“My skin? It has always been this colour.” I shrug.
“Oh,” he replies somewhat bashfully.
“I do not know where—” I say at the very moment he says, “So you drink?—”
An awkward grin lifts my lips, but I quickly add, “Please, continue.”
“Uhm…so you drink blood, then?” he asks.
I nod.
“And you have powers?” He waves his hands in the air, as if to demonstrate.
I nod again.
“Did you kill those people to drink their blood?”
“In truth, I did not,” I reply.
Astaire tilts his head in confusion.
“Worry not, I am still a murderer. One could fill this chamber with the corpses of my victims.” I say bluntly, wishing to discover if this statement will elicit a reaction from him.
Yet, all he does is gaze unafraid through my chamber, almost as if he were seeing it filled with decomposing corpses.
“You do not wish to know if I will drain you of blood?” I ask.
“Not really.” He shrugs. “Do you want to, though?” he asks, looking not the least bit concerned at the possibility.
I dare not speak, afraid I will confess how desperately I crave that very thing—not because I hunger for nourishment but because merely the thought of him on my tongue overwhelms me. The possibility of seeing his life, his memories laid bare before me… The thought stirs me deeply.
I observe him carefully as he sits beside me, still fully unclothed, the fire illuminating half his delicate features. He appears nearly as inhuman as myself, with his pale-as-bone complexion and his unnaturally coloured eyes. He does not behave like any human I have observed, either. Like a true oddity. An unusual mixture of attributes that should not exist within the same man. Astaire’s body is so frail looking, like I could snap his limbs with one hand, but the fearlessness he displays toward me is almost chilling. Stronger than any man I’ve known. Nonetheless, I have not deciphered whether Astaire is braver than most or simply reckless to the extreme.
As we sit together on my settee, I revel in his taste in my mouth. The urge to touch him overcomes me, but I suppress its plea. I yearn to caress his skin, feel the silkiness of his hair between my fingers, inhale his clean scent.
I cannot fathom how his presence affects me in such ways, and I am shocked at the intensity of my desire, a feeling utterly unfamiliar to me. Never in my long existence have I felt this full, yet simultaneously pathetic. Weak, even. It is most unsettling.
“You didn’t hire me for food, right?” he asks calmly, his words pulling me out of my reverie.
“What? Never!” The question catches me off guard. “I had no hand in your employment. Bayard handles all worldly affairs. I…I knew nothing of your existence until the day you arrived.”
With lips the palest russet and slender limbs drawing the furs closer around his chest, he looks chilled to the core. I know the feeling well; no fire can melt the ice lodged within my bones.
“Uhm, I wanted to ask you—” he begins.
Just then, a sharp pain lances through my skull, and an involuntary groan scrapes from my throat.
My creator slithers into my thoughts. “Where are you, my wretched neophyte? Are you hiding from me again?”
I shake my head, trying to brush him off. At that, Astaire tilts his head in confusion.
“Answer me at once!” he shouts the moment I do not respond.
“Please, not now,” I whisper, trying to buy a little more time.
“What? Shouldn’t I ask…” Astaire’s eyebrows furrow, and his mouth continues to move, but I cannot hear his words over the shouting.
“You piteous caitiff, how dare you make me wait?” he screams. Abruptly, he lowers his voice into a poisonous song, dripping slowly through my mind, “Let me look through your eyes, and I shall see where you are hiding, laido. Let me see!”
