Page 8 of Dragon Slayer

It was her gorgeous, leather-bound version of Bram Stoker’sDracula.

Val’s eyes narrowed as he read the title. Then he smiled. A closed-mouthed, tight, sideways smile laced with an emotion too faint for her to place. “Ah, yes.” His tone seemed carefully modulated. “I always forget they named a book after him.”

Mia let her hands fall to her sides because her arms felt weak, heavy book thumping against her thigh. “You’re shitting me.”

“It’s all fiction. Stoker’s character is nothing like my brother. Nothing that happens in the book is true.”

Nothing about thisconversationwas true.

“Dracula is real,” she said, deadpan in an effort to keep a meltdown at bay, “and he’s your brother.”

“Yes.”

She sat down hard on the floor and covered her face with her hands. “I have to call my doctor,” she whispered to herself, stomach clenching.

“Why?” Val’s voice said, right in front of her, and she startled so hard she whacked her head on the bookshelf.

He winced in sympathy and eased back a fraction; he knelt on the rug in front of her, hands on his thighs, limned in golden evening light.

Mia let her hands fall into her lap. “This isn’t real,” she said. “You’renot real.” The words scraped her throat, and she hated them, but there was no sense letting this play out any longer.

His mouth fell open; he wore a slapped expression. “I – I – Iamreal.” He pressed his lips together, jaw clenching tight; she saw the tendons leap beneath his fine skin. “Don’t say that, I’mreal!”

“How? How could you possibly be? Vampires don’t exist outside of books.”

His lips skinned back off his teeth; he opened his mouth…andsnarled. An aggressive punch of sound, like the tigers she’d seen once at the zoo. No human could have made that sound.

Mia startled again, whacked her headagain.

The sound cut off immediately, and Val lifted both hands like he meant to touch her. They realized at the same moment that that wasn’t possible; he froze, and she caught her instinctive flinch.

His hands went back to his thighs and he let out a long, slow exhale, shoulders drooping. His gaze dropped to the rug. “Sometimes I wonder,” he murmured, “if I really am dead. Or if I’ve been buried, and I’m only dreaming. Maybe this is purgatory; centuries of never being able to touch, or taste, or smell…until I’ve paid off my debts.”

“Val–” she started.

And he disappeared.

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