Affinity

Chapter 7

Chapter seven

Cassandra

THE CAR STOPPED DEAD IN FRONT OF THE HOTEL. I sighed as I looked at the hotel that stood to the side of us. Dark cream color walls held up the maroon roof that sat on top. Shutters of the same color were both opened and closed all along the buildings in perfect vertical rows. Just another hotel, just another week or so this would be called our “home”.

            I turned to Xander only to find that he was already looking at me. I stared into his eyes, hidden in the green was small golden flecks that seemed to float in the color surrounding it. His dark brown hair used to make his skin even paler, now it looked like he almost had a very light tan. Immortals didn’t tan, and what happened to his eyes ringed in red? What happened to the person who looked completely different from the person sitting beside me, but yet look exactly alike? Why was he changing?

            “You look…different, yet perfectly the same.” I whispered softly. He just sat there staring intently into my eyes. “Your eyes aren’t ringed in red, and your skins…darker.”

            “You change me,” The words were so simple, so self-explanatory, but yet I still had no idea what he meant. Maybe I was hallucinating, maybe he was still just as pale and his eyes were still ringed in red.

            “Ho-?” Cutting me off, he gently put his finger over my lips. A shock of electricity shot threw my veins as he touched me. He leaned over, his face couldn’t have been more than two inches away from my face, I could feel his warm breathe as he breathed out against my skin. He closed his eyes, looking like he was trying to memorize this fragment in time forever, but all too soon he took his hand away from me. Wishing I could relive the moment forever I tried focusing all my attention on him and me, nothing else. I pretended that I was safe, no one was trying to kill me; no one wanted to hurt me that he was going to protect me, as if he wasn’t going to let one thing happen to me.

            “Vampires can’t love…or at least I thought they couldn’t…” Trailing off he replaced his lost finger with his hand, but it now embraced my cheek in his palm.

            My head spun, did he love me? What shocked me more was the fact that he thought he couldn’t love, like he was an immortal. I knew he wasn’t, I knew with every fiber of my being he wasn’t one and never will be again, that he wasn’t a monster.

            As soon as the moment was there it was gone and he had pulled away from me again, leaning back into the driver’s seat. I stayed were I was for a second, hesitating, and I slowly retracted back into my own seat.

            Disappointment ran through me, yet I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Maybe a kiss, or maybe for him to actually say the three words I was praying for him to speak, secretly in my mind.

            I felt ridiculous, like a fool in love. But how could I be in love with someone I barely knew? Someone that had the potential to kill me, but somehow I knew wouldn’t even bruise my skin, I was falling for.

            “Cassandra,” Xander murmured my name so softly I could barely hear it.

            I turned my heads towards him, just to find that he was looking straight ahead with his eyes half closed.

            “You should…go,” He seemed almost pained to say it, like how Christian always sounded when he had to leave me for a minute.

            “Yeah,” I agreed. My hand began to reach for the door handle when suddenly Xander grabbed my arm.

            Head whipping towards him, about to ask him what’s wrong, I saw his body tense. Coming to the realization words weren’t needed, something was there in the shadows, something that could go so undetected I couldn’t sense it. For the first time in my life I felt unaware to the situation around. I felt vulnerable.