Nora Walker, a psychic vampire, is conscripted into a task-force of supernatural legends that care more for themselves than the cataclysmic threat they face...
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I was entertaining a particularly fascinating dream about shirtless athletes — male and female — when a heinous monster harpooned me into consciousness by tipping the mattress on its side. I tumbled down the slope like a snowboarding accident, hitting the floorboards with bone-jarring force. Groaning, I rolled into the nearest blanket, fully intent on going back to sleep right there on the floor.
The monster would have none of that.
"Get dressed," Ruben said, nudging me with a hard-pointed shoe. "You're going to be late."
"Ew," I said, flinging away his foot. If those were the shoes he wore to the bar, I didn't even want to think about what they'd come into contact with over the years. "Go away."
"That wasn't a request." This time, the flat of his shoe found my hip, and he shoved me off the blankets.
I was about to tell the bastard to shove an assortment of sharp things in crude places when it hit me properly that Ruben was in my bedroom. I shot upright, pawing at the crust in my eyes until I could finally wrench my gummy lashes apart. What happened to all of the locks on my bedroom door? I must have been too exhausted to latch them properly, I realised, cursing my stupidity.
The only silver lining was that I'd also been too lazy to get undressed, so I'd fallen asleep in a full set of clothes. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Ruben waited with an aloof, regal patience that belief his gym attire, hands clasped behind his back. His sandy-brown skin seemed to take on the glow of the fairy-lights wrapped around my bed frame, and I was surprised to realise how handsome he was. My eyes usually skirted over him at the bar; I was always looking at his aura or his hands as he prepared me a drink, only occasionally glancing up at his face to check if I'd elicited a reaction.
It was hard not to pay attention to the face of a strange man standing in my room. I guessed he was Vietnamese, maybe even Japanese, with ebon eyes that reflected perfect copies of the movie posters collaged on the walls. His build was tall and slim, but there was an elegance to his every movement that suggested extreme precision, as though he'd trained in the art of dance or music. Still, there was a lithe strength in his torso, evidenced by the sliver of muscle where his tracksuit hung low off his hips.
They were too intimate, the kind of pants that close friends or romantic partners wore around each other. And his shirt was rumpled, along with his hair. It was decidedly out of character.
"Did we...?" I trailed off, making an obscene gesture.
Ruben arched an eyebrow, the only expression on his otherwise deadpan face. "No."
"Of course not," I said, feeling flustered all of a sudden. I'd never brought anyone home with me before; I felt unusually vulnerable here, surrounded by all of my personal belongings. "Something like that would be memorable."
