4. Lucien

Chapter 4

Lucien

S he is trembling. I can feel her body quivering against mine as I carry her through the dark Cambridge streets.

"The box," she says, looking back over her shoulder.

"I'll retrieve it for you later."

She struggles and I drop her down into my arms instead of carrying her over my shoulder.

She looks up at me. In the darkness, her eyes shine like oil on water. I want to take her glasses off, tuck her hair behind her ear, hold her still…

I have never been this close to her, and I feel like my entire body is on fire. My muscles burn for her.

As her shirt rides up, exposing the soft flesh on her belly, and my thumb brushes against it, I almost lose my breath entirely.

In all the time I've watched her, I've never felt this .

"Where are you taking me?" she asks. Her arms are looped around my neck. She seems both afraid and intrigued, and I'm almost certain I can smell her arousal.

Does fear turn her on?

Or is it me causing this visceral reaction in her core?

Perhaps it is both.

I resist the urge to stop at the cemetery, slip my hands between her legs, and test just how wet she is with my knowing fingers. Even though the thought of seeing her gasp beneath my touch is taking over every intelligible thought in my head.

"I told you. Somewhere safe."

I move quickly, and she presses closer, holding me tighter. Humans aren't used to moving at this speed and, by the time we reach the mansion, she is even more pale than she was before.

We are on the outskirts of the city. Here, the sky is clear, and the stars shine brightly.

I set her down on the steps. She wavers for a moment, then braces herself on the door and vomits onto the threshold.

I put my hand on her back. Her skin is warm. Her breath moving fast, up and down. Her curls tease my fingertips, flowing loose over her shoulders.

When she looks up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her glasses a little crooked on her nose, she shakes her head. "What the fuck was that? How do you do that?"

"I have many talents, Luna." I quirk an eyebrow at her, enjoying the fact I can make her blush when she's feeling so unsteady on her feet. "What's wrong with you?" I ask, assessing her shivering frame.

She is hugging herself and she looks suddenly exhausted. She hesitates, then frowns at me. "I have a... a pain condition. It makes me sensitive to—" She stops and puts her hands into the pockets of her cardigan. "It's hard to explain. And, frankly, boring."

Her tone surprises me. The fact I don't think I could find anything about her boring surprises me even more.

I nod slowly.

I have watched her long enough to know she's sick. I just never knew what kind of sick.

It's in the way she moves… as if she is always trying to stop herself from crumbling. As if she is trying to hold the pain inside, trying to stop it from overwhelming her. Eating her up.

"This way." I lead her down the corridor toward the living room. I do not, contrary to popular belief, own a coffin or have any need for one. But I do keep the mansion blissfully dark.

She will find it oppressive eventually. But, for now, it's the safest place I can keep her.

Luna follows me. She hangs back several paces as if she's not sure why she's here or why she trusts me.

If she trusts me.

The thing is, she shouldn't trust me.

If she knew… if she'd seen who I am and what I've done, she'd run.

Or would she?

I glance back. My eyes catch hers. And there it is again… that flicker of intrigue. The same flicker I saw in the shop when I very first visited her. When she suspected I was a vampire but did not know it for certain.

"Do you remember me?" I ask as I push open the living room door and usher her inside.

Here, the lamps are already lit, and the fire is roaring.

"Professor Lucien Thornfield," she says, hugging herself a little more tightly as I pour her a glass of whiskey.

I press it into her hands. She sniffs it and her nose wrinkles.

"You came to my shop. Twice." Her eyes flick up and meet mine.

She has no idea it is my shop. That I am the one who sends her books every week. That I watch her and admire her every day.

"How could I forget?" She takes a sip of whiskey, maintaining eye contact over the rim of the glass.

Is she flirting with me? Her hands are caked in her ex-boyfriend's blood. Remnants of him are on her clothes, and beneath her fingernails, and she was almost eaten by a pack of hungry vampires.

But she is not so terrified that she can't flirt?

This woman is an enigma. A code I need to crack. A delicacy I need to taste.

Without meaning to, I allow my eyes to graze her throat, the swell of her breasts, that spot where her shirt reveals the soft flesh of her side.

How I want to drag my tongue over that spot. Bite it. Tease it. Hear her whisper my name as I draw blood from it and suck, and suck.

"Are you going to explain the box?" She sits in the armchair next to the fireplace and taps her short fingernails on the whiskey glass.

"The box…" I take the chair opposite her, lean back, and cross one leg over the other. "What would you like to know?"

She frowns and adjusts her glasses on her nose. Catching sight of her blood-stained fingers, she turns her hand over, studying it in the glowing light of the fireplace.

"You killed Steven." Her voice is strangely calm.

"I have already admitted as much," I reply slowly.

Luna takes another sip of whiskey, still wincing at it. "Did he really run away with that woman?" She seems more curious that afraid, and this is not what I expected.

I do not answer her. I do not need to.

She nods in understanding. "Did she even exist?"

"She did not."

"But the police… Steven's car?" She takes a bigger sip this time.

A chuckle builds in my throat. She has no comprehension of who I am or of the hold I have on this city. "I have contacts. I can make things happen."

She leans forward, resting her forearms on her thighs. Then sits back again. She does not seem comfortable.

What must it be like to never be comfortable? To always feel something never nothing ?

"So, you... kidnapped him?"

I tilt my head in answer to her question.

"Why?" She meets my eyes as she asks this.

"Because he deserved it." I stand and walk over to the fireplace, resting my glass on the mantlepiece. "He disrespected you one too many times and, unfortunately for him, I was there to witness it. In all honesty, I should have done it sooner. And for that, I apologize."

Luna raises her eyebrows. She has a defiant expression on her face, and it makes me wonder why she looked so different when she spoke to Steven. How can she stand up to a vampire and not to a weak, pathetic human? Perhaps because she can tell that while I could hurt her – end her life in a second if I chose – I would not. I could not ever cause her harm.

"You're a vampire," she says. "Why do you care what happens to me? A human?"

I'm staring into the flames, remembering the way she cried. My gut twists with displeasure, but I cannot answer her because, honestly, I have no idea why I care.

When I started watching her, she meant nothing to me.

She was a job.

Now, she is something I cannot name.

Because I have been on this forsaken planet for five-hundred years, and no one – vampire or human – has ever intrigued me the way she does.