She watches as his chest no longer rises. He told her not to let her guard down. Thus she stands in the same spot for at least an hour, waiting for something to happen that never does.
He told her that all of his brain activity would cease, along with his other bodily functions. The room is so quiet, she hears her own heartbeat thudding in her chest, but nothing else. She tries to reach out to his mind. Nothing. A blank void.
Why did I let him in?she wonders.
Because she didn't have the heart to turn him away. Not after how the last few hours went, not after whatever it is that has been transpiring between them since they met. She let him in, despite every alarm going off in her head. Her headache had returned at the sight of him, because the sight of him brought up the information he'd told her. She will speak to her aunt about what is going on, why there is a block on her mind and why it is activated whenever she thinks about Carpathians. And at the thought, the headaches return. Selene shakes her head, attempting to clear the thoughts from her mind.
He had warned her to stay away. But the sun had risen and for all intensive purposes, he was dead. He said he wouldn't wake until the sun went down. She was safe until then, right?
Selene feels like an idiot standing there.
She looks to the bed at Damian's still supine form on the bed. She regards his shoes still on his feet. Her mother never liked shoes to be worn in the house.
Ignoring his warning as well as her own, she moves towards him, stopping at the foot of the bed.
Selene reaches a hesitant hand towards him. She'd never be hesitant in her life, not before last night. She endeavores to take life head on, consequences be damned.
At ten-years-old she became an orphan, forced to move to Romania to live with her mother's only living relative. Ever since then, Selene lives and breathes magick. Her aunt, Celia Dauphin, is the High Priestess of their coven and she is grooming Selene to one day take her place. She is supposed to set the prime example for the entire coven. It's stifling, having her life mapped out for her by someone else. And now enters Damian, telling her that she is his lifemate, the other half to his soul. As if she needs someone else to plan out her future for her. She should want to run away from him, like she does with her aunt, coming here with Vicky to cast spells outside of the safety of the coven, but for some reason he intrigues her. Perhaps it's the fact that thinking about what he is triggers the block on her mind—the same block her aunt put there. For whatever reason, Aunt Celia does not want her to think about Carpathians and that makes Selene want to learn even more.
Selene doesn't want to be the careful and meticulous witch her aunt expects her to be. She wants to be reckless and daring. She only has this life, why not make it more interesting.
She reaches her hand the rest of the way, grabbing onto Damian's shoe. Nothing happens; he doesn't move an inch. Wrapping her other hand around the heel of his shoe, she tugs it off and drops it on the floor at the foot of the bed before tugging off the other shoe.
Well, she certainly tempted fate there and wasn't scalded. How much could she get away with?
Selene moves farther alongside the bed until she is adjacent to Damian's waist. Looking down at him she regards his features. She's been fooled by boys with good looks before. Boys. But Damian isn't a boy. He's lived over nine centuries. That's enough time for a boy to become a man, surely. She can't help but wonder if he's more than just a pretty face. He'd proven to stay true to his word so far. Does that make him honorable? And he'd certainly been honest. Does that make him truthful?
Without being able to discern anything else about his character do to his current comatose state, Selene decides that while she continues to tempt fate, the only thing she can discern is whether his body lives up to the expectations of her imagination.
Since he practically collapsed onto the bed moments after she let him back inside the room, not only did he forget to remove his boots, he was still fully clothed in a sweater and jeans. Selene felt hot just looking at him. Sure, the mountain air has a certain chill at this time of year but the inn is heated and even in her thin tank top and pajama pants, his attire is stifling.
I suppose it couldn't hurt to relieve you of your current situation, even though you're not aware of it, she musses.
Leaning onto the bed next to his hip she reaches for the bottom hem of his sweater, sliding the material beneath him up the length of his body. She sucks in air at the sight of his stomach. She'd taken art classes in college. Damian would rival Adonis himself with the definition of his abdomen. Releasing her breath, she continues to relieve him of his sweater.
Getting his arms through the sleeves was the trickest part; his arms are like tree trunks, thick with corded muscle. At the time, Selene didn't have to mind to marvel at the ease he carried Vicky from the mountain. Now, she can't help but wonder what it would feel like to be carried in such strong arms. Pulling his other arm from the sleeve, the rest is easy and in one smooth motion, the sweater is over his head.
Dropping the sweater on the floor next to the bed, her gaze sweeps over the length of him. Her stomach tightens and heat pools low at her admiration of his anatomy.
