You tell yourself a story about who you are and who you’re meant to be as you get older.
The story I told myself was that I would pledge to the Locke vampire house just like everyone in my family who had come before me, despite the fact that every time I thought about it, there was a strong hum of dissonance in my gut.
As I got closer to Pledge age, I decided that maybe what I really needed was to leave Midnight Harbor, that I didn’t belong there, and no amount of faking it would make it better.
But Bran’s words have changed everything I thought I knew about myself and yet…
It almost feels like I’ve sloughed off a coat that never fit.
Fae.
He tasted fae in my blood.
I’m still naked and dripping his cum down my legs, but my world is spinning and I don’t know what to do first.
Clean up or scream.
Bran is beside me in an instant. “Come on.” He brings me into the bathroom and wets a rag. “Open up, mouse,” he says, nudging my knees apart. He cleans me up with a gentle hand and I’m so taken aback back by it, so grateful for him, that I’m suddenly teary-eyed.
A fat tear streams down my face and Bran reaches over, swiping it away with his thumb.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t apologize for your pain.”
I nod and then put my face in my hands and suck in several deep breaths.
Bran lets me sit in the silence and the turmoil and it might be the kindest gift anyone has ever given me.
When I feel just slightly more together, I pull my hands away and shove the hair out of my face. He’s in the doorway now, my clothes in his hand. I didn’t even hear him leave.
“Thank you.”
He leaves me to dress.
Once I’m clothed and after several more holy-shit-I-can’t-breathe-this-is-insane moments, I leave the bathroom and find Bran at the window staring out into the night. I don’t even know what time it is. Everything about my life is twisted and unfamiliar, including my sleep schedule.
“Now what?” I ask. “Where do I go from here?”
My stomach growls, clearly having an opinion on the matter.
Bran looks at me over his shoulder, his gaze on my midsection. “When’s the last time you ate?”
I shrug. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”
“Then the first thing we’ll do is get you some food.”
“What, now? I’m not hungry.”
He gives me an admonishing glare. “You have to eat, mouse.”
“Oh, do I? Oh, thank god you were here. I had no idea that was even a thing mortals did.”
He saunters over.
I’ve always wondered if a vampire has to make considerable effort to walk the speed of us lowly humans, and if so…what does it mean that he’s doing it now?
It makes me feel like stalked prey.
Which makes me think he’s definitely doing it on purpose.
Using his height, he dominates my personal space so I backpedal, bumping into the wall. His hand comes to my jaw, forcing me to look up at him.
I exhale in a nervous little hiccup.
“You keep talking to me like that, I might have to punish this mouth later.”
My tongue darts out, wetting my lips, and he watches the movement with hunger.
“I’ve only ever given one blow job before,” I hear myself saying and then immediately turn red in the face. What the hell? He knew I was a virgin, to a certain degree, but this somehow is more embarrassing. Like I’m freely admitting my deficiencies in the bedroom.
“And?” he says.
“And…it was with Matt Thompson. He said I sucked at it. The pun unintended.”
Bran’s face darkens. “Matt Thompson is a fucking idiot.”
“While I agree with that…I’m just saying…I don’t really know what I’m doing in that department.”
He dips down and kisses me gently, his mouth lingering on mine. “Don’t worry, mouse,” he says against my lips. “I’ll teach you how.”
“Another promise, is it?”
“Mmmm.” He reaches up and rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. “I’ll look forward to fucking that hole too.”
His words send a pulse through my clit. I am inexperienced in the bedroom. I know my own pleasure, but I’m realizing there is power in giving pleasure to someone else too. And maybe that’s why Bran loves to control mine. Maybe that’s why I love it when he does.
And maybe that’s why the thought of giving him something he can’t get on his own sends a delicious thrill through my veins.
“Fuck,” I say, drawing the word out into several long syllables.
He kisses me again and then he’s gone and the air immediately cools with his absence.
“Come on, mouse. It’s time to eat.” He smirks at me from the door. “You’ll need your stamina if you’re going to keep up with me.”
