Cursed

by Rebecca Trynes

  “You know you can’t fool me, don’t you?” she asked, deciding to tackle the issue head on.

  He said nothing and she felt a blush creep up her cheeks. She wasn’t usually so confrontational with people, preferring easy conversation to anything serious, but she didn’t have long with Greyvian, seeing as he’d probably disappear as soon as Jacob’s transition was over, so she had to work fast.

  “Don’t think I forget the way you reacted to me before you’d had that bad blood. You were ready and roaring to go way before you got some drugs in your system. I think they just served to loosen up some of your iron control.”

  “Do you?” There was a dangerous edge to his voice that told her she was right and it was further proved when a muscle in his jaw ticked as he heard it too.

  “You know, you don’t need to hold on so tightly. Feeling emotion isn’t a bad thing. Even when they’re not the good ones. It’s better to face them, work through them, and then let them go. It’s not good to repress these things. Let go a bit. Live a little.”

  She could hardly believe she was saying these things to him, especially considering what Knox had told her about Greyvian’s upbringing; about what he, himself, had told her about being pursued for over a century by people who wanted him dead. Still, life was what you made it. You had to see the lighter side of life just to ease the suffering of living.

  “You’d prefer that I was one moment away from killing you?” His voice was soft, but there was a note of the deadly serious about it.

  “Would you really?”

  He didn’t hesitate in his reply. “Yes.”

  Sienna froze. “Why?”

  “The truth, or something to make you feel better?”

  Running her fingers through her hair, she mulled over the question, at the same time trying to slow her racing heart. This wasn’t a conversation you had every day.

  “The truth, please,” she replied when she thought her voice wouldn’t come out as a croak.

  “Alright,” he said, pale eyes unreadable. “When I feed I become a mindless beast. Nothing exists for me but the taste of the blood. Nothing but the death of my donor will snap me out of it.”

  To her surprise, and she thought maybe to his, she smiled and said, “That sounds more like something to make me feel better.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, being unable to control yourself is better than the alternative.”

  He cocked his head to the side and waited for her to explain herself.

  “Wanting me dead because you relish the kill.”

  “Who says I don’t?” he challenged, giving her pause.

  “You did,” she replied, remembering his words. “When you said that nothing but the death of the donor snaps you out of it. You could have said that nothing but the death of the donor satisfies you. That would have pointed to enjoying it. But you didn’t. You said that it snaps you out of it. Two very different things.”

  He shook his head as if disagreeing with her and said, “You put too much stock in words, Sienna.”

  She hugged her leg tight to her chest and felt a little chill run down her spine. “Are you saying you do enjoy it, then?”

  His pale eyes darkened slightly. “I’ve killed thousands of humans, Sienna. Don’t you think I’d be a raving lunatic by now if I didn’t enjoy it at all?”

  Thousands. She swallowed hard, not ready for that kind of honesty on the subject just yet. She supposed it was her fault for asking. Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe him a monster.

  “You’re not a monster,” she said aloud, more for her benefit than his she suspected.

  He smirked at her. “Just because you’re attracted to me doesn’t change the fact that I kill people on a regular basis, Sienna.”

  Why did he keep saying her name? The sound of it on his lips was such a distraction.

  “But you could have killed me a hundred times over already,” she rationalised, unwilling to believe that it was just her attraction to him that made her think he didn’t kill for pleasure. “I practically begged you to last night and instead you got up and left the room.”

  He raised one of his perfect blue-black eyebrows at her. “Maybe I like to play with my food first.”

  A buzz of excitement flashed through her at his words. Her breath caught in her throat. Oh, the ways in which she would like those words to be true.

  Trying to keep her mind on track, she focused her thoughts with difficulty, pressing her mouth to her knee until she could feel her teeth on her lips.

  Finally, she pulled back and shook her head. “Nope, I don’t think that’s it.”

  He seemed ready for her reply, responding immediately. “You don’t think so, or you hope not because of your attraction to me?”

  She shook her head again. “I just don’t get the cold-blooded killer vibe from you. Yes, you come off as impassive, but that’s just your defence against the world.”

  He seemed ready for that one too. “You’ve known a few cold-blooded killers in your time then?”

  He had her there. “Well, no, but I think I’d recognise evil if I saw it.”

  He smiled slightly at that, and it even seemed to reach his eyes before he looked away from her for the first time since their intense little conversation had begun.

  “What? Why is that funny?”

  He shook his head once and the impassive mask slipped back over his expression. No matter how many times she prodded him for an answer, it seemed that the conversation was over.

  7

  Jacob cracked one eye open with an effort that would have been funny if he didn’t feel like utter crap. Unfortunately, the effort was a waste because he couldn’t really see anything and the dim lighting hurt his eyeball as if someone had taken an ice-pick to it. Closing it again he felt around blindly for the sunglasses he knew were around somewhere on his side table, appalled by how hard it was just to move his arm ten centimetres.

  Becoming a vampire was exhausting work and he hadn’t even entered the harder stages yet. He didn’t want to think about it very much at the moment. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the agonizing torture Lucas had explained it would be, so the whole idea of it was best left untouched.

