CHAPTER 1
Kyle surveyed thecrowded room of students in search ofher. At one time,being in this place and around so many women would have been hisideal way to spend the night. Now, he felt like he was walking atightrope, and one wrong step would send him plummeting into theGrand Canyon as humans crowded him, beer flowed, music vibrated thewindows, and laughter filled the air.
He was comfortable in the human world, healways had been, but he was impatient to see her again. The onlyproblem, and it was a big one, was he didn’t know if she was comingto this party.
However, he’d decided to accept the invitewhen a group of young women asked him to attend tonight. Held in ahouse just off campus, he’d expected a free-for-all when he arrivedat the yellow house, and he was not disappointed.
In the corner, a set of legs went into theair. Cheers rang out as a woman chugged beer from a keg. Turninghis attention away from the keg stand, Kyle searched the crowdagain, but he didn’t see Melanie anywhere. Over the past couple ofweeks, he’d discovered himself wandering the college grounds insearch of her more than a few times.
That was how he’d received this invitation.The group of women found him standing next to a maple tree on whatthey called the lawn.
Three of the women giggled while their friendinvited him. While they were shy, the speaker was confident as shestared up at him with her pretty blue eyes. Normally, she wasexactly the type he went for, but things had been far from normallately.
Ever since he first met Melanie, he couldn’tget her out of his head. He tried staying away from her becausenoone liked a stalker, but he found himself repeatedlydrawn back to the school. He had to calm his more demonic nature byassuring himself she was safe.
Kyle didn’t try to deny why he couldn’t stayaway; there was no point. The second he saw her, he knew she wasdifferent, and while he wasn’t completely certain she was his mate,he strongly suspected it.
His heart beat a little faster at thepossibility.Hismate. He might have found his mate. Whichmeant he would finally have a break from his incessant need tobounce from one woman to another, one bed to another, and onelonely night to another.
It also meant his compulsion to see andprotect her would get worse, as would his compulsion for sex, whenhe reached maturity. He hated thinking about what would happen whenhe stopped aging. His need for sex would only intensify when hecame fully into his vampire powers.
But, for now, he wasn’t fully mature, and hecould keep himself under control as long as she was safe. So, likea creepy idiot, he found himself repeatedly returning to thecollege to check on her.
Once there, he always found her. She wasusually in the library and sometimes on the lawn, but he neverapproached her. The one time he tried talking to Melanie, she wasas eager to get away from him as a gazelle from a cheetah.
The encounter had rattled his confidence in away nothing ever had before. If she were a normal woman, he wouldhave accepted the rejection and moved on. But she wasn’t normal, atleast not to him.
She was also human, which added another layerof complication to everything. However, if she was his mate, he wasgoing to do everything he could to earn her trust and, eventually,her love. He would not ruin this.
But he was terrified he would.
He’d never known this level of self-doubtbefore, and he despised every second of it.
When they lowered the woman’s legs back tothe ground, she threw her arms in the air, and whistles and shoutsfilled the room. Someone tossed her a towel, and she wiped the beerfrom her face.
Kyle sipped his beer and grimaced at the flattaste; he tossed the cup into the trash can sitting next to thedoor. Though the place with its lack of furniture, worn carpet, andwalls stained by fingerprints and drinks was clearly a party house,it was also relatively clean.
From what he’d seen, there was a trash can inevery room. Someone had already come through and emptied one of thebags. The place reeked of stale booze, pot, and sweat, but itwasn’t a pigsty.
He slipped away from the wall and strodeacross the living room toward the front door. As he walked, theswing of his arms caused his skin to pull against his newtattoo.
He’d never considered getting a tattoobefore, but he’d also never considered attending a college partysimply in the hopes of running into a girl. However, here he was,and when it came to Melanie, he was like a bumbling teendiscovering girls.
Except,hehadn’t been like that as ateen.
Even when he was entering puberty, he’dalways been confident around girls. He’d instinctively known how toapproach them, what to say, and he’dneverbeen uncertainabout how to proceed with one.
Part of his confidence was because most ofthem responded to him with equal, if notmore, interest.That was not the case with Melanie.
She wasn’t the first girl to shoot him down,but she was the only one he continued to pursue afterward.
He’d tried to stay away from her. Part ofthat trying was spent in a tattoo parlor, for the better part ofthree days, while a vampire continuously took a needle and ink tohis left bicep.
The tattoo was a half sleeve that hedesigned. The tattoo artist had taken his crude sketch andperfected it until the twisting smoke and malevolence pouring fromthe sharp lines echoed the darkness inside him.
Maybe a strange tattoo wasn’t exactly thebest way to attract the girl who ran from him, but getting it didkeep him away for a little while. And during the time it took toget it done, he’d tried to figure out what his next step withMelanie would be.
He should have come up with some big, grandplan to sweep her off her feet. Instead, he’d only been able tocome up with the master plan of not giving up. Yep, he was aregular fucking Romeo.
