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I stop just outside the doors, noticing for the first time the symbols on them, flowers that remind me of eyes. “Solon,” I say quietly.
He stops beside me, his grip moving from my hand to my wrist, growing tighter. “Solon? I have a nickname already?” he muses.
I stare at him. I don’t need to tell him I’m this scared, he wants me to be this scared. But I also know this might be the last time I get to say anything to him in private.
My jaw hurts from clenching it. I wiggle it first before I tell him, “I know you’re not a man who makes promises. Or vampire, for that matter. But no matter what happens to me, just…please don’t hurt my parents. I think they were only trying to help me.”
He stares at me, a twitch near his eye. “Do you know why your parents wanted to take you away for your birthday?”
There’s no use asking him how he knows about that. “So I wouldn’t change in the city, so I wouldn’t harm other people.”
“So they could kill you if things got out of hand,” he says. “These are the people you want me to abstain from hurting?”
I don’t want to believe that. But I nod. “Please.”
He seems to consider that for a moment, sighing softly. “Fine. You have my word. Believe it or not, it is worth something.” He adds under his breath, “Sometimes.”
Then his hand lets go of my wrist and slides up to my elbow as he pulls open the door with the other.
We step into a party.
There are about thirty people here, all dressed in tuxedos and gowns, men, women, and nonbinary individuals. If you’ve never had thirty vampires all looking at you at once with their fixed, unblinking stare, be grateful. I’m so scared, I think I might piss myself.
“Breathe,” Absolon whispers to me as we glide through the crowd, his hand firm on my elbow. “Let them get used to you.”
Sure enough, a few seconds pass and the vampires go back to talking with each other and the music seems louder still. It takes me a moment to realize it’s Depeche Mode playing and I shake my head. Of course they’d be music for vampires.
Wolf’s head appears above the others and he walks over to us, dressed in his tux. I can’t help but smile with relief when I see him, something that makes Absolon’s grip on my elbow become vise-like.
“Wolf,” I say to him as he eyes me appreciatively.
“This is quite the look,” Wolf says. “Very dramatic. You look beautiful.”
I’d blush if I wasn’t so scared.
“Thank you.”
Absolon makes a noise of irritation and leads me away from Wolf, straight over to a pair of vampires nearby. One has grey hair, which surprises me because everyone else seems permanently suspended between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five, and his skin is tanned. His eyes are dark red, brows black and sharp in contrast to his hair and beard, and he’s wearing a black collarless jacket, which makes him look even more sinister. He smells like an old church.
The woman he’s with looks my age, with dark black hair to her waist, and she’s wearing a lacey black gown with velvet gloves. Her lipstick is the darkest red, playing off her light skin.
“This must be the girl,” the man says with an untraceable accent. He reaches out and takes my hand, and even though I want to snatch it back, I can’t. I’m stuck in his eyes, the red pools glinting, and I know he’s compelling me. “Enchanted,” he says, and he runs his nose up from the back of my hand to my wrist, deftly flipping my hand over and running his lips over my veins.
Everything in me recoils in revulsion, but still I’m frozen and unable to stop him.
A low rumble emits from Absolon, a threatening sound that makes my hairs stand on end.
“Enough,” Absolon snaps at the man. “You’ve already gotten her smell.” He reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling it out of the man’s grip. “And you can stop compelling her, too.”
The man smiles at Absolon, his fangs sharp on the top and bottom, giving the appearance of a canine’s mouth. “Just making sure she is what you say she is.” He eyes me. “Has Solon not told you about me? I’m Yanik. I’ve been quite interested in your history, little girl. I knew who your parents were, your real ones. They were good creatures, too good. Their mistake was thinking they could run away from the lives they led. None of us can.”
Though the man is talking with a conversational tone, there’s a sinister edge to all of this, aside from the obvious.
“I knew who your real father was too,” he continues, eyeing Absolon briefly. “Jeremias.”
“That is just hearsay,” Absolon says with a scoff, but even so, his hand goes to my lower back, holding me against him. “It’s not been proven.”
I take the bait. “Who is Jeremias?”
