Invincible (A Centennial City Novel) - By Fionn Jameson Page 0,75

beautiful?”

I nodded, momentarily completely lost of all words, lots of all thought.

He was close, close enough to touch. If only I reached out a hand…

I didn’t.

But he did.

Fingertips ran down my face, surprisingly gentle, almost like the tickle of butterfly wings against my skin. Here, underneath this bright moonlight, his beauty seemed almost unreal, as if when the night vanished, so too would he.

“I know you don’t like to be touched,” he said softly, voice low and slightly harsh. “If you want me to go away, I’ll go away. Just say it, Ran. Just say it, and I’ll leave you alone.”

My throat felt impossibly tight and I tried to swallow a lump keeping down the words I needed to say.

This close to him, it was easier to appreciate the clean, natural beauty of the features better belonging on a Raphael sculpture. I couldn’t have stepped away, not for anything, and that in itself was damn frightening.

I could smell a clean, fresh scent, almost perfectly covering up that metallic scent that surrounds vampires like an invisible mantle. “I’m going to step back, Ryder.”

Something flashed in his eyes. Regret? Shame? “I understand.”

I was glad someone understood.

His hand stayed in the air for just a moment, touching nothing and then he let it drop slowly, almost deliberately, as if for effect.

Someone called out for him from entrance of the house, but he didn’t move. His gaze never left mine and I could not have looked away for anything. He could have slipped a knife into my stomach and I would have been powerless.

But something like that works both ways.

There was no smile on his face, on his lips, in his eyes. Calm and yet strangely intense, savage, he watched me with eyes of a predator.

Was this truly the laughing, smiling vampire?

Or was Ryder really this quiet, this unrelenting?

Which was the real one?

And why did it matter so much? “Vincent needs you.”

Slowly, he nodded, and the spell broke. Whatever ensnared the both of us vanished like fog before the morning sun and he nodded again, this time quicker, more sure. “Jason needs you.”

I shook my head. “I doubt that. Not now.”

A hint of his familiar smile flickered. “I hate going to work when you don’t have to.”

“You’re not an Ailward,” I pointed out.

“And thank the saints I’m not,” he said, this time smiling widely. “No offense, but all you Ailwards are just boring sons of bitches.”

“I’m not a son.”

He began walking towards the house, but spared me a quick glance. “No, you’re better.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

***

The car ride was quiet.

Jason sat in the front seat, eyes set forward. He had not spoken to me, hadn’t even so much as looked at me since Vincent escorted him down the stairs of that giant mansion.

He needed time. I understood that.

Vincent sat next to me, conversing quietly with Ryder about the current events, both human and otherwise. An utterly engrossing conversation, if I had the interest, but I was too focused on Jason, too aware of his presence.

“I will need to stop by my house in Camden,” he said once we hit the highway. “I would like to pick up my belongings.”

“There is no need,” said Vincent. “All of that will be arranged for you. We’ll take you to Noir. He lives in the outskirts of Centennial. He will have rooms prepared for you and your…Ailward.”

I had half-expected Jason to say I was not his protector, but he merely nodded and turned back to the road and the rapidly disappearing miles.

This late, there were almost no cars and we arrived in front of a large, brick house with dark windows extending to both sides of the white double doors. The property sat nestled at the edge of the Centennial Nature Conservation Reserve which was about a hundred square miles of forest filled with all sorts of wildlife, deer and wolf being the most plentiful. The last house we passed was a farmhouse about a mile back and when I stepped into the crisp air, only then did it occur to me just how remote the location was.

Perfect for a vampire lord.

How fitting.

Now, my job had become remarkably easy. Easy in that I now gained entrance into Noir’s home. But the crux still laid in how I was to dispatch one of the four Vampire Lords of Centennial City.

As Adrian would have said, Good luck, Chuck. You’re going to fucking need it.

Vincent took Jason’s spot in the passenger seat. Clearly, he did not