Chapter Six
My eyes dart to the painting we were discussing, and I dip into a belated curtsy, dropping my eyes away from that damning signature: Claude de Vulpe.
“It’s the last thing I ever painted,” the vampire says, pulling my eyes back to him.
He wears no indication of his court, which is an oddity, but it’s not surprising to learn he’s a Vulpe vampire.
An artist through and through, from his sad eyes to his slender fingers to his obvious sensitivity.
He’s staring at me with his perfect face creased.
“Perhaps the last thing I will ever paint. Most people like it the best. But you do not?”
“I… I meant no disrespect,” I stammer, not sure what else to say.
It’s not like I can lie now when he so obviously overheard me speaking about it.
I never would have said anything if I had an inkling the artist was here, especially when I’m well-acquainted with how sensitive those types can be about their work, but now I feel backed into a corner.
“What don’t you like about it?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest and continuing to stare at me.
I slowly rise again, my eyes still on the floor. “I didn’t mean… That is… it’s very pretty, I just have no eye for these sorts of things.”
When I glance up at the vampire, he waves a hand as if physically brushing away my excuses. Rings glitter on his long, pale fingers.
“I don’t care about that. I care about why you don’t like it.”
“I…” I stare at him, my heart thumping in my ears, trying to think of something to say. But there is nothing that comes to mind that isn’t horribly rude. I bob in another, more awkward curtsy. “I prefer not to say. Thank you. Goodnight!”
I rush away as fast as I can in these heels, my face aflame with embarrassment.
Benjamin is thankfully nearby, talking quietly with another vampire while remaining within my sightline. He startles as I slip my arm into his and press close to his side.
“Nora,” he says, surprised. “Are you—”
“Is he following me?” I hiss, clinging tighter to his arm.
He glances behind me, brow furrowed, and then straightens up in abrupt shock. “Lord de Vulpe,” he says, with a small bow.
I slowly turn, unable to keep the grimace off my face as I see that the painter I insulted has indeed followed me here.
“Good evening,” he says. “You are her chaperone, then?”
“Indeed. Lord Benjamin Acharya.”
Claude inclines his head. “I would like to request a slot on her blood card, if I may.”
“You may not,” I blurt.
Both vampires blink at me. Benjamin looks appalled by my behavior, Claude rather wounded.
“A moment, please,” Benjamin says before Claude can answer, and leads me into the nearby corner, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that Claude isn’t following us. “What is this about?” he asks me in a low voice.
I fan myself; my face is still hot from our encounter in the gallery, and the last thing I want to do is recount it to Benjamin. “I can’t explain it. Just… anyone but him. Please.”
“Do you believe him to be dangerous?” he asks, studying my face.
I shake my head. “No, it’s not that.”
“Has he given some offense?”
“Well… no.” I blow out a frustrated breath. “I think I may have offended him.”
Benjamin’s eyebrows rise. “So you intend to rectify this by… further insulting him?”
“I…” I open my mouth, shut it, shake my head in frustration. “He’s a painter. I made my feelings quite clear, didn’t I?”
“It’s just a taste of your blood, you’re making no commitment,” Benjamin says. “It may help attract other suitors, if they see Lord Claude take an interest in you. He usually spends these parties…” He glances over my shoulder, and inclines his chin. “Well, like that.”
I turn to see Claude standing by the window and staring out at the grounds, his mouth downturned and his brow furrowed in an expression of picture-perfect broodiness.
“This is exactly what I mean,” I hiss, turning back to Benjamin. “What’s his deal?”
“Well…” Benjamin leans in, lowering his voice.
“They used to call him a prodigy. He was an incredibly gifted painter in life, and so the Vulpe Court was eager to offer him the bite and welcome him into their ranks. But they say he hasn’t picked up a paintbrush since, much to the displeasure of his court.
” He shrugs. “That’s all I know. Rumors, mostly. ”
I bite my lip, cursing myself for my blunder once more. Of course I would manage to insult not only a sensitive artist, but a famously tortured artist.
“That doesn’t mean he has to be so melodramatic about it,” I grumble, trying to fight back the wave of guilt as I think back to that sorrowful look in his eyes.
One corner of Benjamin’s lips rises before he tamps it back down.
“This isn’t funny!”
