Chapter 6

I was confused by the sudden blackness, but I finally realized that that we were moving. He was carrying me and running, running so fast that my eyes only had time to process that it was night outside, and that’s why everything was looked black.

As suddenly as he had grabbed me, he stopped. He couldn’t have been running for more than a few seconds, and yet I had no idea where we were.

“Where are we?” I asked as I looked around. We were obviously in a clearing in a forest somewhere, I noted as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness finally.

“In the woods about halfway between your apartment and Orlando,” he informed me.

Holy shit. Orlando was four hours from where I lived. He just did a two hour trip in seconds, and he wasn’t even winded. He wasn’t kidding when he said they were fast.

“I know you said vampires were really fast, but….”

“But it’s different to experience it and truly understand how fast?” he offered.

I nodded. I was still taking in the new surroundings when he wrapped his arms around me from behind. His touch was electric, and I tensed a little but quickly relaxed. His smell was so soothing, it calmed me as I became enveloped in it, and before I knew it I was totally entranced in it. That scent was like a drug. Was that a vampire thing?

“You like my scent don’t you?” I could here the smile in his voice. It was amusing to him. I scowled, but before I could retort, he continued, “It’s natural you know, to be enamored by your mate’s scent.” I felt him press his face to the top of my head and heard him take a deep, indulgent breath. “Your’s does the same thing to me. The trick to not becoming completely distracted by it, is by embracing and acknowledging it.”

“Is that your proof that we are mates?” I teased.

“You can’t honestly say that you haven’t felt any of the signs of our mate bond.”

“It’s hard to know that I’ve felt the bond if I have no idea what a mate bond is supposed to feel like,” I hedged.

“An inexplicable attraction, a powerful pull towards someone, I’ve heard that sometimes mates experience signs of a mate before meeting them.”

“You’ve heard? You haven’t experienced it before?”

“Fated mates are not an everyday occurrence. They don’t come along all the time. Some people never meet their fated mate, and no one has ever had more than two in one lifetime. So no, until our journeys met, I’ve never had a fated mate. I have chosen a mate in the past, but it didn’t work out.”

He seemed a little bitter about it. Things must have gone very wrong between him and his chosen mate. “Is that why you had to leave your vampire family?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

I nodded. I didn’t want to push him on the subject, so I confessed, “I have experienced some of that. I was smelling your scent everywhere for weeks before I met you. Of course you happened to be nearby, but my witch senses told me that it belonged to someone important about to enter my life.”

He asked in a teasing voice, “They told you? Are your witch senses like a voice in your head?”

I laughed. “No. Every witch has different psychic senses, so I suppose it could work like that if they are clairaudient, although no one I know who has it has ever described it like that. No, mine are more claircognizant. I just know things sometimes. It’ll pop into my head like I suddenly remembered it, only I didn’t know it before.”

“Interesting.”

We stood together in silence for a moment. He still had his arms wrapped around me from behind.

“You want to see another one of my vampire abilities?” he asked suddenly, playfully.

“Sure.” I wanted to know about everything he could do.

He gripped me tighter, and then we began to float. Higher and higher we went, until we were above the trees, gliding over them.

“You can fly?” I gaped. I had no idea vampires could fly. I knew they didn’t shift into bats like in stories, but I never imagined they might still be able to fly.

“We can float,” he corrected. “It’s how we can hang from ceilings and climb walls.”

“Float, fly, what’s the difference?”

“Well you will notice we aren’t moving very fast, and you will also notice that we are very gradually beginning to descend. Our powers can’t hold us up and fight gravity for long. Older more practiced vampires can do it longer, but it’s actually quite difficult. It requires a balance of mental focus and subconscious instinct.”

After a moment I realized we were in fact descending very gradually. I didn’t care though. It still felt like flying to me, and it was an amazing feeling.

I took everything in: the cool breeze on my face, the warmth of Dax’s body, the strength of his arms, his scent, the scenery all around me… this was pure bliss.