Rylan pulled the covers over himself. “Are you coming?” he asked, looking at Juliet expectantly, his red irises flashing wickedly.
Juliet swallowed.
She couldn’t complain that Rylan had just hung up on Seth. Rylan had warned her that this would happen. She couldn’t pretend like there was nothing between them. He offered her his company and since she wanted a romance, she couldn’t go back on her promise now. That was the trade-off. She ignored her hesitation and got into bed with him.
“Good girl,” he said, taking her hand and kissing her palm. He wrapped the blanket around her and held her close.
“Rylan, what happened to your eyes? Why are you wearing your red contacts first thing in the morning?”
He opened his eyes wide, so she could see them more closely. “I was wearing my brown contacts last night. I took them out last night after I put you to bed. They were part of my ‘costume’.”
Juliet inspected his eyes and sure enough, he was not wearing contact lenses of any kind. It was just like Seth said. His eyes were naturally red.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, they were brown before my accident. When I woke up in the hospital, they had turned red.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that before. Do you know why it happened?”
“Yes,” he said lingeringly, almost smiling.
“Well, why didn’t you talk about it last night? Everyone would have been really interested.”
He chuckled. “You’re right. They would have loved to hear about it, but some things are better left private, you know?”
“So, you won’t tell me now?”
“I guess that depends. Did Seth tell you what he is? Did he confess to being a vampire?”
“No. He keeps saying he isn’t one,” she admitted.
“Interesting... and he let you go. He’s a slow one, isn’t he? I’ve met him before. Did he tell you that?”
“No,” Juliet said, becoming increasingly impressed.
“Huh... Maybe he doesn’t remember. It was a really funny thing. I knew him immediately on sight, but I didn’t know you,” Rylan said, pretending to bite her wrist.
Juliet squirmed, moving her arm out of his grasp. “Wait. Wait. What do you mean? You’ve met Seth and me before?”
He nodded. “One glance at that miserable son of a bitch and I feel the hair on the back of my neck rising.”
Juliet gawked. She had no idea Rylan disliked Seth to that extent. “Have you and I met before? Did you know me before I was thirteen?” she questioned eagerly.
He shook his head slightly. “It’s complicated. Ask me something more specific.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Did we meet before I came to the Occult’s Addict office?” she asked, searching for the proper way to question him. Sometimes the way Rylan operated was simply infuriating.
“Yes,” he said definitely.
“At school?”
“No.”
“I have no idea where I’ve been. Where did we meet?”
“At your place.”
“Would my parents remember you if I called them?”
“I’ve never met your parents,” he answered quizzically. “They wouldn’t know me.”
“Did I invite you over?”
“No. We’d never met before,” he said, laughing. He was clearly playing with her.
She shook her head. He was making it as difficult as possible on purpose. “What about Seth?” she asked, taking a deep breath and preparing herself for the useless answers he would give her or the horrible things he would say. “Were you really investigating him as a vampire if you already knew him?”
“Well, I definitely knew him and I wanted to investigate him. I took pictures and he looked like a vamp with those three bite marks down his neck.”
“Do you think he’s a vampire?”
“No. I told you before, I think he has a girlfriend with a vampire fetish. I still think that. Maybe he’s through with her, since he’s been hanging around you, but no, I don’t think he’s a vampire.”
Juliet stayed silent and snuggled into Rylan’s arms and tried to think. She remembered her dream where she drank Seth’s blood. That dream, though dark and twisted, did not inspire the same feelings that arose in her when Rylan kissed her. When Seth kissed her, she felt love, agonizing love, but love just the same. When Rylan kissed her, she felt like she had been thrown into a nightmare. It was strange. Logically, Rylan was a better match for her. He was reliable and gentle. Despite Seth’s sex appeal and the pull she felt towards him, she felt like she would be a fool to head back to him. Wasn’t that the classic mistake all women made?
She refused to feel guilty about not keeping her promise to Seth. Rylan’s clumsy, but well meant, attentions were better than Seth’s reckless ways, weren’t they? After all, Rylan stayed the night and held her like she was a treasure. No, she wouldn’t feel guilty. She would forget Seth and enjoy a gentler romance with Rylan.
“Is it okay if we go slow in our relationship? You aren’t going to ask me to jump into bed with you, are you?” she asked quietly.
“Darling, you are already in bed with me,” he countered pleasantly.
She huffed, annoyed at his joking.
“I know what you mean,” he said, pulling her head close and kissing her temple. “I don’t want to mess things up with you, so we can go as slow as you want. Just try to be considerate and don’t take too long.”
“What’s your idea of too long?” she asked, getting anxious.
