He hadn’t been gentle or soulful these past three days.
Which was good. Gentle and soulful was for One Direction fans and idiots.
I sipped my cup, not breaking eye contact. The mix of coffee and his blood was something rather delightful. It gave me pause.
It was his blood.
It was doing something to me. Changing me. As a connoisseur of the plasma, I knew it well. I knew the good, the bad, and everything in between. Though blood was like pizza and sex—it couldn’t really be bad.
But it couldn’t be that good.
I knew that. Because not only were we cheating nature by the fact that I was still here, unbeating heart and all, after drinking it, but the more I drank the more our connection tightened, like there were invisible ropes of steel connecting us. The overwhelming need I felt for him at that moment was for all of the obvious reasons: his dark eyes swimming with the promise of sex, love, and eternity; his sculpted body; his growing stubble that had scratched between my legs like razors; the feelings he’d stirred within me. Yes, all of that contributed to the overwhelming need I had for him.
But there was also more.
I also felt his need. The first suck of his blood that time, it had almost knocked the breath out of me. You know, if I’d had breath in me.
But it had done something.
The wave, the tsunami and hurricane of feelings he had for me came hurtling from his body at the same rate as the ambrosia of his blood and the intensity of his climax.
It wasn’t mind reading exactly because I couldn’t get the details of his thoughts.
Just the flavor of them.
But the flavor was enough. More than enough, as I could barely handle my feelings towards the human man who was meant to be designed to kill me.
But then again, maybe he still was.
Maybe this was natural evolution for the slayers, a new weapon in their arsenal.
“I’m serious since a witch cursed me, almost killed me, then you,” I replied. “Oh, and I guess I was kind of serious before that when I almost died a couple more times, got in the middle of a supernatural war and fell for a slayer who embodies everything I should run from.” I paused as a fresh wave of his emotion bowled through me. “Oh, and since my fucking tailor butchered a custom Alexander McQueen. Yeah, I was pretty serious then too. Probably more serious than the rest of the stuff. A war?” I waved my hand dismissively. “Pfft, we have those all the time, and there’ll always be more. A custom McQueen made for me by the man himself? No, I can’t get that again, unless I figure out how Sophie can practice necromancy magic,” I mused, my mind going to the friend I hadn’t heard from in three days.
Though, to be fair, the only things I’d heard for the past three days were the thundering of Thorne’s heart and the soundtrack to crazy sex.
“Maybe it might be a little far to break the laws of nature for a dress,” I muttered. My eyes went to the faint marks on his neck. “Especially since we’ve broken more than a few already.”
His eyes went dark with the reminder of it. “Or maybe we’re just figuring out what nature had designed for us all along.”
My brow rose. “Nature designed bloodsucking monsters and humans with toxic blood designed to fight them just so one of each could become the exception and have a lot of sex and drink that blood?” I asked dryly.
“Essentially,” he murmured. “But there’s a fuck of a lot more to us than sex and blood.”
“Really? I was under the impression there wasn’t more to life than sex and blood,” I returned.
“Yeah, but you’re not living just a life. Neither am I. We’re living a death too. And in our death we’ve got a fuck of a lot more than even nature intended.”
I swallowed his words at the same time I did my coffee. “Yeah,” I whispered. “Which is why we need the words. Death, mainly. And a lot of other things. Like the war we’re still fighting. Like the specifics of your not being dead. And being way stronger than your average human. And your eternity.” I tasted the word on my tongue. It seemed so much heavier now that it wasn’t my future alone. With another at my side, it seemed like less of a wasteland. More of a minefield, maybe.
Eternity was a long time to spend with Thorne. I reasoned even that would fall short. But it was a long time for one of us to find that eternity cut short. And then facing it alone, the dark wasteland that I had once happily skipped through wearing my favorite pumps? That emptiness was practically the scariest thing, even scarier than kitten heels. Not facing it alone but the memory of the moment, right now, of the other half of my soul being alive.
I swallowed the pure terror that came with that thought to move on.
“And your relationship with Rick.” I frowned. “I feel like that explanation needs to be a frontrunner.”
Something about their interaction had been nagging at the back of my mind. Something unpleasant about it all. Something that didn’t taste right and gave me a sense of foreboding.
I had been acting like a responsible vampire for the past three days and ignoring it.
Foreboding was the quickest way to kill a buzz.
But death was inevitable.
And why did I feel like death wasn’t finished with us?
The change in Thorne’s demeanor was palpable through our new connection, a wash of icy water and a steel wall battering down over his bones.
“There is no relationship,” he clipped, eyes hard. “We’ve had encounters over the centuries.”
I raised my brows. “The centuries? And these encounters haven’t left either of you dead.”
A statement not a question, since he was breathing, heart beating in front of me.
Thank Hades.
Despite the confusion of it all, I was thankful.
“No,” he answered stiffly, sipping from his mug. “Although not for lack of trying on both our parts.”
I gave him a look. “Honey, I know you. Which means you’ve likely tried to kill a lot of vampires in your time. And until I’d witnessed the exchange between you and Rick, I thought I’d been the only one who survived. Through my womanly wiles and superior fighting skills, obviously, but also because you kind of like having sex with me.”
