His response came five minutes later.
Where do you want to meet?
I sent my address, bit my lip, and pressed send. My pulse hammered. I’d just asked a vampire to come over.
I should’ve asked Trace. No, he’d have probably told me not to, and I needed the information. I was walking a tightrope here, and knowledge might mean the difference between life and death. However, Trace could advise me on a few things that were vampire-related, when it came to safety. I pulled out my second phone and texted him a few questions while I waited for Dmitri’s response.
When Dmitri’s next text came, it simply read,
Outside.
Not a man of many words via text, I supposed.
I rose, grabbed a few things, and went to the door. I looked at the high tech touchscreen that showed the exterior hall to my apartment—no mere peepholes here—and saw him leaning against the wall, hands deep in the pockets of a dark gray trench coat, his stupidly beautiful face turned upward to study the ceiling as if he found the blank whiteness of it fascinating.
I opened the door, and that beautiful face turned toward me. His lightning-blue eyes fixed on mine, and I felt something tighten in the air between us.
There was more to this curse than I know, I was sure of that. I needed to know exactly what I was dealing with.
He didn’t smile at the sight of me. His gaze went to my forehead first, and his jaw tightened, and then he looked me up and down as if scanning for any other marks or bruises.
“You remember.” It wasn’t a question. He could see it on my face, I guess.
“For now,” I said. “They gave Lethe to me.”
He pulled his hand from his pocket, and there was a pill in his palm. “This will keep it from taking effect. That way you can remember everything, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
He dropped it into my hand, and I excused myself under the guise of getting a glass of water. In the kitchen, I stashed the pill in the back of one of the drawers, behind the silverware tray. I might need it someday.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked when I returned. His voice was strained.
“No.” I crossed my arms. “And why do you sound like you’d rather kill me yourself?”
He tipped his head back and sighed. “This is immensely frustrating. The fact that you’re cut—that you were attacked—is literally consuming my thoughts. I don’t even know you, but I’m obsessing over your physical health to what can only be an unhealthy degree. And I don’t know how to turn it off. I feel like I’m going insane.”
Dmitri glanced past me into the lit interior of the apartment.
“I haven’t invited you in,” I said. “And I’ve got a stake in my pocket that I made from one of the legs of the end tables.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured me. “I think if I did, I’d self-destruct. I only wish I could make you disappear.”
“You sure know what to say to put a girl at ease,” I muttered.
He glared at me. “Look, you aren’t exactly my favorite person right now. You’re making my life a living hell.”
“I didn’t ask to have a vampire obsessed with my safety,” I said. “In fact, it seems more inconvenient than helpful.”
“I’m so sorry I’m an inconvenience to you,” he growled.
He was shaking, I realized.
“Are you all right?”
He shook his head as if the question were nonsensical. “Why did you ask me to come?”
“I wanted to ask you about the curse.” I looked him over. “Wait a second.”
I returned dragging one of the kitchen chairs and shoved it into the hall for him to sit on.
“While I am not going to hurt you,” Dmitri said as he dropped into the chair, “I applaud your commitment to safety. Since my sanity seems to depend on it, I mean.”
“Tell me about the curse,” I said.
He sighed. “I know very little. Apparently, an ancient relative of yours—a magic-wielder, maybe a witch—put a curse on an ancient ancestor of mine to protect her as long as they both remained as they were. It seems the curse was strong enough that it continued through our family lines.”
“As long as they both remained as they were?”
“Human and vampire, I think. Or alive.”
“Does this mean that you’ll always have this, ah, devotion to me?”
He stared at me hard, as if trying to unravel what I was thinking. “Unless one of us dies, or you become a vampire, yes. But I won’t be able to lift a finger to make any of that happen, never fear. The curse would never let me.”
I pondered this. Having a vampire devoted entirely to my personal safety could have its perks, but it could prove to be a complication down the line. What about when it was time for me to take my sister and forge a new identity far away?
I’d worry about that later.
Meanwhile, Dmitri was glaring at me. I must have looked a little frightened, for his expression softened into something almost apologetic. He sighed. “Look. I don’t hate you. You’re just a kid in the middle of a twisted situation.”
“And I’m not a kid,” I said, annoyed. “I’m eighteen. That’s an adult by human standards.”
“Well, by vampire standards, you’re practically an infant.”
“How…” I hesitated. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. “How old are you?”
He shook his head with another bitter smile. “Nineteen.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is this the part where I ask how long you’ve been nineteen? Like Twilight?”
“No. I was born nineteen years ago,” he said. “To vampire parents. I have a vampire lineage. It’s different than the stories. Not all vampires are made.”
“So you’re a kid too, by vampire standards.”
He gave me a rueful smirk.
He was beautiful, I thought resentfully. Head-spinningly so, which was proving distracting. Something about him was like a magnet, dragging me in, even after he admitted he resented, even loathed, me.
As if reading my thoughts, Dmitri took a step toward me. His expression shifted to one of curiosity, almost alarm.
