Exposure: Bloodlust Series Book 1 Read online

  “You’re stunning,” was all he said as he took a moment to look me up and down.

  “Thanks,” I shrugged, blushing with a new source of embarrassment. “You look nice too. Handsome.”

  He was in another plaid shirt, open to show a punk band t-shirt underneath.

  Oh God, please, PLEASE let him listen to punk music...

  “Blink-182, huh?” I asked to get the conversation off mine or his looks.

  “I find they fit my temperament sometimes,” he grinned a mischievous grin.

  “Thank the good Lord above you don’t listen to country!”

  He laughed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with country music on occasion. I find every genre has a time and a place. For instance, if you want to dance, turn on some Frank Sinatra or even a Bach waltz. If you want to sing with abandon, pop music has its moments of relevance. Rock music on the other hand, is the music you listen to when you want to feel something. I prefer my music to make me feel.”

  “I’m the same way!” I gushed, feeling like a fangirl.

  “What’s your favorite band?”

  “That’s a terrible question that you should know better than to ask.”

  He laughed.

  “But if I HAD to answer it, on pain of death… Probably old Flyleaf, or maybe All Time Low.”

  “I’m acquainted with them,” he nodded, taking my hand and drifting forward with me following close to his side.

  There was a short silence until he asked, “It didn’t occur to me until just now… but I had assumed we’d walk to town. Are you in any way against the idea? I could go back to my house and get a car if you’d prefer.”

  “No, it’s fine. I like walking with you.”

  “So do I. It gives me a chance to hold your hand.”

  He met my eyes and his crinkled up with happiness in the corners, joy reflecting in the blue pools looking at me.

  “Your eyes are beautiful,” I breathed all of a sudden.

  My cheeks heated, but I didn’t take the words back. It was the truth, and it was curious that he didn’t seem pleased with the compliment.

  “I could get lost in yours,” was his only response, turning the compliment back on me.

  It was quiet for another minute before we headed toward town. People were all up and down the main road, walking, driving and biking to the festival. Evidently it was a big deal, as Genie had said, for every person in town to make the effort to meet.

  Clarence took me to eat at the cafe in town. The ONLY cafe in town. It was chuck full and we had an approximate wait time of 60 minutes. Eventually we both decided to just get fair food once we got to the festival. It turned out to be a great idea. Clarence got me corn dogs and funnel cake, cotton candy and popcorn galore until I was absolutely full to bursting.

  He took a bite here and there, snatching pieces off my snacks while I wasn’t looking, and we’d made a game of it. Eventually I caught him tossing the pieces on the grass and he gave in, declaring himself stuffed, but he admitted to wanting to continue playing the game.

  His attitude of fun and sweetness were unbridled. We went on rides, watched the floats in the parade, played games until his pockets were empty of cash. Eventually, with the moon high and full in the sky, we made our way back down the main road.

  Clarence had gone from hand holding to slipping his arm around my waist as we walked home, keeping me close to his side while the partying and festivities still went strong in town. The road was a ghost town, but the street was lit with the strong moonlight bleeding through the trees.

  As we turned off onto my road, I stopped on the corner near a crop of tall bushes and turned to Clarence. His eyes were hooded in pleasure from an evening well spent, and his arm slipped just the smallest amount downward as I turned to him.

  “Are you going to kiss me goodnight?” I asked suddenly, finally reaching the point where I couldn’t stand the small distance between us anymore.

  I wanted his kiss, and I wanted it before we were standing in front of my house, Dad likely watching from a window to make sure nothing inappropriate went on.

  “If I tried, would you let me?” was his response, his head dipping just an inch, but I could already feel his breath brush against my mouth.

  “As many times as you wanted,” I agreed in a voice that was far to husky to be mine.

  His lips tipped upward, and his eyes crinkled in mirth, but then his face relaxed again and dipped, his nose brushing mine as our lips made contact.

