Free Vampire in Atlantis by Alyssa Day

other.
    Quinn must have heard them, and she turned to smile at Serai. “We have plenty to eat, and you must be hungry,” she said, pointing to a long metal table covered with plates and bowls. “Please help yourself.”
    Serai returned her smile, almost in spite of herself, and queued up in line behind two of the guards she’d seen earlier. They nodded to her but didn’t speak, too busy filling up their own plates. She selected a plate and then stopped, stunned at the sight and smell of so much food.
    Daniel stepped up next to her and looked at her empty plate. “Not fancy enough for your ladyship?”
    She heard the mocking challenge in his tone but was too paralyzed to snap back at him. Instead, she shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice trembled a little.
    “I don’t know what to try first. I haven’t touched actual food in more than eleven millennia, Daniel. I don’t . . . I don’t even know what I like or don’t like anymore. Will my stomach reject food? Do I dare try unfamiliar plants, like that green one? How do they make it transparent like that?”
    The hard lines of his face softened, and he almost smiled.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t think,” he said softly. “Of course you haven’t. Why don’t you do what someone recuperating from an illness does? Try a little of a few different things and see how your system takes it.”
    He raised one hand and brushed a tear from her cheek, making her feel a fool. She hadn’t even known she was crying, and over food, of all the stupid things to finally make her break down. Before she could apologize, or sink into the floor, or do any of a dozen other things she might have done, he poked one long finger at the clear green food.
    “And this? Is Jell-O. I’m not sure that it’s really food at all,” he said in an overly loud whisper, making her wonder why everyone else started laughing.
    She took his advice and chose a few tiny portions of the most recognizable foods. A bit of what clearly came from a game bird or domesticated fowl. Fresh fruit. A sliver of a luscious cake that she probably shouldn’t risk, but she couldn’t resist the rich, sugary aroma that rose up to tantalize her. She noticed that Daniel piled a plate high with nearly as much food as the human men had taken, which answered the question of whether or not the nightwalkers—vampires, they called them these days—still ate food or subsisted entirely on blood. Her neck tingled at the thought of Daniel biting her. She wasn’t sure if the sensation was from revulsion or desire.
    He sat on the floor next to the small stool she’d chosen to sit on, crossing his long, elegant legs in front of him and resting his plate on his lap. He glanced at the contents of her plate and grinned up at her.
    “Well? What will you try first?”
    She bit her lip, wondering the same thing. Of course she should eat the fruit and meat first, that was only proper, but the sweet dessert tempted her so much.
    “Go for it,” he advised, following her gaze. “One of the few benefits of being all grown up is that you can eat your dessert first.”
    She laughed and was rewarded by his answering smile. Still, she hesitated until he leaned over, speared a bit of cake on his fork, and held it up to her lips. She was shocked by the intimacy of the gesture; only a courting or wedded couple would feed each other in Atlantis. Or so it had been thousands of years ago.
    Daniel’s dark eyes held a challenge and something else. Admiration? Desire? A tingle of almost savage glee raced through her, and she leaned forward to allow him to place the cake in her mouth.
    I’m not in Atlantis anymore.
    She closed her lips around the fork and moaned with pure, hedonistic joy at the sugary explosion of taste in her mouth. Oh, by all the gods and goddesses, this was surely the most wonderful pastry she’d ever tasted. She opened her eyes to see that Daniel’s had gone dark and wild, and even she, with her limited knowledge of men,