by Tracy Tappan
He turned his face away from her, staring through the glass door outside to the street paved in cave rock. “You’re twenty-five?” He looked at her again, his eyes dispassionate. “Well, I’m fifty-three.”
She jerked back a step. How old?
“In the Vârcolac lifecycle, men and women come of age at twenty-one, at which time we sprout a set of fangs, develop our blood-need, and acquire a deep visceral urge to bond with a mate to fulfill that need. But Mother Nature, as you know, handed our species a shit sandwich in that regard and deprived us of anybody to bond with. So for thirty-seven years, I’ve been surviving off putrid-tasting donor blood. For thirty-seven long years, I’ve had all the sex drive of any young man, but haven’t been able to do anything about it because I’m stuck with a nonfunctioning slab between my legs. That’s right, I can’t even whack off to get some relief. For thirty-seven fucking years. So you’ll excuse the hell out of me if I can’t be your understanding pal about this, Marissa. I’ve got my own resentments I’m dealing with here.”
She swallowed hard, moisture building in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “If I could work topside and live here with you, too, I’d do that. But the Council won’t allow that.”
“Yeah, no need for further explanations. We’re back where we started, aren’t we? You’re enough for me, but I’m not enough for you. End of story.” He turned and headed for the door.
Angry tears rolled down her face. Running out from behind her tall counter, she met Dev at the door and grabbed his wrist, jerking his hand off the knob. “You know what, screw you and your guilt trips, Devid! Every day I look around me and see people getting a turn in life. But not me. Now you want your turn, and I’m just supposed to do what I always do and sacrifice my own dreams for someone else’s. It’s not fair, dammit! When is it my turn?” She pounded a fist against the center of her sternum. “Mine?!”
He breathed heavily through his nostrils for a couple of seconds. “So take your fucking turn, Marissa. Show the world how great you are, if that’s the only way you can prove to yourself that you really are great. Just don’t expect me to blow sunshine up your ass about it.” He hauled open the door and stalked out.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Dev curtly waved off the serving woman when she tried to offer him champagne.
Enjoying a glass of bubbly with the pre-dinner amuse-gueules—his mother’s word, not his—was one of Pettrila’s Sunday dinner customs that he hated, especially in his current dark mood: his always-mood these days, after another week gone by of evading Marissa. Champagne was for celebrations, and there wasn’t anything in his life worth celebrating.
Pettrila gestured Eisenbel back to him. “You drink wine, Devid. Champagne is made from grapes, as well.”
The serving woman returned to Dev on scurrying feet. He was tempted to send her scampering right back where she came from with a flash of his teeth, but the poor woman was only doing her job. Jaw tight, he snatched a flute off the tray.
Eisenbel crossed the room to offer a glass to Luvera, who was seated on a hand-embroidered divan that looked about as comfortable as sitting on a giant-sized page of Braille. But who cared about comfort when la-de-da impressions had to be made.
His sister caught his eye with a wan smile as she accepted the champagne, looking about as celebratory as he felt.
“It certainly is a surprising pleasure to have you join us this evening, son.”
He tightened his jaw another degree. What was it about mothers that made them able to convey the concept of you’re-about-to-catch-max-shit with just a tone? Or maybe it was only his mother.
“You haven’t been to Sunday dinner in quite some time.”
No shit? He plunked his unwanted glass on the coffee table. Why is that, I wonder? But, hell, at least Criticism Number One had been deployed: you’re an unfeeling wretch of a son. So far no surprises. “I’ve been busy.”
“Consorting with that human.”
“She has a name, Mother.” He shifted positions on the couch. Eight Heads In A Duffle Bag, that Joe Pesci movie, that’s what it felt like he was sitting on with this couch and its mountainous cushions. “It’s Marissa.”
“Pah. I’m not at all surprised she tossed you aside like an old purse. You’ve never excelled in matters of love, Devid, and this was just another of your mistakes, like giving up Shaston Dodrescu.”
