Hellbound With You

"That's the proof of your sleep walking." He said blandly and he scooped her back into his arms, feeling bad that he did not just almost let the girl get hit by a car but also in being careless and allowing her foot to ger hurt as well.

Because some early birds started appearing, Zeres could not heal her there and then with his magic in the public so he could only carry her back to the bookstore to get her patched up.

"Are you really sure I sleep-walked all the way here?" she asked him as they headed back. "You didn't accidentally cast a spell on me or something, did you?" she narrowed her eyes and playfully asked him.

"Do I look like someone who would cast a spell accidentally on just anyone?" Zeres replied in a flat voice, not meeting her gaze and was just looking ahead.

Iryz creased her brows. "Well, I don't think I ever sleep-walked before. So, this happening is just a bit too arbitrary for me. In fact, it is unbelievable!"

"It's not that unbelievable. Just because you never sleep-walked before doesn't mean that you will never sleep-walk in your entire life." Zeres reasoned out with her.

"Well… you're right about that, I guess. I think I also had a horrible nightmare… but I can't quite remember the gist of it right now." She scratched the back of her head and furrowed her brows, trying to recall what the nightmare was about.

Zeres' jaws worked. Now he knew that this was his fault. Humans who were forcefully put to sleep by a spell will always have a horrible nightmare but will not remember it. This meant that he was in the wrong and she was actually a human? But how about the reddish thing that was lingering around her? What was that then?

Once they were back at the bookstore, Zeres wordlessly put her down on the chair and grabbed her ankle. His palm glowed and he placed it over her feet for a few seconds before releasing it.

"Are you okay now?" she asked him while he was tending to her wounds and Zeres stilled for a moment. Why was she asking him that? He should be the one asking her!

"You're the one who's not okay right now." He checked that her wound was healed and rose to his feet. "Rest now. It's still too early." He added and then he nonchalantly returned to his spot and picked up a new book to browse through.

He felt her staring at him again, but he ignored her, until he felt her climbed on her bed and fell asleep. Zeres shut his eyes as soon as he felt that her breathing had evened out, and he knew that she was asleep. Then he used his magic again to see if the reddish glow was still there. It was gone.

A deep frown appeared on his handsome face. What was going on? He was certain that this was not a simple incident of sleep walking. She seemed completely oblivious to this and the scene where she nearly got hit kept flashing across his mind. If he was not there at that time, this girl might have been… could it be that whoever casted the reddish smoke on her wanted to kill her?

The thought made Zeres clench his fists so hard. Because that was the most logical explanation he could think about right now. Someone was trying to kill this girl. But why?! Was it to stop him from finding an answer to save Alicia? But who would dare get in his way like this? Why would they even want to stop him? How did they even know about his plan in the first place? Or was there a different reason why someone wants this girl's life? But if that was the case, why the attempt on taking her life only now?

…

It had been days, about two weeks now since Alicia stuck herself to Ezekiel like she had become his shadow. But until now, Alicia had yet to notice anything amiss. Ezekiel did not show anything suspicious at all which was such a relief to her.

However, for some reason, Alicia was starting to feel like her job had been too eerily easy. The man she was watching over was Ezekiel of all creatures but for goodness' sake, it had been about two weeks of watching him 24/7 and she had not once found any information that was valuable?!

It started to bother her that things were just going on too smoothly to be true. He had been dealing mostly with the matter of the humans and some other minor problems related to the rogue vampires disguising as mafias. Aside from that, nothing interesting happened at all. The most surprising thing was that Ezekiel's routine never changed at all in that two weeks she had been shadowing him! The routine she saw that first night was exactly the same until now that she was starting to think this Ezekiel was actually a robot!

She had literally memorized everything that he does even the exact amount of time he spent on getting one task done. Alicia could not even help but think that this man's life might be more boring than hers as a mere spirit right now. And the most surprising thing was the fact that he never once looked bored at all!

At some point, Alicia stopped thinking about this, knowing that she will only give herself a headache trying to figure this puzzle of a person out. And now, here she was again, turning her back on the wall while he gets dressed in those tailored black suits of his.

When she heard the sound of the door opening, Alicia turned around. That was the sign that he was done changing.

But she stiffened and her eyes widened at the sight that welcome her eyes. "H-how come you're still naked?!" she blurted out, her voice coming out in a screech.