Page 29 of Curiosity

“You don’treallythink that’s comforting, do you?”

“I understand why it might not be,” he admitted. “But all will be revealed in due time.”

“Let’s reveal itnow,” I insisted. “I’ve been too naïve about all this, and I knew better, but… it’s gotten to be too much.Enoughwith the bullshit. Tell me why I’m here.”

He sighed, pushing his hands into his pockets. He looked so good standing there – tall and wide-shouldered, his chest decorated with scars. “I can’t tell you – I’d have to show you.”

“Thenshow me,” I pressed, tipping my head to the side.

“You don’t know what you’re demanding.”

“Okay, fuck this!”

I turned, hellbent on getting out of there even if I had to jump out a window. Elias was too fast, though, getting in front of me before I could make it very far.

“Celeste—”

I rounded on him, getting right in his face. “Fuck offunless you’re ready to give me some answers.”

“Answers would require you to stretch the limits of your beliefs about the world and the way it works – the people you walk among every day,” he said. “You’ll have to reject everything you previously thought was real, or possible.Answerswill require your total submission to my way of life. I hoped to ease you into it, but… you want answers.”

I raised an eyebrow, head tipped back to meet his gaze as he crowded my space. “Stop talking in riddles and just…say it.”

“Celeste… I operate in a reality you’ve only ever imagined — a realm the good citizens of Blackwood barely even know exists, even though we’ve been here since inception.”

I scoffed. “What… are you part of some secret society for you and your rich friends? Your little fake vampire club?”

Amusement tipped the corners of his mouth. “There’s nothing fake about it, doll.”

“You’re insane,” I told him, taking a step back.

But even as I did, I started noticing things – the sharpness of his canines, which I’d seen before and written off. The subtle red pulse of his irises that I’d explained away as a trick of the light.

The specific location of the scars on his chest – all across the middle and right, short wounds as if he’d been in a knife fight or something. Not slices, though.

Stabs.

Stakes.

Like someone had tried to stake him through the heart, but didn’t know the right side.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head as I backed up. “That’s not… this isn’t…”

“You wanted to know – now you do,” Elias said, closing the distance in what seemed like two strides. Just as quickly as I tried to back up, he snatched me by the arms, yanking me flush against him. “You wanted tosee…let me show you.”

Before I could respond one way or the other, his mouth was on my exposed neck, his teeth sinking in. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out – a strange pulling sensation where he’d bit me suppressed it.

Thatwas the feeling though.

No pain.

Just… thatpullthat somehow felt like it was connected between my legs. I couldn’t even focus on the intoxicating pleasure of that though – not with the unbidden images playing in my brain.

Lovemaking.

A relationship.

A wedding.

---