Page 71 of Zombies, Satyrs and Vampires, Oh My!

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.