Velvet by Temple West

brother.”
    “And your aunt?”
    “Mariana is one hundred and fifty-three. And she’s not my aunt, she’s my sister. Well, half sister. Julian and Lucian are my half brothers.”
    “Is your mom super old or something?”
    “My mother is dead,” he said flatly. “So is Mariana’s, and Lucian’s, and Julian’s. They all die after they give birth.” He cleared his throat. “But the rest of us can live indefinitely.”
    I stared at him. “Indefinitely.”
    “Forever,” he amended. “Unless we’re killed. But we’re pretty hard to kill.”
    “So,” I said slowly, mind racing with the ramifications, “you can’t die.”
    “Nope.”
    “What if you get sick?”
    “I don’t get sick.”
    I stared at him. He wouldn’t die. He couldn’t die. “So I’m not dead. This isn’t some bizarre hallucination.”
    “No.”
    I thought about it, then nodded.
    He looked surprised. “That’s it?”
    I shrugged. “I can scream if you’d like. Maybe faint.”
    He smiled and shook his head. “There’s more to tell you, but it’s getting dark and we should probably get somewhere warm. I think you’ll have to put your sweater back on if you don’t want your aunt to freak out.”
    He let go of me. It occurred to me that I had basically wrestled with him half naked in the snow, and now that I was neither ambivalent about dying, nor delusional about already being dead, I couldn’t decide if the whole thing was funny or humiliating. I skimmed off his sweater and handed it to him. He dropped his coat and we both put our clothes back on.
    It was a weird moment.
    His blush finally brought to the front of my brain a thought that had been nibbling at the back of my mind. I turned slowly and stared at him, horrified.
    “Oh my God, you’re not gay. You’re a vampire. You’re not gay, you’re a vampire .”
    “I am not gay,” Adrian confirmed. “Though your promise to keep it a secret was very kind.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Does it disappoint you, that I’m straight?”
    “I—what—no?” I stuttered, mind exploding with the implications.
    Holy mother of Santa Claus. He wasn’t withdrawn and secretive because of his sexual orientation, he was withdrawn and secretive because he wasn’t human . I had slept next to a not-gay Adrian de la Mara in his own bed.
    I had snuggled him against his will.
    Trying, and failing, to suppress a smile, Adrian wound the scarf around my neck.
    “My family has … resources,” he explained. “I’ve always had nice things. I believe you made a comment about my shoes costing more than your laptop? All I can say in my defense is that everyone in my family is a bit fashion conscious. I adopted their tastes to fit in. As for why I’ve never been on a date, I think you can see why that might be difficult. I’m afraid Trish will lose the pool.”
    I choked. “You know about the pool?”
    “I started the pool.”
    Oh my God, of course he did .
    “One more thing,” Adrian said as he stepped close to me again. He put his hands on either side of my face and looked me in the eyes with his burning silver ones and for half a second I thought he was going to kiss me. But his eyes began to swirl, and I realized what was happening.
    “No-no- no! ” I stuttered, remembering the vivid pain that had come last time he’d done this.
    He kept his eyes locked on mine. “It’s not like before, I promise. Just hold still.”
    I don’t think I could have moved if I wanted to. His eyes flared brightly and he murmured in that lovely language I couldn’t understand. All of a sudden I felt sort of calm and tired and warm. Tears ran down my cheeks again as I kept my eyelids open involuntarily. Then he blinked and I blinked and it was over.
    “Feel better?” he asked, stepping a polite distance back.
    I did a quick check. “Yeah, actually. What did you do?”
    He looped his arm through mine and started walking back toward the ranch. “I transferred some of my body heat to you.”
    I stared