A Bond of Blood (A Shade of Vampire #9)(10)

This was so unlike Griffin. I was used to him mocking scenes like this in movies. And yet here he was, acting as though he was in a romance movie with me. I thought to tease him about it, but his face was still so serious that I just patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

He grinned finally and nodded. “All right, princess.”

I turned around and began walking in the opposite direction. I sped up after a few feet until I was running. Why? I didn’t know. I just felt the urge to feel the wind whipping past my face, the unearthed sand stinging my heels.

As I continued running alone on that beach, I began to wonder if there was a deeper reason for being so averse to thinking about Griffin in a different light than a friend. In theory, it wouldn’t be difficult to love him in a different way. Friends to lovers was the biggest cliche of all time. Even my mom had fallen for it with her best friend, Benjamin Hudson.

Friends to lovers was cliche for a reason: it was so easily done.

Now I wondered if the resistance within me was something deeper… something related to that vampire I’d kissed at the port.

As I raced faster, a chilling fear took hold of me, running from the base of my neck down to my spine, sending tingling sensations throughout my body.

I feared that Caleb had disappeared beneath the waves carrying a piece of me with him. That he’d brought me back to his castle, and there I still remained… only this time, as his willing captive.

Chapter 11: Ben

It had been a full day now since our parents had left us. And, thanks to Corrine, I was finally feeling well enough to stand on my own two feet again.

Rose had been oddly absent from my bedside for the latter part of the last twenty-four hours. She’d said she needed some fresh air.

That was just what I needed myself. I got out of bed with Corrine’s permission and, before heading off, donned a dark cloak and pulled the hood over my head so that it cast most of my face in shadow. Then I stepped out into the moonlit courtyard outside.

The last thing I wanted right now was to see anyone. Even my closest friends. So I headed through the woods, staying in the shadows, and walked toward our penthouse.

As I walked, I thought of all that had happened in the past forty-eight hours. I thought of the man my sister had returned with. The traitor we had all welcomed as a guest. I remembered shaking hands with him, thanking him. And I thought of how distressed my sister had appeared when my parents had told her that he was responsible for Anna’s disappearance. The way she’d tried to argue against the only possible explanation. The way she still seemed to hold on to a shred of hope that it wasn’t him.

At first, I’d understood her shock. Caleb had seemed to genuinely want to save us. But my father and mother’s words were undeniable: there was nobody else who could have done it.

It made me worry that Rose might have held deeper feelings for him than I had imagined. I found myself thinking about her account of the time she was away. She’d said she was mostly locked up in a room in the castle, with some time spent in Caleb’s quarters. Now I shuddered to think of her being in such close proximity to that man.

It was past midnight by the time I arrived back in our penthouse. I poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen, then headed straight to my bedroom. When I pushed open my door, I almost dropped the glass.

Sleeping in my bed was a girl. Yasmine.

A girl I’d stopped dating almost nine months ago.

I groaned, placed my water on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. I reached for her shoulder and nudged her. She came to a few seconds later, sitting bolt upright.

Her light brown hair hung messily around her face, her blue eyes blinking at me. Her face broke out into a shy smile. “Hi, Ben,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, frowning at her.

“I’ve missed you. Corrine didn’t want anyone but family visiting you, so I figured I’d just wait here in your room.”

I rubbed my face with my hands. Yasmine was the last person on this island I wanted to be seeing right now. I wasn’t even the mood to be with my sister.

“How are you?” Yasmine asked, reaching for my shoulder.

I sighed and looked at the wall opposite me. “I’m all right,” I muttered. “But I still need time to myself.”

I was hoping she’d take the hint, but she didn’t move. I stood up and stared down at her hogging my bed. She had a deliberately blank expression on her face.

“Yasmine,” I said, trying to behave like a gentleman even though I was feeling less like one each second that passed. “As much as I appreciate your well wishes, we broke things off almost a year ago. What are you doing in my bed?”

“You broke things off.” She finally sat up and swung her legs off the edge of the bed, a hurt expression in her eyes.

I ran a hand through my hair. I really don’t need this right now. “Okay, I broke things off.”

It wasn’t like there had been much to break off. We hadn’t been dating long—a few weeks at the most—and it had never gone any further than a few kisses.

Still glaring at me, Yasmine stood up and crossed my room toward the exit.

“Why did you break up with me? I never did understand.”

I thought back to the day I’d ended things with her. Yasmine was gorgeous, but after our first kiss she’d gotten so clingy, I could barely go to the bathroom without her asking where I was going. I’d felt suffocated around her and found myself finding excuses to avoid her.