Chapter 18: *CHAPTER 18*

Malcolm’s body tensed in front of me, his gaze bouncing from the tear in my shirt, his gaze locking on mine again. His jaw tightened. I don’t think he was breathing. I don’t think I was either for that matter. Where our skin touched, it was like fireworks were going off in my veins. My chest was hot and tight and my clothes were too scratchy on my suddenly painfully sensitive skin.

Shit, something really really wrong was happening to me. This was Malcolm for crying out loud. The idiot who had burned up my car. Who had set off a ton of problems in the last twenty four hours. Why did it suddenly feel like bliss when he touched me? Why did I suddenly feel like I wanted to rip all of his clothes off and climb him like a tree? It was like I was drowning and coming back to life all at once.

He was the first to break from the trance that had overtaken us. He leaned back on his heels, breaking eye contact, "All clear." His voice was the roughest I’d ever heard it.

I took a breath that sounded too loud in this confined space. Great. At least I wouldn't die from this thing. Probably.

He rolled his eyes, "You're not going to die."

I was still floating in a pile of clouds and Malcolm still hadn’t moved from his kneeling position in front of me. From this close to him, I could see the narrow white line slashed through his right eyebrow stood out more. I think this was the first time I'd seen him with an expression that wasn't suspicion or smug hostility.

"Your eyes are reeeallyyyy green," I informed him, voice a jumbled slur. My mushed brain could only focus on that. "Green like...tennis ball green. No, no, no. Spinach green. Mold green, even."

His face contorted.

"Like I said, it shouldn't be long now before the toxins wear off. Try to relax and not talk."

My jumbled vampire toxin infused words had thankfully broken whatever spell that we’d been under. Though, the strange tight feeling in my chest was still there. He straightened up from his crouched position next to me to stalk toward the burning monster on the floor. His voice in my head was loud again and I tried to ignore it.

The flames that had been licking away at the monster's body were slowly flickering out to an ashy array of embers in the middle of my tile. I eyed Malcolm warily as he circled it, his booted feet tapping lightly against the tile, eyes narrowing in thought. He crouched down by the monster as if he were trying to get a better look at it.

'What's a vampire doing this far south?'

I don't know how long I was slumped in the chair watching him pace around the mushy heap of ash taking pictures on his phone when my head suddenly started clearing. It was like a breeze blowing through a fog, lifting a bit of the murkiness. I could hear his rambling thoughts in my head as he typed out something on his phone. I already missed the quietness of having my own head, my brain throbbing with all the extra noise. Never in all my careful planning for the next few years had I ever thought something like this would be a problem I'd be dealing with.

I straightened in my kitchen chair, "When you were researching today, did you read anything about this sort of thing happening to other people...mind reading?"

He didn't look up, still typing away, "No, I didn't," He wasn't seem happy about that fact. At all. Neither was I for that matter. But trying to stop the flow of thoughts between us was like trying to stop a wave of water.

He picked through the ashes of the monster as he spoke, surprised that the heat from the embers wasn't affecting him. Focusing on him, on his words had the panic slowly leeching away. The stinging on my arm from the Curse Mark was fading to a dull throbbing too.

"What was a vampire doing in my house?" I asked.

"That is a very good question."

"It seemed sort of...human," I admitted. Creepy as hell, but it looked more human than the ghoul had anyway.

"Vampires may look somewhat human, but they're on a different level mentally," Malcolm explained, offhandedly. Still distracted by something on his phone. "They don't use rational or logical thinking like we do, they go purely off instinct. They only seem similar to humans because they've learned to mimic in order to get to their prey."

The bite mark on my shoulder throbbed, "Do they always drink human blood?"

"Not always. I think they drink blood from animals too.  Their Blood Magic burns through the blood they drink. With their Magic, they can live indefinitely unless they're killed. And the longer they're alive, the more they evolve their ways of getting to prey."

He stood from where he was crouched, lifting his phone to take photos from different angles. I'd only ever heard of vampires in movies and books. I guessed the legends had to come from somewhere though. I shuddered at the memory of what it had said to me before it attacked.

I'm just going to drink a little bit. Just a little little bit. Morpheus won't mind too much. It had said. Just the memory of it had bile rising in my throat.

Malcolm froze where he was taking pictures of the burnt pile of ashes on my floor, his head whipping in my direction. "It spoke to you?"

I blinked confused for only a moment before I grimaced. This mind-reading thing was getting old and fast, "Yeah. Only a little bit though."

"Tell me exactly what it said."

My eyebrows came together as I thought, "He said that I smelled good. That I shouldn't run because he was only going to drink a little bit." I shivered again at the memory, "And that Morpheus wouldn't mind too much."

He swore, glancing down at what was now a sludgy pile of dust making up the center of the room. I thought I saw something like regret flash across his face.

’I should have kept it alive a bit longer to question it. Too late now.

I heard his mental barrage of complaints but thought better of questioning him on it right now. He tugged a hand through his hair in frustration, but was interrupted from his muttered cursing by a knock at my front door. My heart kicked up a notch at the unexpected sound, and I stood from my chair—happy that my legs had steadied enough to stand again—as Malcolm stalked over to open it.