by Ella M. Lee
“Alchemy,” I said.
“I think that is the closest word you have to what I do,” he said, his eyes sharp and thoughtful. “There’s an ancient, soothing serum my kind uses. For this”—he fingered the edge of the bowl—“I recreated it. I can affect all manner of things.”
He pressed his hand, finger splayed, into the dark granite countertop. With a crack, it shattered, leaving a radiating spiraling cobweb pattern in the stone. With a slight twitch of his hand, drawing his fingers into a loose fist, the countertop repaired itself. When he removed his hand, it was shiny and whole.
I swallowed. “Can you turn things into other things? Like, can you make a diamond from sand or something?”
“Diamond?” he echoed. “Diamonds are difficult. Gold is easier to demonstrate.”
From underneath the counter, he brought out a small quarter-sized disk of dull, gray metal. He laid it on the counter and placed his palm over it. Power rippled through him, so much of it that it felt like a visceral thing, and his eyes swirled. When he lifted his hand, the disk had flattened, becoming hammered and faceted and the color of shiny gold.
“Neat,” I said.
“It’s not done,” he said, studying it.
He took another powder from under the island counter. Green this time, the color of his eyes. He dipped the pad of his thumb into it, coating the skin, and then pressed it on top of the center of the disk. Another flash of power rippled through him.
When he removed his finger, there was a tiny green gem set into the gold, embedded in it, surrounded by the faint lines of his thumbprint.
“Emeralds are a little easier than diamonds,” he conceded.
He pushed the disk toward me, and I picked it up, turning it over in my hand, fascinated.
“Did that fulfill your demand?” he asked. “I could make my explanation more technical, but I don’t think a human would understand.” His tone was apologetic, not condescending.
“Your turn,” I said, by way of agreement, still studying the disk.
Silence fell over the apartment for nearly a minute as he considered. Finally—
“Tell me how you were first caught.”
I cleared my throat, discomfort filling the pit of my stomach. Painful memories crept in at that request. I laid the golden disk back down on the counter.
“There isn’t much to tell.” I took a sip of my orange juice. “I’m a young woman. I acquired a stalker. That stalker was a vampire named Franklin.”
“I see,” Ren said. I could tell by his interested expression that he was hoping I’d go on.
“I didn’t take it seriously enough,” I said. “I got drunk on the beach with some friends on my eighteenth birthday. They all went home safe that night. I got kidnapped.”
I didn’t want to say any more. I didn’t want to talk about those terrifying moments when I thought I’d die, those first hopeless days when I didn’t understand what was going on, the slow leeching of every feeling in me as I was violated again and again.
But Ren seemed curious. “He hurt you?”
“Of course he hurt me,” I said. “That’s what vampires do. They hurt humans. He needed to eat, and I’m food.”
“Did you wish you could hurt him in return?” Ren asked.
“Of course,” I said again. I laid my shaking palms on the counter.
Ren studied me, his brow furrowed. “What would you be doing now, if you hadn’t been caught?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Attending college?”
He seemed to have nothing to say to that.
“Is it my turn?” I said into the silence that stretched between us.
He waved his hand.
“Tell me about demons,” I said.
“All demons?” he asked. “We’d be here the whole night, and for several days after that. Can you be more specific?”
Those first words of his were enough to chill me. So there were vampires in the world, and there were lots of demons. A few hours ago, I hadn’t known they existed, and now I was facing more than I’d ever imagined.
“Generalities are fine,” I said. “How many kinds are there? Are they all like you? Do they all come from where you come from?”
“There are hundreds of kinds,” he said. “Of all shapes, sizes, temperaments. Think of them like races of humans, I suppose, except more diverse in their properties and abilities. Different levels of power, too. My kind are among the more powerful on the spectrum. We can perform higher-level magic and leave our home realm. Many others cannot do those things. They are…primitive.”
“You forgot a question,” I said.
He cast his eyes upward in thought. “Ah. There are several demon realms. The Shorn Realm—where I come from—is the largest. Does that slake your interest in the subject?”
“For now,” I said.
He left the kitchen island for a moment, going to the dining table. I turned to watch him pick through a pile of books. He selected a blue one and brought it back with him. He slid it across the counter toward me.
“What does that seem like to you?” he asked.
I frowned at the book. His question didn’t make any sense. Seem like?
The cover was ocean-blue and blank. It was clothbound, with bronze metal studs along the edges. I reached out to touch it and hesitated.
“Go ahead,” Ren said.
I checked the spine, eyeing the gold design running down it. I opened to the middle. Dense black text, in a language that looked like Hebrew or Arabic or Thai or one of those other loopy, elegant alphabets. There weren’t even spaces between words, just rows of joined lines. I flipped through the book. Diagrams stood out here and there, interconnected circles with more text surrounding them. It felt strange. Otherworldly, like Ren.
“Is this from…from your home?” I asked. “It feels weird. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen this language before. It’s not Estrerian.” The vampire language was glyph-based, like Chinese.
“What does it feel like?” he prodded.
