Chapter 9
Susie
I woke slowly, like surfacing through warm water.
For a few blissful seconds, I didn’t remember anything.
Not the tunnels, not the broken wrist and bloody knees, and not the completely unhinged revelation that vampires were apparently real.
There were just soft sheets, warm sunlight, and the gentle hum of a busy city.
Then it all came crashing back in a wild rush, and my head spun. Vampires existed, and I’d stumbled upon one when I got lost in the catacombs, chasing a light that might or might not have been real. Healed by magic, I’d also met a gargoyle, and then there was Raoul. My eyes snapped open.
The room was different in the morning light, softer, calmer, almost normal again.
Though there was lingering evidence of yesterday’s chaos in the form of my shredded carry-on.
My chest tightened as I recalled the shock of discovering my room ransacked, like adding insult to injury after the crazy day I’d already had.
Raoul sat in the window just like last night when I’d gone to sleep.
One leg bent, the other stretched slightly along the sill, framed by the pale morning light spilling in from outside.
His profile was sharp against it, pale hair turning gold at the edges, his gaze fixed on the city below as if he were studying something endlessly fascinating.
“You’re awake,” he said. He didn’t look at me.
Wide shoulders lovingly hugged by the white fabric of the T-shirt.
I wasn’t sure if it was too small, or if the shirt had just decided it wanted to be shrink-wrap instead.
Discovering that Raoul was stacked beneath those stuffy old clothes had been mind-blowing.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, blinking sleep from my eyes. “How do you know that?” He was a sexy, modern man now, though he’d still catch eyes wherever we went. Seriously, the acid-washed jeans did things to his thighs… I gulped.
A faint smile touched his mouth, sexy as sin, framed by pale curls now that the ribbon tying them had vanished, and by a five o’clock shadow. “Your heartbeat changed.”
“Right,” I muttered. “Of course it did.” He wouldn’t let me forget what he was at this point, and frankly I didn’t want him to. I liked that he was allowing me to be part of his world, his strange, magic-filled world.
He turned away from the window entirely, fluid and unhurried, and crossed the room toward me. There was something different about him this morning, lighter, maybe. Maybe it was just that I was seeing him clearly now, without panic clouding everything.
He looked unfairly good in normal clothes. The jeans fit him like they’d been made for him, the white shirt simple but somehow making him look even more put-together. He could walk into any modern setting and own it, despite having been asleep for two centuries.
It was deeply annoying and very distracting.
I reached blindly for the bedside table, patting around until I found my compact mirror and clenched it in my fist. A small, grounding habit.
Something normal to hold onto. By the time I looked back up, he was right there. Close, too close to think straight.
“I find,” he said, his voice softer than usual, “that I admire your composure.” He sat down on the edge of the bed next to my hip, and the bed dipped, causing me to slide toward him. Warmth from his body met my thigh and blazed far brighter, hotter, than that simple point of contact should have.
“My… composure?” I asked, my mouth dry. What composure was he talking about? I was a hot mess this morning; bed hair, wrinkled sleep shirt, and gah, probably morning breath and drool still drying on my cheek. I was anything but put together.
“You adapt quickly,” he continued, studying me in a way that made my stomach flip.
“You do not collapse beneath the weight of what you do not understand. You question. You challenge.” His hand came up, brushing lightly along my jaw.
“It is refreshing.” Then he kissed me, morning breath be damned, apparently.
This time it was slower, intentional. It wasn’t the shocking, breath-stealing claim from before, but something warmer.
A steady claim, lingering just long enough to make my brain short-circuit all over again.
When he pulled back, I forgot what I was going to say.
His ability to do that was becoming a bit of a problem.
“I have business to attend to today,” he said. “It will not take long. Afterward…” A faint, almost teasing note entered his voice. “I thought I might show you the city, if it still resembles anything worth seeing.”
I huffed a small laugh. “Deal.” My belly clenched with desire, with warmth, and something I was pretty sure was happiness.
This vacation, it wasn’t anything like I expected it to be.
First, with my ex throwing a wrench into things in the most horrible way, then the catacombs, vampires, Raoul.
