Chapter 6
M onday evening, Tessa was practically vibrating with anticipation as she rode the train towards Amos’s neighborhood. When she reached her stop, the platform was mostly empty except for one guy leaning against a post, jacket hood pulled over his face, hands stuffed into his pockets. As soon as Tessa stepped off the train, he peeled away from the post, coming towards her.
She instinctively recoiled, preparing herself to run for the steps.
“Tessa.” The voice that emerged was raw and ragged, but she recognized the deep rumble.
“Amos? What are you doing here?”
“It’s dark,” he said hoarsely. “I wanted to walk with you.”
Tessa considered him for a moment, eyes narrowed. “Are you guarding me?”
“Yes,” he answered baldly. “I’ll explain why when we’re back at the house.” Despite the tension radiating off of him, his big shoulders sagged with exhaustion .
“Are you okay?” She tried to peer beneath his hood, but he turned away from her.
“I will be,” he answered tiredly. His voice was so rough, Tessa almost winced to hear it. She fell into step beside him and they walked the few blocks to his home in silence. The streets were dark, empty, and totally quiet. Even so, Amos was rigid with alertness. Even with his face hidden beneath his hood, it was obvious that he was carefully scanning their surroundings.
At the top of his front steps, Amos positioned Tessa so that she stood in front of him while he reached around her to unlock the front door. It was like he was shielding her from something, and it made her pulse accelerate with unpleasant nervousness. Inside, she breathed a sigh of relief as Amos shut the door and locked it. She toed her shoes off and slid them against the wall. When she turned to face Amos, she found him leaning against the door, head hanging.
“Amos?” she asked, more worried than she’d been on the street. “Amos, what’s wrong?”
“I’m alright,” he said gruffly. He tried to push away from the door, but fell back against it with a grunt.
Tessa planted herself in front of him. She wasn’t going to take another deflection from him. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she said, reaching for his hood. He stiffened, but didn’t resist. As she pushed his hood back, a gasp escaped her. “Jesus, Amos!”
His face was covered in partial thickness burns—likely deep thickness in some places. She couldn’t say for sure in the dim light. His skin was red and raw, peeling away from wet sores on his cheeks and nose and chin. Small blisters covered the left side of his face from chin to brow. He stared back at her, his pupils blown wide—hunger, pain? She didn’t know.
“This needs to be treated immediately,” she said, gently tilting his jaw so that the blistered skin was angled towards the light. “What happened?”
“I broke our agreement,” he said, complacently submitting to her examination. “I stayed on the hospice’s roof until sunrise.”
Tessa froze. “What? Why?”
“After you went back to work, I came home. I meant to stay home. But my dam came to visit and told me that a very old vampire was recently killed. Over the course of his life, he created thralls—a large number of them. We have no idea how many. The thought of you out there, unprotected, with countless untethered thralls roaming?” He sighed. “I had to make sure you were safe. I’m sorry.”
“Amos…” she said softly.
He lifted his black-eyed gaze to meet hers. With his raw, weeping burns and his blown-out pupils, he looked the part of the monster. But she wasn’t afraid.
“Don’t be sorry. That was kind of you. And possibly very stupid.” She returned her attention to his burns. “This is from sun exposure?”
He nodded, then winced as the motion tugged at the burns on his neck.
Tessa turned to reach for her bag. “Will human medical interventions work for a vampire? I’ve got my emergency kit—”
He stopped her with a gentle hand around her wrist. “It’ll heal on its own.”
“Why hasn’t it healed already? Isn’t that one of the perks of being immortal? ”
“I’ll heal once I feed. It’s been three days.”
Tessa frowned. “Three days since you’ve had blood? That’s the last time I was here. Why haven’t you been supplementing with bagged blood?”
Amos laughed humorlessly. “How could I?” His hold on her wrist tightened, and he used it to pull her roughly against him.
Tessa gasped, but it wasn’t from fear. Excitement and desire lit up her senses.