His ears burned. Criticism Number Two, a blast from both barrels: your skills with women suck the root. “Well, thanks so much for boiling down one of the most painful experiences of my life into that little nugget of wisdom.”
Pettrila lifted her fluted champagne glass, her pinkie held at a snooty angle, and took a sip. “Don’t be bourgeois.”
Locking a retort behind the barrier of his teeth, he snatched his champagne glass off the coffee table in a tight fist, and—even though he hated to give his mother the satisfaction—downed it in three hard gulps. He clunked his glass back down. “If you’d recall, giving up Shaston was sort of a required-by-law thing.”
“An idiotic decision,” Pettrila adjudicated, sweeping a hand out as she added, “and now this town’s overrun with humans.”
He snorted. Fourteen total Dragon humans lived in the community: the residential six females, plus Alex Parthen, plus seven newbies who were still hanging tight two weeks after the V-bomb had been dropped. That hardly equaled overrun.
“I want you to date Shaston again,” his mother proclaimed. “It’s long past time that you found a suitable mate.”
The blatant implication being, of course, that Marissa had been unsuitable. Criticism Number Three aimed at the woman he loved; again no surprises, but a dangerous push toward the limit of his temper. “I see,” he drawled, his voice edging toward nasty. “You’d like me to give you dead grandchildren, is that it?”
“Don’t be an ignorant fool.” Pettrila’s voice whipped at him. “That genetic problem only occurs with the lower-grade Vârcolac.”
Out of the corner of his vision, he caught Luvera rolling her eyes.
“Vârcolac like you and Shaston,” his mother continued, “who have the purest of all bloodlines, wouldn’t suffer that problem. Purity must be preserved, Devid. All of this mixing with Dragons and now humans is ruining the race.”
Dev leaned against the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. His mother needed to have her head examined. Just the opposite was true. Centuries ago, the Vârcolac breed would’ve died out the first time around had they not intermarried with the Dragon race. Now today their survival depended just as vitally on the introduction of fresh human genes. “Dragon humans are our salvation, Mother, and you treat them like lepers.”
“A human killed your father.”
Dev straightened and gave his mother a look of strained patience. “Dad was hit by a car.”
“It’s a blood-debt, all the same.” Pettrila gave him a disapproving look down the length of her patrician nose. “And I’d think that you, as the last living Nichita male, would be more sensitive to that.”
He rasped a hand over his goatee and sighed loudly, not even trying to hide his exasperation. Criticism Number Four, addendum to Number One: you’re an unfeeling wretch of a son who cares nothing for your father’s memory. “Nothing vindictive was done to Dad, Mother. It was a topside accident.”
The doorbell rang.
“That would be Shaston,” his mother announced.
Dev snapped his eyes back to her. “What?”
“I invited Shaston to dinner tonight.”
He thrust to his feet. “Then I’m leaving.” The flame between him and his Vârcolac ex-girlfriend had been extinguished long ago, but that didn’t mean he was up for making nice with her over one of Pettrila’s interminable seven-course dinners. And with his mother trying to matchmake, too? No, thanks. He’d rather go to the gym and work out with a porcupine breeding in his jockstrap.
Pettrila’s cheeks pinched. “I won’t have you embarrass this family by walking out
on a dinner guest, Devid.”
“Then I guess you should’ve thought of that before you invited Shaston over without asking me first.” He moved out from behind the coffee table. “Shaston and I would have stillborn children, Mother, just like every Vârcolac couple in this community has been doing on and off for the past thirty years. You can’t rewrite history just to suit your prejudices.”
The bell rang again.
He glanced at the door. “But more to the point, I don’t love Shaston.” If he’d ever thought he had, that notion had been wiped clean by the feelings he’d discovered with Marissa. “Get that through your head and quit meddling in my life.”
“What will you do, then, boy? Crawl back to that human on your hands and knees?” Seated like a queen on her throne, his mother took another sip of her drink, then compressed her lips, as if she’d just discovered the champagne was really pig semen. Or, worse, domestic. “Even if you think nothing of your self-respect, I care for this family’s reputation.” Pettrila set down her flute precisely and came to her feet. “I’ll never allow you to bond with a human, Devid. Do you understand me?”
