Dangerous Temptation (Dark Dream Duet #1)(18)

“You live here?” Brando asked, nose pressed to the glass. “Are you a king?”

Tiernan’s laugh was low and smoky. “Something like that.”

“What’s your last name?” I demanded, too exhausted and shaken after the funeral and the long flight from Dallas to New York to offer pleasantness. “We should know the name of the man who’s taking us in.”

“McTiernan,” he offered blandly.

I snorted with startled laughter. “Seriously? Tiernan McTiernan? No wonder you don’t offer it up. That’s a terribly unoriginal name.”

“Bianca and Brandon Belcante are so much better?” he asked with an arched brow without looking up from his phone, his fingers flying across the screen.

He’d ignored us for the entire journey, leaving a weepy, tired, and cranky Brando to my care. Elena had traveled with us as far as New York before leaving for her own home after giving me her business card in case I ever needed her. Ezra remained, sitting up with the driver behind the partition.

I rolled my lips under my teeth, too tired to argue with him. Everything felt like a bad dream.

“Ah, here we are,” he murmured after a moment as the car slowed at the end of a road before a massive, moss-covered stone wall bisected by a large iron gate bracketed by huge lion sculptures. “Welcome to Lion Court.”

Through the ornate, scrolling metalwork, I caught a glimpse of the building we would be calling home for the foreseeable future and I lost my breath.

The dark stone edifice was all peaks and turrets, arched windows gleaming like dull eyes beneath the ferocious watch of stone gargoyles leering down from their ledges. It was like something from out of a fairy tale. Not the Disney, rose-tinted fairy tales for minors, but the dark and dangerous tales penned by the Grimm brothers.

It was the setting of nightmares.

“Wow.” Brando’s shocked little breath was loud in the quiet car. He turned to cast a suspicious glance at Tiernan for the first time since he told us we were his new wards. “Are you a vampire?”

Tiernan blinked, then tried to bite off the hard, choking laugh that exploded from his lips. He seemed as surprised as I was by the show of humor.

“No, I am not a vampire.”

Brando continued to look at him askance. “Prove it.”

Laughter rumbled through his tone, but he managed to keep a straight face. “How does one prove they aren’t a vampire?”

My little brother considered this seriously for a moment, then looked at me. “Do you have any garlic, Anca? Or maybe a cross?”

I rolled my lips under my teeth to keep from laughing. “No, Brandy Boy.”

“Dang,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.

It made my heart ache to see him do that because it was a gesture our father had when he was alive, rubbing at the scruff on his chin as he thought something over. Brando hadn’t been old enough to study him, so it was just a natural gesture, somehow embedded in the DNA Dad had passed on to him.

I leaned forward to tuck a wayward piece of hair back from his forehead because I couldn’t resist the urge to touch him. To make sure he was real and alive.

“Let me see your teeth,” he decided finally, already crawling across the seat parallel to Tiernan to get closer to him.

He waited, perched on his knees as the car drove up the hill to the dark house.

Tiernan considered him for a moment, his expression implacable. I worried he would say something mean, maybe call Brando silly for being afraid of something like vampires.

But he didn’t.

Instead, slowly, powerful jaw creaking, he opened his mouth to expose the strong, white rows of teeth. Brando bent close, too close to be polite. If he could have, he would have put his head right between those teeth like some kind of reckless lion tamer.

My heart panged as fear plucked at me. He was too trusting, too innocent.

And I knew I was really no better.

We were entering a world of riches and finery, and I knew from Dad that more monsters lurked beneath the diamond watches and silks than could be imagined.

I had no doubt Tiernan was one of them.

But Brando was already sinking deep into fascination with the man, his eyes sparkling as he used the pad of his thumb to test the point of Tiernan’s incisor. He pulled it away with a little hiss, shaking it out as he glared at him.

“They’re sharp!” he said.

The older man shrugged, righting his head and closing his mouth. “How else do you expect me to suck your blood?”

Brando’s mouth fell open, his eyes wide and blue as Spode china saucers.

Tiernan held his gaze, face totally somber.

I didn’t know what to think of the exchange until slowly, a tiny grin curled the scarred side of Tiernan’s face.

Brando watched it spread, the fear draining from his expression to be replaced by a mirrored grin, high on the left side like Tiernan’s.

Suddenly, Tiernan lunged forward, snapping his teeth.

Brando fell back onto the seat in his haste to get away, then burst into raucous giggles, clutching his belly as he laughed so hard he cried.

Something moved through me, thick enough to slow my blood and clog my pores. Something that should have been poisonous because it had everything to do with the man who’d essentially stolen us away, but it wasn’t.

It was bright and beautiful and it made me want to cry for the first time that day with something other than rage and grief.