Page 64 of Lair

No, I think to myself. I love him. I trust him. That would never happen. He would never allow that. Think of him tending to me, in this very room, during my bout of food poisoning. That’s all this is. Me returning the favor.

Everything all right, babe?

I slowly advance into the dark room.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The light from the open door slashes toward the bed, giving just enough light for me to make out its vague immensity in the dimness. And the form atop it.

It shifts.

“Adrian,” I whisper, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

More rustling. The form turns away from me. “Go away.” His voice is a croak. “Please go away.” I realize, belatedly, that he’s shivering.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” I say, edging closer. “I just want to look at you...”

His next sentence stops me cold. “I can smell your blood.”

I clench and unclench my fists, willing my breathing steady. Then reach out one hand to his shoulder, the other to a bedside lamp. “I know you won’t hurt me...”

It happens in the same instant: the light switching on, and him whirling to me, pale and sunken and mouth crowded with fangs, his gorgeous eyes bloodshot, and I think of a rabid animal gone mad with bloodlust.

I’m sobbing and tripping and bounding to the door and it’s slammed shut behind me, Mrs. Colding locking it with a sad, knowing expression as I break down crying and I hear Adrian’s voice on the other side, pleading with me, Shh, it’s all right. Just give me time. This phase will pass. We’ll get through this.

We’ll get through this.

THIRTY-THREE

This is what I hold to. He’s not dying. He’s already dead, right? It’s just withdrawal; he’s going mad from lack of blood.

We’ll get through this.

“Has any of his kind ever tried this before?” I ask Mrs. Colding. “Is it even possible for them to not have blood?”

Mrs. Colding’s hands are clasped, her face composed in an imperious mask of disapproval. “Not that I know. It’s unheard of.”

“So, we don’t know what will happen?”

A pointed shrug.

Later she approaches the door, raps softly on it. “Adrian?” A sigh, like a disappointed schoolteacher. “Adrian, you don’t have to do this. Maybe we should—”

“NO.” The roar from the other side of the door is like a furnace blast, and Mrs. Colding jerks away, lips pressed together. I cannot stay there. I back down the hall, hands clenched, repeating it to myself: We’ll get through this.

But Mrs. Colding snorts at this. Her scorn is limitless.

“You could talk him out of it, and instead this is what you cling to?” She shakes her head. “I thought you would be good for him. Now look at you. Killing him.”

His rages come next. Smashing the furniture, cursing, howling. The crew begins to talk, congregating in the passageways or hurrying by the VIP suite with worried looks. What is on this boat with them?

Mrs. Colding, recognizing the danger, declares the aft section of the main deck off-limits. Mr. Voper is sick and has quarantined himself. Nothing to be frightened of.

All is normal.

I keep to myself, sitting numb and alone in the pool or at the long dining room table. I cannot eat, cannot sleep, hunched over with sharp pains that are like a hammer hitting me in the belly. All the while, Mrs. Colding and Captain Redfearn consult amongst themselves in whispers. Jason gives me odd looks.

I do not care; I do not speak to anyone. I wrap myself in my seclusion, like a grieving widow gone mad with desolation. I shut my eyes and pray for the first time in my life. I pace endlessly in the master suite, hands balled and trembling with little whimpers of anger and complaint, wracked with crying spells and indecision: I am killing him. I am saving him. I am killing him.

After two weeks, I have to—I go to the door. “Adrian?” I call.

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