The Vampire...In My Dreams (2 page)

“Marissa?” Kate called out anxiously.

“I’m here!” I remained standing next to my important catch—the Goth, or vampire, or whatever the guy was.

“What happened to you?” she called out from the fog.

I still couldn’t make out her form, but the guy behind me gave a dark chuckle. Ignoring him, I hollered back, “I couldn’t keep up with your long stride!”

“I lost him somewhere up ahead.” Kate suddenly stepped out of the curtain of mist, her hair disheveled but still just as sexy. No unsightly perspiration marred her perfect skin, nor did she appear out of breath like I had been, gasping for air like a half-dead fish out of water. “I was sure I kept seeing his cape fluttering in the breeze just ahead of me. But when I realized you weren’t behind me, I grew worried.”

Cape? He wasn’t wearing a cape. “Well, he’s right here.” Proud of my accomplishment for once, I motioned to Dominic, standing behind me.

Kate looked around me. “Right.”

I turned. Dominic was gone. Chill bumps freckled my skin again, and I took a deep breath, partly to calm my anxiety, and partly in exasperation that he would disappear and leave me behind to explain what had happened. “He was right here.”

I looked back at Kate, but skepticism was written all over her face. She’d been chasing after him all along as far as she was concerned. No way did she want to think I had been speaking with him while she attempted to run down a phantom.

Kate folded her arms and quirked a sculpted blond brow. “All right. So was he one or not?”

She believed me? Well, I wasn’t one to make up stories, good thing for me, so I guess that’s the reason she didn’t think I was doing so now. “He told me in so many words it wasn’t a good idea to know the answer to that question.”

Kate snorted, although the way she did it, she sounded classy. She was every guy’s heartthrob. In fact, I couldn’t understand why Dominic had left instead of engaging in a conversation with her. Her charming ways encouraged any guy to talk to her. Heck, if he had been leading us on a wild goose chase, why not visit with her in the cloak of fog up ahead, instead of coming back to see me?

“Right. So you didn’t pin him down on an answer.” Kate stalked back toward our street, but her voice definitely held a modicum of disbelief. I swore she muttered, “Like he was really there at all.”

Now
that
ticked me off. She didn’t believe me after all. I might not be as good at spells and concocting potions as she was, but I didn’t make up tales and she knew it. It wasn’t because I was Miss Perfect Goody Two-Shoes either, but the tips of my ears had a way of blushing when I fibbed, and everyone was aware of it.

“You don’t believe me?” I tried to keep my voice even, and the venom out of it, but the poison coated my words anyway. It wasn’t my idea to chase the…well, whatever he was, and it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t keep up with Kate.
And it definitely
wasn’t my fault he targeted me instead of her. Was it that he figured I’d be easier prey? Sure, Kate could sweet talk her way into or out of anything with a guy. Me? As of tonight, I just stuttered.

“I saw him ahead of me! Or at least his cape for a long time,” Kate challenged with a hot backward glance at me while I tried to keep up.

The stitch in my side returned, and the shin splints hurt with every rushed step I took.

“They can just appear and disappear at random,” I glibly replied as if I knew all about them. At least that’s what the books of authority said on the subject of vampires. Though I didn’t believe Kate was correct in thinking she’d been chasing the vampire all that long since he’d been with me for a while.

“I suppose you didn’t do any of your tests on him either.”

My heart sank. No. Just being in Dominic’s mystifying presence had addled my brain, and I’d completely forgotten about the tests. But vampires were like the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snowman—unproven myths. Would our witch’s tests really verify Dominic was a vampire?

Boy, had I blown it this time. I could have been the first witch to prove that vampires truly existed in our world. I would be instantly famous and maybe a warlock would look my way for once. Yeah, Joshua Cantaleaver—dark-haired, dark-eyed, lips of sin. If I were famous, he would want me. I’d be the most popular girl in school. My teachers would look on me with respect and admiration. Even my parents would quit nagging at me about my average grades. Inwardly, I smiled.
Dominic, you are going to make me famous.

I shook my head at Kate, whose sharp green eyes studied me, waiting for a response to her question. “No, I didn’t use any tests on him. I learned his name though.”

Kate rolled her eyes.

“Dominic. Dominic Vor…something ending in a ‘ski’.”