“How could I, after having you ?” he asked desperately, bending to bury his face against her neck. He inhaled deeply, tongue flicking out to touch her pulse. “Nothing tastes like you, Tessa.” He groaned against her skin, sending goosebumps chasing over her neck and down her spine. “I need it too much, sweetheart. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Tessa brought her hands up to gently cup the back of his neck. The skin there felt undamaged. She slid one hand into his hair, holding him in place, lips pressed to her throat. “I trust you, Amos.”
He let out a low groan, lips parting to press his fangs to her skin. The pressure was just shy of breaking through. After a moment, he pulled back. “Not in the hallway. I’m too weak to hold you up when you turn to jelly.”
Tessa laughed, simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. “Can you make it to the sitting room?”
“If I have to drag myself,” he said with grim determination.
He pushed away from the door, slid stiffly out of his jacket, and began the slow walk down the hall. Tessa kept pace with him, nervously prepared to break his fall. But he made it without issue. He sprawled his broad body onto the settee, laying on his side, and patted the empty space beside him. Tessa sank down, stretching out beside him so that they were face to face.
Amos lifted one hand to her cheek, trailing rough fingertips gently along the side of her face, her jaw, her throat. He turned his hand, fingers resting lightly on the back of her neck, thumb pressed to her pulse. His touch was so soft, so chaste, and yet it hummed with sexual energy.
“Ready?” he asked, his ragged voice practically a growl.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He leaned in, and his lips replaced the touch of his thumb. Heart pounding, Tessa lifted her chin, exposing her throat for him. His lips parted and he nuzzled at her, dragging the tips of his fangs up and down her sensitive skin.
“Amos,” she breathed, her entire body tensing with arousal.
“ Mmm …” His tongue pressed hot and wet against her pulse and then his fangs were back, sinking into her in a swift, sharp bite.
“Ah!” Tessa arched against him. His venom hadn’t even begun to spread. The bite alone was enough to send a shock of pleasure through her entire body. Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt while her hips pressed flush to his. Slowly but surely, she felt the drugging spread of his venom warming her veins, humming beneath her skin. Heartbeat by heartbeat, it intensified, coalescing into an ecstatic crescendo that went on and on and on.
In the throes of climax, Tessa was vaguely aware of the hot suction of Amos’s mouth on her throat. She knew her arms had wound around his neck, her thigh thrown over his hip. She felt his erection grow against her inner thigh, constrained behind denim. As he fed, Amos’s hold on her strengthened. He held her tightly, one hand fisting into her hair, keeping her head tilted back as he drew long, dizzying pulls from her veins.
Just as gradually as it began, Tessa felt herself coming back down. Amos was no longer drinking from her. He held her tightly in his arms, face buried against her neck, gently stroking his tongue over the puncture wounds he’d made. Each stroke sent a faint little pulse of pleasure through her veins. She lay limply in his arms, breathing deeply, trembling with satisfied aftershocks. When her breathing evened, Amos drew back slightly to look into her face.
“Oh!” Tessa blinked, surprised by the change in his face. The blisters were gone. All but the deepest of the open sores were now covered with shining, pink, new skin. She reached up, stroking her fingers gently over the healthy-looking skin on his brow and along the sides of his face. “Do you feel better?” she asked.
“Better than I’ve felt in eons.” He pushed up from the settee, moving with an ease that he hadn’t possessed a few minutes ago. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
Tessa shifted herself upright, gaze traveling around the tidy sitting room while she waited. Her attention landed on the coffee table, where a fresh new floral arrangement waited. Today it was an all-white ensemble of peonies, roses, gardenias, and snapdragons. She leaned forward, touching a silky petal while something big and overwhelming squeezed in her chest.
Flowers. For her. Every time she visited.
Before she could get too emotional, Amos reappeared, arms laden with snacks and drinks. His face hardly showed any sign he’d been burned. Just a little tightness in the skin, a faint ruddiness still on his chin and nose.
“A drink of blood and you’re practically good as new,” Tessa said, assessing his skin with a nurse’s critical eye.
“I’ll never be new,” Amos said ruefully. He laid the food out on the coffee table. “Here you go. Since my dam was here, she found out about you—”
“Found out what?” Tessa asked nervously. She knew Amos was safe, but she also now knew that not all vampires were.
