Bleeding Love (2 page)

“From where we
stood, you guys looked like you were having sex on the dance floor,” and with
that, Max laughed hysterically at his own joke.

“And I could say
the same thing to you,” was Adrienne's return, eyeing her two crazy friends
from head-to-toe.

Max shrugged his
shoulders as he smirked. “Well, what can I say? Sab here is just too
irresistible.”

“That's how I
feel about Adie, bro. Irresistible,” said Ethan, giving his friend a manly pat
on the back.

A chorus of
whistles erupted from the group, and because of that, Adie swatted the arm Ethan's
had around her waist.

“That's why I couldn't
control myself,” his voice was playful. “I just had to have wild sex with her.”

Adrienne decided
to add more, saying, “On the dance floor.”

Chuckling loudly,
Tristan made a cheer. “On the dance floor, everybody,” he said, and with that
everyone raised their glasses for a moment and cheered, drinking the spiked
sodas.

“Happy Eighteenth
Birthday, Adie!” Brianna shouted, giggling, and then the whole room erupted,
mirroring the sentiment.

“I'm not eighteen
yet, Bree!” Adrienne said chuckling, her hand over her mouth.

“Way to break the
moment, Adie.” Brianna rolled her eyes, feigning disappointment. “It's not like
an hour before midnight makes a difference.”

Ten!

The countdown
started, and on cue, everyone broke off into pairs. In the center of the room, Adrienne
and Ethan stood, listening to every shouted number as the lights grew dimmer and
the music slowed.

Nine!

Carter Stahl
decided to join the party as he peered at each and every one of the teenagers
from the staircase of his house's ballroom. Everyone looked happy, most
especially his beloved daughter, and because of that, he couldn't be any
happier.

Eight!

With raging
hormones and the intensity of their closeness, Max and Sabrina decided to go
right at it and completely ignore the countdown. The shouts grew in volume, now
focused on the kissing couple instead of the birthday girl.

Seven!

Tristan and
Brianna hadn't found their partners yet, and they sure as hell weren't going to
be each other's so they did the only thing they could think of. They separated
from Adrienne, Ethan, Sabrina, and Max and went their separate ways to look for
people whom they could make out with.

Six!

The shouts grew
louder, and it seemed like, the seconds sped up. The clock struck twelve and
everyone erupted into rounds of whistles, screams of happiness, cheers, and
greetings for the birthday girl.

“Happy Eighteenth,
Adie!”

She looked
around, saying the word thanks over and over again until everyone dispersed
into small groups to enjoy the rest of the night. When the commotion was all
done, and when the room grew less noisy, Adrienne looked up and met Ethan’s opaque
brown eyes.

“I love you,” was
what he said to her the moment their eyes locked. They were staring at each
other, and she felt her heart tie itself into a small knot inside her.

“I love you, too,”
was her oft said reply.

Tilting her head up,
she stood on her tiptoes to give him a soft peck on the neck. His neck felt
smooth against her skin, and he tasted and smelled sweet, and she realized that
Ethan's odor was probably her favorite smell. With their closeness, skin
against skin, she could feel his blood flowing through his veins and she could
even imagine how it would smell—luscious and enticing. She wanted a taste of it—his
blood, but then someone abruptly pulled her away. “Brianna?”

Bree simply
smiled, before she went back to tugging Adrienne farther from Ethan.

“Where the hell
are you taking me, Hun?”

Bree grinned, one
of mischief and secrecy, but it wasn't Bree's place to enlighten Adrienne to
her father’s request.

Adrienne could
tell by her friend’s smile that she was hiding something.

They left the
dance floor and went over to the main doors of the ballroom, where her father
stood, smiling as his daughter joined him.

“Here she is, Mr.
Stahl,” said Brianna, giving Adrienne a soft push so she would move closer to
her father.

Adrienne looked
up to meet her father’s eyes, up at those hazel-brown eyes she had inherited
from him. They were a darker color than before, almost shiny black pools, and
that slightly unnerved her. In addition, Brianna and Mr. Stahl looked
suspicious and mischievous, smiling at her.

“Oh, just call
me, Carter, Bree.” The older adult smiled. “We need to go up to my office now,
Xavier's waiting for us.”

“Who's Xavier?”
Adrienne had to ask, and though she didn't know what was happening, but it
seemed she was being kidnapped from her own birthday party. Not like her best
girl friend or her father were going to hurt her or stuff her in the trunk. Her
dad was probably going to give her a birthday gift and he’d used Brianna as an
accomplice.

“Xavier's one of
the guys in the Night Class,” said Brianna, giggling.

Adrienne couldn't
help but say, “So that means he's hot?”

It didn't take
Brianna more than a second to think about her reply.

“Are you kidding
me? He's probably the hottest, most adorable guy you will ever meet! He's such
a cutie pie!”

Adrienne eyed her
friend mischievously.

“Ooh, does
someone have a little crush?”

When Brianna
broke out into a fit of psychotic laughter, Adrienne wanted to run away from
her father and her friend. She didn’t understand Bree sometimes. There wasn't
anything funny about what she’d said, and in all honestly, Adrienne was
supposed to be the one laughing at Brianna for her grade-school-like ramble and
not the other way around.

“Adie, Xavier is
the last person I would love and be allowed to love,” said Brianna, and before
Adrienne could ask why, the Chinese girl quickly continued. “He's betrothed.”

And with that,
all her hopes of being able to play matchmaker were crushed and annihilated and
thrown away into a pit of abysmal doom. She'd been longing to have double dates
with Bree and realized that it wouldn’t be happening yet.

