Cursed

by Rebecca Trynes

  “Obviously,” Greyvian said, rolling his eyes.

  “I thought he was meant to be ice-cold?” the taller mumbled to his companion.

  The short one shrugged slightly and continued to study him, trying to get his measure.

  “Why don’t I make this easy for you,” Greyvian said, spreading his arms wide and assuming a relaxed stance. “Take a free shot. I won’t defend myself, or retaliate.”

  The short one was clearly wary, but the taller seemed ready to go and didn’t waste any time in taking a step forward. His companion grabbed his arm, clearly cautious, and said, “Dude, are you mental? It’s a trick.”

  “No trick,” Greyvian assured, keeping his arms held wide.

  The taller one turned his head to his friend and whispered, “Kobus will reward us if we bring him Greyvian’s head. You know he’s been hunting him for centuries.”

  Unconvinced, but obviously tempted by the thought of a reward, the short one made a face and let go of his companion. With a grin, the taller male turned to Greyvian and closed the distance within a matter of strides.

  He was strong and didn’t hold back.

  Pain exploded in Greyvian’s jaw, hot and sharp, wiping out all thought in the wake of the blow. Oh, sweet abyss. Closing his eyes, he gave himself to the feel of it, to the fierce agony that seemed to take some of the focus off his inner turmoil. Straightening his head, he opened his eyes and smiled at the male, motioning for him to have another go.

  The blonde shook his head, amused, and then hit him again, this time on the other side of his face. From there, the other one joined in and he couldn’t keep track of where they hit, or how many times, but the more pain they inflicted, the fuzzier his thoughts became, until he was no longer able to think at all.

  It was bliss.

  Once the pair had had their fun with violence, he felt the familiar stab of fangs in his flesh, one at the neck, another at the wrist. As the two males fed from him, he closed his eyes and waited for death, for surely they would drain him and then end it once and for all.

  “Christ,” the tall one said, taking a breather. “He tastes pretty fucking good.”

  “Must be the human blood,” the shorter one replied.

  Both went back to their feeding.

  As the blood was drained from Greyvian’s body, an unexpected thing happened. Clarity of thought returned to his foggy brain. It seemed that along with the blood, the wild emotions that he had been feeling these past few hours also drained away, leaving him level-headed once again. He took a short moment to muse over the possible cause and had to put it down to the drugs that had been in his previous victim’s blood.

  Vowing to himself that he would never again drink from a tainted source, he smoothly slipped a dagger from the small of his back. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sliced a large gash across the taller attacker’s midsection, driving deep enough to separate the layers of muscle and reveal the male’s innards, but not deep enough to rupture the ropey length. Enough to incapacitate, but not enough to kill. As his attacker gasped and detached himself from Greyvian’s neck, his hands clutching at his belly in an attempt to keep his intestines inside his body, Greyvian drove his dagger into the fleshy shoulder of the other male who screamed and fell away, freeing Greyvian’s wrist.

  Feeling slightly light-headed and a little nauseous from the blood loss, Greyvian licked the wound at his wrist closed. As he applied saliva to his fingers and rubbed them over the wounds in his neck, his attackers stared up at him in confusion, unable to comprehend how an easy attack had turned out so wrong.

  “Forgive me for going back on my word,” he told them, his voice once again inflectionless without effort. “I was not myself when I made that offer.”

  They stared at him, uncomprehending.

  Flippantly, he added, “You two really should heal each other before you bleed out all over the pavement.”

  With that, he turned and headed down the alley, hoping to come across a suitable candidate to replenish his blood loss. He was in luck. Two blocks down, he found a pair of them. When he was through with them, he felt better than he had since the day had begun. Fully sated, level-headed, he felt as if he had awakened from a nightmare.

