The Becoming

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The dress is made of silk, woven so delicately its touch is like a whisper against the skin. It has a band of jewels that crisscross the bodice, hugging and accenting each breast, and a sweeping skirt that falls to the ankles. It's bright red, the color of blood, the color of life. It's a dress that is worn naked underneath—a dress meant to invite sex and fashioned to facilitate it.

Avery has chosen carefully. Whatever he has in mind for tonight, there's no doubt how he envisions the evening will end. And why shouldn't he? It's the way almost every evening has ended since I first met him.

Won't he be surprised that tonight is so different?

But this is not going to be easy. I have to scrub my mind clear of worry for David, of this morning's explorations, of the hate hardening like concrete in the pit of my stomach. Avery must think I'm the same woman he bedded at the beginning of the day. If he suspects anything else, I have no doubt he will kill me.

I run my hands along the contours of my body. I don't know how I look in Avery's masterpiece of seduction. There are no mirrors in the house, and even if there were, I couldn't use them. I can't apply make-up either, or do anything with my hair except comb it.

So I use my fingers to fluff shower-wet hair and smooth gloss onto lips dry with impatience.

I want to get this over with. It's ironic that it's Avery's own strength I will use against him. He has given me his power. That's what Williams felt when I attacked him, which is why I was able to defeat him. I understand that now.

I glance at my watch. It's seven fifty. The car should be here any minute. Will Avery be inside? Somehow, I doubt it. I think he wants me to make an entrance, to glide down some gilded staircase maybe, or appear like a vision in a garden backlit by candles.

He is a romantic, after all.

And I certainly fell for it.

I blow out a breath and slip into four-inch ankle-tie come-fuck-me-pumps by Manolo Blahnik. Avery thought of everything. I found these at the bottom of the garment bag.

Promptly at eight, a black Mercedes limousine turns up the driveway. I open the door to greet the driver, and no surprise, I sense immediately that he is a vampire. He's young, mid-twenties, his lean body draped with a black tuxedo. He gives me a two-finger salute and smiles. I read in his thoughts that he likes the dress, thinks the woman in it is “hot.” He doesn't seem to care that I'm reading his reactions as they occur, even the more physical ones.

The impudence of youth.

But I don't care either. I just want him to take me to Avery.

"We're on our way,” he says with a grin.

When I'm seated in the back seat, he takes his place behind the wheel. As soon as he does, his thoughts are closed to me. I look around the car, see speakers, hear the gentle shushing sound. Avery has outfitted this car with his own personal security shield, too.

It's a relief, really. It means I don't have to be careful of my thoughts.

The driver turns to look back at me. “My name is Robert,” he says. “And Dr. Avery told me to tell you to sit back and relax, enjoy the ride. There's chilled champagne in the refrigerator."

"Where are we going?"

Again the smile. “It's a surprise."

Then he turns his attention to the front, pushes a button that activates a privacy screen between us, and I'm left alone in the back seat with only my thoughts and a bottle of 1962 Dom Perignon for company.

The night is moonless, the air still. I watch through the windows as we head up the coast. In Del Mar, Robert turns onto a side street that winds up and away from the coastal highway and into the foothills. I lean back and sip champagne from a crystal flute, savoring the sweet excitement of the havoc I will wreak on Avery's world. The same havoc he has wrought on mine. The vision of his house in flames warms me and sustains my resolve.

But I have to temper all that out of my subconscious now. I have to turn on a different kind of flame. He has to think I'm coming to him in love, ready now to accept the life he offers. And in reality, it's not that difficult to flip that switch. After all, the passion that ignites whenever we're together burns as fiercely as the hatred inside me.

The car slows and stops in front of the gated entrance to a private club—or at least that's what the sign posted beside the guard shack says. A man in a uniform pokes his head out of the booth and nods at Robert. The gate slides open. I put the glass down and watch to see what Avery has prepared.

It's very much as I imagined.

