Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
“I don’t think so.” She shrugs and picks up a fifty pound weight with one hand as if it’s nothing. “Though whatever skills you were proficient in as a human tend to get magnified.”
“Makes sense.” I finish stretching my arms and move on to my legs. I hate stretching and have to force myself to do it at the end of each workout. “I would like a warning before I am turned. Like a good few months to grow out my hair and get to how I wanted to look physically. Because you can’t change your form once you’re a vampire.” I blink and shake my head. “Man, that’s really weird to think about. You’re literally stuck looking the exact same way forever. You can’t gain or lose weight. Or get a tattoo. What about piercings?”
“These heal every time I take them out,” she tells me, turning her head to show me her earrings.
“Ouch.”
“Beauty is pain.”
I shake my head. “That’s such an antiquated way of thinking.”
“I know. For a while there, I thought things were getting better, but now ‘rib remodeling’ is all the rage.”
“Rib remodeling?” I question.
She nods. “I see it all over my FYP. Humans are paying to have their ribs broken and reset just to have a smaller waist.”
“That’s insane.”
“Tell me about it.” She puts the weight down and moves in front of the large mirror, looking at herself. Her gaze is anything but vain, but rather, she’s looking at herself curiously. “I’ve only been on this earth for a century or so, but immortality makes you look at things differently.”
“I can only imagine. Which is hard to do, actually. Life feels so short and long and if I’m lucky, I’ll get eighty or so years here, and by the time I reach fifty, I hope to have things figured out. But I’m halfway there and I’m just as clueless as ever.”
“Everyone is. Even those of us who consider fifty years a blink of an eye.” Her eyes get sad. “Knowing you’ll only die if you’re murdered or walk into the sun…” She shakes her head. “It’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet either, if that makes you feel better.”
“It does a little.”
She turns, giving me a soft smile. “Haven’t we all been told how time will tell or how time heals all wounds. Knowing I have all the time in the world doesn’t solve anything. It makes things more complicated, really.”
“I’m sure. I think knowing that life is short and that it can be taken away at any moment gives a lot of people a reason to keep going, to get up every day, and to try and…I don’t know…have a fulfilling life. But having endless time.” I shake my head and look at her. “Now that’s a mindfuck that I never thought about before.”
“Right? But speaking of time,” she starts and the sadness melts away from her pretty face as she smiles. “Want to go out tonight? The boys have business to attend to and I’ve been hankering for a girls’ night!”
“Uh, sure. Where would we go?”
“There’s a new nightclub that just opened up a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been following them on social media and they invited me to the VIP lounge anytime I want. We could get all dolled up and fancy ourselves a night on the town!”
“That actually sounds pretty fun,” I tell her. “The last time I went to a nightclub, it was after we hunted these monsters in the Keys.”
“What kind of monsters?”
“Duppies,” I say, expecting her to know what I’m talking about. “It’s the spirit of an evil person, basically.”
“Oh, cool! Did you get it?”
“Of course. It had been wreaking havoc on this little island for like a year. Which is why we went out to celebrate.”
“We should find a demon to hunt,” she says seriously. “I never got to.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” I laugh. “Though it’s not that hard if you know what to look for.”
“What do you look for?”
I get to my feet and roll my neck. “Strange deaths, certain signs, and I’m pretty good at locating demonic energy.”
“Oh, that reminds me! I reached out to my friend and she’s working on getting something together for you.”
“Really? Thank you so much.” Letting out a heavy sigh, I roll my neck. “You said the boys have business?”
She nods and then narrows her eyes. “Xavier didn’t tell you?”
“No. I, uh, haven’t seen him since last night.” The dinner lasted several hours, and I thought it went well despite the werewolves seeming to grow increasingly against a vampire-witch union. I could sense their apprehension, worried that the two kinds teaming up would make it damn near impossible to take down the Malus Family if it ever came to it.
When Xavier asked if I had any bad feelings on anything, I played it off, not wanting to be the one responsible for starting a war between vampires and werewolves based on a feeling. I still don’t know if he would have listened when I tried to explain that while they might have felt that way, it doesn’t mean they’d act on it at all. You can be completely annoyed by something or someone and not do anything about it.