Didn’t that just puff out his chest and make him feel good. He had chosen his once in a lifetime love well, his Sire would have been proud, as his father would have been. Somewhere along the trip to Oregon and the drive from Adam Cane's Fangs had decided that her past didn’t matter, but she did.
He knew she had suffered, had known that the day he met her, when he found her talking to a spirit and begging her not to be afraid of the light.
That was Bri in a nutshell. She had no idea what was on the other side. She only knew that Pete took care of her souls and that gave her comfort. The face she gave the souls was a different face from the one she gave her vengeance to. The men and women who died at the dull edge of her pirate blade deserved where they went, she was cleansing the streets one prick of a time and had been long before he met her.
Seeing her that night almost three years ago, in her black tank top and faded denim jeans he knew he had to have her and she had caved pretty easily for him.
"Come with me." He had said and kissed her lips before grabbing her hand.
"Wait who are you?" She asked but the smile said she needed some excitement.
"Your destiny, I swear it."
She had followed him and trusted him and the next morning while she searched for her clothes he opened his weapons chest and gave her his finest weapon. His pirate’s blade, the blade given to him by Captain James Masters. It was given for joining the crew and understanding the camaraderie that only Pirates shared. It wasn’t all about pillaging and fucking wenches. There was honor in those days and your pride was everything...
Just the same as it was to Bri.
*
Chapter Seventeen
Fangs stepped out of the shower and answered a few calls none from Pete or Ezek and the longer time flew the more pissed he was. Daylight came on the heels of his final call and assuming that Bri was asleep he stepped from his bedroom because no way was she sleeping on his couch. No way was she sleeping in his bed alone but that was a fight for after he moved her to the bed.
What he found when he entered the living room was nothing shy of a mess.
Bri sat on the floor, her feet crossed at the ankle and a half tilt lean as she reached for what appeared to be her fourth bottle of JB. Demons had an uncanny tolerance for alcohol but at 86 proof even the strongest couldn’t hold their own, not four bottles in.
"You must find me disgusting." She didn’t slur and he silently gave her props for her consumption skills. He also knew that sometimes you had to tie one on just to get untied; in fact it was the reasoning he respected most. Better the bottle than a fight that got you killed. Anger had a way of controlling the mind over matter any day of the week.
"I find you breathtaking."
"Ha." She hollered the syllable and tried to stand, a little dizzy on her feet it seemed but she made it so he made no move to try and steady her.
"Have you sorted it out?"
"Tried but all I’m coming up with is that whiskey won’t even take you away." Her sadness was an echo in the room.
"Nothing will take me away Bri." He took a step forward but stopped when she held up her hand.
"Well," she laughed and took another swig from the almost empty bottle. "I disgrace us both then."
" Bri, you suffer I see that, but you don’t disgrace us." He shook his head, his hair still wet and droplets of water fell from his hair to his bare chest. He had slipped on an old pair of jeans and hadn’t even bothered to snap the top button.
"God I make you suffer and it’s a sick perversion Fangs. The way I use my own twisted deprivation against you..."
He tried to decipher the drunk words and the old saying about drunk words being sober thoughts rang through his mind. "What do you deprive yourself Bri."
He knew the answer. "What perversion?"
"For loving you knowing that I forced you to go away and now you'll never love me back." The tears in her eyes shattered something inside of him because he was dead wrong. He had no idea she was going to say that.
"I'm here now. I have no plans of leaving Bri you do! I read it clear as ever in your blood."
"Only because I have to." She looked at him. "I don’t want to but there is nothing... nothing here for me." The way she looked around the room was like she was trying to find her broken heart, desperate to fix it. The analogy killed him.
"Am I nothing?" Her head jerked toward him at the crack in his voice.
Looking at her now, drunk as a skunk and twice as angry he knew that whatever was going on between them since reuniting was going to come to a head tonight.
"Your everything!" She yelled and stumbled to her knees, the bottle between her legs.
"Then why leave?" He switched tactics and went for the heart, the jugular because he would rip the truth from her tonight, finish the smash job Adam Cane started. "When everything you want is right here then why the fuck are you so desperate to leave?"
"You have no idea the chains that bind me Fangs."
"I think I have a clue there Princess. I was there when your mind got scrambled with the surfacing."
"And you want that? I am so fucked up Fangs."
"Where did the scars come from Briar?" He realized in that moment as she said those words and palmed her scarred cheek that he had to know.
"A beating of the worst kind."
"Tell me." he stepped closer until he stood above her their feet touching and fell to his knees before her.
"The Vampire who bought me."
And with that Fangs let out a roar that shattered even the saddest of silences.
