Red Magnolia: Nightgarden Saga #1 by Lucy Holden

Author:Lucy Holden [Holden, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780645104028
Publisher: Fehu Press
Published: 2021-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Truth

You’re a vampire.

The words are like stones skipping across the river, bouncing in the still afternoon light then sinking beneath the surface. I can’t sit still anymore. Coming to my feet, I move restlessly down the porch, my back to him. When I turn around, he’s still leaning against the column, watching me, motionless as a statue.

“How old are you?” Of all the questions I could ask, it seems the easiest.

“I was twenty-three when I became what I am.”

From nowhere, I have the thought that Connor wouldn’t like the idea of me dating someone six years older than me. Then I wonder where the idea of dating entered my mental conversation. A moment after that, I realize that I’m talking about Antoine being a vampire and think that both the issue of dating and the age gap are more than a little irrelevant. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t have it in me to ask any questions right now.

“I drink blood to survive, just as Keziah and Caleb did.” I’m oddly grateful that he volunteered that information without my having to ask. “I can eat or drink anything you can, but my body doesn’t need it and isn’t nourished by it.”

I’m not sure what I expected. Perhaps that maddening half smile of his, an amused laugh at the mere idea of him being a vampire. Maybe flat, hard denial, the slate-gray stare and grim mouth. Even, perhaps, a rude rejoinder and abrupt exit.

But not this bland, simple statement of fact, the mundanities of what he is rather than an acknowledgement of the sheer insanity of it. It’s like someone taking me to the moon and then explaining the rocket ship’s inner workings. And most overwhelming of all is the fact that this is Antoine, the burnished bronze man with a touch that makes me shiver and whose face, whether I like it or not, haunts my waking hours almost as much as Keziah does my sleeping ones.

His eyes are dark, unreadable. I want to see behind them to whatever danger lurks within, as if by doing so I will know if he can hurt me. I wonder why I’m asking the question, given all he’s just said.

Antoine is a vampire. Of course he’s dangerous.

The simple reality is that he could kill me right now, and I’d barely have a moment to so much as think about fighting back. The only reason he hasn’t, I think dully, is because I still serve a purpose.

Not because of any other reason.

I wonder why that should make me sad.

“Who inherited the mansion after you—” I gesture, unable to say the word died. It seems impossible that a man who radiates so much life could be dead.

“My sister. The women of the Marigny line are famous these days for retaining their own name after marriage. It was forgiven as a quirk of an old, aristocratic French family.”

“What I don’t understand,” I say, “is why, if you are able to ‘compel’

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