  Back outside the apartment, he was heartened to find that his attackers had cleared out. Hopefully they didn’t come to the conclusion that he was at the building for a purpose other than getting the shit beaten out of him by the first vampire that came by. With the wounds they’d sustained, he didn’t think they’d think about it too closely for a while, either way. By the time they figured that perhaps he had business in the area, he and Jacob would be long gone—not that he couldn’t deal with them if they decided to gain retribution for the deception. It would be more an inconvenience than anything. A disruption, if you will, to his normally peaceful existence. And he’d had quite enough of them lately to last a lifetime.

  Opening the door to the apartment, he waited for Sienna’s scent to knock him for six but caught only a faint trace of the mind-altering perfume. His thirst remained dormant. Distantly relieved, he headed across the living room, noting absently that both half-breeds had retired for the evening on the sofa bed Sienna had mentioned. Aiming for the bathroom, he walked right through an invisible cloud of that delicious aroma that had snapped him out of his cool right at the beginning. It still had the power to arouse his thirst, even fully sated, but at least his mind remained clear.

  He must be getting used to it.

  With little effort, he continued on through the heady stuff and closed the door to the bathroom. On first glance in the mirror, he felt a mild sense of relief that the half-breeds were asleep. Explaining the multitude of bruises and dried blood on his face and neck would have been tedious. Peering at his neck, he saw that there were two puncture marks that had not yet healed. He shook his head in mild disbelief. If someone had told him a week ago that he would willingly allow some fellow full-bloods to beat the living crap out of him and then drain him almost dry, he never would have believed them. Was it all just bad blood, or did Sienna’s scent have anything to do with it?

  His memory from before the tainted blood was slightly influenced with the emotional overtones from those few hours, but he couldn’t hide from the fact that he had reacted emotionally to her scent even before he had fed from the ill man. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget that he had been aroused by her, angered by his reaction, and then driven by some unknown desire to talk to her. So, no, it wasn’t just the bad blood that had him behaving strangely. He just hoped that he could keep a lid on it long enough to see his son’s transition through.

  If he could just keep it together that long he would then be free of her. He would never have to see, or smell, her again. It was an effort to ignore that newly awakened part of his brain that cried out at the thought.

  * * *

  Sienna’s dreams during the night had been filled with a certain black-eyed male doing fabulous things to her body, so it was no surprise that she woke up happy. Even if it had only been in dreamland, it was better than nothing. Better than the unfulfilled desire of reality. In her dreams, he had loved her with his body, brought her to a spectacular climax, and then followed her over the edge with one of his own.

  If only.

  Still buzzing from her release, she grabbed her clothes and then headed out to the bathroom for a quick shower. On the way, she poked her head into Jacob’s room to check on his progress. He was lying sideways on his bed, the covers tangled around his legs, his bare chest covered in sweat. Even as she watched, he rolled over, groaning loudly, and mumbled something incoherent. His skin was ashen and pasty; he looked like death. She hoped this transition came soon. Even though he slept, she had a feeling he suffered.

  Closing the door, but not latching it, she went into the bathroom and had a shower, all the while thinking about Greyvian; wondering if he was really as intense as she remembered, or if her memory had just pumped him up to be something larger than life.<
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  For as long as she lived, she would never forget that kiss in the hallway.

  Stepping out of the shower, she dried quickly and pulled on her underwear. A tingling sense of anticipation caused her to rush through her makeup application with a lightning fast foundation job, a little eyeliner, and a dash of mascara, followed by a few strokes of a hairbrush that transformed her hair into a glossy mass that would usually take ten minutes to achieve. She took it as a sign that today was going to be a good day and grinned at her reflection as she slipped into a flirty sundress, strategically chosen for its ability to show off her legs and boobs to their utmost potential.

  She knew she was being cruel, that she should take Knox’s words to heart and stay away from Greyvian to lessen his torment, but that dream just wouldn’t fade away and she found herself wanting Greyvian more than ever. The desire increased tenfold as she passed the spot in the hallway that was the site of last night’s passion.

