The Reborn (The Reborn trilogy book 1)

Chapter 15

Masters of smiles

Moving silently and stealthily through the night, I use all fifty years of experience I've gained to track my target. The scent lingering in the air. A wave of alcohol and cologne trailing behind like a bread-crumb trail. The streets are quiet on this stretch.

Using a burst of speed, I quietly close the gap. Before the target knows what is happening, I'm clamped down on his neck.

"Connie?" I hear.

Releasing my prey, I spin around to the source of the intrusion.

"Lola." I whisper, horrified she saw me drink.

"You're a vampire." She says, her hand moving to her bracelet where she detaches a tiny stake. Touching it to her tattoo a bright blue glow emanates blocking my view of the weapon enlarging.

"Lola, I can explain." I say, hands up in a placating manner. She holds the now full-size stake in her hand like it is an extension of her. The sad look in her eyes doing more damage to me than the thought of dying.

"I'm sorry." She whispers before hardening her eyes and thrusting forward with the stake.

I wake up with a stifled scream. Patting my heart where moments ago a stake was heading. It was a dream, a horrifying one but only a dream. Slowly my breathing settles back down to a normal rhythm.

Sixteen nights. Sixteen nights in a row I've had that same nightmare. Sixteen nights since I found out my girlfriend is a vampire hunter.

I know I'm not a vampire anymore so, it's not like my dream makes much sense. She wouldn't kill me on sight. No, she would probably lock me up in that facility and throw away the key. Why did she have to be a hunter?

My head can't wrap itself around the fact that my sweet, funny Lola is a trained killer. I'm scared she will find out my past but at the same time I can't stay away from her. I knew I was falling for her but somewhere along the way I completely fell and didn't realise. I love her too much to leave but I'm hurting the two of us by staying. So far most of our interactions have been accompanied by Matty. In school everything is normal, but on the weekends our date nights have a third wheel.

I'm afraid to be with my girlfriend but even more afraid of losing her. So, I smile and joke like everything is rosy, trying to ignore the lingering looks Lola gives me. The looks that tell me she knows that I'm struggling to be alone with her. A look that is full of pain because she thinks it's her fault.

I hate that she thinks that.

Leaving keeps me away from the hunters and the mistresses that obviously know my current location. But that has the down side that social services are on my case. They have my photo and unlike when I was kidnapped by the masters, they would stand a better chance of finding me. It would also mean I would have to leave Lola and that is too unbearable to even think about. Staying on the other hand leaves me open to a future visit by the mistresses. Can Lola save me again? she can't be with me twenty-four-seven. It also makes the possibility of my past life coming out.

So, screwed if I do and screwed if I don't.

On the rare occasion that Lola and I are alone I've been asking more questions about vampires, especially the turning to human again part. I spent over fifty years as one but barely knew anything. Then there are the times something she tells me is wrong and I want to correct her – if only as a way to protect her – but I can't. I can't tell her the truth because then I'd have to admit my past and selfishly, I don't want to lose her.

Surely, she won't want to date me if she found out my past. I'm fifty-two years older than her for starters. Then there is the whole I was a vampire and she's a vampire hunter, enemies for all eternity. Even if she looks past all that, there is the blood on my hands. I may not have killed in over thirty years but it doesn't stop the fact that people died because of me. From my hands and fangs. My face was the last face they saw before leaving this earth. Too many people to count, too many faces to remember. Who would willingly date a monster? Because that's what I am.