Page 49 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

He didn’t have to think much about it. “It’s all so incomparably bright. And hauntingly dark.”

“Beautiful and terrifying then.”

“Yes.”

“Like getting lost in the woods.”

“Yes.”

“Or falling in love.”

He blushed a little. “Yes.”

Hope, small and unexpected, bloomed in my chest. “Being human is a lot like that too.”

The intensity of his attention magnified. Here, in this sun-dazed room, there was nothing else to see but each other.

“Come here,” he rasped.

My breath hitched. “Why?”

He responded by seizing my wrist and hauling me right into the warmth of his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked, raising my wounded hand to his mouth.

He’s going to heal me, I realized, and a strange thrill stole over my body. My throat was too tight for words. I merely nodded.

“Say it,” he pressed, his eyes on mine bright and unsteady. “I just want to hear you say it for once.”

The words were easy to utter, unlike all the other truths that remained unsaid between us. “I trust you. With everything I am.”

His lips found the spot above my knuckles, and my heart leapt from my chest to beat to the exact spot where his mouth connected with my hand. His fangs pierced my skin, not a bite but a nick, brief and light enough to inject me with only a drop of venom. The tip of his tongue lapped over my skin to soothe the sting. But there was nothing to soothe. My hand was left unbruised. I felt no pain. Only a bright, acute rush of somethingindescribable. Something that tasted of euphoria and smelled of ecstasy. The room spun, yet I was not dizzy. I was flying, slipping through the ceiling and drifting amid the clouds.

Even in weightlessness, I was aware of the innermost workings of my body. The blood in my veins ran hotter. The breath in my lungs turned heavier. The pulse at the base of mythroat grew wilder. A molten, trickling sensation slid low, then lower in my body until I had to press my thighs together and bite down on my lip to stifle an outcry of what I knew was desire but felt like agony. For a second, I knew exactly what it was to be him, to have this…appetite. To crave. To yearn. To want for all the dark little things to crawl out of the night and claim you.

“Are you alright?” Hector’s voice was unfamiliar in my ear. Not low and rough but clear like water running through a glade, inviting you to a midnight swim.

“I feel a bit strange,” I mumbled, blinking fireflies from my vision. The only light in the room came from the window, but my eyes were swimming in undulating spots of luminosity. The temperature grew warmer too, spring shifting into summer. My skin dampened. My breasts grew heavy and tender against my corset.

“That’s normal,” said Hector. His eyes were the only dark things in the room. “It’s your first time.”

“Hot,” I sighed.

“What?”

“I feel hot. Will you get me out of this dress?”

He gave me a very peculiar look, which I didn’t bother deciphering. I was drowsy and feverish, and I just wanted him to hurry up and free me from this corset already.

“Are you wearing anything underneath?” he asked, an odd wariness to his voice.

I nodded eagerly. “My chemise.”

“Good,” he said, exhaling. “Good. Okay.”

I tried twisting around so I could offer him better access to my back, but my skirts kept getting in the way.

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