“What if I promise not to hurt you?”
I had to stop myself from agreeing to anything he said just for that one silly promise. I tried for a casual shrug instead. “What is ‘hurting’ to you? You could promise that, I guess, but there’s plenty that can hurt a human without physically injuring them. What if you withhold food from me? Lock me in a closet? Hold my head underwater? Rape me? Not physical pain, but…”
Anguish. Shame. Fear. Humiliation. Violation. I would not admit that I was speaking from experience.
“Would those things displease you? Would they harm you?” he asked, and the questions were completely genuine. He really had no idea what to do with me.
“Yes.”
“Then I will not do them.”
“I really don’t get you,” I said.
“I’m trying to fix that.”
I decided to test a little of his generosity. “Where are we going?”
“New York City. I live there.”
“I thought you lived through…through a dark portal.”
He chuckled. “That is where I come from. I live in the Mortal Realm right now, not the Shorn Realm.”
Shorn Realm. I’d never heard of it. I was about to ask, but he preempted me.
“Have you been to New York City before?”
“Once,” I said. “A long time ago.”
I’d been eight. My dad took me to see The Lion King, back when he was around more and cared about doing things with me. We ate hot dogs in the park. I fed bread to ducks.
Somehow, I’d gotten from that innocence all the way to having late-night conversations with demons about other realms in a fancy car after being bought at an auction.
Life was wicked and unrelenting, and I hated it.
Chapter 9
“Will you ask me a question?” Ren said quietly, after a minute of silence. The petulance was gone from his tone, and that sultry purr was back, dangerous and low and irresistible. The lights from other cars on the road made his eyes sparkle.
“Why did you break Jenna’s arm?”
He tilted his head back and forth, as though considering the proper way to explain. “Vampires understand only one thing, in my experience,” he said finally. “Consequences. She displeased me, so I hurt her. She’ll heal. Eventually. Bones aren’t quite as quick as flesh, so she’s in for a painful night or two, but now she has learned her place.”
“Brutal,” I said.
“Effective,” he countered, issuing another of those cat-like smiles.
“And the other vampire? The one you hit?” I asked. “Why did you…?”
Ren’s motivations would tell me a lot about what I was dealing with. Was he just protective of his “property,” as he’d said? Or was he concerned about me getting hurt? And if so, why?
“Consequences,” he repeated. “He did something I didn’t like—he hit you—and I gave that experience to him in return. Vampires don’t get hurt enough, in my opinion. I make a point of doing it when I can to remind them that there’s someone higher on the food chain.”
Higher?
“They all called you ‘my lord,’” I said tentatively. “Why?”
“I am above them. They would never have dared to address me by name.”
“Does your kind, um, rule over vampires?”
“Vampires rule over vampires,” he said. “My kind created them.” He hesitated. “We aren’t the ruling type. That’s part of how they ended up here.”
Ice crept over me, and I huddled further into the seat. I was trapped in a car with a creature who could casually state, “Oh, we just made vampires and set them loose on the human world, no big.”
I looked out the window. Only dark highway roads around us. If I tried to throw myself out of the car at this speed, I’d likely end up very painfully dead. Or at least with far too many broken bones.
“No more questions?” Ren asked, and his soft tone now seemed rich and amused.
“Do you want me to call you ‘my lord?’” I asked. “Or is ‘master’ okay?”
He let out a sharp huff of air. “Absolutely do not call me either of those things. Call me Ren.” He glanced at me, and his tilted brows told me he was looking for approval.
“Um, yeah, okay,” I said.
“What would you like me to call you?” he asked, and that genuine curiosity was back.
“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “Franklin just picked a name for me without asking.”
“Your human parents did that, too, didn’t they?” Ren pointed out.
“That’s what humans do.” I glanced at him. “Didn’t your parents name you? Do you even have parents?”
He smirked. “I have parents, but they didn’t name me. My kind name themselves. I guess you could say we just know. Our names are the essence of us, ingrained. We pick each other because we are each other.”
“So your name means something?”
“My full name, yes. Ren is a shortening, an adaptation.”
“What’s your full name?”
“You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. It’s in the language of my kind.”
Duh. Of course.
“Well, what does it mean?” I asked.
His eyes sparkled gently, still focused on the road. “You would laugh, I think.”
“And you’re afraid of that?”
“No.” He smiled. “My name means ‘patience.’”
“Is that funny? You’ve been patient with me.”
But it did seem a little funny. A patient demon—who would’ve guessed?
He waved a hand. “To be completely honest, it’s closer in meaning to words like endurance, tolerance, and self-restraint. A different form of patience, I guess.”
“Is that, like, a cool name for a demon? Or do you wish you got something fearsome, like ‘savage’’ or ‘bloodthirsty’ or ‘deadly?’”
He laughed, a stronger laugh than before, deep and full. “I don’t wish for anything. This is what I am.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. Clearly his norms were different from mine.
I had one goal right now: figure out his triggers and avoid them. I didn’t want to be hurt or killed. If I could get past that, I’d take the next step: figuring out what he wanted from me.
We both stared silently out the windshield at the dark highway for a few minutes. I didn’t know much about the area, but we probably had hours left to drive before reaching New York City.
“Could I call you Ari?” Ren asked suddenly. “Is that too familiar? Arianna is pretty but long, and its meaning is weak.”
“Meaning?” I echoed.
“Arianna means ‘holy’ in Hebrew,” he said. “Ari means ‘lion.’”
“You speak Hebrew?” I asked.
“I speak all languages.”
Of course he did. Of course this otherworldly thing spoke all languages. But that told me his powers were indeed much stronger than a vampire’s. As if all the broken vampire bones I’d seen tonight weren’t proof enough.