Page 61 of Lair

He opens his mouth—but nothing comes out.

Of course.

I let out an explosive sigh and put my face in one hand. “Look, it’s not just that I’ve already been in an abusive relationship, and I won’t ever be able to feel safe with you if you keep doing—that. It’s bigger than that.”

He’s the whitest I’ve ever seen him. He holds up a hand and begins to explain. “I have to do it to someone, in order to be with you—”

“That’s not good enough,” I snap, and he swallows the rest, looking stunned and tortured.

I suck in a long breath, knowing what I say next will change everything.

“I can’t be with a murderer, okay? I just can’t. So if we’re gonna do this, if you want to be with me—you have to stop.” I look him in the eye. “Can you do that? Go on without... feeding? Because if you can’t—”

“I’ll try,” he interjects, so sudden it throws me, and I have to wait for him to lift his head and look at me, shining with sincerity. “I’ve never tried before, but I will. For you.”

And we stand there, staring at each other in the private alcove of the patio. In the velvety night above, fireworks begin to pop and explode to the cheers of debauchees, like a sad reminder of our unfulfilled climax.

THIRTY-TWO

I can’t sleep. I’ve twisted my sheets into a straitjacket, tossing and turning in bed, trying to figure out how I feel. We’d sat in silence for the entire drive back to the Lair, hands held, suffused with a scared and aching tenderness. And now, alone, the words will not leave me be: I’ve never tried before, but I will. For you.

Screw this, I need air.

I tiptoe abovedeck to witness the sun rise, a wrathful eye cracking the horizon. The air is still shiveringly cool, the Lair wet with dew or raindrops in the morning dark. I’ve climbed to the top deck by the time I notice: overnight, the Lair has turned red. My insides constrict, and I peer closer. It’s as if some enchantment had been worked upon the yacht while I’d been sleeping. Its gleaming white topsides are mantled in a fine sifting of what looks like—

“‘Red dust’, they call it,” says a familiar voice behind me, and I jolt: Jason has appeared at my elbow. Beyond, in the dawn gloom, figures in white polos and khaki shorts have begun to hose down the yacht. Jason continues as if unaware he’d startled me. “Sand from the Sahara. Wind and rain carry it over the ocean and dump it here in the night.” He swipes a finger along a rail and inspects the red grit. “As a yachtie, you never know when you’ll wake up and find your world red.” He squints at me. “But you know all about that, don’t you?”

Anger and surprise blaze up in me. He knows. I flip my hair out of my eyes to face him. “You have something you want to say?”

He eyes me askance, gauging my anger, and decides to lead with understanding. “I know you think you know him, but you don’t. He won’t change—”

“He already has.”

His broad shoulders swell in a sigh. “But it’ll never be enough, will it? The nature of what he is—that can’t change.”

“We don’t know that.”

His lips thin. “Put it this way—you’ll never have a moment like this with him.” He gestures at the boiling orange face of the sun lifting out of the sea. “You’ll never feel safe with him. You’ll never stop wondering if, in the heat of the moment, he won’t forget that you’re not—”

“A meal?”

“Yes.” He snorts. “That.”

“I know who Adrian is. He promised me he would stop feeding—”

Jason lets out a dry, mirthless laugh.

“—and if he does,” I press on, determined, voice rising over him, “I can live with that. I can live with being with a vampire.”

He gives me a pained and pitying look. “Then why do you look so guilty right now?” And he strolls away to bark orders at his underlings—leaving me to stare, roiling with confusion, at all that red.

The long, languishing summer days pass as the Lair makes its tour around the Mediterranean, dropping anchor in places that belong on vintage postcards: Portofino, Cinque Terre, the Amalfi Coast. Everywhere a blur of ports lined with palm trees and brightly-toned townhouses, sparkling beaches crowded with rows of striped sun umbrellas. I soak up the sun in oiled bliss, and Adrian watches me from behind the safety of shaded windows. At night, we float side by side in the Lair’s pool, staring up through the open roof panels at the frothy wash of stars spilling across the sky. We’ve already found our rhythm.

And always I watch him, like some suspicious wife in a melodrama. But he is unreserved, quick to laugh, his muscular anger and grief wiped away. (Is this who he was before he was cursed?) He stays by my side as often as he can, as if to communicate his loyalty. No surprise disappearances of the stews or himself. No shifty midnight visits ashore. No blonde bombshell snacks.

He is here, with me, and still his new self. Not uptight. Not prone to abruptly firing crew members.

All is well.

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