“Well, not much about you, personally. Just that I’m getting live blood from a willing human.” He said the last bit wryly. “Anyway, last night her bloodmate apparently had my fridge stocked with food for you while I was… um…”
“Getting flash-fried on the roof of my workplace?” Tessa suggested, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, that.” Amos turned his attention to the array. “Anyways, I hope you’ll enjoy what she picked out. She texted me that I was giving you boring, healthy food.”
Tessa smiled. “Trust me, Amos, I’m not here for the food.”
“The money?” he asked in a careful tone.
She hesitated. “Honestly? The money is why I signed up in the first place. But I’ve kind of lost sight of that… I mean, I’m starting to think I should be paying you .”
Amos let out a breath. “Tessa,” he began gently.
Oh god. Oh no. That was the sound of a man who was about to let her down easy. Panicking, she tried to backpedal. “I don’t mean—”
“I’d like to court you,” Amos said.
She froze. “You… what?”
Amos threaded his fingers together, resting his forearms on his knees as he searched her stunned face. “I’d like to court you. If that’d be acceptable to you.”
“Court me?” she repeated faintly, imagining carriage rides and calling cards and lemonade at Almack’s. “What does that even mean?”
“It means I don’t want money to be the reason you see me. I want to see you because I like you, because I think I could very easily feel more than just ‘like’ for you.”
“Amos…” Shit. “I would like that. But I…”
“You don’t feel that way,” he finished grimly, looking down at his hands.
“No!” She reached for him, cupping his jaw, turning his cheek to look back at her. “I do like you. A lot. But I…” It was her turn to look away, shame-faced. “Amos, I need the money pretty badly.”
“Ah.” The rigidness dissolved from his posture. “That’s no problem. We can keep up with the donor service. I just want to give you more than what a purely professional relationship would allow.”
“More than a boatload of cash and endless orgasms?”
Amos snorted, shooting her a grin. After a moment, he sobered. “I want the right to watch over you at night.”
“Oh.”
“And I’d like to do more than just visit you on your lunch breaks. I’d like to see you in your free time, take you places, give you things.”
“Things?”
“Gifts.”
“Amos—”
“And I’d hope to earn the right to touch you.”
Tessa swallowed her words.
Amos’s eyes were still dilated, watching her with hungry intensity. “Not for feeding. Just for the pleasure of touching you. I want it to be me making you feel good. Not my venom. Me . ”
Awareness shivered over her skin, heated her blood. She swallowed against a dry throat, licked her lips. Amos’s blacked-out gaze tracked the movement and Tessa had to repress a shiver. Her head swam as she searched for the right words. “I…”
“You don’t have to answer me right away. Just think on it.”
“No.” Impulsively, she leaned in, catching his mouth with a soft, light kiss. Drawing back, meeting his gaze, she said, “I want that.”
Before she sank back into her spot, Amos’s hand was on the back of her neck, pulling her in for a longer, harder kiss. He sucked gently at her bottom lip, and when her lips parted for him, the tip of his tongue touched hers. Tessa’s head spun as she clung to him, so dizzy it felt like Amos was the only thing keeping her upright.
He drew back suddenly with a soft, low snarl. “God, I’m selfish. You need to eat.”
Tessa started to object, but Amos had already released her, turning to grab up a heap of the packaged snacks. He held them out to her. “Here. You need to raise your blood sugar.”
Still dazed and flushed, Tessa grabbed a packet at random and opened it up. Only vaguely aware that she was eating some kind of nutty, chocolatey, gooey cookie-like dessert, she considered Amos.
“You didn’t taste like blood,” she said before her brain-to-mouth filter could catch the words. Instantly, her cheeks heated.
“I rinse my mouth after. Not because I was planning on kissing you.” Now Amos’s cheeks were pink, and perversely, that made Tessa’s embarrassment fade. “I just don’t want you to see your blood on my teeth while I’m talking to you.”
