Living Dead Girl (Vampire Hunter Book 1) (10 page)

Huh? Why is he still talking?
I opened my eyes again and looked at Lucas quizzically.

He was leaning back, talking animatedly, completely oblivious. “Don’t you see, Aurora,” he was saying.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m drawn to you because you don’t have any blood in your body. Usually, when I’m around humans, even watching from afar, it’s pure torture. It’s a constant struggle to focus on my job and not the rich blood coursing through the human’s veins.” Lucas gulped and stopped again.

“I can see this is a very tough subject for you,” I said sarcastically. I had told Henry that Lucas didn’t want to be around humans for this very reason – but that was to negate the awkwardness of their first meeting, not because I really
believed
it was painful for Lucas to be around pumping blood.

My tone was lost on Lucas. “I’m glad you understand,” he said earnestly. Lucas patted my knee, much the way a father would his daughter.

He doesn’t like me at all
, I thought sadly.
He just thinks of me as a little girl. The only reason Lucas has opened up to me is because he can talk to me without getting distracted by blood, blood, blood.

I stood up abruptly. The blanket fell to the floor. “I need some fresh air,” I said, walking towards the front of the house.

“But you don’t breathe air.” Lucas sounded confused.

“I like the feel of it on my face,” I snapped over my shoulder, letting the door slam behind me.

Lucas watched Aurora storm out of his house. He stood there, dumbfounded.
What just happened?

Lucas had thought everything was going well. He had never told anyone those things before, and it took a lot for him to open up to someone. The pull of the blood was too much to bear for him to try and forge any lasting relationships with humans. No, the easy – and responsible – thing to do was avoid prolonged
contact with anyone that had blood coursing through them.

That was what was so perfect about Aurora. He had just been about to tell her his true feelings for her. He had even tentatively been thinking about kissing her! Lucas couldn’t believe he had been naïve enough to think she might have felt
the same way as him. She was 16 years old!

What an idiot. You deserve for her to laugh her way out of your house. I really don’t know how to read women anymore.
He’d let his lust cloud his reasoning, thought that maybe just this once he could have a ‘normal’ relationship.

Lucas had had his fair share of lovers throughout his time. But it wasn’t practical. With humans, he ended up wanting to suck the woman’s blood, which never ended well. With vampires, it was even more dangerous. Sure, you could suck each other’s blood without any consequences, but why stop there?

The blood was like a drug, and once you had a taste you wanted more. He’d ended up on weeklong benders after going against his better judgment and getting entangled with a female vampire. And when some shred of reason/willpower would finally take back over and he could stop himself, the withdrawal from the blood was excruciating. It was like the hangover from hell – times 1,000.

In all of his experience, Lucas had never encountered a living dead girl – or boy – before. He knew she was something special.
It’s good she doesn’t like you
, he told himself tersely.
It could never work, and you would lose your job.
They had strict rules against fraternizing with the creatures you were paid to monitor –
or kill!

Lucas knew he was already treading on thin ice as far as his job was concerned. He shouldn’t be seeing Aurora at all. Hell, he was already way more invol
ved than he was supposed to be.

That was it. He had originally brought Aurora and Henry here to tell them what he had discovered, but there was no way he was doing that now. He had to end it tonight, for the sake of everyone involved. And the sooner the better; no use in prolonging the inevitable.

Lucas headed for the door. Time to find Aurora, they could wake up Henry, and he’d see them on their way.

Then, he would go back to his version of normal. If he still got orders to keep tabs on Aurora, he’d do so. And if someone else was ordered to kill her then so be it. Either way, she was out of his life - for good.

After storming out of Lucas’ house, I had immediately turned left and started walking. I was too upset to pay attention to where I was going. My mind kept replaying the night over and over in my head.
How could I have been so wrong about Lucas?

I was humiliated.
I can’t ever look Lucas in the eye again. He must have seen me lean in for that kiss! Why do I always misread signals?

Maybe I wasn’t as astute, as keenly aware of what everyone else was feeling as I thought I was. I had always prided myself on my ability to read people, but what was I basing that off of? I mean, look at my track record.

I had misread Jessica, who had smiled to my face, offering advice about how to get Michael to ask me out, and then stolen him from me the second she could. In all fairness, I wasn’t around to fight back, but if she’d had the opportunity while I was alive, I have no doubt that she’d have snatched Michael away then as well.

I mentally recounted all of the times I had been dead wrong about a person and a situation, flipping through the memories i
n my mind like pages in a book.