  Entering the living room, she wasn’t surprised to find the curtains drawn and Knox and Lucas asleep on the fold-out. It had been two in the morning when she’d gone to bed after finally being able to draw herself away from the black-eyed gaze of the hottest male she’d ever had the fortune to meet. She’d been well aware that he’d been watching her all night, but had been too tired to feel anything but a mild excitement over the fact. Now that it was ten a.m. and she’d had some quality sleep, she felt capable of going a few more rounds with the vampire.

  Spying him now, sitting on the couch in the warm glow of a single lamp across from where Knox and Lucas slept, she was surprised to see that he wasn’t asleep and wondered if he had, in fact, slept at all. He didn’t look up as she quietly made her way over to him and sat down beside him, as close as she dared, given it had been many hours since she’d hit him with her full-strength scent.

  There was no reaction. He didn’t even glance in her direction.

  How disappointing.

  He seemed deep in thought as he stared without focus in Knox’s direction and she wondered idly if he was sleeping with his eyes open.

  “Did you sleep at all?” she asked, speaking quietly so as not to wake the sleeping vampires. Was it just her imagination, or were there a multitude of faint bruises all over Greyvian’s face? Perhaps it was just the dim lighting?

  Greyvian blinked once and then turned his head slowly to look at her. His eyes were a pale grey and distant. Oh no, he was back to being a cardboard cut-out.

  “A little,” he replied, his tone polite but largely without inflection. He didn’t even look at her cleavage like most guys did when she wore this particular dress. Not even a quick glance to show he’d noticed.

  “Do you normally sleep so little, or is it just because you’re in a strange place?”

  He said nothing, merely looked at her with his unnerving lack of expression.

  “Because if you’re anything like me, I find it really hard to sleep properly anywhere but my own bed. Too many strange smells and pillows at the wrong height, you know?” She was rambling. Shit. Uncool. But she couldn’t help it; this unperturbed Greyvian was harder to deal with than the lusty, anger-filled one. His silence made her feel the need to fill it with something, anything.

  “No. I don’t usually sleep for long,” he said, answering her original question and saying nothing of her ramblings.

  “Why not?”

  Again, he stared into her eyes for a long, silent moment, then looked away to stare into the distance. He was quiet so long she didn’t think he was going to answer her, but surprisingly he opened his mouth and words came out. It took a moment for what he said to compute as she got over the shock of it.

  “I spent over a century running from people who wanted to kill me. The habit of sleeping only an hour or two at a time is a hard one to break.”

  Holy shit. Insight into Greyvian. This was new.

  “Why did they want to kill you?” she asked, fascinated.

  “They believed me insane.”

  “Because you were drinking human blood when you should have been drinking that of your peers?”

  His eyes flicked to her momentarily and then swung over to Knox. “I see someone has been running his mouth again.”

  “Knox told me, yes,” she said, wanting to defend the blonde, “but only because I kept asking him why you seemed to be more affected by my scent than they were.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, but gave no indication of being angry at the male.

  “Did you feed some more while I slept?” she asked, unable to let his changed attitude go quietly. “You’re back to doing your Spock impersonation.”

  That got him turning his head towards her, his eyebrow lifting slightly in question.

  “Spock,” she said. “Star Trek. Television. A pointy-eared dude who’s always going on about logic, a guy who’s always suppressing his emotions like a good Vulcan should.”

  “Yes, I know of whom you speak,” Greyvian replied, surprising her.

  “You do? You’ve seen Star Trek?”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “I had occasion to see an episode once while awaiting another transition some years ago. It was… interesting.”

  “Huh.” Would wonders never cease? He didn’t really strike her as a watcher of television.

  “So, did you?” she prompted when he said nothing more on the subject. “Feed?”

  “I did.”

  Okay, good. This was good. He wasn’t thirsty any longer. But did that really explain the complete about-face?

  “Is that the only reason you’re back to being so impassive?” She couldn’t help but think those faint purplish marks on his face had something to do with it.