“I don’t know. Like…like…the sky.” I didn’t know why that had popped into my mind. “Like clouds or light or droplets of water.”
“Hmm.” He studied the book. “It is from the Shorn Realm. It seems to like you, and you seem to like it in return.”
I ran my hand over the cover again. It felt nice. Welcoming. Not something I would’ve expected from a demon realm. But then again, I wouldn’t have expected Ren to be a demon, either.
If we’d met at a bar and he’d flirted with me, I would’ve thought he was cute and funny. Incidentally, that was how a lot of vampires found victims, because humans were lured by charm and wit. And we never guessed what lurked under the surface of strangers.
“Show me your demon form,” I said.
Ren’s eyes went wide.
I thought he’d refuse and end the game. Instead, his eyes swirled with power and shadows and he said, very mildly, “Which one?”
My train of thought died. “Which…what?”
He took a calm sip of juice. “Which demon form? I have two, a demi-form and a full-form.”
“Why two?” I asked, stalling.
“The demi-form is for talking, walking, withstanding the harsh elements of my home, flying, among other things. It’s versatile and useful. The full-form is for combat. It’s not good for much else except a few very, very high-level spells. And killing.”
His last word made me wince, but only slightly, because my mind had caught on one of the previous ones.
Flying.
“Do you have wings?” I asked, breathless.
He offered a charming smile, showing just a hint of his fangs. “You have, essentially, just asked to see them.”
“You haven’t said yes yet.”
“Tell me which form, Ari,” he said, and my name in his low voice sent shivers down my spine.
I swallowed. “Demi,” I said, the word barely there.
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t be scared. Remember that you as
ked for this.”
I nodded.
He walked into the clear space between the kitchen island and the dining room table. Carefully, he unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off, tossing it over one of the dining room chairs. His t-shirt followed, leaving him bare chested. Attractive wasn’t an apt enough word for the rippling muscle that covered his arms and chest, smooth and defined under his pale skin.
He blinked, and the air puckered and wrinkled around him for just a moment. When it settled, I gasped.
The creature standing before me was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Ren the demi-demon had almost pure-white skin. He was longer and taller, thin and sinewy. His shaggy, pure black hair fell into his eyes and around his ears, which were now sharply pointed. His eyes, too, were nearly black, with only a slight ring of white around their huge irises, but they shimmered and shifted like dark water or swirling shadows. Two thin, longish black horns, slightly curled, poked out of his hair well above his eyes. Small black spines lined his forearms, like dull serrated knives.
But his wings…those were the most glorious part of him. Huge and feathered and black, they rested half-folded against him. Shadows danced around them, swirling as they collided with him and radiated outward. He shifted, flaring them out, and I could see that they were composed of more rippling muscle and tendon underneath the pillowy down. The black at their edges faded to charcoal, and something about them made him seem complete.
His eyes were cast down, almost shyly, half-hidden under long lashes and prominent hoods lined in black, above deep shadows and arched cheekbones that had lengthened with the rest of him.
He flared out his wings again, wider this time, and my breath caught. He still hadn’t looked up, but a tiny smile twitched his pale lips. He snapped his wings in tight, making them a coiled column behind him.
“Tell me your honest opinion,” he said, his gaze finally meeting mine. His voice was a little deeper, a little gravellier and harsher, a little less of a sultry purr.
I stood, taking a slight step closer, examining every detail, every tiny change. This form was what I constantly saw lurking within him. Regal. Deadly. Ancient and raw and primal.
“Really cool,” I said. “Really beautiful.”
His smile widened. “Not scary?”
“No, not scary,” I said. “You’re right. You’re nothing like a vampire.”
“I’m glad you noticed,” he said, chuckling dryly.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him, especially the inky feathers. “Let me touch your wings?” I asked, although I hadn’t meant it as a question. Understanding flickered in Ren’s eyes.
In a flash, his demi-form disappeared, replaced by the—dare I say boring?—form of him that I’d come to know for the rest of the night.
“No,” he said.
And that was the end of our game.
Chapter 12
I braced for his anger, for him to punish me for overstepping. I backed myself into the chair, tense.
But he simply pulled his T-shirt back over his head, walked around to his side of the island, and took a sip of his juice.
Eventually, his eyes wandered to mine, curious and assessing.
“You lost,” I said, the words awkward and frightened despite my attempt to make them teasing.
“Don’t take it personally,” he said. “Any creature with wings protects them fiercely. It is an immense offering of trust to let another touch them.”
“So it was rude to ask?”
He smiled. “Would it be rude of me to ask to touch your breasts?” His eyes slid down to my cleavage for a moment.
I crossed my arms. “Yes.”
“Okay, then.”
I took a relieved breath. He wasn’t angry. Or if he was, he was hiding it very well. Better than any vampire I’d ever met. If he were a vampire, I would’ve been dead hours ago. They were all temper and impulse. Ren made calculated decisions.
He exercised patience.
I gave him a weak smile, the first I’d offered in his presence. “Really beautiful, though,” I repeated. “I meant it.”