The desire returned, and he yanked me to his body so his lips fastened against my neck. “It’s not just havin’ sex with you, Isla,” he growled. “And it’s more than kind of like. I kind of like breathing ’cause it keeps my heart beating. Without it I couldn’t be here.” His eyes found mine. “Similar to how I feel about what I’m holdin’ in my arms. My fuckin’ soul.”
The emotions rolling through him, and in turn me, confirmed his sincerity.
“You don’t get to alpha male your way out of this with heartfelt declarations. I’ve been around the block. I know the manly devices you use as evasion tactics. You’re not evading this with sex, the thing that makes me the only vampire you’ve not killed.” I paused. “Among other things.” Another pause. “You’re not fucking Rick too, are you?” I asked seriously. “I don’t approve of cheating,” I continued. “In fact, I’d likely rip your beating heart from your chest and make you eat it if you cheated on me,” I informed him happily and seriously. “But you and Rick would be an interesting and erotic form of foreplay to watch before the main event, the heart ripping.”
I wasn’t strictly into man-on-man; I was all about people screwing and loving who they wanted, gender, species, whatever. But I didn’t think it’d turn me on quite as much as the thought of those two.
Thorne obviously didn’t share my feelings, since his body went still and rage flickered through him. “Isla,” he growled in warning.
I waved my hand. “I kid, I kid,” I muttered. “So if you’re not a jilted lover, what are you?”
He stared at me, something in the air, something unpleasant that was new to everything sweet and pleasing that had been there for the past three days.
Or maybe it had always been there and I’d just been ignoring it.
He s
ighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration, or nervousness if I wasn’t mistaken.
Thorne didn’t get nervous.
Ever.
Not even when he’d literally been strung up for execution in front of a roomful of vampires.
There had been rage then. Fear too. Not for himself, for me. Even without the heightened senses that his blood gave me, I could taste it on that horrible day.
But not nerves.
So it had me nervous.
I never got nervous either.
And I had also been strung up for execution once or twice.
Or twelve times.
So no nerves.
Until now.
Because his nerves meant something. And the nerves that came with the realization that a witch wielding a curse may have the power to destroy me yet so did the man in front of me.
No magic needed.
Just a mass weapon of destruction.
Some people called it love, I guessed.
“You want to know how I’m here, how I’ve been here on this earth for longer than you? How I’m considerably harder to kill than any normal human? How I can scar, how I can bleed and my heart can beat but I’m as strong as a vampire with iron skin and a lifeless organ in their chest? How I can have a heart that beats for only one fuckin’ woman since I laid eyes on her?”
I blinked. “You’re older than me?”
He stared at me. “That’s what you’re focusing on?”
I shrugged. “The other stuff is important too, I guess. It’s just I didn’t really count on you being the older one in this relationship. I kind of liked being a cougar. I think I pulled it off well. I even bought some leopard skin pumps to go with the entire persona.” I waved my hand around my face. “And I was going to audition for Real Housewives of the Underworld.”
His mouth twitched slightly, but the seriousness that cloaked an apartment not used to such emotions remained. “Sorry to burst that bubble, baby, but I’ve got some centuries on you.”
I crossed my arms, unworried about my nakedness. Thorne wasn’t worried about his either, but his eyes did move down to my chest area with the movement.
Then lower.
I ignored the pang that came with that hungry gaze and snapped my fingers at him.
“Buddy, eyes on me when talking about your immortality and the centuries you have on me. This look could be considered pedophilia. How many centuries?” I demanded.
His eyes snapped up. “Enough.”
I glared. “‘Enough’ is not something that satisfies me. ‘Enough’ doesn’t exist in my world. No such thing as enough shoes, or bags, or dead bodies of people that piss me off. And you’re pissing me right off with this ‘enough’ crap. Specifics, Thorne. Are we talking about you being around when humans were still in caves and rubbing rocks together to make fire?”
His jaw tightened. “I’ve been around long enough to watch the Norman Conquest of England. William was a stubborn bastard to work with,” he said.
I pursed my lips. “And this isn’t something you’d decided to share with me?”
“We’ve had a lot going on,” he commented.
I nodded. “Yeah, we have. But there’s been time for you to be like, ‘Oh hey, Isla, you know how it’s been fucking haunting you, my humanity and mortality? Now you can go back to worrying about jeans becoming accepted as formal wear because it’s not a problem since I’m almost a fucking millennium old!’” My voice rose to a yell at the end, and I slammed my cup down on the counter with enough force to smash the porcelain and scatter it across the marble countertop.
I frowned at it.
“Great,” I hissed. “That was part of a pack of ten they only sell in a small town outside of Florence. I despise odd numbers, so now I either have to smash more, or travel there to convince those fucking monks to make me some more.” Stomping over to my cupboards, I snatched one off the shelf. “I do need a trip, but since there’s so much going on, I’ll go with the other option.”
Thorne had good enough reflexes to duck when I hurled the mug at him. It smashed on my window instead. The force with which I threw it made the panes vibrate slightly but not break. I’d designed them to withstand some shit since I’d thrown Viktor out the window once and he’d hurtled thirty-eight stories. Paying off the police had been a total bitch, and so had getting the window replaced.
