by L.H. Cosway
We both emitted a pleasured sigh, and I wondered if he needed to hold someone as much I needed to be held. Did a vampire get lonely after living for almost three hundred years? Did relationships and romantic love still hold meaning? Did his heart yearn to find its match?
“Do vampires fall in love?” I asked quietly as his hand began to rub soothing circles into my lower back.
“Yes, we fall in love,” he answered.
“How many times have you been in love?”
“A few.”
His answer caused a sharp pang in my chest, and I couldn’t resist asking my next question. “Are you in love with anyone … presently?”
“Not presently, no.” There was a small hint of amusement in his response.
“Oh. Have you ever been in love with a human?”
Now he stilled. It took him a moment to reply, and his eyes remained glued to my ceiling. “Once or twice, when I was very young. As vampires grow older and wiser, we tend to avoid falling for humans because it only ever ends tragically. Either we become addicted to their blood, the human becomes addicted to our bite, and inevitably, the human grows ill and dies. Or we manage to avoid the blood addiction and time wreaks his ravages. We’re cursed to watch the one we love grow old and eventually pass away while we remain unchanged.”
Something about the way he spoke made my chest tighten. “Best not to fall in love with humans then.”
“Yes,” Ethan agreed, tipping my chin up so that my eyes met his. “Best not.”
He held my gaze and I couldn’t look away. I was transfixed. Despite all his talk of tragic endings, I wanted him to touch me. He must’ve sensed my want because his hand reached down, his palm sliding along my outer thigh. I hitched a sharp breath.
“This is a bad idea,” I whispered even though my pulse pounded wildly and I definitely didn’t want him to stop.
“The worst,” Ethan agreed right before he flipped me onto my back. He positioned himself between my legs and began to slowly move down my body. A gasp escaped me when he brushed his nose across the inch of skin between my T-shirt and underwear. Then I felt his lips whisper over my bare stomach, and I hitched another sharp breath.
“You smell incredible,” he breathed, his voice a seductive murmur. I exhaled on a shudder, closing my eyes as my head fell back into the pillow. He pressed a hard kiss onto the thin cotton of my boy shorts, causing every tiny hair on my body to stand on end.
“Want me to stop?” he asked from his very intimate position between my legs.
My jaw firmed. “Nope.”
He chuckled deeply. “Good.”
I gasped and squirmed when he swiftly pulled down my shorts and tossed them aside. A second later I felt the tips of his fangs drag across my hip. A soft sigh escaped me when he pressed his mouth to my stomach, and my insides went haywire. A coil of need formed deep in my belly.
Then he moved up, hovering above me a moment before he gently touched his lips to mine. Unable to resist, I ran my hand down his spine, over his shoulder blades. He reached for the hem of my T-shirt and pushed it up, his knuckles brushing the white lace of my bra and the tops of my breasts. My throat went all strange and ticklish. The ghost of a smile touched his lips when he unclipped my bra, discarding it with my T-shirt in one go. His golden eyes practically glowed as he soaked in the sight of my breasts. He lightly fondled one then the other, toying with the edge of my panties but not lowering them yet.
In the dark of my bedroom, we explored each other with our fingertips. His skin felt as smooth as silk as I ran my hands over his abs. I was kind of fascinated. He seemed so human, yet also not.
“Keep looking at me like that and you’ll be in trouble,” he whispered in a sultry voice. “Can I keep you?” My heart caught in my throat because there was something so entirely pure about his question.
“Not sure I’m worth keeping,” I answered, unable to handle the intimacy in his eyes.
Ethan grinned slowly. “Only a true treasure has no idea of its worth.”
He began planting kisses along the curve of my collarbone. Each touch of his lips brought a tiny explosion of pleasure. I hadn’t realised just how much I wanted this until now. He moved down my body again, kissing his way up the inside of my leg, and tingles of anticipation filled me. When he reached the apex of my thighs, I let out a quiet moan, and he paused to marvel up at me. “You’re nothing like what I expected. I forgot how reactive humans are. And it’s confounding, but you smell like … you smell like every summer day I’ll never enjoy.”
As soon as the words left his mouth I tensed. All the reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this, why I shouldn’t be opening up and getting closer to Ethan ran through my mind. A single drop of my blood could give him so much power. Too much, probably. I thought of the night he killed all those slayers in that abandoned industrial estate. How feral and violent he’d been, and I struggled to reconcile that part of him with the protective, kind, flirtatious way he acted around me. He’d done me several favours in the short time I’d known him. Perhaps I could do a favour for him …
Then the vision of my mother running for her life resurfaced and fear took hold. I couldn’t give Ethan the gift of the sun—even if he did deserve it—because my secret might get out and there would be others who’d hunt me like they hunted her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, moving up to brush some messy strands of hair out of my face. His touch was soft, intimate. It made me want to spill my guts to him. Tell him all my secrets and let him decipher the mess.
I stared into his eyes, and a plea stumbled out. “Promise you’ll never bite me.”
He studied me, his eyebrows drawing together in consternation. “Tegan, you sound frightened. How many times do I have to tell you? I won’t hurt you.”
