Scorched

“What do you know about the Avatar?” he asked.

“Ah,” she said. “I know some of the story.”

“Tell me.”

Mac’s food came, forcing their hands apart. The rich smell steaming off Mac’s plate made her vampire stom-ach queasy. As she sat back, he selected a knife and fork from the vast array spread across the table and began eating. Constance was relieved she didn’t have to cope with picking the right silverware—that would surely show how much of a peasant she truly was.

She turned her mind to Mac’s question. “There may be truth and lies mixed together.”

“Just tell me what you know.” The look he gave her came from another side of him—direct, precise, and unrelenting— that had nothing to do with dresses and dates.

She cleared her throat. “The Avatar belonged to the Castle. She was its spirit. She made the wind and the sun and the forests.”

“Not the prison for monsters we have now?”

“Yes and no. The version of the story I know is this: Once upon a time, nine sorcerer kings decided they should be the only ones to have magical powers. So with a mighty spell they made a prison for all the other supernatural beings and called it the Castle. Then the common people began to distrust the sorcerers and no longer wanted them to rule their lands. After a long battle, the sorcerers retreated into the Castle. But now, because it was their new home, they created the Avatar to make sun and wind and forests, and she turned the Castle into a beautiful haven.”

Mac cut into his steak. Pink juice pooled around the cut. “So originally it was nice?”

Constance’s eyes were drawn to the juice. The bones behind her eye teeth began to hurt, aching to bite. She drank more wine, denying a sudden stab of worry. He’ll be through with the meat soon, and then it will be all right. “Yes, but the magic of the Avatar failed long ago and the Castle became what you see now.”

“Why did it fail?”

“Atreus used his sorcery to turn the Avatar into a living woman. It took hundreds and hundreds of years, but as he did, her power over the Castle faded. All her magic went to flesh and blood, and the Castle gradually became the dungeon you see now.”

His fork drooped in his hand. “So you knew this all along? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Constance felt the tiniest stab of irritation. “You never asked about it. I had no idea you wanted to know.”

But he was already onto the next point. “Atreus said he killed the Avatar. He said she was the mother of his child.”

Constance took a quick breath of surprise. “A child? I hadn’t heard that. As to killing her—everyone thinks she simply died! Legend has it he kept her in the Summer Room. That’s why it’s special.”

“She lived in the Summer Room? Do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know.”

Mac took a bite, chewed. “I wonder why he killed her. If he did it. Or when.”

Nausea bumped at her stomach. “Who knows? Nobody can remember ever seeing her. Or maybe he’s making it up. He’s mad.”

Mac stopped, his fork raised halfway to his mouth. “I’m sorry. This is lousy dinner conversation.”

She turned the salt shaker around in her hand, trying not to look at the bloody steak. “Don’t apologize. You like solving puzzles. I do, too.”

He put his fork down, reached across the table, and squeezed her fingers. His touch was hot, making the skin over her entire body flare with interest. “Thank you.”

That made her smile. “I think the reason men and women date is all about anticipation.”

His smile was very male. “I’ll skip dessert.”

“Don’t you want the anticipation to last?”

“I’m only human.” A confused look came over his face. “Or not.”

She grinned. “Come now, love is like a ballad. It has to have plenty of verses.”

“Oh, no you don’t. I know those old Celtic songs. Everyone always dies horribly at the end, usually at a wedding feast. I’ll have no part of those.”

Connie pouted. “But the dance tunes always come after.”

“Celts. A bunch of manic-depressive maniacs with bagpipes.”

“That’s unkind.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “That’s my relations. I’m descended from sheep thieves who backed the wrong king.”

Constance looked down. “My family—we just were. We had no land of our own.”

“Hardly anybody does anymore.”

She met his eyes. They looked soft, and a little amused. “Why not?”

“It’s different now. There’s lots of ways to make a living besides farming. Anyone can go to school, men or women. That means you, if you wanted to.”

“But Atreus taught me to read and write.”

“That’s just opening the door. There’s an entire world over that threshold.”

The statement should have been electrifying, but Constance barely heard it. She was dizzy with wonderment and wine—and something else. The bones behind her teeth ached, jagged stabs of pain where her venom was supposed to be stored. This doesn’t feel right. Common sense said she should go back to the Castle immediately, but she was damned if she was going to end this evening now. It had barely begun. She raised her eyes to see Mac giving her a curious look.

She used a line she’d read in one of the magazines. “Excuse me, I need to freshen up.”

Picking up her tiny black clutch, she made her way toward the ladies’ room, careful of her high heels.

Moving helped. So did getting away from the smell of Mac’s dinner. There was enough beef on his plate to feed a family for a week. Who knew even a demon could eat that much!

Mae was so different. He wasn’t a lord’s son or a farmer. He was nothing like the vampire who had tried to Turn her. That one had been an English soldier, or at least someone who wore a soldier’s uniform. Lieutenant Clarendon. He’d given her pretty gifts—a silver thimble, a wooden case for her needles—until she’d agreed to meet him by the brook one moonlit night.

Constance found the door with the outline of a woman stenciled on it. She pushed it open.

Looking back, she wondered how long Clarendon had been a vampire himself. He’d been charming, but not like any of the older vampires she’d come across in the Castle. To think she’d been caught by a fledgling. It was all rather embarrassing now.

She set her handbag on the counter and stared at the sink. She wanted to cool herself off with water, but now she was flummoxed. There were traces of water in the sink, but no sign of where it had come from.

Irritability swamped her. She clenched her fists, sharp nails digging into her palms. The pain felt good, like an itch scratched.

Taps. Faucet. She’d seen pictures. Constance grabbed the tap and wrenched it, water gushing in a sudden spray. It splashed her dress.

“Damn!” She wrenched it off just as quickly. She looked back at herself from the mirror, ethereally pale. Her eyes were too dark, her lips too red. Death.

The door swung open, another woman walking in. The blonde wore a suit of champagne silk. Long hair piled on top of her head, ringlets falling at her temples. She smelled of iris and thick human blood. Mac’s scent had tempted her, but this aroma was almost unbearably delicious.

Constance started to tremble, suddenly very, very hungry. Oh, no!

“Are you all right?” the woman asked. “Oh, look, you’re all wet.”

She grabbed a fluffy hand towel out of the basket on the counter and held it out to Constance. Constance took it, careful not to touch her. “Thank you. I had an accident with the tap,” she said softly.

“It’ll dry,” the woman said cheerily, pulling out a tube of lipstick and leaning into the mirror. She’d been drinking. The lipstick application wasn’t going well.

Constance looked down at herself, numbly blotting at the water stains. Strength ebbed from her limbs,