Talisman 01 - The Emerald Talisman

but worried the cat might not warn us if I betrayed her.
    So, to sum it all up, we were basically just waiting, unable to plan when the car would come plunging down either freaking us out or giving us the time of our lives—our reaction unknown. Whichever way it went, I knew I didn’t want to do it without Nicholas. I couldn’t.
    “So what do you think?” I asked, my hair blown askew, a huge smile plastered across my face as the ride ended.
    He looked a little stunned, but exclaimed, “Excellent!”
    I wanted it to be just that.
    We left the ride and made our way down to the beach. All I wanted to do was find a vacant spot and snuggle by a bonfire, but fires weren’t allowed on this beach. Nicholas led me down to the end where the cliff met the shoreline instead. Typically, beach-combers had to turn around at that point, but Nicholas had a different idea. I giggled when he swooped me up into his arms and carried me from rock to rock around this little blockade (in his eyes) towards our beach that was only a few miles down the coast. Of course, since it was dark, no one would see his extraordinary feat of strength.
    “What are you worried about?” Nicholas asked, after making me a fire in our usual spot, getting comfortable by me in the sand, gently caressing my hand.
    I took a deep breath. It was useless to try to hide my feelings from him. The collapse of our perfect world terrified me and I didn’t want to tell him. But I found it insightful that he had started to pick up on my emotions as if he’d acquired a tiny bit of my gift.
    “I just feel like something is going to happen to ruin this,” I whispered, looking away and focusing on the surf in the distance while leaning over into his shoulder.
    He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms tightly around me, beckoning me to lean against his muscular chest.
    “I won’t leave you like I did in the past. I wish you’d trust me.”
    “Oh, Nicholas.” I turned to face him. He’d misunderstood. “No, it isn’t that. I know you aren’t going to leave me. It’s just, I’m enjoying seeing you relaxed and acting human for once. I just don’t want it to end. Has this ever happened before? Where the vampires left and you had a period of reprieve?”
    “Never this long,” he said, a twinge of worry now appearing. “I’ve never thought to look at the pattern in the past, but now that none have returned, I’m beginning to think what happened before wasn’t a coincidence.”
    Nicholas had explained in the past that he believed that I’d been some sort of magnet to them, and when they came to town, he’d been able to exterminate them before any havoc broke out because they were always attracted to me. It made finding them super easy. But with Alora’s clan, there had been so many that he hadn’t been able to stop them as fast. It was as if they’d been alerted to his special abilities which led him to think they came for another reason.
    “When fighting some of them, they’d tell me that they’d heard of me, but it didn’t click until Phil had told us of my legend,” he said with a grimace. I could tell he didn’t want that type of fame in the vampire world. “Really, I just hunted them to protect you, since you attract them. It never occurred to me they came for any other reason than that. But I never let anyone survive to speak of my abilities. I’m still wondering how they figured it out.”
    I knew Alora knew. And because of that, they all knew. How she knew exactly, I wasn’t sure and for one brief second I felt the urge to tell him, but clamped my mouth shut. Again, reminded of what the cat had said. I wanted to protect him more than anything. Maybe I worried for nothing.
    “Well, Phil had said he knew you were different and not part of their coven. Maybe they guessed? I mean, didn’t you say, after killing Phil that they’d know and come looking?”
    “True,” he said and was quiet for a moment. “They’d feel the power shift back up the lineage.”
    That fact confirmed why Alora didn’t like to make other vampires. I felt her greed and knew she preferred to hoard her power. She must have really thought Phil special to keep him around after discovering her mistake.
    “How do you track vampires anyway?” I asked, probing to see if he was indeed still on the look-out.
    “I have what would best be described as vampire radar. We can sense when another is close. We also have a particular scent. I do run the perimeter of the city