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I nod, liking the sound of that. I hold out my arm in offering. “Why don’t you tell me more about this mystique over dinner.”
Her brows go up in surprise. “We’re eating already?” She cranes her neck to look over at the dining room table and the kitchen. “I haven’t seen you prepare anything.”
“Never underestimate a vampire with a magic book,” I tell her as she gets up and comes over to me.
She takes my arm, giving a look that’s both shy and warm, like I just presented her with a bouquet of flowers instead of my arm, and I try to ignore the pleasurable feeling it creates in my chest. I lead her to the table where I pull out her chair and she sits down.
“You sit and behave,” I tell her, pushing in her chair before heading to the kitchen.
“Don’t tell me you use magic to prepare your food,” she says, sounding less than impressed.
“Actually,” I say, opening the fridge and bringing the premade charcuterie boards out onto the counter, “it was the deli people at the Aldi in Mittenwald.”
I shut the fridge and take the boards over to her and place them on the table. She looks them over, finally impressed. “You hike up and down the mountain with your groceries?”
I nod my head toward the front door. “There’s a cable car on the other side of the peak out there. Easy to get a ride up and down if you know how to cloak yourself.”
She laughs. “Must be fun being an invisible man, even if you are just getting wine and cheese,” she says as I walk back to the counter to pick up a bottle of cab sav. “Ever think of teaching your guests some of your tricks?”
“Nice try,” I tell her, unscrewing the bottle. “I can’t tell you the number of people who think I’m about to give them all my secrets.”
“They’re not reallyyoursecrets. They’re the book’s.”
I give her a steady look. “And the book lets me know what it wants me to know. No one else. That’s not part of the deal,” I tell her, taking out the cork with a satisfying pop.
“Whatisthe deal?”
I shrug and pour us both a glass of the wine. Usually I don’t like discussing the book, but I feel I can divulge a little with her. “I’m not really sure. I just know that it feels safe with me, and it gives me the information I need.”
“So you’ve memorized every spell in the book?”
“Every spell I’ve been able to,” I admit. “It doesn’t show me everything. Half the book is just blank pages. Over the years spells will appear in ink, but lately the book seems to think I’ve gotten all I need to know.”
She thinks that over as I take the seat across from her. “And do you? Do you have all you need to know?”
“I’m starting to think so.” The whole reason I took the book in the first place was for the spell of erasure. There wasn’t even a reason to keep the book after that and yet I did. I couldn’t part with it. More than that, I couldn’t imagine it in anyone else’s hands. Perhaps someone more noble than me, like Solon, would make a good guardian for the book. He would no doubt use it for all the right causes, like tracking down Bellamy and finding Leif, the stolen vampire child, or destroying Saara for good. But I don’t have a reason to care about any of that anymore, and the book wants to stay in my company. If it didn’t, I’m sure the demon would abscond with it all together.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
“Don’t you wonder why you have the book?” she says, taking a sip of her wine. “Why it chose you?”
I clear my throat. “Yes. All the time.” Then I take a mouthful of my drink and switch the subject. “I don’t know how satisfied you are with food, but since you’ve only recently turned, I’m guessing you still have an appetite for the stuff.”
“I do,” she says, reaching forward with her knife to slice off some of the soft cheese and spread it on a cracker. “I’m always hungry.” She gives me another one of those shy smiles, the kind that makes my dick twitch. The innocence of her face plus the sight of her breasts spilling out of her dress that’s a little too small for her is like a fucking wet dream.
I’m tempted to throw her down on the table, right on top of the food, and have my way with her, but I need her to be ravenous for the main course and I need to focus.
We both eat a little and drink a lot of wine, until I know she’s feeling pretty loose, her inhibitions melting away dabbling in small talk which is easy and enjoyable for once and not torturous. Then I decide it’s time.
“Now, onto the main course of the evening,” I announce, getting out of my chair.
“That wasn’t it?” she asks.
I just give her a faint smile and tell her I’ll be right back. Then I go up the stairs all the way back toward my bedroom. There are two towers located next to each other, and I make my way to the higher one above my room.
This place was never a chapel. Never a place of salvation.
It was a place where they’d put the disciples when they needed to be punished. It was their own personal hell, locked away in the dark tower with nary a god to hear them.
