Page 135 of Vampire so Virtuous
It was easy to say the words. “Thank you, my lady. It is a wonderful gift indeed.”
*
They talked, once she awoke and learned he wasn’t going to kill her.
Her name was Éliane. She had come to Paris to be a dancer, but the city had proven less welcoming than she had hoped, and she had no place to call home.
“This is your home now,” Antoine told her. “You can stay with me. You’ll be safe here.”
She seemed pleased.
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 besidethe 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?”