  Electricity spread through me, fingertips to toes when his soft lips met mine. When our lips parted just an inch to end our first kiss, I sucked in a breath in hopes to quell my quaking knees and weak legs. That single touch was all it took to completely take my breath away.

  He must have gotten the confirmation he was looking for because his head dipped again and he kissed me harder this time, his lips moving, and his arm tightening around my waist as our bodies plastered together and his hand brushed into my hair, cupping the back of my head.

  I moved my lips in sync with his until his tongue brushed the seam of my lips, as if testing me to see how far I wanted to go with the kiss. When my lips parted and tongue met his, he took the hint and deepened the kiss. As our jaws worked, and our lips played, our tongues danced, but only for a moment. Before I was ready to let it go, Clarence released his hold on me save for the gentlest palm against the small of my back, and his lips lessened their tension, tongue retreating as he slowed the kiss, eventually ending it.

  We stood there, forehead to forehead as we panted quietly. My blood was pounding in my ears, my nipples grating against the lace of my bra, and I would need to change my underwear once I got home. The fire he always burned through me had returned and my body had made a valiant effort to douse it between my legs.

  Instead of suggesting we find a place in the brush to finish the job, Clarence put his arm around my shoulder, squeezed me to him and continued walking me home.

  The most life altering, world shattering kiss of all time, and he was just going to walk me home.

  “Do you see it now?” he finally asked as we took slow steps toward my driveway.

  “See what?” I asked and stopped again so I could look into his eyes.

  The blue there fairly glowed as he looked at me with such affection, dare I say LOVE…

  “That we were made for each other,” he answered, his voice completely made of gravel at this point.

  The idea should have scared the crap out of me, but instead it thrilled me. Love? Could what I feel be love? Likely not, but whatever it was, it was too strong to be just a primal lust. It almost felt like we were made out of the same atom, and both halves came together with an explosion that was not to be ignored. I didn’t need to know him more than a month to know that there was something about him, about US, that felt right.

  “I’m beginning to,” was all I managed to say through my emotion filled voice.

  Clarence’s hand touched the back of my head and he pulled it forward enough to press a kiss on my forehead before continuing on our way again. We were silent as we got in view of my driveway, but within the space of one second, the warm fuzzy feeling around us evaporated and hollowness, TERROR took its place.

  His arm around me tightened as he began to quickly scan the trees. A low growl emitted from the corps of evergreens at our side, in the same place I’d seen the wolf before, last night.

  “Addie,” came Clarence’s deep voice, no longer a mixture of emotion and attraction; his tone was low, icy and methodical. “I need to you run, Darling. I want you to run home, get inside and lock the doors. Do you understand me?”

  “Wha...”

  The growl returned at a low, distant decibel but quickly got louder, a howl piercing the air as we began to hear branches and brush crunching under swiftly moving paws.

  “Addie, RUN!” Clarence pushed me forward toward my driveway, toward my house as some huge, hairy beast came flying out of the woods on four legs.
/>   Clarence braced and the animal pounced, knocking Clarence down to the road.

  I screamed. I screamed and screamed but nobody heard me. Everyone was gone, a mile away and distracted with flashing lights and loud music.

  Clarence shoved the wolf off him, got to his feet and got up for another charge by the animal. He glanced over the beast's back and saw me still standing there and yelled at me to run again, his tone pleading this time, begging.

  I couldn’t leave him. I wouldn’t!

  The beast turned my way and my feet finally started to move. They carried me a few yards away, but my strange and strong sense of displaced courage stopped me again. I heard a deep grunt, then a moan of what sounded like agony leave Clarence’s throat before I turned again. The wolf had his jaws around Clarence’s shoulder, but he beat on the animal’s head until it let go, then his hands grasped around the furry thing’s neck.

  There was more grunting, whimpers, and then both of them collapsed to the ground.

  I stood there for a full minute, watching but neither of them moved.