*
Bri didn’t move, didn’t flinch when Fangs roared. She wanted to roar but had long ago lost the ability to feel anger. They said nothing for hours but stayed there her Jim Beam buzz wore off pretty quick but the good drunks never stayed where you needed them. Adams words raced her mind as if she were experiencing it again in hi def.
Sleeping Beauty had no secrets left to burn besides one.
"The day I jumped from the cliff." She started and stopped when Fangs rolled from his position on his knees before her taking the bottle of Jim Beam with him and sat beside her on the floor.
"I had learned of my mother’s death and then Fil came with word that I wasn’t needed any longer and that he had sold me to a Vampire. The guy came in and I swear he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. His voice was like fine wine, so smooth and he was kind. He took my hand and lead me to another room and for a split second I thought I was saved.
She took the bottle from Fangs and they shared a smile, not out of anything other than compassion. He was saying, 'It’s cool Ar. You can tell me.' and she was saying ‘I trust you fangs'.
"So he needed to see what he purchased and by then the fairy tales had started. Everyone wondered about the Kings daughter and Prince Fil because I had never been seen again after our public wedding. The Vampire whose name evades me, lead me by the hand to an adjoining room to get a close look at his purchase. I asked if he would be taking me from the castle and he told me it depended on how good a girl I was.
"He said he wasn’t a philanthropist and that everything came with a price. So I shut my eyes and bared through the graphic nature of his love making. Jesus the things he said to me... I was still as naive as a virgin and not prepared for what he did." She looked at Fangs. "Use your imagination here because we have witness some gruesome shit and honestly I just can’t go there, you know what I mean anyway."
"I guess in the end I wasn’t a good girl because he got off of me and yelled for Fil. When he busted in the room he and the Vampire fought in a language I didn’t know back then but have since learned as the broken demon language never used anymore." Fangs nodded and reached for her hand and she let him.
"So there I was with nothing more than a sheet and he hadn’t sealed the wound on my neck and I was starting to panic because I couldn’t get the blood to stop. When the Vampire came back he dragged me from the bed with a handful of my hair and sealed th
e wound before spreading my legs and demanding answers from Fil. I was horrified because I had never been on display like that before and he slapped me for fighting, warning me that I was not being good.
"Fil explained that I had only been had by him no more than five times and that I was as good as new." She looked at Fangs, strength in her voice. "It was a lie because he had sold me in our mated bed numerous times. So I said nothing and they negotiated my price when I came to find out that he was selling me to pay the dollar on Ezeks head. So they negotiated and he allowed the Vampire full access to me until the deed was done."
She paused and drank in mouthfuls of the burning brown Beam and thought over the next part because essentially only Ash and her father new outside of that chamber. Adam hadn’t said anything while they were at the meeting and so she was pretty sure he hadn’t found all of her secrets...and if he had he was scared enough of Fangs that he would take it to his grave.
"Five days he came for me and spent hours solemnizing me, beating me, feeding off me to the point of severe blood loss when he claimed me and told me he owned me whether Fil liked it or not... I planned my jump from the tower the second I heard that Jeddah had been killed by beheading and Hell was calling it a Vampire kill and in those days things were the same. Vamps meant no contest. The second I was free to move I was jumping. The Vampire owned me by right of the deal between he and Fil but also because he claimed me.
I didn’t fight him that night because I didn’t know he could read my thoughts. He knew what I had planned and he chained me to the bed and used a strait blade trying to brand me knowing it would never heal right and then forced me to look at myself for hours as the scars burnt into my flesh.
"He left and knew I was jumping and didn’t care. He said he didn’t want me and my death would ensure his freedom from me. I jumped the instant the door shut and woke up in Neverland where Ezek told me he would fix it all. The rest is history.”
She waited for a compassionate speech like her father always gave, or his apologies because he shouldn’t have asked. Hell that was why she never told him. He would feel bad for her but also because he would wish like hell that he never knew. What he did do shocked her.
"Why were you so cool with me when we met. You knew what I was and it didn’t frighten you."
"Because I had met so many Vamps by then and I understood the theory behind not all are perfect. When Peter talked about that Vamp Crave the other night. My first thought was another bad one got made, but I knew that because of the Sires council, you nifty Sires would kill the Vamp once you found them. It is absolutely no different with humans, look at how dark and demented they are, hell the majority of what I kill is human males who commit sex crimes that result in murder. But I know some of the kindest souls out there as human friends. So yes, I hated him but I love you."
"You mean that? Even though I claimed you against your will?"
She nodded and passed the bottle back to him. "I won’t lie and say I was excited but it was nice getting into your mind knowing you wanted me just as bad. It doesn’t mean that we would work though."
" Bri I forgive you for leaving me, I understand it now."
