Bride(15)

“I’m flattered that you skimmed my file.” I bat my eyes up at him. He does seem to have the whats and the wheres, if not the whys. “I read yours, too. You’re an architect by training, right?”

His body tenses, and he pushes me away for—no, he’s just whirling me around to the music. “Why is your father so remiss when it comes to your survival?”

His blood really does smell nice. “I’m not some kind of victim,” I say quietly.

“No?”

“I agreed to this marriage. I’m not being forced into anything. And you—”

His arm snatches abruptly around my waist, and he pulls me closer to avoid another couple. My front plasters against him, his scorching heat a shock to my cool skin. He really is foreign. Different. Incompatible with me in every possible way. It’s a relief when he puts some distance between us and we’re again comfortably apart. The thought of him already being in a relationship flits into my head once more, intrusive and unprompted, and I have to track down my abandoned sentence. “And you are putting yourself in the exact same situation.”

“I’m the Alpha of my people.” His voice is hoarse. “Not a white-hat hacker who only miraculously made it to twenty-five.”

Ouch, and fuck you. “What I am is an adult woman with agency and the tools to make choices. Feel free to, you know, treat me accordingly.”

“Fair.” He hums agreeably. “Why did you consent to this marriage, though?”

Have you ever heard the name Serena Paris? I nearly ask. But I already know the answer to that, and the question would only give him something to hide. I have a plan, a painstakingly drawn one. And I’m going to stick to it. “I like to live dangerously.”

“Or desperately.” The music plays on, but Moreland halts, and so do I. We stare, a hint of challenge swirling between us.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t?” He nods. Like he wasn’t going to say what’s coming next but doesn’t mind continuing. “The Vampyres don’t claim you as one of them unless they have something to gain from it. You chose to be among the Humans, but you had to lie about your identity, because you’re not one of them. And you’re definitely not one of us. You truly belong nowhere, Miss Lark.” His head dips closer. For a terrible, head-splitting second, my heart pumps with the certainty that he’s going to kiss me. But he bends past my mouth, to the shell of my ear. Through a landslide of what has to be relief, I hear him inhale and say, “And you smell like you know all of this very, very well.”

That hint of challenge solidifies, heavy as concrete, into something cities could be built on. “Maybe you should stop breathing in so much,” I say, pulling back to look him squarely in the eye.

And then everything happens much too quickly.

The glint of steel at the corner of my view. An unfamiliar, rage-filled voice yelling, “You Vampyre bitch!” Hundreds of gasps, and a sharp blade making its way toward my throat, my jugular, and—

The knife stops a hairbreadth from my skin. I don’t remember closing my eyes, and when I open them my brain cannot seem to catch up: someone—a Human, dressed as a waiter—came at me with a knife. I did not notice him. The guards did not notice him. My husband, on the other hand . . .

Lowe Moreland’s palm is wrapped around the blade, less than an inch from my neck. Green blood trickles down his forearm, its rich scent crashing into me like a wave. There is no sign of pain in his eyes as they hold mine.

He just saved my life.

“Nowhere, Misery,” he murmurs, lips barely moving. In the distance, Father is barking orders. Security finally reacts, pulls away the thrashing waiter. A few guests gasp, scream, and maybe I should scream, too, but I don’t have the wherewithal to do anything until my husband tells me, “For the next year, let’s make sure to stay out of each other’s way. Understood?”

I try to swallow. Fail the first time, do a great job the second. “And they say romance is dead,” I say, pleased not to sound as dry throated as I feel. He hesitates for a moment, and I could swear he inhales again, deep, storing up . . . something. His hand tightens on my back for a second before finally letting go.

And then Lowe Moreland, my husband, stalks off the dance floor, a trail of forest-green blood tracking his path.

Leaving me blissfully alone on the night of our wedding.

CHAPTER 3

He is under siege in his own home.

The voice is young and sullen. It worms its way under my pillow and into my ears, nudging me awake in the dead middle of the day.

“This used to be my room,” it says.

The floor is hard underneath me. My brain is blurry and my ears are made of cotton and I don’t know where I am, why, who would commit this ignominy upon my person: wake me up when the sun is bright in the sky and I am sapped of all strength.

“Can I hide in here? She’s grumpy today.”

I gather six months’ worth of energy and unearth myself from under the blankets, but run out of steam when it comes to lifting my eyelids.

No, we Vampyres don’t pulverize in the sun like glitter bombs. Sunlight burns us and it hurts, but it won’t kill us unless the exposure is unfiltered and prolonged. However, we are pretty useless in the middle of the day, even inside. Lethargic and weak and crawly and headachy, especially during late spring and summer, when the rays hit at that pesky steep angle. “This crepuscularity of yours is really cramping my brunch lifestyle,” Serena used to say. “Also, the fact that you don’t eat.”