Wicked Love

by Michelle Dare

  I ate, I think.

  Maybe, had a shower?

  It felt like I slept a lot and not the restful kind of sleep that abates with a good yoga class. No, this feeling lingered and I didn’t like it.

  “Well, how did it go?” Nina wasn’t giving up on this conversation. This was the last thing I wanted to discuss. We had a two week break between classes and if she kept calling me like this, I wasn’t going to enjoy any of them holed up in our apartment alone.

  I groaned and rubbed a hand over my face. “How did what go?”

  She huffed.

  “Operation Ditch Virginity.”

  Oh. That. What we also referred to as ODV. Something that didn’t bother me as much as it bothered Nina. Of course she’d also been having sex since high school and felt like I was missing out on life because I didn’t have a guy between my thighs like every twenty-one-year-old out there.

  I blew out a breath feeling that weariness resume. And hunger. I had a sudden craving for food like I hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe one of those dirty water hotdogs from the vendor on the corner. My mouth was parched. I wanted salt and cheesy comfort food. I’d order a pizza once I got off the phone with Nina because you never really knew what was in that hotdog water.

  “Hello, Jane?” She snapped my attention from thoughts of food.

  Another vivid blur, this one in black with splotches of red assailed me. At this rate, I would be a good candidate for the Rorschach tests.

  “You know, I think I’m okay with how things are.”

  “So what did you do last night? Did you go to that party I told you about?”

  I did and it wasn’t fun. I didn’t plan on doing anything like that for a while. I spent my night alone sipping cheap beer inside a million-dollar brownstone near the park until I got bored, but I couldn’t really tell her that. I didn’t want Nina to come back from Florida thinking I was her next project.

  “I did go to that party. It was lame and I left before midnight. Spent the New Year in a cab with a guy named John.”

  Come to think of it, I got home well after sunrise which didn’t make a lot of sense. My head hurt trying to reason that out, and I wondered if the beer I drank had a higher alcohol content then I realized.

  “Oh, Jane. My plain Jane.” Her tone was filled with pity, but I didn’t care. I realized that college was supposed to be fun and the time of my life, which it was, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t want more from my relationships. In high school, college guys seemed so cool and now that I was here, they seemed lame, immature, and only interested in getting into my pants. I didn’t think I wanted that, and besides what was the rush anyway?

  “I’m content to wait for a guy who is worthy of me.” I shrugged again, my default response knowing she couldn’t see me over the phone. I bet she was rolling her eyes.

  Nina snorted, but hey, the joke was on her. I wouldn’t have to worry about some stranger’s sexual history or crazy ex-girlfriend. Guys took forever to mature, practically centuries these days, and I didn’t have the patience for a broken heart when my academic career was dependent on my GPA and scholarship.

  “Oh my god, you’ll either wait until marriage or never get laid.” I imagined her flopping on her hotel bed in a dramatic heap of disappointment.

  Sighing, I said, “I’m not sure how my virginity became a group project.”

  “It’s not per say, but this is college.”

  “Right, something I’d like to finish without an eighteen-year commitment to another human being I’m not ready to raise.” I reiterated my plans to deaf ears. Nina would come home with her sun-kissed tan, ruby lips, and totally make me a project.

  “Um there’s something called a condom.” She snorted.

  “Sure, but even that’s not one hundred percent.” I rubbed the spot above my heart feeling it pull and throb. I needed to get out of this conversation, but she was relentless.

  “What about that guy in our Literature seminar?”

  I picked at fuzz on my pajama clad knee. Oh, I knew who she meant, but I played dumb.

  “Which one? The hall is filled with a hundred students.”

  “The Greek god looking one. What’s his name?”

  I mumbled, “Dorian Knight?”

  “He’s always staring at you.”

  That might have been true. A few times I caught his cocky grin eying me like a piece meat about to be devoured. It wasn’t the warm and fuzzy kind of feeling either. It was the sort of feeling that lodged in your belly and weighed heavy with unease like you were going to be sick.