“Yes, well…” He shrugs, glancing again at Claude and then back to me. “It’s your choice, Nora, but I truly can’t see any harm in giving him your time. By all accounts, he’s a perfect gentleman, not someone you need to be worried about.”
A no is ready on my lips, but I hesitate. Curiosity drives me to glance over my shoulder at Claude again, studying the sharp angle of his jaw from the side, the perfect tousle of his curls.
That’s the harm, I realize. That’s why I’m worried: because even a glance at him has my stomach fluttering with girlish nerves. Even when he’s being theatrically sulky like he is now, I can’t deny my attraction to him. If only he weren’t so… so…
He glances over, catches my gaze, and straightens from his melancholy slouch, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
I turn back to Benjamin and sigh. “I guess I do owe him after insulting his painting.”
“Good lord, Nora,” he mutters with a shake of his head. Then he leads me back over to the vampire now leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. Is he posing? I believe he might be.
I force a thin-lipped smile and hold out my blood card in invitation. Claude holds my gaze as he reaches out to take it from me, one cold finger nudging against mine as he slides the fan out of my grip. I watch him write his name in my next slot, and drop my gaze as soon as he looks up at me.
“Thank you for reconsidering,” he says, holding out my blood card. He forces me to reach out to take it, and our eyes meet again, sending a bolt of heat through my body. He smiles like he knows exactly what effect he’s having on me. “I’ll see you in…” He checks his watch. “An hour and a half.”
* * *
As time meanders by, I begin to think that I was overreacting.
There is no shortage of beautiful people at this party.
Surely I’m exaggerating the effect that Claude had on me because the idea frightened me.
What I felt was nerves and embarrassment after insulting him, not butterflies like I’m some hapless schoolgirl with her first crush.
I’ve nearly managed to convince myself it’s true by the time Benjamin is leading me to our meeting place with Lord Claude.
Then my eyes find him across the room, where he lounges in that damnably casual-but-poised way of his, and my heart starts to beat double time.
By the time I sink onto the couch beside him, the goddamn butterflies are back in full force.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, I chastise myself, taking my time smoothing out my skirts to avoid looking at him. I knew this was a mistake. I should’ve insisted on staying away from him. Something about him makes my brain go all fuzzy, and I can’t afford that right now.
When cold fingers graze my wrist, I freeze. My eyes dart to where Claude’s pale hand holds mine in a feather-soft grip, his thumb pressed to my pulse point. I swallow before lifting my gaze to meet his.
“Your heart is beating very fast,” he says, thumb rubbing slow circles over my wrist. “Am I making you nervous?”
“No,” I say, while my pulse betrays me. I breathe in deeply through my nose, let it out from my mouth, and snatch my wrist back from him.
He doesn’t try to hold on, but even when I’m free of him, I still feel the imprint of his cold fingertips where they so delicately gripped me.
“I’m just not used to being around vampires. ”
“I see.” He studies me. “We don’t have to do this. I just wanted a chance to talk to—”
“I’d rather you bite me,” I say.
His lips twist. “Is my company so terrible?”
I sniff and look away, refusing to dignify that with a response.
“So cruel to me,” he says. “What have I done to deserve this treatment?”
I glance sideways at him without turning my head. “The better question is, why do you seem like you’re enjoying it?”
“Most people try to flatter me, or treat me like I’m made of glass. Your blatant hatred is rather refreshing.”
I purse my lips and hold out my wrist. “Can we just get this over with?”
He regards me for a moment. “Alright,” he agrees, more easily than I expected. “But you’re going to have to move closer, I’m afraid.”
I scoot an inch closer on the couch.
“Closer than that,” he says.
I scoot again, begrudgingly. My knee brushes against his.
And suddenly I’m weightless, moving, and then blinking up at him as he leans over me. It takes my brain a moment to right itself.
I’m leaning across his lap. One of his arms supports my upper back; the other holds my wrist. Like before, his grip is soft, belying the strength he must have for him to effortlessly maneuver me like he just did.
“This is more comfortable, no?” he asks, a stray curl falling over his forehead as he looks down at me.
I am breathless. Out of sorts. Part of me wants to be furious with him, but I can’t fight the slow unfurling of warmth in my stomach, the heat creeping into my face.
This is just a comfortable position for him to bite me, I tell myself. That’s why I’m nodding. Never mind the fact I don’t trust myself enough to speak.
