Orfeo cradles my heavy head in his hands and slides his tongue over the wounds on my neck, sealing them with a kiss.
“Leo said he’d be here at eight.”
Orfeo lowers the plate of perfectly cooked medium-rare steak down onto my chest. “Eat,amore.You need the iron.”
“Yes, chef.”
He smirks at my tone, rolls his eyes, and pads back into the kitchen. Other than the apron tied around his body, he’s still completely nude. I admire the defined, muscular curvature of his ass cheeks. I imagine sinking my teeth into them.
“Were you always such a feeder?” I ask, pushing myself upright. I forgo the knife and fork on my plate and lift a piece of steak to my mouth with my fingers. He’s right, I’m famished. And something primal has been released in me. I watch himmove and I no longer just see the sweet, sexy vampire from my Medieval relics class. I see thousands of years of evolution converging into one perfect specimen, celestially developed to stand in front of me in this exact moment and blow my mind.
Dickmatized doesn’t even cover the half of it.
“Absolutely not. Human Orfeo ate once a week, and it was usually something stolen or from the fucking garbage. You wouldn’t have looked at me twice.” He pushes his curls back and presses a cigarette to his lips, lighting it with a flourish of his fingers. He wipes the kitchen counters clean, then washes his hands. Every movement feels like a still from my favorite movie. I just can’t make sense of it—of this molecular change.
“Orfeo?”
He lifts his gaze to mine and I see it happen in his eyes too. His face softens immediately when his eyes land on me. His mouth even relaxes into a small, content smile. “Yes?”
I abandon my plate of steak on the end table, wrap myself in the couch blanket, and slide into his arms. Orfeo holds me to his chest. His mouth finds mine and his fingers stroke my wound, and my entire universe feels like the eye of a camera, zoomed in and focused so tightly on the energy that moves between us.
“What is this?” I ask, pulling away and pressing a hand to my heart. “Is it really how I feel?”
“You are still thinking like a human, Diantha. What lives between us is realbecausewe feel it. It is powerful because we have acknowledged it. And it will only grow for as long as we feed it. All right?”
I nod. “I can see how this could be really dangerous for a human. Earlier, I wasn’t even…even worried about whether or not you would stop. All I wanted was more.”
He makes a small noise in the back of his throat. “Some vampires…they live off of that. They suck blood and energy. The humanity of desperation and fear is part of it.”
I shiver. “I can imagine.” I think back to Kat falling limp in the shadows. “I can imagine,” I repeat.
We manage to get dressed and restore some order to the carriage house by the time the doorbell rings, but when I pull open the door, Misha’s and Leo’s eyes immediately fall to the fresh wounds on either side of my neck.
“Oh,brother.” Misha rolls her eyes. “Fucking honeymooners.”
“Heathens,” Leo grumbles, letting himself in and abandoning Misha who obviously needs my express permission.
“Come inside before you freeze. Where’s Evie?”
“Hasn’t answered any of my texts or my calls.” Leo and Orfeo dab each other with the nonchalance of modern bros. It’s both jarring and deeply intimate.
“What?Seriously?That’s not like her at all.” I grab my phone from where it’s charging and immediately fire off a text:everything ok??
I stare at our messages back and forth, at the space and time that stretched between “where are you?” and “miss u!! Talk tonight??” I tighten my grip on my phone, watching the message sit unread. It’s only been a few seconds, but I have a bad feeling. A dark sinking stone in the pit of my stomach.
“I even waited outside that damn café for her, but the windows were dark on the first and second floor. Any chance she might have skipped town?”
“No way.” I shake my head without tearing my eyes away. “Evie’s a local, and she wouldn’t do that. She’s a believer.”
I feel the steadying heat of Orfeo’s hand on my lower back. “She will be okay,” he says.He must feel my worry.
I let my phone screen turn black before setting the device aside.She’ll be okay, I repeat to myself, moving into the kitchen and taking a seat at the island. She has to be. And if she’s not okay, I’ll make sure she becomes okay.
Orfeo uncorks a bottle of blood he describes as “oak-barrel-aged” and pours himself and Misha a glass. Leo grimaces at both the blood and the wine Orfeo offers. Then, we settle around the island, under the dim pendant lights, like mobsters at a jazz club.
“I managed to reach Davìd,” is what Leo opens with, light eyes cutting nervously to Orfeo.
“Ah,sì?” His features remain placid but there’s a thrum of excitement followed by the hot twist of anxiety in my gut, and I know those feelings belong to him.
