Page 21 of The Reveal (Bloodlore #1)

“One thing I’ve learned is not to wonder about things that can’t be changed.

” It’s my turn to shrug, and I make it operatic.

“What’s the point? Maybe there’s a monster union and that was your version of a strike?

Maybe it was the monster revolution? I don’t know.

All I know is, I went from leading a fairly uneventful life in rural Oregon to being prey in the course of one terrible day.

Who cares why it happened if it’s not going to stop? ”

He turns slightly, and once again I’m too aware of him.

I’m too aware of me . It’s as if the borders of my own body want to blur into him.

As if I want to hasten the process and simply melt against him.

Into him. Everything in me is certain that if I touch him, I’ll burst into flames, when everything I’ve ever heard about vampires is that they’re cold.

But if Ariel’s cold, he doesn’t feel like it to me.

All I can seem to feel in his presence is fire .

“Seven thousand years ago, there was a historic planetary and celestial alignment,” Ariel tells me.

“Humans love to elevate their sciences above all else, but nothing in the universe is so simple. Seven thousand years ago, that alignment heralded the birth of what I suppose you would call a goddess. In human terms.”

“A goddess,” I repeat, and it’s a struggle to keep myself from thinking about all that dark goddess shit that stalks me through my nightmares.

And the Goddess of Filth that Gran keeps muttering about.

I feel the hint of a headache bloom in one temple.

But I do my best to sound skeptical. “Naturally. Because along with all the monsters, there have to be gods and goddesses too.”

“Gods and goddesses are simply the monsters that can be bribed.” Ariel says that with a certainty that tells me that no matter what I might want to disbelieve, he thinks what he’s saying is true.

Meaning, it probably is. “The monsters who can demand human participation in their affairs. After all, the stock tastes so much better if it thinks it’s responsible for its own bloody sacrifice. ”

A kind of dark thrill sweeps through me at that. Or maybe it’s fear. If so, it’s not the sort of fear that I can understand. It’s not the sort of fear that makes me want to run, screaming.

Unless it’s to him.

Which really should also terrify me, yet doesn’t. Not the way it should.

“Who was this goddess?” I ask instead, trying to sound whatever the opposite of incurious is. Or maybe because I want to be scared of the right thing. “Why do you know about her and an alignment anyway?”

“Death goddesses tend to leave a trail of carnage in their wakes,” Ariel says, and this time it’s his matter-of-factness that makes me fight to repress a shiver.

Because I’ve seen carnage, but somehow, the way he’s not describing hers makes me think it’s worse.

“This particular goddess was called Vin?a. Over the course of some centuries, she hacked her way through the better part of what is now Europe, making a name for herself and developing a rabid cult in the process. Over time, her bloodlust became unmanageable and she was neutralized.”

I try to imagine what he’s talking about, behind the cool, emotionless way he’s telling it to me. I think of my nightmares, and the horrible bird that sometimes chases me, sometimes stares, and sometimes pecks its way into my flesh. “How do you neutralize a god?”

“Carefully,” Ariel replies.

So dryly that I can’t think of anything else to ask him, so I nod. I hope it looks like the understanding I certainly don’t feel.

“The same set of celestial events took place three years ago,” he tells me after a moment.

“The best way to describe it is like the opening of a lock. Once this lock was opened, certain restraints disappeared. It is something that the creatures you call monsters had been waiting for. For a very long time, and some more than others. But crucially, it is the first in a series of foretold events.”

“Foretold events,” I repeat. “Like ... Nostradamus?”

“The trouble with prophecies and visions is that they are so often the province of madmen and drug addicts.” Ariel makes a dismissive sound, deep in his throat.

“I can’t tell you the number of times the rambling of some mad fool was held to be a great prophecy, only to repeatedly not come true.

This particular planetary alignment, however, did in fact occur.

You could argue that’s simply science. But to the Kind, it was the first step toward a very particular fate. ”

I don’t know which part of what he said I should focus on first. “ The Kind? ”

He pauses, and I can’t read the look he sends my way. Did he not mean to say that? “A generic term. For your monsters.”

The Kind, I think. Kindness is not what I associate with the creatures he’s talking about. Though I know that’s not quite the meaning intended.

“So what’s the prophecy?” I ask.

