“They made a movie about that. Silence of the Lambs. Didn’t end well.” I groused.
My brother had a penchant for collecting human dolls. He would dress them up. Women. Men. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care if he had a sexual preference, vampires tended to be more fluid with partners out of boredom. A century with one gender could lead into the next with another and no one blinked an eye. My issue was more in the care and feeding of his mortal dolls that I took offense to. He had no regard for compelling them and a few too many times I had to step in and humanely end a life because of the games he played.
Dorian was exhausting.
“Oh ye of little faith big brother.”
“Precisely. Do me a favor though, don’t make another mess I have to clean up. The council will not be so forgiving.” I left my parlor and jogged up the steps to my bedroom shutting the door. I leaned over my dresser struggling to control my rage. Dorian was impossible. It was hard to imagine we were related. I had six years on him, in addition to the year I spent as a vampire with my mate until she betrayed me and turned him as well. We had a repeating history he and I, the last one being my lover Aileen.
I didn’t like to share my toys as a kid and if I knew my brother, he already had someone in mind. My chest ached in the place my heart should have been beating if I were mortal. I rubbed furiously at the spot to ease the pain, but nothing abated the feeling.
3 A week before Halloween and all dark things in the night.
JANE
Professor Michelson droned on and on about the intricacies of Grecian pottery. My notes were kind of a jumbled mess, hieroglyphics at best, and all I could think about was coffee. Rich dark coffee with a little bit of cream and brown sugar. I’d caught up on all my classes over the spring semester and stayed holed up in my apartment over the summer with additional courses instead of going home to Buffalo. I would have liked to say my family was disappointed, but truthfully, I don’t think they noticed my absence. My brother joined my father’s law firm after graduation and passing his LSATs, and my sister gave my parents, or rather my mother, twin grandbabies. I was truly plain Jane.
The room darkened and the professor started up a projector flipping through slides from her last trip to Greece and a recent excavation she attended. Fascinated, I leaned over my seat and nearly pushed my heavy textbook to the floor. It would have been embarrassing if it fell crashing to the floor and disrupting the presentation. Luckily, a student next to me, one I honestly hadn’t noticed during the engrossing lecture grabbed the book and slid it back on my desk seamlessly.
I whispered to him, “Thank you.”
“Coffee?” He asked and I wondered if he somehow read my mind. He smiled in the dark room and his lips thinned showing off his perfect white teeth. His face was familiar in the shadows but I couldn’t place it.
“Uh, sure. After class?” I said wondering why my breast bone was giving me pains again. Perhaps, I shouldn’t go? I sat back in my seat rubbing the spot to calm my racing heart. This wasn’t the first instance an interesting boy asked me for coffee, but typically I turned them down with ease. I had no idea why. The words simply came out on autopilot letting them down easy. Most never approached me again, and the habit led to a long hiatus since New Year’s Eve of not a single date. I figured if I stayed that way on New Year’s this year, I’d likely have complex and my roommate the perfect in for shipping me off to a nunnery as she liked to joke.
We spent the next half hour viewing slides. My coffee date spent that time inching closer and put his arm around the back of my chair. I turned to look at him but he kept his face on the Greek slides and I let it go for now. We weren’t in a movie theater and we weren’t twelve so I couldn’t understand why he was so interested in me.
By the time the lights turned on, I had worked myself into a panic wondering if I was sitting next to some stranger or a beast. Slowly, I turned toward him and was blown away by the dark angel in front of me. His bone structure was perfect under wild glossy black hair and dark eyes like midnight. His lips were pale and quirked upward under my assessing gaze. I felt the heat of my blush from my cheeks all the way down to my breasts. If there was an Olympus on Earth, he’d give the Greek Gods a run for their money.
“Still interested in coffee?” He asked standing up, offering me his hand. “Come little lamb.” He motioned with his palm up waiting for me to move. I paused and shook myself as if this might be a dream. He seemed to be asking about more than just coffee.
“I’m sorry?” My brain fogged and that dull ached in my heart pierced my breast. By sheer will I avoided rubbing my chest in front of him. His brow furrowed, and he asked me again to join him for coffee. “Sure.” I said automatically gathering my things. I didn’t take his hand though. I was afraid he might read into it, and why shouldn’t he? I thought he was attractive, but my libido froze at the site of him, and what I should have been feeling, but physically couldn’t turn on.
He wrapped his arm around me and guided me out of the lecture hall amidst the mass of students. “My name is Dorian Knight.”
Ah, the popular