3. Lucien

Chapter 3

Lucien

TWO MONTHS AGO

W hen I reach the bookshop, I pause and tilt my face up to the air. I inhale deeply. There she is…

It is seven p.m. Her shift ended an hour ago, and yet I still sense her on the breeze.

I follow her scent.

Through side streets, across the green. Until I come to a small, terraced house. The kind that looks unassuming but costs a small fortune to rent.

I should know; I own ten of them.

Not this one, though.

This one is different. It has been modernized – new windows, new door, incongruously neat paving in the small front garden.

The lights are on. A dull orange glow comes from the living room.

I approach in the shadows and peer in. Here, I don't just smell her – I smell him too.

The boyfriend.

From the very first time he picked her up from the shop after work, I had my suspicions about him. He is the kind of man who thinks too much of himself too often. Who moves through the world as if he expects everyone to bask in his brilliance, and who wants nothing more than to capture Luna's light and twist it for his own pleasure.

If he was a kind, honorable man who treated her the way she deserves to be treated, I'd be able to sit back and enjoy watching them together. Knowing she was taken care of.

But him? I could never enjoy watching her with him.

The thought of him fills me with pure, unadulterated rage.

When she comes into view, I lick my fangs and heat pools at the base of my spine.

I have been watching her for years.

Usually, I see her dressed for work. But now, I'm staring at her in nothing but a towel. Pristine and white, it is wrapped tightly around her, but strains across her breasts and her hips.

Her hair is wrapped in a towel too, but when she sits down on the couch opposite the fireplace, she removes it and shakes her curls free. Wet, they look much darker than they are. But they hang in delicious ringlets around her face.

A bead of water escapes from the tip of one of the curls and trickles down between her breasts.

Hell damn it, I want to lick that water from her skin.

I didn't always feel this way about her. When I first started watching her, it was a favor. The Human Extinction League were looking for someone. They thought she might be the one they needed. I thought it would be useful to have them indebted to me. So, I agreed.

They probably thought I'd assign it to one of my men.

But the second I saw Luna, I knew she was mine to watch.

Mine to protect.

Now, holding the towel in her hands, she twists it, her knuckles pale with the pressure. Then she leans forward. Her shoulders begin to shake.

Just like that… she is crying.

My stomach constricts with something I am not used to feeling.

I have never seen her cry before.

There is movement further back in the room. It's him .

Steven emerges holding two glasses of red wine. He hands her one. She looks at it and wipes the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. I can tell from the expression on her face that she does not like the wine, but he stands over her and watches until she drinks.

She takes a sip.

He keeps staring.

She takes another.

When she tries to put it down, he tweaks his finger beneath it and makes her keep drinking. He pushes harder. She can't drink fast enough. The wine spills down her chin and drips onto the towel. She coughs.

He stops.

He takes the glass away and puts it down with a thud on the table. Then he points to the stain on the towel she's wearing. His face darkens.

She is shaking.

He stoops down, stares at her, his face barely a breath away from hers. "You fat, miserable, frigid, whore," he spits.

She swallows hard, almost choking on her tears.

He takes hold of her upper arm and squeezes tight, pinching her soft flesh with his large fingers. She winces, but he doesn't let go. Instead, he uses the other hand to unfasten his belt.

Rage swells inside me. It beats a savage rhythm in the crevices of my ribcage, straining, cracking, exploding.

Oh, fuck, no.

I might be able to bite down on the urge to rip him apart when he's talking down to her and belittling her. But this?

Fuck. No.

I move to the front door and rap hard with a clenched fist.

It takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to jerk it open and tear him apart in front of her.

But I'm smarter than that.

I hear him mumble for her to stay where she is. Not to move.

He pulls open the door. His eyes widen. But my hand is around his throat before he can utter a single word.

I should have done this a long time ago.

As I drag him into the shadows, I whisper, "You're about to learn an important lesson, Steven. Are you ready?"

"You're the guy who came into Luna's shop. The professor." Steven, despite being tied to a chair, looks indignant. Pissed off. As if he's preparing to lodge a formal complaint with my superiors at the university.

There's a cut on his head. It's bleeding but he smells acrid. The opposite of something I'd want in my mouth.

"I'm glad you remember me." I turn to my desk and pace over to it. There's a letter opener positioned neatly beside my large, open, notebook. It hasn't been used for centuries. I pick it up and turn it over in my hand, pressing the tip of my index finger to the end of the blade.

Steven watches me. He still doesn't look scared.

I tut and put down the knife. Then pace over to the fireplace. It's lit, as always. Crackling in the grate. Above it hangs a sword. A falcata blade I won in a card game three-hundred years ago.

Luna's boyfriend raises an eyebrow as if he's distinctly unimpressed.

The falcata is short with a curved blade. It doesn't look particularly intimidating, but it is sharp enough to split a man in half with just one slice. Especially when it's wielded by a vampire.

"You won't get away with this," he says. The upper-class lilt in his voice makes me want to behead him right now.

"I'm not sure you know who you're dealing with." I pace back to the desk and lean on it, taking my handkerchief from my pocket and using it to polish the blade so it glints in the firelight.

"You're a vampire," Steven says. "I can see that very clearly. But you have a job to hold down and you're not above the law. You're not allowed to kill humans. None of you are."

I examine him closely. He is not an ugly specimen. He has a square jaw and a nose that suits his face. But his hair is pale, and his soul is weak.

I can smell the weakness from here.

I could smell it through the window.

Only weakness makes a man treat a woman the way he treated Luna.

"That's where you're wrong, I'm afraid." I set the sword down and pour myself a glass of blood from the decanter by the window.

I allow it to stain my lips red, and enjoy the first flicker of fear on his face as he watches me lick them clean.

I pick up the blade again, my body coiling, and twitching, and shuddering as the blood takes its hold and the darkness that lives just beneath the surface of my humanity breaks free.

Steven notices the change. He is a rabbit, a deer, a small pathetic creature being stalked by something bigger and stronger.

And he knows it.

"Sadly for you, Steven, I think you'll find I am above the law."

He opens his mouth to speak but no noise comes out.

"I have ruled this city for longer than you can even begin to imagine." I wave my hands at our surroundings. "You think I've walked this planet for five hundred years and all I've achieved is to become a professor at a university museum?" I lick my fangs.

Steven swallows hard.

I stop in front of him. I lean down so I'm inches away from his pale, pathetic face. Then I whisper in his ear, "I control every supernatural creature in this city. I could make you disappear in a heartbeat, and make sure no one ever misses you or wonders where you've gone."

"I can turn you into smoke and dust. A figment of the imagination. A distant memory. And I will. But first…" I grip the back of his head and jerk him closer so he's staring up at me.

He whimpers.

I smile. "First, you have an apology to make."