Page 53 of Missing Piece
The corner of Vincent’s mouth twitched. He clasped Adam’s hand, fingertips brushing over his knuckles in a way that sent sparks of electricity up Adam’s arm. “It’s a pleasureto meet you, Adam.”
The contact lingered longer than necessary, neither quite willing to let go. “So what now? You’re going to tell me everything?”
“If you’re willing to listen.”
“Can I ask you anything?”
Vincent’s nodded. “Yes. Ask me anything.”
His throat dry, Adam felt questions crowd his mind, jostling for attention. The weight of Vincent’s presence, the memory of his caresses, made it hard to focus. He licked his lips, trying to organize his thoughts.
“Why didn’t you kill me that night behind the club?” The words came out rougher than intended.
Do I really want to know the answer to this?
Vincent’s shoulders tensed. He moved back to the edge of the bed, close enough that Adam caught that intoxicating scent again. “I found you fascinating and I mistook that fascination for a chance at a return to form, so to speak.”
“What does that mean?”
“My maker always said the best trials were when someone catches your eye like that, you make them yours. I took you because I wanted you.”
Heat crept up Adam’s neck. He fought the urge to look away. “So what, you decided to kidnap me out of sympathy?”
“No.” Vincent’s hand stilled. “Because for the first time in decades, I felt inspiration beyond the usual…tedium.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“You asked for honesty.”
Adam began cracking his knuckles one at a time, buying time to steady himself. “Maybe I should start with less intense questions. Like…how old are you really?”
“One hundred and twenty-nine.”
What the fuck?
A smile touched Vincent’s lips. “Is that too old for you?”
“I mean, you look good for your age.” The words slipped out before Adam could stop them. He felt his face flush. “That’s not—I didn’t mean—”
Vincent’s low chuckle soothed some of the heat in his face. “Thank you. I was thirty-two when I was turned.”
“When did that happen? The turning thing?”
“1926.”
He was turned into a vampire before Pop-Pop was even born…and you let him fuck you?
“Did you want to be a vampire, or was it like a freak accident?”
An expression flickered across Vincent’s face, a subtle tension at the question, but it didn’t look like anger. It looked like a flash of indifference, pain, and pride all mixed together. “My maker, Solomon, was supposedly amongst the first Europeans to land in the States. He made no effort to blend in with the times despite being here for a few centuries, and was an old bastard who thought he’d perfected the process of trialing. Well, until he got to me.”
Adam’s insides clenched as understanding hit him hard. For some reason, he hadn’t considered vampirism might be forced.
“I was stubborn, like you. It just made me more interesting to Solomon. I vaguely remember hoping he would finally kill me or let me go, but as it turns out, the old man wasn’t just looking for a new trial. He wanted a compatriot.”
Mouth going dry, Adam felt the clinical detachment in Vincent’s voice couldn’t quite mask the edgeunderneath. “What did he do to you?”
“He had this habit of finding ancient markings, symbols of gods and goddesses in obscure texts he had collected over the years, and he would carve them into the people he drained. There was a new moral panic every few years, so he would do it to throw any police off his—our trail, as we moved around. Sometimes he would force me to do it while I was still his trial. When he started carving into me one day, I was honestly happy, because it meant I would be found face down in some bayou soon, and the nightmare would be over. I was too tired to scream anymore at that point. I just let him do it. By the third day, he decided I would be his progeny, and he turned me.”
