Poison Fruit (35 page)

When I introduced Stefan to my mom, he laid on the Ye Olde World charm without overdoing it. Her eyes sparkled as he complimented her, telling her he could see where her daughter got her looks.

Actually, the whole thing was kind of surreal. I felt like the Mary Sue in a lousy piece of fan fiction, taming the big bad monster with my oh-so-winsome ways. I mean, cookies and cider? Throw pillows? Come on.

Beneath my coat, my tail twitched restlessly. “We should probably keep going,” I said to Stefan. “Dinner reservations and all.”

He gave me an amused sidelong glance. “Of course. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Johanssen.”

“You, too, Mr. Ludovic,” Mom said in a bright tone. “Oh, and please call me Marja.”

Stefan inclined his head to her. “Enjoy your evening.”

As much as I loved the Holiday Stroll, it was a relief to complete the circuit in time for our reservation at the Market Bistro, where Stefan and I were seated at a table in a secluded corner of the restaurant. Even at that, we got a lot of covert stares from the other diners, not to mention the waitstaff.

“I apologize, Daisy,” Stefan said. “I thought this excursion would be a pleasurable one for you, but I fear it’s made you uncomfortable.”

“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It was a great idea, totally thoughtful. It’s just . . . you brought me cookies and cider. You met my
mom
. You bought
throw pillows
.”

He gave me a perplexed look. “Forgive me, but I fail to comprehend the significance. The pillows were your suggestion.”

“I know.” I fell silent as our waiter came over to take our drink orders and inform us of the specials. After he’d left the table, I said, “I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say, Stefan. It’s all just a little too perfect. Especially given the circumstances of our last encounter.”

“Ah.”

I waited to see if he would elaborate. He didn’t. “I guess . . . I don’t know exactly what we’re doing here,” I said. “You and me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Need it be more than enjoying each other’s company and exploring an attraction?”

“No, but . . .” I couldn’t find the words to explain how bringing throw pillows into it changed things.

The waiter came to deliver two glasses of wine, promising to return
shortly. Stefan took a sip, fixing his gaze on me. “How old do you imagine I was when I was Outcast?”

I hazarded a guess. “Thirty-two?”

Stefan shook his head. “Twenty-nine. Daisy, there are days when I feel the weight of every century of my life. There are days when I despair of this immortal existence, this endless hunger that must be fed. But there are days when I feel like the young man that I was before I became Outcast and I desire nothing more than life’s simple pleasures, including the companionship of a beautiful woman.”

“Cooper said something like that to me once,” I murmured.

He nodded. “Yes. Cooper feels it more acutely than most, being Outcast at such a young age.”

I swirled the wine in my glass. “So you’re saying that life’s simple pleasures also include buying throw pillows?”

“Yes,” Stefan said after a moment’s thought. “If buying pillows means taking part in the ordinary rituals of human life, yes.”

“You’re not an ordinary human, though,” I said quietly.

“No.” Stefan’s pupils surged, dilating in his ice-blue eyes. “I know what I am, Daisy. And I know what
you
are. What we might be together, I do not know.”

My pulse quickened. “Volatile?” I suggested.

“To be sure.” There was a predatory edge to the smile Stefan flashed me. “All I know is that your existence gladdens me.”

“Why?”

“A fair question.” He inclined his head to me. “I take delight in the vibrancy of your youth and your tempestuous nature. I admire your sense of responsibility, compassion, and justice. I had never thought to find such a thing in a demon’s spawn, and it intrigues me.”

I paused. “You’ve known others?”

“Yes.” Stefan’s voice went flat. “But I would prefer not to have that discussion tonight.”

Ohh-kay. I guess my oh-so-winsome ways hadn’t entirely tamed the big bad monster. I filed that topic away for another day.

“I might ask you the same question,” Stefan added in a lighter tone. “Why are
you
here with me tonight, Daisy?”

“Because you scare me in a way that excites me,” I said honestly. “You’re right—you and me together is an unknown. But it’s one I can’t help being curious about.”

He raised one eyebrow. “So it’s not because I’m . . .
hawt
?”

Oh, God. I’d forgotten about Jen’s damned text. Feeling my face flush, I held my ground. “Okay, fine. Yeah, that, too.”

