Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
“When am I going to meet Mr. Ming?” I posed softly, not trying to step on her toes. But I knew he was around. I had felt his presence and sometimes saw an older man ironing in the back of the store. But when I came in, he usually left.
“I think I’ve talked to you enough today,” she shot back, looking to her screen, not answering.
I made a face. “Fine, let’s talk about me, again. Happily, ever afters don’t start at the introduction, Mrs. Ming. I can’t just—”
“For some vampires, they do. Why would you fight it? Who wants a complicated love story?” she asked and pointed the remote to the screen. “Do those people look happy to you?”
“And yet, you tune in every week,” I teased her.
She shrugged. “Heartbreak and complications are entertaining when they’re not happening to you. Stop thinking like a human, and just enjoy it. What is the worst that could happen?”
“He could be a vampire stalker I have to avoid forever,” I said for one.
“True, but then aren’t you the dumb one for letting him into your home?” she shot back.
Mrs. Ming one hundred. Druella Zero.
“Thank you, Mrs. Ming. Always a pleasure. I’ll be back on Friday,” I said. However, just as I opened the door to leave, I heard her.
“Bring your mate with you. Don’t overthink it. Again, eternity is a long time. You have no living family among the witches or humans. You have no connection to your maker. For all this time of loneliness, maybe the gods are giving you a break this once.”
I turned back to her, but she wasn’t looking at me. Instead, I nodded, knowing she would understand that it was to her, put in my earbuds, and walked to work. It was bizarre how she made it sound so easy. Just pick a guy, and stay beside him forever, so you don’t go insane from loneliness.
Was I just supposed to agree to the first guy that came along? I hadn’t even mentioned his memory loss.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Leave the vampires at home.
Keeping my head down, I avoided eye contact. I used to love the city because of how alive it felt. People were always up and running about, taking pictures in front of the monuments, laughing, eating. It never felt so big or overcrowded like New York. It just felt…right. Now, I felt like a shark trapped in a fish tank. A lot of books and movies made it seem like big cities were the perfect place for vampires to settle and live. But, maybe it was just me; it was actually hard. All the sounds, noises, and smells assaulted me at once, all on top of raging hunger. It didn’t really give a home-sweet-home type of feeling.
As I walked, pretending to be like every other human, I couldn’t help but notice all the families that walked, too, all the couples, the groups. I couldn’t blame my new life as a vampire as the reason for why I didn’t walk in groups. I had been a loner before my change. It was funny how this major, life-altering thing had happened, and yet, barely anything had changed in my life. In fact, I’d saved money by no longer needing to eat out or go to the grocery store. Other than that, my life was the same. How sad was that?
I still went to work because another thing no one ever warned you about when you became a vampire was money. If you were broke before you turned, you’d most likely be broke afterward. It took decades, sometimes even centuries, to build the type of wealth that let you lounge around surrounded by Baroque art in private mansions all over the world, drinking blood from crystal glasses.
Unlike Mr. I-have-estates-all-throughout-Europe.
Why was I thinking about him again?
“Is it snowing? It’s August!” A random woman gasped as they came out of the bakery.
Sure enough, I looked up to see the frozen crystal flowers falling toward the ground.
“Don’t just stop in the middle of the road.” Some man, dressed in a dark blue suit snapped at me, and I snarled my teeth. His eyes widened a bit, and I smelled fear as his heart began to pump faster.
What was I doing? “You’re right, sorry.” Quickly offering him a smile, he relaxed to the point where he blushed and had this stupid grin on his face.
“No, I’m- I’m sorry miss,” he stumbled, staring.
The smile of a vampire; it was a very dangerous thing.
Chapter 6
“Did someone rob the Louvre?” I gaped, staring wide-eyed at the sea of vintage gilded frames, which could have been art themselves and not just borders for the irreplaceable, precious seventeenth-century oil and acrylic paintings within them. They were spread all throughout our lab in the basement of the Nationally Gallery Museum.