Page 61 of How to Entice a Fiend

“How are you functioning so well? The sun should still be bothering you at this point, but you walk out in it with no issues and barely any protection.”

“Science.”

My eyebrow quirks at that. “You created something that allows you to walk out in the sun with no issues and you haven’t sold it? You could be a millionaire.”

“I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.”

“You’ve done a good job at that. No one seems to take you seriously.”

Mads glances over at me with a grin. “You didn’t either when you met me. I’m over here creating a drug of mass extinction and they’re like, ‘Mads is a fool.’ The foolish part was trusting Grady. I really, truly never meant for it to get out. No, I didn’t like vampires. Honestly, I hated them and four years ago, if you’d have asked me, maybe I would have loved the idea of killing them all. But that was wrong of me. I know not all vampires are like the ones who killed my family. It’s just… sometimes hard when vampires pretend to be superior to everyone else and instead of remorse after what happened to my family, it was swept under the rug because they wanted to keep it quiet that vampires had done it. It’s like they can’t just care for someone or be nice to someone. They want to bully everyone into seeing things their way. It’s frustrating how vampires often treat those who are younger than them. And then there’s you… the man who treats everyone the same, whether they’re young or ancient.”

“Thank you,” I say, perfectly content with the way I treat everyone.

“You’re welcome. So… now that you know my secrets, let me hear it. How much do you hate me?”

“My opinion of you really hasn’t changed much,” I assure him.

Mads laughs. “I mean… I guess that’s better than hating me even more.”

I realize he thinks that means I still don’t like him. I… honestly don’t know what I think of him, but I’ll leave him to believe whatever he wants. “It sounds like Abel is still wanting the same thing he wanted back then—complete control over the vampires who are still alive.”

“You said that you were made for the same reason… so you were made to kill vampires? You aren’t just different in that you can feed off vampires, you were specifically made to do so?”

Why did I even say anything at all? “I don’t feel like talking about me.”

“So I had to spill everything and you get to stay silent?”

“Correct.”

Mads sighs. “Of course. I should have known I wasn’t going to win this.”

“Nope.”

He just laughs. “That’s fine. You can tell me when you’re ready. Just… don’t hate me. Sometimes I want to be someone others care about or would even notice if I died.”

I stare at him. “You’re wanting me, the person who everyonedespisesbecause I’ve been dubbed a monster for hundreds of years, to care about you?”

“Is that too much to ask?”

“It’s a pretty big ask,” I say.

“But like… we can just be monsters together,” Mads decides. “How about it? Will you be my monster?”

“I’m not sure what I’d be agreeing to by saying yes, so I will definitely be saying no.”

“Live a little.”

“Weirdly, I’ve been living a lot lately even when I struggle to do so.”

“We should date.”

My face scrunches up at that one. “We should not! What makes you feel like we’ve gotten that close?”

“Death always brings people together.”

“Trust me. I’ve seen a lot of death, and it usually pushes me apart from others,” I say.

“Yeah, when you’re trying to kill the other person! But in this case we were… wait… you tried killing me too… hmm… I can seewhy you’re suspicious, but if we just momentarily forget about that, it was everything else that drew us together.”

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