His hoodie. His card. His marks. I see what he’s doing.
No matter what happens next, I’ll forever be grateful. I came out here with the intention of experiencing a beginning and ending of a mountain vacation. Instead, my plans took a sharp swerve off the road and formed a new middle. It’s another reason to go home. By remaining out here, my very self-determined vacation feels unfulfilled.
“What will you be doing in the meantime?”
“Hunting.” His teeth flash a final time before they return to his gums. Even the sight of them has jealousy unfurling in my stomach, imagining the people in the town behind us, all ofwhom would serve his needs. “Not food,” he adds, as if reading me. “Fulfilling a promise.”
He spoke only limited about his experiences with other vampires, but I suppose, before he stumbled upon me, he too had a life. Apparently promises to fulfill.
“What are you hunting?”
“A person. You should go, unless you’d like to hunt with me.” His eyes flash suggestively.
“Not yet,” I whisper, knowing very well his enhanced hearing will pick up the unspoken agreement within those words.
Instead, I back away with a final wave. His gaze remains on me as I walk up the slight slope, towards the town’s entrance. There, I turn around to find Lucian gone, officially ending my winter vacation.
Except it feels so far from being complete, as my heart and soul remains in the mountains.
CHAPTER 16
Lucian
Originally,I never intended to let her go. No, that pesky strange emotion called obsession—the alternate feeling to love—won’t allow me to release her.
But it’s obvious what’s running through Sawyer’s head. She’s restrained by theshouldandshouldn’tsbecause I’m someone she’s recently met, and in this century, relationships progress agonizingly slower.
Letting her return home is the best course. She’ll realizes she misses me. She’ll want me to come after her, and then she’ll choose immortality and me. It’s only a question of when, considering she’s essentially confirmed this is the future she desires.
Sawyer has been spending her entire life taking care of herself. Her mother doesn’t care, and working numerous jobs pays her bills while she’ll never live the life she truly dreams of.
With me, she’ll have it all. Affection and adventure.
If I could find that moose and thank him, I would. Because of him, I gained a mate. She’s halfway to loving me, so fucking that up will be the last thing I do.
After leaving her on the edge of Jasper, I linger, stalking her from afar should I need to step in. She sources a small car rentalplace with only three vehicles available, gets in the tiny car, and starts out of town.
I, of course, observe all this from afar and then trail her back to Manitoba.
I follow her to her apartment, studying the run-down building and which precise window shows light a few minutes after she drags her suitcases inside. Hours pass in which I do nothing but take it all in—who comes and goes. When the other lights turn off. I listen, observe, and defend her for as long as it’ll take.
All while I consider the planned hunt I partially lied to her about. It’s not one person I’m after, but two. The other man who littered her with lasting marks won’t be drawing breath for much longer, but given her turbulent relationship with her mother, both she and Corey are bound to slip up and try to rein Sawyer back in.
That’s when I’ll get him. When Sawyer understands what little mortality and her human connections do for her. For now, he continues living because he’ll serve my purpose.
He’s the lure for my second hunt.
Her.
On New Year’s Eve,when half of Winnipeg is out partying, Sawyer trudges home from her waitressing job with a purse full of tips she soon won’t need when it happens. When her phone ringing draws her to a stop on the corner of the street and she answers it, all while her head roves and never stops checking.
It’s been her nightly ritual when she walks home. Always searching for me, clearly sensing me nearby. I’ve chosen her asmine, and she’s accepted, being as inside me as I am her. Her knowledge of my proximity only makes the rest obvious.
Standing on the rooftop above, all she’d have to do is tip her head and she’d see me. Her sigh travels up to me on the blustering winds as she answers her phone, warily greeting the other person.
A shrill feminine voice echoes through the speaker and even Sawyer pulls the phone backwards a few inches, grimacing at the stream of pointless pleading. “Money…rent…holidays…help…”
Sawyer’s bleeding fucking heart, the very one I anticipate stopping soon, takes her the opposite direction, presumably to help her mother. It was bound to happen at some point, and with Sawyer’s vacation over with, it wouldn’t surprise me if that purse full of tips end up in her mother’s greedy hands shortly.
