After Darkness Falls: A Vampire Romance
After Darkness Falls: Chapter 22

Unlike last time, this week’s run had a lot more participants; Chloe noticed some younger students right out of high school.

It was apparent that huntsmen took paintballing seriously. Chloe got it, given the fact that another pile of cash was involved.

‘The rules are simple: you have to get to the summit. The likelihood of anyone making it without getting hit at least once is close to nil, so the rule is, you have to get hit less than three times. The reward is five hundred. If anyone makes it without a single paintball, I’ll throw another five hundred on top.’

Chloe could practically feel the excitement buzzing when Jack said that.

Damn. If she won this time, that would almost pay for the shiny new boots she wasn’t wearing now. She’d opted for her trainers instead, because it had rained overnight and she wasn’t getting mud on her pretty boots the first day.

‘Last time we raced, I may have been a tad careless when I didn’t share the whole picture. There are zones marked off on this hill with black tape. You enter those zones at your own risk—it’s not against the rules, but the likelihood of you getting out of there alive is pretty grim. Got it? Good. On your mark.’

One thousand pounds. One thousand pounds. One thousand…damn right she was a cheetah today.

Chloe leaped into action the moment Jack said, ‘Go,’ pushing herself harder than before. Now that she had proper gear that was easy to run in and shoes that weren’t pinching her toes, her body wasn’t protesting against the effort. The previous week, she’d purposely stayed behind those in the lead since she didn’t know the way. ‘The summit’ wasn’t a hard direction. She could see it overhead, and although the hill was thick with trees and treacherous paths, the various paths leading up were clear enough.

Hearing a gunshot behind her, Chloe leaped to her right, then ducked and rolled on the cold, slightly damp, mossy ground. She shot blindly in the direction of the sound before resuming her run. The interruption had changed her course, but another path on the right led upward. She took it.

Running faster and faster, Chloe was almost halfway up the hill when she realized that most of the sounds seemed pretty far away. She took the time to look behind her. No one. They seemed to have all taken the left path, which either meant they were sheep or her way didn’t lead to the summit. Hopefully the former.

Looking up, she saw the path continue. She was a mile or so down from an intersection, but she could clearly see the left pathway leading to the top. She could carry on and then turn left.

The path got steeper and steeper; no doubt that was why the others had avoided it. But Chloe kept going. Steeper meant that she’d arrive faster as long as she didn’t slow down.

She reached the intersection where she should have turned left. One look down the mountain showed that she had at least five minutes on the next closest runner.

Instead of taking the left road, she found herself looking right.

Black tape barred the path, and beyond the tape was only sinuous trees, and then, darkness.

Chloe felt herself edging toward the tape. Where did this path lead? She wished she could tell.

Biting her lip, she took another step…

‘Don’t.’

Chloe turned. A stranger stood in front of her. He was dark-haired and bronze-skinned, with crow-black eyes and a threatening edge. She’d never seen him in her life; he wasn’t the sort of man someone could forget. And yet, he didn’t feel like a stranger at all. She knew his presence.

‘So you’re my stalker.’

She was strangely calm about it. Why was she calm? Probably because she had felt him follow her from the first day, and he hadn’t harmed her yet. Besides, if he did want to harm her, she couldn’t do much about it. He was a vampire, that much was crystal clear.

He grinned. ‘I prefer babysitter.’

‘You’ve been sent to protect me?’

Chloe frowned. Wasn’t she here, in this territory, because she didn’t need a bodyguard twenty-four seven?

The vampire snorted. ‘More or less. I have…specific orders. I can’t let you get drowned, decapitated, or burned to death. If you go down that path, I can’t follow you and do my job. And you’ll never come back.’

Ominous.

‘Drowned, beheaded, or burned,’ she repeated. ‘What if someone strangles me, then?’

The vampire shrugged. ‘Not my problem.’

Chloe’s jaw fell open. What the hell?

‘Seriously?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Well, it’s a good thing no one here seems to be trying to murder me…’

‘If you go down this way, someone will,’ the vampire said, tilting his chin toward the path she was still eyeing.

