My Stepbrother's a Vampire!

11; The Shocking Announcement

Hello everyone! Sorry for my ridiculously long hiatus. But I'm back now, with regular updates every week. Hope you enjoy the chapter.

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I drive as if being chased, fast and with no thought of consequence—Brenda whirs disagreeably, far too old to cater to such risky speeds. A part in the back of my mind realises that I am not in a movie-sequence car chase and my subconscious theatrically puts on several seatbelts, but still I don't slow down. We reach home in record time and when I stop the car, I inhale deeply, having forgotten to breathe properly the entire ride.

"Are you done Lewis Hamilton?" Alec quips, but from my periphery I can note the concerned note in his eye, as if he was scared I was going to crash.

I don't answer him for a while; I do nothing except breathe and try gather my frantic thoughts. Eventually my breathing returns to normal, and the pounding in my head becomes a little less pronounced. "What did you do to those boys?" I say, slightly taken aback by the deathly seriousness of my voice.

Alec stretches his legs as best as he can, cramped as Brenda's interior is. "I put them to sleep. It's a trick I picked up in Italy. Neat, isn't it?"

I turn to look at him and I can only assume my eyes are bright with fury; even my subconscious does a double take, cowering beneath her hands. He has the nerve to joke at a time like this? "Are you out of your mind?"I yell. "People saw you! How are you going to explain that?"

Alec rolls his eyes, seemingly unaffected by my wrath. "Relax Kara," he says. He leans over to me and, making my heart flutter, puts a hand on my cheek. Thankfully his palm is warm so he doesn't notice the flush of my skin. He keeps quiet and stays like that for a second, gazing into my eyes, and I realise that his eyes are their usual dreamy azure again, deep enough to fall into and never reach a floor. His beauty is something that never fails to take me aback—and that's precisely what it is, beauty, not cute or handsome as boys usually are, but beauty. No other word could encapsulate his glorious bone structure, or the sheen of his skin, or the thick onyx curls that are his hair. His features exist harmoniously on his face together and I am wildly tempted to lean in and press my lips to his own. My subconscious takes out her lip gloss and slathers it onto her pout.

Times like these make me understand that I can never be angry at Alec for too long.

But, of course, perfect as his appearance is, his personality is a completely different matter. "We'll just blame them passing out on their horrid diet."

The moment of enchantment is broken; I roll my eyes and undo my seatbelt. "You are a joke," I snap, jumping out of Brenda and slamming her door shut.

I race up the pathway to the house, whose front door is already open—mom must be home. I can hear Alec striding after me, calling out apologies after me but there's laughter in his voice.

He catches up to me when I'm at the bottom of the staircase and grabs my wrist. "Kara." He spins me around. I look up at him, painfully aware of our height difference, and his eyes are imploring. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, voice soft as feathers and sweet as honey. "Really, I am. I often joke when I'm worried. I was foolish to have used my powers in public like that. Your concern is touching."

"Yeah, yeah," I mutter, but inside my subconscious is break-dancing in happiness that Alec is this close, doing somersaults and backflips of joy.

He remains in such close proximity to me that my insides warm and feel things I rather wish they wouldn't.