There had been my first crush ever in kindergarten, Josh or John or Jake or something-or-other that started with J. I had foolishly offered him my juice box on the playground, which he had taken with gusto, only to squirt it in my face two minutes later, while the other boys cheered him on.

Of course, no one faults a five year old for her lack of judgment, but it only got progressively worse with age. In middle school, I really thought Wanda was my closest friend, my real BFF, if you will. I had begged my mom to get me one of those necklaces at the mall, the broken heart on two chains, split jagged down the middle. I had proudly wrapped up her half and was all geared up to give it to her for her birthday. But right as I turned to pull the package out of my backpack as we stood waiting for the bus after school, I had spied dangling from her ears, the cutest BFF lightning bolt earrings I had ever seen.  Mortified, I’d stuffed the gift back into my bag before Wanda knew what had happened.

My mind raced through memory after memory until I had beaten myself down so much my legs felt like lead.
This cinches it
,
once and for all
. It was me and Henry against the world. I looked around.
Where the hell am I?

Great, I thought I had a good sense of direction. Maybe I was wrong about that for all those years, too?

I wasn’t sure how long I had been walking. I spun myself around in what I thought was the direction I came from and squinted hard, trying to see if I could make out Lucas’ house in the distance.
Shouldn’t being undead give me some kind of cool power? Like built-in night vision or something?

Apparently, it did not.
I sure am lucky the moon is so bright tonight. Otherwise, I’d really be screwed.
I couldn’t tell for sure, but it might even be a full moon. I walked forward and stared upwards, mesmerized by the huge, perfectly round moon.

Yep, definitely full
.

Raising my arms up so that they were illuminated by the moonlight, I studied the tiny hairs for a few moments. Not that I really thought I could be a werewolf, but
you know,
stranger things have happened. This was the first full moon since I had been back. Just had to be sure!

For good measure, I rubbed my hand along my chin. No stubble there either. Convinced I was in the clear, I started walking in the direction that I hoped would lead to Lucas’ house. Never in my life had I thought a compass might come in
handy before this very moment.

No longer engrossed in my one-person pity party, I was now acutely aware of my surroundings. I had realized Lucas’ house was in a secluded, non-inhabited area, but I hadn’t comprehended that it literally backed up to the woods. Tall, menacing looking trees surrounded me on all sides. They were swaying back and forth with the light summer breeze, almost creating a whistling sound in my ears.  Trees that I had barely noticed before now seemed to be laughing, mockin
g me with their every movement.

I broke into a slow jog, saying a silent prayer that I was going in the right direction. I was suffering a severe case of hurt pride, but right now my fear was taking over and I needed
to get out of these woods ASAP.

I reached a clearing and stopped to survey the area.
This doesn’t look familiar
, I thought desperately.
But I wasn’t paying a bit of attention to where I was going after I stormed out
. I decided I would have to keep moving forward. If I backtracked now I would most definitely be covering ground that I’d already been on. What other choice did I really have?

With renewed determina
tion, I plowed ahead. Leaves crunched beneath my feet. I could hear critters – what I hoped were critters, at least – scurrying in the shrubbery around me and in the tree branches above. I was thoroughly creeped out now.

All of my worries of pride forgotten, I dug my hand into my pocket.
I hope I can get a signal out here with all these damn trees.
But my cell phone wasn’t there. I tried the other pocket. Nothing.

Shit! I probably left it sitting on the couch like a moron!

Okay, get a hold of yourself, Aurora.
I willed myself to think. I was technically dead. If something bit me, it couldn’t kill me. Right?

The problem was, I could hypothesize until the cows came home (or the sun came up, which was more likely, given the current situation) but I had no way of knowing for sure, and if I sat here long enough something just might come along and test my theory. And even t
hough I was dead and virtually immune to pain, that was still something I was not too keen to experience.

I was running again, focused on staying in a straight line. Sometimes, I would veer off a bit to one side to avoid a root in the path, but for the most part I thought I was doing a good job of keeping on course. Still, nothing looked familiar, but I’d already established I hadn’t paid one iota of attention on the way out here, so what the fuck did I expect?

Suddenly, something flashed before my eyes. It was too fast for me to understand what was happening, and at the same time the scene unfolded in slow motion. I skidded to a grinding halt to avoid colliding with the huge structure that had appeared in front of me, seemingly out of nowhere.

What in the world?

I barely had time to think – to blink – between the time I caught sight of the massive hunk of brown fur and the body of the creature slammed me into the ground.