He doesn’t mean in a foot race.
Like a dutiful little mouse, I follow him from the room, down the stairs and out the door.
Bran takes me to Crook & Pawn, one of the Duval restaurants. I’ve literally never stepped foot inside but I’ve always wanted to. Sam went once with Bianca and described it to me like a New England boarding school on crack.
I never thought I’d get to see it with my own eyes and never on the arm of Bran Duval.
He holds the door open for me and I step inside. There are inset lights in the short entrance hall, giving the space a hushed, soft golden glow. Dark wood covers the walls in the same deep, rich mahogany as the creaky old floor. Oil paintings in gilded frames depicting landscapes and birds and wild horses hang on the wall.
It’s the kind of place that instantly brings to mind leather and tobacco and liquor and whispered gossip behind curls of smoke.
There isn’t smoking inside, or at least none that I can smell, but I still get the feeling like there should be or there once was.
We leave the hall, Bran with his hand at the small of my back, me with my head slightly bowed as if I can hide the fact that I come from a Locke family and very much do not belong here.
But as soon as we step foot into the main room, the entire place goes silent save for the classical music playing through the embedded sound system.
Just when I think I understand the silence, that I’m getting used to the kind of attention Bran commands in Midnight, everyone rises from their tables in a cacophony of clattering dishes and chair legs scraping on the wood floor. And then every single person in the room bows their head to Bran.
I look over at him, mouth agape.
There’s no emotion on his face. None of the cocky arrogance I’d expect.
Because clearly this happens every single time he steps foot inside the place, and clearly, he’s very much used to it.
I know vampire houses and witch covens operate on their own rules, but I never stopped to think just how different one vampire house might be from another.
This level of veneration doesn’t exist in the Locke House.
I always knew Bran had a certain level of respect in Midnight Harbor even outside of his house, but I’m not prepared for this. Not at all.
When the bowing and worshipping comes to an end, a hostess hurries over and gives another reverential nod. I can’t remember the girl’s name, but she’s definitely mortal and not too much older than I am. Her attention darts from me to Bran and lingers on him in a way that makes my stomach twist. “Good evening, Mr. Duval. Your usual table?”
“Yes, Merra. Bottle of red too.”
“Of course.” She leads us through the dining room and all eyes track us. When we reach a back corner booth, Bran motions for me to slide into it. Merra hands me a menu fastened inside a thick leather cover. “I’ll be back with the red.” She scurries off.
“Mouse,” Bran says, his eyes scanning the restaurant. “If you keep gaping at me like that, I might have to find something to put in that pretty mouth.”
A shiver races through me and Bran grins.
“You’re so funny.”
“Yes, I get that a lot. ‘You know that Bran Duval, he’s such a funny guy.’”
I roll my eyes at him, then, “They’re all acting like you’re a king.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“What is a king but a man who declares he’s one?”
I frown at him. “That’s not how that works.”
“I hold the power. They know that.”
There’s so much about Bran that I’ve clearly missed over the years.
“And what do you do with all that power?”
He finally looks over at me, his hand finding my thigh beneath the table and squeezing. “I fuck innocent virgin neighbor girls.”
I catch more than one person shooting their attention to us, probably eavesdropping on our conversation.
There’s no such thing as a secret in a room full of vampires.
If this gets back to Julian…
Not that it should come as a surprise. He did find me half-dressed in Bran’s house this afternoon, after all.
“You make it a habit of fucking innocent virgins, do you?” I challenge with a sharp edge of jealousy in my voice.
“Only the naughty ones.”
My face flames and I shift on the leather of the booth, thighs rubbing together to ward off the sudden thrill between my legs.
Is it possible to keel over from being horny too often?
There’s no such thing as a break when I’m with Bran.
Every touch is electric. Every word edged with innuendo.
Every look molten and ravenous.
We are two storm clouds always threatening to clash.
Merra returns with a wine bottle, but when she pops the cork out and fills a wine goblet, the dark red liquid looks too thick for wine.