  “Okay Nina, him and his crew of beautiful people would laugh their asses off if I got within ten feet of him. He practically has a security crew of groupies.”

  Weird groupies. An exotic looking bunch that dressed in designer clothes and didn’t take college seriously at all. Like, why were they even there? I figured they could have found better, more entertaining ways to spend their parent’s money, like on a Mediterranean yacht for instance, or hopping between chalets and Swiss ski resorts.

  “Whatever. I think he broke up with his girlfriend, you know that goth looking bitch who spilled coffee on us our freshman year. You should totally ask him out.”

  Dorian Knight was a legend in our school. It was rumored he and his brother lived in a mansion by the park, and owned a Greek bank that laundered money for the mafia. Whatever his supposed connections were or weren’t, I wasn’t interested in a guy who used money and power to get what he wanted. Oh, and that little matter of his scary ex-girlfriend. It was rumored that she was an artist who bathed in the blood of first year art students to fuel her creativity. They were probably virgins too. No thanks. I’d pass on the school urban legends.

  “I should not ask him out. What I should do is work my paper for this coming semester.” I’d recently changed my major from literature to art history and had more classes this semester to make up for in the hopes of catching up.

  “Loser.” She drawled.

  “Perfect GPA.” I sing-song back.

  “I’ll be back this weekend, try not to grow cobwebs over yourself before then.” Nina laughed and hung up.

  I starred at the blank screen on the phone. I adored Nina and knew her since freshman orientation. Now that we were in our junior year it felt like we were pulling apart with each class we took separately and each break we spent apart. Soon we would have internships, and if she kept a steady boyfriend, she might even move out before our senior year. I was sad to think of our lives diverging onto new paths despite knowing change was inevitable. I was afraid I’d be here a year from now alone and even more unsure of my hopes and dreams than before. I’d still be the girl from Buffalo with well-off, but distant parents and no idea what I wanted to do. If anything, Nina was good at taking the risks I was afraid to take.

  My hunger pang had become more of a sore spot centered over my chest, and I rubbed out the ache over my heart.

  Food.

  I definitely needed food as all thoughts of boys, friends, and my parents vanished in place of the dark presence that lingered in my mind.

  2

  It’s funny how nothing ever changes

  BASH

  There wasn’t a day that hadn’t passed in which I did not give my New Year’s Eve quarry a thought. She consumed me in a way that made life difficult. I couldn’t look at Empire apples and caramel without thinking it might taste like her. I should have killed her while I had the chance. Now I was bound to live with this regret and a desire to seek out something that did not belong in my world. There wasn’t enough whiskey to drink, or women to fuck her out of my mind. Five hundred years, and now I was doomed to give up my existence for a mortal girl too foolish to stay inside after dark.

  I glanced up to the mantel focused on the gilded box I kept in my study. I hadn’t looked inside that box for almost two hundred years. I didn’t want to see if the lock of hair had lost its luster yet. I didn’t want to know if the smell of Highland heather had finally dissipated. I
closed my eyes and imagined the red-haired lass that sang pretty songs and had skin softer than silk running across the fields. She’d been mine for three summers but I’d live with her betrayal forever.

  Both of them.

  “I don’t think you’ve moved from the last time I saw you brother.”

  I glanced up from my seat to see my younger brother, a more cavalier version of myself saunter into my study. He lounged on the sofa I placed Jane and my hand strained around the crystal highball glass. I put down my drink fearful I might break it now that he’d interrupted my peace.

  “Get off my sofa.” I kicked his leg growling and impatient for him to leave. He returned last summer enrolling in the University’s creative writing program for…fun. He’d been using a few of Lord Bryon’s old journals he stole to fake his way through poetry and I was positive I read a few iambic pentameters with Shakespeare’s handiwork. He never could do anything on his own, I even felt bad for the Soho couple he compelled to let him live with them. However, I didn’t feel bad enough to invite him into my house.

