Heart of Dracula - Kathryn Ann Kingsley Page 0,103

her that he was a wolf who had taken it upon himself to walk at her side and not devour her whole.

“Please. Continue.” He squeezed her hand again.

“If we are all merely a product of what we have experienced, then…most of what I know has not been my own. I wonder sometimes if I am only an empty vessel. A collection of other people’s memories and context. I seclude myself from others not only because I cannot touch them, not only because they can sense that I am distinctly other, but because within the noise, I lose myself.” She looked down at the crowd that was beginning to take their seats again. “I do not feel real. Sometimes I feel as though I am only a dream.”

“When this world burns to dust, and the sun swallows it whole, I will have seen all of humanity come and go before me. I can control the nature of the world around me. I am expert in what is real, my darling. If you are a dream, then it is one from which I do not ever wish to be woken.”

Her face bloomed with warmth, and she looked down at her lap, at his hand still twined with hers, and smiled. “Now you are the poet.”

“Perhaps.”

The overture began to play, heralding the beginning of the second act, and she fell silent as the lights lowered and the curtain lifted. In the darkness, she released his hand briefly to pull off her gloves and lay the black silk on the arm of the chair. In the first instance of such a thing ever being the case, she preferred to feel him against her skin. To feel him closer to her. His touch no longer scared her. His soul against hers was no longer jarring. It was welcoming.

She leaned her head to rest it against his arm. Soft fabric over a frame that could crush steel. A beast that was so very powerful, but still remained affable, and…benign would go too far.

“You inspire such genial things in me.”

The show recommenced, and she found herself smiling throughout the second act. She dared say, it felt nice. He had asked to show her his kindness, and she found herself enjoying it greatly. It was as though they were any hopeful lovers enjoying a lavish evening on the town.

The curtain fell, and she found herself both a little sad for it and once more eagerly anticipating with both fear and delight what was to inevitably follow. At the end of the production, they headed to the street with the rest of the crowd.

There was no carriage waiting for them outside.

“Come. It is a beautiful night. Let us go for a stroll.”

“You are not planning to turn us into bats and whisk us off once more, are you?”

He struggled not to smile, but his lips twitched. “No.”

“Liar.”

That was enough to break his resolve, and he smiled fully. “You will become adjusted to the disorientation, I promise.”

“I do not think I believe you.” Regardless of her mistrust, she tucked her hand into his elbow as they walked down the street. He was a knavish thing. For all the appearance of a King and aristocrat that he wore, he was a rogue deep down.

She found her heart no longer torn in two. Her mind flicked to the point in time maybe only an hour away when he would have what he wished—what they both wished. When her silly dream became reality. The image of him over her, his heavy, broad frame against and inside hers, made heat pool dangerously in her body.

“Mind your thoughts Miss Parker, or I will not be able to wait, and our first real foray will be over that bench right there.” He pointed a sharp-nailed finger into the distance.

She swore loudly and colorfully in Romanian. “Damn you. Reading my thoughts is cheating!”

“Turnabout is fair play.” He laughed again at her side. “You rummage about inside my emotions and my memories. It is only fair I might pry into a few of yours. Don’t you think?”

“You find the most inconvenient moments to do so.”

“No, only the most embarrassing to comment upon.”

She growled.

He chuckled and squeezed her hand. “That was rude of me. But you are quite charming when you are perturbed.”

“Mmhm.”

He grinned. “You could make a sailor blush with your vehemence. You learned such things from the Roma?”

“The only words I managed to retain from them were swears.”

“Then I think you know roughly two-thirds of their language