Page 4 of Vacation with the Vampire
“...mansplaining, yeah, you were,” she cut in, her stance widening like she was a warrior preparing to go into battle. “Trust me, I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime. My ex practically had a PhD in it.”
My eyes narrowed in fury. “Your tone is remarkably insolent for someone in your position.” Ex? Ex what? It was not a term I was familiar with, yet another of those mysterious phrases, like cosplayer. Only this word was clearly Latin, and I could deduce she meant former—probably former something—but whatever that something was remained unclear.
“My position,” she echoed, incredulous. She exhaled roughly, and her scent wafted through the air toward me, tingling across my senses. “My position is that I’m lost underground, injured, and dealing with a guy who thinks he’s Dracula. So forgive me if I’m not super polite right now.”
Dracula. I had no clue what that was supposed to mean. It was another absurdity to catalog later. For now, she was the mystery I had to unravel. I narrowed my eyes on her and noticed how her pulse fluttered visibly at her throat. Her blood still scented the air—sweet, tempting, so very human.
“Hungry…” The word slid through me, cold and sharp. My gaze dropped again, unbidden, to her knees. To the smeared blood glinting red in the dark, the torn skin.
She noticed how my attention had shifted, away from the confusing conversation and onto much more primal things. Of course she noticed; she was infuriating, brash, unmannered, but she was no idiot. She took a small step back. Then another.
The bravado from before dimmed and was replaced, very reluctantly and stubbornly, with something closer to fear. She was starting to get it, finally. I wasn’t some normal, average man she was dealing with. “Okay,” she said, quieter now. “You’re… um…getting a little too into this. You realize that, right?”
I exhaled slowly, forcing my fangs to recede at last. This was tedious, but the truth was, I didn’t want to frighten her either. “You have awakened me,” I said. “Whatever absurdities have led you here are no longer my concern. I will go to the surface. You may do as you wish.” And with that, I moved past her. I did not offer her any assistance. She had managed to intrude; she could manage to leave.
The corridor beyond my sanctuary breathed differently than I remembered. I paused in the doorway, my boots pressing against the heavy stone threshold, still rough as if it had been hewn just yesterday. Proof that no steady stream of footsteps had worn it smooth.
The air, God, the air. It was wrong; I’d never smelled anything like it. Layered with scents that did not belong to any era I knew: acrid smoke, oil, something chemical and sharp beneath it all. The city above had transformed into something unrecognizable,its presence pressing down even here, filtering through stone and time.
Paris had changed. Profoundly. That scent proved that time had passed—lots of it—and the city had evolved with it. It was no longer the place I’d known and grown bored with. It was no longer my home. I should have felt irritation, but instead I felt… curiosity.
“Come along,” I said over my shoulder, an impulse that struck as my spirits lifted. “If you wish to leave.” There was no answer, just silence. My feet carried me across the threshold and into the dark, damp tunnel beyond, certain she’d follow anyway. I continued a few steps, but there was still nothing.
A faint crease formed between my brows. This was annoying. I was plagued with a sudden attack of consciousness, guilt. Just becauseshehad not learned any manners of the 19thcentury meant I could forget mine. She was a lady, lost, injured, and in distress; I turned back. “Mademoiselle, I will not...”
I stopped in my tracks, inhaled deeply in surprise, and then narrowed my eyes as I zeroed in on her location. She had not moved far, but had sunk down against the wall just beyond the chamber, her strange light abandoned beside her, its glow casting her in stark relief. Her breathing had gone shallow, rapid, too rapid. Her hands trembled violently, one clutched to her chest, probably the injured wrist, the other pressed flat against the cold wall as though to anchor herself.
Her eyes were unfocused. I knew that look: panic. It was very real, unfeigned. I hesitated, surprised to see it. An unfamiliar sensation flickered through me, sharp, unwelcome. Concern.How surprising; I had not felt emotion that strong, except hunger, in so long. It swept me away.
Chapter 3
Susie
I was going to die in the Paris catacombs. That thought didn’t arrive all at once; it crept in, slow and suffocating, like the damp air pressing against my lungs. One second I was just freaked out, hurt, disoriented… and the next, something in my brain shifted.
What if he wasn’t acting? I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my hands against them as if I could physically shove the idea away. That was ridiculous, it wasn’t just crazy, it was completely insane. Vampires weren’t real. This was Paris, not some gothic novel.
The image of his face burned behind my eyelids. He was too pale, his features perhaps a little too sharp, those dark eyes catching the light in a way that didn’t make sense. Then there were his teeth. I had called them prosthetics, and convinced myself they were part of his bizarre, 19thcentury costume. “Nope,” I whispered out loud, my voice shaking. “Nope, nope, nope.”
My chest tightened painfully, like I’d swallowed rocks and they sat heavily just below my midriff. Breathing felt wrong, too fast, too shallow, and the more I tried to slow it down, the worse it got. The tunnels pressed in around me, the walls lined with skulls that seemed to watch, hollow eye sockets swallowing the dim light from my phone. The air smelled like dust and stone, its petrichor scent no longer appealing but suffocating, and underneath it all, there was the metallic tang of my own blood.
God, my knees hurt. I’d skinned them badly, worse than I could recall doing as a kid, not even when I fell riding my bike. Now that the adrenaline was draining out of me, everything hurt. My wrist throbbed in sharp, pulsing waves; I purposely didn’t look, but I was pretty sure it was swelling up something fierce. My legs burned where I’d scraped them, and I could feel grit stuck to the wounds. I was cold, damp, filthy, and completely, utterly lost.
I was also possibly trapped underground with a vampire. A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat and died there. It didn’t surprise me that getting trapped in a dark, terrifying maze like this could drive a person crazy, but this fast? “This is insane,” I muttered. “This is actually insane.”
The sound of footsteps echoed against the walls. I flinched hard, my head snapping up, eyes frantically searching the awful, cobweb-filled dark. He was back.
That sound was my only warning that he was coming back. One second I was alone, spiraling; the next, I heard that sound, and then he was there again, standing over me like something out of a painting. Tall, dark with a halo of light hair, composed, and annoyingly handsome. Even now, with my brain actively trying to protect me from reality, I couldn’tnotnotice that.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked, like I was a misbehaving child he’d come to reprimand. Even doing that, he managed to look handsome, and I felt a stirring of attraction. Improbable as his appearance was: waistcoat, cravat at his throat, a vest with golden buttons, and hand-sewn leather shoes. His silvery hair was long and silky, tied back with a blood-red ribbon at the nape of his neck.
I stared at him, breathing unevenly, heart pounding wildly. “No,” I said honestly. “I think I’m ten seconds away from fully losing it.” Lose it in a big way. I hadn’t even lost it when I’d discovered my stupid ex banging his secretary inmyapartment. I was definitely losing it now, though, and I hated that.
Something in his expression shifted. It was subtle, and if I hadn’t been staring so hard, I might’ve missed it. The sharp edge of his annoyance dulled and was replaced by something quieter. Perhaps it was even kind, like he understood how scared I was.
Then, to my complete shock, he crouched down in front of me, his dusty coat whispering as he went to his knees and the seams on his ancient shoes and pants creaking with the motion.
“I am familiar with these tunnels,” he said, his voice lower now, steadier. “You are not lost beyond recovery.” I blinked at him, a little thrown off by the old-fashioned way he phrased things. “And,” he added, with a faint stiffness, “I am, above all else, a gentleman. I will not harm you.”
