A Taste Of A Vampire

 The intensity of his return gaze was just as strong as hers on him, or even stronger.

“New York is a long way from here,” he said quietly, studying everything about her. “What do you think of Grayson Manor?”

She felt her heart beating wildly and her breath caught in her chest as he took a step toward her. “I… well I haven’t ever seen anything like it before. It’s beautiful, but I don’t plan on keeping it. I only came here as a formality, to be completely honest. I think I’ll probably sell it.”

He raised a brow slightly in surprise. “Selling it? And where would you go after that?”

“I have a place in Manhattan. I’ve lived there for most of my life. It’s my home. I have a great job there, and…” she trailed off as she lost her train of thought just feeling the wildness of him before her, and letting herself be absorbed into it.

Nicholas peered closely at her. “…and a man perhaps? A husband or lover?” he asked in the same calm and level voice, though there was the faintest hint of curiosity in the lilt of his tone, just at the end of his question.

Claire shook her head. “No, no one like that. It’s just me. I have a life there, though, and I have nothing and no one here, so there’s no reason for me to leave my entire life behind and come here. There’s nothing for me here, so it just doesn’t make any sense to keep it. I know it’s been in the family for a long time, but I’m the last of the Grayson line, I guess, so it seems like it doesn’t much matter if it goes to someone else.”

He watched her thoughtfully and nodded. “That’s a rather intriguing perspective. What if you were to continue the Grayson line? You could pass it along to an heir.”

She shrugged one shoulder, her dark eyes still on him. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. It doesn’t seem like the timing will be right for it to be possible, and I’m more of a career-minded lady than a family-oriented woman.”

The corner of his mouth turned up slightly with the hint of a smile. “Independent… strong.” He took another step toward her, standing almost right in front of her. “Untamable.”

There seemed to be a new light in his eyes, like green fire, drawing her in even further. She wasn’t at all intimidated by the nearness of him.

“What about your home?” she asked, carefully pulling in as deep a breath as she could. “You inherited yours as well?” Claire had to try to get his focus off her if she expected herself to be able to concentrate at all. She was beginning to feel dizzy.

There was a moment’s pause, and Nicholas nodded. “Yes, it’s been passed down throughout generations of the Ryder family for centuries. I’ve inherited it just like all of the Ryder men before me.”

“Will you be passing it along to your children?” she asked, wondering if some incredibly lucky woman had managed to capture his heart yet.

He seemed to chuckle softly, almost inaudibly, but she swore she heard it. “At some point, I will be passing it down to an heir, though it will be no child of mine. I’m not married, and I don’t have children.”

It felt to her as if a tidal wave of relief washed over her, though she couldn’t have guessed why. She smiled at him. “Perhaps someday,” she answered simply.

She heard a bird cry in the distance, and at the sound of it, she realized that there had been no sound in nature around them. There were no crickets chirping from hidden recesses in the grass around them. There were no nearby birds or any other kind of animal. Even the brook behind her seemed to have hushed itself. Her horse stood silently beside them both, his head down a bit, relaxed and patient.

She broke their gaze then and looked around them. “It’s dark; I didn’t realize that it had gotten to be this late. I should be going. I’m not completely certain of the way back to the manor, though I’m sure if I follow the stream I’ll wind up there eventually. There’s a good moon coming out tonight, so there should be some light. I just hope I’ll be safe getting back.”

Nicholas was quiet for a moment, watching her. He gave her a nod. “You’ll be perfectly safe. That I promise you. There is nothing around here that would harm you in any way, and this horse will know his way back.”

He held his hand out and she took it. He lifted her fingers to his lips and bowed before her slightly, lowering his mouth to the back of her hand. As his lips brushed over her warm skin, she felt a swift chill and a shiver zip through her veins, and it made her blink in surprise.

“May I assist you in mounting the horse?” he asked politely.

Claire nodded and thanked him, and he lifted her up onto the back of the beast as if she were a feather in his fingertips. The feel of his hands around her waist made her draw in her breath and she felt dizziness sweeping over her once again for a moment.

He stepped back from the horse and spoke softly, almost inaudibly in a strange tongue, and then smiled mysteriously up at her. “Goodnight, Claire. It’s been truly wonderful to meet you.”

“Goodnight, Nicholas,” she answered him. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you as well.”

She felt the horse turn beneath her then, and he walked away from the man and headed back the way that they had come, just as if he knew every step of the way, and didn’t need guidance from her at all.

There was not a single moment on the way back to the house or while she was still awake in this world that she wasn’t thinking of her time with Nicholas Ryder that night. She ran over their conversation so many times in her mind, and when she got into bed, she picked up the diary and reread the entry that Elizabeth had made about meeting Nathaniel Ryder.

“…and has a mysterious air about him that I am drawn to with the strongest pull I’ve ever known. There is also the fact that he is without question the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. …He is magnanimous and enthralling in the utmost. His hair is as dark as night, and his eyes are a shade of green that I have never seen before—deep and spellbinding. His skin is pale, his features so exquisite that they might have been chiseled from marble by the world’s finest sculptors. From the first moment I set eyes on his face, I could hardly look away; I had to make myself do it, so as not to draw attention to my attraction to him, and since that blessed moment, I have not been able to erase the sight of him from my mind.”

Every word she wrote seemed as if she could have been writing it about Nicholas, and Claire was entranced by it, wondering at all of it, and guessing that the men in the Ryder family must share many similar traits. She fell asleep wondering if Nathaniel had been Nicholas’s great-great-great-grandfather, and how ironic it was that she would have met him in the short time that she would be at Grayson Manor.