He opened his eyes suddenly and looked at the ceiling. “Huh. I feel like I’ve already waited forever and you know what? I think I would be willing to go on waiting, as long as you really wanted it.”
Juliet flushed. “Why do you care about me so much? Didn’t we just meet last month?”
“But we didn’t. I have known you for a very long time. This time you’re so different, which must be why I didn’t recognize you at first. I’m just glad I figured it out before it was too late.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so cryptically,” she complained.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he offered, completely changing the subject.
“What kind of a deal?” she asked skeptically.
He whispered in her ear, “I’ll tell you something interesting if you’ll give me back that poster of Seth.”
“What! You made me pay a hundred dollars for it! I’m not giving it back!”
“I’ll give you a full refund,” Rylan offered tantalizingly.
Juliet thought about that. She could certainly use the money she’d blown on that poster. She had almost nothing left after her shopping spree. And besides, if she still wanted pictures of Seth, she had a whole collection of four by sixes that Rylan had sold her. It didn’t take her a minute to decide that it wasn’t worth the effort to try to hold onto it.
“Okay,” she said to Rylan. “It’s a deal.”
Rylan smiled at her, and then took a look at his watch. “I should probably shove off soon. But, don’t fret. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do before I do it so you don’t get scared. I’ll tell you something interesting and then I’ll kiss you. Please don’t pass out again.”
Juliet nodded. She could go along with this. He said he’d be a gentleman and she trusted that. Plus, he didn’t ask her to stay away from Seth and Seth was always asking her to stay away from Rylan. He had to be a nicer guy.
Rylan’s eyes shone slightly as he peered carefully into hers. “My eyes are red because I made a deal with that guy.”
“Who…”
Juliet’s words were cut off as Rylan’s lips came down on hers. She tried to focus. She tried to stay in the present where she and Rylan were kissing, but her mind would not stay and she was whipped away to another time and place with the feeling of cold air freezing her skin. The darkness was thick and humid and she opened her eyes and tried to figure out where she was.
She was in a circular room. It was dark except for one beam of light that broke through the ceiling and lit up a tree in front of her. The floor of the room was a shallow reflection pool, so veins of white light were mirrored on the ceiling like lines between constellations. Holding herself, she wished it wasn’t cold or dark. She didn’t like darkness, and she knew that even the light that came from the ceiling wasn’t direct light. It was sunlight filtered through water and glass. It offered no heat.
She felt like she was in prison. She didn’t know how long she had been there, or how long it would be before someone rescued her. She could hear animals growling and scratching, sometimes far away and sometimes in the room next to her. Their claws rang as they sharpened them on rocks. From time to time she could hear a whip cracking and a subsequent yelp. Fear gripped her. The beasts felt so near that they might break through and tear her to pieces. Breathing hard, she tried to keep her panic in check.
An icy feeling was winding its way through her insides, a feeling of such strong desolation that if suicide were possible, she would have taken her life. She couldn’t even wound herself. The only things in the room were the ankle-deep water and the tree. The tree that grew perfectly, its branches sprawling upward like it wouldn’t have to stop if it came to the ceiling.
There was a tapping at a door and then a man entered the room. She couldn’t see his face, but she could see his body and hear his words.
“Are you hungry? I know you’ve refused food for days. Starvation isn’t pretty, especially for someone as precious as you.”
He was wearing a white robe, beautiful, like moonlight dancing on ripples of water at midnight. He approached her and seeing her cold and wet state, removed his robe and slid it over her shoulders. Slowly, he knelt down in the icy water and tightened the fabric around her huddled form.
“Won’t you take something to eat?” he offered, sliding a piece of food into her palm. “I can’t eat it for you.”
She was about to take a bite when his scarlet eyes flickered in the darkness. His face was still shrouded in a mask of shadow. Without trust, she could not eat.
Opening her palm, she let it splash into the water and float away.
His eyes grew cruel and suddenly pain shot through her head like her skull would break. He had hit her—hard. Grasping her cheek she forced herself back to reality.
Rylan was kissing her tenderly, but her mouth was full of blood.
***
Juliet sat at her writing desk and tried to focus on her work. She had to finish a paper by Monday, but her brain was a complete muddle and her head hurt.
She was at the point where she could no longer pass off her visions as merely dreams. There had to be a meaning to them.
The thing was, Rylan hadn’t slapped her, but she couldn’t ignore the bruise forming on her left cheek and the cuts in her mouth. The side of her face was red and swollen. The cover stick and foundation she applied hadn’t hidden much. Juliet didn’t even have the kind of hair that could be artfully draped over a bruised cheek. Sunglasses were useless as well, as they didn’t cover her jawbone.