An incredulous gust of air rushed out of him. Where the hell did his mother get off? “Last I checked, Mother Dearest, you didn’t exactly have a say in the matter.”
Pettrila’s amber gaze hardened to the gemstones they resembled.
The doorbell rang a third time.
Luvera rose uncertainly from the divan. “Maybe I should answer it.”
“Sit. Down,” his mother commanded imperiously.
Luvera dropped like a puppet who’d had its strings cut.
But Pettrila hadn’t been talking to her daughter. The steel in her eyes was leveled on Dev.
He narrowed his eyes. Unbelievable. “I’m a full-grown man,” he said in an excessively exact tone. “Your days of ordering me around are long gone.”
Pettrila arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him, her expression chilly. “I’d dare to say that those days never existed in your mind, Devid. Grigore”—she sneered his father’s name—“always let you run wild, never supporting my attempts to discipline you. Now look what’s become of it.” She inspected him in a contemptuous trip from shoes to hair. “When was the last time you paid this family any attention or taken the least bit of responsibility as the man of this household?”
Yeah, yeah, second verse same as the first: Criticism Number Umpteen-Fucking-Million.
“That human was entirely correct to have rid herself of you. What woman wants to spend the rest of her life with a man who only thinks of himself?”
A growl stirred in his chest. “You leave Marissa out of this.”
“You’re a selfish, ill-mannered, arrogant man, Devid Nichita.” Pettrila lifted one nostril aristocratically, as if she’d just caught the stench of a peasant. “And you received exactly what you deserved from that woman.”
“Jesus,” he squeezed between teeth. “You know, basking in the glow of your motherly love is about the same as watching your jaw unhinge.”
Pettrila strode for the front door. “If you’re too weak to bear the truth, boy, don’t blame me for your lack of character. That triumph rests solely on your father’s shoulders.” Pettrila opened the door. “Shaston, my dear child, I’m sorry we won’t be able to dine together tonight, after all. Devid has been called away.” She stood back from the entryway, clearing a path for Dev’s departure. Her eyes were the coldest he’d ever seen them. “Unfortunately, he won’t be able to make Sunday dinner again for quite some time.”
Dev blanked his face. So, his mother was uninviting him from her life, was she? A burst of black temper blew through him, jerking his hands at his sides. Fuck if she was. He stormed out of the door. I quit!
Chapter Twenty-nine
Luvera picked up the empty beer mug, placed it in the sink behind the bar, and wiped up the wet ring with her dish towel. Surreptitiously, she glanced down the length of the bar at her brother while she worked.
Slouched on the edge of his stool, Dev was drumming his fingers on top of the bar, not in a musical way, but more in agitation. He got up, stood for a moment, then sat back down. Funky. Not that Dev had been acting anything close to his normal self since his breakup with Marissa, but generally he was more prone to be a stick of dynamite rather than this strange husband-in-a-maternity-waiting-room guy.
She strolled down to him. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked.
“Uh…” He glanced vaguely at her. “No, thanks.”
“Something to eat? Some wings or potato skins, maybe?”
Dev shook his head.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Fuck no.”
Luvera sighed. She’d figured. Dev tended to be Teflon Man when it came to insults, the time he spent around trash-talking warriors probably having desensitized him, but one of the things that made their mother’s tongue so effectively venomous was that Pettrila tended to speak the truth. So, yes, even though her brother was a great guy in many respects, fun-loving, kind, and loyal, he could also be as arrogant and self-centered as Pettrila had accused him of being. He was probably wallowing a bit in that. “So that stuff Mother said a couple of nights ago is bothering you, huh?”
“What?” Dev glanced up, then scowled at her. “Why would I give two shits about what that woman thinks of me?”
Okaaaay, so, not wallowing.
Dev picked up an orange slice from the bar tray, ripped the juicy meat off the rind, and popped it in his mouth. “I just feel like flopping out in my room right now is all.”
