Page 8 of Vacation with the Vampire
Instantly, I felt off balance, and I paced restlessly in front of the fireplace. It was unlit and did nothing to dispel the coldness of the catacombs that lingered deep in my bones. The room felt too small, and the light was much too bright. There was too much change all at once. I tried to remind myself that was what I’d wanted when I’d asked Louis to help me build my sanctuary for three hundred years of sleep. Only when I looked at Susie’s pale face did that idea still hold true, like she was the reason for which I’d slept through the years. Her I’d wanted to meet.
Behind me, the gargoyle stood before the fireplace, utterly still in the way only his kind could become. He was watching, waiting, the way a predator could be patient. The Thibault I had known was not the same as the one who stood before me now, and I discovered I did not entirely trust this sleeker, cooler version. “Well,” he said at last. “Explain.”
I shot him a glare, then shrugged, self-conscious about my appearance, as nothing had gone to plan at all. I’d worn a good, sturdy suit when I’d lain down where Louis had indicated, but he was supposed to be there to wake me, ready with fresh clothes. Nothing had gone as planned. I shot Susie a look but found I could no longer be upset with her for disturbing my slumber. “There is little to explain,” I replied. “I slept. I woke.”
The gargoyle shot me a look that said he didn’t believe me. “Yes,” he said dryly. “Several decades too early, if my calculations are correct.” Susie made a small, strangled sound from her position on the couch. I turned immediately, my heart rate soaring with that pesky, inconvenient concern.
Part of me worried that she’d done something that had aggravated her skinned knees. This was shock, not pain, however. She was staring between us, her eyes wide. “Decades?” she echoed faintly.
The gargoyle’s gaze sharpened, and I understood what had happened. Thibault was never reckless with information about our existence; he had assumed she knew. Assumed she belonged in this conversation. That was very dangerous, for her. I moved without thinking, stepping between them. An instinct surged inside me, as old as time itself, and the only kind that Thibault would understand, if I dared to confide in him: she was under my protection. Mine. The thought came unbidden, but it stayed, nestling inside my chest and slowly blooming into a greater understanding.
With this new knowledge settling into my bones and replacing the cold that had not left me, at last I turned to look at her with new eyes. She was too pale, far too pale. Her wrist had swollen visibly, and the skin was stretched tight over it. Broken. The realization settled coldly. “Thibault, do you have a healing crystal?” I asked, not taking my eyes off her.
The gargoyle inclined his head once. “Of course.” He turned and moved away without another word, I presumed, to go fetch it without question. Perhaps he had seen the severity of her injuries more clearly than I had, and I could only blame my lack of human interaction for it. I had withdrawn from the world and the growing discontent, the aftereffects of the French Revolution and Robespierre’sla Terreur.
I crossed back to the couch and knelt before Susie with a new sense of purpose. “Let me see,” I said firmly. She hesitated, thenextended her legs slightly, but she kept her wrist pressed against her chest. The damage was much worse than I had initially assessed. Her knees were not merely scraped; they were abraded raw. The skin had been torn and embedded with grit, small stones clinging stubbornly to the wounds.
I hissed softly, my eyes growing wide, and no doubt beginning to emit a faint glow as my feelings grew stronger. “This will require cleaning.” I did not relish the task, because it was sure to be a painful process for her.
“Yeah,” she said weakly. “I figured.” She sounded resigned to this fate and did not protest when I gently grabbed hold of the hand and elbow of her broken arm, guiding it away from her body so I could better examine the injury. I was not a doctor, but I’d always had a keen fascination with anatomy; I still remembered the basics of what Louis had taught in secret.
When I moved her hand, she went paler, but she did not make a sound. The scent hit me again, stronger now, because I was so much closer. As if that bit of distance after I’d put her down had only reminded me of how good she smelled, how incredible her blood was. It called to me: warm, human, and so very alive. My fangs descended before I could stop them. Damn it.
“Raoul?” Her voice was quiet, the city beyond the large bay windows rustling, calling, murmuring much louder. Her tone was quiet, but itwassteady, calm, and I could do nothing but respect that. I forced my gaze upward, away from her swollen wrist and the way her camisole, barely more than an undergarment, clung to her womanly curves.