Rylan didn’t know what had happened either. He had brought her some ice and stayed with her as long as he could. He worked on the weekends and he said he couldn’t call in sick.
“I’d stay with you,” he said with real regret in his voice, “but there’s no replacement for me. Shit, Juliet. I have no clue what just happened.”
He had gone. Morning had ended. The early afternoon had arrived. She was trying to write her paper and failing at it. She needed to get out of her dorm room, so she gathered up her laptop and headed for one of the campus libraries. When she was surrounded by hard-working people, she found that their energy sometimes rubbed off on her.
She entered the atrium of the library and there, sitting at the very first table, was Seth. He was sitting by himself, stretched out, and balancing a triangular ruler on the end of his pen.
At first, she didn’t know what to do. Should she turn around and find another library on campus? Should she purposefully sit at another table and ignore him? Should she sit down and make nice like they were friends? What should she do?
She didn’t get the chance to make that decision before he lifted his eyes and looked her in the face. Without saying anything, he kicked the chair opposite him and motioned for her to take a seat. Despite her previous choice to cut Seth out of her life, his invitation tempted her sorely. Giving in, she told herself Seth wasn’t offering her anything more than a seat, even if she was Rylan’s girlfriend now.
Juliet cautiously slid into the chair.
“Relax,” Seth said easily when he saw her taut nerves.
“You’re not mad?” she asked, hesitating slightly.
“Why would I be mad?” he asked, gentleness in his sherry brown eyes.
She tapped her toe nervously on the table leg. “You know... because of the way Rylan answered my phone this morning.”
“Yeah,” Seth said, grabbing a book and leaning back on two chair legs. “Didn’t expect that. So, are you here to study, or were you looking for me?”
“Both... I guess.”
“What did you want to say? I’m listening.”
“About Rylan…” she started.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, cutting her off. “You said that you weren’t going to run away with him out of desperation and I trust that you didn’t. You were just out late because of your meeting, and you’re worried I won’t understand that nothing happened between you two. He wanted to tell me off and he got his chance. That’s all.”
Juliet stared at his response with giant eyes. Was that really what he believed? Was Seth the type of guy to avoid the worst possible conclusion and to think the best of her, even when it wasn’t true? His attitude instantly softened her toward him.
“Why didn’t you walk me last night when I called for a Safewalk?” she abruptly demanded. She was getting antsy and feeling a little guilty.
“I didn’t work last night.” He paused before he said, “If you wanted to see me then why didn’t you call me? We could have had a date or something.”
“We already broke up.”
“Oh... that,” Seth said, looking away from her and flipping a page in his book. “Well, I am not too concerned about that. I still want to see you. I thought I made that clear this morning.” When his eyes rose to meet hers, they were filled with danger and passion, and then abruptly the heat fizzled. Instead, he was examining her bruised face. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing. Just an accident involving my vision,” she said, implying that her eyesight was to blame. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Did you walk into a pole or something?”
“No,” she said, looking at him coldly and tapping her toe.
“Then why are you hiding what happened? Did Rylan hit you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Then what happened?” he persisted.
“Aw, Seth, leave me alone. I had a weird dream and I somehow got hurt during it.”
Seth gawked at her in disgust. “What do you occult people do for your meetings? They weren’t making you practice astral projection or some other stupid thing, were they?”
“No. It’s nothing. I just have weird dreams when I faint. That’s all.”
“You faint a lot,” he said quietly. “What kind of dreams do you have? Did you have them when I kissed you?”
Juliet put a hand to her forehead and said coolly, “I tried to talk to you about this last week and you blew me off.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, I do. It’s not like they’re important,” she added spitefully.
“Not to contradict you, but I think they might be.” He took a deep breath and looked at her levelly with his beautiful, sorrowful eyes. “I am going to tell you what I am.”
“Why now, when it hardly matters?”
He sucked his breath in. “No. I think now is the time when it matters the most. I’m sorry I acted like an ass. I can only explain that I got scared.”
“Scared?” Juliet asked, peering into his eyes.
“I was so hungry that day and you were in my room. I wasn’t sure if I could hold back, but I couldn’t leave. I was trapped, too”
Her heart skipped a beat, but she couldn’t let Seth see that he was making her weak. She continued in a hard voice, “So, you’re saying you’re not a vampire, but you were tempted to drink my blood?”
Seth put his finger in the corner of his mouth and pulled it wide so that Juliet could see his sharp canine. He let go and said, “I’m a blood drinker.”
“U-huh,” she said slowly.
“I don’t expect you to believe me without proof. I’ve arranged for some.”
“Which is?”
“You can contact your friend Fiona. She’s one of Chas’ clients. He drains her blood regularly. I’ve checked the records and her signature is all over them. She knows exactly what he is. Me too for that matter. I can show you the records if you’d like.”
