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My curious fingers moved without thought—or permission. The pages of a notebook fell open, tattered edges worn from being worried over. Dramatic scenes sprang to my vision made of scrubbed charcoal black and chalk white. Wolves danced with wolves while cliffs jutted over a restless sea in the distance. Women fell to their deaths. Moonlight poured over extravagant corn fields.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “The stuff of nightmares. Too muchhappiness.”
Her lashes smacked together repeatedly. Seconds flew by without a response until she burst into giggles, tipping her head back to reveal a pale peach throat decorated with a silver necklace hosting the nameRose.
“Rose,” I repeated. It tasted like brilliance on my tongue. Or cotton candy. Or nectar. Was that how she tasted?Maybe I can find out.“A lovely name.”
Her laughter ended abruptly. She seemed lost again as her fingers flew to the necklace. “I forget I’m wearing this thing sometimes.”
“Silver, right?” I reached for the necklace, forgetting my manners and where I was sitting, how I was in public, how people needed permission to touch other people. But with her, it didn’t feel necessary. And I wasn’t sure how to explain that.
Her startled gasp hardly deterred me, though guilt stung my side for scaring her.
Still, I managed a smile. “Yeah, that should ward off some vamps.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.”
I half-shrugged while tracing each letter. It tasted so good in my mouth, each letter dissolving on my tongue like taffy. Never had I tasted a scent from a wolf. Such a mystery required my investigation.
I released the necklace. She looked equally relieved as she did offended. Perhaps I was reading her wrong. It wasn’t often I socialized.
To even get the urge to do it was rare. But I was feeling it now, so attracted to this stranger that it alarmed me. Nobody had this kind of magnetic energy. And with hers so bright, so benign, it made even less sense why it would call to me in particular.
“Rose,” she said while sticking out her hand. She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you already know that, but I thought it polite to introduce myself.”
“Matéo.” I shook her hand, ignoring the zaps that crackled between our palms. “I don’t come here often if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Thank the gods for television or else I might not be as skilled with conversation as I am with an ax.
She giggled. “I do. I like sneaking out at night. Feels kind of…” Her grin turned bashful with a hint of mischief behind it. “Well, it’snaughty.”
“Are you avoiding sleep or responsibilities?”
She gathered her sketchbooks and dumped them back into her bag, hugging it into her lap as she replied, “A bit of both.”
“Trouble sleeping?”
“Trouble with a lot of things.” She blushed and then bowed over her bag. “Pie helps me think. And relax. It’s a weird combination.”
I nodded. “I like thinking while I relax. That’s when I solve all my problems.”
“So, you get it.”
“I get a lot of things.” I licked my lips while thinking about that pack, the medallion, the endless invasion of vampires. “Well, most things.”
“I understand.”
Emotion poured from her irises, her gaze so inviting that I found myself accepting the offer to stare perpetually. In that moment, we weren’t in a diner anymore. We were at the far edges of the universe with nothing weighing us down.
“Those sketches,” I pointed out while gesturing to her bag. She clutched it like it possessed treasure—or cursed objects. “They’re gorgeous. Why do you think they’re the stuff of nightmares?”
“I work in marketing. We don’t do art.”
I frowned. “I thought marketing involved creation.”
“Yeah, it does. But it isn’t…” She peered into her bag like she thought the books were going to disappear. “This is dark.”
“No, it’s not dark at all.”