The words calmed him further. Or maybe it was my smile. His shoulders relaxed, and he leaned on the island. My eyes wandered to his toned forearms, where those deadly serrated edges had been just a minute ago.
“Are your wings fragile?” I asked.
He tilted his head back and forth slowly. “Slightly, yes, and they are more important to me than almost anything else. I would rather lose an arm or leg than a wing. I learned to fly before I could walk or speak or write. One of my kind who can’t fly? They will go insane. It’s the highest punishment in my culture to bind or strip the wings of criminals—worse than death. It isn’t that I’m afraid you’ll hurt me. It’s just an instinct I have, deeper than almost any other.”
Did I have something like that? Something I’d protect more than anything else? Something I’d go crazy over if I lost it? The only thing I could come up with was freedom—but only because it had been taken from me. I hadn’t cared before, because I hadn’t known that was a possibility.
If I ever got freedom again, I would protect it better. As fiercely as Ren protected his wings.
Ren was watching me. “Aren’t you tired?”
“No,” I said. All my exhaustion had fled, leaving me eager and wound up and interested.
“You should try to sleep,” he said.
I searched his eyes. The words weren’t insistent, but the tone sounded a lot like a dismissal. I finished the juice. “The first bedroom?”
“Yes.” His eyes followed me as I got up. “Everything in there is for your use.”
I nodded, turning my eyes away from his intense gaze. They fell on the golden disk. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. It was still warm. Ren had made this because I’d asked, and that felt important, even if I didn’t quite know what it meant. I laid it back down on the counter, giving it one last curious look.
“Take that,” Ren said. “I can always make more.”
Hesitantly, I picked it back up, standing up and heading toward the bedroom.
“Ari?”
I turned back.
Ren’s expression was shadowy and serious. “I won’t be locking you in, but don’t try the front door. I don’t know what that magic will do to a human, and I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Okay.” I made my way around the corner into the hall and slipped past the heavy wooden door into the first bedroom on the left. Once I shut the door, I sagged against it, my heart racing, strangely relieved that he wasn’t going to lock me up all night.
Franklin had been crueler. I’d spent days standing in locked closets, in half-chilled walk-in refrigerators, in his repulsive arms. I’d even once spent nearly two weeks in a locked car trunk every day while he slept.
I stalked farther into the room. It was small and bland, lit softly by a bedside lamp. Windows looked out over the city beyond the queen-sized bed and large television. There was a bathroom to my left and a walk-in closet to my right. I turned on the light and ventured into it.
Clothes hung on the racks—sweaters and sweatshirts and even a couple of dresses. The built-in shelves and drawers held undergarments and T-shirts and leggings and jeans and pajamas. Shoes lined the floor—sneakers, flats, slippers, chunky heels. Everything was my size, or close to it.
I frowned. Had Ren planned to meet me at the auction? Or had he just planned to pick up any girl roughly my shape and size?
And for what reason? I still hadn’t asked, still hadn’t pulled on that thread because I was too afraid of where it led. Maybe tomorrow, he’d offer an opening to that topic. Maybe tomorrow I’d be braver.
I gathered some clean clothes and, with a wary look at the closed bedroom door, went to shower. I still held the disk, clutching it like a lifeline, even though it had appeared in my life only a few minutes ago. Laying it on the bathroom counter gingerly, I stripped off my dirty clothes.
I relaxed under the hot water for far too lon
g, but I couldn’t help myself. A bruise crossed my left hip where Franklin had thrown me into a table, and there was another on my ribs where he’d kicked me, but I hadn’t wanted to draw Ren’s attention to them. They would heal. They’d already faded to yellow and green with only intermittent splotches of red.
I dressed in the new clothes Ren had left for me, feeling awkward. They were soft and expensive, and they confused me even more. Why had he bought these things for me? Why had he spent so much money? Or maybe he didn’t care much about money. Maybe he didn’t even understand it. He could alchemize gold and gems—he likely had all the money he needed.
I drew the curtains closed and paced the small space between the bed and television. I had thought I wasn’t tired, but my eyes kept wandering to the bed. It looked inviting.
If Ren wanted to hurt me, wouldn’t he have done it already? Why would he wait until I was asleep in bed? He didn’t need me to be helpless; he was a hundred times stronger than me. Perhaps he was toying with me. Maybe he got more enjoyment by making me comfortable then ripping that all away. I shuddered.
But I recalled those innocent questions about humans, and his downturned, shy eyes in demi-form. Maybe he was as confused about me as I was about him. I sighed. I cast one more glance at the bedroom door and sent up a prayer that it would stay closed.
I crawled into bed and turned off the bedside light, asleep within minutes.
Chapter 13
The comfortable bed didn’t banish my nightmares.
I woke in a cold sweat, my heart racing, recalling the visceral feeling of claws scraping my skin and the painful pierce of vampire teeth. My hand went first to the bite scar on the inside of my left thigh then to the one on the inside of my right thigh. I gagged at the feeling of the bumpy scar tissue, bitten over and over again until the areas were a torn mess. The latter wound was still a bit raw; Franklin had last bitten me there a few days ago.