The Turpentine and the Tempest

The cramped, second-floor studio apartment smelled perpetually of sharp turpentine, damp coastal fog, and warm milk. To twenty-six-year-old Harper Evans, it wasn't much, but it was a fortress. The reinforced steel deadbolt on the door, the heavy blackout curtains pulled tight against the dreary Oregon morning, and the perimeter of salt she swept under the welcome mat every week—they were the practical, desperate measures of a very plain woman hiding a very extraordinary secret.

Harper wiped a smear of cadmium red paint from her cheek with the back of her wrist, sighing as she looked down at the small table.

"Leo, please," she coaxed, her voice thick with exhaustion. "Just one bite of the grilled cheese. For Mama?"

Three-year-old Leo sat in his highchair, staring at the perfectly toasted sandwich with an expression of profound, toddler-sized disgust. He pushed the plastic plate away with a chubby hand. He looked entirely like an angel—a mess of dark, silken curls and wide, pale eyes—until he opened his mouth to whine, revealing the faint, unnerving sharpness of his incisors.

"Want juice," Leo mumbled, his little fingers drumming on the tray. "Red juice."

Harper’s heart gave a familiar, terrified squeeze. "We don't have any red juice left, sweetheart. The butcher doesn't open until Tuesday. Please, Leo. Normal food today."

She was a plain woman. She had mousy brown hair that never held a curl, eyes the color of wet bark, and a wardrobe consisting entirely of paint-stained overalls and oversized sweaters. She was remarkably, wonderfully invisible. She blended into the background of coffee shops and grocery stores. It was her superpower.

But three and a half years ago, she had attended a bizarre underground art gallery opening in Seattle, wearing a borrowed dress, and her superpower had failed her. She had caught the eye of a god. A beautiful, terrifying, completely unhinged god named Silas Vane. One night of intoxicating, chaotic passion had left her terrified, pregnant, and running for her life.

She had thought she was safe. She had thought immortals possessed the attention span of gnats when it came to unremarkable human women.

A sharp, deafening *crack* echoed through the small apartment.

Harper jumped, dropping the palette knife onto the linoleum floor.

* CRUNCH.*

The reinforced steel deadbolt didn't just break; the entire wooden door frame splintered into a thousand jagged pieces. The heavy front door was violently ripped from its hinges and thrown into the narrow hallway, clattering against the opposite wall.

The heavy, suffocating scent of ozone, crushed black roses, and petrichor instantly overpowered the smell of turpentine.

Standing in the ruined doorway was Silas Vane.

He was breathtakingly, monstrously beautiful. He wore a sweeping velvet coat the color of dried blood, his dark, chaotic hair falling into eyes that burned with a terrifying, luminescent silver light. He looked like a dark prince from a gothic nightmare, his chest heaving, his hands curled into fists at his sides. He was trembling, radiating a manic, explosive energy that made the overhead lightbulb flicker and pop.

Harper froze, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. She instinctively stepped backward, shielding Leo’s highchair with her own body.

Silas’s wild, silver eyes darted around the cramped, messy studio, taking in the drying canvases, the scuffed linoleum, and finally locking onto her. The feral, unhinged tension in his shoulders instantly melted. He let out a ragged, desperate sound—a half-sob, half-laugh that sent a shiver down Harper's spine.

"You," Silas breathed, his voice a rich, velvety rasp that echoed with centuries of madness. "I found you. My beautiful, cruel little mouse. I found you."

"Silas," Harper choked out, her hands gripping the edges of the kitchen counter. "How... how did you..."

Silas stepped over the splintered ruins of her door, ignoring the gaping hole leading to the hallway. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his coat pocket. It was a printout from a small, obscure online art auction. It was a painting Harper had sold last month for sixty dollars to pay the electric bill.

"Your brushstrokes," Silas murmured, his eyes wide and obsessive, stepping closer. "The way you blend the cerulean into the umber. No one else paints the shadows like you, my masterpiece. Did you truly think you could hide your light from me? I have scoured this miserable continent. I have torn apart covens. I have barely fed. You vanished!"

He was within arm's reach now. He reached out, his cool, impossibly long fingers trembling as he cupped her face.

"You are so beautiful," he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers. "So wonderfully, perfectly plain and real. Everything else is glass, Harper. You are the only thing that doesn't shatter."

Harper squeezed her eyes shut, terrified by his manic devotion. She wasn't beautiful. She was ordinary. To his crazed, ancient mind, her averageness was some sort of exotic novelty, a novelty she knew would eventually wear off.

Before she could speak, a tiny, indignant voice piped up from behind her.

"Mama. Red juice."

Silas froze. His silver eyes snapped open, his gaze shifting over Harper’s shoulder to the toddler sitting in the highchair. The vampire lord tilted his head, his chaotic mind struggling to process the presence of the small child.

"A child?" Silas said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. He looked back at Harper, a flash of manic jealousy twisting his perfect features. "You ran from me... and bore a mortal's child? You gave your warmth to a fleeting, pathetic human?"

Harper’s pulse roared in her ears. *He doesn't know.* Vampires couldn't procreate. It was a biological impossibility in their world. Silas assumed the child belonged to a human man she had met after she ran.

"He is mine," Harper said fiercely, keeping her body firmly between Silas and the boy. She couldn't let him get close. She couldn't let him see the faint glow in Leo's eyes, or the sharpness of his teeth. If Silas realized the impossible—that Leo was his—he would take him. Or worse, the supernatural world would discover them and tear her son apart for being an abomination.

Silas stared at the boy. The manic jealousy warred with his obsessive devotion to Harper. Slowly, terrifyingly, the devotion won.

"He smells like cheap milk and crayons," Silas declared, his nose wrinkling in disgust. But then he looked back at Harper, his expression softening into an unhinged, tragic smile. "But he is a part of you. If you insist on keeping this mortal pet, my masterpiece, I will tolerate the whelp. I will tolerate anything, so long as you never leave my sight again."

Harper stared at him, absolute dread settling in her stomach. Silas wasn't going to leave. And with a vampire lord moving into her studio apartment, hiding her son's fangs was about to become a matter of life and death.