“Do you feel that?” he said. “That pull?”
I didn’t answer. Seemed like a bad idea to admit to a vampire that you were into them, even if it was against your will. Seemed like something they might take advantage of.
But I did feel it. And it was alarming.
“Is there more to the curse than just your protection?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He took another step, stopping just before the door. “And I’m a little afraid to find out.”
I remembered when I’d kissed him, and I flushed red. Dmitri looked away and swallowed hard.
“That’s… distressing,” he said.
“Blushing?”
“Yes. Please stop.”
“I can’t exactly control it,” I snapped.
Startled, he looked back at me. “You can’t?”
“Of course not.” I paused. “How much do you even know about humans?”
“Not that much,” he admitted. “I don’t have much, ah, experience with them.”
I frowned at him. “Don’t you eat them, though?”
Dmitri looked legitimately horrified. “I do not eat humans,” he said in a frosty tone. “Vein-drinkers do not eat humans. Not honorable ones, anyway. There are some who suffer from impulses to drain humans dry, to kill them… but they are shunned by society. We are not like the movies. We are not monsters. Those who drink from humans only take a little, and it does not hurt. Well, it doesn’t have to hurt. If done properly, it won’t.”
“No?” I said, remembering Antoinette and how she lunged at me with her teeth bared.
“No. And besides,” he added, “I’ve never even…” He stopped and looked faintly embarrassed. “I haven’t ever drunk blood from the vein.”
“How do you eat, then?”
“Fr
om cups,” he said. “Glasses. Mugs. Occasionally, a blood bag. Believe me, our family has access to plenty of blood. We make half of our fortune gathering and bagging it from humans who are paid for their part of the transaction. Many vampires do not drink from the vein. It’s messy and dangerous, and it can get tricky fast.”
I exhaled. “But do you ever, you know, want to bite someone?”
He frowned at me. “Yes, of course I do. I’m a vampire. I have urges like all the rest. But that is a complicated and consensual relationship.”
I remembered some of the things I’d seen at Jean-Claude’s gala. The humans, twined around the vampires, both human and vampire looked locked in ecstasy. A shiver went through me. “Is it nice? For humans, I mean?”
He gave me a strange look. “I have heard that it is. Like I said, I—”
“I know, I know, no experience with biting. You’re a blood virgin.”
He lifted his eyebrows at that choice of words, and I immediately regretted them. I turned my head and tried not to blush.
We were silent a moment.
“So,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as if to ward away unsettling thoughts of Dmitri and sex. “Where do we go from here?”
“You stay out of trouble,” he said, leveling his electric blue gaze at me. “And we can safely avoid each other without torment. End of story.”
“Hmm,” I said, annoyance flaring in my chest. “Let’s try this again. You aren’t going to give me orders, for one thing. I didn’t ask for this stupid curse, and I didn’t ask to have you chained to me, so stop acting like this is my fault. And I’m going to live my life, and I don’t have a death wish, but I might occasionally do something that you deem risky, and I’d like it if you didn’t bother me.” I was breathing hard when I finished the speech, and he stared at me, eyes wide, with something like admiration amid his anger.
“Believe me, there’s nothing I’d love more,” he said. “But I’m going to have to ‘bother you’ if you’re in danger. It’s called a curse. Meaning I don’t have control over it.”
This wasn’t going to mesh well with my spying job for SUN.
“Look,” I said. “is there any other way to break this curse? One that doesn’t involve one of us dying or becoming immortal?”
“Just become a vampire sooner,” Dmitri said suddenly.
“Victor has a plan—”
“You could pretend it was an accident. Yes, that’s it.” His eyes glowed with excitement and relief. “Then we’ll be rid of each other.”
“I’m not doing that,” I said.
“Why not? I would think you’d be jumping at the chance to speed up your transformation.”
“I don’t want to be a vampire,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it, but the words leaped out of me.
Dmitri stared at my face, almost as if seeing me for the first time.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“But Victor—”
“I know,” I said grimly, hoping we could leave it at that.
Dmitri sighed. He looked tired now, and conflicted. “Lois didn’t want to be a vampire either.”
“Who’s Lois?” I asked.
His head dropped to his hands, and a sigh went through his entire body.
“May I come in?” he asked quietly. “It’s a long story. But maybe… maybe you ought to hear it.”
The back of my neck tingled. I might be able to gather information that SUN would find useful—or information that would keep me alive. But invite in a vampire? To my home?
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, and I believed him. At least, I believed he couldn’t.
With a thudding heart, I stepped to the side and said, “Come in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I SAT ON the couch, and Dmitri dropped into the chair across from me. He looked uncertain, and less like a vampire than before. He looked almost broken. Like a boy who’d lost someone he cared about.
Looking at him made me feel oddly flushed. I wanted to get closer to him. I stayed where I was.
“Who is Lois?” I asked.
“Lois,” he said, “was one of Victor’s adopted daughters. And I loved her.”