  He cocked his head and sniffed the air.

  “Human. Young. What were you up to last night, you sly devil?” Dorian had a way of taunting me past my limits. He wanted to weasel his way into my business and then shit all over it. It was one reason why I forbad him from having anything to do with my club. It was my own guilty pleasure, but since my ennui had settled in a century earlier, I wasn’t even attending regularly. He was reckless and destructive. I had to hide far too many bodies whenever he came out to play. Dorian was an ill-trained puppy, too eager and uncontrolled with his blood lust. I hated that he smelled out Jane. His curiosity would only be more trouble than it was worth.

  “I wasn’t up to anything. You, however, I’m sure reveled long into the night.” I pretended to scan documents for the transfer of an art piece I was loaning to the Guggenheim.

  Dorian ignored me and lounged on my sofa.

  “I was tame compared to years past. I did however find a party next door that was interesting.”

  “Invite yourself in did you?” That old wives’ tale was true. Vampires had to be invited in thanks to a witch’s curse that wasn’t removable.

  Dorian chuckled.

  “I didn’t really have to do anything. My host was the sibling to the pretty girl I met outside.”

  I rolled my eyes knowing my brother would find a loop hole anywhere if one existed.

  “I assume you fed.”

  I kept a mini fridge under my desk supplied with bags of blood if needed.

  “I ravished her properly and then left her in good company. She’ll wake with nothing more than a headache and another delightful ache between her thighs.” He chuckled. “I promise, brother.” Dorian was cruel when it suited him.

  “I suppose that’s better than a blood bath.” I remarked dryly thinking of the last massacre I had to cover up with a fire.

  “Relax. I was with Leo and Sara.”

  Those two were a bonded pair who swung wide and far in their sexual deviance. They had no problem with group endeavors which unfortunately got them into trouble when things got out of control. Leo had once been a Bavarian prince disinherited by his family. He found comfort in Sara’s arms, a French courtesan turned by her French lover during the whole Mary, Queen of Scots debacle.

  “Then I suppose this is a gentle reminder of what will happen when you feed out of control.” I smiled tightly and got up from my desk shuffling the documents.

  “I suppose now isn’t a good time to tell you I’m moving back in, eh?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” I mumbled more to myself than anyone else. If I didn’t let Dorian move in I’d be forced to have people watch him wherever he went, again This was the easiest course of controlling him.

  “Good. It’s settled. I’ve decided to pursue my art history degree this time. Plus there’s nothing better than an ample supply of sorority sisters and their visiting boyfriends. Last semester was so much fun, but the English Lit department is a dry drag.”

  “I hesitate to ask.”

  “I saw this delightful girl walking from the subway to the campus. So I followed her.”

  I looked up from my reading cocking a brow at him. “Humans consider that stalking.”

  Dorian chuffed and continued with his story waving his hand in the air nonchalantly.

  “Stalking, whatever. I was merely scoping out my next appetizer when I realized she’d make a much better blood slut.”

  “Dorian.” I growled. Blood sluts were partners who let us feed on them willingly in exchange for pleasure. It wasn’t a terrible thing or even taboo with our kind. My club catered to those needs, but it didn’t mean I was a full supporter. I knew Dorian had an agenda, the question was what and why.

  He rolled his eyes mocking me. “Sebastián.”

  “You can’t bring her to the club.”

  “Maybe I just want to bring her here and lock her up in the basement like a doll taking her out to play when I feel like it.”

  I pushed the image out of my head. My brother enjoyed taunting and playing his jokes.

  “They made a movie about that. Silence of the Lambs. Didn’t end well.” I groused.

  My brother had a penchant for collecting human dolls. He would dress them up. Women. Men. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care if he had a sexual preference, vampires tended to be more fluid with partners out of boredom. A century with one gender could lead into the next with another and no one blinked an eye. My issue was more in the care and feeding of his mortal dolls that I took offense to. He had no regard for compelling them and a few too many times I had to step in and humanely end a life because of the games he played.

