The sound had come from around the corner, and it came again. A voice, I realized after a moment—though too high to be Vale’s, and wordless. A cry. Pain?
My heart quickened a beat.
I hadn’t thought much about whether Vale did indeed eat humans. And if, when he did so, he dragged them back here to do it.
I probably should have run. But there was no use fighting nature, and I was a curious creature. So I went not away from the sound but closer, creeping down the hall and around the corner, where cool lantern light spilled from an open door at the end of the corridor.
The sounds grew louder, closer.
And a flush rose to my face when, a few steps away from the door, I realized that what I was hearing were not cries of pain. Very much the opposite, actually.
The moans rose to a crescendo.
No, Vale was not alone. And whoever he was with was having a wonderful time.
The door was wide open. Who could blame me for looking?
I peered around the frame. It was Vale’s bedchamber, a grand room covered in silks and art, with messy trinkets strewn over each surface. A large bed with a carved frame sat in the center of the room. Fine bedsheets were mussed and tangled over it.
And tangled over it, too, were two figures so entwined I wasn’t sure where one of them ended and the other began.
She was beneath him, an expanse of golden skin gleaming beneath the messy curls of red hair, and he leaned over her and clutched her hips from behind. I mostly saw his back and her tangles of hair, her arms splayed and gripping the bedsheets to brace herself as he drove into her viciously. With every thrust, his muscles flexed beneath his skin, rippling over the broad expanse of his back, the curve of his backside, the lean muscle of his upper thighs.
He looked as majestic and beautiful as those wings had. I imagined that perhaps, covered in muscle and skin, they might look almost—almost—as beautiful as he did now.
My face was very hot.
I couldn’t look away. I really did mean to announce myself, or back away, but I found myself frozen.
The woman bent down against the bed, the pillow slightly—but only slightly—muffling her rising cries of pleasure. Vale’s movements grew faster, harder, flesh slapping against flesh, leaning against her and falling over her back.
I watched, unblinking, as he held her down, mouth going to her shoulder as they came together. He made a sound only then, a rough exhale that made the hairs rise on my arms, and I had to strain hard to hear it over the sound of her.
They collapsed together, and with their breath, I let out my own. My fingers loosened around the doorframe. I hadn’t realized I’d been clutching it.
Vale whipped around.
“Lilith.”
For just a split second, he actually looked shocked. Frazzled.
Then his face hardened, going smooth and angry. He turned his back to me and rose from the bed, yanking a crumbled-up pile of fabric from the floor and giving me another distracting view of his backside.
“What,” he snapped, “are you doing here?”
“You didn’t answer the door.”
My voice sounded a little weaker than I would have preferred.
The woman made no attempt to cover herself. She rolled over and stretched. I realized that she was covered in blood, especially around her throat—the dark color of the bedsheets had hidden that from me before. She smiled, revealing pointed teeth.
“You invited a human friend, Vale?” she said, with a deep inhale that had me stepping backwards.
Vale shot her a warning glance that made her smile disappear.
“A mouse,” he sneered. “No, a rat. An uninvited pest.”
He shook out the robe he’d picked up with a single violent movement, then threw it over his shoulders.
“I knocked,” I said. “You didn’t answer. I came when I said I would.”
“Oh, so did I,” the woman said, laughing softly to herself, and Vale shot her another unamused stare.
“What?” she said. “You don’t want to share?”
“Let’s not make any more a mess of my home than we already have. Can you give us a moment?”
She sighed, then sprang from the bed, lithe as a cat. She grabbed a piece of fabric from the bedside table and wiped the blood from her chest and throat. “I should be going, anyway. Thank you for the hospitality, as always, Vale.”
She threw on a plain black shirt and trousers, which had been sitting on the ground, then strolled past me with nothing more than another long, curious stare, which started at my feet and ended at my face.
Vale stared out the window, silent, until her footsteps had long since disappeared. Then, finally, he turned. He now wore a dark red, velvety robe, which he had loosely tied around his waist, so it revealed a long strip of his chest—covered in curly black hair—but, almost disappointingly, nothing below his waist.
My lips pressed together.
The robe was so…
“What?” he snapped.
“What?”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at—”
I closed my mouth. Telling people that I was laughing at their clothing, I realized, was probably not very polite.
“What?” he bit out, irritated.
“The robe. It’s just… it’s very vampiric.”
His lips went thin. “Yes, well. I am a vampire. So I see now why you’re at the top of your field.”
I stifled my laughter.
Right. Work.
“I’m here for your blood. It’s been a month, as we agreed.”
“And payment?”
I reached into my bag and withdrew a rose, carefully wrapped so not a single petal was bent or crushed. He outstretched his hand, and I hesitated, to which he heaved an irritated sigh.
“What? Now I scare you?”
He didn’t scare me. It just smelled like sex in here. I crossed the room, eyeing the bloody, rumpled sheets as I passed. Vale took the rose and stared at it, unimpressed.
“The one you gave me last time seems to be totally unremarkable,” he said.
“You’ll have to be patient.”
“I’m not a very patient man.”
“I don’t lie, Lord Vale. They’re special. I promise.”
“You can just call me Vale,” he grumbled. “I suppose that once someone has seen my bare ass, we can drop the titles.”
He dropped heavily into a velvet chair next to the window. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here. Is that a problem?”
I glanced again to the bed, and he let out a low, silken chuckle.
“What? Are you really so distracted by sex?”
It was distracting, but I wasn’t about to admit that. I dropped to my knees before him and withdrew my equipment from my bag. When I took his arm to guide the needle into his veins, I was acutely conscious of every patch of my flesh that touched his.
He laughed again as I thrust the needle through the resistance of his skin.
“I can hear your heartbeat. Is that nervousness or excitement?”
I could hear my own heartbeat, too, and I wished it would calm down. Even I wasn’t sure which it was, but neither was welcome.
“I think it’s amusing that you wandered into my house without a care in the world,” he said, “but the sight of fifteen seconds of sex triggers your nerves. I will never understand humans.”