Chapter 7

• Alina
• I didn’t know how long I stood there after he left. I felt empty and alone somehow.
• I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands and went to the kitchen. Clearly, I was losing my mind if I just kissed my nightmare. What came over me? It was like I had no control over my emotions. It couldn’t just be physical attraction, could it? No, I was sure it was just that.
• By now, the omelette that I was making was completely burnt and inedible, so I took it off the burner and threw it in the trash can. I hated wasting food, but I lost my appetite. I took the boiling water which had reduced to half its amount off the stove, poured some instant coffee mix into it, and drank from it. It was too hot, but the pain helped me forget some of my unease.
• What happened today wasn’t supposed to happen. Then again, what was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to do now? Things were so confusing, I can’t even think straight. Why did Erick have to come back? Where was he until now? So many questions kept circling around my head, but I had answers to none. I wasn’t even sure I wanted answers.
• Finishing off the scalding hot coffee, I washed the cup and left it on the counter to dry. Then I took some ice cubes from my freezer and placed it on my burnt tongue to provide relief. I stopped being self-destructive a long time ago. Why start now that my life was finally going somewhere? I was an editor at a fairly popular local magazine, I had an apartment of my own, and I was no longer that girl who couldn’t speak out to save her life. I couldn’t take three steps backwards just when I took two steps forward. Erick’s arrival couldn’t change things for me. I wouldn’t give up the life I’ve made for myself just because I was supposed to marry a vampire.
• I sighed as I sat on my sofa and tried to think of a way to deal with my life, but I just didn’t think I had the strength to fight anymore. With Erick’s return and my dad’s worsening condition, I felt like my life was spiralling out of control.
• Erick
• I swam harder and pushed my legs to their limit until my hands touched the other end of the pool seconds later. I didn’t stop. Turning, I swam even faster until my fingers touched the other end of the pool again. Frustrated, I rose from the water, pushed back my blond hair from my eyes, and punched the side wall of the pool. The tile cracked and a chunk of tile fell to the bottom of the pool.
• Cussing, I got out of the pool, wrapped a towel around waist, and started drying my hair with another one. Right now, I was at my private beach house off the shore of Hudson Bay, a good four hours away from Alina’s apartment. I wanted so badly not to screw things up with her, but in the end, that was exactly what I did! Damn it!
• She wasn’t making this any easier for me either. Why would she? What reason did I ever give her to trust me? I had to focus on making this work, though. Alina’s mom was a very close friend of my mother, and I wanted to honour her last wishes, not only to protect Alina but for my sake as well. Vampires didn’t have mates, no matter what modern fictions let everyone believe, but we remained faithful to the ones we chose, and Alina was chosen for me a long time ago. I might not have accepted that before, but I did now.
• I brushed back my hair from my eyes again. I really needed to cut it short. It was getting too long for my liking. The swim helped a bit with the stress. I always swam when I was stressed out, but it didn’t help me find answers to what I needed to do next. I needed to form a plan to make things right and to at least make things a little less awkward, but my mind kept going back to the kiss we shared.
• It was the briefest kiss I’ve had in my entire life, but it was also the most special. It felt like my whole body was on fire. She must have felt it too. I felt her shudder before she got all ninja and jumped away.
• Damn! Focus, Erick! Ok, so our wedding was pretty soon, so I had to take care of the wedding preparations. It would be a private wedding in full vampire style. There would be vows and all, but nothing fancy. It would be in front of hundreds of witnesses, vampires mostly. And there would be the blood bond.
• The blood bond binds two vampires or a human and a vampire to each other, forever. We would have to drink the ceremonial blood that would be a combination of both of ours after our blood has been accepted by the Gods as a sacrifice. Then there was the matter of Alina turning into a vampire. I wasn’t sure if Alina wanted to stay human or turn into one of us. If she did stay human, she would always be fragile and prone to danger, and she would grow older, but I didn’t want to force her into anything right now. She had to want to turn by herself because if she didn’t want to, she could become a very dangerous newborn.
• So I sat there on a bench, debating on what to do the next day when I suddenly remembered her boss, Ryan.
• That prick was taking my girl out somewhere, and I really needed to interfere. That was when a plan formed in my head.
• I smirked. This would be very interesting.