Eminence (Wattpad Edition)

Note 2 - Lost and Confused

The room was silent with dim morning light filtering through the curtains.

Warren lay on his back with one arm draped over his eyes shielding him from the sunlight. His body didn't ache from pain, but from something else. A familiar ache from around the bend. Restlessness and maybe even a little shame. When he turned his head, the space beside him was empty.

She was gone.

He sat up, heart pounding. His eyes scanned the room, searching. A dream? Really? That's all it was? No—it couldn't have been. He could still feel her, somehow, in the empty coldness of the motel room that already smelled of salt from the sea. He could feel her. The memory of her kiss lingering on his lips.

But then, where was she?

Her presence was there, albeit small. He could feel it. He was sure it wasn't just the hangover either.

Wishful thinking? He wondered. While he did admit that he hoped to still have her, he was pretty sure he could actually feel her. A warm comfort. Like he was alone but he didn't feel alone, it was nice but it also made him nervous.

I need to find her.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed—then froze. His foot brushed against something soft.

An arm.

"Shit—" he gasped, flinching back.

Steadying himself, he leaned forward, heart in his throat. Slowly, he slid off the bed and crouched down.

There she was—curled up beneath the bed frame, fast asleep. Her breath slow and steady.

Not a dream.

The sight of her, folded into the shadows like a forgotten doll, stirred something in his chest. Sharp and heavy. She looked... vulnerable.

Why?

He felt his breath stop at the realization.

She's a vampire. She can't be in the sun.

His stomach dropped, and a wave of nausea swirled and bubbled in his stomach. The room began to spin. Static swirling in his head, buzzing between his ears, and for the first time in his life, Warren felt genuinely, physically ill. Not from alcohol, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer emotional vertigo of what he'd just come upon.

He stumbled backward, catching himself on the edge of the other bed, the wood digging into his spine.

He closed his eyes. The bar. The drinks. The parking lot. The motel room key in his hand. The unnerving silence. Her voice—soft and strange, curling into the folds of his mind. And then her. The young woman. The way she'd slipped into his lap, cold and slow and certain. The way she'd kissed him like she already owned every piece of him. Her teeth. Those impossible, delicate yet vicious teeth, sinking into his neck with almost reverent hunger.

He touched the wound on his neck, fingers trembling. Still tender. Still wet.

He had surrendered. Not just his body, but something buried deep beneath the grief, his exhaustion, and the scar tissue of everything he'd never been able to say out loud. Years of numbness cracked open in a single night.

And now he can't take any of it back.

He watched her quietly. She lay there, unnaturally posed, her pale limbs draped like silk across the floor. Her chest rose and fell—barely. Like a dream imitating life. Her hair fanned around her, silver and endless, catching the dim light that peaked through the side of the bed. She didn't look spent. She looked full. Content. Beautiful in a way that defied logic and terrifying at the same time.