Chapter 15
“You need to stop dropping bombs like that when I don’t have time to seek shelter.” My eyes widen and I look from him to the USB on the dresser.
“I suppose that was poor timing,” he agrees. “We can look at it together when we get back.”
“You haven’t seen them yet?”
“No. I was told by my contact that it’s mostly medical records.”
My eyes fall shut as I shake my head. “I never went when everyone else got physicals.”
“Do you know why?”
“All the hunters in the same age group went at the same time and not everyone was happy I was a witch.” I shrug as I shake my head again. “It was like Vivian and Marco were worried I’d have a biological anomaly or something.”
“They didn’t treat you well,” he says and his gentle tone surprises me.
“I’m sorry for that, Florence.” He brushes my hair back, brows furrowing as he looks into my eyes, causing my breath to hitch in my chest. For some reason, I believe him.
He really is sorry I was treated like shit by the Russos.
“Thank you,” I say. “No one has ever said that before.”
“That’s a shame,” he goes on. “Humans have feared what they don’t understand for as long as they’ve been on this earth.”
“You’ve seen a lot.”
“I have, over the last seven centuries, give or take fifty years.”
“Man, you’re old.”
He laughs, and it’s genuine, bringing a light to his dark blue eyes. “At least I don’t feel my age.”
“How old were you when you were turned?” I ask, unable to pin an exact age down. A twenty-five-year-old from the 1300s probably looks older than a twenty-five-year-old today.
“I think I was close to twenty-eight.”
“You think?”
“The end of my human life was complicated,” he starts. “And most of it has been removed from my memory.”
“Oh,” I reply, not expecting that. “I almost forget all vampires were human before they turned.”
“Nearly all humans seem to forget that. Most, willingly.”
My head slowly bobs up and down, eyes locked on his. “It’s hard to see someone as a monster when we can relate. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume a big majority of vampires were victims in some way.”
“You aren’t wrong, though, once turned, I’ve only met a small handful of vampires who wished they weren’t.” He holds my gaze steady but a tiny bit of emotion crosses his face.
“Were you glad you were turned?”
“The plague was in full force at the time. I got sick. So yes, I am glad I was turned.”
“It’s so weird to think you were alive in the 1300s.” I slowly shake my head back and forth. “You’ve seen so much.”
“A lot of good. A lot of bad.”
“How do you not get bored?”
“Who says I don’t?” He flashes a coy smile that sends a chill through me. “I find ways to stay entertained.” His head falls slightly to the side as he looks deep into my eyes for another moment. Then he takes my hand and pulls me to him. “Well, Mrs. Malus, we do need to get going.”
I swallow and nod, all too aware that he’s still holding my hand as we walk down the hall. It’s all so confusing. He’s treating me well but hasn’t pushed for any sort of intimacy. I’m supposed to pump out babies so they can continue the family line yet Devon seems like an actual decent human being.
And I’m being spoiled like crazy. But a golden cage is still a cage.
“Where are we going?” I ask as Xavier opens the passenger door of a white Aston Martin for me.
“Dinner,” he says and then speeds around, moving to the other side of the car in just a second.
“You don’t eat.” The seat belt clicks into place.
“You do.” The engine revs to life. “I can’t speak from personal experience, but the Maple Leaf is supposed to be very good.”
“Ohh,” I say, unable to help myself. The Maple Leaf is a swanky restaurant in downtown Charlotte. I’ve heard of it but have never been there. It’s ridiculously expensive with a dress code and was something that was just not realistic for a hunter. “Are you, uh, gonna eat?”
He looks at me as he backs the car out of the garage. “I already did.”
I just nod, somehow knowing that drinking blood out of fancy glass cups isn’t Xavier’s style.
“Your heart is beating fast,” Xavier says after we’ve been driving for several minutes.
“I’m your prisoner.”
“You’re my wife.”
“How is that any different? I can’t leave.”
“Do you want to leave?”
I open my mouth to say yes, but nothing comes out. “Of course,” I force myself to say.
“Where would you like to go?”
“Away from you.” This time, there is no hesitating.
“What would you do?” he goes on, tone calm.
“Start a new life. Probably go back to Italy. See if I can find my family.” I can feel the flutter of anxiety in my chest as I speak and I know he heard my heart skipping a beat.
“And then what?”
I turn my head, narrowing my eyes. “You find this entertaining?”
