by Juliet Lyons
“I’ve already seen it,” I tease. “It’s become something of the third wheel in our relationship.”
He chuckles. “Not that. Something else. On the sofa.” He wraps my legs around his hips and carries me to the settee under the window, laying me down on the cushions.
My eyes narrow, though my tone is hopeful. “Is this something kinky?”
Straddling me, he smiles, hands flat on either side of my head as he hovers over me. Without another word, he presses his lips to mine, the cool metal of the gold medallion swinging against my throat. I hook my feet around his thighs, trying to force him closer, but he remains suspended above me, elbows digging into the sofa, silky strands of hair tickling my face and jaw as he grazes his fangs along my throat.
I tense in anticipation of his bite, a bolt of desire shooting through me, coiling in the pit of my abdomen like a snake waiting to strike.
“Silver,” he whispers into my neck, lips vibrating against my skin.
“Yes,” I say. To him and his bite, the answer is always yes. I stroke the ridges of his stomach, my hand moving to the trail of downy hair that leads into the waistband of his jeans.
His fangs snag the skin on my throat, coming to rest in the juncture between neck and shoulder. I hiss as they slide into me, at the odd mixture of pleasure and pain—two sides of the same coin. I arch my back, my life essence ebbing into his mouth like warm wine from an uncorked bottle. If I had to choose a way to die, this would be it. No sharp severing of mind and body, only a blissfully slow sense of submitting to a greater power—like that strange window between waking and sleeping, when nothing makes sense and everything is possible.
I swirl around a vortex of unconsciousness, my pulse fluttering mothlike in my ears, before I’m sucked into the kaleidoscope of peaceful sunset colors.
But something has changed.
In the midst of the hazy yellows, a navy-blue sky appears, dotted with stars, and I see a woman—young, with wavy, auburn hair and wide, gray eyes—her face is filled with empathy as her hand covers mine. The scene fades and the same girl is beneath me, our bare skin fused together, passion, longing, and regret binding us as one.
It’s a few seconds before I realize the girl is me.
My eyes snap open. I’m back on the sofa, still wearing my yellow T-shirt dress. Logan is curled beside me, resting a cheek on his hand.
“It’s changed,” he says, not a question but a statement, as he lays a flat palm on my stomach. I put a hand to my neck, feeling for puncture wounds, but there is only a faint smudge of crimson on my fingertips. Logan takes my hand, licking off the blood. “Hasn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
He bunches the material of my dress. “I just know. It’s the Silver Harris effect.”
“I suppose I’ll have to run away with you now,” I say, smiling.
He cocks a brow. “You know, our vampire laws say the person who changes your life essence has to provide blow jobs at least twice daily.”
I smack him on the arm. “You always have to kill the romance.”
Laughing, he rolls on top of me. “Maybe I’ll let you off with once a day.”
“Keep pissing me off and you’ll be lucky to get one a month.”
He smiles, shaking his head.
“What?” I ask, smoothing the hair from his face.
“Us. This. All that’s happened tonight and we still manage to behave like horny teenagers.”
My conversation with Ollie from last week pops into my head.
“Logan,” I begin, “if we went to an amusement park, would you ride the ghost train with me?”
At first he frowns, but then slowly, a crooked grin unfurls at the side of his mouth, his green eyes twinkling. “Always.”
Chapter 20
Logan
Later, when Silver finally falls asleep, cocooned in a tight tangle of limbs, I begin to worry, fear crawling up my spine like creepers up a wall. Should I have gone back to the restaurant and disposed of Gerhard’s dusty remains? How long will it be before Ronin hears the vampire on a date with Jenna Gold is now dead?
But it isn’t just Gerhard’s demise troubling me. Knowing Silver feels the same as I do is both exhilarating and terrifying all at once, like being presented with a dagger of pure gold and then learning it will someday kill me. I try to push the negative thoughts to the back of my mind, tightening arms around her warm body and inhaling the clean, peachy scent at the nape of her neck. In sleep, she looks peaceful and pure. With her rosebud mouth, the sweep of dark lashes against ivory skin, she could be Snow White in the glass coffin. I’m struck by the nagging doubt that soon she’ll come to her senses, want nothing more to do with me.