Juliet thought about Fiona and how quickly she had been able to give her Seth’s address. She sighed. “There’s no need to go that far,” she said weakly.
“You believe me?” he asked curiously.
“Let’s hear the rest of your story,” she urged.
Seth tapped his pen on his open textbook. “I’m a siren.”
“A siren?” she repeated.
“Do you know what that is?”
“Isn’t it a woman who sings and bewitches sailors making them crash their ships on the rocks?”
“Sort of. I’m not a full siren, only half. I don’t know who my father was. He’s undoubtedly dead. My siren mother says she’ll tell me who my father was when I turn sixty, so I have a long way to go.” He paused, “Sirens are flesh eaters. My mother and her sister used to be nymphs, but they were cursed by the goddess Demeter to eat the flesh of men. You saw my mother’s picture in Chas’ living room. Who knows how many men she’s seduced with her glorious voice, only to murder them and lick their bones clean with her leopard-like tongue. If you think my fangs are brutal, you should see hers. She is a predator through and through.”
Juliet listened to him carefully. She rested her unhurt cheek against the palm of her hand. “She’s lucky she didn’t get worse. Spineless wretch!” she suddenly spat.
Seth’s eyes went wide. “What did you just say?”
“I don’t know,” she said, clueless. “I just kind of zoned out. I seriously apologize. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Huh,” Seth said, his tongue stuck in his cheek. “Anyway, I’m not a cannibal... exactly. I drink blood, but I’m not a vampire. I’m a half siren and there aren’t many of us in the entire world. I don’t know how many children my mother’s sister has had, but Chas and I are the only sons of Raidne at this moment. A vampire is a common thing compared to us.”
“And Nixie is a quarter siren?”
“Yes, and she’s not like Chas and me. She’s just a carnivore. She doesn’t drink blood, but she could probably eat an entire cow by herself and she has like eighteen boyfriends on rotation. I like to think that if she really disciplined herself, she might be able to confine herself to one love interest. However, she likes the attention way too much. You see, the curse isn’t just to make us miserable by giving us revolting eating habits, it’s to ensure that we never find happiness with the person we love. Every man my mother has ever loved, she has murdered. Two generations down, Nixie’s just hyper and restless with only one guy. She has a really short attention span, but she doesn’t have to cheat. Chas and I have to cheat.”
“What do you mean?” Juliet asked suspiciously.
“I can’t drink a man’s blood. It has to be a woman’s, and on a regular basis. One woman’s blood would not be enough to satisfy me. I need to drink about five hundred milliliters a week. Most women can only safely lose five hundred milliliters once every eight weeks. So, if I drank your blood behind that bookshelf over there,” he said, motioning to a deserted part of the library. “I’d be good for about a week, but you wouldn’t be good for another eight weeks. I need a donor list of at least eight women to stay fed. I’d be better off with more, but I drink grenadine straight to try to help with the cravings.”
“Why can you drink that?”
“Can we talk about that some other time? It’s a complicated detail and I’m trying to teach you the basics.”
Juliet apologized and asked him to continue.
“The point is,” Seth said, leaning in so that he could speak quieter. “This part makes me feel ill, but I have to tell you everything. I have been drinking the blood that Chas drains from his donors, women like Fiona. Nixie acts like his little assistant and drains half their donation for me before he takes them off to pay them.”
“How does Chas pay his donors? Is he a whore then?” Juliet asked, feeling a little queasy.
“I don’t know everything he does, but I don’t think so. We’re sirens. We sing. You’ll understand if you hear one of us. Think about it. The origin of our vocal cords is the stuff legends are made of. Men used to throw themselves into the sea when they couldn’t swim to get closer to a siren’s voice. You think a vampire would be tempting with their smooth pale skin and razor sharp fangs? Trust me, a vampire’s got nothing on me.”
“Then why have I never heard you sing?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“I’ve been taught never to sing unless I’m in a soundproof room. It’s very dangerous because it attracts too much attention. Even Nixie is forbidden. She sounds like an angel.”
“What do you sound like?” she asked wistfully.
“A demon,” he said wickedly. He paused before continuing. “The problem is that I haven’t gotten any donors for myself yet,” he confessed with a shameful glance downward. “My mother called last night and she’s going to make Chas cut me off by the end of the year if I don’t a donor of my own.”
“Your siren mother called you?” Juliet chuckled.
“I appreciate it sounds ridiculous, but there is nothing ridiculous about what would happen to me if she came and took me home, or if I stayed here with no blood supply. I’m inviting you to be the first woman I bite in earnest. What do you say?”