Page 17 of The Reveal (Bloodlore #1)

He walks behind the counter and rummages around, then shrugs on a T-shirt.

That doesn’t really help. Something about this man in a black T-shirt with Archangel stamped on one pec makes him that much more ... dangerous-looking. I wish I could say I mean that in the sense of the supernatural abilities and general vampirism.

But I’m afraid what I really mean is to me . Personally.

Looking at him makes me feel like I’ve never seen a real man before in my entire life.

I grit my teeth, and when that doesn’t snap me out of it, I bite my own tongue.

That sucks. I wince a bit. But when I look at him again, that high tide of hunger inside me ebbs. Just a little.

I think of Gran’s words about hunger , and shudder. The tide ebbs even further.

“Did you invite me down here for some martial arts lessons?” I ask into the pressing silence. “Because I love the idea of turning myself into John Wick, but there’s enough random violence in my life already, I think.”

“It never ceases to amaze me,” he says quietly, though I can hear him perfectly. Like he’s speaking directly into my ear. “The commitment that fragile, mortal creatures have to pretending they do not fear death.”

“Do we fear death more or less than you immortal creatures?” I ask, without pausing to question whether or not it’s prudent to get philosophical with a fucking vampire .

“It seems to me that when you live a millennia or two, you might want to protect your extremely long life even more than those of us who are lucky to get fifty short years.” I’m aware I’m talking too much again, but I can’t seem to stop it as he stalks toward me.

“I never understood all those stories about immortal creatures who were always so deeply bored by the endless grind of living. Is that what it’s like?

Is eternity really that boring? Or is it maybe that you’re boring?

” I catch myself there, though it’s not soon enough.

“Meaning the universal you , of course.”

His silver eyes glitter. “I never said I was bored.”

One of the biggest problems with life post the Reveal are moments like this.

I know the reality is that I’m standing here talking to an ancient vampire.

I know who Ariel is. I have a sense that I would know who he was even if I didn’t know his name.

He has power all over him, as if it blares out of his skin, and if I listen, I can hear another spate of that singing .

There’s a chorus everywhere he goes, proclaiming who he is in a way that makes my bones tremble.

But part of me still can’t believe it. Part of me keeps waiting to wake up.

Some people, I’m well aware, feel these things so keenly that they crack.

It happened more often in the beginning.

Faced with evidence that monsters were in no way located beneath the bed or in dismissible nightmares but were everywhere , a great many good people simply couldn’t take it onboard. Their brains couldn’t handle it.

I don’t know what it says about me that mine could. Well enough to survive this long, anyway.

Jury’s out on whether or not I’m going to survive Ariel Skinner.

To be honest, I’m not even sure I want to, because surviving this moment means that I’ll actually have to live with what I’ve discovered here tonight.

That given the faintest opportunity, I would welcome the chance to succumb to that vampire magic I’ve heard whispered about.

That thing they do that makes perfectly rational people strip off their clothes, lose themselves in the vampire sex that everyone claims is better than Ecstasy, and leaves the poor humans who indulge in it mere shells of their former selves. Ruined for anything else, ever after.

I’ve never understood the appeal.

Until now.

“Are you staring at my pulse?” I ask, possibly with some hysteria, as he comes even closer. “Right there in my neck?”

I clap my hand over it. But he only smiles.

“I don’t have to stare at it,” Ariel tells me in that low, commanding tone of his that washes through me and makes everything simmer . “Your pulse is so loud they can hear it down the street.”

I don’t like that at all.

Now that he said it, I can feel my own pulse too, and it feels brash and showy. Like it’s attacking my own palm. Yet somehow, I can also envision his mouth taking the place of my hand, as he presses it over that same insistent throb—

I feel as if the phoenix inked into my skin is throbbing the same way.

He’s closer now. Intensely, impossibly close.

Ruinous not only makes sense to me now, it feels like an understatement. A comical understatement.

I find myself lost somewhere between his silver eyes and the darkness of his hair. That Spartan profile, his golden skin, and that perfect, beautiful, deliciously cruel mouth.

I am hot and wet. I am shivery all over.

“Winter,” he says, and my name in his mouth makes me clench hard and maybe even whimper, hopefully not out loud.

His gaze holds me still. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I was floating off the ground, held tight in his grip.

“I brought you here to talk about your brother. Your twin, is that right?”