“Did he have fangs?”

“Not that he extended. But he had a mouthful of perfectly straight teeth. Beautiful smile.”

“You’re hopeless. Here we had a chance to identify our first vampire, and you blew it.”

At least she believed me now that I had spoken to him. However, somehow I didn’t think my chance meeting with Dominic was a one-time occurrence. In fact even now, the hair at the nape of my neck stood on end while I imagined he watched us from the dark. Waiting for what? To tell me the truth? To turn me into one of his own kind? To devour me alive upon our next meeting? Or was there some deeper meaning to our having met the way we did?

The wind whistled around my head, blowing my hair into my eyes.
“Marissa,”
it seemed to say. My blood chilled. Then I saw him, or what I perceived as him, a shadowy form half hidden by the spring green leaves of a towering maple, shivering in the cool breeze.

Kate had once again outdistanced me with her longer stride, and I ran to catch up. “Wait up!” I hadn’t meant to sound so…scared.

I glanced back at the tree, but no sign of the shadow appeared now. Had he heard our entire conversation? Did he know we intended to prove he was a vampire?

My face heated. Why did he target me, instead of Kate with the golden hair? Tall and graceful, she was every guy’s dream—from the football jock to the rodeo dude. Me? Short and inconspicuous. Did Dominic think that no one would notice if I suddenly just vanished from the face of the earth?

Kate glanced back at me. “I wonder why he came back to see you. Are you sure it was the same guy we saw at the burger place?”

Was she inferring I wasn’t good enough? I tilted my chin up…all-knowing-like and in a most dramatic fashion replied, “We were destined to meet.”

Kate stared at me, a disbelieving frown knitting her brows.

I shrugged. “So he said.”

She shook her head. “Sounds like a guy line if ever I heard one.” Her pace slowed though, and the tone of her voice sounded a bit worried.

I glanced behind me, the uneasy sensation of being stalked trickling through my bones. “Yeah, but from a regular guy or from a—”

“Shhh,”
the wind whispered back.

Chapter 2

DOMINIC

“I am the Prince of Darkness,” I said quietly while I watched my fair-haired savior run to catch up to her lanky girlfriend.

Marissa Lakeland.
Why in the world did she have to be a witch? If she’d been a regular human, I could have started the process tonight.
Easily.
Just cleared her mind, made her expose her throat to me…

A groan escaped my lips, and her head jerked back as she looked in my direction. Her eyes, liquid pools of blue, gazed at the dark and the mist. I smiled.
She is as entranced by me as I am by her.

My smile faded. The notion she wished to expose me for what I was instantly put a damper on our relationship.
Witch.

The last time I had an unfortunate tangle with a teen witch, all I could do was croak out my exasperation. Even now, I could still sense the way my skin had felt—slimy, wet and cold, no longer smooth, but bumpy and a sickly brownish-green color. Really, I should have known to stay out of her path. My brother had warned me the witch had a strong aversion to humans, but being in one of my more cantankerous moods, I’d planned to show my brother how charming I could be and how the witch would delight in having a burger with me.

Right.
For two hours I’d had to suffer the most horrible humiliation while my brother begged the witch to turn me back into my handsome self. The Hamburger Spot owner even demanded I be thrown out of his restaurant. But following that, I had to endure James berating me for a good part of the evening. I knew he’d never let me live it down. Thankfully, he never told Mom and Dad.

Only this time we couldn’t hide my mistake from our parents. Under the dire circumstances, I felt they were holding up pretty well.

However, if I didn’t solicit Marissa’s help soon, I’d be lost forever to the dark world of the undead. But would she help me? Her friend seemed surer of herself. Wouldn’t she be a better choice?

No. Marissa was the one destined to be my savior. As soon as I saw the two girls at the burger joint, I knew. Her long, shiny blond hair caught my eye first. Her slim, trim figure, petite and cute as a pixie, next. But it was her eyes, alluring as the Caribbean waters, that captured my attention the most. Peering into them, I could see her every thought.

I chuckled. She thought I was handsome. Then I frowned. Expose me to the world as a vampire so she could get some warlock’s attention? My canines itched to extend. Forever, she’d be mine.

A witch.
Why did she have to be a witch?

