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I was thinking about everything but my class when I realized people were getting up and leaving. Lucian stirred, and his eyes were on me before I realized my hand was still buried in his hair.
I snatched it back, then flashed an unsteady smile. “Sorry,” I said.
He straightened, then cleared his throat. “It appears I drifted off. Briefly.”
“Actually, you fell asleep hard. And it was pretty much right away.” I glanced at the clock. “And it wasn’t that brief. This was a two-hour class.”
“Nonsense,” Lucian said, standing up and stretching out his legs and arms. “Where do we travel next?”
I grinned. “We ‘travel’ to advanced biochem. And if this class put you to sleep, I’m going to need a bucket of cold water to wake you after that one.”
“Cold water is fatal to my kind,” Lucian said.
I paused as I was getting up. “What? Really? God, Lucian. You need to tell me this stuff. What if I’d spilled my drink on your or something?”
He showed a slow forming smile. “That was a joke.”
I punched his shoulder softly. “It wasn’t a funny one.”
My mind wandered as we headed to biochem.
I was dragging a vampire around with me from class to class. A vampire dressed in a hoodie and sunglasses, even though it was a relatively warm day.
I thought it was still going to take time before I could completely grasp the entirety of the situation. There was only so much my brain could absorb in such a short period of time, after all. But one thing seemed to be forming into crystal clarity.
Lucian wasn’t like any guy I’d ever met. And it was more than the whole supernatural angle. He paid a different sort of attention to me whether I was speaking or just looking out the window. He made it seem like I was the most important thing in his world, even if he kept talking like he’d vanish from my life the moment the bond was gone.
Temporary or not, it felt good. Dangerously good.
He was giving me a taste of the kind of fast and furious relationship I’d resigned myself to never have. After all, devoting myself to academia and the long hours that were probably ahead of me bent over microscopes was probably a death sentence for my dating life. By the time I emerged from a sterile lab at age fifty, my dating prospects would had depressingly dwindled.
So maybe I should’ve felt like I’d suffered some injustice by being nearly killed because of Lucian and now “bonded” to him. Instead, I felt gratitude. He was giving me a little taste of the fun I knew I was leaving behind, and I may not be immortal like he claimed to be, but I had a feeling I’d remember these days for the rest of my life.
Lucian leaned in a doorway, clad in his shades. He let out a long groan.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “All this sunlight tires me.”
I gave his broad back a sympathetic rub. “I know. I’m sorry. Maybe if the bond loosens up some you can crawl around in the tunnels beneath campus or something. I bet you love creeping around tunnels, right?”
Lucian side-eyed me. “I will not creep through tunnels. Though I do admit I find the damp darkness rather pleasant. There’s also something comforting in the close-quarters.”
I grinned. “Are all the other vampires as cliché as you?”
“I am a unique individual.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you are. Are you ready to start walking, unique individual, or do you need more time?”
“I’m fine.”
We headed outside toward the biochem building, gathering a constant barrage of blatant stares from anyone who noticed us.
“Garlic?” I asked. “Does that hurt you?”
“No. I quite enjoy the flavor.”
“Crosses?”
“Nope.”
“So how do people hurt vampires?”
“That question is a dangerous one.”
“For you.”
“And you,” he said, looking very serious.
“Fine. How old are you?”
“That’s not a polite question to ask a vampire.”
I grinned, pushing the doors open and heading through a breezeway toward the science building. “Seriously?”
“I was born in 1712 in a village not far from here.”
I’d gathered that he was old, but I hadn’t quite been prepared for just how old. “Wow. And you don’t age?”
Lucian shook his head. “Physically, no. We grow stronger with time.”
“So… You have like, super powers?”
“Enhanced senses. Strength. Healing capabilities. But most of my kind develop far more in one direction than any other.”
“So what’s your thing? A super strong nose? Because that would probably be the lamest, right? Watch out! Here comes Vlad! He’s going to sniff out what you had for breakfast and then shame you for eating leftover pizza at five in the morning!”
Lucian eyed me, amusement twinkling in his dark eyes. “No. I’ve always healed more quickly than average. It’s the only reason I can walk this much in the daylight. Even an elder vampire would only be able to manage a few minutes of direct sunlight. But I’m hard to kill.”
