Without thinking, I reach for her hand, intending to touch her, to see if that electric feeling I had when she walked in is real or purely my imagination after centuries of feeling nothing.
Our fingers brush.
The moment our skin makes contact, her blood hums beneath the surface. It’s not audible, not something anyone else could hear, but I feel it. A vibration, a frequency, a song that resonates with something deep in my core. And for just a heartbeat, just a fraction of a second, I see it, a flash of crimson-gold light that pulses beneath her skin.
She jerks her hand back as though I’ve burned her.
“Sorry,” I say, not sorry at all. “Didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine.” But her voice is tight, and she’s staring at her hand as if it betrayed her. “I should probably go. Early shift tomorrow.”
“Stay.” The word comes out rougher than I intend because it’s almost a command. I soften my tone. “One more drink. Tell me about your shift. About what keeps you coming back to a job that clearly drains you.”
She hesitates, the war playing out in her expression. Part of her wants to run. Part of her wants to stay. Finally, the staying part wins out.
“One more drink,” she concedes. “But you have to tell me something in return.”
“Like what?”
“Why you’re really here. In this bar, in that booth, watching everyone as if you’re waiting for something bad to happen.”
I’m a vampire, and once upon a very bloody time, I was part of a coven no sane creature crossed.
Now my past stalks me, feral and determined to finish what it started.
And honestly?
I’m dying to see which one of us snaps first.
“Because…” I say carefully, “… when you’ve lived a certain kind of life, you learn to always watch your back.”
“What kind of life is that?”
“A violent one.”
She nods slowly, with quiet assurance that this makes perfect sense. “I know something about violence. See it every day in the ER. People hurting each other, hurting themselves. Sometimes I think the whole world is bleeding, and we’re all just trying to mop up the mess.”
“That’s dark.”
“You asked.” She shrugs nonchalantly.
And damn if I don’t respect that. Most humans would try to pretty it up, make their lives sound more manageable than they are. But Sloane lays it out, raw and real.
We talk for another hour. About death, about meaning, about the loneliness that comes from being the one who sees too much. She doesn’t know she’s talking to a monster, but somehow, everything she says resonates. It feels as if we’re speaking the same language, just in different dialects.
I don’t reveal what I am.
I can’t.
TheLaw of Silenceis absolute.
But I drop hints, little breadcrumbs that make her eyes narrow with curiosity.
“You ever feel there’s more out there?” I ask at one point. “That the world you see isn’t the whole story?”
“All the damn time,” she admits. “Sometimes I swear I see things. Things that don’t make sense. And lately…” she trails off, shaking her head. “Lately, it’s getting worse.”
“Worse how?”