She frowned. “So why don’t you?”
Dev surprised her by groaning. “Gábor’s bonding with Chelsea in his bedroom and whenever that woman has a…an orgasm, she goes off like a damned howler monkey.” Dev dropped his forehead into his hand, and groaned again. “Gábor evidently likes the noise because he’s making her do it over and over.”
“Good grief, are you serious?” She glanced around the bar. Gosh, yes, all the warriors were here, most of them with funny looks on their faces, like their underwear was pinching off their circulation. “Well…look on the bright side. It’s good advertisement to the other Dragon women about…uh.” She broke off as Shọn Brun pushed into the bar. “You know… How great you guys are at…”
Lowering her head, she vigorously scrubbed at a nonexistent spot on the bar, then she stopped and shut her eyes. My, how calm, cool, and collected she was being. She should be a secret agent or something. Exhaling, she went back to cleaning, but more slowly. Why was she acting like such a noodge, anyway? Nothing had happened between her and Shọn that night two weeks ago, certainly not due to any vaunted discipline on Luvera’s part. Although to her credit, she hadn’t sought out Shọn again, and he, thankfully, hadn’t come to her, either.
But…every day it was becoming more of a chore not to go to him. Why exactly that was the case, she couldn’t figure out entirely. Her brain, after all, was warning her over and over that a Blood Ride would break the community’s no-fraternization law; it was illegal, and wrong and dangerous, with possible devastating consequences. It just seemed that…no matter how much her logical mind worked at convincing her of all the damaging aspects, there was no getting around how good it’d felt—extremely good—to have a man touch her. And who, other than Shọn, would ever do the honors? Certainly not Alex, who every weekend went out with another unmated woman.
From the corner of her vision, she saw Shọn walk over to a table where his brother, Nỵko, was hanging out with Thomal and Kasson. He sprawled into a chair in that loose-jointed way of his, his knees spread wide, and against her will, a shimmering warmth coursed through her belly. She stared down at the bar mat, the dish towel hanging limply in her hands. Maybe she was a deranged pervert. She swiped the back of her wrist over her forehead. Why did she always have to feel so backward and wrong in her life, like she was wearing her skin inside-out? Swallowing hard, she looked at her brother. “Can I ask you something?” she said quietly.
Dev grabbed a cherry and ripped off the stem. “What?”
“If you could’ve been with Marissa for one night, would you have done it?”
He frowned. “What do you mean, one night?”
She twisted and untwisted the dish towel around her hands. “Well, uh, because Marissa didn’t want to commit to you forever, if you could’ve had, let’s say, just one incredible night with her without bonding to her, would you have?”
“That’s not possible,” he groused, a sullen slant to his mouth.
“I know,” she exasperated. “We’re talking hypotheticals here.”
“Jesus.” He missiled the cherry into the trash behind the bar. “You’re asking me to imagine making love to Marissa and then just cutting her loose? No, I couldn’t even begin to do that, Luvera.” He gave her a probing stare. “Could you do that with someone you loved?”
She drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “What about with someone you didn’t love?”
Her brother looked at her as if she’d just informed him she was going to have sex reassignment surgery tomorrow. Heck, maybe she should; something out there had to fix her.
“Are you saying you’d do it?” Dev demanded.
She dropped her eyes and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know.” Quieter. “Maybe, yes.”
“That’s sick.”
She whipped her head back up and glared at him, her cheeks burning. “You know what, Dev,” she strangled out on an infuriated breath, “shut up. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean that I don’t have needs, and…and…I’m not just some good little girl all of the time.” Well, she was, but what had that ever earned her? A career? A mate? Even a speck of self-respect? She exhaled jerkily. “It’s not natural for Vârcolac to wait this long for a mate, and… For heaven’s sake, I’d think you of all people would be able to understand this.” She slapped her dish towel down on the bar. “But instead of understanding, all I get from you is a bunch of righteous judgments. Thanks for nothing.” A rush of tears blinded her. “Why can’t you ever just be my brother?”