She was watching me with the same steadiness in her gaze that had been in her tone. Not a hint of panic, but instead the calmness of a person who’d just come to a life-altering conclusion and did not break. “Are you,” she said slowly, “actually a vampire?”
In the split second after that phrase left her mouth and became reality, I considered deflection. It would be easier to lie, for me, but for her too. As the daylight filled the room, soft and undeniable, her breathing remained even, and that phrase remained real. Easier, but would it be fair? Would it not tear at her sanity if I cast doubt on her own observations?
Susie was not a woman like the ones I’d known from my time. The delicate nobility, sequestered, often God-fearing, and superstitious, so very superstitious. Not my American, no. She had sassed her way through her experience in the Catacombs despite her injuries. Hell, she had not complained or fainted. She had even protested against my carrying her, like she abhorred the thought of being a damsel in distress. She had conquered her panic with grace. No, Susie would not break under this knowledge; she was strong, and that had impressed me.
So I answered: “Yes.”
Chapter 5
Susie
“Yes.” I stared at him, my brain scrambling to catch up, to file that answer somewhere logical and safe. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a place for it. There was no neat little box labeledvampires are realthat I could tuck this into and move on. Because that was insane, completely, utterly insane. I couldn’t believe I’d asked that in the first place, and what did I expect? The man was delusional; he bought his own propaganda. Of course he was going to say yes.
My gaze dropped to his mouth, to his teeth, to be precise. I’d seen what I’d seen, though, and he didn’t hide it now, either. My eyes landed on the very obvious, very not-normal sharpness of his canines. Those very real-looking, pointy canines. “Okay,” I said faintly. “Okay, but like, actually though?” I’d done a Dorothy and landed in the land of Oz, except I’d done it by tumbling through a secret door inside a creepy bone tunnel.
He did not respond, but met my gaze, dark eyes steady, patient in a way that made something twist low in my stomach. Not only didhebelieve his own propaganda,Iwas starting to believe it too. Apparently I was doing this; letting the crazy sink in and actually believing it.
“Hold on,” I muttered. Before I could second-guess myself, I reached out with my good hand and grabbed his chin. He went still, his skin surprisingly warm and the faintest prick of still-invisible stubble rough against my fingertips. I leaned in,squinted at his mouth, then very deliberately pushed his upper lip up. “Susie!” he muttered, shocked.
“Shh, I’m checking.” For a split second, he actually let me do it, let me tilt his face, examine him as if he were some kind of science experiment. I came to the shocking conclusion that those sharp, pointy bits were not fake. There was no seam, no plastic edge, and definitely no glue line. Those were sharp, clean, very real-looking fangs that definitely did not belong in a normal human mouth.
My stomach flipped. “Okay,” I breathed. “That’s…” I didn’t even know what to say right now, because it felt like my whole world had turned upside down. It was so shocking, so confusing, that I temporarily forgot how much pain I was in.
He caught my wrist, not the injured one, thankfully, and gently but firmly pulled my hand away. “That,” he said coolly, “was exceedingly rude.” His hand was long-fingered, elegant, and surprisingly smooth. Those digits wrapped around my wrist like a shackle and firmly placed my hand back in my lap, beside the other, terribly swollen one.
This man always seemed to say exactly what I didn’t expect. I blinked at him. Rude? I was rude? “You just told me you’re a vampire!” I exploded.
“And you responded by manhandling me,” he said haughtily. His head tilted in an infuriatingly arrogant manner, but the image was spoiled by the dust swirling off his ancient clothing.
“Well, excuse me for wanting proof!” I would have crossed my arms over my chest, but my aching wrist prevented me frommoving much at all. It was very tempting to poke him with my good hand, whack some of the dust from his ratty, if probably once-fancy, clothing—shake up that image of the aristocrat staring down his nose at little old me. Not only did my wrist hurt, but he still held the good one; we both became aware of that at the same time.
“Your skepticism does not excuse your manners,” he replied, releasing me and quickly withdrawing his hand. Not quite as if burned, but still a little too much as if he felt he’d just touched something icky. “Though I admit, your behavior is becoming predictably uncouth.”