“I didn’t ask you to promise not to hurt me. I asked you to promise not to bite me.”
“My bite isn’t something to fear.”
“Ethan, please,” I begged, my eyes beseeching.
His expression was serious as he tilted his head, a thread of suspicion entering his eyes. “Do you know something I don’t?”
I shifted away. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know something about yourself that you aren’t telling me?”
Just like that, my blood ran cold. Goosebumps rose on my skin. “No,” I replied, scrambling for what to tell him. “It’s just that I have a cousin who became a junkie, and I don’t ever want to be like that. It’s one of my biggest fears.” The lie came easily enough, and Ethan seemed to buy it, his gaze turning empathetic.
He swept a hand down my neck, and his touch made me tremble in a good way. “Okay, Tegan, I promise I won’t bite you. Not ever. You have my word.”
“Thank you,” I replied, swallowing tightly. “I appreciate it.”
Ethan watched me for several long moments before his attention went to the window and he swore under his breath. “I have to go. Dawn is approaching.”
“Oh,” I said, sad that he had to leave. Finding him next to me in my bed was a surprise, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one.
He leaned forward, pressing a tender kiss to my lips. “Until next time,” he whispered, and then he was gone.
I flopped back onto the bed, my heart pounding. After that little interlude, I suspected I wouldn’t be getting more sleep any time soon.
***
The next morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about last night with Ethan. His touch. The way he looked at me, taking every inch of me in. I knew I had to be careful. I had to make sure I didn’t fall for him because that would be a recipe for disaster.
I was midway through my shift at Indigo and tying little handwritten price tags onto some home-made therapeutic bath soaps. Marcel was out, per usual, while Gabriel manned the cash register. He hadn’t said much to me since the meeting at Crimson. Then again, Gabriel wasn’t the chatty sort. Remembering all the questions I had about what happened with Governor Herrington, I pulled out my phone and sent Rita a text.
>
Tegan: Are you free for lunch today? I have some stuff I want to talk to you about.
Her reply came a few minutes later.
Rita: Sure! I know a great place. I’ll text you the address.
When I was done with the price tags, I approached Gabriel over by the register.
“Hey.”
His eyes flicked up from the book he was reading. “Tegan?”
“Um, I have a request.”
“What sort of request?”
“Well, I was wondering if you’d mind me going out back and reading some of your books during my breaks? This magic stuff is all really new to me, and I’m eager to learn everything I can.”
His eyes lit up at the mention of his books. “Of course. Knock yourself out. And if you ever have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them for you.”
“Thank you. That’s so kind.”
For a second, I considered asking him about the sorcerer Theodore. I wanted to know who he was and why the vampires seemed so scared of him. But then I’d have to explain the assassination attempt on Governor Herrington, and I wasn’t sure if that was something I should reveal since Gabriel was technically not on the vampires’ side.
He smiled at me then, and I noticed his eyes linger a moment on my neck and my lips before he shook himself and looked away. “Sorry. I was staring.”
I brushed him off. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s just that you don’t smell at all like other humans. It’s a little distracting.”
I chuckled, even as I felt a chill at the back of my neck. Gabriel seemed so normal and laidback. It was easy to forget he was a dhampir who drank blood just like vampires did. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s both, really.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” he went on awkwardly. “I forgot to mention that Marcel wants to do some spell work at lunch. Is that okay with you?”
I hesitated. “Actually, I have plans for lunch.”
This seemed to surprise him. “You do?”
“Yes, I’m meeting a friend.”
“Okay, well, I’ll let Marcel know you can’t make it.” He paused, considering me. “Are you sure you can’t put off your plans? Marcel’s excited to make a start, and you know how busy he can be. Who knows when he’ll next have the free time to do it.”
That’s what I’m counting on. I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m meeting Rita.”
“You’re meeting Rita?” Gabriel asked, surprised. “I hadn’t realised you two were friends.”
I gave a casual shrug. “We got talking when she dropped in the other day and hit it off. She’s actually really nice underneath it all.”
There was a flicker of suspicion in his gaze, but he didn’t say any more and instead returned his attention to the book he was reading.
***
Rita was sitting by the window knocking back a shot of espresso when I arrived at the Mexican restaurant for our lunch date.
“Hey! Tegan!” she called out when she spotted me.
“Hi, thanks for meeting me,” I said as I took the seat across from her.
“So,” she said, clasping her hands together. “What did you want to talk about?”
I opened my mouth to answer when the waitress appeared to take our orders. I quickly scanned the menu and opted for a quesadilla while Rita ordered fish tacos.
“You were saying,” Rita prodded once the waitress left.
I took a deep breath and proceeded to give an account of what happened the night before after I’d left her house. I finished with the bit where the deranged homeless guy tried to attack Herrington and spoke of the sorcerer Theodore.
She stared at me, gobsmacked. “Woah. That is … a lot.”
“Definitely a lot,” I agreed. “Do you know who this Theodore person is and why the vampires were so freaked by the mention of him?”
Rita’s eyes sparkled with knowledge, and I sensed I was in for a good story. “My mum actually told me all about Theodore. She’s big into the secret history of this city.”
