stretch of silence as they ate. Finally, she worked up the nerve to ask a question she had spoken twice before and been denied both times. “I fear I must now ask you the question to which I know I will loathe to hear the answer.”
“Please do. If it is what I believe, I find myself quite eager to finally reveal it.”
The way he said it made her shiver. She knew that this was some manner of line that she was about to cross. Something was about to begin with her next words, and it was something that she could not avoid. After stepping past this boundary, all things would change.
She felt herself teeter on the end of a cliff. But the words must be said. She must take the jump. She swallowed down her fear and tried to meet her fate as best she could. I do not fear death. I will not let him change that. I will not give him that power. “What is it you want from me?”
“Oh, my darling Maxine.” He purred the words out in a dusky rumble. She felt goosebumps spread over her skin. “From you, I will have all that you are.”
13
She felt the warmth drain from her face at his words. She knew she must be staring at him in horror. His expression was juxtaposed perfectly to hers. Where she was frightened, he looked pleased. Where she felt small, he looked regal. He watched her with all the aristocracy of a hungry tiger—perfectly aware he was at the top of his food chain and eager to act upon it.
She folded her hands in her lap, clenching the fabric napkin between her fingers. “I am afraid I do not know what you mean.”
“Oh, but it is clear from those beautiful features of yours that you do.” He smiled and tilted his head barely to the side, a stray tendril of dark hair falling across his pale cheek. “But if you wish for me to provide specifics…very well.”
He lifted his wine glass and pondered it. “What I wish from you is quite simple, Miss Parker. I will have not only your fealty, but your undying loyalty. I will have your blood. I will take your body, your heart, your mind, and your soul. I will have all that I desire of you…and I desire it all.”
She shifted back in her chair and found herself sorely tempted to run from the restaurant. But where would she go? Where in the city could she hide? He was a demigod as old as civilization itself. He would follow her now wherever she might run. “And do you plan to take all this from me?”
“If I must.” He grinned slyly at her. “But I admit I prefer to be given that which I want.”
“And why would I be inspired to do anything of the sort?”
“For the very reasons you answered my invitation to dinner. You know it is pointless to fight me. Far more importantly…you do not wish to do so at all, do you? Give me your hand once more. Feel that which I can give you.” He held his hand out to her again. “Touch me.”
“No.”
He watched her, patient as a parent watching a child who fights against the inevitability of their curfew.
She cringed. “I think I despise you.”
“Yes, yes. You are not alone. Your hand, Miss Parker, if you will.”
With a pained noise, she gave in. He laced their fingers once more. The sensation of his soul washed over her, and she shuddered, feeling it intertwine with hers all the same. It did something to her. It pooled a heat in her body that wanted to join them in more physical ways. It called to him, begged for him, pleaded for more.
He had asked if she wanted him.
The sad and revolting fact was that, for better or worse…she did.
“I want to take everything from you, yes. But I do not come to this negotiation as a tyrant. I come as a merchant willing to trade. I can give you the one thing you have never dreamed possible—a connection with another.”
The image of claws in the darkness flashed through her mind. She had to shut her eyes to let the visions play out. Teeth, sinking into her. Her blood upon the ground. Snapping bones, shredded tendons. Another carcass in the mud. More meat on the table. “I would only be your prey.”
“No.” New visions took over. Instead of blood upon the muck, it was satin