Thunk.
Pain coursed through my left shoulder as I was thrown into the dirt with a force I instantly knew wasn’t human. It wasn’t a thought, it was a
feeling
. I struggled frantically to regain control of my body, which was flailing in all directions, stunned from the shock of the hit. I crab-walked backwards on all fours, desperate to get away from my attacker in any way I could.

Horrified, I stared up at the face of the monster that had landed me in this position. My mouth dropped open in disbelief.

Standing in front of me was the most terrifying creature I had ever laid my eyes upon. He was at least 10 feet tall, covered in fur: dark, coarse, dirty brown fur. He had huge, brown pointy ears and beady eyes so black I almost thought they were hollow and I could reach down into his stomach if I tried. The most horrific part of his appearance: the giganticfangs which protruded from his mouth, almost reaching halfway down his torso.

The hulking beast in front of me slashed at the air wildly. Its needle-like claws caught the light of the moon and almost gave the illusion that they were glowing. I tried to open my mouth to scream but nothing came out. The razor blade claws from its wolf hands had to be a foot long in length.

I was still on all fours with my backside parallel to the ground. As its hand – if you could call it that – swiped down at me, I rolled to the left, narrowly dodging the attack. I could see the claws whiz less than an inch by my face. I vaguely comprehended that it had almost taken out an eye. I healed fast, but what would happen if I were torn to shreds?

The fight felt as though it went on for several minutes, although in reality it was probably less than 30 seconds total. The creature was surprisingly quick and agile for its enormous size.

When it tried to slice me a second time, I was prepared. My eyes followed the blade hand and at the last possible moment I hurled myself backwards. The claws grazed my arm, ripping through my jacket sleeve.

The monster had tried to come at me with such force that its claw went straight into the ground and was momentarily stuck there.

I took my chance.  Not paying attention to what direction I was going in now, I took off running as fast as I could. I have never been a natural runner, but now that I didn’t have to worry about oxygen to my lungs and blood pumping to my heart it was almost effortless. I felt like I was gliding.
Maybe this is my cool undead girl power
.

But as fast as I was going, I could almost immediately hear the beast on my heels, panting and growling. It was closing the gap between us at a frighteningly fast speed.

I willed myself to go faster, but my feet already felt like they were flying. I swear I could feel the hot breath on my neck.
This is it
. I gritted my teeth, expecting the sharp claws to pierce my skin at any second.
I’m toast
.

And then I heard the most god-awful howling I had ever heard in my life. It was the sound I imagined a tortured dog would make, times a million. Screaming and growling and howling and finally a resigned whimper.  I had stopped running at this point but I hadn’t been able to force myself to turn around. I didn’t know what I would see, and I was terrified to find out.

The whimpering had finally ceased. “Aurora.” I thought that I heard my name, but it was so low that it was almost a whisper. “Aurora.” Louder this time.

And then Lucas was beside me. “Don’t look,” he warned. He put his arm around me, guiding me away from whatever gruesome mess was behind us.

I looked up at him. Blood was running down both of his cheeks and his hair was disheveled. His face looked even paler than usual. “Oh my god! You’re bleeding!” I cried out in alarm.

“I’m fine,” he assured me. “Just surface wounds. That thing could have done a lot worse damage, believe me.”

He removed his arm from around my shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered. “What the fuck was that?”

“A werewolf.”

The words sent shivers up my spine. “They, they exist?”

“Yeah.” Lucas took in a long breath and exhaled slowly. He seemed incredibly shaken. “I can’t believe that, on a full moon, I didn’t stop you from going out on your own. I just didn’t think! I’m such an idiot! I never would have imagined something like that could have happened.”

He looked around, as though expecting something else to spring out and pounce on us. We continued walking. I was a complete nervous wreck now, jumping at the slightest sound. The crunch of the leaves beneath my feet almost sent me running in a wild panic. Lucas, on the other hand, no longer looked nervous; instead he seemed deep in thought.

After several minutes of walking, I finally broke the silence. “I’m totally turned around. Are we close to your house?”

“Still about 10 minutes,” he answered curtly.

“So what was that all about?” I pressed. “The werewolf,” I added, as though he didn’t already know.

Lucas shrugged.

Why does he always do that? Why can’t he ever just give me a straight answer?

Suddenly, something clicked inside me. I was tired of his flippant attitude, how he didn’t even
pretend
he was telling me everything he knew, acted like it was his right to keep secrets from me because I was just some dumb little girl. This was
my life
on the line, not his. If that werewolf had killed me, would Lucas have even cared?

“Just stop!” I screamed. I had been walking behind Lucas. Now, I pounded my fists against his back as hard as I could.