“As I said, this particular prophecy is a series of steps.” I get the impression that he’s studying me again.

Looking for something on my face, in my eyes, though I can’t tell what.

“Certain things will happen, and if they do, they are keys to a set of locks. Once all of those locks are open, a much bigger event will occur.”

“Thank you. That’s very illuminating.”

“It is just about time for the second of these locks to be thrown open.” There’s no mistaking it now. He’s watching me intently. I just can’t figure out why.

“But you’re the king. Surely, you have all the keys.”

Ariel does not smile. Not exactly. But that power hums in the cool dark all around us, and the way he looks at me feels like he would smile, if he could. Maybe if things were different—but then, if they were, I wouldn’t be standing here. “If only it were that simple.”

I turn toward him, and we’re so close. The air all around us is cool, and I can see pinpricks of light in the distance.

Fires in the hills. Moonlight up higher.

Small fires or flashlights deep in the shadows in the city streets.

Even the odd flickers of electricity here and there by people who clearly don’t fear attracting the nightwalking Kind to their doors.

But there’s nothing as electric as whatever this is that blazes between the two of us.

This thing that shouldn’t exist.

I feel doomed. But in that doom, somehow, there’s a certain elation that I can’t make any sense of, because it’s impossible.

It’s a shivery kind of ache in every part of me, a desperate pulse.

“I’ve never been much for prophets,” I tell him, not entirely surprised to find that my voice has dropped to a whisper. “Seems like anyone with a little creativity can warble on about the end of days. Sooner or later, they’ll be right.”

I still can’t read that look on his impossibly perfect face. It’s something like quizzical. Or maybe it’s wonder.

But that’s nothing next to how it feels when he takes his hand and traces a pattern over my cheekbone. Down the line of my jaw, just shy of my lips.

He is cool to the touch after all, but it’s like an ice cube on overheated skin.

My body reacts with a hot, deep flush that there’s no possibility of hiding.

It rolls over me and about flattens me. It blooms inside me.

It devours me.

“The Reveal was foretold by many ancient seers.” Ariel’s voice is so low that at first I think he’s whispering dark sex words. Not this same prophetic bullshit. “Over many millennia. But also, more recently, by a local oracle of surprising strength.”

I scoff at that, though maybe I just want to move my face in his grasp so I can feel the friction. “What good is an oracle who doesn’t tell people what’s coming? Who doesn’t even try?”

“There is an oracle on every street corner claiming they know the end is nigh,” Ariel says softly. “Are you in the habit of listening?”

I’m listening now. And I have never felt anything like the clamor inside of me at the moment. Maybe he’s doing it. Maybe I’m doing it.

All I know is it’s unbearable, but maybe it’s the dark that’s doing this to me. Here in the ruins of Medford, where no one can see me. I have a stray thought that all my sins take place in the dark and then are ignored ever after, but that’s the only comparison to Samuel I can muster up.

Because Ariel puts the likes of Samuel to shame, something I would have said was impossible.

I think about that awful Tuesday when everything changed, forever.

He can call it locks or keys and talk about Vin?a the death goddess, but none of that is likely to have anything to do with me.

It was the end of the world. I know it. I was there. I watched it happen.

But if the whole world is made up of impossible events these days, what’s another one?

I hate myself, but not enough, because I tip myself forward and press my mouth to his.

It’s a mistake.

It’s a miracle.

He’s a vampire, and that makes it hotter and crazier, and I don’t even think about stopping, because his lips are cool and firm. I feel him smile against my mouth, as if he’s made of marble but I’ve brought him to life.

But then ... he devours me.

His touch is cool, but his kiss is like fire.

He goes deeper. It gets hotter. He angles his head and his hands take possession of me, easily.

Totally.

There’s one hand at the nape of my neck, guiding me, holding me. The other moves down the length of my body, smooths over the curve of my ass, and then lifts me like I’m nothing.

Like I’m made of air.

But he settles me against his body, and I can’t seem to help myself.

I wrap myself around him, my arms around that strong neck so I can press my breasts against that wall of a chest I saw so much of downstairs.

My legs lock tight around his waist and I groan, helplessly, as I come up flush against his thick, hard cock.

I nearly come then and there.

Everything in me is soft, a molten white heat, and I lose myself in it.

In him.