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I try to forget about my reality and lose myself in a book.
I wander into the library now and find a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula in Stephan's collection of classics. I can't help the wry grin that tips the corners of my mouth.
How fucking appropriate. Even though I've read the book at least ten times and Stephan told me himself that much of what Stoker wrote about vampires is false—for instance, that they're sensitive to sunlight and that they sleep in a coffin—I still read it again, sympathizing with Mina all anew.
And despite myself, I keep comparing Stoker's Dracula to my vampire.
My vampire certainly isn't a hideous beast—at least not that I know of. Not unless he turns into one when he’s alone or something.
And yes, he might be wily, and he might have stalked me and kidnapped me and done some unscrupulous things, but he seems nothing but devoted and kind to me.
I blink when I realize what I’m doing. That revelation only makes me scowl. Did I really just think of Stephan asmyvampire.
“Would it really be that terrible?” Stephan’s voice breaks into my thoughts.
I jump guiltily. Surely, he doesn't know what I'm thinking about.
“What?” I ask him.
Stephan doesn’t answer me. Instead, he tells me, “I came to tell you it’s time for your dinner.”
I get up without complaint, my cheeks flaming. I follow him into the ridiculously pretentious dining room. I don’t press him for an explanation because I don’t want to talk about it if he somehowcouldread my thoughts.
We sit at the overly long table together.
Stephan doesn't sit at the other end of the table, as is customary. He sits right beside me—too close for comfort, actually, but he insists on doing this ritual every day.
He takes every meal with me every day—and by “takes every meal,” I mean when I eat, he sits here and watches me like he's eating precariously through me or something. It’s totally bizarre, and at first, it made me so nervous and self-conscious that I could hardly eat anything, but then my hunger got the best of me, and I said to hell with it.
It's like Stephan has some sort of weird food fetish, and if he wants to watch me smash down on some pork chops or chicken and rice or whatever, so be it.
“Letting yourself like it here,” his deep voice suddenly says, picking up the conversation from before like we haven’t just had a five-minute break in it.
When I don’t speak, he goes on gently, “Forgive me for saying so, but it's not like you really have anything to get back to.”
“I do so,” I instantly defend myself. Stephan’s insinuation that I don’t have a life cuts me.
“You forget I watched you every day, Elena.”
I stare at him. Every day? I never asked him, not really wanting to know all the details, but I suspected as much, so I don’t know why it surprises me.
“You worked for me even though I didn't really need a personal assistant. Yes, I set you up in a luxurious apartment, but it can't be any more luxurious than having your very own castle.” He raises a cocky eyebrow.
“This isn’t my castle,” I point on stubbornly. “It’s yours.”
“Do you want the deed to it?” His frank gaze bores into me. “Because all you need to do is say the word, and it’s yours.”
All I can do is gawk at him. He’d really put his castle in my name if I asked him to?
“What do you really have to go back to?” he goes on as if he didn’t just offer to officially give me a castle.
My shoulders slump as the truth settles over me. He's not saying it in a menacing or judging way, but the truth still stings.
He's absolutely right. I have no one to even care if I come up missing. The three women I went to the club with that night are hardly close enough to be called friends. We were just starting to strike up a friendship, and knowing me, we wouldn't have become particularly close anyway. I still would have been that friend who was never close to anyone. Why am I like that? Is there something wrong with me that I don't make lasting relationships? That may go back to me being an orphan or something.
I push those thoughts away. Now's not the time for me to psychoanalyze myself.
His voice cuts into my thoughts. “It hurts me to see you so despondent.”
