Page 47 of Dawn Caravan
He blinked. “You’re actually serious.”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re singing?”
“I do not know how I could have made it more clear.” The crowd around them erupted during the “Sweet Caroline” chorus. “The Corsican vampire mobloveskaraoke.” She glanced around and looked back. “You can sing, Ben. I’ve heard you. You just don’t do it when you are sober.”
“Exactly.”
“So pretend you are drunk.”
“That’s your advice?” He looked around the deck. “What am I supposed to sing?”
Tenzin clapped as the Neil Diamond classic came to an end. “Something you know. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have to make an effort.”
Of all the things his uncle, his aunt, his sire, and fifteen years of life with vampires had prepared him for, none of them terrified him more than the prospect of singing in front of a room full of judgmental and murderous strangers.
“Just take it seriously and try.” Tenzin was rising to her feet as a chorus of friendly voices encouraged her to the stage.
“Tenzin!”
“Come sing,” they called in mixed French and a language that reminded him of Italian. “Tenzin, we are waiting.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Ben said.
She turned. “Your turn next.”
“Right.” He was going to be sick.
She took to the stage and scrolled through the music choices on the small screen on the left side of the stage; then she tucked her hair behind her ear and raised her face to the crowd.
She was wearing black, as he was, a formfitting sleeveless tunic and a pair of leggings. She wore no jewelry in her ears or around her neck, but her forearms were layered with thin, yellow gold bangles. She had four stilettos hidden in her black boots and three small daggers in her tunic.
She was beautiful, dangerously elegant, and the sexiest woman he’d ever seen in his life.
The background music started, a chorus of humming he recognized immediately.
Fuck me.
Tenzin immediately launched into a simple and haunting version of Billie Eilish’s “When the Party’s Over.” She didn’t look at him, but every word pierced his chest like one of her knives.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t look away. Like him, the audience was rapt, hypnotized by her soft, breathy voice. It took everything in Ben to keep from flying away.
He couldn’t fly away. Until this was over, she held him captive.
Tenzin turned her eyes to him as she finished, her gaze direct on the final chorus. She seemed to pay no attention to the crowd, which erupted into applause. She walked away from the microphone, off the small stage, and sat next to him as if she hadn’t just destroyed him with a song.
“Your turn,” she said quietly.
The crowd fell silent, waiting for him. No one called his name, but they were all looking at him.
“Ben.” She lifted her eyes to his. “You have to try.”
“Right.” He swallowed the emotion he’d been holding back and rose, walking slowly to the front of the room.
What on earth was he supposed to sing that he wouldn’t murder?
He stopped at the edge of the stage and looked over his shoulder. What else?
