a mate.” I pause as fury burns my insides for the victims that suffered at his experiments.

“In the decades since the war we’ve been struggling to survive, and several single males took over regions where packs no longer existed. The more established packs, those with mate bonds, are refusing to fully acknowledge those like mine as we rebuild our network.

Adicious has been experimenting for the last few years on females, trying to turn one so he can form a mate bond.”

“But female vampires have to be born,” Aurora interrupts me.

It doesn't surprise me that she knows this. It was the main strategy of the war, to take out all female vampires. After all, if we couldn’t procreate we’d most likely die out eventually.

Or our magic would at least be depleted as those of us born into the species are more gifted.

“Yes, they do. And the handful left are all mated already and in established packs.”

“And the crash?”

“Adicious orchestrated it so he could inject you with enough of his venom. He needed you to be left with no family and with enough injuries to cover the bite he gave you.”

She looks down at her wrist. At the fucking mark he left on her. It's not needed, he chose to scar the infection site.

“This?” she says, holding up her arm, wrist extended towards me. I tense against the pull that suckerpunches me, telling me to lean forward and replace his teeth marks with my own.

I nod, not trusting myself to unlock my jaw.

Thankfully, she pulls her wrist back, putting it in her lap.

“He killed my father?” Her voice cracks and I forget about biting her, the need to comfort her instead taking over. I reach out with my good hand, wanting to soothe her, but she quickly jerks back. I retreat at the rejection. I ignore the stab of pain in my chest.

“Yes, he killed your father and left you to die or turn. He knew the authorities would notice if you just disappeared. He had me keep watch over you to see if he succeeded. If you turned you’d join the pack, if not you could live your life.”

“Why me?” A single tear escapes, running down her cheek. I have to force myself to stay put, the instinct to cradle her into my body is a visceral thing.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” I wish I had this answer for her, I have been trying to figure it out myself. “Apart from your Fae heritage, meaning you already have magic, I don't know why he chose you.”

“I’m not like you though. It didn’t work.” She’s trembling but her voice is surprisingly even.

“Didn’t it?” I tilt my head and try to keep my voice soothing.

“I’ve noticed small changes, your efforts at the gym are beyond a normal demi-Fae.

I saw the blood lust on your face with that boy last weekend.

” It's honestly hard to keep the jealousy out of my voice. “I’d been dismissing most things until the party. But now I’ve seen your true form I can’t deny it any longer.

Aurora, you’re starving. You need blood. ”

“No, I’m just recovering.” She shakes her head in denial. “I don't have fangs.”

“I don’t understand your lack of fangs, but the way you look, under your glamour, isn’t normal.

You’ve still got your strength because your body is feeding on itself.

It won’t last much longer.” I hesitate over this next bit as I can see the freak out coming.

“Red, will you try to drinking some blood for me?”