My apartment is three blocks from La Petite Mort, on the top storey of a rambling tenement. Gideon wraps Sarah’s fur stole tight around my neck, hiding the glitter of the collar and Cleo II’s scaly body, and he keeps his head bent low as I drag him through the streets, past theoverflowing cafes and chocolate houses, past the crowds emerging from the more respectable opera houses and the less respectable cabarets. To any stranger on the street, we are a young bohemian couple rushing to our next adventure.
Our feet clatter on the crooked wooden stairs. I unlock my door and drag him inside. Gideon crosses the room as I run around lighting the lamps. Our building does not yet have electricity installed.
“You have no windows?” he asks, skirting the perimeter of my sitting room, ducking where the eaves of the ceiling make it impossible for him to stand.
“The rent is cheaper without them.” It’s a nice half-truth.
“It would have been good to keep watch on the street. At any rate, I don’t think they’ll find us here. As soon as the sun rises, I will sort this out. I promise.” Gideon sinks into my chaise longue. “So this is where you live. It’s… exactly as I pictured.”
My home may be modest, as I spent much of my accumulated fortune opening La Petite Mort, but I regard my precious objects – the sumptuous embroidered cushions, the inlaid credenzas, the lavish vanity table – with a critical eye. I surround myself in luxury, but no one would know that I pilfered many of these pieces from empty mansions during the Commune, or rescued them from the rubble of burning buildings, or that they were gifts from lovers or men who wished to be lovers. Like everything about my life, this luxury has been hard-won, and I will defend it with my life if I need to.
Cleo II peeks out from beneath my fur. She slithers across the floor before winding her way up the coat rack and hanging there like a reptilian scarf.
“You’re the first man to see this place.”
Gideon’s eyebrow arches with surprise.
“Don’t look so scandalised,” I smirk. “You know the work I do. Although I mostly manage the theatre now, I have had my share of private clients. I keep opulent rooms in Pigalle where I’ve had men, and women, and all combinations thereof, if the price is right and the fancy so strikes me, or the rent needs to be paid. But never here. Never inmyspace.”
“I’m the first?” His words are a whisper. His eyes are wide with awe.
I can’t believe it, either.
I should hate having him here, his broad shoulders and irksome smile sucking all the air from the room. I should hate the way he runs his fingers over my carefully collected possessions, and the imprints of his soles on my thick Persian rug.
Instead, he feels like a missing piece that’s finally been found.
Gideon stands and closes the space between us, his cobalt eyes fused to mine.
He stops with an inch between us, an electric fission of air that threatens to pull us together like two stars colliding.
My heart pounds so loud Cleopatra herself could hear it from her tomb.
“I want to kiss you, Arabella,” he whispers. “I want to kiss you because you are brilliant, and beautiful, and infuriating, and beguiling. I want to kiss you because a cobra is glaring at me from the coat rack. May I kiss you?”
I’ve had enough of him treating me tenderly, like a flower with broken petals. I shift my body closer, pressing myself against him.
He’s a human. He’s mortal. He’s dangerous—
I kiss him.
The moment my lips touch his, it’s as if the room ceases to exist. It’s just him and me, floating in a world of our own.
The last time Gideon kissed me, it was delicate, the way someone might approach a horse he’s afraid will bolt. But this time, Gideon kisses like he can’t get close enough, like he has to crawl inside my skin.
I kiss him like I want him to.
He tastes exquisite, sweet as honey and red cherries, with the sinful tang of poppy and blood.
Blood.
His pulse hammers in my ears. My eyes draw downward to the vein in his neck and the sweetest nectar pulsing just beneath the surface. I could bite him now and send both of us to the heights of ecstasy. My fangs itch to taste him, and they start to slide down…
I force them back up. I’m not ready for him to know the monster in me. The monster doesn’t dine tonight. I want to beArabella.
Besides, the delighted little noises Gideon makes assure me that he’s enjoying himselfplenty. He presses his body to mine, arms banding protectively around me as he walks me across the floor and pushes me through the doorway to my boudoir.
His eyes remain open. All the cobalt is nearly consumed by the black of his pupils – only a thin ring of colour remains. Usually, at this stage, men close their eyes, believing they are safe and secure in the hands of a weaker creature. If they are human, this is usually when I pounce and take the blood I need to survive. Once, I used this moment to draw a dagger – a monster slaying a monster.
