Dark Secrets (Dark Secrets #1)(130)
Author: A.M. Hudson

Not that that’s what the words were, but that’s how David would say it.

With the absence of an all-hearing vampire in my room, I took a moment to be human, then jumped into the welcoming, enveloping heat of the shower, washed my hair quickly and jumped out, wrapping the towel around my chest and tucking it under my arm.

As I stepped back into my room, a sudden breeze swept through my window and knocked all the papers off my desk. “Damn it, David,” I said to myself, squatting down to pick them up. I was sure that was closed a second ago.

“It was. I opened it.”

“Agh! David!” My heart splattered in my chest; I looked up from my precarious squat on the ground to the vampire perched on the windowsill like a pterodactyl. “You scared the living bejeezus out of me.”

“Sorry.”

“What were you doing out there?” I stood up, tapping the edges to force them into a neat stack. “You ruined my homework pile. Now I have to reorder these before I hand them in to Dad tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it for you.” He shrugged, obviously in no hurry to remove himself from the path of the whipping breeze.

“Why are you just sitting there?” I looked at him suspiciously. “Are you hiding something?”

He shook his head, one of his eyes narrowing slightly into his smile as he looked over my wet, towel-covered body. “I’m just admiring the view.”

“You better mean the stunning panoramic view of the hills and my backyard, David Knight.” I dumped my disordered papers on my desk and took a step back.

“Nope. I meant my beautiful, almost-naked girlfriend.” He jumped down from the ledge, slowly pushing the window closed behind him. “So—bowling?”

“That’s the plan,” I said, inhaling the fresh cologne wafting off this suave boy as he stepped in front of me, hair all wet and brushed back, for once, showing his forehead. He looked more like a man today in that black hoodie and grey V-neck shirt than he ever had before. It almost made me sad that he’d never grow older than nineteen. “So, do you actually want to go bowling?”

“As long as I’m with you, I will do anything.” He smiled down at me, his eyes becoming small with warmth. “But you shouldn’t stand in front of me like this, my love. You make me think inappropriate things.”

“Oh. Sorry. So—” I took a wide step back, “—are you any good at bowling?”

“You forget—” he used a louder voice to call out as I disappeared into my wardrobe, “—I lived through the fifties. Bowling was huge then.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re any good at it,” I stated, slipping my emerald-green sweater over my head.

“True. It’s more like I have to try to be bad. I’m a little too precise. I’ve also been known to break a pin or two.”

I turned around, buttoning my jeans, and met cheek-to-chest with the rain-dotted fabric of David’s jacket. “Hey! How did you even know I was finished getting dressed in here? I could’ve been naked.”

He tapped his temple, grinning.

Hmpf! “Is there any point in me even dressing in a different room—with you and your mind-reading invading my privacy?”

“Etiquette?” He shrugged. Then, as his eyes traced over the low, rounded neckline of my sweater, his finger copied. “I like this.”

I closed my eyes. “I like you touching me like that.”

“So—” His finger came away, a sudden tone of urgency making my eyes open. “Are you up for a little outing today?”

“I can’t. I have a few notes and references to finish on my paper.”

“Which paper?” He followed me out of the wardrobe.

“The mythology one—on vampires,” I teased.

“The subject I told you not to do?”

“Yup.”

David smiled, nodding toward my suddenly very neatly reordered pile of papers. “Or do you mean the report I just finished for you? The one on angels.”

“Angels?” I ran over to my desk and flicked through the pages. “No! I spent hours working on that, David!”

“I know. And it was a great report. But I told you not to do vampires—you didn’t listen.”

“But, why?” I spun around and leaned on the desk. “What does it matter?”

“Because you know things you shouldn’t, and if you happen to publish any minor detail of fact, and my Set were to somehow find out, I could be punished, and you—” His words trailed off.

“I…what?”

“You could be killed. It’s not worth the risk.”

“Killed?”

“Shh.” He rested a finger to his lip. “Your dad doesn’t know I’m here, remember? Look, I didn’t want to tell you that because I didn’t want you to worry. I just hoped you’d listen to me—for once.”

“That was naive.” I smiled.

David smiled too. “I know that now.”

“So, that’s what you were doing—when I came out of the bathroom?”

“Yes.” He laughed, wiping a hand across his jaw. “You actually snuck up on me—for once. The evidence was still in my hands. I had to leave it on the windowsill and hope it didn’t blow away while you were standing there.”

“You could’ve just told me the truth.” I stepped into him, tucking my arms along his ribs. “That would’ve made me change my mind.”

“I’ll remember that for the future.” He kissed the crown of my head.

“So—what punishment?”

“Huh?”

“You said they’d punish you if I published any facts. What would they do?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe a seven-day-burial, a month being tortured by the First Order, or a personal favourite of my Set…a complete draining,” he said casually.

“Draining?”

“Mm.” He nodded, his mouth small. “They drain every ounce of blood from your arteries and leave you parched and partially insane in a dark room for a few weeks.”

“How do they drain you? You heal like superglue—how do they get the blood out fast enough?”

“They place a metal vise, right here—” he pinched his fingers, then spread them outward a few inches above his wrist, “—it holds the arteries open—prevents closing and healing of the wound.”

“That’s horrible.”