All too soon, a weak light filters in through the blinds, filling the room with lumpy, gray shadows. I find my thoughts drifting to my sister, Mary Beth, her whimsical fairy voice the day I left her at the quayside in Dublin. I lied to Silver when I said Mary Beth never predicted what would happen to me—she had, though as usual, it was shrouded in mystery, woven into riddles created by her innocent mind trying to make sense of the things she couldn’t understand.
There’s going to be a lot of blood, Logan, she said, a small, white hand tugging gently on the sleeve of my coat. Her mahogany eyes were wide and swirling, like silt kicked up in a stream. It will begin and end with the demon, but you will walk in the light again.
At the time I brushed it off. Mary Beth rarely made sense. Then, after Anastasia turned me, I wondered about it occasionally. Now, having everything to lose, her words lodge themselves like icy splinters in my brain.
Silver’s breathing becomes labored, and she stirs, squeezing my wrist. “What time is it?”
“Early,” I whisper, kissing the hollow below her ear. “Go back to sleep.”
She reaches behind her, twisting strands of my hair between her fingertips. “Did it all really happen?”
“Yes,” I say, rubbing my bristly jaw into the soft skin on her shoulder. “Good and bad.”
She turns over, creases crisscrossing one side of her face where her cheek rested on my arm. “You’re worrying, aren’t you? Usually we’re having sex by now.”
I laugh. “I’m not a total sex pest, Silver. I do have some self-restraint.”
“Not much.”
“True,” I agree, “not where you’re concerned.”
“Have you thought of a plan?” She yawns, stretching like a cat, as if the situation is no more serious than planning our evening meal. I’m relieved by this blasé attitude—I’d half thought she might wake up and regret everything.
“The only thing I need to do is go back to my flat for my passport, pack a few clothes. I can be in and out within half an hour.” I frown, realizing how small a mark I’ll leave on the city I’ve spent the last few years of my life living in. “How about you?”
“I need to call work and the police, then tell Ollie, Vera, and my dad. I have to say, I’m disappointed not to be handing my notice in to bitch Nina in person. I’ve been planning the speech ever since my first day.”
“What were you going to say?” I ask, smiling.
“Oh, something along the lines of ‘You’re a stuck-up, power-crazy bitch whose bitterness will eventually lead to body parts freezing up and dropping off,’ that kind of thing.”
I laugh. “You could always write her an email.”
Her eyes light up, glowing like silver stars in the dull light of the room. “That’s a good idea. I can send it from wherever we end up. You can take a picture of me sipping a cocktail on a beach with a blazing-orange sunset in the background.”
I swipe thumbs across her cheekbones, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “I’m sure that can be arranged. Do you think maybe we should aim to leave London by tonight? We could head toward your father’s and stay near there for a few days while we plan where to go.”
A smirk twitches her lips, her gaze faraway and dreamy.
“You look like you’re up to some kind of mental mischief, Miss Harris.”
“I was just thinking about what my stepmother will say when I introduce you. It’s possible you might have to glamour her.”
“Please. Older ladies love me. Mrs. Biggins from the ground floor leaves a casserole outside my door every Sunday. She says I remind her of her late husband.”
“Maybe Mrs. Biggins fancies you.”
“Probably. Doesn’t everyone?”
“No,” she says, swatting me like a fly with the back of her hand. “But anyway, I think that’s a good idea about staying near Dad’s. Though God knows what I’m going to tell him.”
“Tell him the truth: you’ve met the best sex you’ve ever had and you’re off to sunnier climes to ride the life out of him.”
