Thanks to everyone who's been leaving lovely reviews on this story. Sorry it's taking so long to update it. I promise I'm still working on it; it just misbehaves rather a lot.
It was dull; visiting donors. Michel could hardly take Kerry up with him, so he left her in the lobby of one of the upper-end high rise buildings by the river. He didn't say anything to the concierge as he headed for the elevators, but Kerry watched his expression in the mirrored back wall and the look he threw the man was barely an iota shy of violence. The concierge took a startled step back, gaze flying to Kerry in wide-eyed panic.
Kerry relaxed. No one was going to be asking her to leave after that, no matter how informally she was dressed.
The first half hour Michel was gone, she played games on her phone in a feeble attempt to keep from thinking about what he was doing, or who his victim might be. It didn't work, so for the next hour she paced the lounge area of the lobby.
"These carpets are Parisian."
Kerry stopped pacing, turning slowly. Michel. He was dressed as casually as she was but, unlike her, he looked as though he belonged in all of this opulence. Kerry scanned him, searching for signs of blood – or of a struggle.
His mouth curved in amusement. "If you've finished trying to wear them out, we'll go."
For a moment Kerry didn't know what he was talking about, and then she remembered that he'd mentioned the carpet. She nodded. There was no blood on him. His hair might have been more tousled, but Kerry figured that there was a certain amount of seduction involved in these blood donations, so there probably hadn't been a struggle. Kerry wondered whether it was fair to pin human morality to a vampire. It probably wasn't, but she didn't know how to help it.
She walked across to him and he pulled her arm through his. They left the building, with Michel steering her toward the river, rather than back to her apartment.
He stopped eventually, leaning against the boardwalk rail and looking out over the river. She leant against the rail too, but facing inward, watching the people walking by rather than the water. "Well?" he asked.
She glanced up at him.
He smirked, as though he could feel the uncertainty roiling inside of her. Could feel all of the questions bubbling under her skin, begging to be given voice. "Are you going to ask?"
"What's the point? You never answer me."
He laughed at her, voice soft. "Just this once," he said. "I will. And I'll tell the truth as well."
Kerry didn't believe him. Oh, maybe if she asked something inconsequential he'd tell the truth, but when it came to anything important he lied like the devil. She shrugged anyway. She didn't have anything to lose by asking, and it would give her a chance to try and read whether he was lying. "Does it hurt them when you feed?" She hadn't meant to sound as though she cared so much; had been trying to sound mildly curious.
The centre of his forehead creased, eyes darkening and sweeping across her face. She had surprised him. Whatever he'd expected her to ask, that wasn't it. Kerry wondered what he thought that she'd been thinking.
"No," he said. "I might get an invite back for some of them if it hurt, but not most."
Kerry thought that he was telling the truth this time, but she didn't trust her judgement enough to know for sure. She hugged her arms around herself against the cold wind coming off the water.
Michel pulled his jacket off and turned around to settle it about her shoulders. "I could always give you a demonstration, if you asked." He sounded languid and amused, leaning into her side as a further buffer against the wind.
Kerry blew warmth into her hands before tucking them into the pockets of Michel's jacket. "You could, but then I'd have to stake you."
He laughed. "Let's try something different tonight," he suggested.
Kerry wondered what he was angling for. Whatever it was, she wasn't falling for it. "Different like a midnight sky-diving experience or different like digging up a grave?"
"Neither of those things would be so very unbelievable for us," said Michel. "Let's do something old-fashioned."
That didn't help. Kerry turned her body, eyes narrowing as she watched Michel's face. "I have no idea what you're asking me to agree to. Knowing you, old-fashioned is stoning adulterers to death outside the city gates."
He snorted on laughter, shoulders shaking as he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth to rein it in. "I said old-fashioned, Kerry. Not Biblical. Like a date."
"I don't think dates are for people like us," said Kerry. "I mean, not together at least. I might be able to date someone who wasn't you…" She paused to study him. She couldn't imagine him dating anyone – not as Michel – but if he ever became someone like Ethan again, maybe. A petite blond girl who studied French and fitted under his chin when she hugged him. Someone who was soft to his sharpness. A girl who would make other college students feel comfortable around him even if he was occasionally too cold. "Teddy could date someone who wasn't me," she said. "But you and me? I don't see it."
He smirked at her. "That's the point. We're trying something different."
The spontaneous part of Kerry flared in excitement. The part of her that knew Michel threw warnings at her brain. He was up to something. She didn't know what, but right now it didn't matter. After days of hiding out with him she wanted to be reckless. "Okay," she said. "Shock me."