Claude watches me through heavily lidded eyes as he lifts my wrist to his mouth. My skin prickles with awareness of his teeth in close proximity, and the heat in my belly rises to a dangerous simmer.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He kisses my wrist.
That’s what it feels like. The soft press of lips, a hint of tongue against my skin. There’s only the slightest prick of fangs, so gentle it seems impossible until I feel the deep pull of him drinking from me.
And then I’m melting into his lap, sinking into the couch.
Only his grip on me keeps me up, his arm holding me tighter against his chest. My eyelids flutter and my lips part.
I’m hyperaware of every inch of my own skin.
Every breath sends new, fizzing pleasure through my veins, slowly condensing into a throb in my lower belly.
“Oh.”
I think it’s me who makes that soft exhale of a noise, but no, it’s Claude, pulling back from my wrist with a strange expression.
His pupils have blown wide, nearly covering the blue of his eyes, and his gaze is locked on my wrist, where a trickle of blood is still leaking from the puncture wounds he left.
He leans forward and licks it, and I shiver at the sensation of his tongue against my skin.
“Claude,” I say. He doesn’t respond to his name. His fangs are still out, his mouth open, a bare half inch away from biting me again. “Claude,” I say again, louder.
Footsteps. Claude blinks, finally focusing on my face, and then someone behind me.
“Is everything alright here?” Benjamin asks.
Claude shakes his head—whether in response or to clear it, I’m not sure—and guides me into an upright position.
My body still feels weak and languorous after that bite, but I force myself to stand on wobbling legs.
I’m suddenly all too aware of what just happened, what I just felt, and the fact that we were very much in public.
It’s a thousand times worse than being caught with a copy of Fangs, which until recently was one of my biggest fears.
I’m sure my face is stained bright red, broadcasting my filthy thoughts to everyone in the room.
Benjamin slides an arm around my waist, providing subtle support. I lean into him, grateful.
“Get a hold of yourself,” he whispers.
I shoot him a baffled, offended look, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Claude, who is still staring at me, a dazed look in his dilated eyes.
At Benjamin’s chastisement he finally looks away, dropping his gaze to the floor. He lifts a thumb to rub over his lower lip and says nothing.
Benjamin urges me back one step, and then another, before he turns us around and leads us away. He takes us to a quiet corner of the ball and pricks his thumb on his fang before pressing it to the puncture marks on my wrist.
I look up at him, trying to shake off my sluggishness and read the troubled expression on his face. “Is everything okay?” I ask.
“I believe so.” He studies my wrist until the wounds heal, and then drops it and looks me in the eyes. “Are you well?”
“I’m fine,” I say. Better than fine, really. That bite left me with a pleasant, tingling sort of wooziness, as though I’ve had a few glasses of wine. It felt good when Benjamin bit me, but that was something else entirely. “Did something happen?”
“No, but it nearly did.” Benjamin glances at the crowd around us. “That expression on his face… I know the look of a man on the verge of losing control to his bloodlust, and he was very, very close.”
Bloodlust? I think back to that moment, the way he held me and looked at me, and can’t make sense of the word. “Are you sure? He was so gentle with me.”
“I’m sure,” he says. “And that makes it even more dangerous. Vampires like that…” He shakes his head. “He could have drained you past the point of safety before you realized something was wrong.”
“Well…” I wring my hands, uncertain what to say. I have the strangest urge to defend Claude, even though just minutes ago I was uttering the words anyone but him. “He didn’t hurt me. And if he had really been a threat, I’m sure you would have stopped him.”
Benjamin chokes out a sound that might be a cough, or a startled laugh. “Your faith in me is admirable, but misplaced, I’m afraid.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “What? Surely you’re stronger than him.
He’s so…” I shrug, unable to even find the words for it.
His perfect curls, his blue eyes, his long, pale fingers that gripped me so gently.
Even if Benjamin hadn’t told me he was an artist, I would’ve known it at a glance.
That’s how he seems. Sensitive, almost vulnerable.
“He’s nearly one hundred and fifty years old,” Benjamin says, shocking me anew.
“Which is quite a bit older than I am. Trust me on this, Nora. Even without the backing of his court, and my lack thereof, I would have trouble handling him.” Benjamin’s expression is grim, but as he turns to me, it softens.
“In any case, I’m glad you’re safe. No harm done. Shall we?”
I take his arm and let him lead me back to the party, my skin still tingling from the ghost of Claude’s mouth.