in that instant, that her life would never be the same again.
"Do you... do you drink blood?"
"When I must."
He spoke so calmly, as if his reply were an ordinary answer to an ordinary question.
She stared at him, speechless. He was a vampire. Dead but not dead. He drank human blood.... It was beyond comprehension. She tried to tell herself it couldn't be true even though she knew, deep in her heart, that it was.
"And do you... do you sleep in a coffin?"
He lifted one brow. "Would you?"
"Of course not. What are you going to do with me?" Visions of sharp fangs piercing her throat rose up in her mind.
He lifted one thick black brow. "Do with you?"
She raised a hand to her throat, the gesture more eloquent than words.
"Afraid I'm going to drink you dry?" he asked, a slight smile curving his lips.
"Are you?"
"Not tonight." He shook his head at her look of horror. "I was joking, Marisa. I'm not going to hurt you."
"I'd like to believe that," she muttered under her breath.
"Believe it. I mean you no harm."
His voice seemed to wrap around her, caressing her skin, light and soft as dandelion down. His eyes... she had never seen eyes so deep, so dark, so mesmerizing. Black flames burned in his eyes, threatening to scorch her, to engulf her until there was nothing left but smoldering ash. They seemed to call to her, promising her the secrets of eternity.
Marisa took a deep, shuddering breath. She could hear her heart pounding like thunder in her ears, feel herself succumbing to the dark power that blazed in his fathomless black eyes. She tried to look away, her heart beating triple time when she discovered she could not draw her gaze from his.
"Stop it," she said with a gasp. "Please..."
The twin flames in his eyes burned brighter, then vanished.
Grigori took a deep breath as he broke the connection between them. Sensing she would welcome some distance between them, he stood up and walked to the far side of the room.
"I'm sorry."
Had he said the words aloud, or had she only imagined them?
Marisa crossed her arms over her chest. She was alone in the house with a vampire. Silence stretched between them. What was he sorry for? Had he been trying to hypnotize her? What did one say to a vampire? A thousand questions tumbled through her mind. She grabbed the closest one. "Where did you meet Ramsey?"
"He seemed to turn up in all the same places I did," Grigori replied. "One night I approached him and asked him why he was following me. At first, he refused to tell me anything." He shrugged. "Eventually, he decided to tell me what I wanted to know."
Marisa shuddered as she imagined how Grigori had "convinced" Ramsey to talk.
Grigori looked at her and sighed. No doubt she would always expect the worst of him, but then, he couldn't blame her. He was, after all, a vampyre. No doubt she considered him a threat to her very existence. With reluctance, he admitted she had every reason to think so. Never, in two hundred years, had he bequeathed the Dark Gift to another, but Marisa tempted him sorely.
"When Ramsey discovered we were after the same thing, he decided to work with me."
"Silvano told me that Alexi had been in their family for generations."
"That's true. At one time, they kept him deep in the vault of a church. The burden of looking after him fell to the oldest male member of the family. Last year, their family fell on hard times. As head of the family, Silvano decided to take Alexi on tour. Not a very wise decision. I didn't know they had left the country until six months ago." A muscle twitched in his jaw. "I found Alexi three days too late."
"Do you think you'll be able to destroy him?"
"I hope so."
"Ramsey said he's destroyed other vampires."
"He told you about Katherine?"
"Was that her name? All he said was that a vampire had killed a friend of his." Marisa shook her head. It was so unreal, sitting here having a conversation about vampires. Until a few days ago, she would have sworn there was no such thing. Vampires had been nothing but fiction, creatures of legend, the things scary movies and nightmares were made of.
Her gaze slid over Grigori. How could someone - something - that was so outrageously handsome be one of the undead? "Are there lots of vampires running around?"
"Not many." He sat