The Rousseaux family driver delivered me to my apartment with a few polite words, but little conversation. Considering I didn’t trust myself not to burst into tears if he asked how I was doing, I was grateful.
I climbed the stairs up to my flat and paused at the door. I couldn’t stomach the thought of facing my roommates. Yesterday, Olivia had polished and painted me into a goddess for my first official date with Julian. Since I hadn’t come home from that date, she was likely waiting inside to ambush and demand details. Only an hour ago, I would have giddily told her all about the night, leaving out the vampires, of course. But now? Now I didn’t want to think about it ever again.
I didn’t want to think about him ever again.
And the worst part was that I was probably just another broken heart in a string of broken hearts dating back nearly a millennium. All the things that Julian had seen, the history he had lived, the women he’d gone to bed with, I was little more than a blip on his time line. He’d probably already forgotten about me.
It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing my chest, and any minute now, I would break. I took my house key out and slipped it into the lock. If I was going to break down, I wouldn’t do it in the hallway. I had a scrap of pride left.
I held my breath as I opened the door, but it was quiet and dark. My phone had died hours ago, so I didn’t know exactly what time it was. But Olivia was already gone to the studio or classes. Tanner was asleep or out. At least, the universe had granted me this one small mercy. I didn’t have to surrender the last bit of dignity that I had, explaining how spectacularly stupid I had been.
Of course, he didn’t want me.
We barely knew each other, and it wasn’t like I had a lot to offer, no matter how much he liked how I played the cello.
Cello. The word struck me like a thorn, puncturing through my rationalizations. He’d given me a half-million-dollar cello. How did I explain it to people? Far more worryingly, what was I supposed to do with it?
He’d been the one to reject me, which meant I was pretty sure I could keep it. But I hadn’t fulfilled my half of our arrangement. I hadn’t spent the year at his side, pretending to be his girlfriend. I couldn’t keep it. I wouldn’t keep it.
I stomped into the living room and found it waiting in its case. I would sell it. He had broken my cello, and I needed a new one because it looked like I was going to need my original five-year plan, after all. I’d buy a decent cello to replace mine and send the rest of the money back to his filthy rich family in a huge envelope. An envelope filled with glitter.
The best revenge.
I smiled, thinking of what Sabine would think about getting glitter-bombed. Maybe it wasn’t the most mature plan–and I’d probably chicken out–but for now, it was enough to relieve the raw ache in my throat.
Picking up the case and wondering exactly how to go about selling an item with this kind of value, I couldn’t resist the urge to take a look. I took out the cello along with the bow and settled onto a kitchen stool I used for practicing.
The instrument was exquisite. I’d been too afraid to really touch it yesterday, but now, knowing that my time with it was short, I let myself appreciate its craftsmanship. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever had between my thighs, except maybe–
“Don’t think about him,” I ordered myself, wiping a renegade tear from my cheek with the back of my hand. “Just play.”
Music was my escape. It was when I was little and Mom was barely keeping food on the table. It was when I didn’t fit in during my high school years. It was when Mom was so sick the doctors told me to prepare myself.
Nothing could touch me while I played. I could play the notes of a seventeenth-century genius in my twenty-first-century apartment. Music was timeless. It was boundless. When the cello was at my fingertips, I was free.
I found myself playing Schubert again. The piece had a whole new meaning. Without the other instruments to support my part, the piece felt hollow, as though it was searching for its soul. The lonely notes I played chilled me to the core, but I couldn’t stop. I doubted Schubert had written it about a vampire. Then again, maybe he had. The music felt like it belonged to me. I was the maiden, and now I knew the darkness of death. I tried to run from it. But darkness had played with me, coaxed me into trusting it. I had let it touch me.
I wasn’t sure I would ever be the same. I wasn’t certain I wanted to be.
I didn’t realize I was crying until I reached the final notes. It seemed I had finally found something music couldn’t help me escape.
Him.
I lingered with the Grancino. Some selfish part of me wanted to keep it. It was all I had to prove I hadn’t imagined his dark touch. It was all I had to prove that–for a moment–I had belonged to Julian Rousseaux.
It was a depressing enough thought to snap me out of the melancholy the music inspired. I stood up and put the cello resolutely back in its fancy purple case. I could say I played it. That was enough.
Determined to gather up the broken pieces of my last two days and put it all back together, I found my charger and plugged in my phone. It flashed a battery warning symbol, and I left it to charge while I went to shower. Our bathroom was cramped and perpetually cluttered with Olivia’s tights and Tanner’s hair crap, but it had one spectacular feature. Good water pressure.
I stripped off Camila’s clothes, wondering if I should just throw them away. In the end, I left them in a ball in the corner. Olivia would never forgive me for tossing vintage cashmere. Stepping into the shower, I turned the heat up until the water practically singed me. I stood under it, willing it to wash away all the insane choices I had made since I stumbled across Julian. When that didn’t work, I found a bar of soap and a loofah and tried to scrub him away. In the end, my skin was pink and tender. But he wasn’t quite gone. I turned off the water and reached for a towel. That’s when I heard it.
