My heart is hammering, and I tell myself it's just surprise. Just the shock of finding someone here. It has nothing to do with the way my stomach just dropped, or the heat that flashed through me when those cold eyes met mine, or the absolutely inappropriate thought I just had about what that mouth might feel like.
Stop.
"I...yes," I manage, my voice embarrassingly breathless. "I'm Iris. Iris Ashwood. I received the letter about..."
"I know who you are." His voice is smooth, cultured, completely devoid of warmth. "You're late."
"Late? The letter said to arrive by the first day of winter, and it's only..."
"Three weeks until solstice." He moves forward, and I instinctively take a step back. He notices, and something that might be satisfaction flickers across his face before vanishing. "Your grandmother would have been here within hours of notification."
"My grandmother is also, apparently, dead," I snap before I can stop myself. "Which tends to slow down response times."
For a moment, he just stares at me. Then, with the fluid grace of someone who's done it ten thousand times, he drops to one knee.
"I am yours to command, Mistress Ashwood."
The words are formal. Ritual. And absolutely horrifying.
"I--what? No. You don't have to--can you just, um, stand up? Please?"
He doesn't move. "You are the last of the Ashwood bloodline. The bond passes to you upon your grandmother's death. I am bound to serve."
"Bound to--" The word sticks in my throat, and my stomach hits my feet. "You're bound to serve. You're the 'certain responsibilities' Grandmother mentioned."
"I am Cadeon." He says it like he's reporting for duty. "I have served House Ashwood as familiar for two hundred and thirteen years. I am bound by blood and magic to protect, serve, and obey the Ashwood mage."
Two hundred and thirteen years.
I'm staring at him now, really looking, and I see it--the too-perfect stillness, the way he doesn't quite seem to breathe, the pallor of his skin that has nothing to do with the cold.
"You're a vampire."
"Yes."
"And you're bound to me. Specifically to me?"
"To the Ashwood bloodline," he corrects. "The magic is ancient. I cannot be released except through death--yours or mine. And I cannot feed from anyone except an Ashwood." He lifts his eyes to meet mine, and there's something in them now. Not warmth. Certainly not hope. Just a terrible, empty resignation. "You will need to feed me within the next three days, or I will begin to weaken."
My stomach does something complicated as it tries to wiggle back to where it belongs.
He's still kneeling. Still waiting for orders, for commands, for me to be the kind of person who gives them.
And I cannot—cannot—think about how the position makes his shoulders look, or the way the firelight catches in that white hair, or how those cold eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
I definitely cannot think about the fact that I'm apparently his only source of food, and what that might entail, and why my traitorous body just responded to that thought with a flush of heat.
He's bound. Enslaved. An indentured servant who has no choice but to obey me.
The fact that he's also the most beautiful man I've ever seen is completely irrelevant. Inappropriate. Wrong on every possible level.
"Please stand up," I say quietly, forcing my voice to stay steady.
He rises in one smooth movement, and I'm struck again by how tall he is. I have to tilt my head back to look at him properly.
Which means I'm now staring up at him, at the sharp line of his jaw, at that mouth that I absolutely should not be noticing. He's beautiful in the way sharp things are beautiful, elegant anddeadly and completely inhuman. A dangerous beauty, even if he weren't a vampire. Even if he weren't bound to me.
Especially because he's bound to me.
