She's small in stature, but she has generous breasts. His hands fist behind him again, his fangs subtly aching for that plump flesh. He's never drunk from a woman—and why in the hell has he never drunk from a woman?
He can make out the shine of her nails and the sheen of the slipper ribbons laced up her calves. A slit in her dress climbs up her thigh to reveal a garter.
For some reason, he raises his brows at this. As a vampire who hasn't encountered his Bride, he has no sexual ability or need; her breasts and garters shouldn't interest him whatsoever, not any more than food would.
But they do.
Then... for the first time, he sees her face. And just stifles a curse. He hadn't been deluded that first night.
Figures she'd be fucking beautiful. He grates a short laugh. He would imagine nothing but the best.
Those big blue eyes are another shot of color in her black-and-white image. She has a pert, slim nose and smooth, translucent skin. Her lips are pale, but they're full, especially the bottom one.
As if she feels his scrutiny, she turns to him, easing to her feet. Eerie grace. He makes his expression blank while keeping her in his field of vision.
She tilts her head. Is she studying me? Can she see without the light?
No, she's not real. There's a line between having hallucinations and interacting with them... Can't cross the line.
She appears to walk, though she is floating off the ground. And she's coming directly toward the bed. What does she want from him? Closer... closer...
He dimly hears Sebastian ask, 'Do you know what will happen to you when your Bride bloods you? Your heart will start to beat again, and you'll begin to breathe once more. The air is cold and heavy in your lungs, but the pressure feels good if you don't resist it. And then, with some encouragement from her... all of you will come back to life, like a fire's been lit.'
A fire lit. In other words, he'll be able to get hard again.
But unlike every other vampire he's known, he doesn't want to be blooded. He likes the stillness within him, will hold on to it with everything he is. Dying isn't so daunting a prospect when you're halfway there... .
Creeping closer to his side, the female lowers her tilted head. Listening to my chest? She's heard Sebastian explaining the lack of a heartbeat and decided to see for herself. Which means she's sentient.
He's held out hope that she is a mindless spirit, unaware of her actions. Or that she's been like him in bloodlust—unthinking, reacting on instinct. Instead, she is very aware. Suddenly, his position embarrasses him. Chained in bed, at the mercy of others. This is the weakest he's ever felt in his entire life.
No, there was another time... .
Up close, he can see flashes of her ghostly hair tumbling over her shoulder. He swallows, closing his eyes as he waits to feel her hair across his skin. He can't perceive more than electric pinpricks. They don't hurt him; they're not unpleasant.
When she flits away, he cracks open his lids. Her lips are parted in surprise. 'How strange, dément... your heart's truly still.'
He just stops himself from jerking back from her, because the ghost is addressing him directly.
That's it. He's lost his fucking mind.
Her echoing words come slowly. As if they've traveled from miles away. He can scarcely hear them—which means no one else would be able to. His hearing is ten times more acute than even his brothers'. A hundred times more than a human's.
He knows she's not speaking to him in the hope of a response, seems to be just testing speech. She looks like she's tasting the words, determining how they feel rolling on her tongue.
Wait... Did she call me dément? It means madman in French. He feels heat on the back of his neck. Though most times he reacts just like an animal, sometimes, very rarely, he suffers the emotions he thought he'd lost—like shame.
There's a line... But is that how she sees me?
'You know all this, don't you?' Sebastian asks, exhaling. 'Aren't you even curious about being blooded? We were forced to do without so much. There is a lot that your Bride could make up for.'
This yanks his attention from the ghost. Don't you dare, Sebastian! Don't bring this up... .
7
Sebastian lowered his voice to say, 'Wouldn't you want to bed a female once more? It isn't like you were a man of experience, glutted on women, Conrad. If you're anything like me, you can count the number of times on one hand.'
Conrad didn't deny his brother's words, instead grinding his teeth, his jaws bulging. The number of times on one hand? How awful, Néomi thought, floating to the foot of his bed to hover there in a sitting position.
Though she herself hadn't taken as many lovers as she would have liked—the specter of pregnancy for a working ballerina was too daunting—the ones she'd had, she'd enjoyed to the fullest.
Even with the filth covering Conrad's face and the scars on his body, she could tell he had pleasing features. Women would find him attractive. At least enough that he could bed one when he wanted to. And Sebastian was handsome, yet he'd said they'd been forced to go without. She'd heard them talking about their small country having been decimated by plague, embattled for decades—were there no women to take succor from?
'Le dément... isn't a man of experience?' she murmured in her weird, ghostly voice. 'Intéressant.'
Though it was still difficult to speak, she marveled at how much more readily her words came with each try. The more she talked, the easier it was becoming, like training oneself to run through knee-high water. Too bad no one would answer, just when she was getting good at it.
Yet even if no one responded, talking made her feel more... real. Sometimes she felt like the proverbial falling tree in the forest. It could be argued that because no one had seen her or heard her since she'd died, she didn't exist.
She sighed and drew her legs to her chest. When the slit in her dress rode up, she had the strange impulse to cover her legs in front of the vampire. But why? She couldn't be seen, and she'd certainly never been modest when living. Indeed, she was just the opposite.
Any inhibitions had been drummed out of her when she'd been young. She'd been raised in tiny lodgings above a burlesque bar, with her dear maman eventually becoming one of its best draws.
From an early age, Néomi had flitted in and out of the performers' dressing rooms, fascinated with the silks, makeup, and exotic perfumes, enthralled by the sensual strains of music that compelled her to sway to them... .
Yet she could have sworn there had been a lustful aspect to the vampire's gaze.
No. It was time to face the facts. Either he found her spectral appearance beautiful, had mastered his blink reflex, and simply refused to acknowledge her—or he was just like every other person who'd set foot in this house over the last eight decades.
She gave a humorless laugh. 'If I thought you could see me,' she began slowly, 'I'd show far more than a garter.'
Besides, Conrad wouldn't be interested in her like that. Never once in the past week had he grown erect. Was it impossible for him? Was that the 'fire' that would be lit by his Bride?
Of all the subjects the men discussed, this Bride concept intrigued her most.
Earlier, she'd heard Sebastian on the phone with his, earnestly assuring her that she didn't need to be here, that she should keep working with her sisters, and that he would be home soon. Even the mere phone conversation with this Kaderin had seemed to consume him.
Nikolai had also phoned his Bride, another Valkyrie named Myst, and was equally attentive. But with her he'd sounded less confident about Conrad's recovery than he'd been with his brothers. In a low tone, he'd said, 'We might have to use Riora's gift.'
