Page 63 of Slayer Mom
“From a needle in your vein. I’m the Grand Master. I don’t go around biting random females in movie theaters. It was for a scientific experiment.”
“Because nothing says hard science, like harvesting blood from the descendants of Van Helsing. So, my blood made you human?”
“Your blood made me weak. My blood made me human, for short amounts of time, with a great deal of effort. On the plus side of you knowing my monster, you can see me all the time.”
“As the Grand Master.”
“That was actually an adaption of me, not really my relaxed identity.”
“Relaxed identity? Really?”
He smiled. Fangs. Shiver. But his smile was still nice. “I didn’t want you to recognize me.”
“Even though it took so much effort to be human? So, what’s your relaxed identity? Is this it?” I gestured at him, the pale skin, the dark eyes, the soft lips andsharp fangs. He was still handsome, just in bad makeup.
“No.”
“No.” I took a shaky breath and pressed my palms together. “All right. Show me your relaxed vamp face. I can take it.”
“It’s somewhat intense.”
“I said I can handle it.” I scowled at him and crossed my arms.
He gave me a slight smile. “I don’t think that you understand.”
“We can agree about that. I don’t understand why you lied to me for fifteen years instead of coming up with a little less horrifying way to tell me that you’re a vampire. I mean, in the warehouse, you could have told me then. But no, you ran off, leaving me to drink your blood without telling me that it was your blood, your precious blood that you were using to be human, to continue in the lie that had no purpose once you found out that Lock was your son, and a bloodthirsty vampire. I could have been a better mother to him if I’d known. I could have worn garlic oil to help him not want to bite me or—”
His face melted into a different form, a face if you can call perfectly molded perfection a face. He was unearthly beautiful, an angel in shades of black and white, with silver diadems in his eyes, lips barely blushed with red, absolutely word-stealing gorgeous. He’d always been a handsome man, but this was ridiculous.
I took a step away from him and just stared. I opened my mouth to say something, but words didn’t go with that kind of beauty. He was just—I stared at him for a long time before he sighed heavily and shook his head, taking on the blurry emo Hazen/Grand Master face he’d been wearing before.
“I know, it’s disconcerting,” he said apologetically.
“It’s ridiculous! That’s your natural face? That’s the real man I married? For crying out loud, Hazen! No wonder the Zombie Queen is after you. Maybe you could chop off your nose or something.”
He smiled slightly. “It would not be ugly for very long.”
“For crying out loud!”
“You said that already.”
“It bears repeating. Now the question arises: did I marry you for your looks, your money, or your sperm?”
“My constellations. You married me for my constellations, Lucy. No one else has ever appreciated such pointless things about me before.”
“Because they’re struck brainless at the sight of your gorgeousness.” I shook my head. He couldn’t have been that beautiful. It must have been a mind trick. “Show me again.”
He raised a brow and then humored me, becoming once more the gloriously stunning creature that defied all imperfections. His eyes were so large and luminous, but sultry and mysterious at the same time. His cheekbones were strong without jutting too far, the kind of cheekbones you ached to touch.
I reached out and touched his cheekbones. “They feel real, but they couldn’t possibly be.”
“They are real. Would you like to touch my fangs too?”
I ignored the fang bit. “And your eyelashes are so dark and thick. Are those double-lashed? I’ve heard of that, but I’ve never seen it before. You have striations in your eyes that glow pale silver. There are so many shifts in them. Your eyes are probably the most dizzyingly attractive thing about you. And you married me. You are clearly mentally unhinged.” I touched his lashes. They were silk, and slightly poky, and so very thick.
“Clearly. Because I’m the one petting someone else’s eyelashes.”
“You can’t walk around with eyelashes like that and not expect to be touched.”
