The look on his face softened to one that seemed filled with a strange kind of warmth and affection. As if she had once more melted something in him that had been frozen for a long time. “You have no need to be frightened of me. I mean you no harm.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. The sensation was so foreign to her.
“What do you want from me?” She had asked before, and she asked again.
“I have left you another invitation to meet me alone. This time upon your dresser. Answer it, and I shall answer you.” He tilted her head up to him with the crook of a finger underneath her chin. “Now, my darling, I have told you to sleep, and you disobey me. You need to rest.”
As his lips lowered her hers, she let her eyes slip shut. He kissed her, and the dream faded away.
Maxine awoke with a start, sitting straight up in her bed.
Her bed.
She put her head in her hands and tried to still the spinning. Her vision was reeling around her. Even with her disorientation, there was no mistaking where she was. She knew the smell of her room, the feel of the mattress beneath her. This was, without a doubt, her home.
Dracula had carried her into her house and placed her in her bed. That answered a few questions she had suspected she knew the answer to, but now had confirmed. Yes, he not only knew where she lived, but where she slept. And no, there was nothing stopping him from coming and going from her abode as he pleased.
“Damn it.”
Maxine slipped her hand along her neck and didn’t feel any puncture wounds. He hadn’t fed from her. He had kissed her and commanded that she sleep. And she had dreamt of him—no, with him—and he had once more calmed her restlessness.
Why did he bring her home?
Why?
It wasn’t that she was not glad for it. She expected to find herself in chains in a stone cell. But it made no sense. He had her. Why had he let her go?
Then she remembered his words in her dream. He said he had left her an invitation upon her nightstand. Looking over, she saw two objects that were out of place. A single red rose, and another piece of paper folded in half, identical from the outside to the one that had been slipped under her door.
She reached for the rose and the envelope and brought them into her lap. The rose was beautiful and in full bloom. She had the sudden and inexplicable urge to find a glass of water for it.
Maxine could not remember ever receiving a flower from a gentleman, let alone one like that. She twirled it in her fingers, being mindful of the thorns, and thought it over. The Vampire King was flirting with her, that much was painfully obvious from the number of times he had kissed her alone. But he was also hunting her.
It was quite likely that to someone like him they were the one and the same.
Regardless, she trusted him as far as she could throw a horse and carriage. Placing the rose down on her lap, she opened the envelope.
She had hoped for a letter explaining his intentions and his actions. She hoped for an apology for his violence and his impositions upon her. Instead, it was a simple card on the inside that read, “Marliave, eight o’ clock. –V.” Beneath it was penned another line in a simple postscript. “Kindly leave the hunters at home.”
She couldn’t help but laugh once at the postscript. She shook her head and folded the card back up and slipped it into her dresser drawer. She lay back down on the bed. She shut her eyes. She felt exhausted by everything that had transpired. And sore. There was a deep stiffness in her legs from running in shoes that were not designed for such things.
She cringed as one of the bones in her corset dug into her ribs. She was still in her full dress. The vampire hadn’t stripped her. While this was uncomfortable, she was far less embarrassed than if he had undressed her, and she found herself debating which one would have been worse.
She climbed out of bed and went to change into her house dress. It was as she was brushing out her hair that she heard footsteps on her stairs. She went to go