Page 54 of The Night Firm

"Not know what?" I ask.

"What you are?"

I gulp, unhappy with the direction this conversation is taking. "I'm human. A mundane, as you call it. Haven't I been reminded of that often enough?"

"But you aren't really, are you? At least not fully. You could read our ad."

"Yes. That's been established."

He puts his violin on its stand and hangs the bow, then turns and walks towards me. My kitten meows and hides behind my legs as Liam comes so close I can feel his breath on my face. His body emanates heat and his eyes burn with barely contained passions, though for pleasure or pain it's hard to tell. I've only experienced pain from him thus far.

"You could not have read our ad as a mundane. I do not know why you smell like one," he says, leaning in to inhale my neck, his mouth a hair's width from the vein pulsing in my neck. "But I have tasted you, Eve Oliver. You are no human. There is power in you. Deep and dark and wild. You are dangerous," he says, his voice a low growl. "Who sent you?"

"Who sent me?" I ask, repeating his question. "No one. You did. I don't know. Fate, if you will."

He steps back, his eyes narrowing on me suspiciously. "You confound me. And I do not like to be confounded."

"I don't like to be bitten against my will. I guess life is just rough sometimes, isn't it?" The sass is back in my voice, naturally. Because that's never made a problem worse.

"You are guileless. Which makes you innocent of your own heritage. Or extremely well-trained in the art of subterfuge." His golden eyes bore into mine as if trying to read my soul.

"Um, I'm gonna go with guileless, I think. That seems the safest bet." I bite my lip as something comes to me. "How do you know I'm not mundane? Because you drank me? How did that tell you anything? What do you think I am, if you don't believe me?"

"You are nothing I have tasted before, so I cannot give you a name. But I know power when I taste it. I have been feeling it within me since that moment. And it is showing no signs of fading. If other vampires knew what effect you could have on them, you would be served up as the appetizer and main course at an all-you-can-eat vampire buffet. There wouldn't be enough left of you to identify."

His words send shivers up my spine, and I steel myself against the implied threat, but he's not finished yet.

"You need to figure out who you are before someone else figures it out first. The Otherworld isn't a safe place for someone who tastes like you. Watch your back."

"Yeah, well, thanks for the warning, I guess. I'll keep an eye out for hordes of vampires wanting to drain me. I'm sure that heads up will be all I need to rise victorious over beings that much stronger, faster and more powerful than me." The sarcasm drips from my voice, and though I am grateful for the warning and knowledge, I'm annoyed at how useless it is. If vampires want me, at the end of the day—or night, rather—there's not much I can do to stop them.

At least…nothing I know of. But what if there are more things I don't know? Because that's absolutely true. There's a shit ton I don't know and that lack of knowledge could get me killed.

I know who I have to talk to.

Liam has already turned his back on me as he picks up his violin and prepares to play again—still naked as the day he was born. Vampires clearly have no modesty. Or this one doesn't, at any rate.

I avert my eyes and slink out of the room, closing the door firmly behind me before his music pulls me back.

I search deep within myself for a pulse or flash of some kind to help me figure out where I can find Grandmother Matilda. But it turns out, I don't need a flash. Moon is already on the trail, and so I follow the tiny thing until we reach the old woman's suite. I knock once and the door opens of its own will.

Matilda is leaning over the fire, stirring something in an iron pot. "Come in, and close the door, my dear. The hallways are always so drafty. I keep telling the boys to upgrade the ventilation system, but they are always too busy."

She speaks as she stirs, and Moon and I walk over to her. "I'm sorry to bother so late, but—"

"You have questions," she says, standing and turning, wiping her hands on a black apron around her waist. "So many questions, buzzing around in your mind like a swarm of wasps."

She gets two soup bowls with handles and fills them both, handing one to me. I sniff it and smile. "Apple cider?"

She nods and sits in one of the chairs before the fire, gesturing for me to do the same.

Her suite is one very large room, where her desk, bookshelves, work shelves, bed, wardrobe, small dining table and chairs all share space.

"Take a seat, dear. It's time we talked."

I do as I'm instructed and sip on the cider, enjoying the sweet, earthy taste of it.

"When Liam bit me, he said he could tell that I'm not entirely human, but he doesn't know what I am. Do you?"