Chapter 3
I sat back down in the chair across from Auris. His dark eyes took in my every move without making it feel as if he was staring.
I’d never had a man give me a handjob in the bathroom of a fancy restaurant before, and I wasn’t sure what the accepted protocol was.
Then again, he was a vampire with a fancy Windsor knot, and perhaps he did that kind of thing a lot, so I decided I would let him take the lead.
Which…he was a vampire. Strong, fast. Certainly vicious.
It wasn’t like I had a choice, like I could really make him do anything if he had other ideas.
And yet, I’d had every choice in the bathroom. He’d done what I’d demanded, hadn’t he? I decided not to think about it too hard or too long for now. I took another sip of wine.
“It’s your turn again.” Auris was absolutely calm, and his lips were a dark shade of red.
“My turn?”
A minute nod. “The game. You ask a question, then I ask a question.”
“I don’t want to play games anymore.”
He smiled, then nodded again, the movement larger this time, more final.
“Very well.” He pulled my car keys and phone from his inside pocket and placed them side by side on the table between him and me.
“I know a place near here that I would like to show you. It’s abandoned—properly so.
No one has been there in decades, and I doubt anyone besides myself is even aware it exists. However, that has to be your choice.”
Something passed over his face that I couldn’t quite decipher.
Wistfulness maybe. The expression was gone before it had time to settle, and he went on.
“My home here in Cromere is no good to me now that the church knows I live there, but I do want to collect a few items before I leave. That will take me an hour or so. You can stay here, have some food, enjoy the wine, and when I’m back, I’ll take you to that abandoned place.
“Or you can leave, forget tonight happened. I won’t seek you out if that is your choice, and you will never see me again.
” He rose from his chair, dark and elegant, his hair shimmering in the low light.
He walked around the table and bent to kiss my cheek.
“Ethan, if you’ll take nothing else, you’ll still forever have my gratitude.
You saved me from death tonight, and from much pain ahead of that. I thank you for it.”
With that, he left, walked almost soundlessly back to the door while my heart beat loudly in my chest.
I looked at the wine he hadn’t touched, at my phone and keys, and knew that what I should do was grab my things and go, run, go back home and lock myself in just like I and everyone else had done during lockdown.
I didn’t move.
After a few minutes, the server who had brought the wine came back to the table. “Would you like something to eat, sir?”
I was hungry. And I should have food with the wine. I also should be going.
“Can I just have—” I remembered the blood in the church. “—something vegetarian? And salad?”
The server nodded, smiled, and left me again. I checked my phone. It was just past eleven, not even midnight yet, although it felt as if more time had passed. It felt as if one part of my life had ended and another begun.
Should I call the police? There were bodies in an abandoned church, and my bloody shoe prints right next to a disturbing display by the altar.
What would I tell the police had happened, exactly?
Every version I considered ended with them either laughing, having me looked at by a psychologist, or accusing me of killing three armed priests. I drank more wine.
Three armed priests, seriously. Everyone had gotten used to the headlines about priests touching children by now, but paramilitary priests with guns were a new one. I giggled. I wouldn’t believe that headline if I read it on the news, or at least, I wouldn’t have until a few hours ago.
The server was back with what looked and smelled like homemade rosemary and thyme bread, still warm from the oven, and a big salad.
I ate, and the food was good. It felt good, as if my body had been starved and could relax and calm now that I was finally giving it the fuel it needed to function.
The bread was divine. I checked my phone. Quarter after.
There was still salad left when the server came back with the main dish—a slice of quiche with golden roasted potatoes, carrots, and green beans dripping with a vinegar and honey glaze. My mouth was watering. He also brought more bread.
I concentrated on eating, and about halfway through, my hunger finally eased enough for me to slow down. It had been just a little over half an hour since Auris had left. I could get up now, leave. Forget, just like he’d said, and never see him again.
I could call my father in the morning, let him know I was done with work early, and that I would come and stay with him and his boyfriend for a few days.
I could call the phone number the woman from the café had given me, and I could join her for the night.
Come morning, things would be back to normal.
Time ticked by. I finished all the food, and the server came to take the empty plates away. I checked my phone again. I had another fifteen minutes to leave.
The server came back with a dessert I hadn’t ordered.
It made me wonder how much influence Auris had over his mind.
A small slice of chocolatey cake was half-covered in berries and caramel sauce.
By the time that was gone, I had less than ten minutes left and no food to make me stay, so if I didn’t leave now, I’d have no excuse.
Time seemed to stretch, almost like childhood summer days.
I looked at Auris’s wineglass on the other side of the table again.
There were no fingerprints on the glass that I could see.
If it weren’t for the glass, he could have been a figment of my imagination, but the glass was real.
Our encounter in the bathroom had been real as well.
Very real. I could still feel the echoes of his mouth on me, of his hand touching me so exquisitely.
The memory made my body tremble. Remembering it, remembering those eyes that wanted me and saw me as he pleasured me made me blush, made my skin and the back of my head tingle where his hands had held me in place.
I only noticed he’d come back when the dark shape of him brushed into the corners of my vision. He sat down across from me again and threw a smile at me, but not a boisterous one. If anything, he looked relieved.
“You are still here. I am glad.”
“Well…” The word dwindled away like warm breath in a snowstorm. I straightened in my seat. “You travel light.”
He had no bag that I could see. His clothes were slightly different though. It was still a black suit, a black shirt, and a black tie, but now he was also wearing a vest, and the cut of the garments was different, even if I couldn’t have said exactly how with it all being black on black.
“It’s a skill time teaches you.” Auris shrugged. “You ate; that’s good.”
“It’s unsettling that you can tell I had food.”
“Really? Why?”
