Oh shit.
His teeth.
His teeth were long. Like a dog’s.
Like a vampire’s.
She’d just meant to look into his eyes, to check to see if maybe his pupils were dilated too. If there was still sweat coming off his forehead, that should be a good sign. When she’d glanced up, the angle gave her a perfect view between his parted lips.
Who hadn’t been required to read Dracula in high school or hadn’t heard of the Twilight series? Even if someone had been home-schooled, the teenage pop phenomenon couldn’t be ignored.
“It makes sense now.” The physical perfection. Cicero’s comments. Bast’s wealth. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. “You have hidden cameras in here? Or someone’s gonna come jumping out from another room, telling me I’ve been punked, right?”
“Alice?” There was an unsettling gleam in his eyes, which seemed too keen at the moment.
“You don’t really expect me to believe this set-up. I’ll admit for a split second you got me. I was convinced that all of this was real. The nice place, the scary badass at the front door. Even your teeth now. You got me good.”
Sebastian’s stomach made a wet, lurching sound, and he doubled over. She stepped back automatically, ready to keep her feet out of the line of fire. Vomit where he wanted, just keep her out of it, literally.
And that’s when she remembered the blood outside the club. The puddle that had been beneath a man with no visible wounds. Pooled blood. She was certain of it. He’d been retching then too. Oh God, had he thrown it up?
She peered at him now, knee to the ground, his face obscured from view. One arm wrapped around his abdomen, the back of his other hand pressed against his mouth.
A sick vampire. Just her freaking luck.
Gathering every ounce of her courage, she took a tiny step closer. She had to prove to herself this wasn’t real. It was some sort of not-funny joke that she’d giggle about later, because of course vampires didn’t really exist. They were born out of the imaginations of authors and older brothers hell-bent on scaring the shit out of their younger siblings.
Heart pounding, breath barely squeezing past her lips, she tilted her head to the side to look at Sebastian’s face again. One more look into his mouth at those teeth. They couldn’t be real.
Couldn’t be.
Chapter Seven
Alice’s face had gone pale, blue eyes widening as she stared at him. Not stared. Studied. She saw something in his face that must have terrified her, for Alice had stopped speaking, all snark and bravado suspiciously absent.
The last time he’d fed from her had been a stolen moment. One he didn’t want to repeat if he could help it.
But he didn’t know if he could stop himself.
Somehow he’d managed to not give in to screaming impulse. Fuck, it hurt to even turn his gaze toward hers. “What?”
“Your teeth.” She licked dry lips. “That’s what he’d meant, right? This is real and I’m not being punked. And I’m not dreaming.” Her voice dropped into a mutter. “But maybe I am. Passed out or something back at the club. Or maybe something fucked up had been in the doughnut...which I didn’t get to taste. Shit.”
Bast turned his head to the side and coughed up something thick, which he swallowed back down with a grimace. It would have been amusing to watch her continue to justify what she’d seen, but he was in no mood for it now. Instead he focused on where she’d been touching him. On how soothing her hands felt on his bare skin. Except now, with the wariness in her eyes, she stood too far away to be effective. “Touch me again, Alice.”
Her eyebrows lifted, eyes narrowing. “Touch you? And what happens after I do that?”
Maybe some of the illness would calm down. “I won’t hurt you. Not ever.”
“But I don’t know that... Weren’t you the one trying to convince me to leave not long ago?”
Because of how much he wanted to get close to her when it shouldn’t have been such an unshakable compulsion. “Please...”
She took a tiny step back, her body poised to run. He didn’t have to hear her thoughts to know it would take only the slightest provocation to make her flee. “Tell me if you’re a vampire first.”