He reached over, grabbed the glass and poured another one, handing it back. I leaned forward on my elbows and rested my chin on my hand, studying his face. “And the ones who are born a vampire like you, do they turn people, so they have a loyal following?”
“Sometimes,” he answered, resting his muscled arm on the table. “Although it’s not always assured. Vampires will do what they need to do to keep themselves safe. They are not always the most reliable creatures.”
“Safe, from other vampires?”
He hated it when I asked questions about vampires and how their society worked. He’d always answer loosely, or not at all, and this was no exception. He glanced outwards, away from me. “I think it is a world you would struggle to understand.”
I scowled. “I think you underestimate my comprehension.”
His lips tightened, and he made no response.
“How do you choose who you’re going to turn?” I persisted.
“Enough with the questions.” He cut the air with his hand dismissively.
“I’m just going to keep asking until you answer,” I said stubbornly.
The look on his face was dark and forbidding, but I was more than used to his moods and was unaffected. I held his gaze with a questioning look. When no response came I said, “Well if Ihad to guess, which it seems I do, I’d say you turn the males for following and the females for sex.”
“Correct,” he answered with an arrogant arch of his brow. His admission shot a pang of jealousy through my heart. “Happy?” he threw at me.
“Excessively,” I spat out, shooting a few large gulps down.
He sighed loudly and sat his glass down. “I do not set out to turn anyone, but if I see someone I think is brave, or might be of some benefit, then sometimes I do.”
I retreated. “And you have a tribe of vampires who are loyal to you?”
“Some are, some aren’t. All pretend to be, they are too scared not to.”
The comment unsettled me. “You lead via fear, not respect?”
He frowned and flashed me a sharp look. “Both.”
“But if you have fear you can’t have respect. Respect is earned, fear is forced.”
He threw out a hand in a gesture of annoyance. “You see. You do not understand.”
“Of course,” I muttered, “because I disagree with you, I can’t possibly understand.”
I sighed and dropped my arms, folding them across my chest, sitting back. I twisted my head out into the night. Cars ambled slowly past, headlights stark against the graying light, like great whites stalking prey. Inexplicably, a cold pricked my body. The hair rose on my neck. The light behind us became a spotlight. The balcony, a stage.
The same feeling I’d had a few times before . . .
I sat forward, squinting into the quickly darkening landscape. A car pulled up and a group of rowdy twenty-somethings got out, laughing, the doors snapped shut. They headed in beneath us to the bar. The sound of muffled music floated out onto the street and dimmed again.
The feeling of being watched remained. I had my ring on, it could hardly be some presentiment of doom. Nonetheless, I stood up, moved over to the edge, clutched the white iron rail, and scanned down the street. The streetlights fanned out, breathing a faint glow onto the road like a society of ghosts over a flat tombstone, deepening the shadows.
The vampire who hurt the dog was dead. No one should be watching us, and I had my ring on, I reiterated. This wasn’t some great ‘witchy’ insight. I was being silly. I swung back and rested my ass on the balustrade.
Karson studied me for a long moment, then stated flatly, “I’m heading away late tonight.”
I’d irritated him and now he was fleeing the pesky girlfriend. “Do you have to go?” I tried to keep the whine out of my voice and failed.
I’d fallen for him, hard. I loved him so much that when he was away the sense of emptiness was almost unbearable. I hadn’t told him. I didn’t know if he felt the same for me. It was just three words after all, my happiness didn’t, at this early stage, depend upon hearing them.
His eyes burned through to the back of my head. “You know I do, if I feed more regularly it helps me resist you.”
I remained quiet. There was nothing I could say that I hadn’t already. I turned back and studied the sun as the last ring descended behind the hills, feeling his gaze on the side of my face.
