Shimmer |✓|

//Haunted// Part 3

Dracula was still recovering from our spat in the ballroom - and our makeup in the shower. His rib was cracked, his left eye red. Straddling his lean waist, I kissed him into his bed sheets, my hand on the place a stranger's heart used to beat. Now they were both dead. And now they were mine...

I sat up, robe sleeves sitting coyly on my shoulders as Dracula's sapphire eyes partook like blood-wine. 

"You should feed." Still damp from the shower, I piled my hair in a bun, heedless of the curls that escaped. Dracula looped one around his finger, wary of temptation. 

"You know we can't."

"I just found out you're Dracula--there's no way I'm not." I smiled, unperturbed by his hesitance. "The cure I gave my grandmother--I took the same one an hour before I gave it to Dr. Descamp. I had to be sure Claudia wasn't lying, that it wasn't poison. And--no. More. Verbena... so-o-o-o-... Let's play." My fingers spider-walked up his chest. Dracula took them in his and kissed each knuckle, then used his super speed to switch places.

"As you wish." His incisors clicked and Dracula wasted no time planting his fangs in my neck. The pain and euphoria rose like tentacles in the dark. Black-eyed as a demon, Dracula released me with a gasp, ichor dripping from his chin. He growled and flexed his satisfaction, the flames in the grate leaping to his magnificent roar.

"It worked." I was cured, and most importantly, so was my grandmother.

"We work." Until sunrise, Dracula re-introduced me to all the exquisite ways we fit.

*              *             *

Contrary to popular belief, Vampires sleep - perhaps the better term is hibernate - and not always with their eyes closed. 

How can someone so hot be so creepy? What does that say about me? I tut-tutted, slipping from Dracula's bed to retrieve my fallen robe. I had become such a fixture to the castle, that much to Jeeve's dismay, Dracula had awarded me my own wing, every closet stuffed to the hinges in black couture. I tightened the strings of my Versace robe, stooping to silence my beeping phone–a FaceTime invite from the Alpha.

"Mimi--what the hell! You never answer your phone!"

"I was... thoroughly engaged."

"Explains the sex-hair." 

"What's wrong?"

"When was the last time you were home?"

"Uh-h-h-h, a couple weeks, I guess--why?" I squinted at the phone. "Are you in my kitchen?" 

"Yeah, say hello to your staff--who are scared shitless, by the way." Ethan's camera panned, offering a brief glimpse of several figures huddled like startled refugees. "Mrs. T tried to call you--I just rescued her from the freezer.  Mimi, the staff thinks your house is haunted--" Ethan rolled his eyes, halted by the angry squawk behind him. "Knows your house is haunted."

"What are you standing around for, dummy? Alpha-up and get everyone out of there. And tell Mrs. T not to worry. She lives at the manor, so you'll have to check her into the Maison. Use my name to book the suite--whatever she wants."

"On it. Just get your ass over here. And I can't believe I'm saying this--bring Tidus. You're gonna need back up."

I pressed the end button, turning to a naked, tousled-haired Dracula already on his feet.