Heart of Dracula - Kathryn Ann Kingsley Page 0,100
any amount of pain or damage.
She, on the other hand, felt as though she had struck a rock. Her fingers stung. She waved her hand and winced. “Ow.”
He laughed. She expected it to be cruel. But instead, he sounded truly mirthful. When he looked down at her, warmth creased his eyes, and she found him smiling at her with a genuine affection that made something in her heart hitch. The sight of his granite features grown tender was a beautiful thing.
“You really are quite perfect, you know.” With the tips of his sharp claws, he tucked a strand of his dark hair that had escaped the silk tie when she struck him behind his ear. “Come. The show is to begin, and we have not fetched our drinks or taken our seats.”
“I…”
“You have every reason and right to strike me, Maxine Parker. It troubles me none. Do it as much as you see fit. I will never be angry at you for it. Indeed, I may enjoy it.” He tilted his head to the side slightly as he watched her, as if the change in angle might provide him new insight. “Loathe me, love me, fight me, obey me—I will take it all with joy. But you have made your choice, and the moment has passed. You cannot escape me now.”
She was stunned. He was overwhelming—there it was again, that word. He took her hand and led her inside the Opera House, and she followed him in a daze. His hypnosis was not to blame. She found herself lost in her wheeling thoughts as he led her to their private box. Before she could do much else, she was seated in a chair next to him, a glass of wine in her hand, looking out at the rows of people beneath them.
“Are you quite all right?” A knuckle stroked her cheek.
She nodded once. “You are a rising tide, Vlad Tepes Dracula.”
“Truer words have never been said.” When she glanced to him, he was smiling. “You haven’t even asked me what we are seeing this evening.”
“To be fair, it is the least of my concerns.”
He chuckled and pulled a pamphlet from his pocket. He passed it to her. The program for the night proudly exclaimed that tonight they would be watching a production of Faust.
She shot him an incredulous look.
He laughed. “Too on point for you?”
She had to join in his laughter, and she handed the program back to him. “Tell me. Are you Mephistopheles or our misguided alchemist?”
“If there is one thing I have learned, my darling Marguerite, it is that one man can very well be both.” He let out a thoughtful hum and sipped his wine. “If Gounod or Marlowe had any sense at all, they would have written it to reveal such a thing instead.”
“I argue that they have. The theatrics are there for simply that—melodrama. The devil in this play is only taken literally by those who do not see the story for what it is meant to be—a parable for human weakness.”
“Have you seen it before?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a fan of the stage?”
She smiled. “Very much so. I attend whenever I am able. Especially when they tend toward the more fantastical. I was glad to have had the opportunity to visit the Grand Guignol in Paris. I loved to watch their special effects. Especially the blood. I convinced one man to let me down beneath the stage to see how it was done. Wonderful contraptions.”
He grinned. “You are a morbid little thing.”
“With all the human suffering I can remember that far outweighs my own years, I think I would rather have to take on a morbid outlook to keep my own sanity.”
He was still smiling broadly, a warmth in those red eyes of his. “And I am all the happier for it. So many with your manner of gifts wind up in an early grave.”
“Have you met many like me?”
“Like you? No. Those who scratch the surface of what you are? Most definitely. I have met soothsayers and fortune tellers, those who see that which is unseen, and more. I have known warlocks and witches, wolves who have become men, and vice versa. I have seen it all.” He picked up a lock of her hair and twirled it through his fingers. “But none quite like you.”
“Now you flatter me, vampire.”
“Is it working?”
She laughed and swatted at his knee. His hand caught hers and twined their fingers together, resting against his thigh. She looked away from