That my aloof, ancient vampire wanted to spend time with me, kiss me, it soothed some part deep in my soul.
A tour guide who’d actually been there when ancient landmarks were built—how cool was that?
Breakfast was an experience, and I was glad I’d opted to have it delivered to the room again.
He ate, and he ate a lot. Watching a vampire demolish an entire basket of bread and then complain about it was not something I had mentally prepared for.
Though I had already adjusted to the fact that he ate solid food, just like he could walk in sunlight.
“This is substandard,” he said, eyeing the last piece critically.
“It’s a croissant,” I said. “In Paris. That is literally as good as it gets.” Besides, they were flaky, buttery, and the jelly was a perfect complement. These were the best croissants I’d ever had, but he looked unconvinced.
“It is not flaky enough; they skimped on the butter,” he declared, as if he knew exactly what he was talking about.
Then he tapped a knuckle on the remaining end of the baguette.
“This doesn’t make the right sound either—there’s not enough air.
” He curled his lip and shook his head, that look of arrogant distaste becoming as familiar to me as breathing.
Rather than feel annoyed by his response, I found it amusing.
We stepped out into the city not long after, and I found myself automatically slipping into guide mode, phone out, maps open, figuring out directions. That’s how I’d gotten around the city yesterday, and I’d been relieved to discover how straightforward the subway system here was.
“Okay,” I said, scrolling. “The fastest way to this bank is… Oh wow, it’s actually still here.” Raoul had given me the name of the bank he wanted to visit with such certainty, but I hadn’t been sure if he was right. Even banks closed or relocated, and he’d slept for over two hundred years.
“It should be,” he said. Something about the way he said it made me glance at him. So confident, so certain. Like time didn’t apply to him at all. Perhaps he was right, because Google Maps said it was still there.
We only had two stops to make on the subway, and Raoul didn’t do the whole white-knuckle clutching this time. He seemed calm, much more in his element in a world that must have changed radically in what seemed like the blink of an eye to him.
The bank itself looked normal, pretty much exactly as I expected a bank to look.
Old, sure. Impressive in that grand, historical way, but still just a bank.
Until we walked up. The man at the door took one look at Raoul and nodded in a way that spoke volumes.
He wasn’t confused or suspicious about our presence.
There was recognition in his eyes. “Welcome back, Monsieur,” he said smoothly, stepping aside.
I had this sinking feeling Raoul had actually been recognized, as there’d been barely a glance spared in my direction.
“Okay,” I whispered as we walked in. “That was not normal.” That greeter, was he really as old as Raoul? Had they met before? He’d pivoted to lead the way into the bank, guiding us past the normal teller windows and toward a grand set of stairs leading down.
“This is not a normal establishment,” Raoul murmured back, leaning slightly closer. His voice had dropped low enough that only I could hear it. “Our guide, vampire. The teller to the left, witch.”
I froze mid-step. “You’re kidding.” It came out in a wheezy gasp that made Raoul grin, blonde curls falling roguishly into his eyes as he winked at me.
“I am not,” he said, deadpan. His hand found the small of my back and urged me forward, toward the top of the stairs, where our guide—his guide—had halted to wait for us.
I stared, then very carefully did not stare.
Inside the building, everything looked polished, elegant, and quietly expensive.
Now that I knew what to look for, I started noticing things.
Like the way some people didn’t quite breathe the same, and the way others held themselves too still.
There was a faint, prickling sense that not everyone here was entirely human.
“Wait here,” Raoul said, pressing me in place beside a pillar at the top of the stairs. He was already descending the steps, his gaze angled down into the brightly lit hallway below. I nodded absently, my attention caught by everything around me.
This was real, all of it. Not hidden away in dark tunnels, not imaginary, but existing right alongside everything else.
By the time he came back, I was deep into people-watching mode.
I’d learned a thing or two that way, but I still knew so little that I had questions rather than answers.
The teller who was a witch stirred her coffee with a twirl of her finger above the surface of the black liquid.
The man leaning against her counter was shaggy like a bear, with eyes that glowed golden if they caught the light in a certain way.