Page 55

“I want to know,” I begin slowly, “how you became a vampire. Tell me that, and I’ll tell you what I was thinking.”

Julian tenses around me, and I’m instantly wary. The light, teasing atmosphere from before is gone. Did I step on a landmine? Oh god, was he turned against his will or something? I’m so stupid.

“Or not,” I hastily amend. “You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”

Julian relaxes again at my words and nuzzles into my hair. “I don’t mind you knowing, ma souris. I do not think you will try to use it against me, but I do not talk about that time often. The time before I was a vampire. And it is hard to tell the story of when I was turned without talking about who I was before.”

“Were you a bad man?” I ask. Maybe that’s why he is ashamed to talk about it.

The vampire snorts. “I wish I had been a bad man. Or at least the type of man that others feared. There is strength in such things. No, ma souris, I’m afraid back before I was turned, I was what was known as an honorable man. An idealist. An easily led fool.”

“Why do you say that?”

His arms tighten around me, and I slide my hand up to rest on his chest over his heart. It is barely beating, but the rhythm is still there. Perhaps all vampires have weak, thready pulses. He grabs my hand and pulls it up to his lips, kissing my palm. “Are you sure that you wish to hear this tale, ma souris? It is not happy pillow talk.”

I kind of regret asking the question, but now that I’m in this deep, I want to know. “I’m sure. As long as you don't mind telling it.”

He laughs hollowly. “I do not mind. I still want to please you, after all.”

That makes me tense and pull away. “Then don’t tell me,” I say suddenly. “That’s against our contract, right? To ask you to do anything that you don’t want to do? To use the influence of my blood against you? God, I wasn’t thinking. You just fed from me, you must be feeling all warm and fuzzy toward me, which is why you’re talking.”

Julian pulls me back into his arms, but I fight him and sit up. “No, Julian, really, this was all a bad idea. You can’t consent when you’re under the influence of something.” My stomach plummets, thinking of what we just did. How could I have let myself get carried away?

Sitting up as well, Julian reaches out, pulling me back against his chest. I hate myself a little, but I soften into his embrace. “Do not worry yourself like this, Andi,” he commands, his voice firm. “I told you, I have wanted you in my bed since almost the first moment I saw you. Before you even spoke, I felt drawn toward your changeable eyes. I knew you were something special. Though I have questioned the strength of my feelings toward you, I have never once questioned that I want you, that I want this.”

His hands trace down the front of my body, and he firmly covers my sex in a possessive grip. I shiver with desire, his hands again feeling electric on me, but my logic wars with my instinct.

“How can you be sure?” I ask quietly, leaning back so that my head is resting on his shoulder. He feels strong behind me, cool and pleasant against my heated skin. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“I do not worry about that happening because you are so worried about it. Manipulators and abusers never worry that they might be manipulative or abusive. It is good, decent people who worry about that. You, Andromeda Smith, are a good and decent person, and I am a scoundrel for seducing you, innocent that you are, but I am not a good man, and I do not deprive myself of what I want.”

It’s my turn to snort. “I’m no innocent.”

“Perhaps you are not a virgin, ma souris, but rest assured, compared to the blackness of my soul and the deeds I have done, you are an innocent. Being around me can only corrupt you, but I am not self-sacrificing enough to let you go.”

“I’m scared of what us being together means,” I admit, still leaning back on him.

“It does not have to mean anything at all, just that we enjoy each other’s company and the sexual chemistry that we share. Do not worry about things too much, ma souris, just let yourself feel.” His hands come up and pull my head closer to his for a deep kiss, and I let him, even though competing thoughts are whirling in my head.

I can’t tell him that I’m afraid to feel. That’s the problem. That I am falling into him too fast, faster than I ever have with anyone else, and I worry that he will swallow me whole, and at the end, I will be crazy in love with him, while he thinks our time together can never be more than a slaking of lusts because of the effects of my blood. Any feelings he has for me are likely not his own. It’s all so fucked up and complicated.

He kisses my neck, his fangs skirting the tender flesh, and I shiver, my body priming again for his touch. If we really were lovers, I would let him take care of the ache growing inside me, but we’re not. Not really. I need to remember that. “I would pay a great deal to know what you are thinking right now, ma souris,” he muses against my ear. “I can practically hear the gears in your head turning and overthinking.”

I smile a little at his gentle chiding, but at heart, I am sad and can’t muster a bigger grin. “Well, these thoughts, you cannot have. They’re mine, and I'm not going to share them.”

“So cold, ma souris. But I suppose we still have our bargain from before, and I have not held up my end of it.”

“Julian . . .”

“Hush, it’s my story, and I can tell it if I want to. Where were we? Oh yes, I was a good, if foolish, man. If you must know, ma souris, I was a knight, one of the Templar Order. Do you know about them?”

I shake my head. “I was always lousy in history.”

“You just did not have the right teacher. The Templars were a group of holy knights, formed to keep Christian Pilgrims safe during their journeys to Jerusalem. Practically monks, with our vows of poverty and chastity. By the time I joined as a young man, they were much more than that. They had grown in power, wealth, and influence.”

“If you took vows of poverty, how could you be rich?” I ask.

He laughs. “See, you are asking questions that even I did not at the time. There was corruption in the order, but I didn’t see it. I only saw my brothers. I was content to live my life in warrior monkhood, though obviously fate had other plans.”