Page 15 of Her Reborn Mate

“You’re okay. We’re fine. But you owe me another flower tomorrow,” I said. “A dahlia, this time. Not a rose.”

“Dahlia. Got it. All right, then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, shaking my hand once again.

I smiled at him and watched him leave the alley. If I could make my way to my room, I’d be able to see him leave in his car. With that in mind, I ran up the stairs and went to my room. Lawrence was magnetic and charming. He was funny without trying to be funny. He knew the right thing to say and what not to say. I could see this going somewhere. I really did. Maybe Lawrence was the first chapter in my new life as a free woman in Bangor.

Or maybe he was a walking talking blood-bag.

It didn’t take me long to recognize the vampires stalking him on the road. They were all wearing matching trench coats with the collars turned up. The pale, bald vampires ganged up on Lawrence from all sides.

Was I destined to fall for men who’d die brutally?

They were talking to him, getting in his face, and putting their hands on him. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Lawrence took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and gave a bunch of them to the vampires. They lit their cigarettes with his lighter, then talked some more to him. Then Lawrence got in his car and left.

I slid to the floor in relief. They weren’t about to kill him. They didn’t even know he was related to me in any way. They were just asking him for cigarettes, as folk often do. It was all good.

When I got up again to see if the vampires were there or not, I only saw a small shadow in the alley across the road. None of the vampires were there. As I stared, the shadow receded into the alley, disappearing in the darkness.

Where were the vampires?

Chapter 6: Will

I had taken the man’s words to heart and not overstayed my welcome. The second the sun came up, I descended from his rooftop. I completely forgot about the gun. I had intended to use it on the vampires, but such an opportunity never presented itself to me in the night anyway.

No big loss there.

All night, the vampires had jumped from one roof to the other, trying to find out where Alexis was staying. I didn’t understand how it did not occur to them where she was staying. It didn’t make sense that Ralph would send the thickest of his bunch to finish the job of killing Alexis.

Whenever I thought about her, her stinging words came to mind. It happened so much throughout the night that by the time it was morning, I had half a mind to just leave. If she wanted to be on her own, then she could have Bangor all to herself. I could go back to Fiddler’s Green, find the men responsible for my demise, and kill them one by one. After that, who knew? Maybe I’d end up roaming the rest of the country. When I was imprisoned, I regretted not having visited more of the country. Now that I was a free man, I could do that. Hitchhike my way across the States, see the sights, meet new people, and reinvent myself into a new man. A man that would be fitting for Alexis.

As I had given the man my word, I did not use his rooftop again. There were other rooftops that I had scouted throughout the night, rooftops that belonged to no one in particular. I should have chosen them instead.

Since there was no cause for hunger or thirst, as I had been fed quite heartily by that kind old man, I decided to stay around the alleys and keep an eye on the bar. Even though most of my supernatural faculties were not working, I couldn’t help but feel my bond with Alexis tell me that something bad was about to happen.

I had to take care of her.

When evening fell, I saw a man come to the bar and take Alexis away in his car. My heart became a cocoon of jealousy, and my mind exploded with a million questions. Who was this new man? How long had Alexis been seeing him? How long did she mourn for me before she found some other suitable man to call her beau?

Who was this guy, anyway? Dressed in a suit, suave as hell, slick hair, and an expensive car—what a fucking douche. What did she see in him that I didn’t have?

I underwent pangs of jealousy as I scouted for another location to hide. I couldn’t go to the roofs. Somehow, the vampires had lounged nearer to the bar, and if I went to the roofs now, they’d see me and report back to Ralph that I was alive. That would open a whole new Pandora’s Box.

The alley across the road was deserted. As it happened, it was pretty dark as well. I could see the bar from here and keep an eye on the roofs as well. While I waited, I told myself to be patient and give Alexis the benefit of the doubt. She was going through a lot of emotional turmoil. It did not befit me to ceaselessly pester her and plead my way back into her life. But this display of going out with another man was humiliating for me.

Some dark part of me thought that Alexis was perhaps just waiting for me to die so she could resume her plan of moving away from Fiddler’s Green and start her new life in a new town with a new man. Oh, how that dark part of me came alive with its disgusting imagination as I sat in the alley, waiting and waiting. I imagined the man kissing her, touching her body, being intimate with her, and it made me see red. The rage that I had so diligently aspired to bury deep down within me was unearthing itself the same way I had unearthed myself when I had crawled out of my cave.

I wanted to kill that man.

And any man who’d come close to her.

But this was just my deranged thinking fueled by jealousy. Nothing more. There would be no killing of mortal men. Not now. Not while they were innocent.

The vampires, on the other hand, would die.

I didn’t have access to a gun, but what I did have were my wits and a lot of time on my hands. Sitting in that dirty alley, I spotted tons of empty bottles, many of which were shattered. I assembled the ones that were still half intact from the topside. These would function quite well as shanks if the need ever came to use them.

When night fell, I tried to shift in the alley, but all my efforts were in vain. My attempts made me feel weak and unhinged. At one point, I even questioned my sanity, wondering if I had ever been a werewolf to begin with. The reflection on the mirrored window showed a haggard man with a patchy beard and unkempt hair. Maybe I was just a hobo, a bum who lived in these streets and had perhaps just imagined that I was a werewolf from Germany in one of my meth-induced highs.

But then I saw the car stop in front of the alley and Alexis step out of it. Seeing her made sanity prevail in my mind. I was not crazy. I had most definitely not invented some fable about me being a werewolf. All that time I spent with her as her mate was proof that I was a wolf.