"That’s not it. I’m still just as fucked up as I was yesterday and I will be after I get Fil. What I’ve been through, it has taken its toll. All I have left is vengeance and dishing it out. There isn’t room for me to fuck up any more and bounce back. I won’t do that to you."
"How fucked up you are is what I love most about you."
There it was she thought. There were the words that scared her to her very core. She knew he loved her back seven months ago and sensed even through his anger that he loved her still, but this was the first time he had ever admitted it. She felt folded into a tiny square, then unfolded as the creases tore before being folded again and she hated the pain the tear left but refused to unfold again.
"It would get old real quick and we both have forever ahead of us."
"So that’s it? Again? Over before I have a chance to show you that I give a flying fuck about your mistakes. Hell the mistakes aren’t even yours Bri." He stood and paced the floor, his hand rubbing back and forth across his raven messed up mane. She wondered what he was working toward now.
"They may not be my mistakes but I pay for them Fangs and I can’t risk that payment being taken out of you." Now she was standing and prepared for the battle that would ultimately break her again. Only this time she had no tower to run from to get away from this vampire. She was terrified because she didn’t want to.
"I can see you thinking Bri and I know you know I am right. I will not let you kick me out and pull me back in again. This is it, all or nothing."
"And here I stand Fangs making valid points that you refuse to see." Here it was the fight they never had.
"I see you. I have always seen you. It may have been skewed and the color was off, but I loved you long before you took that fucking mask off! I never asked you for forever, was content to let you have the reins. I never asked for a thing from you, yet I was forced to prove myself time and time again, prove worthy and each time your royal ass pissed me off I came back!" He walked towards her taking her hands in his when she tried to step back. "I came back because it wasn’t right walking away from you. You were home to me Bri, no matter where I slept you were my home. And then you pulled that rug out from under me. The night before I had been covered in your skin, buried inside of you and desperate to tell you that-"
"- I was your world."
"-You were my world."
Silence.
Fangs nodded. "You were… are, that never changed. I thought that you would weaken over time but your strength was to be commended because I jumped at the chance when Ezek came calling. Accepted knowing it all was a lie."
"Not everything Fangs."
"Your right, what mattered wasn’t a lie, only what you thought did." And with that he dropped her hands and stepped back. "You say you’re fucked up? Your right Bri you are so fucked up and I could care less. I want the mess that is you. I want the Princess and the Fairy tale and the demon in between." Cupping her scarred cheek he spoke words that changed everything.
"The American classic, the tale of ages Sleeping Beauty, is fucked up. So why the fuck can’t Prince Charming be a Vampire?" He dropped his hand and kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger over the scars he had grown to see as sexy as hell and stepped back, turned and walked out of the room.
*
It was almost four in the afternoon before Bri made her way to Fangs. He had gone into his room and slammed the door close to nine am and she sat on the floor drenched in the decision to throw him away again. The knowledge that she still had a snowballs chance in hell is what got her off the floor. She had never saw a snowball in Hell but that was what Ezek was for. She would demand it if she had to prove a point.
A point like Fangs made. And a damn good one at that. After a much needed come to Jesus talk with herself she picked herself up off the floor and tip toed down the hall to his room. She had never gone to a lover’s door and asked to be let in. She had always been the one whose door was broken down and demanded of. Until Fangs. He never demanded, never asked for promises, it had always been about her and it took him pointing that out to see it.
Adam had said that she was the sun to him, his one weakness. She had a weakness to and it was the undeniable need to have, just once been made love to. To have been touched by gentle loving hands that demanded nothing from her. She had kept the passion on the back burner with Fangs, had always demanded he fuck her and hard. She wasn’t denying that it wasn’t great, because it was. But she had never let him touch her with care, with hands that ached to please her.
She needed that now as much as she needed her next breath, more than the knife and as bad as the devastation inside of her soul from a long life of loss that kept scoring on her. She wanted to be covered in his skin, alone with him and nothing to keep her from giving all of herself to Fangs.
The ring of
her phone was muffled by the blood rushing in her veins. By the ring she knew it was Ash and nothing would stop her from knocking on his door. Most likely the call was for one of three things: Blood. To bitch about Winter. Or God forbid more bad news. None of it could matter right now. This moment was hers and it was to be shared with Fangs.
She opened the door without knocking and as quiet as a mouse expecting to see him asleep in the bed. But he sat, his back to her his legs hanging over the side of the bed. There was no way he didn’t know she was there, his nature told him she was on her way the instant she left the floor.
She dropped her shirt and jeans leaving them in a heap on the floor in her wake as she climbed on the bed and snaked her arms around his waist. "I love you." She whispered in his ear sliding her body around his as she came to rest in his lap. "Tell me you'll have me Fangs."
Awakened (A Fairy Tales Novel) Page 19
