Page 54 of Now Comes the Mist

“Mrs. Edgerton died,” I say, turning back to Vlad. “You drained her. But if you had wanted her to be a companion … perhaps you would have left some blood behind? Drank only a little, but not all of it? It’s as easy as that?”

Vlad’s laugh is full of shadows, though his pleasure is unmistakable. He likes me to be curious and awed by him, and he likes to shape my innocent mind. “Easyis not the word I would use,” he says. “I bite my victim multiple times, taking care never to drain them. And when they are sufficiently infected with my venom, they must drinkmyblood and make their first kill before the next sunrise. That, my subversive little Lucy, is how it is done.”

I shudder, and his eyes glitter with approval, thinking I am terrified and disturbed. But if he were to probe my thoughts and inflict my mind with that sharp, tingling pain, he would know the truth—that I am imagining the multiple times in which his mouth would find my neck and kiss me, bite me, drink me. I am picturing his hands all over my body and his teeth setting me free.

Endless time in which to be with my family, who would never lose me. Endless time to savor the world’s delights, to wander, to learn, toliveas I never imagined I could.

I tighten my grip on his shoulder. “Being a vampire is being more alive than ever, for you aremorethan a man. You have powers unchecked and you are beholden to no rules, least of all those imposed by life and death.”

He raises an eyebrow, pleased by the awe in my voice.

“Don’t you see? Vlad, it is everything,everythingI want. What you have is what I desire for myself.” I see his smile vanish so suddenly that I miss a step in the dance. “What is it?”

The satisfaction and approval on his face have been replaced by an icy cold so treacherous that it reaches deep into my bones. “What did you say?” he asks, very low.

I do not understand the hatred in his gaze, not when he had looked so tender and amused a moment ago, but I cannot take my words back. So I summon every last drop of courage before his glacial, ferocious eyes and say, “Vlad, make me like you. Make me your companion.”

He drops his hands and we stand still, staring at each other, surrounded by swirling dancers. Fury radiates from him like a wildfire, but when he speaks, it is in his softest voice yet. “You dare to command me? You dare to demand this of me?”

I take a step back, frightened and confused. “Of course not. I only meant … I …”

He is looking at me the way I should have looked at him when he murdered the widow, as though nothing on earth could be more wrong or monstrous or disgusting. “I,” he says coldly, “do not take orders from you.”

“Vlad, please—”

Without another word, he walks away, leaving me alone on the ballroom floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ignoring the stares and whispers, I follow Vlad onto the terrace. When I shut the doors behind us, muting the voices and music from the ballroom, it is like being in one of my dreams with him again. But this time, he is not looking at me with amusement or affection. He is looking at me as though he would like to tear my head from my neck.

I hug myself, shivering in the chill of the ocean breeze and of his gaze. “Why are you so angry? I never thought to command you. It is a request.”

His sharp, gunshot laugh makes me flinch. “As if that is any better!”

“How can you be surprised? Every night we have been together, I have talked of how trapped and helpless I feel, and you have shown me a way out. Don’t you see? You showed your true self to me, and this could be my escape tomyown true self.”

“You would so easily give up everything in your life? Your mother, your friends, Arthur?”

I shake my head in confusion. “Why would I give them up? They will have me as long as they live. They need never mourn me the way I do my father.” I go to him and clutch the lapels of his jacket. “I have never belonged to the living, neither do I truly wish to be locked away with the dead. You inhabit the world between, and I want to as well.”

Vlad plucks my hands off his jacket. He leans in, menacing and deadly, until our noses are almost touching. “What makes you think you have the right to ask this of me? A young woman like you should be modest and pure. Repulsed by the very idea of what I am, no matter how awed and curious you might have been at first. You should be running from me, nottome. Have you no dignity or virtue that you would dare choose this?” He turns his back on me and faces the sea, bracing his hands on the railing.

“Youchose. You chose to bargain away your soul for this existence.”

“It is not the same.”

“How is it different?” I demand. “I don’t understand. We both wish to evade death. You wanted more from life than forever grappling for power, and I want more from life than just becoming a vessel for children and old age. You said it yourself: I am your kindred soul.”

He whirls, looking at me with utter disdain. “I talk nonsense when I am infatuated with a woman. And itwasan infatuation, Lucy. I hope you are not stupid enough to think that I could everloveyou. You are but a plaything, a diversion in my long and often tedious life, enjoyed briefly and then forgotten. Did you imagine yourself as some sort of dark queen by my side?”

“Of course not, for I do not love you either,” I say as steadily as I can to hide my hurt. “It is not love I want from you, but something greater. Something no one has ever given me fully: sympathy and acceptance. You may be a master of deceit, but you cannot hide the truth.”

“Enlighten me. What is this truth?” he asks sarcastically.

I meet his eyes without flinching. “That I might be very near your equal in feeling and intellect, even without the advantage of a similar education. What you call an infatuation could become … if not love, then genuine regard and friendship, yet you will not give in to it.”

Vlad shakes his head and turns away, as though he cannot bear the sight of me.

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