Someone knocking on the door. No, banging.
It sounded like the door was going to be knocked off its hinges. There were only two explanations for it. The first was that someone was breaking down the door with a battering ram. The other…
“Crap on a cracker,” I muttered to myself.
I wrapped the towel tightly around me and cracked open the bathroom door at the same time Tanner poked his head out of his room. He rubbed his eyes, blinking at me through the steam escaping around me.
“What the hell is that?” he mumbled.
“My boyfriend,” I muttered.
“Am I still asleep?” Tanner asked, blinking rapidly. “Did you say boyfriend?”
Now was not the time to try to explain my insane relationship with Julian. I grabbed Tanner’s doorknob. “Go back to bed. I’ve got this.”
“You sure?” He looked toward the door, his face growing concerned. “He sounds a little nuts. Is this that guy that sent you the cello? Do you need me to make him go away?”
“He’s just excitable,” I promised. I loved Tanner for caring enough to step in, which is why it made it so hard for me to lie to him now. But it wasn’t exactly like I could tell him the truth. We got into a fight when he wouldn’t drink my blood and broke up after knowing each other like five minutes. This was clearly a case where telling a white lie was for the best. “My phone was charging. He probably tried to call. He’s worried the building isn’t safe.”
“That’s right.” Tanner yawned. “He’s rich. I bet he thinks this is a slum.”
I forced a smile and shut the bedroom door before he could keep asking questions.
As I padded into the living room, I realized the door hinges were actually rattling. I started to unlock the door, and the pounding stopped.
“Thea?” Julian’s panic-stricken voice boomed from the other side.
Like all smart city dwellers, we had multiple locks. I finished turning them but kept the chain in place.
Julian exhaled heavily when I peeked at him through the crack. His blue eyes blazed with an intensity that sent my stomach into somersaults. “You scared the shit out of me,” he said. “You didn’t answer your phone, and no one came to the door.”
“I was in the shower,” I said, doing my best to sound cold and angry. That was pretty hard since my body seemed to know that there was only a door and a towel between me and an overbearing vampire. Thank God I’d decided to keep the chain in place.
“Let me come in and explain.”
“I think that’s a bad idea.” No, it wasn’t a bad idea. It was a terrible idea.
“Thea, it’s not what you think.”
“Are you sure? Because I think you want me to be your girlfriend, but you seem to think you can make up arbitrary rules about how that will work,” I hissed in a low whisper. “And I think your family hates me, but you expect me just to take your arm and pretend that this is a real relationship to get you out of some stupid arranged marriage.”
“Maybe it is what you think,” he admitted with a groan.
“Good. I’m not done. You think I’m fine for a blow job but not to feed from!”
His eyes closed as he took a deep breath. “Keep the door chained.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“Until I get this out,” he continued in a sharp tone. He paused for a moment and locked eyes with mine. “I want to feed on you.”
“But–”
“I refuse to feed on you, Thea,” he cut me off. “That’s not the relationship I want to have with you.”
“But I saw what vampire relationships looked like last night. It’s pretty normal to feed off the mortal half.”
“During the Rites, it is common to feed off familiars,” he said in a strained voice. “But I don’t want any part of the Rites.”
I didn’t have a comeback for that. He’d made himself clear in that regard from the beginning.
“So, you don’t need blood?” I eventually asked.
“I do need blood.”
“Where do you get that blood?”
“From donors who serve our family. Blood banks we established in the city. Sometimes I hunt.”
I swallowed as I processed the word hunt. “Hunt what? Deer?”
“You’ve been reading too many books, pet. I hunt humans, but I promise I only drink from ones who deserve it,” he added.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. Rational, thoughtful Thea knew it was barbaric. But this strange, new Thea had agreed to his arrangements. The part of me that had found pleasure–in his arms, on his mouth and tongue–thrilled to know he was every bit as dangerous as I fantasized.
I couldn’t give in to that part of me. No matter how much I wanted to. “Okay, just give me one good reason that you won’t feed off me.”
“Because I respect you,” he answered without hesitation.
Damn. That was a really good answer. Not what I was expecting. Not even a little bit. And it didn’t mean we were done having this conversation, but, at least, I understood. Kinda.
I shut the door in his face for the second time since we met, but only so I could unfasten the chain. I opened it to find him standing in the doorway. His strong hands–hands I knew were capable of violence and pleasure in equal measures–braced each side of the frame. He lifted his head. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
“I haven’t decided,” I said softly.
His eyes raked down my body, and I remembered I was standing in nothing more than a towel.
“I should change–” I only got halfway through my plan when he scooped me off my feet and threw me over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as he carried me inside, slamming the door behind us.
“Helping you decide, pet.” Then, he carried me into my room and threw me on the bed.
