Page 9

The skin around his eyes tightened. “May I come in?” Just what a vampire would ask.

So, instead of answering, I waved him inside. If he asked me to say the words, I was slamming the door in his face. But he didn't. Tristan stepped inside without my verbal consent, and his gaze went straight to the canvas.

I felt my face heat, embarrassment climbing up my throat, but he didn't laugh or tease me. Tristan didn't ask why I'd painted him half-naked with that hungry look. All he did was stare at the painting with a composed expression.

“Uh, I needed to get what I remembered of your tattoo painted before I forgot it.”

He remained silent.

“Because I found you.” I shut the door and went to my laptop. His pictures were still on the screen. I lifted the laptop and showed them to him. “1924. 1943. 1971. You look amazing for someone over a hundred years old, Mr. Bane. And that house of yours. You inherited it at sixteen? Or did you pass it down to yourself?”

I had just accused him of being an immortal! I could hardly believe my nerve. But Tristan didn't laugh or roll his eyes. He turned away from his painting and stared at the screen for a long moment, the skin beneath his left eye twitching again.

At last, he met my gaze. “Well, that decides it. Come with me.”

“Go with you? Do you think I'm stupid? Why would I go anywhere with you?”

“Don't you want to know what I am?”

What. He'd said what, not who. Holy crap, was I right. “Are you a vampire?

Tristan blinked. His lips twitched. “I am not a vampire.” He opened his mouth to show me his teeth. “And I swear I won't kill you. But to explain, I need to take you to my home.”

Every rational part of my brain screamed at me to ask him to leave, and if he didn't, I should call the Police. This was the part of the horror movie where the audience yelled at the woman not to walk into the vampire's castle. But what kind of movie would it be if the woman just walked away?

“Just tell me.”

“You need to see the proof.”

“You can show me the proof after.”

“If I tell you without proof, you'll think I'm insane. Please, Destiny. Your apartment has cameras. If you go missing, the Police will see who you left with. If I wanted to do you harm, I would have grabbed you when you parked.”

“Fine.” I pulled on my coat and transferred my can of pepper spray from my purse to my coat pocket. “Let's go, Highlander.”

Tristan drove us to Georgetown. A clicker on his visor opened an iron gate that did nothing to quell my nerves. He parked before a three-story house I would have sold my first child for. Rain and time had softened its red brick walls, but it only added to the feeling of grandeur. Chimneys stood to either side, three oriel windows capped the third floor like a crown, and faux shutters framed the lower windows, painted dark blue. A front garden stood to the left of the drive, and a red brick wall enclosed the entire property.

Tristan got out and opened my door for me. We went in through a stately door, and stopped in a two-story foyer with a staircase leading to a landing. He took me into a room to the right, done in a formal style, and back to a short corridor. At the end, we entered a room with a single chair atop the burgundy Persian rug.

Glassed-in shelves climbed the walls, packed with letters bundled in ribbon, journals cracked with age, newspaper clippings in frames, little jewelry boxes, wedding invitations, and other pieces of memorabilia. Paintings hung on the few open section of walls and leaned against the display cases in stacks. It was the room of a wealthy hoarder.

I glanced at the cases, but the paintings were the larger curiosity. Or rather, their frames were. Hand-carved and gilded, they were worth hundreds of dollars. Frames like those aren't wasted on cheap art and yet, they were on the floor like my blank canvases. I looked crouched to look at the paintings and gaped. I carefully pulled the first forward and flipped through the stack. After gawking at those, I went to the next stack.

Each painting had been done by a different painter, most unknown, but I recognized a Raphael, a Caravaggio, and a van Gogh. Those men had lived in different times. In fact, every painting was from different era, the techniques and clothing showcasing them. But they had one thing in common—Tristan. They were all portraits of him. I turned toward him, expecting him to bare his fangs or flick magic at me. Whatever he was, he was going to tell me that he was immortal. Even the small cynic in my brain couldn't dispute this proof.

“Destiny.” Tristan held my gaze. “I'm a Curse.”

“I'm sorry, what?” I'd been prepared for the paranormal. My brain tried to make sense of what he said. “You're cursed? You mean like the Beast? Do you have a dying rose somewhere or perhaps a painting aging for you?”

“No, I'm not a man who's cursed. I am a Curse.” Tristan explained it slowly, as if he'd rehearsed it a thousand times and still expected me to laugh at him. “Curses were born from belief and intense emotions. Upon their birth, each Curse claimed a human vessel. I was taken by Heartbreak. I am the Curse of Heartbreak.”

I stood up. “You are the Curse of Heartbreak? What does that even mean?”

“It means I bear an entity born of heartbreak. It is the essence of tormented love, born of pain so great it had to take form. A mother's pain for her dead child, a husband losing his wife, unrequited love, all the sorrows of the heart. This symbol on my chest?” He opened his shirt to show me the golden tattoo. “It's not a tattoo. It's my sigil, the mark of my curse. It appeared upon me when I was taken.”

“Why was it on the monastery's wall?”

His expression tightened. “As a warning. They wanted everyone to beware of me. They thought I was evil.”