They went on a date. Michel's jacket was big on her; the sleeves hanging down over her hands, and the jeans she'd thrown on were one of her oldest pairs. Evidently Michel had enough practise with this dating thing that he still knew how to make her think she was the sun his world rotated around. He hailed a cab; barely taking his eyes off her while his hand nestled in the small of her back.
When the cab pulled up to the kerb, Michel pulled the door open for her. It wasn't what Kerry would usually like, but they were playing another game now and she wasn't going to lose this one even if she didn't understand it yet.
She smiled and folded into the waiting cab, sliding across the seat so that Michel could get in beside her. He pressed his mouth to her and she felt the curl of his lips against her temple as he kissed her.
He turned to the driver, "984 Fillion Street," he said as Kerry buckled her seatbelt.
She knew the street, but didn't know what was at 984. It wasn't the ice-cream parlour as she'd half been expecting. Wasn't even close. Michel wouldn't answer if she asked, so she didn't. Testing her ability to go along with things that she couldn't control was probably part of the game. Kerry liked to be in control, but she was really, really good at being laidback when she needed to be.
The cab pulled up quarter of an hour later outside the State Museum. The roman-style columns were lit with a pale pink glow. Kerry climbed out of the taxi, looking up at the entrance. People were milling around the lighted foyer, wine glasses in hand.
Michel finished paying the driver and joined Kerry, fingers twining with hers. She walked with him up the stairs leading to the entrance. Museum night events were on monthly, but Kerry had never made it to one.
A doorman helped her take Michel's jacket off and gave her a number for it. She was dressed less formally than anyone else in the foyer. It didn't bother her much. If she acted as though she belonged, people usually treated her as though she did.
Michel passed her a glass of red wine and offered her his arm when she took it. She had no idea what he was playing at, but she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. Perhaps he was keeping her busy while something important went down somewhere else. Unless something important was going down in her apartment, that didn't make sense. He'd be able to keep her away from any other place pretty easily. And Kerry couldn't think of any reason he might be keeping her from her apartment.
Maybe there was something at the museum that he wanted her to see. Or maybe he just didn't want to be cooped up in her apartment any more than she did.
He leant in to Kerry as they walked through the throngs of people chatting in the foyer. Kerry had been to the museum before, of course. She wouldn't have gotten far in demonology if she wasn't interested in history. When they reached the northern gallery, Michel looked back.
"It's like a banquet," he murmured, glancing from group to group. "All these people with lowered defences poking around a darkened museum."
He'd already eaten, so he was probably just trying to annoy her. "Pretty much the same as a pub," said Kerry.
He gave her an affronted look. "You can't compare this to pub food. Pub food has no presentation and very little appeal. It's also usually marinated in cheap beer or the equivalent of cast wine. The food here is marinating in Barossa Valley Shiraz."
Kerry looked at her untouched glass. She didn't really want to think of herself as marinating, but the way he said 'Barossa Valley Shiraz' with that wistful yearning, made her think that she would regret not tasting it. Michel was probably trying to creep her out anyway, and it wouldn't do for him to think it had worked. She took that sip.
"There," said Michel, sotto voce, nodding to a woman in a stunning red dress with glittering strands of diamonds clinging to her throat. "That one is garnished."
Kerry spluttered on her wine so badly that some of it went up her nose. Michel caught the glass out of her hand before she could drop it and she pulled away from him before punching him in the shoulder. "Ugh…" She swiped the collar of her shirt across her mouth and nose. "Stop talking about people as 'pub food' and 'marinating'. It's super creepy."
He smirked at her and she was pretty sure she'd lost a round of 'being cool about your vampire friends'. She wasn't sure she'd want to win that game. "I do eat people, Kerry," Michel said, tone cool as though he thought she'd forgotten.
"Well, obviously," said Kerry. "And I eat chicken, but I never talked about that to my pet canary; because that's sort of psychopathic."
He studied her, eyes shadowed. "Would that make you my pet human? Interesting view you have of yourself."
She blinked at him, blind-sided by the comment. Then he reached up to hook two fingers into the collar of her shirt, drawing her forward.
"Not the view I have of you. Luckily."
Her fingers were tingling, twitching with the impulse to reach up and touch him. This had to be a new sort of game. He must have noticed how she came apart the last two times he'd kissed her. It probably amused him.
He let her shirt go, stepping around her and walking into the first gallery.
Kerry huffed out a breath, feeling heat flood her cheeks. Embarrassment and – just him, almost touching her. It was stupid not to admit it. He was a weakness. Not her biggest weakness, but the most unpredictable. And even if he could be sliced neatly out of her life; she doubted that it was a call that she would make.