  Greyvian turned his pale-eyed gaze on her once more and she could practically hear the cogs turning in his brain as he tried to decide what to tell her. Finally, with an almost imperceptible nod, he spoke.

  “The man I fed on last night shortly after dinner was ill. His blood tasted odd and I can only guess that it was due to a cocktail of drugs in his system meant to fix his condition. My mind was affected. I was not myself.”

  Wow, that was the longest speech she’d heard him utter since meeting him. His voice was so hypnotic; it took her a moment to process what he’d said. He was not himself. Meaning that kiss they’d shared was only a product of his reaction to drugs? Or, was it more like the drugs released some of his inhibitions, loosened some of his iron-hard control? Thinking back to when she’d first met him, how cardboard cut-out he was, how seemingly numb, and then how that had all changed in an instant on picking up her scent, she had a feeling it was the latter.

  But it did seem as if he had gone from constantly hot and cold to consistently level-headed. Something must have happened to speed up his recovery. Studying his face, she had a feeling she knew what it was.

  “So, did the effects of the drugs just wear off?” she asked, looking him in the eye. “Or do those bruises on your face have something to do with it?”

  Because she was watching him so carefully, she noticed that the skin around his eyes tightened slightly but had no idea what he was thinking, or if he was feeling any kind of emotion, or just squinting in the dim light. Hopefully, it was an emotion of some kind—because at least then there was hope that the Greyvian she preferred was still in there somewhere.

  “In my affected state, I allowed some other vampires to take their aggression out on me. They drained my blood. It was then that I came back to myself.”

  Okay, not what she’d expected him to say.

  “You let some other vampires beat you up?”

  “Yes.”

  For some reason, that really didn’t sit well with her vision of him. To her, he was a strong male, self-assured, confident. Allowing someone to kick his ass was just wrong.

  “Why?” she asked, incredulous.

  “It seemed an easy way to end the torment.”

  Sienna frowned. From hot and cold to nothing. Spock. “You mean feeling emotions, don’t you?”

&nb
sp; “Are emotions not the reason for which many humans commit suicide?” he asked pragmatically.

  Okay, he had her there. “Wait, you wanted them to kill you?”

  He nodded, his expression giving nothing away. “Yes.”

  “Would they have?”

  “Most certainly.”

  She blinked a few times. The guy had issues, that much was clear. He repressed his emotions to an unnatural degree and then wanted to die when they broke free of their confinement? Sheesh. But she wasn’t willing to give up on him just yet. The attraction she felt for him was still too powerful to walk away.

  “So, what happened? I mean, you’re obviously not dead. How did you get away?”

  Expression completely neutral, voice inflectionless, he replied, “After regaining clarity of mind, I was able to extract myself from their ministrations.”

  She looked at him carefully for a long moment, taking in his muscular body, and remembered the easy way in which he moved—balanced, fluid. The male was a natural born predator—regardless of the fact that he was a vampire. Of course he had been able to ‘extract himself from their ministrations’ as he worded it. She wondered just how drained he had been at the time and how hard it had been for him. Since he was sitting here next to her, she guessed it didn’t really matter.

  “So, now you’re back to being impassive?”

  “Yes.”

  Part of her couldn’t believe that he was telling her all of this, the other part was wondering why. Knox had said Greyvian wasn’t the type to talk much and from what she’d seen so far, the blonde wasn’t wrong. So, why now? Why was he telling her that he had felt emotions but that they were just the result of some bad blood and now they were gone? Did he really expect her to believe him? Did he really expect that she had forgotten the way he had reacted when she’d first walked into the apartment and he’d gotten a whiff of her? He hadn’t been under the influence then.

  Folding one leg up in front of herself, she made sure her skirt was decently arranged, then rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand so that she could study his expressionless face in as obvious a manner as possible—while at the same time, perhaps showing a little leg. He accepted her regard easily, holding her eyes the entire time. It was still unnerving, and her heart began to race a mile a minute as she contemplated pulling him up on his attempt at deception, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated right now.