  Knowing he should stay in bed and sleep it off but unable to lay down one minute longer, he finally found his sunglasses and slipped them on. Opening his eyes experimentally, he found that he could handle the near darkness a lot better now.

  Sliding off the bed, he managed to push himself upright into a standing position. He weaved horribly in place for a long minute and then finally pulled himself together enough to stand straight and relatively still.

  He felt stale and disgusting. His hair was damp with sweat, his bare chest felt sticky and horrible and he was pretty sure that his boxers were soaked through. He really needed a shower.

  Turning around, he nearly blacked out and had to bend over and rest his hands on his knees while he waited for his head to stop spinning and his vision to come back from white. He really hoped this pre-transition thing didn’t take much longer. He wanted this over with already.

  Straightening slowly, he made sure his head wasn’t going to do that again before slowly heading for the bathroom. Each step was a monumental effort and he had to retell himself why he was moving in the first place with each lift of his leg. Eventually he made it to the bathroom and into the shower.

  The first blast of water over his body was well worth the effort of getting there. The longer he stood under the refreshing flow, the better he felt and the easier he could move. Tilting his head back, he let the water wash over his head and only then became aware that he was still wearing his sunglasses. And his boxers. Shaking his head, he dropped the shorts and tossed the sunnies out onto the bathroom floor where he wouldn’t step on them.

  Washing his hair was a snap, his arms feeling only a little weak—but that was to be expected, surely. He hadn’t eaten anything in close to fifteen hours or drunk anything to replenish the am
ount of fluid he’d sweated out of his pores, so it was really no wonder he felt like a train wreck.

  A few minutes later, he stepped out of the shower with regret, dried, dressed and then had a nasty thought: Sienna was alone in the living room with three vampires—had been for the past however long he’d been passed out.

  Was she still alive? The thought had him moving towards the living room faster than he really should have given the weakness in his limbs, but he had to know.

  He needn’t have worried. Leaning against the doorframe, recovering his balance, he spotted her sitting on the couch a short distance from Greyvian. She looked perfectly healthy, if a little annoyed.

  His father was the first one to notice him.

  His father. Would he ever get used to that?

  “You look surprisingly alert for someone within inches of transition.” It was Knox who spoke, having noticed the direction of Greyvian’s gaze.

  He shrugged in reply and tried not to stagger as he entered the room. Sagging down onto the couch between Greyvian and Sienna, he didn’t care one bit that it was a tight squeeze. For some reason, he really didn’t want the two of them that close to each other. It might have had something to do with the memory of his father pressing her up against the wall, but who was to say for sure.

  Sienna moved over a bit to give him some more room, seeming not to mind the intrusion of his body between her and the vampire. Greyvian’s expression didn’t change in the slightest, so he had no idea what the male thought of it.

  Damn, he’d forgotten that his father was the Poker Faced King.

  “How are you feeling?” Sienna asked, looking him over closely.

  “Crap,” he replied, bluntly. “But I can’t lay in bed any longer.”

  “I’m really surprised that the transition hasn’t hit yet,” Knox said, shaking his head in wonderment. “You smell like a coffee house. Almost strong enough to overpower Sienna’s scent, which—I have to say—is something I’m in favour of at this point in time.”

  Sienna made a face at the blonde which he grinned at in return. Well weren’t they chummy now. He wondered how much he’d missed since he’d been unconscious.

  Sienna didn’t say anything about the questioning look he gave her, focusing instead on the more than likely pasty complexion of his skin. “I hate to tell you this,” she said, meeting his eyes with concern, “but you really don’t look good.”

  He grimaced at her. “Like I said: I feel like crap, so that’s not surprising.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, wincing as his jaw cracked on a mega yawn.

  “Water, thanks.”

  She nodded and sprang up off the couch, flitting—with disgustingly little effort—across the room to the kitchen. She looked like a hummingbird while he felt like an elephant. No scratch that, a woolly mammoth.

  “You want anything to eat?” she asked while looking in the fridge.

  “What have we got?”

  She hummed a dubious sound which was all the answer he needed.

  “We’ll go downstairs,” he told her, pushing wearily to his feet. “A bit of exercise will do me good anyway.”

  “Hold on, are you nuts?” Knox said, getting to his feet and standing in his path. “You’re about to transition. There is no way you are leaving this apartment.”

  Jacob was too tired to argue. He simply stared at the vampire with a get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way expression on his face.

  “No way,” Knox replied in answer, shaking his head.

  Sienna came to the vampire’s rescue before Jacob got nasty.

  “It’s just downstairs, Knox,” she said, handing Jacob a bottle of water as she appeared at his side. “Come with us, if you’re that worried. You can shove him in the elevator if he starts to transition. He’ll be back here in two seconds.”

  The blonde thought it over, looking back at Jacob and the stubborn set to his jaw before finally rolling his eyes and looking at Greyvian. “You coming?”

  Greyvian’s eyes lingered on Sienna for a long moment before he shifted them to Knox and shook his head.