Tessa considered that. “Yeah, that could be…weird. Thanks.” She chewed methodically on the cookie while she contemplated. She didn’t know what it was about recovering from a feeding that made her thoughts swirl. She’d donated blood to blood banks without this feeling. Was it his venom still affecting her? A hangover from the super-long orgasm?
“Are you alright?” Amos asked.
“I’m fine.” Tessa reached for an expensive-looking bottle of pre-made iced mocha. “Can you tell me about your dam and her bloodmate?”
“I suppose that’s only fair.” Amos settled himself into the settee more comfortably. “My dam’s name is Loretta Brooks—everyone calls her Etta. She was turned when she was nineteen, and a year later, she accidentally turned me. Her bloodmate is Francine—Fran—Piotrowski. She and Etta met in the… uh… the early seventies, if I remember right.”
“Wow. So how old is Fran now?”
“She’s got to be in her seventies or eighties by now,” Amos guessed.
A faint wave of sadness washed over Tessa. “What happens when a bloodmate passes away?”
Amos frowned. “Well, luckily it doesn’t happen too often. But it’s a powerful bond and a lot of vampires—”
“Wait. What?”
Amos raised his eyebrows, confused by her confusion.
“What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t happen often’? Eventually everybody dies.”
Understanding smoothed away his frown. “You know our venom has regenerative properties.”
“Oh,” Tessa said, already sensing where this was going .
“As long as a mortal is paired with a vampire bloodmate, they don’t age. Our venom constantly heals and restores the degeneration that comes with aging.”
Tessa sat with that for a moment. “Does that mean, right now, I’m…”
“Not aging,” Amos finished for her. “You won’t as long as I’m regularly feeding from you.”
“Oh.” That felt like part of a bigger conversation she didn’t know if she was ready to have. “So, Fran will live as long as Etta does?”
“Yes,” Amos said, the single syllable heavily weighted with what was unsaid— and so could you.
They’d only just started talking about “courting” which, as far as Tessa could tell, was the vampire equivalent of dating. Lifelong commitments—no, eternal commitments—were a little more than she could handle right now.
“That has very interesting medical implications,” Tessa said, gracelessly changing the topic. “Vampire venom could be used to treat a whole range of degenerative disorders.”
The intensity faded from Amos’s gaze. He leaned back with a casual shrug. “That’s not really my area of expertise. There are a lot of vampire-funded labs working on medical research. But from what I understand, the healing property of our venom only works straight from the source, so to speak. Stored venom doesn’t have the same healing properties.”
“So there are vampire scientists?”
Amos nodded. “We don’t have the same needs as mortals, but we still have bills to pay. And time to fill. And personal callings. You’d be surprised how many vampires have advanced degrees.”
“Do you?” Tessa suddenly realized that she had no idea what Amos did when she wasn’t around. The idea of a vampire working a regular job seemed absurd. But then, Amos owned a nice house and bought food for her and wore modern clothes. The money for all that had to have come from somewhere.
“I have a master’s in computer science.”
Tessa tried to imagine those broad shoulders hunched in front of a computer screen, those big hands tapping away at a keyboard. It was hard to picture. Amos seemed built for picking up cows and swinging sledgehammers. “Is that what you do for a living? Computer stuff?”
He smiled, amused. “Yes. I do computer stuff. I own a small software development company. My employees are all vampires.”
“What kind of software do you, uh… develop?” Tessa asked, mostly to be polite. She had the technological knowledge of a moderately intelligent cat.
“We build mobile apps for a variety of clients.”
Okay, that she at least vaguely understood. She hesitated to ask the next question, but she couldn’t help herself. “Amos, are you rich?”
He didn’t answer immediately, seeming to give the question genuine consideration. “Well… yes. To be fair, I’ve had advantages that normal people do not. I’ve had over a century to earn and save money, gain skills, and accrue resources. I bought cheap stock in the wake of the Great Depression—including IBM—and have been able to reap those dividends for decades longer than most people ever do. I bought this house in 1943, when housing prices were not nearly so outrageous, paid in full, and I’ve lived in it ever since.”
