Page 21 of Lucien

Luc’s nostrils flared at the offer. “Desperate,” he accused.

“For you? Always.”

Luc gestured in the direction they were heading, once again resisting Jamie’s bait. “Where are you taking me?”

“My mom’s house,” Jamie explained. “I want you to meet her. My sister too. Oh, and my stepdad. The whole crew should be home, I think.” He kept going for almost a block before he realized Luc had stopped behind him. He turned back, shooting Luc a questioning glance.

“You wish for me to meet your family.” Luc said the words slowly, as if speaking a foreign language.

“Yes.”

“Like this?” Luc gestured to his face. His eyes. His fangs.

Jamie cocked his head. “Do you come any other way?”

At Luc’s silence, Jamie nodded. “Then yes. We can tell them it’s a cosplay. Or just your version of freaky self-expression. They won’t judge.”

At Luc’s skeptical look, he blew out a breath. “Listen, monster. No one’s out there looking for vampires to be real. That’s not gonna be anyone’s first assumption about your eyes or even your teeth. People will make up excuses in their minds, just to keep their own sense of reality intact.”

“You really don’t care,” Luc mused, wonder in his voice.

“How you look?” Jamie asked.

“What I am.”

Jamie shrugged. “No, I really don’t.”

“You don’t think I’m…damned?”

Was that what was getting Luc’s goat? Questions of morality? Or did he mean, like, literally? Did Jamie’s vampire believe in hell or something?

Jamie put his hands on his hips, his bag of books thumping against his thigh with the gesture. “Well, that’s a heavy fucking question for three in the goddamn afternoon. But what, because you drink human blood?” He shook his head emphatically. “I don’t really believe in damnation, monster. Not for just being what you are. You can’t help that.”

“And for the things I’ve done?” Luc asked.

Jamie cocked his head. “You’d have to let me get to know you for me to have any real inkling about what you’ve done. You gonna let me in like that?”

Luc stood there for a long time without answering, eyeing Jamie like he was some kind of unfathomable mystery of the cosmos. Finally, he lifted a hand, waving at the street ahead. “Lead the way.”

Weird moment aside, Jamie grinned to himself the whole way to his mom’s house. Finally—Jamie refused to acknowledge that “finally” might be an overstatement when they’d only met less than forty-eight hours before—they were getting somewhere. Some progress was being made.

But when he opened the door to his mom’s, looking behind him to gesture Luc inside, the vampire was gone.

And Jamie was alone.

six

Lucien

Thesoundoftheglass shattering was incredibly satisfying. As was the blood running down Luc’s fist, even if the myriad of cuts would be healed before the hour was through. He’d have to compel his way out of paying for the damage to the mirror, but that could wait until he checked out of the hotel.

Luc stared at his jagged, broken reflection, baring his teeth at his own image.

Coward. Spineless, worthless coward.

He’d run from the human.Again. He’d let himself be intimidated by the prospect of…meeting the parents? Run off by the first mention of easy domesticity. Luc hadn’t been around anyone’s parents in—well, in his entire time as a vampire. It wasn’t his habit to meet the families of his meals before biting into them.

But Jamie had wanted Luc to meet hisfamily. To—what? Drink afternoon tea, chat about local sports teams or the weather?

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