  Good, Jacob thought. I don’t want you near her anyway. He didn’t trust his father around Sienna. Not after what he’d walked in on yesterday afternoon. The male might look all calm and unaffected now, but Jacob knew it was just a front. A Poker Face wasn’t a Poker Face because you felt nothing; it was a Poker Face because you were good at controlling your expression and hiding what you were really thinking.

  The sooner this transition was over with and Greyvian was away from her, the better.

  Knox threw up his hands in defeat. “Fine. But, don’t come crying to me if the elevator breaks and you get stuck up here, leaving Jacob to transition alone.”

  Sienna laughed at the male’s dramatization as the three of them headed for the door, Lucas following behind him. “Knox, there are stairs, you know. Even if the elevator broke, Grey could still make it down in time. All it would take is a phone call.”

  The blonde shook his head. “I don’t like it. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it.”

  Jacob listened to them banter all the way into the elevator and the entire ride down, thinking that the two of them really did seem very chummy. If Sienna was going to have a fling with a vampire, Knox was definitely a better option than Greyvian. Maybe he should have a chat with her and try and point her attentions towards the blonde?

  The café and bakery matched the rest of the apartment building to a tee. It was modern, clean and airy, with a trendy paint job and a yuppie clientele, but the pricing was decent and the food the best in the area, so it suited him fine. Their mochas weren’t as good as Joe’s, where he’d met Knox and Lucas, but it would do given their constraints. Plus, their breakfast muffins were awesome.

  Entering into the busy establishment, they stepped into line behind some smartly dressed metros who were talking about the stock market. Blugh, could you be more boring? Jacob looked down at Sienna and made a face, but she seemed to be deep in thought and didn’t notice.

  “What did I miss?” he asked, keeping his voice low so Knox didn’t butt in on the conversation.

  She looked up at him and blushed slightly. This ought to be good, he thought, crossing his arms in front of his chest and raising an eyebrow at her.

  She smiled at him and said, “You know, Greyvian does that a lot too.”

  “Does what?” he asked, uncrossing his arms with a frown.

  “Raises his eyebrow in silent question,” she replied, stepping forward in the line when it moved.

  “Does he now? Fascinating. Now, what did I miss? Why are you blushing?”

  She smiled impishly and hugged herself, but then the smile faded and her vibrant blue eyes darkened slightly as she looked up and met his eyes. “He kills people, Jacob.”

  “What? Who? Greyvian?”

  She nodded slowly, her gaze drifting away from him as her thoughts turned inwards. “He says he can’t control it. I assume it’s either that or starve.”

  Jacob felt a cold shiver travel down his spine. It really didn’t surprise him, considering how easily the male seemed to go from killer to trained puppy within a heartbeat, but hearing it out loud was disturbing to say the least.

  And then he had an even more disturbing thought.

  If Greyvian really couldn’t control it, did that mean that Jacob was likely to kill when he fed? Was it genetic?

  No way. He was not killing anyone. Not in this lifetime. His father might be a murderer, but there was no way Jacob was killing to survive.

  An inner voice mocked his altruistic ideals, planting a seed of malcontent. You say that now, but will you be so idealistic when you’re starving? He really had no idea. He’d never starved himself a day in his life—could barely take it when he missed lunch. The real question was: did he have enough self-control to keep it from happening?

  Turning his head to Knox, he opened his mouth to ask if blood banks were an option when a familiar pressure press
ed against his frontal lobe, adding to the already faint presence of Knox and Lucas’s Awareness tampering. Glancing at the doorway, he saw an attractive female looking around as if searching for somebody. Nobody was looking at her and they all seemed to melt out of her path as if she had a force field around herself that pushed them away.

  He turned his head to the front at Knox’s bidding. Another vampire. Great. He hoped this one didn’t try and bite his head off too.

  Looking at Sienna, to see if she’d seen the female, he saw that his best friend had her eyes to the front but her head turned slightly so that her ear was pointed in the vampires’ direction. A quick flick of her eyes in his direction confirmed that she had and was being cautious.

  “Knox?” The new vampire’s voice was husky, her tone wry. “Fancy seeing you and Lucas together. Don’t you two ever go anywhere by yourselves?”

  Glancing back, he caught a warning look from Lucas and quickly turned his eyes to the front. Whoever she was, it was obvious they didn’t want Jacob to be caught out being Aware.

  “Sure we do,” Knox replied in good humour. “The bathroom springs to mind.”

  The female laughed, the sound musical and lingering. “And thank Heaven for that,” she said. “How are you? It’s been a while since we crossed paths.”

  “Good, good,” Knox replied, sounding completely at ease. “You?”

  “Can’t complain. Lucas? Quiet as ever?”

  “Katarina,” Lucas replied by way of greeting.

  “What brings you two to this part of the city? Don’t you usually haunt the lower east side?”

  “Nah, we’re all over the place,” Knox replied nonchalantly. “We go where the food’s good.”

  “That’d be right. Men. They always think with their stomachs.” She drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Although, I must admit it smells utterly divine in here.”