It was my turn to shrug. I sipped more of the wine before I answered. “I don’t know. It’s almost voyeuristic. Who pays this much attention to another person?”
“Someone who cares. Unless it’s a matter of politeness, and you find the appearance of ignorance to be more polite.” Perhaps I imagined it, but I thought there was a trace of humor in his voice.
“You are a very strange person. You have the potential to be very annoying, I think.”
He laughed, the sound like silver bells ringing. “I promise to be as un-annoying as inhumanly possible, Ethan.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Huh. Vampire humor?”
“Why not? You found me bleeding in an abandoned church, having almost been killed for being what I am. What better way to deal with that than humor?”
“I don’t know. Outrage?”
“Rage can be blinding. It burns hot. I’ve found colder fires steer the heart more cleanly.”
“Ominous.”
He inclined his head. “Maybe. Say, when you decided to help me, did it ever occur to you that you might be getting yourself into trouble?”
I looked at the white tablecloth, creased in a perfectly straight line. “I didn’t think about that. You were bleeding; I had to help. Obviously.”
“Hmm. Rushing in and disregarding your surroundings. Is that something you do a lot?”
“I didn’t rush in or disregard anything. What I did was basically first aid, and I thought you were grateful for it.”
He nodded. “Very. But my gratitude makes me want to see you safe. The world is a dangerous place, Ethan. Kindness like you’ve shown me isn’t universally cherished.”
I snorted. “If nothing else, the pandemic taught us that.”
He cocked his head. “That’s not what I meant, but I take your point.”
“You said you wanted to show me something.”
He nodded. The way his hair caught the light was almost hypnotic. “Yes. Finish your wine. It’s a drive and a walk away.”
As we headed back to the car, I noticed that the town had gotten quieter.
My mind didn’t seem to be able to focus on any one thing, my heart was racing, and I felt flushed.
It could have been the two glasses of wine I’d had, or it could have been Auris, walking next to me, his hand brushing mine every now and then the way people did on first dates that went really well.
Those accidental touches, although you’d never really touch touch, at least not out in public with a guy.
At one point, Auris turned his head and stared at me in the darkness, a strange longing on his beautiful face. His hand brushed past mine again, and when I didn’t pull away, he interlaced our fingers and held mine loosely.
I tensed.
“What is it? Are you scared of my touch?”
“No, just… Seriously, I don’t know if two guys holding hands is a thing here.” I looked up at him, saw his confusion for a heartbeat, then his eyebrows went up.
“Ah. Not when you are holding my hand during the night.”
I relaxed. “Okay.” Then I thought about that and looked up at him again. “Do you…do you sleep in a coffin? During the day? Or what do you do?”
Auris looked off to the side, but it didn’t do much to hide his chuckle.
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” I said.
“Forgive me, but it is adorable where people’s minds go these days.
I’m weaker during the day, Ethan, but no, I do not spend the sunshine hours in a coffin.
” He reached out to run his thumb across my cheek.
“Don’t let me make you feel too self-conscious.
Look at it this way: You haven’t asked me once whether I can die by staking, nor have you made any stake jokes. Or any garlic jokes.”
“Hah, funny. And you haven’t called me your bride or Jonathan Harker yet. Do you think that makes us even?”
This time, Auris burst out laughing, his bell-like voice ringing against the cobblestones under our feet and echoing back and forth from the picturesque seaside town’s walls.
Something must’ve gotten into me, because by the time the car came into view, I was smiling along with him, enjoying holding hands with him, and feeling, oddly, very safe walking through the dark town by his side.
He took the driver’s seat again, and we drove out of Cromere in silence.
We left the town limits, and the late night was quickly making me sleepy.
I watched the distant lights of houses and other towns through the side window, relaxed, and focused on my breathing.
After a while of Auris driving and me fighting the urge to close my eyes, we took a left turn, and the smooth road became rougher terrain, grit and stones crunching under the tires.
There were no lights to follow anymore. I could see tree trunks and leaves that looked gray in the headlights, but nothing more. This was the middle of nowhere. Abandoned indeed.
I was still tired, so to keep sleep from overtaking me, I asked, “What did you get from your place that was so important?”
He glanced at me, then he took one hand off the wheel, took something from the inside pocket of his jacket, and handed it to me.
It was a small box, like a jewelry box. I opened it and saw a round pendant, but I couldn’t make out much more in the thin light of the car’s dashboard electronics.
“It’s old. There are engravings on it, but they have mostly faded with the years. It’s really more a slice of nostalgia than something I absolutely need.”
“You said there were a few things you wanted to get.” I handed the box back to him.
“Certainly. Keys, ID, my backup phone, a few other odds and ends that aren’t easily replaced. But that little piece of old metal is what I actually went back for. Do you find that odd?”
I shifted in my seat. “After tonight, I’m not sure I know what’s odd and what isn’t anymore.”
He chuckled, and it was such a pretty sound, just like his laughter had been, just like his voice. I liked that sound. “I’m sure your perception will readjust with time. We’re here.”
I looked around but couldn’t see anything. If the narrow road that had taken us into this forest had ended, I couldn’t tell.
When he saw me stare into the darkness, he said, “Don’t worry, I know the way. Bring your flashlight. It’s a bit of a hike.”
I reached for the flashlight, then turned around and pulled my camera bag toward me. If he was really going to show me something abandoned, I might as well take the opportunity to capture it.
Auris opened the car door for me and we walked into the nighttime forest. He walked ahead of me, but he quickly faded into the darkness as if he were part of it.
If I hadn’t kept my flashlight on him, I might’ve thought he wasn’t real, just something I’d imagined.
But whenever the light touched him, he remained a solid presence.