Black Sunshine (Dark Eyes 1)

I nearly gasp.

I look stunning, and that is not a word I use to describe myself. Pretty, yes, ethereal, sure, but stunning? It’s like looking at someone else.

Because you’ve become someone else, I tell myself. This is who you are now. The power. Don’t you feel it yet?

I feel something, I just don’t know what it is.

I slip the dress on, forgoing bra and underwear, and it fits me perfectly, the blue-toned red setting off my pale skin, except I can’t zip up the back all the way, so I step back into the room.

“Can you help zip me up?” I ask Amethyst.

She’s texting on her phone and glances up at me, her jaw dropping.

“Holy shit you look hot,” she says, coming over to me as I turn my back to her. With ease she zips me up. “Don’t know how Solon is going to resist this,” she says, taking me by the shoulder and turning me around, her skin warm.

“Oh, he’ll find a way,” I mutter.

“Being stubborn, is he?” she asks.

I nod. “The sex blew my mind, but I’m not sure it did the same to him.” I pause, something coming into my mind. “He can’t…get me pregnant, can he?”

She blinks at me. “You’re not on the pill?”

“I was. Until I was kidnapped.”

She gives me a quick smile. “I see. Well, if it were any other vampire I would say that yeah, you should be on birth control, even though your cycle is probably going to slow down to like once every four months. But Solon…”

“Is it because he wasn’t born one, that he was made a vampire?”

Her brows raise. “He told you about that?”

I nod. “I don’t know all that happened, but I know he used to be human.”

Her eyes search mine for a moment. “Yes. Vampires that are made can’t procreate. Thank god, really. They don’t all turn out like Solon.”

Then she reaches out and cups my boobs, adjusting them in the top, and I have to laugh at how handsy she is.

“Sorry,” she says, flashing me a sly smile. “They needed some adjusting. You have nice boobs, even luckier they’ll look like that for the rest of your life.”

I look down at my chest, the cleavage a focal point in this dress, the soft gauzy red layers falling away from it. I hadn’t even thought of that. Then again, thinking about my mortality now makes my head spin.

Just then, the scent of Absolon fills my nose and he appears in the doorway, eying the both of us with a flash of carnality.

“I was just leaving,” Amethyst says, taking her hands away from me and then quickly walking past Solon and into the hall. He watches her go, then closes the door behind him, and walks over to me, one black brow cocked up as if to ask, what was that about?

And while he’s looking me over, the tension between us growing thicker by the minute, I do the same to him. And fuck, he looks good. No suit today, he’s back in a tuxedo, the ends of his bowtie undone, his hair slicked back from his face, facial hair neatly trimmed.

We stare at each other for a moment, that air growing electric, then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out my necklace, the diamonds and ruby glinting in the slices of sunlight.

“Where did you get that?” I ask him.

He saunters over to me, and I’m suddenly so aware of how big he is, his presence powerful and commanding.

And mine.

God, I want him to be mine. It’s not

enough to be his.