My Vampire, My Guardian 2
1214 Words
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*CHAPTER 3
His expression shifted—danger, quick and real. “Stay behind me, Becca Bloom.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Because,” he said, turning toward the door as it began to splinter, “I’ve been waiting seven years for you to fall.”
Then the door burst open.
And in walked a guy with messy dark hair, a leather jacket two sizes too big, and a grin that said he’d definitely just heard the last three seconds of the conversation.
“Okay, dramatic much, Lucien?” the guy said, looking straight at me like I wasn’t the girl who’d supposedly fallen off a cliff. “You can’t just keep telling every new person you ‘waited seven years for them to fall.’ It’s weird. It’s stalker-y.”
The vampire—Lucien—didn’t even turn around. “Elias. Door. Knock first.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Elias plopped himself on the edge of my bed without asking, completely unbothered by my stunned face. “Hi, I’m Elias. I’m Lucien’s best friend, his moral compass, and apparently his only source of social skills. You’re Becca, right?”
I blinked. “...Yeah.”
“Cool. Lucien’s been moping about you since 2017. He talks in his sleep. It’s mostly ‘Becca, don’t jump,’ and ‘Becca, eat something.’ It’s pathetic.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened. “I do not mope.”
“You literally have a candle you light every year on the anniversary of her parents’ accident,” Elias said to me, deadpan. “Romantic. Also creepy.”
I stared between them. “Wait. You knew about my parents?”
Elias’s grin softened a fraction. “Yeah. Lucien found you that night. He’s been watching out for you since, just... from a distance. Not in a creepy way. Okay, maybe a little creepy. But his heart’s in the right place. Mostly.”
Lucien finally looked at me, his violet eyes unreadable. “He talks too much.”
“And you brood too much,” Elias shot back. Then he turned to me again, leaning in like he was sharing a secret. “Look, you’re safe here. Lucien’s ancient and terrifying, but he’s also the guy who’ll sit up all night making sure you don’t die. I’m the guy who’ll tease you until you forget you were ever tired of living. Teamwork.”
The tension in the room cracked. Not gone, but lighter. Like maybe waking up in a vampire’s house wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.
Lucien sighed. “We need to talk about why you’re here, Becca. Why the fall didn’t kill you.”
Elias clapped his hands. “Ooh, lore dump. Can I do the voices?”
“No.”
“Fine. I’ll just interrupt you every five minutes instead.”
And just like that, the edge of the cliff felt a million miles away.
---
Lucien sighed. “We need to talk about why you’re here, Becca. Why the fall didn’t kill you.”
Elias clapped his hands. “Ooh, lore dump. Can I do the voices?”
“No.”
“Fine. I’ll just interrupt you every five minutes instead.”
I didn’t answer. My legs felt steady in a way they hadn’t in years, like the constant ache behind my knees was gone. I swung them over the side of the bed and stood up before I really thought about it.
The room tilted for half a second, then settled. That wasn’t normal. Seven years of skipping meals and bad sleep didn’t just vanish.
“Whoa, careful,” Elias said, half-standing like he expected me to faceplant.
I ignored him. My eyes caught on something against the wall — a full-length mirror with a cracked silver frame.
I walked to it before I could stop myself.
The girl staring back didn’t look like me.
The dark circles under my eyes were gone. My skin wasn’t sallow and tired anymore; it had color, smooth and clear like I’d been sleeping for weeks straight. My hair, which I remembered as dull and brittle, was darker, thicker, with a faint shine to it. Even my posture was different — straighter, like my spine wasn’t carrying seven years of weight anymore.
I lifted my hand to my face, and the reflection moved with me. Too perfect. Too clean.
“What the hell did you do to me?” I said, turning on them fast. My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.
Lucien didn’t flinch. “Nothing. Yet. Whatever changed you, it happened on the way down the cliff. Before we got to you.”
“Before you got to me,” I repeated, crossing my arms. “Right. And I’m just supposed to believe that?”
Elias let out a low whistle, eyeing me up and down. “Damn. You’re glowing. Literally. Look at your hands.”
I yanked my hands behind my back. “Stop staring.”
“Can’t help it,” he said, grinning. “You went from ‘miserable insomniac’ to ‘vampire cologne ad’ in one night. Lucien’s gonna be insufferable about this for decades.”
Lucien shot him a look. “I am not.”
“You literally have a shrine,” Elias told me, ignoring him. “Well, not a shrine. More like a... memorial shelf. With a candle. And your school photo. It’s creepy, but it’s _his_ kind of creepy.”
I stepped back from both of them. “You’ve been watching me?”
“For seven years,” Lucien said simply.
“That’s not reassuring!” I snapped. “That’s stalker behavior. You two expect me to just stand here and be grateful because I’m not dead and my skin looks better?”
Elias winced, then perked up. “Okay, fair. Stalker is a strong word. Let’s go with ‘concerned immortal guardian.’ See? Much warmer. Also, you’re welcome for not letting you splatter on the rocks.”
“You don’t get to make jokes about this,” I said quietly.
“I don’t get to _not_ make jokes about this,” he shot back, but his grin faded a fraction. “If I stop talking, Lucien starts brooding. And when Lucien broods, someone usually loses a finger. Trust me.”
I didn’t trust either of them. Not yet.
But I also noticed I wasn’t shaking anymore. And that scared me more than their fangs.
Lucien stepped forward, slow, like I was a wild animal. “Becca—”
“Don’t,” I said. “Just... don’t talk yet. I need to think. And I need to know why I look like this.”
Elias clapped his hands again, too loud. “Ooh, we’re getting somewhere! Mystery, tension, trust issues. This is better than my last three centuries.”
Lucien pinched the bridge of his nose. “Elias.”
“What? I’m keeping her calm!”
“You’re keeping her annoyed.”
“Same thing!”
I stared at them both, heart pounding. They could be lying. They could want something from me.
But for the first time since I hit the ground, I didn’t feel like I was about to break.
And I hated that it was because of them.
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- Writer