Stefan hoisted his wineglass and smiled at me. “To the unknown.”

“To the unknown,” I echoed, touching the rim of my glass to his.

Thirty-four

D
espite an uneven start, dinner was a reasonable success.

I’ll say one thing—you’ll never run out of topics of conversation with someone who’s lived the equivalent of seven or eight mortal life spans. There were tons of questions I was dying to ask Stefan, but for the most part I managed to restrain myself and let him steer the conversation.

The one exception was the topic of Janek Król. I couldn’t help it—I wanted to know more about the man whose existence I’d ended, and the role he’d played in Stefan’s life. To his credit, Stefan didn’t balk at discussing him. I heard the story of their friendship from start to . . . well, I knew how it finished.

One of the more intriguing things I learned was that Janek’s abiding interest in the Jewish notion of
tikkun olam
, repairing the world, had set Stefan on his current course.

“Why not try it in Wieliczka?” At that point, we were lingering over after-dinner drinks—port for Stefan, single malt for me—and the name of the Polish town fell trippingly from my tongue.

“I wished to start anew,” Stefan said. “Somewhere I was not known, somewhere I had no history.”

“And Pemkowet seemed small enough to be manageable,” I said. “That’s what you told me last summer.”

“Yes.”

I took a sip of scotch, letting it linger on my palate. “So that’s what this whole business of banishing the meth trade in favor of alleviating grief at the old folks’ home is about.
Tikkun olam
?”

Stefan cupped his snifter of port in his hands. “It is about seeking to find meaning in the existence of the Outcast.”

“Have you?” I asked.

He gave me a half smile. “I am striving, Daisy. It has been a long time since I made such an effort.”

How long? I wondered. As long as it had been since the last time he’d dated a woman? Longer? I decided not to ask, taking a different tack instead. “Do you believe Janek was right about God’s forgiveness?”

“Yes,” Stefan said. “In Janek’s case, I do.” A distant look touched his features. “I believe that my old friend Janek is in heaven bargaining with God and His angels on behalf of the Outcast.”

“I hope so,” I said. “Although I don’t think you can bargain with God. I mean . . . that’s sort of the point of God, isn’t it?”

“Abraham bargains with God in the Old Testament,” Stefan said. “He begs the Lord not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Lord agrees to spare the cities if fifty righteous people can be found there. Abraham bargained him down to ten.”

“And look how well that turned out,” I observed. “Why did God agree to bargain with him in the first place?”

“Ah, well, the Lord had great plans for Abraham,” Stefan admitted. “He was to become the father of many nations.” He sipped his port. “And it has come to pass, as the faith of Abraham and his descendants has risen to prominence.”

“So in other words, Abraham had leverage,” I said, finishing my scotch.

Stefan laughed softly. “I would not have thought to phrase it thusly, but yes, I suppose you’re right. Perhaps I should not have used the word
bargain
. Perhaps it is enough that Janek reminds God of our existence and pleads on our behalf.”

“Do you think God has forgotten about the Outcast?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“I do not know.” He drained the last of his port. “It may be that a thousand years may pass in the blink of an eye for the divine. It may be that each of us has a lesson yet to learn. Or it may simply be that God
can no longer intervene from beyond the Inviolate Wall, and must use other hands as His tools.”

I looked at my hands. “You know, I’m really not comfortable with that whole idea.”

“I know.” Stefan’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “Forgive me. I did not intend to trouble you.”

“No, it’s my fault,” I said. “I brought it up. Will you excuse me for a minute?”

“Of course.”

I didn’t really need to visit the restroom, but I wanted to collect my thoughts. And I don’t know how the evening would have ended if I hadn’t encountered Daniel freakin’ Dufreyne on my way.

The reek of wrongness hit me as I was passing the bar, where Dufreyne was paying his tab. I stopped dead in my tracks. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hello, cousin.” Dufreyne bared his white teeth in his sharklike grin, winding his cashmere scarf around his throat. “What a happy coincidence. I was just passing through and taking in a bit of local color. That’s an interesting date you’ve got there.”

My skin crawled. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing.” Dufreyne shrugged into his expensive coat. “But if I were you, I’d want to know a lot more about his history with our kind before I sealed the deal.” He fished his gloves from his coat pocket. “Take care.”

