He waited for my response and put his hand into my hair, grabbing a hand full. He let the strands run through his fingers.
The gesture sent an invisible caress down my back. Why was he doing this? He knew my secret. He knew seducing a hungry vampire was volunteering for a bloodbath.
“You’re lucky I gorged this morning.”
“I’m not scared,” he said. “Are you admitting it’s not the blood that has you red faced?”
I should have retreated, but I looked up and saw his chest rise and fall. The image of it without a shirt traipsed into my head, and then I was leaning against him. My eyes continued upward and…stopped. In the heat of the moment, I couldn’t get farther than his neck.
Carotid artery be dammed.
“I’m just stressed,” I said. “I’ve got to run, Ro. Mama’s waiting for me.” I shifted out of his arms and stepped around him.
“Okay, I’ll drop off the wood for the reno at your house on my way home,” he said.
I walked to the car trying to combat thoughts of Roman without clothes. My blood pumped hard behind my ears. I slammed the door shut and cracked a window. The cool breeze felt good on my face. Shit. I tossed the box of candies on the passenger’s seat. Besides wanting to be a blood bag, what did he want? To ruin our friendship over a lay? Even if we could have sex, I didn’t want to end up like one of the washed-up cheerleaders who screamed at him for not calling the next day.
On the drive home, I followed the edge of the forest ridge. We lived a half-hour from town. It was the price of an amazing view.
I drove up to our century-old home. Next to the historical plaque was a sign which read Dalca tilted sideways toward the ground. The September wind struck again. Dalca is my mother’s family name; it’s Romanian for lightning. Grandpa Dalca liked to brag it was the magic of our family blood which made us so lethal. He told me I had to fight like lightning itself.
I stooped to fix the sign, and then paused to eye the walkway. The weeds overtook the flagstone pattern which had been my summer project.
Mama and I had spent the last two years renovating the house. It was my way of spending time with her after my grandparents died. A way of telling her I was still here. It was almost done, but she kept coming up with trivial tasks. My heart told me she was afraid I wouldn’t be around much after.
I caught chill as the wind rose, carrying an early winter breeze. It rustled through the woods across from our house.
“Hey Mama!” I called as I stepped inside.
She stood over the stove, stirring some sort of red saucy stew. The house smelled of meat, nutmeg, and cloves.
A new can of cooking oil spray was on the counter. My bane and my savior. From the ripe age of two, my clothes had a habit of smoldering into flames on my skin when I threw a tantrum. Talk about the terrible twos. Raising a Fire Charmed child wasn’t easy. It’d cost Mama a lot of patience and extra cash spent on kids’ clothes. She’d come up with the idea of bewitching a can of kitchen spray as a magical fire-retardant. While most women put on their make-up in the morning, I had to spray down all my clothes.
I warmed myself over the fireplace’s fading embers, which dimmed to darkness. The hum of the power in my chest swelled forward, sensing its fallen comrades in the hearth, and restless from the half release at the police station. I held out my hands and dropped my control. Fire unfurled from my arms and into the fireplace.
The flames exploded outward, licking up the surrounding walls and into my face. I jumped back with a scream.
Mama gasped. “Karolina! When will you learn? You can’t use your magic if you can’t control it!”
The flames died down as quickly as they arrived, leaving only charred streaks on either side of the hearth. I can control it. I just need more practice. I sighed, already accepting the responsibility of painting over the black marks—again.
“You’re better off using the earth magic I taught you,” she said.
“I’m not giving into the gypsy stereotype,” I said. “Earth magic is all healing and love potions. Maybe I’ll grow a mole on my face too while I’m at it.”
A hunk of meat thumped against the cutting board.
“What’s that on the table?” she asked and eyed the box of candies.
“A peace offering,” I said.
“You don’t need a peace offering for a fight that’s already over,” she said. “What date do you start back at school?”
“I’m due back on campus in two weeks.” I flopped down on the couch, brainstorming how to approach the subject of my father again.
“Mama? Do you have any other family left I haven’t met?”
“Just Auntie Miruna in Romania,” she said.
I looked over the couch and saw she had pursed her lips. She knew what I was about to get at. My fingers fidgeted with my necklace. It was the only item I had of my father’s. A pendant of braided gold, all three shades intertwined into the shape of an oval. Set inside was a ruby. It didn’t melt under heat like regular jewelry, which added more to the mystery of my father. I hadn’t taken it off since Mama gave it to me.
“If you had more family out there in the world, wouldn’t you want to know?” I asked her.
“It depends, my darling girl, if they are people worth knowing,” she said.
“If they help me understand who my father was, what he was like…then it’s worth it.”
“There are some things you’re better off not knowing, Karolina.”
“Every daughter needs to know about her father! I can’t believe you don’t know anything else about him. You can try to keep it from me all you want, but I will find out.”
She’d tried convincing me my father was an injured Russian vampire who dropped unconscious on her doorstep in Romania. She nursed him with her healing magic and her nineteen-year-old self was apparently seduced in the process. No qualms over giving it up before marriage for her.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Karolina? He died. He died the day after I met him, I have nothing else to tell you,” she said. “I was lucky enough to have my parents to care for me and come with me to Canada.”
“How could you fall in love with a man in one day?” I yelled. “What is it you’re protecting me from?” I gripped the spine of the couch, crunching it inward. “Mama, I have fire magic. The women in your family always had earth magic to be healers, the men were fighters, my fire originated with my father! If I could contact his family, maybe they could teach me more control.”
“It’s out of the question,” she said.
“What if something ever happened to you, Mama? Who would I turn to?”
“The Lupei family will always care for you like you’re their own.” She looked so satisfied with her answer, that my frustration—and my fire—threatened to explode.
The Lupeis were like family, but I wasn’t one of their own. They would never know what it meant to be a vampire. We could share the sunlight, religious temples, and even a poutine, but if they cut their finger—they’d never share the lust to suck the blood from it like honey from a pixie stick. They wouldn’t know what it’s like to have inhuman strength or a fear of silver. And they wouldn’t understand how it feels to never know your own kind.