Page 18 of Midnight Kiss
“Alex,” she whispered, her eyes darting back and forth as she took me in. “You—You make me feel so strange.”
“Strange in what way?” I looped one arm around her, drawing her soft body against mine, bending my head so that we were inches from each other.
“I can’t describe it,” she whispered. “I feel like I’m losing myself.”
It was the charm vampires possessed. While compulsion wasn’t one of my skills, I was still blessed with the natural lure that came to predators of my kind. She wanted me because of that lure, not because of her natural desire for me.
I brushed my fingers over her lips, and she shivered.
“I would like to see you again, Emily.”
“When?”
“I’m not sure. I have to leave for a while,” I said. “But soon.” I stepped back and placed a hand in the small of her back, guiding her out of the open gates and back toward my car.
The drive back to the apartment building was tense with her desire, her smells, and my resistance to them. I hadn’t anticipated that taking this mission would provide a challenge of quite this size.
Or any size. I had expected to take the book and leave, but there were obstacles, and one of them was Emily herself.
I escorted her up to her front door. “Goodnight, Emily,” I murmured.
“Goodnight, Alex.” And then she shut her eyes and tilted her head backward, her red lips pouting.
A kiss would make her malleable, but it would only weaken me further. I brushed her cheek with my palm one last time, and then I sank back into the shadows, making myself invisible once again.
Emily opened her eyes and sucked in a breath at my absence. She lifted her hand to her cheek and touched it. She released a sigh then entered her apartment and locked the door.
7
EMILY
Aweek had passed since the date.
I couldn’t get Alex out of my thoughts, no matter how hard I tried. The only time I didn’t think about him was when I had the journal open in front of me. Reading it made me feel weirdly connected to him, probably because we’d talked about it during our walk through the cemetery.
When I’d told Morgan about that, she’d swooned at the sheer creepiness of it and called Alex, the best kind of “walking red flag” ever.
But then again, Morgan was just being … Morgan. Over the top, fun, and a good friend. She was due back any second, and we’d settle in with dinner and a movie.
I sat on our sofa, the book open in my lap, and a notepad beside me for my translation. I figured that if I translated the book then I could return it and the constant feeling of guilt I had over having it would be gone.
I so didn’t like doing the wrong thing, but there was just … something about the book. And not just because it reminded me of Alex. It felt like the man who’d written the journal, Jacques, believed what he’d written down.
I reread the page I’d just translated.
Of all the creatures of the night, those in possession of magics new and old, the creature that feeds on the nectar of human life is to be feared above them all.
Not wolves that were once men, or those Hunters who search for the cursed among the innocent.
A vampire, in its truest form, seeks only the destruction of life. For life is abhorrent to a thing that has nothing in its soul. A void that it will fill with abandon, with a wanton disregard for anything but the thirst which possesses it.
You will know it by its movements and by instinct.
I tapped the nib of my pen beside the words, irritated by the fact that the ink kept blotching or going dry even though it was new. By its movements? What did that mean?
On the day I had the sheerest displeasure of encountering one, it was this instinct that saved me. If you feel that you cannot trust your thoughts, that your desire to be near it is consuming you, then you are under its spell.
Beware your thoughts and the beating of your heart.