Bran immediately drinks it back and runs his tongue over his sharpened fangs, a flare of light coming to his irises.
“What can I get for you?” Merra asks me.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t even look at the menu.” My eyes glaze over the words written in fancy script on the thick paper.
“She’ll have a grilled cheese and French fries,” Bran answers and takes the menu from me to hand it back. “With a root beer.”
“What if I don’t want that?”
Bran shoos Merra away with a curt flick of his hand.
“You have a grilled cheese at least three nights a week and always with French fries,” he says.
“How would you—”
He taps his nose.
“Right. Of course.”
He’s not wrong. I do make a lot of grilled cheeses. Kelly doesn’t love cooking and neither do I. And judging by the gnawing in my gut, my stomach is here for it.
Merra left the bottle of blood on the table and Bran reaches over to grab it by the neck. The thick liquid glug-glugs as it splashes into the goblet.
“Whose blood is that?” I ask.
He peruses the label. “Says it’s Vintage Mitchell Smith, bottled in ’79.”
“Wait, really?”
I snatch the bottle from him only to find the label mostly blank. It just says, Red—bottled in Serona with mortal consent.
He’s laughing at me.
“See. You are funny.”
He brings the goblet to his lips and takes a tentative sip while his other arm winds behind me along the booth.
A few days ago, I thought he hated me. I thought he couldn’t stand the sound of my voice. But now I don’t know what to think.
We are inexplicably tangled in one another now, but there’s a little voice in the back of my head that keeps reminding me this could all be some grand vampire game just to keep things entertaining in his long, long life.
It makes me want to know. It makes me want to put a magnifying glass to it and dissect it until I can label all its parts and put it in a neat little box.
“What are we doing, Bran?”
His eyes cut to me. “We’re having dinner.”
“No. I mean…you and me.” I lower my voice. “What we just did—”
He cuts me off with his mouth on mine, his arm sliding off the booth, his hand threading through my hair pulling me into him. The kiss isn’t long, but it is intimately deliberate.
It feels like a declaration to the entire room.
When he pulls away, my grilled cheese and fries are on the table and Merra is standing by awkwardly, her gaze downcast. “Was there anything else?”
“No,” Bran answers. I notice he doesn’t say thank you. I suppose the king isn’t accustomed to thanking his peasants.
“Thanks, Merra,” I say and she nods and darts off.
“Eat, mouse,” he tells me, his hand still tangled in my hair but his eyes on the restaurant now. I get the distinct feeling he’s waiting for something, biding his time.
Turns out I was right.
I’m nearly finished with my food when the front door bangs open and a figure darts into the restaurant and comes to a sudden stop at our table.
It takes my human eyes a second to focus on the vampire.
Hands on her hips, Sky Carter stands in front of us, boobs revolting against the tight V-neck of her shirt. My stomach sinks.
Sky Carter is fourth in line at the Duval House and worse—she’s Bran’s ex.
There is a very pointed look on her face. One that could pierce flesh if wielded properly.
“Sky,” Bran says in a bored tone of voice.
“You have a taste for trash now, do you?” While she barely looks at me, we all know she’s referring to me.
“What do you want?” he asks her.
Is he just going to ignore the fact that she called me trash?
“Damien has summoned you,” she answers.
“Try again.” His voice rings with authority.
With a sigh, she says, “Damien asks that you come to the house.”
“Fine.”
Sky relaxes. I don’t. Bran’s body is a hard line beside me, muscles tense.
He is the viper coiling to strike.
I feel the cold air in Bran’s absence first. I hear the snap of a neck second.
Sky’s eyes roll back in her head as her body thuds heavily to the floor.
I yelp in surprise and the sound rings out in the abrupt silence of the restaurant.
“Come on, mouse.” Bran holds out his hand for me and I quickly take it, letting him guide me out of the booth.
As I step over the undead dead body of Sky Carter on the floor, my gut twists.
I will be paying for this later.
