“They’re part of a world more bloodthirsty than you will ever—”
“Don’t pretend you know the world I come from.” This time, Miss Amato sliced through my thought, eyes flashing, mouth tightening to a thin line. She leaned forward, shoulders shifting like a jungle cat on the hunt. “I’ve seen more horrors at mortal hands than your centuries could hold.”
Heat spiked through me, gone as quickly as it came, leaving ice in its wake. “Spending Daddy’s money on international research trips doesn’t make you equipped to teach fanglings about theirown kind, Miss Amato. I don’t care how your family came to its fortune.”
She launched the crystal ashtray at my head in a single fluid movement. Even my reflexes only had the barest moment to catch it before contact, ash flitting over my lap like foul-smelling snow. Rage thundered in my ears, and before I could take a breath, I pinned Miss Amato to her seat. Barely withholding violent urges, I pierced my grip through the fabric, fangs flashing as if I were about to feed, every muscle taut and primed to catch her slightest breath.
The American didn’t so much as flinch, dark gaze trained on mine. “What?” she asked, jutting her chin up in a challenge. “You going to teach me a lesson? You wanna show me what a big bad monster you are?” She quirked a brow, an infuriating smirk curling her lips. This close, it was all I could do not to huff her scent—something expensive layered over the gentler notes of the lotions she used. Small downy hairs fluttered along her cheek and neck, too light to be noticeable except at such an intimate distance. Her earrings hung close to the sensitive place where her neck joined her chin, and I noticed the extra piercings up her cartilage were slightly crooked—as if done hastily or by an amateur.
Slowly—maddeningly, glacially, intoxicatingly—so very slowly, Miss Amato tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck to me. The smell of her wafted up uninhibited now, and just as I watched the muscles work to swallow her coffee, now I could see the blood just beneath her skin, pulsing, fluttering, beckoning.
Drool pooled in my mouth, my hunger tearing free like the beast it was, rising to wrestle the controls from my now trembling hands.
Feed, it commanded.Feast.
It had been too long since my last live meal, and now this brazen woman was offering me her throat. Not in invitation, butchallenge, goading my hunger into a frenzied thing, a red-eyed beast too starved to do anything but answer.
I gripped the chair harder, tearing my gaze away from her soft, unprotected flesh. And in that brief flash of admitted defeat, Miss Amato twisted her metaphorical knife.
She reached one well-manicured hand to my face, cupping it gently as she brought her lips to my ear. “I’m not afraid of you,” she murmured, stirring the delicate hairs along my chin so that I shivered despite myself, planting a chaste kiss to my cheek.
Before I could respond, the American woman—the stupefying force I was somehow now stuckworkingalongside—twisted from beneath me, freeing herself from the cage of my presence. She dusted annoyed hands over her clothes before stepping smartly through the door, calling over her shoulder as she did so.
“And don’t be late. You’ll disappoint the nest.”
Five
Outside, brisk night air soothed my fevered brow, the whispering wind a welcome change to the stagnant tension of the last hour. My mind raced as I made a leisurely pace to the stables behind the hotel, knowing on instinct that Alex would’ve sought solitude with his equine charges.
Was I this far past a live feed that I felt so out of control? Ticking back the days since my last meal in Boston, it wasn’t an abnormal window for me. And yet I’d nearly killed that woman—a fangling mistake I’d not made in some centuries.
Nearing the stables, I paused beneath the moonlight, listening to the shuffling snorts of the mares inside, the rustling hedges, the low chatter of the fanglings as they went about their duties inside. If I chose to, I could home in on their individual conversations, but much like it was rude to read a human’s mind without invitation, it would be rude to eavesdrop on the teens. They would most likely be discussing my behavior that evening, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that feedback just yet.
Something floated back to me in memory—something about Billy’s last visit to Ashbourne, and how he’d felt like a fresh fangling barely in control of his overwhelming powers. Had making amends with his dirt solved that sensation? Or had it simply removed the problem of the earth trying to swallow him at every opportunity?
Yes, there was something about this place that tilted even my vampiric expectations of normal.
Alex was leading a chestnut mare from the stables as I approached. I stilled, watching the fangling and the beast. Intuitive animals like horses were often terrified of our kind, but there was some distilled bloodline in Ashbourne breeds that empowered them with an unexpected fortitude—or Alex and Billy were able to speak to animals. Both seemed equally likely at my current crossroads.
I cleared my throat loudly from a few feet away, bracing myself for the horse’s scream and consequent kicking tantrum. Instead, Alex tilted his head lazily in my direction, nodded, and continued leading the horse toward a massive, fenced enclosure beyond the stables.
“I’d like to speak to you,” I called after him, still rooted to the spot with indecision.
“Then speak.” Alex called over his shoulder, leaving me no choice but to follow him and the creature at what I deemed an out-of-kicking distance.
“What you saw tonight—it clearly upset you.” I practically yelled, stepping quickly to keep up, but stopping short when I felt I was too close. The horse gave no signs of distress from what I could tell, but twitched its ears back at the sound of my voice. What did that mean?
“It was upsetting.” He didn’t so much as turn around.
I continued my awkward dance behind him, trying to angle around the side to give the horse a wide, berth but to stillcatch up to the fangling. Alex stopped abruptly, leaving me to quickstep on top of my own feet, now suddenly in front of him, my ankles twisting beneath me. I finally caught myself by pinwheeling my arms before planting them more gracefully on my waist. I flinched as the horse snorted derisively.
“Are you afraid of horses?” Alex’s disdain was clear despite his hidden face.
“It’s generally the other way around,” I said, eyeing the animal. Its ears were forward, tail swishing lazily behind it.
“Not in Ashbourne.” We stayed that way a moment—me waiting for Alex to say more, silence stretching between us. Finally, he broke. “Can you move? It’s Sally’s turn for the pasture.”
“On the condition you talk with me when Sally is enclosed.” I didn’t like bargaining with a student, much less one holding the rope to such a massive animal.