“A bit,” he admits. “As you said, I’ve seen a lot. And that includes a lot of failed plans. Humans think short-term, probably because your lives are so short.”
“Short compared to your life, but trust me, the days feel fucking long.” I push my shoulders back and let out a breath as I watch the scenery go by. We’re driving really fucking fast. Safety isn’t as much of a concern when you heal in just seconds, I suppose. “And I do have a plan.”
“Yeah?”
"Voglio lavorare in un bar e guadagnare abbastanza per vivere.”
He takes his eyes off the road, looking at me for a concerningly long time yet doesn’t so much as swerve out of the lane. “I didn’t know you spoke Italian.”
"Non lo parlo molto bene."
He smiles. "Possiamo fare pratica, se vuoi."
And now I’m smiling. “Yeah, maybe we can practice a bit. Ya know, so I can be ready when I make my escape. I’m going to steal money from you too, by the way.”
“You don’t have to steal. We are married now, and you have access to some of the bank accounts.”
“When do I get access to all of them?” I reply without missing a beat.
He laughs, and damn, he looks good when he does.
Probably because it makes him seem human, making me forget about the countless people he’s killed over his nearly seven hundred years.
But at the same time, there are things I’ve done that I’m not proud of.
Things that went against my morals and values but I did it anyway because the Order said so.
It was what I had to do to survive.
Or at least that’s what I told myself at the time, but really, I always had a choice. And it was my choice to allow myself to believe that I needed the Order, that I owed it to Vivian and Marco for saving me. But if it turns out they didn’t and this whole time I was living a lie…
My breath hitches and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the feelings before they take over.
“Are you all right?” Xavier’s hand lands on my thigh.
“It’s really fucking unfair you can hear changes in my heartbeat,” I say as I open my eyes. For some reason, I put my hand on top of his, finding comfort in his skin against mine.
“I can sense other changes as well.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“I can tell when you’re aroused.”
“Gross. And I already knew that. Vampires in general are like horny teenage boys.”
He laughs again and curls his long fingers around mine. “I won’t argue against that, though there are some of us who are better at controlling ourselves than others. It tends to come with age.”
“So definitely like teenagers.”
“I can hear your heartbeat,” he starts. “But there is more to it. Your heart can beat faster because you are scared, excited, turned on, or because of stress. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but there is a very obvious difference.”
“It’s an invasion of privacy.”
“I’m sure some would say so is your ability to sense what others are feeling.”
“Oh, it totally is,” I agree right away. “I can’t help it. Though now that I’m saying it out loud, I realize you can’t like turn off vampire hearing.”
“No, we cannot.” He turns his hand and looks at me again. His fingers tighten around my hand as he does so. “Hearing humans chew food is one thing I wish I didn’t have to hear.”
“It’s so weird you not only don’t eat food, but have an aversion to it.”
“Food has gotten a lot more interesting since medieval times,” he chides. “Though all the additives in your American food are starting to make the blood taste worse as it used to.”
I look at him, blinking. “I suppose it would. I never thought about it like that but it makes sense. What you eat definitely impacts your health.”
“Why do you think we have a private chef?” he asks seriously and then grins. “It’s because vampires don’t cook.”
“You could, though, if you wanted to.”
“True. I microwaved popcorn once.”
“Wow. Master chef over here,” I say and we both laugh. “Why did you make popcorn?”
“Mabel wanted to put it on string for the birds.”
“Oh.” Instead of asking more about her, I just nod and look down and Xavier’s hand in my lap. His long fingers cover up the huge engagement ring, pressing it against my skin even more.
“What are we doing after dinner?”
“We are meeting a photographer at Romare Bearden Park.”
“Right,” I say, remembering Nina telling me about it. “We can’t do that before dinner? I plan to eat my weight in whatever they’re serving and I don’t want to have a food baby in the pictures.”
“A what?” He tips his head, looking genuinely confused.
“Food baby.” My lips turn up into a smile. “You don’t eat, so you wouldn’t know. It’s when you eat a lot and your stomach is so full you can kinda look pregnant. It’s actually awful we mere mortals worry about what we look like so much.”
“You’re very thin.”
“I’m athletic,” I correct. “And I have killer abs, I know. But it’s basic physiology, especially for women.”
“Interesting.” He slows down to turn. “Do you want to have photos first?” he asks slowly, as if he’s still trying to figure out how a human can eat so much that their stomach is distended.
“No, I’m starving.”