  Somehow, some way Clarence had killed the wolf. The HUGE wolf. But he wasn’t moving now as he lay on top of the creature. Was he severely hurt?

  My heart started thumping so hard my vision blurred as I retraced my steps toward him, to see if he was even still alive. Tears burned in my eyes as I approached, but the closer I got, the more movement I noticed. It was a small twitch of his hand, or the adjusting of the angle of his head I noticed first. Then it was the sound.

  It was a slurping sound, a wet, gushing, sucking sound that reverberated in my eardrums as I looked at the dead beast and the barely moving Clarence.

  Suddenly the movement stopped, the sounds stopped.

  “Clarence?”

  My voice sounded hollow and afraid to my own ears.

  His head shot around, but it wasn’t Clarence. At least, it wasn’t anymore.

  He still wore the plaid shirt, now bloodstained with the Blink-182 stamped on his black t-shirt. But the rest of him had changed. His normal pallor had become a ghostly white, and his blue eyes had turned to such a startling icy color, they looked almost clear or white in the moonlight. But it was his mouth… It was his mouth that began to pump horror through me.

  That same mouth, pillowy lips that had kissed me so tenderly minutes before were drenched in blood. Sharp fangs extended unnaturally out of his mouth as he attempted to lick the redness off his face, his hands covered in the beast’s life-blood.

  My breath came in sharp bursts, oxygen filling my lungs painfully as I began to hyperventilate.

  “Addie...” he finally ground out, harshly wiping his face with his shirt as he blinked, his eyes going to their natural blue, his skin gaining some color again.

  I didn’t stay around to hear him finish speaking. Finally my feet moved the way they should have from the beginning, and I was flying up the driveway and slamming the door behind me, backing against the wall as I stared at the door, expecting it to burst open to the blood-drenched monster I’d just seen overcome Clarence’s body.

  A sob wrenched through me as I stumbled up to my room, fumbling to lock the door and put the chair back in place under the handle.

  I stood there, shaking, sobbing as my brain attempted to digest the scene my eyes had just witnessed. Shock finally settled over me like the chilled air in the room, and I managed to slip under the covers, clothes and shoes and all as I shivered, lungs still hurting to breathe air, and then I passed out.

  I woke up to bright light streaming in through my window. My head throbbed and my eyes were watery and blurry. I looked around the room for a moment, then saw the chair wedged under the door handle. Everything flooded back.

  I clenched my eyes closed wondering, thinking on what I remembered was real and what was a play of the darkness and moonlight.

  Surely the eyes, the skin and the teeth were all a figment of my imagination. I was under duress. I was in shock and I thought I’d just seen my not-quite-boyfriend be torn to pieces by a wolf in the middle of the night. Maybe… Just maybe he had really been hurt and he wasn’t EATING the creature, but the blood gurgling was him or his lungs, his injuries or the wolfs. Maybe the blood covering him was from his own shoulder wound, or from a the wolf itself.

  There were so many questions with no answers, and I needed an explanation. It was possible I left my date dying in the road last night because I was so overwhelmed with fear.

  That thought alone had me stumbling out of bed, wrenching the chair away from the door and throwing myself through it and down the spiral stairs. It was still early and Dad was nowhere to be found, so I ran out the door without having to make excuses and sprinted to the spot where it had all happened.

  I slowed as the spot loomed ahead. Sure enough there was blood on the road, moving out toward where the asphalt met the grass growing on the edges. But there were no bodies. The wolf was gone, and Clarence was nowhere to be seen.

  Crouching down, I dragged my finger across the dried blood, wondering who it belonged to. Was Clarence ok? Maybe he would be at the hospital. Someone would have passed him at some point and taken him to get help.

  I ran back home and into the kitchen, picking up the phone as I dug through the dusty phone book cluttering up the counter. After finding the hospital number I called and asked if Clarence Barnett had been admitted. They hadn’t heard of him, nor had they gotten any young men into the ER.