“Tribane has a secret history?”
“Of course! It has a secret population of vampires, dhampirs, witches, and warlocks, so it goes without saying that there’s a secret history to go along with them.”
“I guess it makes sense when you put it like that,” I allowed.
“So,” Rita went on. “You know how the city is divided by the Hawthorn river?” I nodded. “Well, it hasn’t been like that for very long. Only since, like, the late sixties. Before that, I suppose you could say there was a dictatorship under the rule of the sorcerer Theodore. A sorcerer or sorceress is a very rare kind of warlock or witch. One who has surpassed an extremely high level of magical expertise to the point of becoming immortal through magic and nearly indestructible. I mean, I’m not just talking a thousand years immortal like the vampires, but immortal immortal. As in, they never die.”
My eyes went wide. “Wow.”
“Theodore ruled Tribane from the thirties until the sixties. He had this massive estate on Ridley Island.”
“You mean the one just off the coast? The deserted one?” I asked.
“Yes, and you have to wonder why it’s been deserted for so long. If you ask me, it’s all the bad magical residue left over from when Theodore was there. My mum says you used to be able to see his mansion from the city. Every night it was lit up by all sorts of colourful lights from the carnival rides on the grounds.”
“Carnival rides?” I asked, bemused.
“Theodore was crazy for all that fun fair stuff. He collected old rides and antiques, like the big wheel and the chair-o-planes. He had this creepy carnival just inside the gates of his estate, and he used to have his servants turn the rides on every night with music and everything. You know that kind of old piano and accordion fair music?”
Her question sparked a memory, something recent, but I couldn’t quite place it, so I brushed it off as random déjà vu. “Yes, I know it.”
“The rides would come on without anyone ever going on them. Like a ghost carnival.”
“That’s pretty creepy.”
“Very creepy,” Rita agreed. “Theodore was a brutal ruler. My mum said he’d kill you for so much as a dirty look. The vampires resented him because he enforced massive taxes on them. He got rich off their hard work. If they refused to pay, he’d make sure their businesses went under with a spell. The magical families resented him, too, but more because he had such powerful magic. They were envious of his power and despised the authority he held over them. The fact that one man could control all of them, as well as the vampires and the dhampirs, really stuck in their craw. And so, all of the resentment led to revolution. People began to get organised. Secret societies formed with the sole purpose of bringing Theodore down.”
She paused when the waitress arrived with our food. I took a quick bite out of my quesadilla before nodding for Rita to go on with her story.
“The secret societies banded together to create blocking spells. They started out small, testing them on one street and then another. Before long, all of Tribane was protected by spells that blocked Theodore from using his magic on people. Slowly but surely, Theodore lost his control over the city, and, seemingly defeated, he disappeared off the radar for several months.
“Then came the last day of December when the New Year’s festival was in full swing. It used to be a tradition where all supernaturals put their differences aside for one night and welcomed in the New Year together. People were partying the night away and having a good time. But when the fireworks display was about to begin down by the port, Theodore appeared on a giant podium holding a tank of petrol in one arm and a flame-thrower in the other.”
A chill crept over me. “What did he do?”
Rita picked up a taco, taking a big bite and swallowing it down. “I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something like You came for a fireworks display, well I’ll give you one, then he poured the petrol all over
his clothes before lighting himself on fire and leaping from the podium.”
I stared at her, stunned. “Are you serious?”
“It’s insane, right? I think the loss of power drove him mad.”
“But if he was immortal the fire couldn’t have killed him.”
“You’d think so, but they found his charred remains after the fire had been put out, so most people believed he was dead.”
“I don’t know. If he was a sorcerer, then surely he could’ve faked all that.”
“That’s certainly a possibility. He hasn’t been seen since. People rarely ever mention him anymore, which is why what happened last night is so strange.”
“What happened after he disappeared?” I asked, eager to know more. I couldn’t believe there was this whole other history to the city I’d known my entire life.
“Well,” Rita said in between bites of taco. “There were a few months of peace before power struggles began to break out between the vampires and the magical families. The dhampirs and slayers weren’t involved much because their numbers are so much smaller, but they took the side of the magical families. Eventually, there was a stand-off, and the decision was made to split the city down the middle. The vampires got one half, and everybody else got the other. The rules were drawn up and there’s been segregation ever since.”
“It just seems so extreme. Surely all supernatural people would want to stick together rather than be pitted against one another all the time.”
“You’d think that, but people tend to fixate on small, inconsequential differences and turn them into issues that can’t be overcome.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, allowing the bustling lunchtime restaurant noises to drift over us. Finally, I broke the quiet. “What’s your opinion on last night? Do you think it really is Theodore come back from the dead?”
Her expression was thoughtful as she took a moment to consider it. “It’s possible. But it could just as easily be some fanatic trying to get attention.”
For a second, I imagined that it was Theodore. What kind of battle would ensue? The homeless man had said something about a war, and in wars, people always sought power. In that scenario, nothing would be more beneficial than my blood, both for the vampires and for the magical families.
