Page 26 of Little Fangs

“You bought the boxes of fruity juice I like?” I asked. “The cranberry?” I tried to sit up but Misty meowed, placing her paw on my chest to show me she was in control here. She had so much body heat she was desperate for my cold to absorb it all.

“Because it looks like blood?” he asked, still holding those big boxes firm, the pulse in his arms making his muscles look swollen.

“No, because it’s a drink that feels dry,” I said, smacking my tongue at my mouth. “Tangy and sweet. Okay, fine, and because it looks like blood.” I giggled. It was true, it wasn’t like blood, though. I wished. I wouldn’t have been so scared about the world or living in it if cranberry juice was like blood.

As Harlan walked off, chuckling, I ran my tongue across the tips of my two canine teeth. They were my downfall as a vampire. Barely any different to a human’s teeth. It sucked that if I wanted to bite, I was stuck with really tearing into skin—really biting instead of puncturing like a needle. Nobody ever understood that, except for Ludmila, she understood, and yet she still left. And worse yet, she left me with them. Practically for dead. And if they found me here, with their enchanted bracelets in hand, ready to pawn, they’d probably do something worse than death to me.

Misty really didn’t give me all that much space to be alone with my thoughts, especially when they started to spiral. Her soft purrs and gentle way of pressing her claws into my skin brought me back from those spirals.

Harlan went out and came back in with a third box. I’d never seen shopping carried in by boxes before. My brain was still from a time when things came in paper bags, the tough kind you could easily conceal a bottle of something strong inside.

“Are you gonna come join me in the kitchen, or just lie there?” he asked, winking at me as he walked past.

“I can’t—”

He snapped his fingers and Misty jumped up off me, and the entire force of her fluffiness bounced away. I sat upright, covered in a malt layer of her fur.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said.

“Oh, I can put my new clothes on,” I said, looking at the way his clothes draped on me. I liked the comfort of them, but I would need clothes to take with me—if I ever went anywhere, I was becoming more attached to this place by the day, hour, minute, second.

“You’ve got something else you should look at first,” he said and I followed him into the kitchen.

Thankfully I didn’t have to think on it too much or try guessing what it was he was leading me toward. On the counters of the kitchen, were the fruit crate boxes of food beside each other, and the one he’d brought through was on the table. That was from the second-hand store.

“I saw you looking at it,” he said, revealing the teddy bear I’d looked at.

“Oh—” A shiver ran up my cheeks. “Thank you. I—”

“It’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah.” My voice was soft. “But I—”

“Listen, you don’t have to hide any part of yourself here with me.”

I almost toppled him as I tackled him with a hug in the kitchen, squeezing myself around his body. I held him there for a moment as he wrapped his other hand around me and kissed the side of my neck with a little peck. “Thank you,” I whispered out into him. “I appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, still giving my neck those gentle kisses. “We’ll make sure you get everything back from that house. Everything that’s yours.”

Through glassy eyes, ready to cry, I looked at him, so grateful to have been found outside his home. Anyone else might’ve pulled out a shotgun and done what my brothers had been trying to do. I held it together, just long enough to take the teddy into my arms.

“Is it like the ones from the house?” he asked.

I nodded, pressing the teddy to my face, dabbing away the tears.

Misty was at my feet, pawing at a knee and meowing.

“She’s jealous,” Harlan said. “I think she wants you to pick her up.”

“I’m not falling for that again,” I said. “She jumped out of my arms last time.” I think she thought of me as one of her kittens, since she’d fed me a mouse once.

“She loves you,” he laughed. “Anyway, I’ll fix something for lunch. You want me to warm you some blood?”

“Yes, please.”

Harlan stroked at my chin. “Good boy.”

He knew just how to make me giddy with excitement. Those two words . . . I’d dreamed of hearing them most of my life, and now he was saying them to me, like they were the most natural words to fall out of his mouth.