The vampire and the wife

Chapter 14

Hunter and I ended up sitting on the rock together, looking out to sea, and talking about our stories as kids. I did eventually cave in and told him a few stories about Jen. I'd decided to opt for the milder stories than some of the other ones I knew about her.

By the time we ended up calling it a day at the beach, the sun had started to set. Hunter decided that before we left, we had to get something to eat, so we found a small cafe that was open and sat and ate together, all the while still laughing and telling stories about ourselves. He'd really made my day turn from s**t to a lot better just by going along with my crazy plan.

Once we'd eaten, we headed back to the car, and he took me home again. When we were parked outside the house, I let out a small sigh.

"What's up?"

"Thank you for today, Hunter. I really needed it after going and seeing Creed."

"Your welcome. You know anytime." He grinned and then looked in his mirror as if something had caught his attention.

"Everything ok?"

"Yeah." He muttered as I unbuckled my belt. "I doubt I'll be able to see you before the party. I know Eric's out on an upcoming hunt with Jake."

"Don't count on that." I muttered. "Jake and Creed had a fallout, so..."

"Even if Jake's not in, Eric will be." Hunter sighed. "So I'll be busy with pack stuff, but I will be on my phone." He grinned.

"Then I'll check in on you. Just don't tell Jen what I told you."

"I certainly won't be sharing those stories." Hunter grinned. "Have a nice night."

"You too." I opened the door, got out, and walked up the path. I waved goodbye to Hunter and went for my keys when I heard Hunter call me.

He'd got out of the car and jogged down the path to me with my keys in his hand. I took them but then I noticed he seemed to freeze and then move in front of me after giving me the keys back.

"I wasn't going crazy." He muttered. "There's someone behind the tree watching you. A vampire, not the ones from the house."

"Not bad mutt." Marie stepped out, coming close to us.

"It's ok, I know her." I told Hunter as I put my hand on his arm, hoping he'd settle down. "I promise, she's not planning on hurting me." I looked at Marie with a warning, telling her to be nice or else.

"What she said." Marie muttered, shoving her hands into her pocket and watching. "So run away so I can talk to Rosa."

I really hadn't liked the way Marie had spoken to Hunter and I certainly wasn't going to let her dictate just who I was and wasn't allowed to speak to and when someone was finished talking to me and when they weren't, so I went and kissed Hunter on the cheek. "Thank you for bringing me my keys."

Hunter froze a little as I kissed his cheek and then he looked at me with a grin. "Anytime. See you at the party! Do you want me to swing round and pick you up?"

"You can if you like."

"I'll text you later and we'll sort it." Hunter winked at me and then walked away with a grin on his face.

"So your just giving up on Xander and deciding to spend your time with a mutt instead... What's Dorian got to say about this?"

"Dorian has no say over my life and neither do you. For the record, he ended it with me. So if you came to spy on me for him, tell him right now that I'm living my best life away from him."

"Xander doesn't even know I'm here. If he did, he'd kill me." I went to put my key in the door but froze. "Xander just wants us all to leave you alone and let you live your life with Dorian... Actually, he doesn't even want Dorian interfering in your life, but he has no chance of changing his mind and he knows it."

"Then why did you come, Marie?" I turned and looked at her seriously.

"I need you to resolve this petty argument between you both for the sake of his health."

"His health?" I couldn't help but laugh. "What about mine? What about mine when I was laying in that hospital, broken, hurting, and recovering..."

"You brought that on yourself."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a small sigh as I closed my eyes. "Give me a reason as to why I should." I asked as I opened my eyes and looked at her.

"Because he's going insane because he's not feeding Rosa. I know things ended on a sour note between you two, but I also know how much you cared for him. I would say you still do, but considering how fast you've moved on,"

"So why not dangle Claire in front of him? After all, she was his favourite before I came along and ruined it all." I snapped in anger.

"Don't you think I've already tried that?" She muttered, looking at me coldly.

"What do you think I can do to make him feed?" I asked, looking at her honestly, wanting an answer from her about what I could do.

"I don't know, Rosa; there has to be something."

"I'm probably the last person he wants to see right now. So there's probably nothing I can do, so I'm sorry but..."

"If you love him still, then tomorrow come to that bar down the road that Dorian said you met the mutt in. Him and I will be in there waiting." Marie walked away and then vanished.

I clenched my hands into a fist as I could feel myself shaking. I forced myself to turn around and pulled my keys out of the door in hopes the boys had already unlocked it. I pulled down the handle roughly and pushed the door to find one of them had unlocked the door. I slammed it behind me and then threw my coat on the floor and stormed up the stairs. I heard one of them shout at me, but I didn't bother to speak to them and just went straight into my room and threw myself on the bed after slamming my door.

I buried my face in the quilt as I could feel the tears running down my cheeks all the while Marie's words seemed to repeat in my head. If you love him still, it was a low blow, and she probably knew that, but I knew what Marie was like—she'd do anything she could to get people to do what she wanted.

"Rosa?" Dorian called from behind my door.

"Leave me alone. I just want to sleep. I've already eaten with Hunter, so you don't need to worry about me."

"Rosa, what's..."

"Leave me alone." I turned my head to the side as I could feel the tears running down my face. I didn't know what to do. The truth was, I did still love him and I did care what happened to him, but clearly he didn't feel the same way about me as he'd been the one who had ran off. I'm not going. I'm not playing her game. We're going to stay home and hide under our blanket tomorrow and tell them both to go and get f****d. The truth was, as much as I wanted to do that, I knew the other part of me would win and I would end up at that bar because that was me. That was predictable, Rosa having her buttons pressed once again. However, I knew that the night wouldn't be going the way they wanted it to go; the night would be going the way I wanted it to go and if Marie didn't like that, then she shouldn't have offered me the invite.