Hot for Slayer

by Ali Hazelwood

“Vampire,” he whispered the second our eyes met across the festive mob. There were several million decibels and the equivalent of an Olympic-size pool between us, but I could hear him as clearly as if he dwelled inside my head. I studied him for a split second. Took in the colorful tattoos that climbed around his neck to curl under his jawline. His dark hair and amber eyes. The towering stillness of his shoulders as people walked around him, instinctively stepping out of his way. “Slayer.” I sighed.

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?

“Look at you,” he murmured in his faded Eastern European accent, those yellow animal eyes raking down my skin. “Flushed and plump and beautiful. You just fed, didn’t you?”

“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?

“Hey,” I told him with a small, amused smile. “Couldn’t bear to let someone else butcher me, huh?” “I know what’s mine,” he muttered in his usual clipped tone. He moved to free my tied wrists, and his hands felt so warm and assured and uncannily real on my flesh,

“I go by Ethel.” When shitheads don’t insist on using my full antediluvian name. “Ethel. Pretty.” His nod is pleased, but his tone suggests that he’s not above gutting pretty things. He reaches forward to take a lock of my hair between his fingertips, turning it back and forth. “What color is this?” I swallow. “Um . . . strawberry blond?” “Strawberry blond,” he repeats, and even though he doesn’t say pretty again, I can almost hear it.

“I’m serious. We are nemeses.” “No, we are not.” I frown. “Why don’t you believe me? We deeply dislike each other.” “Maybe you don’t like me, because I clearly . . .” He stops. Shakes his head. Declares, as though the truth exists only to be molded by his words: “We aren’t nemeses. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone.” He sounds, and looks, equal parts put-upon and determined.

“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.”

“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.”

“We were dancing.” I slump, relieved. “Dancing . . . in a club?” He shoots me a dirty look like he knows what a club is and wouldn’t be caught dead inside one. “More formal than that.” He chews some more. “I liked your dress.” A smile starts. Turns into a private thing—between Lazlo and his own thoughts. “A lot.”

“So, this is what we do during the day,” he says after a while. “We?” I frown. “We don’t usually spend our days together.” He smiles like I didn’t even speak. “I’m serious. We rarely . . .” I drift off, because he’s taking a strand of my hair between his fingers and rubbing it gently, watching the flow of light orange across his own pale skin. His mouth murmurs a few words in another language—one that I speak, but I pretend not to, because this is not— It shouldn’t— What is even— It’s casual, the way he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. His touch is at once new and familiar, scorching and gentle. “Strawberry blond,” he says to himself. Then asks me, “We rarely what?”

“We’re not a couple,” I explain just as he loftily proclaims, “I am a man, and I make my own fortune.” The teller’s eyes fall pointedly to where his fingers are closed around mine. “No matter,” she says. “Your fates are already intertwined.”

“I think you’re tired, too.” “Of what?” “The lies.” 60 I look down at my shoes. Back up. “How are you so sure that—” “I told you, Ethel. I know how I feel about you. And I know how you feel, too.” “And what would that—” He bends toward me slowly enough that I could conceivably stop him, but I don’t care to conceive of it—before his lips touch mine, or after.

“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.”

Doesn’t explain why his eyes, all of a sudden, seem so soft. Or the fact that instead of pushing me away, instead of hitting back with his own weapons and his own strength, he touches me tenderly. One hand lifts to cup my face, and he gently thumbs my cheekbone.

“Aethelthryth,” he says, calm. His voice is the same as it was before the attack, and yet completely different. He is the man who saved my life two days ago, the man who kissed me, the man who cleaned up the mess I made in my kitchen, but also something more. “If you want to kill me, I’m not going to stop you. But first, I’m going to need you to tell me something.”

“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?”

“Where do you think he went?” “Who?” “The duca. Where do you think he is now that he’s dead?” “Oh.” I bit the inside of my cheek, uncertain. Truth was, I had no idea. Some might assume that immortality would offer insight into the afterlife, but that was not the case for me. I had no idea whether something existed past the current realm. If it did, I doubted that it would welcome the likes of me. The cursed. “I don’t know. But I am not convinced that it matters.” “You aren’t?” I shook my head. “The duca was a kind man who earned the love and gratitude of many. He will live forever through the memories of those who outlast him. I will remember him for as long as I live, and as long as I carry him in my heart, he will be here. With us.” I smiled at the man, but he didn’t smile back. And when I next turned from him, he disappeared into the night.

I’m not surprised that it took me so long to make the connection between the man at the ball and Lazlo.

Yes, the mask tattooed on his heart is an exact copy of the one I’d worn.

“Aethelthryth, nothing would make me happier than having you with me here, or in any other place that I will call home, for as long as I live. Please, come in.”

“I didn’t suddenly find you anything. I always knew you were . . . cute.” His lips curl as though it’s the first time he’s used the word in all his eons, and it tastes too saccharine in his mouth. “You’ve never not been . . . that, to me. And no. That’s not the reason.”

“I had been raised to . . . I was told that vampires were a detriment to this world. But it was obvious that you made others’ lives easier. And looking at you, I couldn’t help but think that the world was better. Because you were in it.”

“I missed you. Watching you. Observing you. I just . . . liked you. It was a new feeling for me, wanting to know someone. Wanting to be known by them as I truly am. So I tried to do that.”

“Basically, you had a crush on me,” I summarize, my voice raspy. After several heartbeats, he nods. “I suppose so. It wasn’t . . . sexual. Not at the start. But then . . .” He bites the inside of his cheek, bashful. “I liked you a lot. As a person. As a woman. 81You were beautiful. And whenever we were close, despite the fact that violence was involved, you felt . . . good.” I wonder if I’m imagining it, the slight flush dusting his cheeks. “I don’t know you well, Aethelthryth, but I know you better than you do me. And yesterday morning, even after I woke up and couldn’t remember anything, everything I felt for you was just . . . there. And it still is.”

“I . . . I think you have an advantage. And you know things about me. That I . . . don’t. About you, that is. And it’s only fair that . . .” I fist my hands at my sides, feeling dizzy. Slowly, surely, an idea coalesces in my head. “It’s only fair that I spend time with you. And that we get even.”

“I will help,” he blurts out. I nod. Laugh a little. “You have a lead on someone very shitty?” “No,” he says. But he turns around to open a drawer and pulls out a sharp, gleaming knife. Before I can grasp what he’s about to do, he closes his fist around it and lets the blade slice a deep cut across his palm. “But I’d be happy to provide you with what you need.” My spine, together with the rest of my nerve endings, liquifies. I feel my entire body tremble. Try to make myself consider the impossibility of it: A slayer. Offering nourishment to me. A vampire. Then the scent of his blood hits my nostrils, and all I can do is run to him.

This is the first time I’ve drank blood that was freely given to me. 84 It’s such a turn-on, I moan into Lazlo’s hand and listen to him do the same. My whole body vibrates with pleasure at the simple thought of it—that this man wants me to be alive, to be healthy, wants to offer me something for the simple reason that he cares about my well-being. He doesn’t mind that I’m taking. In fact, he’s saying things in Hungarian that mostly boil down to fuck and yes and please. More.

“You are so beautiful right now,” he says,