It was such an
understatement—what Brianna said earlier, about Xavier being the hottest and
most adorable guy one will ever meet. The moment Adrienne saw him; she could
only stare in wonder. For a second, she lost all her senses. They were just
sucked away by his beauty, and his presence. His looks were beyond description,
and even the most positive superlatives would probably not do him enough
justice. He wasn't like any other Night Class student she had ever seen, and
that was saying something.

“Have I seen you
before?” asked Adrienne. But surely she would have remembered him. She didn't
intend anything with her words, but apparently, Brianna thought she was turning
on her charm and flirting with him.

The eighteen-year
old girl giggled, and worse, she chuckled in such a girly way, it made Xavier
smirk in satisfaction.

He knew everyone
found him hot, and he basked in that. He'd be blind to not understand his
affect on both male and female.

Adrienne never
tore her eyes away from Brianna's face and when her friend looked back, she
hardened her gaze. 
I wasn't flirting
, her eyes said, referring to
the 'Have I seen you before' question.

“Uh-huh, right,” Brianna's
voice dripped with mischief and sarcasm.

“So, you were
flirting with me?” he asked, his midnight blue eyes looking directly at the
debutante's hazel-colored ones. His voice was deep and low. He sounded very
mysterious to say the least.

It completely
turned Adrienne on.

But before she
could reply to him, Brianna did, and her tone of voice was accusing. “You!” She
pointed a finger at the 6'3” Adonis. That nickname, both girls realized,
rightfully belonged to Xavier and not to Ethan anymore. Ethan just didn’t
measure up. “You can't just read my mind like that!”

Xavier shrugged
his shoulders.

Amused at the
sight of seeing the three eighteen-year olds converse with each other, Carter Stahl
remained seated behind his desk, his chin resting on his hands.

“I can if I want
to,” replied Xavier, chuckling amusingly.

Brianna's eyes
grew dimmer, though only in a teasing fashion. “I swear! Just go back to
Europe! Life is unfair!”

Adrienne rolled
her eyes, sighed and then smiled since she couldn't believe she was missing her
own party for 
this.
She really needed to get back to the ballroom.
This wasn't that important, or so she thought.

“Not my fault. I
was born like this,” he said, spreading his arms out as if inviting them to
look at what he had to offer.

“Die! Just die!”
was Brianna's sarcastic reply.

Xavier, and even
Adrienne's father, laughed loudly at the petite Asian girl, their eyes glowing.

The debutante was
thoroughly confused, but before she could ask what was going on, Xavier replied
to Bree's teasing quip.

“You know I'm
immortal, Bree, I can’t die, at least not easily.”

Adrienne frowned;
she broke the silence, asking, “You just sounded like you came out of a Harry
Potter movie, you know.” Adrienne laughed at her own joke.

Xavier looked at
her, his eyes had a dark glint to them.

She blinked. And
he stood before her. She hadn’t seen him move. She didn't know how to explain
it, but he was in front of her in less than a second. It made the hairs on her
arms rise up.

“I'm better than
wizards.” His solid blue eyes turned crimson.

“You're taking my
joke too seriously—”

“I'm a vampire,” he
interjected, and then he smiled at her, exposing his teeth, and she was
captivated with how straight and how white they were. Then she saw his fangs—pointed
and real. She lost her voice.

He continued with
the surprises. The next shock was when he moved in and lowered his head to kiss
her. His tongue swept her bottom lip, softly. He whispered against her ear, “And
you're 
my
 vampire.”

With the
intensity and the too-strong emphasis he put on the word
my
, she
realized what he meant. He believed that she belonged to him. What had Bree
said, that Xavier was betrothed? Did he think that she was betrothed to him? He
thought he was a vampire. She took a deep breath and was overwhelmed by the
scent of his blood. Okay. Weird. But the scent made her feel just as she had
with Ethan a few minutes ago. She’d been able to smell his blood so strongly,
that she’d wanted to taste it. To bite him. Did that mean she was a vampire
too?

She looked at her
father. The answers would have to come from him.

Adrienne didn't
want to believe Xavier when he said he was a vampire. This wasn’t the middle
ages. No one believed in Vampires, they were mythical creatures and if she
thought they truly existed, then she'd also have to think mermaids were real
too, and mermaids were 
so
 not real.

“Oh yeah?” Her
eyes twinkled mischievously while his still held a strong gaze on her. “If
you're a vampire, then I'm the Queen of England,” she bit at him sarcastically.
“And do I look like someone who should be running a country?”

He smirked at her
as she continued with her tirade.

“No, I'm not. I'm
just trying to have fun on my birthday.”

With his hands on
each side of her face and his chest a few inches away from hers, Xavier leaned
his head down until his mouth was against her ear. “First off, you're not a
queen.”

Adrienne rolled
her eyes, like she didn't know that already. “You're a princess, a vampire
princess.”

She seethed and
pushed him off her. It wasn't a particularly forceful shove, just a get out of
my space type of push. Her arms were strong. She played varsity tennis on the
school’s team. But she was still a girl, and Xavier was a big, strong, guy. He
had to have outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. Her strength would never
be enough to match a guy's. But that night, Adrienne pushed Xavier and she
watched him fly across the room, smash into the wall with a hard
thud
, cracking
the cement.

“Oh. My. God,”
was her astonished reply. She was openly gaping, her eyes steadily set on
Xavier's slumped figure. The Night Class student lying where he’d crashed into
the wall. Within a few heart beats he pushed himself up with the palms of his
hands, and shook himself off. He stood up, looking completely unharmed, without
a single scratch on his body.

“I'm 
so
,
 so
 sorry,”
Adie apologized, her voice truly regretful. “I didn't mean to push you even if
your were acting like an ass.”