The Bartender's Vampire [COMPLETED]

Chapter Nine - Someone Like You

**Sorry for the late update! Just got over some writer's block!**

Clawd finds Draculaura nearly seven hours later in a tree. He sits at the base of the trunk and leans back against it. He hasn't meant to hurt her or scare her. It's not his fault his wolf mated him with a vampire. 

"Laura?" he asks. 

"What?" 

He can't see her, but he can hear the thickness in her voice. She's been crying. "Can you come down? We need to talk," he says quietly. 

"Of course we need to talk." A pause. "But I'm staying here." 

"Okay. That's okay," he says with a small nod.

"Why me?" she asks. 

"Why you? I don't know. I don't get to choose how it all works." 

"Why couldn't you choose someone like you?"

"I don't know."

"Someone that wouldn't have to live an eternity without you after your four hundred years are up?" she asks. 

He understands it, now. She's not scared or hurt because she's his mate. She's upset because she cares for him, and he'll die in a few hundred years, leaving her behind. "I'm sorry, Laura," he says. 

She swings herself down to a lower branch, staring down at the top of Clawd's head. "I think I love you, and I don't know if I can only have you for four hundred years," she says. 

"We can figure it out." 

Again, she lowers herself to a new branch. "How?" she asks. 

Clawd chuckles humorlessly. "I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead." 

"Clawd?" she asks, moving to a lower branch. 

"Yeah?" 

"Do you love me?" 

"Do you want me to answer that?"

"Yes." 

"Laura, I've never cared about someone as much as I care about you. If that's what love is, then, yes, I love you," Clawd says. 

Draculaura drops to the branch just above Clawd's head. "I love you, too." She drops to the ground beside him. He turns his head to look at her and smiles softly. "How'd you find me here?" 

"You're my mate. That's how I found you," he says. "Pretty hard to keep me away." He reaches out and tucks her hair behind her ear. "I was worried about you. I had to make sure you were okay." 

"Thanks." Her teeth dig into her bottom lip for a moment before she leans forward and kisses him. Clawd's eyes close as he sighs softly. He moves a hand to the back of her neck, holding her close. She pulls back, leaning her forward against his. "Do your parents know?" she asks. 

"That you're my mate?" he asks. She nods. "No." 

"Good. We'll tell them together." 

"Not today." 

"No, it doesn't have to be today," she says softly. Her eyes are still closed, her arms draped loosely around his neck. "What do you wanna do now?" she asks. 

"Coffee date?" he asks. 

She laughs softly, that light, airy laugh that he's fallen in love with. "Okay. Let's go."