“Dahlia.” Cyrus replied to my thought as he gracefully smoothed a napkin over his lap. A dainty crystal bell lay by his left hand, and he rang it. It unnerved me that he could read my private thoughts so easily.

A distinguished-looking black butler entered, followed by two of the guards. The butler reached for the shining silver dome over the platter and hesitated at the sight of me. One of the guards made a noise. The butler glared at them and whisked away the cover.

“Your breakfast, sir,” he said, a look of distaste on his age-lined features.

The nude body of a young woman lay on the platter. She was obviously dead. Her blank eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, one hand propped limply on her breast. Her other arm stretched high above her head, mimicking the curve of the platter. Someone had thought to garnish her with rose petals. The woman was displayed beautifully before us like a Renaissance goddess. I was horrified by my reaction. This woman was dead, her remains exploited for aesthetic purposes.

To please the man sitting beside me.

The terror I should have felt from his presence fought to the surface, then was quickly drowned once again by the blood tie. Despite all the harm he’d already done to me, it seemed absurd that he would ever hurt me again. I caught myself yearning to touch him, desperate for the security of a physical connection, and I squashed the feeling down.

He’s a monster. A murderer. You’re smarter than this.

“Thank you, Clarence, that will be all,” Cyrus said with a polite nod.

The butler and guards departed. Cyrus stood and reached for my glass. He lifted the dead girl’s arm and flicked his razor-sharp fingernails across her wrist. Dark red blood poured from the wound. She hadn’t been deceased for long.

The calm, matter-of-fact manner in which he handled the corpse made it seem perfectly normal to be dining off a dead body. I stopped reminding myself to be horrified—what good would it do me?—and concentrated on the questions I wanted answers to.

He filled his glass next and lifted it to his nose, savoring the scent. I ignored my glass, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Now, what were we talking about?” he asked after he sat again.

“You mentioned Dahlia. Were you reading my mind?”

He drank deeply from his glass, then dabbed his lips with his napkin. “Of course. You wondered who I had planned on dining with since the table was set for two. Dahlia sometimes likes to consume human blood, and I indulge her.”

“Is she a vampire?” It was a silly question. I knew I would have recognized his blood in the taste of hers.

As I expected, he shook his head. “No. Dahlia is very sweet, one of my favorite pets, actually. But I’d never make her one of us. She’s not…special? I suppose that is the word for it.”

“And I was special?” I felt a surprising sympathy for the girl. She thought I’d taken her place when there had actually been nothing to take. But that’s not what concerned me most. “Can you read my mind all the time?”