Yet… as savagely as it had begun, it ended.
The force in which he’d pulled his swollen mouth away left mine searching out missing sensation. An action obstructed by his grip on my hair. “I apologize for being so forward.”
What? What nonsense was this?
Men never apologized! They followed women through blizzards and raped them on the street. They locked girls in rooms and caused reckless, horrible harm.
My pupils dilated, the oddest sensation coming over me. Blood drunk and wine saturated, I whispered between pants, “I killed a man when he pushed me down in the snow and tried to shove inside. He might have, I was never sure. But I remember his blood all over my coat. I vomited and scrubbed, but the smell would not go away. So, an angel came to deliver judgment. I was dragged from life into death to be thrown at the feet of the Devil.” A living corpse dressed in tatters who poked around every last part of me for a century. “I… I am lost. God no longer loves me.”
“The God you speak of never did, Daywalker. Not from the moment your mother birthed you, not from the sad rejection of the screaming child she dumped on the mission doorsteps. Not when you were brutalized. Bewildered. Starved. Or left hanging from that tree as a child.”
He took my chin. “I loved you. No other.”
“You are evil.” Of that, I had no doubt.
“Then be my goodness.” A peck on kiss-stung lips. “Be my sun.”
Yet he could walk in the sun… a thought that left a few startled gasps in a roomful of glittering nightmares.
He could walk in the sun where they could not.
But in that instant, I knew why he burned with fire. He could walk in the sun, but he could not feel it. He couldn't feel anything but where my mouth had just been joined with his.
The stroke from buttocks up my spine as he unwound and slid me down his body was a screaming declaration that I was correct. The hands that came to steady me when my shoes hit the parquet floors were black, fire licking from between the cracks in the skin, singeing my dress.
But his face, that forgettable, interesting face, was so human it made my heart ache.
“Let me see.” Show me the night winged demon lurking behind that gaze.
And he did, to the sound of screams.
Screams that didn’t come from my throat.
“They didn’t know?” How could those creatures not have? The centuries they’d spoken of. The epochs in which they had known this being.
The room was empty, those who could vanish without a trace gone. Those who could not having fled through the door.
“They didn’t know.” Fanged and hideous, a monstrosity smiled, preening, wingspan stretching to knock items from carefully arranged tables and crash against crystal chandeliers. Making a right mess. “Only you have seen what becomes of a man whose soul is stolen. Who will make any sacrifice to see it returned. Who has been trapped in endless monotony waiting for his lost love to be reborn as she swore she would be.”
But others had seen him when I’d been pulled from the tomb.
Chuckling, running strands of my dark hair through his claws, Vladislov said, “Not any who lived.”
My next words died on my tongue, what he’d implied sinking deep into my belly. “So, you’re going to kill all of your friends who came tonight?”
His response was so simple. “Yes.”
“And if I asked you not to?”
“Not to slaughter the monsters you feared?” A shrug. More crystal shattered against the floor when those terrible wings flexed and bent. “I suppose I could restrain myself. But… it’s going to cost you for the terrible mess your request will create.”
Of course. The devil and his deals.
“Ah, ah.” That thing clucked its tongue, bending over me so I need not crane my head so high. “There is no need to always think the worst of me. I can’t help but love you, and I am trying rather hard. Be kind.”
Kind?
Maya had let it slip in might conversation that I held their lives in my hands. Had they been as terrified as I to be there?
“Some of them, yes.” The beast slouched and took a knee. Like a knight—like a villain. “It seemed only fair you not be the only frightened person in the room. Please note how I called them people. Your train of thought tends to be a bit less gracious. And mayhap you’ll consider that none of us had a choice in what we became. Not really. Not when the orchestrations of the universe are so… unavoidable.”
Braced, knowing exactly what men wanted in trade, my fists bunched in my skirt.
This creature was very male. I had already seen what the tatters of his clothing could not conceal on more than one occasion. An organ massive, inhuman, and pulsating.
Yet, as I was already condemned, already made the whore in that god-forsaken pit. What did it matter if I did this for strangers? “Do you want me to lay down here?”
A great sigh sent heat to ripple in the air, Vladislov answering, “I want you to go for nightly walks with me, outside. Once every three nights, we’ll take dinner in a restaurant. Where you can order anything you want and I can spoil you with compliments.”
Why such a simple thing seemed more terrifying than spreading my thighs, I couldn’t say. A cold sweat on my brow, dryness on my tongue, I nodded. Because there was no agreement to be made that wasn’t even more ridiculous than this party.
“Well, that settles that. They can live. They will adore you for such mercy, clever queen!” How it smiled with that face, I couldn’t comprehend. Not that I wanted to, or even stood a chance.
And just like that, he was gone. One moment there, the next not.
I was alone, in a roomful of broken things and scattered glasses. Of immortal blood spilt on the floor and smeared into my skin. What was there to do but seek out the trays of food that had been dropped by the staff and snack? What was there to do but walk over all that shattered crystal and feel my dress catch on the shards?
What was there to do but drink every bottle of wine left to chill until I was thoroughly intoxicated.
Passed out sprawled across a settee.
To hardly wake when strong arms lifted me up and put me to bed.
Cool sheets below, the mattress dipped and a warm body joined me.
And I slept like the dead.
Chapter Six
Vladislov
“Ha! I knew this experience would be something. Just look at your face.” She was adorable with her eyes squinted and her cheeks sucked in. “I used the Yelp.”
Mouth still full of overcooked oyster, my soul asked, “Yelp? Like a howl?”
As if this were some new Vampire power she’d yet to see. How hard it was to restrain the laughter, but I did.
Heroic as ever, I brandished my smart phone and pulled up the app so she might see. “Newspaper editorials are a thing of the past. Now, anyone can blab an opinion for the world to see. As humans so love to complain—especially where they think they might be heard the loudest—a clever monkey designed a platform where people might review a business and then all glory in their opinions.”
Baffled, she stared down at the platter. “So humans like this dish?”
“No. They hated it. And now you are part of that experience! Welcome to the twenty-first century.” Passing her my phone, a device it had taken three days to convince her to touch in the first place, I grinned. “Want to leave a review?”