Page 41 of Roses & Ruin

“You torture me.” Hayden drops his open mouth to mine, his breath sweet against my parted lips. He brushes his bottom lip against mine, his breath hitching. We’ve barely touched when he jerks back, making a low, angry sound, like it’s a Herculean effort. His mouth glistens, red and wet, his eyes now all pupil. Hayden drags his tongue slowly across his lip, licking my blood like it’s ambrosia.

I can see the moment he tastes it: His eyelids flicker like it’s so good he can’t help it, and I can hear the soft scrape of dirt from his fingers burying into the soil beside my head. He makes a rough noise in the back of his throat like someone’s punched him, and it wallops me with desire, a feeling I’ve never known, a sudden heat that makes me arch up involuntarily, my hips seeking the weight of his body. His hand immediately finds my waist, gently pushing me back down.

“Rose.”

I stop breathing. Hayden’s voice sounds inhuman. Rough, dark, low. I peer up at him in the dark. Lightning strikes, bathing the world in light for a breath, and when I see his face, I cry out.

“See?” he rumbles. “Do you see now?” He lifts his face to catch the rain, and when lightning flashes again, all I can see is the glint of his great, terrible fangs, sharper than diamonds, sharper than any knife or needle has ever been, glinting above his plush bottom lip.

“This is why, Rose,” he says in a ragged voice. He presses his forehead to mine. “This is why I couldn’t…why I could never…” His voice hardens. “I told you there’s nothing out there worse than me. I’m more terrible than any monster there is.” Hayden’s fingers claw at the earth. He gives me a fierce, pleading look. “Tell me you see, Rose. Tell me you see.”

“I see,” I whisper. “I see you.”

Hayden.

Hayden is a vampire.

Chapter 15

For a few stunned seconds, my mind refuses to cooperate.

Vampire.

The word clangs around my skull, absurd and impossible. And yet, once it’s there, once I let myself really look at him, it starts to align. The way he moves too fast. The way he’s always there when I need him, when I’m about to die. California. The alley with Noah. Tonight.

He’s a predator. A dark one. Something ancient and dangerous.

So why doesn’t my body recoil? Why don’t I feel fear, only a strange, humming recognition, like a truth clicking into place?

“I’m not afraid,” I say over the thunder, my heartbeat thrumming. Lightning flashes, showing Hayden and his bared fangs in sharp relief above me. His eyes narrow like he’s thinking, debating some decision. For a moment, I’m terrified he’ll disappear. But then he sweeps me up in his arms like I weigh nothing, carrying me through the graveyard toward the church.

I’ve never been this close to him, so I can’t resist wrapping my arms tighter around his strong neck, pressing my nose against his temple, breathing deeply. I close my eyes at his delicious, dark scent, like cinnamon and smoke and something else…like sweet papyrus and liquid, leather-wrapped gold.

Is this what vampires smell like?

When I drag my nails along Hayden’s scalp, his breath hitches, and his footsteps falter a moment before I feel his jaw clench. He kicks open the rusty black gate that nearly ended me and carries me to the church’s heavy front door.

“We’ll talk in here,” he says gruffly, twisting the locked handle with a flick of his wrist and shouldering open the great wooden door.

It’s pitch black and cold inside. The door slams behind us, the storm carrying on with a hushed quality now. Hayden’s boots echo loud and distant against the stone walls as he carries me into the heart of the sanctuary.

“You okay?” Hayden murmurs in the dark. “You scared now?”

“No,” I whisper.

“You sure?” His fingers dig slightly where they hold me, on my bare thigh. “Your heartbeat went up.”

I swallow hard. “You…you can hear my heartbeat?”

Hayden’s steps falter, slow, then stop. For a moment, he holds me in the darkness, every sound and touch enhanced by my blindness. The rain drums against the roof, the thunder muted outside the church’s ancient walls.

“I…” His voice has gone rough. Hayden’s hands find my neck, his thumb rubbing my pulse. “I can feel it. Like now, it’s gotten faster again. I can always feel it. It’s impossible to ignore, how it gushes through your veins.”

“Oh,” I breathe.

“We need light.” Hayden’s voice is a low rumble at my ear. “I’ll only be a moment.” I feel a soft whoosh of air against my face. I feel around with my hands, kick out my legs, and determine that he’s set me down on a front-row pew. I listen hard, straining, but I don’t hear anything except the rain and thunder, the groan of wood beneath me.

Before I can panic, little warm lights begin to wink on around me. I swivel my head to see that the tiny prayer candles at the multiple votive racks scattered throughout the church are being lit with impossible speed. The long, skinny candles on taper stands ignite as well. I try and spot Hayden, but other than the occasional dark blur, I can’t see him.