I kicked a leaf on the sidewalk. Why couldn’t she have been a normal, everyday human girl? I glanced back at her form fading into the distance. Because for whatever reason, she was the one and only one who could save me—after all, it was written in the stars.

Dematerializing, I hurried after her. I had to learn everything I could about her. Where she lived, where she hung out, who her friends were.

Most of all, how best to make her mine.

Once I drew close to the girls again, the one Marissa called Kate turned to her and asked, “Why do you keep looking over your shoulder? Do you think he’s following us?”

Marissa ran her hands over her silky shirtsleeves. “Don’t you sense him too?”

She seemed slightly anxious, and my gut clenched to think I’d caused her to fear me. How could I convince her that she had to save me if she was afraid of me?

Kate surveyed the area, but she couldn’t see me or feel my presence like Marissa could. That was another reason I knew Marissa was the right one. She and I had some kind of a connection—one that went beyond the physical. She sensed me, even if her eyes could not see me.

“There’s no one there,” Kate remarked, though her voice didn’t sound sure at all. She picked up her pace again. “You’re just jittery.” She glanced at her watch. “And it’s way past our bedtime.” Heading down a walkway to a one-story, ranch-style home, she faced Marissa. “Are you going to be all right? I mean, you don’t have far to reach your house, but your face is so…pale. Are you scared, Marissa?”

“No. I’m fine.” Marissa vehemently shook her head and straightened her back. “See you in the morning for school.”

“Yeah, don’t dream anything I wouldn’t tonight. Tall, dark and handsome, sucking at your neck.” Kate laughed at her own humor, though her tone of voice seemed somewhat tentative, then she hurried to her front door.

Marissa took a hesitant breath, then stalked off down the sidewalk. She took larger steps than I imagined she normally did, her pace frenzied. Somehow I had to put her at ease, but materializing in front of her wasn’t the way. Still, I wanted to speak to her one more time before she disappeared into her home for the night. Actually, I wanted to kiss those turned down lips of hers and make her smile.

Then I wanted to bite her, and…

But rationally, I knew I needed to take it slowly with her. Not frighten her further. So what got into me to just pop in front of her like I did?

Patience definitely wasn’t one of my virtues. I had to get her to agree to help me before it was too late. My time was running out. Besides, my impulsive nature hadn’t been squashed when Lynetta turned me into a vampire.

A squeal issued from deep within Marissa’s throat as soon as I appeared in front of her. I tried my most sensual smile, hoping it didn’t appear too wickedly sinful. Feasting my eyes on her was pure delight, but my only intention was to calm her fears.

Her lips parted in surprise and her wide eyes showed her fright. I sensed her blood racing through her veins at lightning speed. Which definitely didn’t help one bit when the rising bloodlust in my system compelled me to make her mine. Like the unfathomable addiction I had to chocolate, I couldn’t help wanting her. Trying to curb my interest in her blood, I attempted to think of a way to soothe her frayed nerves, something I could say to calm her. How I wished she were human so I could use my vampiric charms on her and easily wipe the terror from her mind.

“What do you want with me?” she squeaked, her blue eyes barely blinking as if she were afraid I might suddenly vanish again.

However, her fairly calm response was a beginning. She didn’t scream; she was talking to me.

“You draw me to you, Marissa. I can’t help myself.” I choked on the next words. “Can we be friends?”

We couldn’t be just friends—not in the ordinary sense of the word. Lovers and mates forever, that’s what we were destined to be. If only I could convince her to take the first step. If only she would give me her lifeblood…willingly, lovingly. If only—

She wrung her slender hands for a moment as if contemplating something, then having decided what she would do, she raised them. Wriggling her fingers at me, she silently spoke ancient words, her lips moving without speech.

Without my express permission, my lips turned up. Marissa really wasn’t much like the other teen witch, I could see. Instead of using a dastardly spell on me, all she attempted was a defensive spell.

Her blond brows knit together. “What’s so funny?” Her tone was angry, no longer fearful.

Good. I could deal with angry. Fear was harder to overcome, particularly when people learned what I was.

“Your spells…” I almost told her the truth. Her witch’s spells wouldn’t work on me, now that I was a vampire. At least I didn’t think so, but if they made her feel more at ease, I’d allow her to continue undisturbed.