FOUR
The spacious living room, which had been filled with pale spring sunshine filtering through the tiny, high windows, suddenly darkened, presumably because of clouds rolling across the sky. The room darkening might have just simply been my imagination, though.
My imagination and my thinking that I’d soon be dead, drained of all blood by Nick, before I’d even had much of a chance to carry out my revenge mission of killing him. I thought it was a brilliant plan I’d concocted, and now it would be all for nothing. It wasn’t even just the room that had seemed to have gone dark; it seemed like everything had.
Because of what Nick had said about me not being completely honest, I was sure he’d somehow read my mind about wanting to ultimately earn his trust and kill him. I’d heard of rare vampires having mind-reading abilities. Because of this, I was sure that Nick knew that I was a now a wannabe-assassin, trying to gain his trust in order to carry out my revenge.
If he wasn’t a mind-reader, I wasn’t sure how he’d been able to discern this, but I felt in my bones that he had. Just the way he was looking at me, frowning hard, his dark brows furrowed, told me that it was all over for me. He knew. Maybe he’d even known about my plan the second I’d thought it up.
And maybe he’d just been acting like he didn’t know in order to toy with me a while, to lull me into a false sense of safety before revealing that he knew exactly what I had planned for him and what I intended to do. Then, he would attack me and try to kill me, and he would surely succeed. Without my supernatural powers, I’d have no way to defend myself, other than the little knife in my pocket, although I was sure that would be no real help against a vampire.
With my heart hammering in my ears, I just looked at Nick, hardly even daring to breathe. I wondered if I should even attempt to deny the accusations he was surely about to level at me, or if I’d even get the chance to. Across the living room, a tall grandfather clock made of dark wood, mahogany maybe, chimed four o’ clock, with each low-toned chime seeming to officially declare my doom.
I hated the thought of dying. Once the shock of my coven family dying had worn off, I’d stopped having suicidal thoughts pretty quickly. I’d wanted to live to hopefully maybe someday get revenge, yes, or at least see John take revenge for me, but I’d also just wanted to live, period. I still did.
I even saw it as some sort of a duty to live out the rest of my life as happily as I could considering that I’d lost my entire family, but it was precisely that loss that made me think I had a duty. My coven mother, Aurelia, and all my coven sisters had had their lives brutally taken, and I knew they’d all want me to live mine as best as I could and as long as I could because they hadn’t had a chance to fully live theirs.
As much as I hated the thought of dying by being attacked by the vampire who was currently sitting across from me, frowning hard now, I almost hated something else even more. I hated the fact that even despite the peril I was in, the thought of how utterly, devastatingly handsome Nick was still stayed somewhere near the front of my mind.
Also, infuriatingly, I realized that because I’d been found out, I was now not going to be able to spend another minute just looking at him. I was astonished and sickened that I even wanted to. He’d been responsible for killing my coven, or at least giving orders to some of his vampires to do it, and here I was, disappointed that I wouldn’t get to experience looking at him for another minute.
Maybe I deserved to die.
Once the grandfather clock went silent, I fully expected Nick to come flying up from the cream-colored couch and rip my throat out. I expected him to at least do something to scare me before revealing that he knew exactly what I was thinking. Then, I assumed, he’d kill me.
However, to my astonishment again, Nick slowly got up, crossed the distance to where I sat in my overstuffed chair, and knelt beside me. “You’re hiding something from me, Tiffany. I don’t know what it is, but I can see it in your eyes.”
“No. No, I’m not. That’s--”
“You don’t have to tell me what it is. I just don’t want you to be afraid of me is all, if you are. If I seemed stern or angry when I first came in here, it was just because I was stressed.”
His voice was low and gentle. Not at all like the voice of a man about to kill me. I dared to hope that maybe I’d been wrong about his mind-reading. Or maybe what he thought I was hiding from him wasn’t the real thing I was hiding from him.
Willing my racing heartbeat to slow, I took a deep breath before responding to him. “I really don’t know what you're talking about. What do you think I’m hiding from you?”
His frown softened into an expression that almost resembled one of sympathy, absolutely baffling me.
“I think you’re hiding some fear.”
I took another deep breath, limp with relief at the realization that I was probably going to live to see another day. “And why do you say that?”
