The red curry went tasteless. Heart pounding, I searched her gaze, praying it would just be Ivy staring back at me. Her eyes were still brown, but something was in them. Something old that I didn’t understand. My stomach clenched, and I was suddenly unsure of myself. “Don’t be afraid of ghouls like Denon,” she whispered. I thought her words were meant to be soothing, but they tightened my skin until it tingled. “There are a lot more dangerous things to be afraid of.”
Like you? I thought, but didn’t say it. Her sudden air of repressed predator set off alarm bells in my head. I thought I should get up and leave. Get my scrawny witch butt back in the kitchen where it belonged. But she had eased herself back into her chair with her dinner, and I didn’t want her to know she was scaring the crap out of me. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen Ivy go vampy before. Just not after midnight. In her living room. Alone.
“Things like your mother?” I said, hoping I hadn’t gone too far.
“Things like my mother,” she breathed. “That’s why I’m living in a church.”
My thoughts went to my tiny cross on my new bracelet with the rest of my charms. It never failed to impress me that something so small could stop so powerful a force. It wouldn’t slow a living vamp down at all—only the undead—but I’d take whatever protection I could get.
Ivy put her boot heels on the edge of the coffee table. “My mother has been a true undead for the last ten years or so,” she said, startling me from my dark thoughts. “I hate it.”
Surprised, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”
She pushed her dinner away in what was obviously a gesture of unease. There was a frightening emptiness in her face, and she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I was eighteen when my mother died,” she whispered. Her voice was distant, as if she wasn’t aware she was even talking.
“She lost something, Rachel. When you can’t walk under the sun, you lose something so nebulous, you can’t even say for sure what it is. But it’s gone. It’s as if she’s stuck following a pattern of behavior but can’t remember why. She still loves me, but she doesn’t remember why she loves me. The only thing that brings any life to her is the taking of blood, and she’s so damned savage about it. When she’s sated, I can almost see my mother in what’s left of her. But it doesn’t last. It’s never enough.”
Ivy looked up from under her lowered brow. “You do have a crucifix, don’t you?”
“Right here,” I said with forced brightness. I wouldn’t let her know she was putting me on edge; I wouldn’t. Holding up my hand, I gave it a little shake so the robe’s sleeve fell to my elbow to show my new charm bracelet.
Ivy put her boots on the floor. I relaxed at the less provocative position until she leaned halfway over the coffee table. Her hand went out with an unreal quickness, gripping my wrist before I knew she had moved. I froze, very aware of the warmth of her fingers. She studied the wood-inlaid metal charm intently as I fought the urge to pull away. “Is it blessed?” she asked.
Face cold, I nodded, and she released me, easing back with an eerie slowness. It seemed I could still feel her grip on me, an imprisoning firmness that wouldn’t tighten unless I pulled away. “Mine, too,” she said, drawing her cross out from behind her shirt.
Impressed anew with her crucifix, I set aside my dinner and scooted forward. I couldn’t help but reach out for it. The tooled silver begged to be touched, and she leaned across the table so I could bring it closer. Ancient runes were etched into it, along with the more traditional blessings. It was beautiful, and I wondered how old it was.
Suddenly, I realized Ivy’s warm breath was on my cheek.
I sat back, her cross still in my hand. Her eyes were dark and her face blank. There was nothing there. Frightened, I flicked my gaze from her to the cross. I couldn’t just drop it. It would smack her right in the chest. But I couldn’t set it gently down against her, either.
“Here,” I said, terribly uncomfortable at her blank stare. “Take it.”
Ivy reached out, her fingers grazing mine as she grasped the old metal. Swallowing hard, I scooted back into my chair and adjusted Ivy’s robe to cover my legs.
Moving with a provocative slowness, Ivy took her cross off. The silver chain caught against the black sheen of her hair. She pulled her hair free, and it fell back in a cascading shimmer. She set the cross on the table between us. The click of the metal meeting the wood was loud. Eyes unblinking, she curled up in her chair opposite mine with her feet tucked under her and stared at me.
Holy crap, I thought in a sudden wash of understanding and panic. She was coming on to me. That’s what was going on. How blind could I be?
My jaw clenched as my mind raced to find a way out of this. I was straight. Never a thought contrary to that. I liked my men taller than me and not so strong that I couldn’t pin them to the floor in a surge of passion if I wanted. “Um, Ivy …” I started.
“I was born a vampire,” Ivy stated softly.
Her gray voice ran down my spine, shutting off my throat. Breath held, I met the black of her eyes. I didn’t say anything, afraid it might trigger her into movement, and I desperately didn’t want her to move. Something had shifted, and I wasn’t sure what was going on anymore.
“Both of my parents are vampires,” she said, and though she didn’t move, I felt the tension in the room swell until I couldn’t hear the crickets. “I was conceived and born before my mother became a true undead. Do you know what that means—Rachel?” Her words were slow and precise, falling from her lips with the soft permanence of whispered psalms.
“No,” I said, hardly breathing.
Ivy tilted her head so her hair made an obsidian wave that glistened in the low light. She watched me from around it. “The virus didn’t have to wait until I was dead before shaping me,” she said. “It molded me as I grew in my mother’s womb, giving me a little of both worlds, the living and the dead.”
Her lips parted, and I shuddered at the sight of her sharp teeth. I hadn’t meant to. Sweat broke out on the small of my back, and as if in response, Ivy took a breath and held it. “It’s easy for me to pull an aura,” she said as she exhaled. “Actually, the trick is to keep it suppressed.”
She uncurled from her chair, and my breath hissed in through my nose. Ivy jerked at the sound. Slow and methodical, she put her boots on the floor. “And although my reflexes and strength aren’t as good as a true undead, they’re better than yours,” she said.
I knew all of this, and the question of why she was telling me increased my fear tenfold. Struggling not to show my alarm, I refused to shrink backward as she put her palms flat on the table to either side of her cross and leaned forward.
“What’s more, I’m guaranteed to become an undead, even if I die alone in a field with every last drop of blood inside me. No worries, Rachel. I’m eternal already. Death will only make me stronger.”
My heart pounded. I couldn’t look away from her eyes. Damn. This was more than I wanted to know.
“And you know the best part?” she asked.
I shook my head, afraid my voice would crack. I was walking a knife edge, wanting to know what kind of a world she lived in but fighting to keep from entering it.
Her eyes grew fervent. Torso unmoving, she levered one of her knees up onto the coffee table, and then the other. God help me. She was coming at me.
“Living vamps can bespell people—if they want to be,” she whispered. The softness of her voice rubbed against my skin until it tingled. Double damn.
“What good is it if it only works on those who let you?” I asked, my voice harsh next to the liquid essence of hers.
Ivy’s lips parted to show the tips of her teeth.