"I am more powerful, more determined, and infinitely crueler than you. You should be terrified of me. Do as I say without questioning me further."
I thinned my lips in annoyance at his high-handed manner, blinking owlishly in the bright overhead station lights. "What makes you think I'm going to do what you want me to do? What makes you think I'm not going to run to the nearest police station? Or to Melissande? You know, it's really not fair, you running off without telling her where her nephew is. She's worried sick about him."
"You will not run from me because you know that wherever you hide, I will find you. As for the other - Melissande's feelings do not matter to me," he answered, tugging me toward the lobby of the train station where rows of shops and small food stands lined the walls. Overhead, steel-ribbed glass skylights mirrored the people meandering through the station. I grabbed Adrian's sleeve as he headed for the ticket windows.
"Hold on a minute, Sparky. You haven't answered any of my questions."
His frown was a thing of beauty to behold, magnificent in its black irritation. "Sparky? First Ryan and now Sparky?" He shook his head, his eyes a blue so icy I swore there were little icebergs floating around his irises. "I am centuries old. I have sent more people to their deaths than you can possibly comprehend. You will cease referring to me as Sparky."
I stood my ground. I knew if I let him get away with one single high-handed inch, he'd drag it out to a mile. "Answer my questions, and I might consider the request."
"I do not have to answer your questions. I am the Betrayer."
"You are also the Irritator, but that doesn't mean you can't be civil, as well."
He sighed the sigh of the truly martyred. "If I promise to answer your questions later, will you feed now?"
"Yes," I said, too aware of the growl of my stomach and the mouthwatering scents of a nearby food booth to deny his offer. "But you have to promise to answer everything."
His eyes went even lighter.
I pointed a finger at his face. "And you can just add how you do that to the list of things about which you're going to spill. I'd love to be able to change my eye color."
"Feed," he growled before turning toward the ticket sellers.
"Feed. Come. Do what I say. We really are going to have to work at adding some words like 'please do this' and 'I would fawn at your feet in humble gratitude if you do that' to your vocabulary" I yelled after him.
His head shook again, indicating he heard me. I couldn't help smiling at him as he strode down the long lobby of the train station. Dressed entirely in black, his long wool duster flapping behind him, his hair sweeping down to his collar, he looked like a refugee from an artsy, atmospheric vampire movie.
"Someone's been reading way too many gothic novels," I mused as I lifted my chin to sniff the air, following the most enticing scent to a nearby sausage seller. I scraped together the remains of the money Adrian had given me and bought three sausage rolls.
I had consumed one by the time he found me and herded me toward a secluded waiting area.
"We have two hours before the next train," he said, pushing me onto a bench.
"You're always pulling me along somewhere or shoving me down onto something," I complained around a mouthful of sausage roll. "We really need to work on your people skills."
He sat down beside me, a familiar scowl settled firmly onto his manly brow. "I am a Dark One, not a person. I do not need people skills."
It was my turn to sigh. I held out the last sausage roll, which he eyed with malevolent suspicion.
"What's wrong, don't like sausage? Or can't you eat food food?"
"I can eat human food if I so desire, but it provides me with no sustenance."
"Well, that answers a question I'd always wondered about vamps - whether or not they were biologically the same as the non-bloodsuckers. I mean, why have the plumbing if you're not going to use it?"
"Plumbing?" he asked, his scowl deepening.
"Yeah, plumbing." I flicked a glance toward his crotch. "I know you have a belly button, and I figured that you have the usual genital accoutrements unless vamps do that differently, but from what I can tell, you're A-OK in that department - not that I've looked or anything - but then there's the back door, and, well, I've just always wondered. I mean, if you don't need it, why have it?"
He stared at me like I had suddenly sprouted buttocks on my head.
I gave a weak smile. "None of the vamp books I've read have ever addressed that issue, so I thought I'd go to the horse's mouth, so to speak."
His eyes lightened to the color of a robin's egg. "You are the strangest woman I have ever met."
"Strange in a good way, or strange as in ought to be locked up for her own safety?"