The Vampire King's Human Wife

I should have gone home when the stranger started staring at me. Not because he was attractive. That would have been the easy explanation. It was the way he looked at me that made the back of my neck prickle, as though he wasn't seeing a woman he'd just noticed across a crowded room. He was remembering me. I had never seen him before. At least, I was almost certain I hadn't.

The lounge was loud enough to swallow most conversations, but somehow I noticed when he entered; the room changed.

A waiter carrying champagne stopped halfway across the floor. Two men near the bar lowered their voices. A woman who had been laughing a second earlier suddenly looked down at her phone. I turned toward the entrance and forgot what I was about to say.

He was standing beneath the dim gold lights, dressed entirely in black. Not flashy, not trying to attract attention. He didn't need to. He was the kind of man people noticed without meaning to.

Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair falling slightly over his forehead. A face so sharply beautiful it almost looked unreal. But his eyes were what held me. Damn.. those dark and cold were fixed directly on me. I glanced behind myself. Maybe there was someone else standing there. There wasn't.

When I looked back, he was still watching. My friend nudged my arm. "Don't." I frowned. "Don't what?" "Whatever you're thinking."

"I'm not thinking anything." She gave me a look. I ignored her. The stranger started walking toward us. My pulse betrayed me immediately. Ridiculous, right? I know... I didn't know this man. He was just a handsome stranger crossing a crowded room.

Except people moved out of his way without him asking. And nobody seemed willing to meet his eyes. That was strange.

He stopped in front of me. Up close, he was even more unsettling. His skin was almost unnaturally pale. His eyes weren't merely dark. They were so deep I had the ridiculous impression that I could fall into them. He looked at my face for several seconds.

Not my body. My face. Like he was searching for something. "Do I know you?" I asked. His expression barely changed. "No." The answer came too quickly.

I raised an eyebrow. "Then why are you staring at me?" Something flickered across his face. Recognition... Gone almost instantly. "I was curious." "About?" "You."

That should have annoyed me. Instead, warmth crawled up my neck. I hated that, he noticed. Of course he noticed. His gaze dropped briefly to my throat before returning to my eyes. And for the strangest second, I felt something inside me pull toward him.

Well.. Not attraction. Not exactly, but something older. Something my mind couldn't name. He held out his hand. "Lucien." I stared at it before taking it.

The moment our skin touched, a sharp chill traveled through my fingers. I inhaled. His hand was freezing. Not cold from being outside. Like freezing in a way I couldn't explain. His fingers tightened around mine for one brief second before he released me.

His expression had changed. "What?" I asked. "Nothing." He gave that stern look. "You look like something." "I'm fine." He wasn't, I knew it.

Then, without warning, the room disappeared. For half a heartbeat, I saw a corridor. Black marble, nlood smeared across the floor, a chandelier swinging above me. And him.

Lucien. But younger. Standing at the end of the corridor with blood covering his hands. I blinked. The lounge returned.

Music. Voices. Lights. My breathing came too fast. Lucien was staring at me. He knew. "You saw something," he said quietly. My stomach tightened. "Saw what?" He didn't answer.

Instead, his attention shifted past me. A man had entered the lounge. He was staring at us. The stranger's expression hardened. Lucien stepped closer. "Stay here." I almost laughed. "I'm sorry?" "Don't move."

There was something in his voice that erased the humor from mine. The man across the room looked away. Lucien walked toward him, i watched. They exchanged a few words too quietly for me to hear. Then the stranger's face drained of color. He nodded, and left. I stared after him. "What did you say to him?"

Lucien turned. "Nothing important." "That didn't look like nothing." He came back to me.

For the first time, I noticed something almost human in his expression. Concern; not for himself but me. "Who are you?" I asked. His jaw tightened. "You don't want to know."

"That's usually what people say when they're hiding something." A faint smile touched his mouth. It was the first time he looked genuinely amused. "You're brave." "I've been told I'm stubborn." "I noticed."

The tension between us changed. It became warmer, closer Ana was getting dangerous. I should have left. Instead, I stayed. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was attraction. Maybe it was the strange feeling that somewhere beneath all the things I didn't understand, I already knew this man.

Lucien leaned closer. His voice dropped. "You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you?" His eyes darkened. "You have no idea." Before I could ask what he meant, his fingers brushed mine again. This time, the reaction was stronger. My heart slammed against my ribs. His eyes flashed.

For one impossible second, they weren't dark anymore. They were crimson, and behind his lips, something sharp glinted. I stepped back. He froze, our eyes met.

His expression wasn't angry. It wasn't embarrassed. It was almost afraid. Then he whispered the words that made my blood run cold. "You weren't supposed to see that."