It’s desolate, like he only uses this place to murder hikers, bury their bodies in the backyard, and then drive home to his happy, unsuspecting family.
Dread trickles down my spine as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, keeping my eyes fixed on him. He doesn’t budge, even when I pass by, wrapping my cardigan tight around me and skittering to the other side of the room. My shoes are in the centre from where he must have pulled them off me, resting in a pool of water formed from melted snow.
Once at the bathroom, I peek behind me, finding him in the exact same spot, staring at the place I last was. With a shiver, I quickly shut the door, relieved that it locks.
The bathroom proves to be as strange as the rest of the place. There’s a clawfoot tub with a shower curtain and a shelf storing half-used bottles of soap—brand names too lavish for mountain living. Everything’s clean, which is satisfying, but the lack of…anything…gives me pause.
Toilet paper, most notably.
Um.
CHAPTER 4
Lucian
The bathroom doorclicks shut behind Sawyer, and for the first time since bringing her here, since stupidly placing her in my bed, I let myself take a complete inhale and exhale—something no longer required, being immortal. I avoided her scent as much as possible, until certain what I’ll be doing with her.
Keep her as an ongoing snack? Keep her to mate her and turn her into a vampire?
Her fruity aroma makes me starve for the kind of fruit I haven’t eaten in over two hundred years. Strawberries and raspberries. Before her, I couldn’t recall the taste of them, yet she returns it all by her mere existence. Humanity—the sweet but strange flavour tainting my tongue.
She’s moving around inside the bathroom, running the tap and flushing the toilet that’s never been used. When she comes out, she’ll want to leave, but she won’t be. I’ll use the weather as an excuse until emotionally tying her to me in some way.
By Christmas, she’ll be as obsessed with me as I, for some reason, am with her. I found her bleeding and broken. Fixed her up and cared for her. That makes her my property.
If only I could have ignored the tug, killed her, and put all this behind me. Instead, her sweet scent, scars, and the haunted look in her eyes compels me closer. She’s truly a Christmas miracle, because no mortal should ever claim such control over a vampire.
Being close to her is a test of the control I’m already struggling to keep. Feeding from her is becoming a craving, adesperation, and being nearby isn’t helping—but I can’t stop myself. With her every breath, my fangs fight to remain in my jaw and not tear into her pretty throat.
Sawyer finishes up in the bathroom, but doesn’t leave. She’s hovering by the door, probably trying to plan her escape. It’s inevitable she’ll try eventually.
Unfortunately for her, prey never escapes me.
The door cracks open, and she returns with a damp face, skittish forced smile, and wandering eyes. The long look she once again casts at her shoes in the middle of the floor is as telling as the rest of her behaviours.
Admittingly, my experiences with mortals beyond screams and pleas are quite limited. And no experience has ever been with such an attractive human like her. Certainly no one that managed to quell my hunger and make me crave something else entirely.
If Sawyer were from my time—and from a high enough class—she’d have the kind of face that would fill her dance card almost instantly at every party. The kind that would earn her proposals by the dozen.
I drop my attention to her left hand. If she has a mate at home, she may resist me, but her fingers remain clean from another man’s brand.
Her enthralling sky-blue gaze finally returns to me, and then the door. Her heartbeat picks up as she mumbles, “I shouldprobably get out of your hair. If you don’t have a phone, would it be strange to ask if you have a car?”
“I do not.”
Her heartbeat quickens even more. Any faster, and I may be changing her simply to save her life when she has a heart attack. “You walk everywhere? In the middle of winter, in the Rockies, youwalk?”
Run, actually. With a speed you’d never imagine.Telling her that isn’t an option until figuring out exactly why I want to keep her and for what.
“Yes. It’s refreshing and good exercise.” Was that a mortal enough answer?
“Then how will I leave?” She scans the cabin, and then again quicker before bringing her bottom lip into her mouth. Her heartrate increases, though her attempt to conceal her blatant fear by exhaling long breaths is admirable. “What time is it? There are no windows.”
Not that the time particularly matters, but I keep a clock for such curiosities, and gesture to its location beside the lamp. It’s displaying three in the afternoon, hours too early for me.
“I sleptthatlong?” she mumbles to herself before touching her head, where the injury had been healed into a bruise and minor cut. It took every nerve to not taste her earlier, but anticipating her willingness held me back. “Well, now I’m definitely wasting my vacation.”
“Where’s your rental located?”