  He wasn’t there. Maybe he’d made it home. That would mean Mason was taking care of him so at least he had someone to help him.

  “Hey Kiddo,” Dad walked into the kitchen as I closed the phonebook. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  I shrugged.

  “There’re Cheerios in the cabinet, or we could have some scrambled eggs.”

  “I’m not really hungry,” I told him truthfully. “I think I’m… I think I’ll take a shower.”

  Dad shrugged back at me and got his cereal out of the cupboard along with a bowl as I left the room, going into the bathroom to shed from my night of terror and my morning of worry.

  I stripped naked, and turned on the water of the small shower before stepping under the hot water. With my loofa I scrubbed and scrubbed at my skin until all my lungs inhaled was the relaxing, fragrant jasmine scent of my body wash and shampoo.

  After standing under the water until my skin pruned and the water turned cold, I got out and wrapped my body in a towel, letting my damp hair drift around my shoulders as I made my way back up to my bedroom. Dad was in front of his TV, distracted completely from anything I had going on.

  At the top of the stairs I touched my door handle, then leaned my head on the door. I was exhausted, worried, and a little scared. And there were still so many things I needed to know.

  I grabbed the handle with a sigh and shoved into my room. I stumbled to the closet and dumped my armload of yesterday’s clothes before I started unwrapping the towel around me. That’s when I heard a tap at my window. I jumped, clamping the towel around me again as I whipped around, seeing the subject of all my overwhelming emotions.

  Clarence sat there next to my window, shoulder leaning against the window frame, his knuckle poised against the pane as he stopped tapping. The slightest shriek escaped my mouth as I ran to the window, throwing it open so fast one side slammed into Clarence’s shoulder. The injured one.

  “Dear God I thought you were dead!” I blurted as I pulled him into the room before he rolled off the sloped roof outside the window.

  “I’m not...” he started to say but stopped, looking into my eyes as if to gauge my reaction.

  “What the hell happened?” I demanded, fumbling to keep the towel clamped tight around my entire body.

  “I… The wolf...” He took a deep breath. “I need to tell you something, Addie. It’s important, and I need you to keep an open mind...”

  “How is your shoulder?” I interrupted, lifting one hand to gently touch his shoulder.

  “I’m fine. My s
houlder is fine,” he stopped me, taking my hand away.

  “Did your brother bring you to the hospital? Or the doctor or something? I’m sure you needed stitches after that...”

  “Addie, I’m fine. I don’t need stitches. I’m healed.”

  My brain function shut down.

  “What the hell do you mean you’re healed?”

  “There is no more wound,” he sighed, pulling aside the neck of his t-shirt to show me his pale skin was flawlessly smooth with no mark from the jaws I’d witnessed sink into the flesh there.

  “How...how...”

  “That’s what I need to explain to you.” he tried again.

  “What, that you’re a mutant with healing abilities?”

  He almost laughed. He smiled, at least.

  “Something like that. I think mutant is maybe a silly word, but no less true.”

  My jaw dropped.

  The only question that kept rattling around in my mind exploded out of my mouth.

  “Were you eating that wolf?”

  He gulped.

  “I… May I start from the beginning, and you can ask questions when I’m done? It’ll be less confusing.”

  I waved my hand in impatience. Obviously he needed to get something off his chest.

  “The blood you saw,” he started carefully, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “The eyes, the pale skin and the teeth… I’m...”

  Clarence looked up with his pause, as if begging some higher power to guide his words, then he gulped a deep breath and said plainly, “I’m a vampire.”

  I stared at him for a second. And then I laughed.

  Chapter Six

  He looked surprised, and somewhat hurt at my outburst.

  “A vampire?” I laughed breathlessly. “A blood sucking, night crawling demon?”

  He bit his lip in worry as he shook his head.

  “We suck blood, but we can walk in the sun, though it does burn if too hot or strong… But we’re not demons, nor are we bat-morphing, garlic-avoiding heathens.”