Chapter 11

Hudson

"Hudson, you need to come over here," Chester yells.

"Give me a minute," I say.

"No. You're gonna want to be here right the fuck now!"

I turn to where he's pointing and race in that direction because when Chester is serious, it means the situation is serious.

What I see makes the old dead heart in my chest seize. There is some sort of creature—I don't know what the fuck it is—that looks like a cross between a lizard and a caterpillar. Creepy. He's got someone wrapped in a cocoon of sorts.

Then I recognize the someone as I meet panicked brown eyes.

"Put her down! We do not abduct unsuspecting humans!" That's what I say because I'm used to being civil. What I want to do is squeeze his neck—necks?—until his head pops off. "Let her go," I grit.

"No," he says in a clipped voice. "Mine."

"The fuck she is!" My fangs are tingling and the urge to bite, to maim, to kill surges through me.

"Hudson," Chester yells. He interjects himself in between us. "Slime monster. Evidently the oozy stuff is a type of paralytic. You need to take her to your suite and wash it all off of her. Right now. I'll take care of bug boy."

His words penetrate my brain and enable me to calm down to some extent. It's far more pressing for me to save Rosie than it is for me to kill this idiot. Thankfully one of the cool things I can do as a vampire is move super fast. I've grabbed her from his arms and am halfway out of the lobby before he realizes what has happened.

"I'm so sorry, Rosebud, I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I'm going to fix it, all of it. I promise."

She makes a noise like she's trying to talk, but it just comes out a bit like she's playing a kazoo.

I race into my suite and into the bathroom where I deposit her in the bathtub. When I moved here, I added a state-of-the-art shower for myself that's built for me to stand beneath it properly. Most showers I would have to bend myself nearly in half to get my hair wet. But this tub still has an attached shower head.

She stares up at me with those beautiful eyes. How has she come to mean so much to me in such a short amount of time? She's worked with me for a while now, but until today, we might as well have lived on different planets.

The slime has seeped into her clothes and imprisoned her in a pseudo mummified case. Chester said to wash her off. I turn the water on.

"Can you close your eyes at all?" I ask. The encasement has left that part of her body open like she's wearing a body mask and only her eyes are visible.

She slowly closes them, and I aim the water spray right at her. It takes far too long for the slime to begin to melt out of her hair and off the sides of her face.

"This smells terrible," she says through her teeth.

I laugh, because of course my Rosebud isn't even phased by any of this. She's a survivor. I guess we have that in common.

"If I could cut this damn fabric off of you, that might ease the paralysis faster." I don't keep any knives or scissors in the bathroom though and I'm not about to leave her side. So, I do the only thing I can think of. I lean forward and grab the neckline of her t-shirt with my fangs, then I pull backwards. The shirt rips clean in two.

"Ermegard. That's hot!" she says, through her clenched jaw.

She'sthe epitome of hot in her basic white bra which is now soaked through and completely transparent. Her nipples are tight, pressing up against the fabric.

My cock hardens. Now is not really the time, buddy!

I lift her body to turn her so I can fully remove the shirt and get the water on her back.

Her eyes widen in fear, and she makes indecipherable noises of protest.

"What's the matter, Rosebud? I've got to clean it all off of you. The sooner the better so it doesn't have lasting effects."

"Scars," she says through her teeth, since her jaw still can't move.

"What?"

"Scars on back. Fire. Ugly." Then her eyes squeeze closed.

I turn her and say nothing as I clean off the slime, revealing the angry scars slashed across her back. A fire, she said.

She'd mentioned having health problems and needing accommodations like the desk, and appreciating good health care. This is obviously why she's been so demanding that she be more helpful and that I give her more to do. She wants to earn her job so she doesn't lose it.

Now I feel like an ass and a bully. I'd been so worried about her seeing my fangs and being afraid, and she has legitimate concerns about her well-being.

"Does it hurt when I touch them?" I ask, my palm gliding over the raised skin and stretched, shiny parts.

"No. Just certain positions. Skin gets tight."

"They're not ugly," I say. "No part of you is ugly." Then I work in silence to get the rest of her clothes off, trying my best not to ogle her beautiful round body. I want to tell her how perfect she is, how desirable. But it's not my place. I'm already crossing so many damn lines, putting my hands on her bare skin.

I couldn't risk it though. I don't know if that fucker's slime would eat through her skin or what.

"I think I can move my mouth now," she says, her words sounding more clear. "Can't believe some lunatic brought weaponized slime to your con. Do you think that's a new kind of roofie?"

"He's been removed from the property."

"Thank goodness. I guess you can't scan people for that with metal detectors."