Her gaze lands on the waistband of his jeans. As much as she would like to relieve him of his pants as well, there is a line there and she refuses to cross it any further. Her gaze sweeps back up to his face, relaxed in his dead-like sleep state. If she didn't know any better she would have thought him to be no more than twenty-eight-years-old.
Selene turned twenty-two last week. Her aunt always kept her cooped up on her birthday, claiming that it was safer for her to celebrate within the confines of the coven than to go gallivanting along the streets of Romania. It's part of the reason she wanted to get away for a few days with Vicky.
Twenty-two years feels like such a small number compared to his nine hundred. No doubt at her age, she is a child in Damian's eyes.
A knock at the door startles her. In an instant she's standing, glancing to the door then Damian and then back.
"Who's there?"
"Sel, it's me."
Selene rushes to the door at the sound of Vicky's voice. Dismantling her wards, she opens the door just enough to step back out and into the hallway. Vicky looks withdrawn. That doesn't surprise Selene, given what Vicky went through only hours ago.
When she closes the door behind her, Vicky's eyes narrow. "Mind if we talk in your room?" asks Selene.
Vicky says nothing in response, turning instead to go back to her room. Selene follows her. Once inside with the door closed behind them, Vicky whirls on her.
"What the hell happened last night?"
"Vic, I need you to listen to what I am going to tell you and to not freak out."
"I had my neck chewed out by some psycho, some bird came out of nowhere, turned into a man and incinerated him and then fed me blood before flying us back here. Tell me that didn't actually happen."
"We're witches, Vicky. It stands to reason that there are other things out there beside us, supernatural things."
She holds out a warning hand to Selene. Her pitch raises. "How can you be so calm about this? I need you to not be you, right now. Tell me I'm crazy and that the spell backfired and I imagined all of that."
Selene shakes her head. "You didn't imagine it. It all happened."
"If what you say is true then everything is different now."
The words aren't coming out for Selene. She tries to come up with a way to explain things to Vicky but thinking about the Vampire and Damian being Carpathian causes her head to throb. Wincing at the pain, she says, "Look, I can't explain every detail right now. But there are some things you need to know. The thing that attacked you was a Vampire." Seeing Vicky's eyes widen, Selene continues. "Yes, they're real. Somehow it sensed that we were up there and it attacked you for your blood. It would have killed you if Damian didn't intervene."
"Who's Damian."
"Damian is the one who saved you. He was the hawk on the mountain, watching us cast the spell when we were attacked." Anticipating Vicky's next question, she adds, "and no, he's not a familiar."
"What is he?"
"That's a little more complicated."
"He had me drink his blood. Was that real too?"
Selene nods. "His blood has a healing quality. Look, what's most important is that we're okay, you're okay. Vampires can't get us during the day."
"What aren't you telling me?"
Selene sighs. She wishes she had more time with Damian to sort it all out between them. The block on her mind isn't helping. "The reason I wanted to talk in here is because Damian is in my room resting."
"You let him stay in your room? Are you crazy? You said he's not a familiar. But he must be some sort of shapeshifter. How can you know what his intentions are?"
Selene shakes her head. "I told you I can't explain it all now. It seems my loving aunt put a block on my mind. For whatever reason, she doesn't want me to know about what Damian is. I get a massive headache whenever I think about it."
"Do you have a headache now?"
"Yes. It may hurt to think about it but the block on my mind couldn't stop him from telling me what he is. He told me and I trust him. I don't know if it's the right decision; I'm still figuring it all out but he saved you, Vicky. He doesn't mean us any harm."
Vicky moves to sit down on the bed. Putting her head in her hands, she says, "I'm sorry."
Selene moves closer to her. "You have nothing to be sorry for."
"Yes, I do. I dragged you out here. If I'd been stronger, I wouldn't have needed that spell for strength, not that we actually got to complete it, anyway. Coming out here almost got us killed. At the new moon, I'll fail Celia's tests and I'll have to wait even longer to be a third level witch."
Selene sits down next to her friend, wrapping her arm around her. "None of this is on you. I agreed to come out here. If we hadn't, who knows if I would've learned about the block on my mind."
Vicky lifts her head up to regard Selene. "Why would your aunt do that?"
"I have no idea but I have every intention of questioning her."
"She's probably livid. We said we'd be gone three days. It's now the forth. She's been blowing up my phone but I didn't have the guts to answer."
"That reminds me, my phone is in my car."
"I'll go with you to get it."
Selene stands. "Thanks."
Vicky stands as well. "What are you going to do about the man in your room?"
"I wish I knew. I'm taking this as it comes."