Lucy
Great. It’s started snowing. I doubt this is going to help me evade the vamps who are still on my tail, despite my hope I’d given them the slip back at the market.
There are at least two who are pretty determined.
I continue to walk along Vaci until I reach the square.
While it’s not deserted, the increased snowfall has thinned out shoppers for the market, and I’m feeling more exposed than ever as I take a swift turn up another street.
Perhaps I should have descended to the metro system, but there, the dark is the vampire’s natural environment and unlikely to be a sensible choice.
I can see the overhead lines of the trams in the distance, and I increase my pace. If I can get to them, there’s little the vamps can do, not in close proximity to other humans.
Vamps are still trying to prove to everyone they’re benign and only take blood from animals as a byproduct…like humans drink milk.
Because of course they’d break the habit of a lifetime—several lifetimes—in order to be accepted. Any human which believes it deserves to have their neck nibbled.
Although there are plenty who actually want to be bitten. I wonder how many of the thralls in Dominik’s nest started out as vampire groupies.
And I’ve seen the online forums, humans willingly offering themselves to vampires for all manner of things, some of which make even my open mind boggle.
But then there’s been that niggling doubt at the back of my mind for years, attempting to crystallize when my friend Grace met her monster mate…
What if the Van Helsings were wrong?
My sixth sense, honed over many years of training, is sending every hair on the back of my neck on end as the street I’m on ends and there is a large open interchange of pedestrians, bus stops, and tram tracks, along with all the bustling traffic of a busy city, seemingly unconcerned by the rapidly falling snow which seems set to become a blizzard.
I do my level best not to hop from foot to foot in agitation and in an attempt to keep warm as I wait for the next tram. Every hair on my body seems to be on end at the threats which surround me.
So, when my phone rings, my heart nearly stops. I pull out the offending device, ready to decline the call when I see who it is. If I don’t answer, he won’t stop calling.
“Lucy. You haven’t killed him,” my uncle rasps down the crackling line.
“There was a complication,” I respond, feeling like a little girl all over again.
The small child being berated by the dangerous adult when she didn’t complete the crossbow breakdown in the time he had set her because her fingers were slippery with my blood from being made to do it over and over.
“There is never a complication. You failed, girl. Get back to London and we can debrief.”
“That’s the complication. I can’t get out of Budapest,” I say rapidly.
I hear him sigh with extreme disappointment.
“Of course you can. You’re not as stupid as you look. Get back to London. I’ll speak to you when I see you.”
He terminates the call, and I feel colder than ever. I am useful to my family for one reason only. The man who was supposed to raise me, supposed to care for me after my parents died, became my torturer instead. I was being prepared for great things, or so he said.
I couldn’t wait to leave. And my eighteenth birthday, when I left for university, was the best day of my pathetic life.
Not that it lasted for long. The family business soon came back to haunt me. And nothing changed after the monsters revealed themselves to the world.
As long as the Yeavering remains, we will be ready to dispose of the threat.
A tram rattles to a stop, and I race over to it. Yet again, I have a yellow and cream lifesaver as I jump on board and sit down, attempting to get my breath. I have to hope it’s taking me in the direction of my hotel because once I have my belongings, I’m leaving Budapest.
Dominik Király can shove his offer up his muscular, chiseled arse.
“Thinking about me?” The words are dropped into my ear like honey.
The creeping sensation which hasn’t left me since I got on the tram intensifies.
“Don’t turn around,” Dominik says. “And get off at the next stop.”
“Why in the name of everything unholy should I trust you?” I growl through gritted teeth.
“Because.” His baritone voice has the smoothest of Hungarian accents. “These are not my vamps.”
The creeping sensation evaporates like mist and is replaced by ice chilling me to my very core.
“You didn’t send them?”
“Why would I? This is my city. I know everything,” he replies. “Get off here,” Dominik adds as the tram slows.
My legs make the decision for me, as I find myself out the door and onto the frozen, snow-covered street. Wind whips the ice around us as Dominik puts his arm around my waist and with very little effort pulls me down a side street where the noise of the city is cut out by the softly falling flakes.
“Wait! Where are we going?”
“Unless you want to be the first Van Helsing to die in a vampire attack in a century, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
We move swiftly, partly because Dominik has hold of me and is easily lifting me off the ground over the snow drifts, down the narrow street filled with cars and the occasional pile of debris from a ruined building, until we reach an impressive but ancient ornate double door.
In seconds, we’re inside, and I shake the snow from my head and coat.
The light is dim in the vestibule we’ve found ourselves in and there is an overpowering smell of decay.
“I’m not sure this has improved our situation,” I grumble. “Or rather my situation, given I’m stuck in the dark with the king of the vampires.”
“I’m pleased you recognize my authority,” Dominik says, and I can see him straighten up to his full height.
“You’re such a pompous twat,” I retort without thinking.
“A pompous twat who just saved your life,” he says, pompously.
“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” I grumble.
In the gloom, there is a flash of light and a reflection of eyes, red eyes. Dominik’s eyes.
“Is that a concession?” he asks.
“Don’t get used to it.”
He is so close to me now, even with the dim light, I can see his features, his cool skin, his lips, those cheekbones any model would die for. The warmth I felt earlier is intensified in the dark and with all the adrenaline flowing through me. Dominik cups my chin.
“Did you consider my offer?”
“I did.”
“And your answer?”
“When I thought your vampires were after me, this was my answer.” My one remaining stake is in my hand, and I press it against his rib cage, pointing upwards to where his heart would be, if he had one.
“I’m impressed.”
“You are?”
“If I were you, I’d have left Budapest by any means possible, not come back to stake me.”
I press a little harder and feel his abdomen hard against mine. The stake is in the perfect position between his ribs.
“All I need to do is push,” I hear myself whisper.
“All I need to do is kiss,” he responds.
My chin tilted to him, gripped between his clawed fingers, his lips brush over mine.
Whatever I was expecting, whatever I thought a kiss from a vampire would be, this is not it. Dominik’s lips are soft, warm, yielding…inviting. I shouldn’t want to do this. I shouldn’t desire it. It shouldn’t heat me from the inside out.
Of all the things I’ve done in my life, this has to be the most idiotic. And the most beautiful.