Nick gave his head a slight shake, with his expression still one resembling sympathy. “Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can see fear in your eyes…or maybe it’s just uncertainty. You're hiding something...and I think it’s maybe just your fear of me.”
In total disbelief, I marveled over the fact that instead of Nick knowing that I was working on a revenge plan, he just thought that I was afraid of him. Which, I had to admit, was partially true. No matter that he was acting with seeming sympathy and compassion at present, I knew it might just all be an act. I knew one thing for sure, though, which was that he wasn’t about to kill me that very minute.
Realizing that I’d been terrified for nothing, I could have laughed out loud. I could have, if I wasn’t feeling weak with relief, that is. I was relieved that I wasn’t going to be immediately killed and relieved that I still had a shot at executing the plan I’d come up with when I’d recognized Nick as the leader of the Everglen Coven.
It was all so simple now. Now, I just had to go along with what Nick was saying in order to continue on with my revenge plan.
So, trying to conceal my profound relief, I nodded with what I hoped was an expression of complete sincerity. “I won’t lie. You’re at least partially right. I am a little bit afraid of you. I just didn’t want to say it and have you think I’m a complete baby.”
Nick gave me another one of his small smiles, curving the edges of his full lips just a few degrees. “It’s okay. You’re a human woman, and there is nothing babyish about being afraid of a vampire that you don’t know. Nothing. In fact, I admire you for trying to be so tough about concealing your fear.
“You don't have to be tough any more, though. I want to help you, not hurt you, and in return, I hope you’ll help me in return. So, from now on, just tell me if you’re feeling scared. The two of us are in this thing together, or we could be. Deal?”
My relief had turned to revulsion while I'd been listening to his words. The two of us were certainly not in “this thing,” whatever it was, together. One of us was a murderer, if not directly, then indirectly.
However, knowing that I needed to play along, I nodded, then forced myself to give Nick one of his small smiles in return. “Deal. I’ll try to be more honest with you if I start to feel afraid of you again. I’ll try not to be so tough.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. I want you to also feel free to ask me any questions you want to…because it seems like there’s one pretty obvious one that you should be asking, although maybe you’ve been too afraid to ask me.”
“Well…what question would that be?”
I was kind of curious.
With his full lips twitching, Nick cocked one dark brow just a degree or two. “Well…aren’t you the least bit curious about why we Everglen Coven vampires need to have children? Or why we can't just ‘create’ children by turning human children into vampires? You haven’t asked either of these questions, and you haven’t even asked how it’s possible that we could impregnate a human woman.”
As far as this last question, I hadn’t been aware that they could. I’d assumed they were impregnating their female vampire counterparts. But as far as the other questions, Nick clearly didn’t know the full extent of my involvement with the Dormio Coven. If he had, he would have assumed that I’d simply been told all these things.
Nonetheless, this was good news for me because maybe Nick would never suspect me of being a would-be assassin, I figured. Also, I now had the chance to ask him a few things and earn his trust.
To this end, I forced myself to give Nick another little smile, at the same time fighting disgust at myself because the sun was streaming through the windows again, making his dark gray eyes appear positively dazzling, and I couldn't seem to help myself from appreciating them. “Oh, of course. I feel so stupid now that I didn’t ask those questions earlier. To be honest, though, I have been kind of wondering how it’s possible that a vampire could get a human woman pregnant, but….” I turned my gaze away from Nick’s face, really getting into my completely innocent woman act now. “Maybe I’m just a little shy when it comes to questions about reproduction and….”
“And sex?”
Nick reached for one of my hands and gave it a squeeze, stunning me for the second time in as many moments. The first time had been when he’d just come right out and said sex, no euphemistic phrases like “sleeping together” or “making love.” For some reason, his unabashed manner of speaking made a little heat rise to my cheeks, and I kept my gaze turned away from his face, now truly feeling a bit shy, or hesitant. Or something else that I couldn't even identify.
Nick gave my hand another squeeze before speaking again. “Tiffany, like I said earlier, I’m here to help you, and I want to be your friend…hopefully a very good friend at some point. Please don't ever feel shy about discussing sex with me. You can discuss literally anything with me.”
With my mind reeling, all I could think about was what on earth Nick might mean by saying that he wanted to become “a very good friend” to me. Almost against my will, I wondered if that very good friendship might include bedroom activities.