AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I looked down and saw the shadow-crab scuttling toward the back door. I dove for it with the creel open in my hands…and missed. The shadow-crab dodged and headed back toward the woods. I scrambled to my feet and chased after it, stumbling in the snow. The shadow-crab was light enough to move across the surface, but my feet crashed clumsily through the crust. If it made it to the woods I’d never catch it—and Ralph would pine away and die in the Boarderlands. It was nearly at the edge of the woods…about to merge with a large man-shaped shadow…
I reared back as the larger shadow stepped toward me and dropped the creel to the ground.
I looked up, fearing some horrible shadow-monster, but instead I saw Liam’s face, pale and dim in the shadows.
“Liam! What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep without you, so I went for a walk in the woods. Then I heard a noise from the house and thought somebody might be trying to break in. What wereyoudoing?”
“You couldn’t sleep without me?” I asked, ignoring his question. “I couldn’t sleep without you either.”
He took another step forward to the edge of the shadows. The moonlight touched the top of his hair and the shoulders of his cream knit sweater, but his face was still in shadow and somehow wavery, as if he were underwater or dissolving—but then I realized that was because my eyes had filled with tears.
“Oh Liam, I’m so sorry, I don’t think we’re a mistake, and I don’t want Frank Delmarco or anyone else. I wantyou.”
He stepped toward me, full into the moonlight, his body taking shape in the light, and pulled me into his arms, which were icy cold, but when I slid my hands under his sweater and found his mouth I felt a spark of heat leap up to meet me. He moaned and slid his hands down my back and under my coat. When his hands found bare skin he gasped and lifted me off my feet. I wrapped my legs around his hips. He stumbled, but then he pushed me up against a pine tree, hard enough that the tree moved, feathery branches releasing a spray of snow and casting shadows across Liam’s face. When he pushed himself inside of me I smelled the sharp scent of bruised pine. The tree swayed in rhythm with us, joining our gasps and moans, as if the tree, the forest, and the whole shadowy night were party to our lovemaking.
After, Liam carried me upstairs to our bed and we lay side by side. I found I couldn’t keep my hands or eyes off him—as if I had to convince myself that he was real. When I closed my eyes I saw him dissolving into the shadows and I would startle awake as though I was the one falling backward into darkness.
I woke up soreeverywhere, but when Liam ground his hips into my back I turned eagerly to him and we made love again—making me late for class and so sore I’m pretty sure I walked funny.
“Did you and Poetry Man make up?” Frank asked me as I hobbled past his office.
I looked anxiously up and down the hall to make sure Liam wasn’t anywhere nearby—I certainly didn’t want him to see me with Frank again so soon—before answering.
“We’re fine. He just had a jealous moment, but I explained that there was absolutely nothing to be jealous about and we made up.” I smiled brightly, hiding a wince. Even my lips felt sore and chapped from Liam’s kisses.
“Great,” Frank said. “Then he won’t mind if you come inhere and sit down for a moment. I have something important to discuss with you.”
I glanced behind me again and noticed Frank smiling when I turned back. Then I strode firmly into his office and plopped myself down in the chair in front of his desk, wishing I’d finessed my landing a little more gently.
Frank got up and shut the door.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I objected.
Frank sat down on the edge of his desk. “We can’t risk anyone overhearing this. There’s more than your boyfriend’s delicate feelings at stake here.”
I opened my mouth to object again but realized I’d get out of there quicker if I didn’t argue. “What is it?”
“I checked in with our resident vampires last night and I don’t think they’re the ones who are preying on the students.”
“Why? Because they told you they weren’t?”
“No, because I watched them all night and the only blood they drank was imported.”
“Imported?”
“As in not local. Three people arrived at their house last night—all over twenty-one, none glamoured—to volunteer their services.”
“Ew. Why would anyone do that?”
“One was a middle-aged woman from Woodstock who’s writing a paranormal romance and considers herself the luckiest person on the planet to have found real live—or realundead—vampires who are suchgentlemen. That’s what she told me when I stopped her leaving their house near dawn. The other two were a couple from Manhattan who are trying to spice up their marriage…”
“Okay, maybe I don’t want to know any more.”
Frank smiled. “Good call. There are some images I’d rather not have in my head either.”
“But just because the vampires weren’t stalking students last night doesn’t mean they don’t ever.”
