Demon Moon

I’m sorry.” She turned back to him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth .
    He lifted his shoulder in a careless shrug, and tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers. His rough fingernails snagged the finely knit wool .
    Her head tilted, and she subjected him to a scrutiny as thorough as she’d given all of the impossible forms they’d run across. Interest so intense it pinned him in place, burned through him .
    Unable to bear the heat of it, he dropped his gaze to her throat. The bloodlust nipped at his tongue. His mouth was parched, his thirst sudden and powerful .
    “You look as though you belong here,” she said quietly .
    He stepped toward her and didn’t try to hide his fangs when he smiled. “Are you telling me that I’m beautiful?”
    Her lashes fanned against her cheeks as she looked down at her hands. After a moment, she raised her gaze to his again. “There is that, but you are also incredibly white. You could have been formed from the same marble.” She ran the tips of her fingers along the edge of the wall .
    Arrested by the contrast of her skin against stone, Colin paused. His gaze followed the long, smooth sweep of her hand .
    Savitri was the only bit of color, the only bit of life in the beautiful, sterile tableau .
    He could be beautiful without appearing lifeless and pale. He preferred color; in the past century, he simply hadn’t wanted the pain that came along with gaining it .
    But here…he lifted his face to the sun, gauged its strength. His hands slipped from his pockets, rose to his collar. The shirt buttons irritated his raw fingertips .
    She turned her head and reached down to dip her hand into the pool .
    No, Savitri. Look at me.
    Her fingers glistened when she lifted them again, and the water she poured from her cupped palm fell soundlessly. She shook her head in disbelief, then wiped her wet hand on her skirt .
    “I pass the test, and remain Savi,” she murmured, then blushed slightly when he lifted a brow. How extraordinary. Savitri had a fanciful streak hiding beneath the curiosity and logic .
    She quickly added, “There’s something written at the base of the obelisk, but it’s too small for me to read from here. Can you read it?”
    To his surprise, he could only discern the tiniest etching, not make out individual letters. “No. My eyesight is phenomenal, but that must have been written by your Elves. Or faeries.”
    He peeled away his shirt, let it drop to the ground .
    “Are there Elves and faeries? Michael has a magic sword, so I can’t rule out rings, Hobbits, and dark mountains.” Her voice deepened. Her gaze moved over his chest, and she licked her lips, swallowed before she spoke. “What are you doing?”
    “I intend to bathe in the sun,” he said .
    “Oh,” she said breathlessly. Then her mouth pulled into a frown, her eyes narrowing. “You can tan?”
    “Yes. Quite easily, though another vampire would be a fool to try.” He raised his eyebrows in an imitation of her expression. “I shall be gilded within an hour or two. You know that I’m resistant to the sun, why are you surprised by the tan?”
    She pursed her lips and glanced up at the sky. “It just completely overturns the theory I’d been forming about vampire immortality. I didn’t think your cells changed—that you remained exactly as you were in life. But you must produce melanin.”
    “The changes that take place are all superficial; features and form don’t alter—thank God. I like my features as they are.” At her quick smile, he added, “Good God, Savitri, to be this pale in life, I’d have to have been the most simpering, lily-livered dandy ever to grace London.” He placed the back of his hand against his forehead and sighed dramatically, bending his knees as if in a swoon. “I confess I may have been a bit of a dandy, but I never simpered.”
    She tilted her head back and laughed; the perfection in the curve of her throat made a joke of the fountain’s arc of water. The deep, rich sound should have echoed in the courtyard of stone, but Caelum seemed to swallow it, take it for itself .
    Colin could not fault it for that .
    He slid his tongue across the tips of his fangs to soothe the ache building in them, then softly said, “You complained earlier of not bathing these four days; perhaps you should take advantage of this opportunity.”
    Her laughter faded. “I do stink.”
    Her sweet, feminine odor may have been stronger than she liked, but there was