Tessa frowned. “Don’t you pay taxes on all of that? Won’t the IRS pick up on the fact that someone born in the 1800s is still earning money and owning property?”
“They might, if the house and all the stock was still owned in my name. As governments became more centralized and record-keeping more rigorous, vampires recognized the need for subterfuge when it came to our legal identities and the paper trails involved. The Council here in Chicago—”
“I assume we’re not talking about the city council?”
Amos smiled. “Not the one mortals know about. This is a council by and for vampires. It operates several different equity groups and shell corporations, through which things like homeownership and property taxes and personal savings accounts can be managed without arousing suspicions as to the longevity of the owners.”
“So the Council owns your home?”
“No, I own my home. As far as the mortal government is concerned, yes, a corporation controlled by the Council holds the deed. But we have our own internal system of property laws. We even have our own taxes. In our system, I am the sole owner of my home, my business, my financial accounts and stocks.”
Tessa tried to wrap her mind around the idea of an entire economy, an entire government, operating parallel to and in tandem with the economies and governments of the mortal world. Vampire councilors. Vampire tax attorneys. Vampire accountants. And here Tessa was, sitting next to a vampire software developer.
“You look overwhelmed,” Amos observed cautiously.
“No, I’m fine.” Tessa waved away his concern. “I’m just taking it in.” She glanced down at the iced mocha she’d never opened and set it back on the coffee table .
Amos tracked her movement, his expression closed. “I suppose you need to leave.”
“Hm?” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “No. I don’t have to be at work for another hour and a half. But if you have things to do, I can get out of…” She trailed off as the warmth came back into Amos’s expression.
“No,” he said. “Stay.”
So she did. To her disappointment, Amos didn’t try to kiss her again. There was a new tension between them, not unpleasant, but constantly there. A simmering, buzzing, awareness. Tessa was tempted to just grab Amos and lay one on him. But she resisted. He wanted to court her, and Tessa suspected a 150-year-old vampire’s idea of courtship was a little slower than modern dating norms.
So, instead, she followed Amos as he showed her around his house. The only single-family greystones Tessa had been in before were the kind that had either been converted into businesses or museums. Her social circle didn’t include people with that kind of money.
Except now it did.
In addition to the sitting room, the lower level included the kitchen, a formal dining room, a cozier breakfast room, a living room with comfier furniture than the sitting room, a bathroom with a marble floor, and some sort of wood-paneled den-slash-library situation that made Tessa feel like she ought to be smoking a cigar and complaining about FDR.
“All of the windows have been treated with a transparent UV filter. Sunlight will still burn me through them, but not as badly,” Amos explained as he led her through the rooms. “Though I’m generally not up and about during daylight hours.”
“So guarding me was a special case?” Tessa teased .
Amos’s expression was utterly serious. “Yes.”
Up a set of stairs with a heavy, art-nouveau style wooden banister, the second floor held another sitting room, two bathrooms, and five bedrooms. Three of the rooms had been dedicated to Amos’s business, including one room whose two desks were crowded with large computer monitors, with a bank of computer towers humming against one wall. Two of the bedrooms functioned as guest rooms, though Amos admitted they weren’t often used.
The last room, at the very end of the hall, was Amos’s bedroom. It was pitch dark inside, except for the hallway light seeping in through the open door. The door itself was different from the others, sealing tightly to the doorframe when it was shut.
“It keeps light out,” Amos explained. “The windows are all blacked out and shuttered with light-tight steel blinds, so that even if a window were to break in a storm or from vandalism, light won’t get in. And then, as a very last resort, UV-treated blackout curtains.” He brushed one of the curtains, all heavy black velvet, pulled shut over the windows.
His bed sat in the middle of the room, taking up most of the space. It looked like an ordinary bed—a very nice, expensive canopy bed with heavy wooden posts and more black velvet curtains—but not anything she’d be surprised to see in a mortal’s bedroom. It was made up with clean white linens and a spotless white duvet.
