Page 50 of Vampire so Virtuous (Boston Vampires #1)

He didn’t want his red eyes to frighten her, so he took to applying his glamour. After a day or two, she asked why his eyes weren’t red anymore, adding that she liked them best that way.

Belle never came into his room, and éliane seemed content to sit at his feet and lean against his legs while he read.

“She scares me, Antoine,” she confessed.

“And I do not?”

“Perhaps a little,” she admitted, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. “But it is impossible to forget how you made me feel.”

There was only one small bed, but she made a pallet on the floor beside the hearth with spare blankets, explaining it was far more comfortable than sleeping on the streets.

Two days later, she was bored and listless, so he took her for a walk in the early evening.

The day had been overcast, and the growing dusk only deepened the gloom.

They got caught in the rain, and her wet shift clung to her body.

Breathless and cold, but with her laughing, they returned to the house and warmed themselves by the fire in his room.

“You are warmer than the fire,” she said, leaning into him, letting the blanket she’d draped around her shoulders slip away. Both her shift and his shirt were laid out to dry, and underneath the blanket, her skin was smooth and pale—though not as pale as his.

Later that night, he didn’t rise as usual to read. Instead, he lay in bed, with her draped over him.

“Will you feed from me again?” she asked softly into his chest.

“At some point.” He didn’t want to think on that.

“Will it always feel like it did that first time?”

“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “I’m sorry. It is… the way of things.”

“Then you need not be sorry, must you?”

He said nothing, feeling her heart beat against his skin.

“It has been four days. Are you not hungry?”

“No,” he said. “I have no need of it.”

She was silent for several breaths. Then, “Need, or want?”

“Do not worry,” he replied, his voice low. “I shall not feed on you more than is necessary.”

“I don’t mind,” she said quickly, propping herself up on one elbow, her breasts brushing his chest. “Will you feed on me now? Please?”

*

She bade him sit in the chair in his room and told him she would dance for him.

“Is this how you always dance?” he asked as he watched.

“No, this is not how I always dance. But it is how I dance for you.” She lifted her arms gracefully above her head, raising one leg as she turned on the toes of her other foot, her muscles taut and her balance perfect. “Do you like it?”

“Yes, I like it. I have seen ballet before.” Belle had taken him on occasion, to educate him on art and culture.

“Have you seen it performed like this?” she asked.

“I confess I have not,” he said. “Usually, the performers were clothed. ”

She laughed, a carefree sound. “Do you like it more with their costumes, or more like this?”

He pretended to ponder. “Both have their appeal.”

She turned away with a flounce to reach for her discarded blanket, but he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back into his lap. She gasped at the suddenness of it.

“On balance,” he said, kissing her shoulder, “I think I prefer your dancing.”

At first, she resisted. Then she relaxed in his arms, tilting her head to the side and brushing her hair from her neck. “Do you hunger for me still?”

“I fed yesterday.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I want you to take from me again.”

He had grown used to her frequent requests, and it no longer bothered him. “Very well.”

But as he brushed his lips against her neck, she pulled away. “Wait,” she said. “Not here. Not on the chair. Will you take from me… in the bed?”

“Is that more comfortable?”

She turned in his lap, took his hand in hers, and placed it on her bare breast. “It is not that sort of comfort I seek, Antoine. Feed from me while you are inside me? Please?”

He couldn’t refuse her.

*

“Do you feel her life essence?” Belle asked.

“I don’t understand,” Antoine replied, uncomfortable to have éliane naked in his arms while Belle was there.

They were in the living room at Belle’s request. She had knocked on his door and entered without waiting for a reply. Her eyes had flashed a darker red when she saw éliane asleep against his side, covered only by the corner of the blanket draped carelessly across her hips.

Belle had turned away, summoning them now .

“Focus on the mark. You feel how her heart has slowed?”

“Yes,” he said, shoulders stiff, his stomach knotted with tension.

“It is because you have fed too much,” Belle said. “She will take longer to recover.”

Antoine said nothing. He had only fed so much because Belle had told him to. éliane lay as if asleep again, her body too limp to hold itself, and so he did that for her.

Belle rose and came over to them, slipping an arm around éliane’s shoulders from behind, her hand cupping the girl’s breast. “Concentrate on the mark,” she told him. “Feel what happens as I feed.”

Antoine swallowed hard and did as she bid.

Belle’s fangs pierced her neck, on the opposite side from where he had fed. She watched his face as she took pull after pull, while through his mark he sensed éliane’s heart slow, then stutter.

At last, Belle drew away. “You feel it still?”

“Yes.” It was an effort to get the word out.

“This is the limit,” she said, licking her fangs clean. “You must not take beyond this point, or you risk consuming dead blood.”

“I understand,” he said woodenly. Then he looked up at her. “How long until she recovers?”

Belle laughed as she turned away. “Chattel are so weak, my pet. When she is gone, let the Seine have her.”

“She isn’t yours,” Antoine said, clutching her limp body to his chest. Grief and anger surged to the surface when he always tried so hard to force them down. “She is mine. You gave her to me.”

“Ah,” Belle replied, “but you are mine, are you not? Therefore, she was mine, too.”