Page 50 of Lair

I see him again at dinner. When Mrs. Colding leads me into the dining room with its glittering chandelier hanging through the ceiling above, he is waiting at the end of the long table, resplendent in a beautiful dark brown suit, black dress shirt and no tie. Something registers—that he hasn’t worn a tie for weeks now, that the color of his suit is the warmest I’ve seen him in yet—but I don’t know what it means.

Also, I note with a distracting fluttering of my stomach, there’s no trace of his encounter with the sun now. His face is as fresh and pure as snow.

He rises when I enter, blue eyes large and avid. “You freckle when you get sun.”

I feel my cheeks grow warm. “I thought you hated freckles.”

“Yes.” His face takes on a pensive cast. “I thought I did, too.”

We stare at each other a moment before I tear my eyes away. I could drown in those liquid blue pools.

That’s when I notice that Captain Redfearn and Mrs. Colding are watching me from the shadows at the far end of the room, like parents witnessing a bride being presented to a barbarous groom.

My knees are shaking as I sit.

Adrian follows suit, tugging at his cuffs. There’s a vase of splendid red roses in the center of the table. My gaze must linger on it, for Adrian purses his lips, gestures and Mrs. Colding whisks it away and ascends a staircase in her soft-soled shoes. Captain Redfearn is nowhere to be seen.

It’s very quiet when Adrian speaks again. “Not a fan of roses?”

I shrug. “I’m a white lily gal myself.”

How aware, how very aware I am, that I am alone with him.

I straighten my back, perched on the edge of my seat, and link my fingers on the table. “I have questions.”

He smirks, faintly amused, and mirrors me, linking his long, pale fingers on the table: business meeting accepted. “Of course.”

“How old are you?”

“A hundred and seventy-two years old. I was thirty-three when I was turned.”

Jesus Christ. “How many of you are there?”

“Not many. A few hundred. Perhaps a thousand. We took to the sea a long time ago. It’s not safe for us on land. Too easily cornered, found out. So we made investments, accumulated wealth over the years”—he gestures at the grandness about us—“and made ourselves new homes.”

I wet my lips. “How does it work? Like, are there rules—”

“We have our laws.” A small, tight smile appears on his perfect lips. “There are repercussions, for instance, for those who draw attention to us.”

“Are there, I don’t know, other kinds of creatures out there?”

His eyes crinkle in that way of theirs. “Not that I’m aware of.”

It’s hard to look him in the eye. The question hovers on my lips, the question this entire conversation has been driving toward.

At last, I ask it: “Do you want to feed on me?”

That pale white face slackens. When he speaks, his voice is low, husky, trembling with yearning. “Yes.”

I swallow, the edges of my vision blurring, and something becomes dislodged in me, that memory of Josh I thought I’d put away forever, consigned to darkness and oblivion. Oh no, I think, not now, and shut my eyes. “Are you going to?”

“No.” The word is bare, scraped raw. “You’re the first woman since I’ve been turned who has made me want to resist that.”

My hands are trembling; I slide them into my lap. I feel as if I am coming undone. I can see him. Josh. Ordering me to tell Cailee to go home, his face ugly, a stranger’s. He didn’t like seeing me happy around other people. He wanted to fuck. To prove I loved him.

“That’s good,” I stammer, my mouth dry. “Because...”

Because I told him no that night. I’d never refused him before.

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