Feed
The feast sprawls across the table like a vision from a dream.
Roasted meats glistening with juices, fresh fruits piled high in crystal bowls, pastries dusted with sugar that sparkles like diamonds in the candlelight.
The shadows move among the dishes, pouring wine, arranging plates, tending to our every need.
I have never eaten like this. Never tasted food so rich. The flavors explode on my tongue—honey and spice and a flavor I can’t name…
Blake watches me eat with an enigmatic expression. There is satisfaction there, yes. But also a quiet warmth. A look that borders on wonder.
“You are staring,” I say, reaching for another pastry.
“Can you blame me?” He leans back in his chair, a smile playing at his lips. “I have waited two hundred years to share a meal with someone. I intend to savor every moment.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t suppress my own smile. “You are impossible.”
“So you keep telling me.”
“I thought vampires don’t eat food like this, you know…”
He laughs, the sound low and unhurried. “Are you kidding me? Pass up all this?” He gestures at the spread with a languid hand.
“Our hunger may demand a different kind of diet, but we eat human food for pleasure. Because it tastes good. The same reason we smoke cigarettes and drink wine. Vampires never pass up life’s delights, Lucy. Our instincts are driven by pleasure.”
The meal winds down. The shadows clear the plates, and Blake rises, offering me his hand.
“Dance with me.”
I hesitate. “I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I.” He grins, the corners of his mouth tilting with quiet mischief. “We’ll learn together.”
“Liar.” I shake my head, but my hand is already sliding into his. His fingers close around mine and he draws me toward the center of the ballroom.
The chandeliers seem to dim, the candles flickering low. The shadows retreat to the edges of the room, giving us space.
He pulls me close, one hand on my waist, the other clasping mine. We sway together, clumsy at first, then finding a rhythm.
“I made all this,” he says, his voice soft against my ear, “because this morning, that sounded important to you. So I want to officially ask you, Lucille. Do you want to date me?”
I nearly stumble. “Date you?”
“Is that not what you call it? In your time?”
“Y—yes. I wanna date you.” I pause, my cheeks flushing. “I have never had a boyfriend.”
“Neither have I.” He teases, voice light with amusement. “If that counts. In my time, these concept did not even exist, I suppose.”
A soft laugh escapes me. “You talk so informal for a century-old man—”
“Centuries, I’m afraid…” He interrupts, amusement flashing in his gaze. “I’m three thousand years old.”
I go still. “Three thousand?”
“We adapt.” He spins me, then pulls me back against his chest. “Like an animal in the wild, we camouflage into the ambient. A skill developed over a very long time.”
I stare at him, my mind reeling. “Let me see if I understand. You are a three-thousand-year-old vampire. Locked inside a portrait for two hundred years.” I swallow hard. “What was your life before? Before you became a vampire?”
His expression shifts. Grows distant. “I was never human, Lucille.”
“What?”
“I am a deity.” His voice drops to barely a whisper. “A force of nature. Of the darkness.” He meets my eyes, and I see ancient power in them. Vast. Terrible. “A demon, Lucille.”
A monster.
My heart stops. My blood turns to ice.
A demon.
“That is why they call us Original, Elemental.” he continues, his voice flat. “We are not turned. We are gifted. And very rare.”
My mind is a whirlwind of terror and confusion and a fascination I refuse to name.
He sees it. Of course he sees it. He sees everything.
“You have so many questions about vampires,” he says, his voice gentle. “I have something for you. Come with me.”
He leads me from the ballroom, down a narrow spiral staircase, deeper into the tower. The air grows colder, damper, thick with the scent of old paper and dust.
He pushes open a heavy door, and I gasp.
Shelves stretch from floor to ceiling, crammed with books of every size and color. Rolling ladders lean against the stacks. Comfortable chairs cluster around a massive fireplace. The ceiling arches overhead, painted with constellations I don’t recognize.
It is magnificent. It is perfect.
“I brought you here,” Blake says, watching my face, “because I know you love books. The shadows have been watching you long before you stepped into this house.”
I tear my gaze from the shelves to stare at him. “You mean stalking me?”
“Taking care of you.” His smile is innocent, but his eyes are not. “Would you prefer I say I have been observing you with great interest?”
“I would prefer you stop spying on me.”
“Impossible.” He crosses to a shelf, running his fingers along the spines. “The shadows are possessive. They have claimed you. As have I.”
My cheeks heat. “So the shadows are possessive, not you?”
He turns, and the look in his eyes steals my breath. “I am the one who sent them, Lucille. I am the one who wants you. The shadows are merely an extension of my deepest will.”
He gestures to the room around us. “This library is yours. For as long as you are here. Read anything you like. Stay as long as you want.”
I spin around the library, my heart aching with a longing I can’t name. “So we can’t be together? Outside of this tower?”
He is silent for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough. “We have this week. While you are in heat. While you are isolated.” He steps closer, his hand finding my chin, tilting my face up. “After that, you must leave. It is the only way to keep you safe.”
“Only five days.” The words escape me, and I hear the tears in my voice. “Five days.”
His thumb strokes my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen.
“Lucille, the stars took three millennia to align us, I would happily spend eternity watching them burn out, just to hold your hand for a single heartbeat. If five days is all we have, it would already be worth my entire existence.”
I stare at him, my heart breaking and mending all at once. “You can’t mean that.”
“I have never meant anything more.” His eyes search mine. “I have seen empires rise and fall. I have watched civilizations crumble to dust. I have felt nothing. Nothing but hunger and cold and emptiness.”
His hand cups my face, and his forehead presses against mine. “And then you came. You, with your fire and your stubbornness and your impossible, beautiful heart. And for the first time in three thousand years, I felt alive.”
I reach up, my fingers finding his hair. It is soft, like silk. “Blake…”
“I love you, Lucille.” The words tear out of him, raw and desperate.
“I have loved you from the moment I saw you in that portrait. I did not know it then. But I know it now. I have loved you for three thousand years, and I will love you for three thousand more. Whether you stay. Whether you go. Whether you ever speak my name again.”
Breath seizes in my chest. Thought shatters like glass. There is only the raw pulse of feeling flooding every nerve.
“I love you,” he repeats, and his voice breaks. “I love you, and I can’t bear the thought of letting you go. But I will. I will let you go, because your safety is more important than my happiness. Because you deserve more than a monster in a tomb.”
I pull him closer. “You are not a monster.”
“I am exactly what you feared.” He laughs, but there is no humor in it. “A demon. A creature of darkness.”
“Not to me.”
His eyes widen. “Lucille—”
He kisses me, desperate and hungry. Devastating. His hands tangle in my hair, pulling me closer, and I feel the cold of him and the heat of him and everything in between.
The shadows rise around us, wrapping us in darkness.