Son of a bitch.

I stared after Dufreyne as he made his exit, then ducked into the ladies’ room to wash my hands and splash water on my face before returning to the table. “We should probably be going,” I said to Stefan.

He rose to retrieve my coat. “As you will.”

Based on what I knew of Daniel Dufreyne, I was ninety-nine
percent sure he was just seizing the opportunity to mess with me, which really sucked, because it had been a relief to spend a whole evening not worrying about that damned lawsuit or my nightmares about destroying the world. I did my best to put his words out of my head and enjoy the chivalry thing. Back at my apartment building, Stefan got out of the
Lexus to walk me to the door. On the doorstep, chivalry gave way to something else, something filled with sexual tension and unspoken possibilities. That fluttery feeling was back in my stomach, along with the molten stirrings of desire.

I wanted him.

I wanted to do this, to embrace the danger. I wanted to lose myself in simple lust, in the deadly knife-edge play of emotion between us. And thanks to the bond between us, Stefan knew it. I could see it in the swift dilation of his pupils, in the quickening of his breath in the cold night air.

“Daisy.” Stefan said my name in a husky whisper, drew me against him and kissed me. It wasn’t as explosive as the last time he’d kissed me, before he’d left for Poland, but it was a kiss that meant business. It was a kiss that was the start of something serious, intense enough to weaken my knees and leave me no doubt of his intentions.

And yet, this time I was the one to end it. Ninety-nine percent wasn’t a hundred. I needed to know more before this went further.

I didn’t pull away or raise my shield, but I broke off the kiss. “Thank you.” My voice sounded as unsteady as I felt. “It was a lovely evening.”

Lifting one hand, Stefan brushed my lower lip with his thumb. “You’re not going to invite me inside?”

“No.” With an effort, I let go of the lapels of his coat. Huh. I didn’t remember clutching them. “Not tonight. It’s too easy for me to abandon myself with you, Stefan. I need to take this slowly. I need to know I’ve got
some
measure of self-control. And I want to get past the cryptic eldritch crap,” I added. “I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning
wondering why I went to bed with you after you shut down any conversation about your history with hell-spawns.”

“I see.” Stefan’s pupils glittered at me. “Then I will court you, Daisy. Slowly and deliberately, until you beg me for release.”

A shiver ran down the length of my spine, and my tail twitched reflexively. “And the cryptic eldritch crap?” I challenged him.

Stefan dialed it down a notch, his expression easing into a wry smile. “I will endeavor to answer your questions with candor. Perhaps our next outing should be dedicated to such a conversation.”

“I’d like that,” I said. “Very much.”

He inclined his head. “Next Saturday, then. I’ll call for you at eleven o’clock in the morning and take you to brunch.”

Like
condominium
,
brunch
was one of those words that sounded incongruous coming from Stefan, and it made me smile. “It’s a plan. And, um, thank you for understanding.”

“Anything worth pursuing is worth waiting for.” Stefan dusted a few snowflakes from the collar of my new coat, then leaned over to kiss me again, his lips lingering on mine. “You looked very beautiful tonight.”

Okay, I had to make my escape before I changed my mind. “I’ll see you then,” I promised, backing away from him and fishing my keys out of my messenger bag. With that, I turned tail—no pun intended—and fled into the stairwell and the subsequent safety of my apartment.

All in all, Dufreyne’s insidious insinuation notwithstanding, I thought that had gone well.

Unsurprisingly, the news of my date with Stefan traveled fast. On Sunday morning, I got a phone call from an indignant Jen demanding to know why I hadn’t told her about it, and insisting on details.

“I can’t believe I had to hear about this secondhand,” she said. “I’m the one who set this thing in motion, girlfriend!”

I winced. “I know, I know!”

“So?”

“It was nice,” I said. “But it was weird, too. He bought throw pillows, Jen. Ninety-dollar ones.”

“Why is that weird?” she asked. “Do you think it means he’s gay or something?”

“No, definitely not.” Apparently, I couldn’t communicate why I found the notion of Stefan purchasing throw pillows so disconcerting. I didn’t tell her about Dufreyne’s warning. That could wait until I knew more.