The Sharpest Kiss by Elizabeth Myles (the false prince .txt) 📕

arm. She turned toward him and saw the sorcerer watching the road, not even paying attention to her. She heard him murmur something.

“No, I don’t want to—” she said, but it was too late. He had cast a spell on her. She could feel it wending its way through her body, like the slow, spreading burn that came after taking a shot of alcohol.

Haven’t we been through this? she thought with annoyance. This mind control business doesn’t work on me!

But this wasn’t vampire hypnotism, she soon realized as the burn settled down into a numbing warmth in her belly, and lethargy began tugging at her eyelids. It was just plain Kiefer-magic—and apparently it was irresistible. Jessica’s mouth closed over the end of her sentence and she collapsed against Nathan, slipping and sliding down the tilting walls of her darkening consciousness, tumbling headlong into the deepest sleep she had ever known.

◆◆◆

Aaron was quiet as Lucy drove him away from the bookstore. He stared out the passenger’s side window, seemingly lost in thought. She glanced at him from time to time, admiring what she could see of his profile, but he didn’t say a word for several blocks. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Um. Do you want me to drive you by my place before I take you home?”

He jumped as he turned to face her, as though the sound of her voice had startled him. “Your place?”

“So you can pick up the stuff you left there.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure…that’ll work. Thanks.” A clumsy smile flitted across his mouth, and he quickly glanced away again, as though looking at her had made him uncomfortable for some reason.

Lucy rearranged her grip on the steering wheel and drove on, floundering inside. She and Aaron had just survived a harrowing adventure together, one that very few other people in the world would ever believe, much less understand. That should have brought them closer together, right? Bonded them in some way? Instead, she felt as though a gulf had opened up between them, and all the closeness they’d experienced over the past few days had mysteriously tumbled into it, maybe never to be seen again.

She tried not to worry about it too much, but the awkward tension only stretched on once they were back at her apartment. There, Aaron silently picked up his gym bag and went into the bathroom to gather up his things.

Lucy waited for him in the bedroom, where she changed into a clean shirt. She took down one of the blankets she’d hung over the window and cracked open the blinds. She stared outside, watching the cypress trees across the parking lot sway gently in the autumn breeze. What if Aaron had only liked her while he was a vampire, she wondered? Sure, he’d called her and left her that voicemail before he’d been turned, but…he’d been drunk at the time. Maybe now that he was himself again—no longer under the influence of either alcohol or supernatural forces—he’d remembered he was way out of Lucy’s league and realized it made more sense for them to only be friends. Well, it didn’t matter, she told herself. She should just be glad Aaron was okay. She had helped him because it was the right thing to do, not because she expected him to pay her back with his affection. He didn’t owe her anything.

“Hey, Lucy?”

It was her turn to jump. She spun around to find Aaron standing in the bathroom doorway, clutching his bag in one hand and a wad of fabric in the other. It was the bloodstained shirt he’d been wearing when she’d first found him in his office, hiding behind his desk. Dying of a vampire bite.

She had been there, of course, had seen it all with her own two eyes, and yet…the events of the past week were already beginning to blur in Lucy’s mind, warping like the disquieting memory of some feverish nightmare. How had this become her life, she wondered? Her life, which she’d always striven to keep so neat and clean and carefully ordered? She was positive she’d never marked a square in her planner for “fending off a vampire attack,” and yet she had done it tonight. In some ways, it was exciting to know the universe operated differently than she’d always believed. In other ways, it terrified her more than anything she had ever experienced before.

“What’s up?” she asked, forcing a smile to her lips.

He didn’t smile back, but instead leaned against the doorframe and looked at her solemnly. “Can I stay here with you? Just for the next few hours, until morning comes? I’m not suggesting anything you know,” he added, glancing at the bed. “I just don’t really feel like being alone right now, and…well, I’d like to be with you when the sun comes up, seeing as how you’re the only reason I’m going to get to see it again.”

Hope reignited inside Lucy, and her heart felt like it was melting. “Yeah,” she said, smiling more genuinely, “yeah, of course you can stay. As long as you want.”

He dropped the shirt into the bag and tossed the bag into a corner. Lucy took off her glasses and settled them on the nightstand. As if by some silent agreement, they both climbed onto the bed and stretched out, facing one another.

He looked so handsome lying there in the cheerful glow of her lamp. He was obviously tired, but the shadows had dissolved from under his eyes, and his lips were no longer dry. Instead, his mouth, like the rest of him, appeared supple and inviting. He had his health back. He looked wonderfully, gloriously…human.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said, her heart in her throat.

“I don’t even know what to say to you, Lucy,” he said, his eyes brimming with wonder and gratitude. “If you hadn’t believed me…if you hadn’t gone to Jessica and she hadn’t gone to Nathan…who knows what would have happened to me.” He paused and then added with