Heartless

Heartless - Chapter Eleven

HEARTLESS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I thought we were only pretending to skate?” I grumbled as Hunter took two tickets from a smiling attendant.

He put his hand on my back, pushing me forward lightly. “I know this might be surprising, but pretending to ice skate actually involves putting on the skates and getting onto the ice.”

“That’s not even pretending anymore.”

He smiled, a hint of smugness on his face. “I know.”

“Are you actually hunting anything, or is this just an evil plan to see me repeatedly fall on my butt so you can laugh at me?” I demanded.

“No, I’m definitely hunting. I told you, the vampires I’m hunting have been hanging out around the Rockefeller and I need an excuse to be there,” he replied steadily. He paused for a second, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I did think I could do with a bit of a laugh, though.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He chose to ignore this. “Let’s get some skates.”

“I refuse.”

“Too bad you don’t have much of a choice,” he said, taking my arm this time and dragging me towards the desk, where another smiling attendant stood in front of a row of shelves filled with ice-skates.

“Merry Christmas,” the guy at the till said, a smile stretched across his face. He was wearing a Santa hat in an attempt to seem in the holiday spirit, but I was certain that despite his joyful appearance he would rather be at home than working.

“No it isn’t,” I grumbled.

“Ignore her,” Hunter said cheerily, showing him our tickets. “Two pairs of skates, please. A size nine and a size five.”

“How do you know my shoe size?” I asked.

The guy turned away, sorting through the shelves of skates to find the ones we needed. He grabbed two pairs and then turned to slam them unceremoniously down on the counter.

“I must be a psychic,” Hunter replied.

“Don’t talk to me about psychics,” I grumbled.

“I forgot you know one.”

“Knew,” I stressed. “And I barely knew him at all.” The last time that I’d seen Darius and his sister Dabria was the day that my parents had died been killed. It had been no coincidence, too. Darius had seen them dying in a vision, just like he’d seen so many parts of my life. The strange, ethereal twins were out of my life for good now though, I’d left them across the channel along with the rest of my old life.

“It’s good that you didn’t. You should never trust a spirit elemental, they bring nothing but bad luck,” Hunter said, taking the skates off the till and turning to face me. He offered one of the pairs towards me. “Now stop thinking about that and put these on.”

I ignored the skates in his hand, my arms firmly crossed. “No.”

“Don’t make me force you.”

“As if you could,” I scoffed.

He walked over to sit on one of the benches, still holding both pairs of skates. “Don’t even think for a second that I couldn’t force you, sunshine,” he said. “You seem to forget that I could take you easily.”

I turned to face him, my arms crossed. “No you couldn’t.”

“I’m confident I could.”

“Want to bet?”