Tessa trailed a hand over the duvet. Probably a higher thread count than she’d ever felt before, and definitely stuffed with real goose down. “Good to know you don’t sleep in a coffin,” she said. When she turned back to face Amos, instead of the amused smile she’d expected, he was watching her with the intent look of a predator. A thrill that was equal parts fear and arousal ran down her spine.
“Amos?” she asked softly, afraid to make a sudden move, but also tempted to. The idea of being chased—being caught —by Amos was alarmingly exciting.
He blinked, smoothing his expression. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, this way. I’ll show you the third floor.”
The third floor was just as beautiful as the rest of the house but completely unfurnished. Divided into four rooms, it had the stale quality of a vacant house. Amos trailed behind Tessa as she peered into each empty room.
“Ran out of ideas for decorating?” she teased.
“This space is…” He paused, scrubbing at the back of his neck. He cast Tessa an inscrutable look. “This space is intended for my bloodmate, should I ever be so lucky. I’d want her to have rooms to herself. For her work, or hobbies, or whatever she wanted.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, the empty space felt incredibly close. The significance of Amos showing her these rooms felt heavy, potent. Tessa couldn’t figure out if she wanted to run, or if she wanted to throw herself at him.
Amos stepped closer to her. Tessa was frozen in place, still torn. He moved again, closing the distance between them. She looked up, meeting his gaze. He was going to kiss her again. She’d been wishing he would since he’d broken off their first kiss. But now, in this space, kissing him felt like saying yes to a question he hadn’t yet asked—the answer to which she still wasn’t sure of.
“Amos…” she said softly, one hand laid against his chest.
He went completely still .
“I don’t… I’m not sure what I want. We just met last week, and… this is a lot.”
Amos let out a slow breath, lowering his head until his forehead rested against hers. “I know.” He drew back, giving her space. “I’m going to court you properly, like you deserve. I’ve got literally all the time in the world.” He offered her a wry smile.
Disappointment mingled with relief. She was glad that Amos wasn’t hurt by her reluctance, but a small part of her wanted him to push. It was contradictory and probably unhealthy, but she was so tired of being the one to make decisions all the time. All through Dad’s cancer treatments, Ma had looked to Tessa to handle the medical decisions. Now Dad was gone, and the aftermath was Tessa’s to clean up. Before Dad had been diagnosed, she’d spent several years juggling work and school while she earned her BSN part-time, living alone, managing alone, splitting all her waking hours between those two obligations. Her last boyfriend had been a useless asshole who’d obviously been using her as a free roof over his head. The only time people wanted her was when they could gain something from her.
Amos wanted her because… just because. But Tessa was the one who had to make the decision that would dictate their future. Why? Why couldn’t he just take the decision out of her hands?
You would hate him if he did that , her rational mind kicked in.
“I should probably go,” Tessa said. “I have to be at work soon.”
Amos stepped back, allowing Tessa to precede him through the house. At the front door, he held her bag while she stepped into her shoes. When she reached for it, he pulled it away.
“I’m courting you, Tessa. That means I’ll be watching over you.”
Tessa stared at him. She didn’t want to argue, but she felt like she should.
“I’ll be hunting thralls tonight, but I’ll be circling back to the hospice regularly.”
“Amos,” she began.
“And I’m walking you to work. It’s too dangerous right now, with all these thralls, for you to be walking alone in the dark.”
She shouldn’t like his high-handed presumptuousness. The problem was, it felt a lot like being taken care of. “Amos…”
“If you don’t want me to walk with you, I won’t. But I’ll just follow you instead.”
Tessa let herself give in to the weakness. To let Amos take the choice away, whether he realized it or not. It was such a relief to give in. “Alright.”
For a second, Amos looked prepared to keep arguing. When he realized that Tessa had given in, he blinked, thrown off his stride. “Uh. Good. Well then.” He grabbed his own jacket off the hook. “Ready to go?”
“Wait. I have one condition.”
Amos’s jaw clenched, but he nodded at her to continue.
“You can’t stay out past sunrise again.”
“Tessa—”
“I promise I won’t walk in the dark by myself, but the days are getting longer now. The sun is up when I leave work. There’s no reason for you to get hurt.”
His jaw unclenched. “Alright.”