Well, that was an unexpected twist. I wondered if that had anything to do with the tension between Dmitri and Victor that I noticed at the first party.
“I keep hearing that there were others. What happened to them?”
“They died, mostly. One betrayed Victor, became a vampire behind his back, and married the one who turned her.”
“And Lois?”
Dmitri looked down at his hands. A crease formed between his eyebrows as they pinched together. “Lois didn’t want to be a vampire, like you.”
“Then why was she here?” I asked. Curiosity burned within me. I could barely breathe. Who was this girl who’d been in the same position as me?
“The same as you, right?” He laughed hollowly. “She needed money.”
“Couldn’t you have given her money, if you loved her?”
His lip twisted. “Oh, it was different than that—you see, I met her years earlier, and we dated in secret, but my father would never allow me to consider courtship or marriage to a human, and a penniless one at that. She needed to be a vampire. A wealthy vampire.” He paused. “So… she and I concocted a plan to make that happen.”
“And she just happened to be related to Victor? How coincidental.”
Dmitri shook his head. “She wasn’t. His search for a relative to adopt was known in the vampire community, though. We forged documents, made it seem that she was a long-lost link to his family. She showed up on his doorstep, said she was an orphan looking for relatives. He was thrilled, and she moved in and began the process of adoption. We were so happy. I was planning to propose.” He lapsed into a morose silence.
“How did she die?” I asked, trying to say the words as gently as possible.
“Victor found out about her deception. I don’t know who tipped him off, who betrayed us. We had a few friends who knew…” Dmitri trailed off, lost in thought, and then shook his head. “When he came to confront her in a rage, she fled from him to find me. She lost control of her car and drove into a ditch along the highway. She was killed on impact.”
He spoke flatly, emotionlessly, but I could see the flash of hopelessness and pain in his eyes, and I knew his soul must contain claw marks of grief.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That sounds horrible.”
“It was.” He stirred upon the chair. “It was nearly four years ago, and I am past it as much as I can be, but I hate Victor.”
We were both silent. When I looked at Dmitri again, I saw a young man staggered by loss. And I was shocked at the surge of compassion I felt. With Lucy, I imagined and feared her death every day. I shuddered to think what pain he’d endured. Vampire or human, he had loved and lost.
“So… since she wasn’t related to me, she didn’t have the curse?”
“Correct,” he said wearily. “The curse, and this connection with yet another adoptee of Victor’s, is a new and distressing development.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it sincerely. “I must be tormenting you. You have to keep me safe, Victor’s daughter, when you couldn’t keep her safe.” I put a hand to my mouth after saying the words, hoping I hadn’t angered him, but his eyes glowed with something akin to amazement.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you’ve stated it perfectly. I might be happy to see you dead, to punish him, but instead, I am punished, because I must ensure that you survive.”
“Well,” I said. “I don’t want to die.”
“It’s nothing personal.” He looked at me oddly then. “Do you feel that?”
I paused. There was a tension in the air, a kind of delicious longing between us. It slid into my veins and bloomed in my stomach like a beautiful and deadly poison, and my head spun like I’d just ridden a merry-go-round too many times.
“Is that the curse too?” I asked hesitantly.
I felt breathless. “Yes,” I agreed.
We walked together to the door, that strange energy crackling between us, and my thoughts were running in muddled, nervous circles. I felt sweaty and sparking with a kind of hunger.
Dmitri turned to speak, and I stepped close, closing the space between us. The invisible bonds between us sang.
His eyes met mine. The muscles in his jaw and neck tensed.
“I…” he began. He stopped. “Alex…”
My whole body was thrumming. I felt as if I was swimming in desire. Was this because of the curse? Because he was a vampire? Or just because he was him and I was me?
“What if,” Dmitri began again, and hesitated. “I would very much like to touch you,” he said, and scowled. He looked at war with himself as he spoke the words.
My stomach dropped a little.
“If I move closer to you,” I breathed, “Will I be safe?”
“You will be safe,” he said. His chest rose and fell rapidly. His eyes had turned the color of midnight, and he was staring at me like I was bread and he was starving. But he wasn’t staring at my neck. He was staring at my lips.
I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him back against the door. His hands slid to my hips. I brushed my nose against his neck, inhaling him, working my way up to his jaw. Dmitri breathed into my hair, his hands tightening on me.
“Alex,” he whispered.
Then, I did what I’d been wanting to do for the last half hour. No, what I’d been wanting to do since I’d first laid eyes on him in the bookstore.
I wrapped both hands around his neck and pulled his mouth down to mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DMITRI SPUN ME around so my back was against the door as he kissed me back. He braced one hand beside my head and kept the other on my waist, fingers splayed, holding me against him. He kissed me hard and hungrily, and it was so good my toes curled. I twisted my fingers in his hair and curled my tongue around his. A jolt of what felt like lightning ran through me. Dmitri made a sound almost like a whimper, and he dragged me even closer, and then—
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