Page 47 of Lair

As the days trudge on and the Lair knifes through God knows what waters, I slip into a trancelike calm.

I sleep in Adrian’s bed and wonder if I dream his dreams.

I soak in his bath, remembering the way his skin felt on mine.

I watch the slice of light under the door, wondering if his shadow will darken it.

It’s on the ninth night that it does.

I suffer waves of trembling, for I know: It can’t be Mrs. Colding. The lock turns, the door opens, and there is the outline I could pick out in a crowd, framed by the dim light of the hallway beyond.

Do not come in, I think. I am not ready. I still have no idea of what to think of you. Of us.

But he does come. At least, his voice does—it is low, halting, and full of courtesy. “Hello, Aurora.”

I should hate him, I know. I should hate him in this moment.

And still, what his voice can do to me. The goose bumps it raises, for all the chill that touches my throat.

“Hello, Adrian,” I whisper back.

He glides forward, and I instinctively stiffen and retreat.

He rocks to a halt, his hands fisting at his sides, and turns his face away. It is too dark to see him, to see if his face is still charred and blackened by the sun. And the thought comes to me: Ten feet or less. Ten feet between me and the thing of teeth and bloodlust in the shadows.

At last, he lifts his face. “I know you have every reason to not trust me right now. Every reason to loathe me.” His hands tremble, his body wired tight with a haggard woundedness. “I know that. But I...” His voice falters, suddenly young and pure and blistering with hope. “But I would very much like to show you something. If you’d let me.”

Adrian Voper—always full of surprises.

This is where I spit in his face. This is where I tell him to go to hell.

But I’m walking. Step by step I walk up to him, my breath shivering out between my lips, until I’m within reach of those hands.

Our eyes meet, and he smiles.

His hand goes into his pocket and comes out with a slip of black cloth. He lifts it toward my eyes, and I tense—a blindfold.

But his eyes hold mine. He makes a shushing noise, as if I were a wild foal. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay.”

How foolish, I think. How foolish would I have to be to submit to this? To trust a vampire about to blindfold me?

Very, is the answer. For I do, God help me. Maybe I’ve been locked up for too long, or something’s wrong with me, but I let him. He drops the blindfold before my eyes, twists and snugs it tight behind my head, and all is a scratchy black, the blood booming in my ears. And then the touch of his hand in mine, like an offering.

Our fingers curve around each other, and he leads me through darkness—through his world.

On and on, down twisting hallways through the boat. At some point he must come to a staircase, for suddenly he has swept his arm under my legs—my heart leaps into my throat—and he is carrying me, my face against his chest. Memories rush back to me, and I breathe in his scent, curling my fingers against his shirt. Maybe all is well. All is right here. Whatever is to come, I can accept it.

And then I am down again. He is guiding my feet into tall fuzzy boots, my arms into sleeves, slipping something puffy and warm onto me. Then a zipper seals me in, a lock clicks back. “You’ll feel cold,” he says, and I do—a blast of frigid air. The breath sears in my lungs. My ears are instantly frostbitten.

“Holy shit,” I manage, teeth chattering. “Where the hell are we?”

But then his hands are in my hair, the blindfold falls away. I hear his smile in my ear. “Take a guess.”

And I look up and see the light.

It’s everywhere. Hanging in brilliant, shimmering veils of radiance across the night sky, blurred into phantasmic curtains in all colors, as if another world had spilled into this one—a fantastic mirage, a miracle of light. It’s so sudden, so overwhelming in its uncanny green glow whorling off into gentler, more gauzy shades, that it’s hard to believe there are actually colors like this in existence, lights like this.

The Northern Lights.

---