Hot for Slayer

by Ali Hazelwood

what’s a girl to do when the only constant presence during the last millennium of her life has been a guy who’s contractually mandated to murder her?

“As long as you don’t let anyone get to you before I do, Aethelthryth.” “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll always save myself for you.”

When he noticed my eyes on him, he lifted the blade up to his face. And with a smile that did not feel like a smile, he began to lick it clean of my blood. It was . . . Well. It just was.

Today, nearly thirty-six years after that night in Germany, his arms wrap tight around me, his body is a heavy blanket above mine, and his only purpose seems to be shielding me from the sunlight. Today, Lazlo Enyedi saved my life.

My motto is: If I have to suck someone dry every few weeks, why not make it a Goldman Sachs executive?

a few small raccoons seemed to have acquired me.

I thought it was shitty of him not to give me some warning before resorting to violence—a courtesy horse head in my bed, a scribbled note pinned to my door with a bloody dagger.

Because I’m too busy listening to the five words that change my life forever. “Who the hell are you?”

Your job—your one, single job, the reason you were bestowed immortality, the reason you were trained in all those things you just mentioned—is to kill creatures like me.

On his chest, right on top of his heart, is an ornate Venetian eye mask that looks eerily familiar, but I cannot place it.

“It was one-sided,” he tells me after he’s done chewing. “From you.” “What?” “The dislike.” “I assure you, it was not.” “And I assure you, when I look at you, I feel anything but that.”

Well, Lazlo, sometimes a gang of bandits decides to rob your nunnery—because why not?—and you see what’s happening to your sisters and decide that you’d rather throw yourself out of the window than allow the raiders to come any closer to you—because why not?—and a vampire passing by spots you in your last moments and decides to suck you dry—because why not?—and then you wake up in the middle of the night, and for some reason, you’re a damn vampire, too.

Oh my God. Is that a stake in his pocket, or is he just glad to see me?

“I might not remember my name, or anything about who I am. But I could never be near you and not know exactly what you are to me.”

I rub my core against the meat of his thigh while his breath hitches inside my ear, and he says, “Ethel.”

“I know your smell. I know your skin. Your hair. It’s all familiar. I have it all memorized. And I dream of you—of this. So many dreams, all so different, we must have done it a million times, in a million different ways. Tell me what you’re hiding from me, let’s get this over with, and then let’s do it a million more times.”

“Some lives run invisibly. Undetected by most. And when a person comes along who sees those lives for what they are, who acknowledges their reality, who reminds people that there is value in different ways of existing . . . A minute of that is worth more than a thousand nights with a lover. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I have a place.” “Here? In New York?” He nods. “Where?” His smile is small and wistful. “Across from yours, actually.”