Page 7 of A Visitor’s Guide to Guarded Vampires

A door slams shut, and I whirl around again, coming face to face with a broad chest. I have to look up to find the rest of him. Gray-and-blue flannel hanging open over a T-shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, like we’re not in subarctic conditions.

“Oh, thank God. Could you help me⁠—”

“Huh?”

Pale gray eyes hold me motionless, and I do not notice how they match his shirt almost perfectly. Okay, maybe I notice a little. They’re framed by dark brown hair, a bit longer on the top and cropped close at the sides.

He doesn’t say anything and it goes on too long to be a pause. Then he comes back, like somebody rebooted him.

“Hi,” I start again, this time with a nervous wave. “Sorry. I’m looking for Haven’s Rest? It’s a resort, somewhere around here…”

Two blinks. He starts a word, decides on another. “No.”

I lean in. “Uh, sorry. You don’t know where Haven’s Rest is, or you don’t want to tell me?”

The look he gives me starts at my feet and works up, finding nothing worth revising. “Lady, this is Ravenscrest. A hunting lodge for rich idiots. Haven’s Rest is a wellness retreat for rich idiots. And about an hour’s drive that way.” He points toward the mountain my cab driver chugged over.

Ravenscrest. Not Haven’s Rest.

One hour, a hundred dollars, and a mountain range in my way. I’d kill Gary if he were still here.

Without so much as a goodbye, Mr. Flannel Shirt steps around me and continues down the path, leaving me gaping after him.

“Right. Of course. Sorry to have bothered you…” The words come out warm and practiced. It’s the voice I use on my mother’s friends when they’re being cruel and I’m meant to find them delightful.

And maybe it’s the thirteen hours of travel, or my dead phone, or that I burned my whole life down yesterday only to be deposited on the wrong side of a mountain by a man named Gary. But the reflex rubs. He was rude. He looked me up and down like I was a stain. And I am, apparently, still apologizing for it.

“Actually—” The word comes out louder than I mean it to, and it stops me as much as it stops him. Birds scatter from a nearby tree. “No. That’s… That was unbelievably rude. Are you this charming to everyone, or am I getting the deluxe package?”

The sound of my own raised voice, at a stranger, in public, sets off a siren in my ears. Somewhere in the back of my skull, my mother presses her lips into a hard line, the way she does right before she’s about to tell me how I’ve disappointed her.

He stops. His shoulders tighten.

The apology is already forming. Ready to take it back, smooth it over, manage his response, make myself small.

I don’t take it back. I’m not sure I’ve ever not taken it back.

He takes two long strides toward me, close enough that I have to tip my head up to hold eye contact. A terrible decision on my part. His eyes bore into mine with an intensity that makes it hard not to flinch. This was stupid. This guy could be dangerous.

He goes very still, so still that I’m waiting for him to take a breath. His nostrils flare, ever so slightly, and his face changes fast, and I’d swear it’s alarm.

“Did you,” I say slowly, “just smell me?”

Chapter 5

Ellery

“No,” Mr. Flannel Shirt says. Apparently his favorite word.

I’ve been on enough crowded subway cars to know when someone is sniffing me.

“No, you didn’t smell me, or no, you did smell me and you’re refusing to acknowledge it?”

He takes a step back, then another, like the distance will save him.

“No?” he says again.

I’m about ready to buy the man a thesaurus.