“Jesus, Isla,” Thorne muttered, straightening.
I put my hand on my hip, glaring at him. “Nope. Not him. But you should know, since I’m sure you fucking met him and got some of your self-righteousness from the bearded messiah!” I yelled.
He crossed his arms. “You gonna let me explain the rest or you gonna throw more dishware?”
I glared at him. “Oh I’m done with the dishes,” I told him calmly. “It’s knives next, since I know you’re less breakable. I’ll just test how much instead of listening.” I grabbed one of my sharpest and fondest from the knife block. It cut flanks of steak and demon flesh like a charm.
He gave me a look. “I was going to tell you.”
“When? Before or after I died from a curse which you knew was fatal to me?”
His fury was a cloud over the room. “You can’t bring that shit up, Isla,” he ordered. “Throw all the fuckin’ knives you want, but you do not use the image of you lifeless in my arms as a weapon.”
I pursed my lips, hating that his words hit me and that I actually regretted what I said, considering the same pain I’d feel if he reminded me of that silence between his heartbeats.
Because I did apologies even less than I did turtlenecks, I stayed silent.
He took my silence as what I meant it for, because apparently he knew me even without this crazy fucking connection.
“Right,” he said. “Praseates—a majority of us, at least—are human. Humans who are born and who die. Who are slightly stronger than regular humans, of course, but they can still die with a lot more ease than it takes to kill a vampire. And their lifespans may be a little more than normal, give or take a handful of decades. But just as vampires have bloodlines that are more powerful than others, Praseates have it too. We are a species that is human yet was designed to fight that which is not human. You’ve got your creation myths that gave you life and an afterlife, right?”
I nodded once. The story of Ambrogio and the gods who made him what he became was learned at Mortimeus, I didn’t have fond memories of it mostly because of all the fucking papers I had to write on the asshole and the punishments I got when I wrote “It’s a load of bullshit” at the end of each one. It was, in my opinion, a load of bullshit.
Obviously I’d seen a lot since I was alive. And undead. I knew witches existed, magic too, and werewolves and demons.
So I didn’t doubt that gods existed.
Not the one those humans in churches worshipped but many who lived on different planes, ones who weren’t concerned with humans much more than humans were concerned with the lives of ants.
I found it hard to believe.
Then again, we were immortal bloodsuckers who had superior strength and saw centuries pass like weeks.
I was more of a Darwinist myself. I’m sure old Charlie wasn’t thinking of bloodsucking vampires when he made his findings, but they still held up to inspection. Evolution was what we had to thank. Nature, not some jealous god.
But it was only my opinion. Which was almost always right.
But Thorne wasn’t finished with story time, his eyes on me yet faraway at the same time.
“We’ve got our own myth. Our own origin story that we take with a grain of salt. Or a lot of it.” His tone said he wasn’t as convinced as I was.
Still holding the knife, I wandered to the small bar I had fitted in the kitchen. I had one in almost every room; I didn’t want to have to walk all around the apartment when I felt like a drink.
“I’ll do you one better than a grain of salt. I’ll do a bottle of tequila,” I informed him, grabbing the bottle and forgoing the
glass to drink straight from it.
Maybe not as couth as a crystal tumbler, but something in the air told me it was not a time to be couth.
This was a time for tequila. And couthness and tequila were never mutually exclusive.
Not for the fun people, anyway.
Thorne watched with that same blankness to his face, but his mouth twitched slightly before he refocused.
“Apollo—or more accurately, his jealousy of a mortal man—was the catalyst for the change that made vampires,” he began, surprising me with his knowledge of our origin.
Then again, he’d probably read Art of War and knew the whole ‘know thy enemy’ thing. It made sense. I didn’t know shit about slayers. Merely because, until now, I hadn’t considered them more than a cardio workout and bags of skin that slowed down my day. I researched the latest trends in heeled shoes and that was about it.
Nor did they teach us anything in Mortimeus about slayers. Apart from that they were something to be killed, sought out for sport. There was even an actual event where our teachers gathered slayers and set them loose for vampires to hunt and kill.
Like softball.
But no, apart from talking about how they were inferior to humans and their blood was toxic, we knew nothing.
Or at least I did.
“His love for a human woman and subsequent wrath at a human man were what possessed him,” Thorne continued.
I nodded. “Yeah, he was a jealous asshole who didn’t take no for an answer. So instead of sleeping with one of her friends to get back at her, or even killing Ambrogio, which would have been my recommendation, he’d done something that apparently set in motion the events that created the perfection you’re currently staring at right now.” I gestured down my body with the knife I was still holding. “So I guess I would thank him for being a jealous and wrathful asshole if, you know, he was the actual reason I was here.”
Thorne raised a brow. “You don’t believe?”
“In Santa Claus?” I asked. “Sure. A fat jolly man who creeps into children’s beds at night and empties his sack. Completely believable.” I paused, taking a swig. “Not one but two gods concerned enough with human matters to create a supernatural being strong enough to fight the gods themselves, counting Artemis?” I shook my head.