  Dorian was exhausting.

  “Oh ye of little faith big brother.”

  “Precisely. Do me a favor though, don’t make another mess I have to clean up. The council will not be so forgiving.” I left my parlor and jogged up the steps to my bedroom shutting the door. I leaned over my dresser struggling to control my rage. Dorian was impossible. It was hard to imagine we were related. I had six years on him, in addition to the year I spent as a vampire with my mate until she betrayed me and turned him as well. We had a repeating history he and I, the last one being my lover Aileen.

  I didn’t like to share my toys as a kid and if I knew my brother, he already had someone in mind. My chest ached in the place my heart should have been beating if I were mortal. I rubbed furiously at the spot to ease the pain, but nothing abated the feeling.

  3

  A week before Halloween and all dark things in the night.

  JANE

  Professor Michelson droned on and on about the intricacies of Grecian pottery. My notes were kind of a jumbled mess, hieroglyphics at best, and all I could think about was coffee. Rich dark coffee with a little bit of cream and brown sugar. I’d caught up on all my classes over the spring semester and stayed holed up in my apartment over the summer with additional courses instead of going home to Buffalo. I would have liked to say my family was disappointed, but truthfully, I don’t think they noticed my absence. My brother joined my father’s law firm after graduation and passing his LSATs, and my sister gave my parents, or rather my mother, twin grandbabies. I was truly plain Jane.

  The room darkened and the professor started up a projector flipping through slides from her last trip to Greece and a recent excavation she attended. Fascinated, I leaned over my seat and nearly pushed my heavy textbook to the floor. It would have been embarrassing if it fell crashing to the floor and disrupting the presentation. Luckily, a student next to me, one I honestly hadn’t noticed during the engrossing lecture grabbed the book and slid it back on my desk seamlessly.

  I whispered to him, “Thank you.”

  “Coffee?” He asked and I wondered if he somehow read my mind. He smiled in the dark room and his lips thinned showing off his perfect white teeth. His face was familiar in the shadows but I couldn’t place it.

  “Uh, sure. After cla
ss?” I said wondering why my breast bone was giving me pains again. Perhaps, I shouldn’t go? I sat back in my seat rubbing the spot to calm my racing heart. This wasn’t the first instance an interesting boy asked me for coffee, but typically I turned them down with ease. I had no idea why. The words simply came out on autopilot letting them down easy. Most never approached me again, and the habit led to a long hiatus since New Year’s Eve of not a single date. I figured if I stayed that way on New Year’s this year, I’d likely have complex and my roommate the perfect in for shipping me off to a nunnery as she liked to joke.

  We spent the next half hour viewing slides. My coffee date spent that time inching closer and put his arm around the back of my chair. I turned to look at him but he kept his face on the Greek slides and I let it go for now. We weren’t in a movie theater and we weren’t twelve so I couldn’t understand why he was so interested in me.

  By the time the lights turned on, I had worked myself into a panic wondering if I was sitting next to some stranger or a beast. Slowly, I turned toward him and was blown away by the dark angel in front of me. His bone structure was perfect under wild glossy black hair and dark eyes like midnight. His lips were pale and quirked upward under my assessing gaze. I felt the heat of my blush from my cheeks all the way down to my breasts. If there was an Olympus on Earth, he’d give the Greek Gods a run for their money.

  “Still interested in coffee?” He asked standing up, offering me his hand. “Come little lamb.” He motioned with his palm up waiting for me to move. I paused and shook myself as if this might be a dream. He seemed to be asking about more than just coffee.

  “I’m sorry?” My brain fogged and that dull ached in my heart pierced my breast. By sheer will I avoided rubbing my chest in front of him. His brow furrowed, and he asked me again to join him for coffee. “Sure.” I said automatically gathering my things. I didn’t take his hand though. I was afraid he might read into it, and why shouldn’t he? I thought he was attractive, but my libido froze at the site of him, and what I should have been feeling, but physically couldn’t turn on.