Page 39 of The Pureblood Daughter
The fall is brief and exhilarating, and then his arms are around her, sweeping her into an embrace before she can even think to scream.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and to hear his voice spoken aloud is to feel the sun after a long dreary winter.
She tips her head back to look into his eyes, and the rain falls against her face, runs down her temples and into her hair.
“I am now,” she whispers.
“Come.” He sets her gently on her slippered feet before taking her hand. His touch is confident, and despite the driving rain and thunder crashing overhead, it makes her feel safe.
Lord Rosetti ushers her across the dark garden and around the rose bushes with their battered petals. She only has a moment to wonder how he gained access to the garden before her gaze lands on the wrought iron fence, two rungs pulled neatly apart, the space between them just large enough for a man to slip through.
“How...?” She pauses to look at him, but he’s quick to urge her on.
“I’ll answer all your questions in the carriage, but we must hurry.”
The viscount tugs on her hand, and she allows herself to be guided around the cornflowers and hollyhocks. Lord Rosetti pulls back the greenery dangling from the iron so Adelina can step through, and then she’s on the other side of her fence, on the other side of the thing that has held her back from so much for so long. She squints through the rain, and a black carriage with two black horses waits just down the road, its lanternlight barely visible through the mist.
Skirt heavy with rainwater, Adelina hastens down the sidewalk, Lord Rosetti’s hand hovering so near her waist she can almost feel it.
The footman opens the door and offers Adelina a hand, and she takes it before stepping into the carriage and settling onto a crimson seat. Lord Rosetti climbs into the carriage behind her, and the roar of the rain is muffled once the door clicks closed. Now it’s a light din, a patter on the roof of the carriage as it starts to roll down the cobbled street.
Water drips from Adelina’s hair and chin. Across from her, Lord Rosetti stares with a hungry gaze. His dark hair is wet and windblown, and his coat and breeches are soaked through. The intensity of his eyes sends heat across her cheeks and down her neck.
“Are you okay?” he asks, breaking the tense silence between them.
“Yes.” Suddenly bashful, she looks down at her hands clasped in her lap, trembling fiercely. “It’s you I was worried about.” Her gaze rises to his shyly.
“Me?” He smiles, and she searches his teeth for sharp points, but none are visible. “Whatever for?”
“My father, he—”
He detests you for reasons unknown? He delivered a scarcely veiled threat before locking me away?It sounds a bit crazy as she thinks it now. Then she remembers the pouch tucked into her bosom, and she pulls it out.
“I found this in his office.” Opening the pouch, Adelina plucks the silver bullet carefully from the liner and rolls it into her palm. It’s warm against her cool skin and feels heavier than she remembers. The viscount’s eyes narrow, then flick back to Adelina’s face.
“A silver bullet,” he says curtly. “One of few weapons that can kill... my kind.”
And there it is. Not quite a confession, but so nearly one that Adelina curls her fingers around the bullet and leans back into the cushion, away from the viscount and his verdant eyes.
“What are you?” she whispers. She must know, must hear him say it with his own lips.
He props his elbow on his knee and takes a slow breath. “You don’t know?”
Adelina pushes a strand of wet hair back from her face and squares her shoulders. “I have a theory, but not one I’d have any confidence in saying aloud.”
A muscle twitches in the viscount’s jaw, and he sighs softly. Clearing his throat, he sits up straight and adjusts his waistcoat. “Very well.” A heavy silence falls over them, like a shroud over a body destined for the earth. “I’m avampir, Miss Gray.”
“Vampir,” she whispers, the accent heavy on her tongue. Ossenfelder’s poem comes rushing back as she takes a deep breath. “A vampire.”
He nods. In the darkness of the carriage, his eyes are almost luminescent, and they watch her carefully, like a wolf may watch a rabbit.
“Show me.”
His brows rise. “Show you?”
Heart thumping beneath her ribs, Adelina slips the pouch back into her décolletage, then moves to sit beside the viscount. This close, his thigh pressed against hers, his shoulder to her shoulder, she can feel the heat radiating from his body, can smell the rainwater on his skin. He doesn’t lean in, but neither does he attempt to move away.
“Show me,” she whispers again, lifting a trembling hand, her fingertips reaching for his bottom lip. One finger brushes against his silky skin, pulls his lip down ever so slightly. The primal sound that resonates from his throat is one she’s never heard a man make, and it sends heat bursting through her belly and between her legs.