She bursts out laughing, the tinkly sound echoing around the dim room like a ray of sunshine. The sound melts some of my inner turmoil. We grin at each other against the pillows, and my manhood stirs, as if it’s only just noticed there’s a naked woman lying in my arms.
“Looks like our third wheel just woke up,” Silver says, rosebud lips parting as she reaches down to stroke me.
With a growl, I grab her by the shoulders and flip her over, capturing her mouth with mine. Her legs part, her hand guiding my now-twitching erection to her hot warmth. Groaning, I bury myself in her heat, her cry of ecstasy mingling with mine as I grab soft, warm buttocks, sliding in and out of her in a slow rhythm. She comes quickly, back arched, head flung back, the supple, ivory column of her neck quivering as she shouts my name. I continue to pump, her animal yelps and trickling warmth consuming me like a powerful drug, and it isn’t long before I explode inside her, waves of pleasure washing over me like a vicious high tide against the shore.
After, we lie motionless in a knot of limbs and spent passion, my head snug against her warm breast, her fingers anchored in my hair. All these years and no one has ever really mattered to me. I’ve always been running, always afraid to let someone trust me, scared of letting them down. Secretly, I think I was glad when my family rejected me. It left me with nothing to lose, no one Anastasia could hurt. But I can’t run forever.
I curl against her milky body, her hand tightly clasped in mine, Mary Beth’s words reverberating in my head.
It will begin and end with the demon, but you will walk in the light again.
And even though she rarely was, I pray this time she’s wrong.
* * *
Silver insists on coming with me to get my things.
“I’m not letting you disappear again,” she says as we weave through the hubbub of commuters outside Marylebone Station. “No way.”
I smile, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the feeling of nausea in my gut. “Fine,” I say, one arm draped around her waist. “But at least wait in the station for me.”
She frowns with all the naïveté of one who has never come face-to-face with an ancient monster, and peers inside the doors at the large digital clock on the information board. “I’ll give you until quarter past, and then I’m coming in.”
I take a deep breath and turn her around. It’s as if we’ve gone back in time to last week, that morning I kissed her good-bye in Covent Garden. I clasp my hands behind her waist, and she looks up at me, her eyes a perfect match for the marbled-gray sky.
“Don’t say good-bye,” she says. “I’m going to be waiting in that little café. There’s nothing that can happen in half an hour.”
There is though. Lots can happen in half an hour, but I don’t want to scare her. I lean down and brush my lips against hers in a whisper of a kiss. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
We step apart, a draft instantly swirling in the space between us. I freeze, struck by the urge to tell her I love her.
As if she knows what I’m thinking, she holds out her hand and our fingertips touch. “If Collette’s there, tell her I’m going to kick her ass.”
The tension lightens and I smile, putting on a deep Arnie voice. “I’ll be back.”
I turn away, into the glare of the sun, the silhouette of her bright-eyed features burned like a photo negative into the back of my eyelids as I trudge toward Boston Place.
Outside, the door is still broken, though someone has pinned a notice onto the wall inside:
Repairman called for door.
I check my mailbox, relieved to find it filled only with pizza flyers and taxi cards. Though I’m not sure what I was expecting—a poison-pen letter written in the blood of virgins? Surprisingly, that’s not Anastasia’s usual style.
I climb the stairs slowly, my nostrils trying to pick out any unfamiliar scent. But the building smells the same as always, of stale cooking and damp pavements. I shove my key into the lock, turning until the latch clicks. Pushing open the door, I pause on the threshold to listen. But the only noise is the hiss of trains from outside the window, the tick of the clock on the wall. I breathe a massive sigh of relief, chucking my keys onto the counter and stepping into my bedroom that, unlike the last time, is blissfully empty.
Moving fast, I haul the holdall from the top of the wardrobe, feeling in the front pocket to make sure my passport is where I left it. Until a few years ago, all vampires used forged documents to travel around the world—it’s difficult to apply for legal identification when your date of birth is two centuries ago. These days, society having finally accepted us, we can travel with relative ease.