There are luminarios lining a driveway that leads to a rambling, pillared Colonial mansion. The house floats in the night like a pale ghost ship. There is no artificial light. Only candles flickering from every window. It's a fairy-tale setting.

Robert pulls to a stop and a liveried servant comes down the stairs to open my car door. Without a word, he steps aside as I climb out, then passes me to get to the landing and swing open the front door. I expect Avery to be waiting inside, but the only thing that greets me is soft string music floating in from open French doors just ahead. I look around but the servant is gone. I guess I'm supposed to find my own way from here.

The doors open to a rose garden, the perfume fills the air. Still, there's no one waiting here, either, so I follow a path of flaming torches to a wide deck. It's a pool deck, the shimmering water stretching to meet the horizon in an unbroken sweep. There's a table set for two

But still no Avery.

I approach the table, pour myself a glass of champagne—the second this evening. But this will be my last. I need to have my wits about me.

But why?

The question floats across the still night air from the far end of the pool. I turn to watch Avery as he appears at the door of a cabana and starts toward me. He has a silver vase filled with red roses in his hands.

Tonight is the perfect night to lose yourself in the moment. No thinking, no inhibitions, no “wit” required. This evening is for you.

He comes closer, his eyes sparkling in the moonlight like the flames of the candles floating in the pool. He sets the vase on the table.

I meant to have these on the table when you arrived. He holds out a finger, a drop of blood glistening in the candlelight. But I pricked my finger on a thorn and I can't seem to get the bleeding to stop.

I put the champagne flute down on the table and take his hand in both of my own. I raise the finger to my lips and gently suck at the wound, letting my tongue work at the cut until I feel the skin close, much the way he did with my injured leg. Much the way I did earlier with David. I keep my mind carefully closed.

When I look up at Avery, he has his eyes shut and he's swaying a little—whether to the seductive sounds of the music swelling around us or to the feel of my tongue on his skin, I can't tell. He pulls himself back when he feels my eyes on him. His smile is slow and sweet.

"You are an apt pupil,” he says. “If I'm not careful, you will learn all my secrets and you will no longer need me."

I meet his eyes with my own. “I think there are still a few secrets you are keeping from me, aren't there?"

He takes a step back, but instead of answering, he focuses on the dress and me. “Beautiful. I knew it was perfect for you the moment I saw it. You are a vision, Anna."

He's all dressed up himself, in a well-cut black tuxedo. He's not wearing a tie, though, and the neck of his white silk shirt is open.

The better to get right down to business.

He laughs at what I'm thinking. Why not? We are long past the vagaries of precoital game playing, wouldn't you agree?

I guess the honeymoon is over.

"Far from it.” Avery speaks the words aloud as he dips a hand into a pocket of his jacket and pulls out a small, velvet box. “The honeymoon will never be over for us."

He holds out the box to me, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. His eyes are serious, though, as he watches me accept the box and open it.

There's a ring inside, platinum, set with a diamond solitaire that would take any living woman's breath away. I know because it elicits a gasp from me, not an easy thing when you're undead.

He's caught me completely by surprise. I expected seduction. I expected a display of the good life vampire style. What I didn't expect was a proposal.

If that's what this is.

I look up at him, letting the confusion filter through.

He laughs. “I've rendered you speechless. A first, I think."

I hand the box back to him. “It's a beautiful ring. I can't accept it."

But he refuses to take it, pushing it back towards me. “You misunderstand. I'm not proposing. Not yet, anyway. I know it's too soon for you. But I want you to have the ring as a thank you."

A thank you? For what?

He turns away to pour himself a glass of champagne and to retrieve my glass from the edge of the table. As he hands mine back to me, he lifts his glass in a toast, his eyes bright. “To Anna. Who has brought me back from the dead. Literally. For that, no mere thank you would be sufficient."

He takes a sip and waits for me to do the same. I study him over the rim of the glass. He really believes he's in love with me. More importantly, he believes I love him, too. He believes he's won.

Suddenly it snaps into sharp focus.

Everything that has happened to me. The fire, Williams, the Revengers. Avery is behind it all.

But why?