“Is Eloise in there?” I ask him.
“She was in the lounge, the last I saw her,” he replies, then he hurries past me with his tray.
My chest tightens. Idefinitelydon’t want to go back to the lounge. Maybe I should just go up to my room. No matter how good the money is, I don’t think I can do this. I take another sip of my wine, but it doesn’t help calm me at all.
“Why are you looking for her?” asks a smooth, low voice behind me.
I recognize it immediately. Terror shoots through me, and I jump about a foot in the air. My already-shaky hand spasms, breaking the glass. A sharppain shoots through my palm as a shard cuts my skin.
I hold my injured hand, trembling as I regard the vampire from the lounge. I didn’t even hear her coming up behind me.
She’s much,muchworse at close range. Her fangs are still long, christened with ruby-red blood at the tips. There’s a little crimson around the edges of her grey irises.
Even if she wasn’t horrifying to behold, her presence itself is haunting. It’s like stepping into a cemetery, or the feeling you get when you think there are no more stairs but there’s actually one more step, and your stomach jolts.
But the pain in my wrist brings me back to the present. The shard of glass must have cut deep, because blood is running thickly down my forearm. I’ll need stitches, for sure.
“C-could you…” I stutter, trying to ask her to call for a car to take me to the emergency room.
Instead, she steps forward, moving as smoothly as if she’s floating through the air. She takes my wrist, and puts her tongue to the wound.
Her touch is cold, and her tongue is spine-tinglingly chilly. She runs it from my elbow up to my palm, lapping up the trail of blood. Then she licks it again, along the seam of the wound.
Something powerful ignites deep inside of me. It’s such an intimate gesture, and strangely soft and graceful. It takes my breath away.
Before I can process what’s happening, the wound on my hand starts to heal. I can’t believe my eyes. The blood stops flowing as it knits up cleanly. She licks me one last time, lapping up the last drops with deliberate, practiced ease.
She swallows and licks her lips, with the satisfaction of a cat that’s just drank all the cream.
“You should be more careful,” she purrs. “I wouldn’t want that sweet blood to go to waste.”
“But…but it’simpossible…”I gasp, shocked at how quickly my wound healed. It should take weeks for a cut so deep to heal like that.
“Vampires have many abilities,” she says with a grin.
There’s a gleam in her eyes that makes me shiver. It also seems to be asking a question.
A request that I don’t know if I could deny…
“Crimson,” says a sharp voice from behind us.
The spell is broken. The vampire snarls, and turns around.
“What is it?” she snaps. It’s another vampire, the one with long blond hair. He looks at her nervously. She’s intimidating, even to the other vampires.
“You’re needed in the foyer,” he says quickly. “Murad wants to speak with you before your meeting with Waylan.”
Her nostrils flare. “Fine,” she says, sounding a little irritated. But I’m relieved to have the attention off of me.
I start to inch back the way I came, hoping I can make a quick exit.
“Where are you going?” she says sharply to me.
I inhale nervously, struggling to find my voice. “Um…back to the lounge…”
“You won’t be needed in the lounge,” she replies brusquely. She raises an eyebrow at me. “Go to my office. Down the east hallway, the last door on the left.”
Her clear, commanding tone leaves no space for disobedience. And without another word, she goes back down the hallway in the opposite direction, followed by the other vampire.
