Hunted

it when I blush.”
    “Yeah, the temperature’s dropped like crazy in the past few hours. It’s going to be an icy mess out there. You know, I think you’re adorable with those pink cheeks.”
    “You and my grandma are the only two people in the world who think that,” I said, smiling begrudgingly at him.
    “Well, that puts me in good company.” Erik chuckled, reaching for a chip while I glanced around the basement. Everything was quiet up here, too, but not scary quiet like the stupid tunnels. Erik had a chair pulled over near the entrance to below and beside it were a couple oil lanterns (brightly burning), a half-empty liter bottle of Mountain Dew (eesh!), and, surprise, surprise, Bram Stoker’s Dracula with a bookmark stuck in it at about the halfway point. I waggled my brows at him.
    “What? I borrowed it from Kramisha.” He was smiling kinda guiltily, which made him look like an adorable little boy. “So, I admit it. I’ve been curious about the book ever since you told me a while ago that it’s one of your favorites. I’m only about halfway through, so do not tell me what happens.”
    I grinned at him, flattered that he was reading Dracula just because of me. “Oh, please,” I teased. “You know how the book ends. Everybody knows how the book ends.” I really loved that Erik was this big, tall, hot, studly guy who reads all sorts of books and watches old Star Wars movies. My grin got wider. “Sooooo, you’re liking it?”
    “Yeah, I am. Even though I didn’t really expect to.” His grin mirrored mine. “I mean, come on. It is a little old school, what with the vamps being monsters and all.”
    My mind instantly went to Neferet, whom I considered a monster in a beautiful disguise, and to my unanswered questions about the red fledglings, but I pulled my thoughts away from all that, not wanting darkness to intrude on this moment with Erik. Refocusing on Dracula, I said, “Well, yeah, Dracula is supposed to be a monster and all, but I always feel sorry for him.”
    “You feel sorry for him?” Erik was obviously surprised. “Z, he’s pure evil.”
    “I know, but he loves Mina. How can something that’s pure evil know love?”
    “Hey, I’m not that far in it yet! Don’t give it away.”
    I rolled my eyes at him. “Erik, you have to know Dracula goes after Mina. He bites her and she starts to change. It’s through Mina that the Count is tracked and eventually—”
    “Stop!” Erik said, laughing as he grabbed me and covered my mouth. “I wasn’t kidding. I don’t want you to tell me how it ends.”
    My mouth was covered by his hand, but I knew my eyes were smiling at him.
    “If I take my hand away, do you promise to be good?”
    I nodded.
    Slowly, he uncovered my mouth, but he made no move to step away from me. It felt nice to be close to him. He was gazing down at me, with a small smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. I thought about how hot he was and how glad I was that we were together again, and I said, “Want me to tell you how I wish the book ended?”
    His brows lifted. “How you wish ? Which means you won’t really be telling me the ending?”
    “Cross my heart.” Automatically, I crossed my heart. We were standing so close that the back of my hand brushed his chest.
    “Tell me.” His voice had gone deep and intimate.
    “I wish Dracula hadn’t let everyone come between him and Mina. He should have bitten Mina, made her like him, and then taken her away so they could be together forever—and lived happily ever after.”
    “Because they’re the same and they belong together,” he said.
    I looked up into Erik’s amazing blue eyes and saw that all the kidding had gone out of them.
    “Yeah, even if bad things happened in their past. They’d have to forgive each other for the bad stuff, but I think they could have.”
    “I know they could have. I think when two people care about each other enough, anything can be forgiven.”
    Obviously Erik and I weren’t talking about fictional characters from an old book. We were talking about ourselves, testing each other to see if we could actually make it work between us.
    I had to forgive Erik for being so awful to me after he’d caught me with Loren. And he had been horrible, but the truth was I’d hurt Erik a lot more than he’d hurt me—and not just with Loren. When I’d first started dating Erik, I’d still had a relationship with Heath, my human boyfriend. It had pissed Erik off that I had