Page 96 of Red Masquerade

It was a dismal subject I returned to again and again, despite my better judgment. Some questions had no true answers, other thanthat is just the way it is. And if you dwelled on it too long, the gray storm clouds would gather around the edges of your mind and threaten to pummel you with the most violent tempest.

“I think I am what I am,” Sinclair said. “And if I was meant to be this way or not, is it of any consequence?”

I let his words sink in. “So, that’s it? You don’t care to change it?”

“Icannotchange it,” he said, watching my reaction.

“But what if?”

“Then I suppose I’d be very unhappy, indeed.”

He tapped his cigarette on the ashtray again. I noticed then it held a dozen or so paper ends. The entire time, his gaze never left me. His fingers moved with a nimbleness I never noticed before. When I’d first met him, it was like he was putting on the part of a man, with clumsy, unsteady fingers. But every move he made now exuded confidence and control.

I crossed my arms. “Why did you tell me to come back?” Flashes of red and writhing figures in my mind’s eye. “What was I seeing?”

He glanced idly away, like some movement had caught his eye outside the window. “I was only tasked with getting you here.” A deflection, a half-answer.

“By Vince?”

He nodded once, his neck stretched to the side, two fingers lifting toward his face, bringing the burning menthol to his lips. But he didn’t inhale. “By Vince. To be where you were, and to convince you to find your way here again. To make myself available to you.” He laughed under his breath. “I went to so many parties.” Shaking his head, he crossed his legs, ankle resting on his knee.

That bitter, slimy taste rose in my mouth again. I swallowed. “Our meeting was planned.”

He opened his palm.Bingo.

“And Séra?”

He blinked slowly, languid, like he had all the time in the world. There was no emotion there, only a watcher’s eyes, apredator’seyes. I didn’t know when this change in demeanor happened, only that it had, and I suddenly felt like a rabbit in a cage, up for the taking.

His tan cheek dimpled. “Hired months ago, when a spot in your household conveniently opened up.”

I tried not to let the information settle wrong, but a stone had lodged itself in my throat. The bitter taste turned to an uneasiness that grew from my core, deep inside me, and pushed outward, infecting every vein and vessel. The facts were there all along, but I just ignored them, too caught up being with Vince again, too preoccupied with gin and love and the thrill of it all.

I tamped it down.

It’s nothing.

It didn’t mean anything.

I was beginning to make a big deal of nothing.

He loved me, hadalwaysloved me.

I took a breath and plastered a quick smile on my face. “And Dixon?”

“Who?” Sinclair nearly dropped his cigarette.

“Lloyd Dixon.”

He had been so vehement against my being here; he had seemed ready to drag me out of this house himself. But he knew Vince, had come to the parties every time Flora and I did—and must have come on his own. There was a familiarity between the two, even if Dixon insisted Vince was dangerous. He had been the one to tell me Vince was waiting for me in the garden.

But Sinclair rolled his eyes. “He’s not one of us.”

“One of…?”

“He’s a high and mighty Born vampire who looks down upon us.”

Everything he meant was alluded to in that one sentence.