"Not so much." Her destroyed shirt and the rest of her discarded clothes lay in a wet pile on the tub floor. "I think I've got it all off you now. Can you move?"

"Barely. Hope it wears off soon."

I grab one of my bath sheets, wrap it around her and lift her from the tub. She's still stiff, but far more malleable than she was when we first came in here. I pull back my covers and lay her in my bed.

"Hudson," Chester's voice comes from just outside my bedroom.

"I gotta go talk to him. You just try to get some rest. I'm sure when you wake up, your movement will be back to normal." I sure as fuck hope I'm not lying to her.

I close the door as I step outside, confused, conflicted, and aroused that she's naked in my bed.

Chester waits until we're back in the living room before he speaks. "I did some research, and the paralysis should be temporary. Now that you've gotten it all off of her, she should be back to normal in an hour or so."

"I doubt she will ever be back to normal since I introduced this shit show into her life."

He rolls his eyes at me. "Don't be an idiot. That girl in there is crazy about you. When it's fate, it's fate. Maybe learning about what you are will be an adjustment for her, but I suspect she'll take it in stride. She's got that kind of spirit about her."

I agree, but I don't tell my familiar that.

Ever had an embarrassment of riches? Just lucky things tend to fall in your lap? That seems to happen to me a lot. Aside from the whole getting turned into a vampire while looking like a chubby Mel Gibson from the first Lethal Weapon movie.

Foster kids—who are not infants—are not readily adopted by kindly older parents swimming in money. Yet, that was my experience.

A pang of guilt jabs at me. If Rosie had had my parents, she wouldn't have been in that fire. She wouldn't have had to go through those years of painful treatment and therapy.

It's never made a damn bit of sense to me why good things happen to some people, but not others. Just the luck of the draw? Then I remember something Rosie wrote in her original thank you letter.

Luck shouldn't be measured in good or bad. Initially, it's just the way your life unfolds, the challenges and gifts you're given. What truly matters is what you do with those things.

Do I wish I could erase all the pain she's experienced? Yes. But then she wouldn't be the amazing woman she is today. She formed herself out of the good and bad things that happened to her along the way. She doesn't need my pity or my guilt.

If I'm completely honest with myself, I've felt a connection with her from that very first thank you note. Maybe even before that with her scholarship application.

I haven't been keeping her away to protect her. I've been doing it because I was afraid.

If my sweet Rosebud can be brave, I can too. Because my girl is a total badass, and only a badass could handle being loved by a vampire.

With that thought in mind, I creep back into my bedroom to check on her and figure out how to tell her that monsters are real and I'm one of them.

I peek into the room and see that she's rolled over and is facing the door. Her eyes flick open.

"I know it's probably inappropriate, but would you stay with me? At least until I fall asleep?" She asks, her tone so earnest, it wounds me.

I nod and toe off my shoes, climbing onto the other side of the bed. I lay on my side facing her.

She turns her head on the pillow to face me, but her body remains turned away.

"I was twelve when it happened," she says. "My parents, well technically—it was my mom and whatever bonehead she was hooking up with at the time—were cooking meth in this old abandoned fast-food place."

"Shit," I mutter.

"Yeah. They were obviously stupid. Anyways, something happened one night while we were there, and there was a small explosion and then a fire. My mom got me out, but not before I'd received third and some fourth degree burns on my back. Thankfully nowhere else. They think I must have had something on my clothes or whatever that just lit up. The guy died. My mom was a regular offender, and the judge just pretty much sent her away. I'm not really sure because she never contacted me again."

"Thus, the foster parents," I say.

"Exactly. I was in the hospital for so long after that. Skin grafts and treatments. Then for the next few years, I had rigorous therapy to help regain movement under the worst of the scars. No one wanted to adopt me. I was too much trouble. I bounced around from one house to the next until I turned eighteen."

"I was one of the lucky ones," I tell her.

"You?"

I nod. I was adopted when I was four by this older couple who doted on me. They didn't have any other family and left me a ridiculous amount of money when they passed. Which is how I built the foundation."

"And why your scholarship is awarded to foster kids who age out of the system," she says.

"Right. It doesn't seem fair that one kid gets luck and another one doesn't. As best I can tell from observing, raising kids is a crapshoot. Nothing prepares people to take care of tiny humans. Some abuse that privilege. I just wanted to give back."

"Am I the first to send a thank you note?" she asks, her smile brighter now.

I chuckle. "Yes."

She reaches up and runs a finger across my fang again. "Are these uncomfortable?"

But before I can answer her, my fang pierces her skin.