I chuck in spare shoes, a pile of T-shirts, and jeans and grab my personal papers from the drawer in my bedside table. I’m done within ten minutes. Back in the kitchen, I take the key from its chain, leaving it in the fruit bowl next to the microwave. I’ll call the building manager later and let him know I’ve left. He can do what he likes with the rest of my things.
Sighing, I run my hands through my hair, threading fingers around the back of my neck. It’s strange to think this is the last time I will ever stand in the building that was once Rumbold’s apothecary. A feeling of hope races through me, like a chink of sunlight at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Everything can be different now that I’ve stopped running from love. I pick up my holdall and sling it over my shoulder as knocking reverberates through the flat. I shake my head, grinning and looking at the clock on the wall.
“It’s only been fifteen minutes,” I shout, bounding across the room. “Can’t keep away, can—”
The words stick in my throat as I swing the door open, my heart dying for a second time. Ronin McDermott stands on the threshold, his blue eyes dark and unearthly in the weak light of the hallway.
“Is this a bad time, Logan?” He could be a neighbor asking for a cup of sugar he’s so casual, his Scottish accent as calm as a lullaby.
I freeze like a deer in headlights, unable to hide my horror. “I was just on my way out,” I say, the words sticking in my throat like tar.
He looks past me into the room. “Mind if I come in to chat for a few minutes? Unless someone’s waiting for you, of course.”
The mention of a “someone” sends a new wave of fear through me. Does he know?
I do my best to plaster a casual smile on my face. It’s then I remember I still have the holdall flung over my shoulder.
I drop it on the carpet. “I was on my way to the gym.”
Ronin stares at the bulky bag. “I never had you pegged for the fitness type, Logan.”
“I go occasionally,” I say, stepping back into the apartment.
Ronin walks in behind me, casting his gaze around the room. It’s hard to tell from his stony expression what he’s thinking.
“Would you like anything to drink?” I ask, voice wavering.
The overlord waves off the offer with a flick of his hand before turning to face me, his eyes that shade of blue the sky turns right before dawn.
>
“I’m surprised you haven’t been in contact today,” he says, tearing his eyes from a pile of sports magazines on the oval coffee table and penetrating me with an unflinching stare.
I don’t say anything. I clench my fists at my sides instead, flicking a glance to the clock on the wall. There are still fifteen minutes before I’m due back to meet Silver.
“Because,” he continues, pushing his hands into his trouser pockets, “we had a bit of a situation at a restaurant in Chiswick last night. You must know it. It was the same one I gave you the details of a couple of days ago.”
“Gerhard Johnson,” I say.
“Yes. One of the chefs found his remains. He had nipped out back for a cigarette. Personally, I think that’s exceptionally bad hygiene, don’t you, Logan? A chef smoking and then preparing food for paying customers?”
An icy trickle of fear drips down my spine as I realize he’s toying with me, batting me between his paws like a cat with a mouse. Still, I say nothing.
Ronin’s eyes remain fixed to my face as he begins tipping backward and forward on the balls of his feet, as if he were waiting in line at the grocery store.
“Luckily, the manager of the restaurant is a regular at the club. He contacted me and I arranged to have Gerhard’s body removed before the police got involved. The girl he came with was nowhere to be seen and neither was the other vampire my manager friend saw that evening. The one with dark hair and an Irish accent loitering at the bar.”
I close my eyes for a brief second. “He was about to murder her.”
“Really?” he asks. “How can you be so sure? Would he really have been so careless? The whole restaurant saw them arrive together. If she’d been found dead or disappeared, it wouldn’t have taken long for the police to figure out who the killer was.”
“Forgive me,” I say in a low voice, hit by an uncontrollable surge of anger, “but when a guy has a woman pinned to the wall by her throat, fangs bared, it’s easy to imagine he’s about to kill her.”
“Are you sure you didn’t let your emotions get in the way? We all know Gerhard was one of Anastasia’s.”
