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“I just could.”
“I mean. . .” He waves a hand. “What are you?”
I sigh. Of course it was going to come to this. But what I am comes with too complicated a history to explain. Right now or maybe ever.
“I have an affinity for blood,” I say instead, holding back some branches so he can walk past. “It calls to me, and like I said, anyone with a beating heart, I can…”
“Control,” he says.
“Coerce,” I supply instead.
“Can you make people do things they don’t want to do?”
I shrug, looking ahead. “They want to do whatever I ask.” Quieter, I add, “Because I’ve asked it.”
“Are you a vampire? Do you drink blood?”
“No. And what is this? Twenty questions?”
When I look back at him, he looks a little confused. “Do I only get twenty? Why?”
It’s such an absurd question I can only bust out laughing.
He hurries forward. “It’s just that I want to know everything about you.”
I frown, looking at him over my shoulder. Was I wrong about the compulsion? Did it just take a little while to take effect on him?
“Stay there, and don’t follow me anymore,” I order.
He pauses, looking confused, and for a second, my heart cinches up in fear. Oh no, it’s true. Whatever kind of being he is, it just took longer for it to work, and now he’s just as mindless as everyone else I’m surrounded by—
I start to hurry away from him, frustrated and infuriated by the tears suddenly biting at my eyes. What the fuck? I don’t cry. I haven’t cried in fourteen years, and now twice in a week?
“You didn’t actually think that would work, did you?” His voice comes from far closer than I would have thought.
I jump and spin around. Layden is there, somehow able to move even more silently through the woods than I usually do. “How did you—?”
“I don’t envy you,” he says, his words soft and those damn eyes of his seeing far more than they should. “It must be hard living in a world where you can’t trust people’s motives for even wanting to be around you.”
I swing back away from him. Did he see the almost tears in my eyes? I feel too many things I can’t sort out at once, and I don’t want him to be able to see my face while I try. And why the hell am I so happy that my compulsion didn’t work on him after all?
This man is nothing to me. What the hell am I doing? Playing in the woods and pretending my real life isn’t behind me, ready and waiting for the second I leave this forest? This isn’t real. This man might as well not be real for as much as he could ever fit into my life. A thought which appalls me. Was I really even considering that there could be a place for him? Was I actually fucking stupid enough to start wanting something? Wanting him?
I swallow hard against all these unfamiliar, conflicting feelings. I saw where wanting got me the first time. So, I force my voice to be strong. “It seems like you’re back to full strength. Where will you go after this? What’s next for you?”
Silence is his only reply.
I don’t look back at him, just keep walking. I can’t hear him, but the occasional swish of a leaf or bush behind me tells me he’s still following.
“Layden?” I finally ask as the small cabin comes back into view. Still, I don’t turn my head. “Did you hear me? What will you do now that you’re strong again?”
“I think I still need a few days of rest,” he finally says. “To get my feet under me and plan what comes next.”
I nod, relieved that he won’t leave immediately. Because I’m a hypocrite, wanting what I can’t have.
Chapter Nine
LAYDEN
