"Alaric, Darling, come here for a moment," Vladira called from inside the changing room, both of them ignoring distant screams from the other side of the store. "I need your opinion."
She heard his gruff reply from a distance away. Irritatingly too far away for her liking.
"Just buy the most nondescript clothes that fit. Honestly, them fitting right is optional as far as I am concerned, though I suppose we
may as well be comfortable."
"All the same, come here," she said, a tiny smirk tugging at one corner of her lips with impish intent.
"Fine. I'm here."
"...Just you?" she said. "What I'm about to show you is for your eyes only."
"Huh? What are you—"
"Just you, Alaric?" she pressed.
There was a long and delicate silence, but her grin widened just before the final surrender came.
"Just me."
She cracked open the door and let him drink in the sight of her, a reward for his obedience.
She had selected a skimpy but cute pair of pink panties that had a feline avatar printed across the front of them.
Just over her nether regions the words "Hello Kitty" were emblazoned beneath the character's face.
Over her chest, she wore a matching push-up bra that was clearly intended to form a set with these panties. "Aren't they cute?" she squealed with a little bounce from one foot to the other, setting her breasts to
jiggling.
The vampire hunter kept his composure, having no doubt braced himself for this eventuality, but his wandering eyes told all tales. "Adorable," he grunted dryly before closing the door. "Hurry up in there."
"Awww, Alaric, don't be such a killjoy. This era has such colorful tastes in fashion—we might as well partake. Surely that would help us fit in?" She spoke in a pouty voice designed to further fluster her nemesis, though hoping something like that would have any effect was admittedly a bit of a
long shot.
"I grabbed you a pair of pants, a pair of shorts, a few more modest selections of undergarments, and a hooded button-up sweatshirt designed to look like a bat. It's all in your size."
She gasped and threw the door open, this time with her clothes all back on. "Let me see that hooded shirt you just mentioned!" she commanded him, her fingers wiggling as she held out her hand.
Alaric smirked at her, inclined his head slightly, and handed it off.
"Here."
She slammed the door after taking it and quickly donned the outfit, leaving a few buttons down more out of laziness and hurry than a need to be seductive in the moment.
She threw the changing room door open and
struck a pose like one of the women on the posters looking down on this department of the W-Mart.
"How do I look?"
"Honestly?" Alaric said, allowing himself a chuckle, "annoyingly cute. This world is strange, and its attire is stranger still. But it works for you."
"Does it?" she asked, looking down at the hoodie. "If you like it, I'll buy it."
He rolled his eyes. "Don't insult me with your attempts at seeming sweet and demure or caring about what I think. You are still the Vampire Queen Vladira Noctyra, and I won't forget that. I can see through your plan."
Vladira scowled at him, balling her hands into fists at her sides. "I think you don't."
"But I do," he said. "You are as transparent as they come."
She pulled the hoodie over her head as she started talking, the little fabric wings under her arms wiggling as she moved.
"Well then, by all means— illuminate me with your insight. What is my plan?" As she asked him, she could have sworn for half a second that her dead heart thumped once in her chest.
Furthermore—she felt sweat forming along her brow. That wasn't unheard of for her, but it was damned rare.
"You wish to make me dependent on you, attached to you, to the point where perhaps I forget that you are my eternal foe. Then, when the curse is lifted, you will kill—"
"Wrong! Would you like to try again?" she said as she crossed her arms smugly.
ALARIC blinked in surprise at her forceful interruption. For a moment, his eyes darted around the store to see who had noticed their little tiff, but there was no one in sight.
"I—if I am correct—"
"Which you aren't," she said flatly.
"—If I am, you wouldn't tell me anyway."
She considered that for a minute, smiling slightly at him as she brushed her fingers through her hair and pulled on the draw strings of her bat hoodie.
"Perhaps true. But only if you guessed the correct truth—which you did not."
He eyed her with a hateful gaze. "If that is true, then I'll—"
Vladira interrupted him by leaning forward as suddenly as she could and pecking him on the lips with a kiss. Then, giggling, she fled back into the changing room before he could utter a word.
The resulting silence was borderline apocalyptic.
Her eyes widened and mouth gaped open as she'd realized just what she'd done.
She'd shown all her cards in a moment of weakness, but she couldn't help it! Just looking at his serious face, smelling his manly musk right in front of her, watching
him guess cluelessly about her evil designs—her adoration for him exploded in her chest.
And then she felt it. Unerringly, undoubtedly, her heart was beating. Her eyes bulged at the realization. She could feel them strain open as wide as they could get as her hands clasped over her heaving chest and she froze.
Was this the result of the magic that connected them? Was she
feeling mortal feelings because of her bloodbond to a human?
"It must be so!" she whispered, finally having puzzled it out.
She had been attracted to him before they arrived in Wapa Lake, Wisconsin, but ever
since they came here, that attraction had blossomed into something much more potent—genuine infatuation.
She was utterly smitten with her sworn
enemy, and now she knew why.
Perhaps I should rush that spell to break the link after all, she thought.
She was acting like a teenage girl in love, not Queen of the Night! Not 'Satan's Bride' or whatever nonsense title the Voss Clan had given her.