Page 7 of Charisma
“Much, thank you. I thought I was a goner there for a few minutes,” I admit, sucking on my bottom lip as I ponder what brought on the sudden stir in weather.
Our towns magically protected, Esme allows rain to shimmy its way in to keep the ground fresh and green, but otherwise, nothing slips into our protective bubble. My eyes narrow as the light bulb brightens above my head.
“Esme.Whatdid you do?” My question is more of an accusation which has her attempting to inconspicuously tiptoe from the room.
“Woman,” Beast snaps. “We talked about this.”
“No, you talked. I pretended to listen,” Esmerelda defends, not all too well if Beast’s facial expression is anything to go by. My narrowed glare constricts further into tapered slits as I contemplate my best friend's crime and why she would do such a thing to me.
“What? You were taking your sweet time looking past that bump on your nose,” she whistles.
“I don’t have a bump!” I argue, reaching up and running my finger down the span of my nose. Once satisfied that it’s shaped as it should be, I drop my hand and glower at her humor-filled snicker.
“Careful, Risma, your eyes are gonna cross if you keep sending me that dazzling leer of yours.” I roll said eyes and continue sending her a spiteful frown.
“Is being mated to me that bad, Charisma?” Baldwin asks, a deflated sigh accompanying his question has me drawing my eyes to him. “I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t think there was any other choice without chancing you suffering irreparable damage.”
His use of mate has my full body swiveling in his direction. “Did you know what we are to each other, Baldwin?”
“I suspected,” he admits, scratching the nape of his neck. “Alright, fine. I knew. But I wasn’t willing to push things until you… we were ready.”
His change in direction fromyoutowehas me collapsing back into the couch. “It was me that held you back, wasn’t it?”
“You didn’t have a clue. I had to do some research to find out why you didn’t recognize me right away,” he points out. “I’m a firm believer in everything happening when it should, not forcing the issue.”
“Mating is not an issue,” Maverick groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You never, ever use a term like ‘issue’ when referring to your relationship, Baldwin. I’m tired of you males needing relationship intervention.”
“No intervention needed here,” Paxton maintains with a disruptive click of his tongue.
“Don’t tssks me, Pax,” Maverick reprimands his closest friend. The two are like brothers, arguing and pestering the other. Just like Esme and I do.
“Alright, let's leave Charisma and Baldwin so they can talk,” Landry dictates as she spins on her feet, snaps her fingers, and waddles out the front door.
“What? Why? Don’t do this to me! They need me, they can’t navigate past a slug on the ground never mind their future,” Esmerelda whines as Beast wraps his beefy paw around her forearm and begins to cautiously drag her from my house. “If you want to keep those fingers, I suggest you remove them.”
“Not happening. Let’s go, sorceress,” Beast rumbles as he continues forcing her to leave so Baldwin and I have a chance to hash out where we go from here.
“That’s enchantress to you fuzzball!” Esmerelda scolds him, having to get the last barb in. I can’t help the snicker that I emit knowing for them, this is some kind of weird foreplay.
My mind whirls in a pool of activity as the question remains, where do we go from here? I’m so outside of my comfort zone with this relationship bullshit… well, when it pertains to me. I’m an expert at other peoples, someone has to be in order to keep them in line.
BALDWIN
Charisma has a deer caught in the headlights look as our friends vacate her property. As silently as I can, in order not to spook her further than she already is, I slowly lower myself onto her coffee table, arranging my knees between her splayed ones.
“Charisma.” Her name comes out as a soft whisper. “What do you need?”
“Pfft. A shot of Whiskey,” she suggests through a tittering teehee. The sound she’s making has my shaft raising to attention and going ramrod straight in my trousers. “Never mind. I already feel like I’m hungover from ingesting too much blood from an intoxicated sod.”
“Does that really happen?” I ask, intrigued, wanting to gather as much information as I can when it comes to her… my mate, my future, my life, and everything in between.
I don’t know the intricate ins and outs of what a vampire experiences, other than what I’ve personally witnessed from Mav, Leigh, Rowina, and her. But I’ve never seen any of them feast from anyone outside of their bondmates, and Charisma only feeds from bags of blood that’ve been donated and provided to her by our community villagers.
“Yes. Unfortunately, as we age, we learn to look for all of the signs. But I have known a few immortals who go out and pursue those who are drugged or drunk to experience their high,” she confesses. “I like to have all of my inhibitions, so I steer clear from those contributors.”
“Do they willingly ‘contribute’? I ask, using air quotes around the word contribute.
“Sure. After I compel them too,” she lightheartedly teases. “They experience no pain, Baldwin, I assure you of that. And I always wipe their memories and all traces clean of my consumption. Can’t have the human population know that our kind exists.”