Lucas swung around, a shocked look on his face. “What in the world’s gotten into you?”

All of the anger I felt had come to head. I was out of control. Lucas
was facing me now. “
You’ve
gotten into me, into my head,” I yelled, not even bothering to keep my voice down. I beat my fists into Lucas’ chest. He didn’t even flinch. I was sure he could pick me up and sling me over his shoulder if he wanted, but he didn’t fight back. No, Lucas just stared at me in confusion.

It felt good to let it out, after all those stupid nights spent whispering and tiptoeing around Henry’s house, all the stress of
everything
.

“One day you take me for pizza and share your darkest secret with me, the next you’ll barely answer my questions with more than a grunt! You act like I’m a nuisance whenever I ask for your help, then call me up out of the blue to come to your house with Henry! Nothing you do makes sense, and half the time you’re not even nice to me!”

“Everything’s fucked up,” I continued to rant. “I have no idea how to break the news that I’m back to my family – for all I know they’ll hand me over to science to figure out how this phenomenon happened, I’m a walking dead girl with absolutely no clue as to why I’m back from the grave, and in the middle of all that, all I can do is daydream about a fucking vampire who probably thinks of me as his little sister.”
Shit. I didn’t mean to say that last part.

My hands were still on Lucas’ chest but I was no longer pounding against him. “Are you done?” Lucas asked me. His tone was light.
Great, he’s trying not to laugh in my face.

“I guess,” I said. I sounded like a pitiful child, even to my own ears.

“So you think about me a lot? Or is there some other vampire I should know about?” Lucas teased.

I was glad I didn’t have blood in my body or I’d have turned beet red. “I didn’t mean to say that,” I managed to spat out at him.

“Don’t let your ego get any bigger than it already is,” I said waspishly. “If you must know I kissed Henry, so don’t think I’m pining away for
you.”

“You kissed Henry?” he sounded surprised.

“Yes.”

“How was it?”

“Nice.” I wasn’t going to mention the part about Henry being a bit drunk.
See how you like cryptic answers. A taste of your own medicine.

“So do you want to know what it feels like to have a
real
man kiss you?” I turned to look at Lucas, wondering if I’d heard him right. His face was inches from mine.

I felt giddy being so close to him, but I was still angry. I stared at him defiantly, refusing to answer.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” And suddenly he
was
kissing me. And I was kissing him back. Feverishly, like there was no tomorrow. It was forceful, confident, just like Lucas. Our tongues intertwined. Lucas moaned as I gripped my arms around his neck, running my fingers through his thick black hair, the hair I had dreamed of caressing on those long sleepless nights.

Effortlessly, his lips still pressed against mine, Lucas lifted me off the ground. He carried me a few feet to a dirt clearing under a huge tree and gently set me down so I was lying on the ground. He lied down next to me, his body barely an inch from mine. Lucas was stroking my hair, running his fingers over my lips. I moaned in pleasure.

Lucas leaned down to kiss me again, lighter this time. He was kissing my neck, all over my face; his mouth moved down to kiss the top of my chest above my shirt and I pulled him closer to me. His hands traced my belly button and he started to undo the top button on my jeans, but he abruptly stopped.

“Shit, Aurora!” Lucas
sat up and buried his head in his hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not you. I just forget sometimes.” Lucas sighed.

“Forget what? Didn’t you like kissing me?”

“It was fucking amazing. I haven’t felt this way in a very long time, possibly
ever
. But you have to understand, a long time to me means hundreds of years. I may not look that old, but you’re
sixteen.
I – we can’t do this.”

“
I’m mature for my age,” I argued.

“I’m sure that you are.” Lucas smiled.

“Oh, I don’t regret the kiss at all,” he said quickly, noticing how my face fell.

He means sex. He must mean sex. He thinks it would be wrong to have sex with me. That’s why he stopped himself from unbuttoning my jeans.
My mind was swimming.

“We should get back.” Lucas stood up, extending his hand to pull me up. I took it, but didn’t let go once we were both standing.

“It’s hard for me to say how I feel sometimes,” Lucas said. “It’s just,” he faltered.

“Go on.”

But the old Lucas, the shut-off version was back. “Henry might be wondering where we are. I wouldn’t want him to come searching in the woods. Who knows what else might be out here?”

I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that Lucas
still
couldn’t be himself around me, but he obviously was attracted to me
and
actually cared about me. If it was just attraction, he would have gone through with it and tried to sleep with me. Maybe he really was a vampire with a conscience.