I chewed my lip and thought of Orion and his two henchmen standing over the half-frozen corpse they’d pitched into the water. I remembered the vampire’s eyes raking over my body, cold, piercing, relentless. His voice echoed in my ears as clearly as if he were standing right beside me.
I’m not a man to whom consequences normally apply.
“No,” I said quietly. “No, it isn’t.”
“Think we’ve talked shop long enough, V. How about I order us takeaway and we watch a movie? Dad and Mom are out of town a few days. You can crash here if you want. Will be nice to eat too much food and watch bad movies with you.”
Her offer sounded amazing, so how could I knock her back? Especially when she looked at me like she wasn’t beyond begging. My mind still churned with everything she’d told me, but I’d also missed spending more time with her where we just had fun.
“Deal.” I reclined on the couch, smiling at how good it felt to be at her place. It was rare that I took any time off, my days and nights were usually filled with study and slaying. So this was a nice change of pace.
“Excellent.” She started tapping her phone. “There’s this new Spanish Tapas place that just opened up and I’ve been dying to try out their food. I’m going to order a variety of dishes for us.”
“I can’t wait.” Reaching over, I grabbed the remote for the television. “And I’m selecting our movie tonight.”
She cut me a serious glare. “Okay, no soppy romances. I want b-grade!”
I scoffed. “I don’t do soppy romances.”
She fake-laughed, howling loudly. “Says, Ms. I-love-Hallmark movies. You made us watch them each time you returned here for Christmas.”
Flicking on the television, I ignored her gloating because clearly Lian never forgot a thing.
Chapter 10
Seth
The mortal plane was pale compared to hell—pale, desaturated, and painfully boring. I got tired real fast of walking through a miasma of fog every day. Couldn’t go a mile without ending up soaked to the skin, freezing rainwater pooling on the ground. I missed the days when flames nipped at my heels, and a trail of smoke heralded my arrival. I was known in my own domain. Hated, maybe. Feared, definitely. But here? Nobody knew who I was.
And I wasn’t even allowed to kill anyone yet.
But wandering alone through the damp and dreary night was better than spending hours holed up in the vampire’s mausoleum of a house. The more time I spent in his vicinity, the stronger the urge to punch him in his smug, condescending face. Just once, but hard enough that he’d feel it for the rest of his miserable un-life.
Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t that I regretted the deal we made where I’d finally gain power over my own realm. To be left the fuck alone so I could do as I wanted without dealing with anyone who pissed me off. To forget my past and start fresh wasn’t a big ask, was it?
Contracts had been a way of life for all eternity, and I was used to keeping company I didn’t care for. Orion had a singular talent for knowing exactly how to push my buttons—and then doing it all at once. Every day I came within an inch of erupting like some mythical volcano, but I’d gotten very good at reeling back from the edge at the last second. At the end of the day, I understood he offered me a chance to escape my past. He sought me out, asked me to help him, so as much as I wanted to murder him, I remembered the underlying agreement between us wasn’t between two enemies. We just didn’t see eye to eye on everything.
For the moment, I made do by roaming the streets, picking over the darkest parts of the city shadows in search of something to hurt, eat, or both. The blood in my veins refused to settle. And dammit, I was hungry all the time.
That night, the usual prowl wasn’t enough. I had something else on my mind besides idle violent fantasies of raking Orion across the coals. Every time I closed my eyes, even if it was just to blink, the girl flashed in my mind. The one he’d been tormenting on the night we dropped a body in the river, with her shining eyes and annoyingly bright hair. On the outside, she was so much more than another ordinary plain Jane like the rest of the human women in an endless line of ‘em.
I could not stop thinking about her, and I didn’t know why. Yeah, she was sexy, yeah I was pissed that Orion had kept her to himself the whole time, but what else was new? The bastard never shared anything important with us. He always had to be the center of attention, as sure as the sun rose every day on this godforsaken place. His ego had never bothered me all that much before.
This time, it drove me insane. Whenever I thought about her skin in the moonlight, or the way she stared at me as I walked by, my body demanded more than a sterile memory. I wanted to know what her body looked like under those winter clothes. How perfect she would be pinned under me in bed, or up against a wall, or just naked on the floor. Anything would do. I wasn’t about to be picky.
The burning thoughts nagged at me constantly, a crackling hum in the back of my mind. Never before had I met a human who could sate my lustful appetite, and I had no reason to believe she was up to the task. Yet something about her made me think she might be able to deliver. If only there was a way to test the theory without Orion finding out. No doubt he’d throw a shit fit over someone else playing with his toys.
Which, I had to admit, tempted me more. I could easily get off to the idea of making the vampire mad.
I blew out a thick plume of smoke and told myself to cool it. Shoving my sleeves up to the elbow, I let the misty rain turn to steam as it struck my skin. In the dark of the night, my veins glowed faintly, fiery orange and yellow. There was an itch building that demanded to be scratched, one way or another. Some poor son of a bitch was about to have a very bad evening.
Deep down, I kept wishing it was Orion on the other end of my wrath. He annoyed me more after meeting the pink-haired girl than before. Didn’t seem fair that a first-class prick like him coasted along on unlimited time. Someone ought to number his days, I thought, and not for the first time. Once, months before, I’d almost done it myself.
A smile crept across my face as I slowed down to savor the recollection. He always kept the doors to the several rooms he called his, locked, as if there was anything in his gaudy, antique junk that anyone would want. But there was one night he’d forgotten, and I heard the door creaking on my way by. Sunrise was just getting underway, and he had pulled the drapes tight over the window.
Hell of a weakness, that sunlight.
The casket was sitting in the middle of the room, sealed tight and surrounded by a sprinkling of what turned out to be dirt. Back then, the notion of Mr. High-and-Mighty vampire having to recreate his own grave to sleep in made me choke back a bark of laughter. Of course he couldn’t sleep with a blanket and a pillow. What an asshole.
Well, I hadn’t been able to resist the urge to snoop around a little bit. Like I said, most of his things were tasteless, gaudy junk, way too overblown and Gothic for anyone in their right mind. A leather couch sat against the back wall with a small table and lamp. It took about five seconds for all of my attention to focus on the one interesting thing in that room: the casket. Heavy and made out of solid ebony wood, it was polished to a shine, lovingly cared for in a way that gave me, a demon, the creeps.