‘Mine,’ a voice sighed in my ear. ‘All mine,’ it repeated, as arms clad in a black shirt placed themselves just above my own arms, wrapped around my middle. His hair tickled my neck as he bowed his head, his lips finding a vein and kissing their way down it, hands not hesitating to find my br**sts, pulling me closer as I cupped his hands with my own and took an involuntary step back into his chest.
‘You like that, Girly?’ he purred, closing his fists a little. I answered him with a sigh as the air in my lungs rushed out in one breath. He chuckled and his hands slid down, finding the hem of my shirt and pulling it up. I didn’t have time to react and in a second, he was holding it, leaving me standing in my bra and jeans.
‘What are you doing?’ I crossed my arms over my chest, very aware that the double doors to the left were thrown wide open to the night. He didn’t answer, but grabbed my hand and led me out towards the strip of light cast along the steps by the lamps in the entrance hall. I only just had time to kick my feet into the pair of dolly shoes I had placed aside. ‘Are you crazy? Somebody will see!’
‘Let them see,’ he replied, leading me out onto the gravel. He was too strong to resist and my back-pedalling proved useless, especially as he entwined his fingers in my hair, pushing my now drenched fringe out of my eyes. ‘Let them see how beautiful you are.’
I stretched out my free hand and pushed his own wet fringe out of his eyes, stifling a girlish giggle. ‘You do know it’s raining, right? And that it’s freezing cold?’ I could feel my jeans tightening as they became soaked through and streaks of water raced down my chest from the tips of my hair.
He looked up at the night sky, studying it with a bemused expression. ‘Raining? I never would have guessed.’ Drops of water landed on his face, running along his jaw and down his neck, which he wiped away with a brush of his own free hand. ‘But not cold. Temperate.’
‘Really?’ I shivered as I said that, emphasising how cold it really was. ‘I must feel like a hot poker then.’
‘As hard to handle as a hot poker,’ he muttered.
‘Hey!’ I placed a hand on his chest and shoved. He moved, but I knew that wasn’t anything to do with my strength. I took a few steps back and reached down, scooping a handful of water up in my cupped hands from the fountain and throwing in his vague direction. Most of his shirt was already wet but it caught his sleeve, plastering it to his skin. In a comically slow way, he looked down at it, arching an eyebrow.
‘Really, Girly?’
Before I could blink, he had darted forward and splashed me. It knocked the wind from my lungs as it hit me and I threw my arms around myself, thinking the glowing light and relative warmth of the entrance hall looked very appealing. He reached down to splash me again and I scarpered out of the way, around to the other side of the fountain. He rounded it one way and I dived the other, but he soon caught up with me, catching me by the waist.
‘Kaspar, don’t! I’ll catch a cold or something!’
Should have thought about that before you splashed him, my voice commented.
‘No, you won’t. Turning will stop anything like that.’
I groaned, relaxing into his arms as he steered us away from the fountain. ‘What if something goes wrong tomorrow night? What even happens when a human is turned?’
‘I take some of your blood, and you take some of mine. It’s simple. Nothing will go wrong.’
‘Yes, but what if—’
He pressed a finger to my lips. ‘If you were very old or very young, or seriously ill, then yes, it is likely that something could go wrong. But you’re not. In fact, you’re a dhampir, so there’s even less chance. So stop worrying.’
I made a disgruntled noise through my pursed lips. ‘What about after the blood bit then? How long does it take?’
‘It takes a few days for your teeth to completely sharpen and it will be a while before you develop hunting skills, but almost everything transforms in a few hours. It’s amazing to watch somebody pale like that.’
‘You’ve turned somebody before?’
He nodded. It was reassuring to know that he knew what he was doing, but something else, jealousy perhaps, crept in.
‘Who?’
He shook his head, like he was trying to remember. ‘One of the maids here, not long after the war. Anne, I think her name was.’
Something in the pit of my stomach fell away. ‘Do you mean Annie?’ Yet again he nodded. His eyes tinged pink and I didn’t have to ask to know what had happened. Well, that explains a lot. I felt another pang of jealousy, mixed with guilt too.
‘If something were to go wrong though, would—’
‘Father won’t be far away, and he knows everything there is to know about turning.’ Again, I didn’t know whether to be reassured or concerned.
‘Do you want to know something?’ he said, clearly keen to change the subject as he entwined his fingers with mine. He didn’t wait for an answer as he placed my hand over the spot on my chest where my heartbeat was the strongest. ‘I can’t wait until that heart stops beating.’
I rolled up onto my toes and planted a kiss on his lips. I could wait, but if there is ever going to be a good reason to turn, it is for more of these moments. I rested my head on his shoulder. He had his back to the mansion and I looked up at the place that had been my home for the past three months. I stared at it, wondering how such a large, empty, cold house could feel so right, even after everything that had happened.
And from the top floor, a face stared back: the King’s. His expression was neither kind nor angry, just blank, just as I thought his heart had been for so long. But now I realized he suffered, more than any of us; and a floor below that, a second man looked on: my own father. I didn’t need to study his face to know that it was full of hurt.
I pressed my bare midriff into Kaspar, hoping they wouldn’t see and glad the darkness hid my flushed cheeks.
I won’t let any feud between them come between Kaspar and I. I can’t let it.
SIXTY-TWO
Violet
All traces of the storm had disappeared by the next morning. The sun streamed through my windows, voiles thrown open by Kaspar to wake me up before he left. He had gone to hunt, because he wanted to make sure he wasn’t thirsty before he turned me.
Today is the day. Today, I become a vampire. Today, I seal it all.
The hairs on my arms stood on end. My legs slowly warmed as strips of light divided the sheets I was tucked beneath; moments before they had been frozen from his touch.