Page 19 of Cherry Moon

“Read my mind.”

He dipped his head. “Seeing her face again really hit me here.” He touched the area over his heart. “Made me feel too many things. Like how much I still hate her, and how much I miss her. You know, before she cut off my arm and tried to destroy the world.” He wiped at the side of his mouth. “I know it wasn’t the real her, but it doesn’t take away the sting.” With an exasperated breath, he undid his man bun. “Fuck. Listen to me. Whine, whine, whine.”

“Vent away,” I responded. “This is a safe space.”

His hair fell around his face, the tips brushing his shoulders. My goodness, it only heightened his handsome features and tugged at my lust, my heartstrings, all of it.

I took his left hand, planting a kiss on his ring finger.

He did the same to me.

“Mushy, ain’t we?” he said.

“You love mushy.”

“I do.” He did it again.

The plane approached the ground.

“This is it,” he said, interlocking his fingers with mine. “This is fucking it.”

CHAPTER SIX

AKIRA

Maybe I’m just a dramatic dickhead, but I kept my eyes lowered as the SCU van sped us through the streets.

This city used to be my playground. Days spent in the dirt of it, the noise, the fast pace, hunting across every inch of it.

I didn’t wanna do anything. There were too many memories skipping around in the forests of my head, and I didn’t need any forgotten ones coming to the party. Yeah, there were some fun ones, but they were always followed by the baddies.

Let me bury my head in the sand. Let me make the empowering choice to say that shit belonged over there, while the new me belonged in the here and now. Slaying a blobby chicken didn’t mean a new, violent dawn for me. Fuck that. I wanted my quiet life, anger and terror be damned.

I’m gonna lose him…

Drunken butterflies tore up my belly. I felt full of dread, forcing my right foot to constantly tap, tap, tap on the van floor.

Hold it together.

Easier said than done.

I flashed back to a good memory anyway. A cold winter’s morning at The Teacup on Grays Inn Road, a café run by two married day vampires, Lucy and Polly, who’d be coming to the wedding. It sat below my flat and served an elite ‘Full English’ brekkie. Perfect for bracing winter days. A place full of laughter and the stories the late Mrs. Wallace used to tell.

Man, I loved my talks with her on the bench outside. She loved my baking, a real superfan. I missed the vamps, who were once my neighbors. They still lived there, and the café was still going strong.

An elite breakfast cut through any gloom.

I miss my flat.

Pfft. That stray little voice could fuck off.

City boy Akira = DEAD!

Country boy Akira = THE ONLY FUCKING WAY!

The flat I loved. My friends I loved, even though I’d been neglecting them as well as my family.

The city itself? Hard pass.