Chloe sighed. She felt…drawn to it. Drawn to that dark place he seemed so afraid of.

“What’s down there?”

“Nothing you should concern yourself with. And, by the way, you’ve lost the lead. Better get going if you want to win, fledgling.’

Oh shit.

Chloe started to run before turning back to ask her bodyguard’s name. But he’d disappeared.

She groaned. Damn vampires and their dramatic exits.

Tris won the five hundred pounds, although Gwen didn’t do half bad, arriving fourth this time. Apart from Chloe, she was the only racer to finish without any paint on her clothes. She’d been smart enough to cast a protection spell, so the paint bounced right off her.

Someone managed to get Jack behind the shoulder blades, and although no one was admitting to the shot, Chloe would have bet her money on Tris, who looked far too smug.

They ended up at the pub again, and this time, Gwen stuck to beer.

Chloe thought about her promise to tell Blair the next time they were having a drink with the huntsmen, so, with a fresh beer in hand, she excused herself to use her phone outside of the crowded establishment. She wasn’t sure whether Blair had left to see her family for the whole weekend, but she tried to call just in case.

The call went to her voicemail after the tenth ring.

Chloe hesitated as she turned back toward the pub, her eyes darting to the edge of the forest. After debating for a moment, she crossed the road and zigzagged between detached houses to reach the Wolvswoods.

‘I have a beer,’ she announced.

She felt rather foolish upon hearing nothing but silence at first, but after a moment, the vampire stepped into view, his booted feet muffled on the forest floor.

‘So I see.’

She lifted her hand to give it to him.

‘Not my drink of choice.’

Oh well, it was worth a try.

‘You’re on a blood-only diet?’

He flashed her a toothy smile. ‘If you must bribe me for intel, I’d recommend wine and coffee.’

Apparently, her intent had been obvious.

‘Come on. You’re following me. That means I’m in more danger here than Charles has told me. Can’t blame a girl for wanting to know where she stands.’

He made no reply.

‘Did Charles replace the source of the bounty on me?’

‘I have no idea.’

Chloe frowned. ‘Could you ask him? I mean, he sent you, right?’

She was grasping at straws.

“I’ll try not to be offended by the assumption that someone like your Charles could order me around.”

Chloe lifted a brow.

“He couldn’t?”

“No.”

He wasn’t going to make her interrogation easy, was he?

‘Then who did order you?’

He looked beyond her shoulder. ‘Your friends are looking for you.’

Let them look for a second.

‘It was Levi, right?’

She only knew two vampires. Well, given the fact that they’d met all of three times, she couldn’t really say she knew Levi, but no one else came to mind.

The vampire narrowed his eyes.

‘I’ll take that as a yes. Why is he making you watch me?’

‘You’d have to ask him.’

Chloe sighed. Asking him wasn’t a good idea. Being anywhere near Levi wasn’t a good idea. She could have a perfectly civilized conversation—if a little pushy and nosy, perhaps—with just about anyone else, but she lost her mind around him.

‘Yeah, right. I’ll do that, I guess.’

With a sigh, she started to walk away before turning back.

‘Wait.’

He hadn’t yet dissolved into the shadows.

‘What now?’

‘What’s your name?’ she asked him. ‘If you’re going to stalk me, we might as well get properly acquainted first.’

He smiled. ‘Mikar.’

‘Did you call me on my first day, Mikar? To wake me up.’

He shrugged. ‘You had orientation at ten.’

Chloe managed a real smile. He might be intimidating and rather cold—she wasn’t even going to start on the whole ‘I only care if you get murdered a certain way’ thing—but she was fairly certain he was the kind of person she wanted in her corner. If a random attacker leaped at her, Mikar would have him flat on his back in an instant.

She fell asleep a lot faster that night knowing she had someone watching over her.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t extremely curious, and slightly irritated, as to Levi’s reasons for hiring her a bodyguard to begin with. She knew she had to stay away. She didn’t recognize herself around him. She didn’t even recognize herself when she thought about him.

Who was she?