She looked away sheepishly.
He laughed. “You take your eyes off your enemy? Why? Is the sight of how much I desire you so troubling that you would rather be vulnerable to attack?” She heard him shift, and she saw out of the corner of her eye that he was lying down fully on the bed, sprawled out like some great cat. “I am not going to hurt you. I promised you that, and I meant it. I don’t lie as a point of pride.”
“You’re an incubus. You feed on—on—” she stammered uselessly. She couldn’t even say it.
“On lust? On fucking? Yes. I do. Do you feel drained? Do you feel out of sorts? Do you even feel sore?”
No. She didn’t feel any of those things. And seeing as she now could distinctly remember him entering a part of her body that no man should have any natural inclination to enter, she moaned in dismay and curled up into a ball, burying her head in her hands.
“And, trust me, you should be sore after what we’ve done.”
She remembered begging for it. He was controlling me! But why did it feel as though he had only pushed her down that hill? Just the memory of what he had done made her shiver—and it was not in disgust. She wanted to hide from it all to avoid it.
“Don’t make that face. I know that face. It’s regret. I would love to take it away from you, but I won’t. I can’t without making you more upset later.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not influencing you right now. I won’t. Not ever again.” Mordecai rolled over onto his stomach, and only then did she find the bravery to look up at him. He was sitting with his arms folded and his chin on his wrists. He was smiling at her dreamily. “I’ve freed you from my influence.”
“But…why? I don’t understand. I’m your enemy.”
“No, you’re not. You’re anything but my enemy, sweetheart.”
“You serve the vampire.”
Mordecai shrugged. “He isn’t your enemy either. You made him that way, not him.”
“I don’t understand…”
“He gave you three the chance to stop all this. All you had to do was give up the young mortal empath, and all those lives would be spared. It was your zealous hatred that caused this. It could’ve been avoided.”
“I…it was Alfonzo’s choice, not mine.”
“You’re his servant, then?”
“No!”
“Mmhm.”
“Does Dracula never command you to do anything you disagree with?”
“Oh, all the time. And I voice my concern. And I am his servant. You’re proving my point.”
“No. I’m not Alfonzo’s servant. I’m not his slave, or his—his anything. He’s our leader.”
“But you do everything he says. And when we gave you the chance to turn around and leave and spare your life, you chose not to.”
“Dracula must be stopped.”
“No, that is not what you’re after. You believe Dracula must die. You could have stopped him. It’s violence you want.”
“N…no.”
“I don’t think I’d like to argue with you. There are much nicer things I’d like to do.”
Her cheeks flushed again. “Stop.”
“Stop what?” Mordecai yawned and half-shut his eyes while he watched her. Something about him remained constantly sultry. Part of her wanted very much to crawl into the bed next to him and ask him to show her all the things he had done to her once more when she was clear-headed and could really enjoy them.
No! “Stop it.”
He laughed. “You’re so flustered. I can’t stop anything if I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop lying to me!”
“About what?”
“Controlling me.”
“First off, it’s not ‘control.’ It’s influence. We can trigger the lust a person feels and compel them to act on it. I can’t make you do anything you don’t already want. We aren’t an all-powerful race, trust me. I can only make you ignore the part of your mind that screams that you shouldn’t. Second, I’m not doing anything at all. I’m only lying here, talking to the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
She stood from the floor and wrapped the fur blanket around her body. “Let me go.”
“Mmhm. Skip over that and right to the next thing. I see how it is.” He puffed out a sigh and pushed himself up onto his elbows.
She tried not to look at his bare ass. She tried. She tried so very hard. But it was so perfect. She failed spectacularly and looked away entirely, deciding the stone wall of the windowless room they were in was a far better option. “Let me go.”
“Not until Master Dracula has what he wants. Then you’re free to leave if you wish.”
“What…?” She looked back at him again in surprise.
“If you didn’t think I’d let you go, why did you bother asking?” He laughed. “You mortals! Such silly creatures.” He rolled onto his back to watch her upside-down with his head draped over the edge of the bed. “You want a reason to be upset with me.”
She looked away from his nudity once more. “I did not think you would have the kind of honor it would take to grant it, but I saw no harm in asking.”
“You weren’t asking. You were demanding. Just a point of fact, but it’s fine.” He stood, and she shrank away from him as he walked up to her. She kept retreating until she had backed into the wall. He stood a few feet away from her but came no closer. “Master Dracula will keep the city in this state until his business with Miss Parker is concluded one way or another.”
“I thought he was here to create an empire.”
“Until he met her, yes. Now he has other motives. He hasn’t spoken them aloud to us, but they’re plain to see. He wishes the girl to either love him or kill him. I’m not sure he entirely minds which she picks.” He was still fully naked, and fully proud, and she kept her eyes dutifully turned away.
“Why?”
“That’s his own business, not mine. I have my own matters to attend.”
“And what is that?”
“I’ve been told to either kill you or keep you out of the way until his game is over. I’ve opted for the later.”
She chewed her lip. She dreaded to ask the question, for fear of the answer. But she needed to know. “Why?” If she was going to be maimed or tortured, she had every right to—
“I love you.”
That broke her out of her goal of keeping her gaze away from him. She looked up at him in wide-eyed shock once more. There was a deep and…honest warmth in his odd purple eyes. He was watching her with a tender smile.
“You’re…you’re lying.”
“I’m not!” He put his hand to his chest in hurt.
“You say that to all the girls—”
“Not just girls.”
She cringed and tried to ignore his salacious, wicked grin. “—to all the people you…you…”
“Fuck. Say it, Bella.”
“No.”
He snickered. “I bet I can get you to say it.”
“Stop it.”
He laughed and took a step closer, and she shrank back. Without her weapons, she was helpless. She had her gifts, but she couldn’t see anything in the room on which she could work her telekinesis to do any real damage at all. The bed was too big for her to budge. There was next to nothing else in the room, and she figured whatever bits of furniture or bedding she could lob at the incubus would only annoy him.
“Don’t be afraid of me…please don’t. I love you. I want to protect you. I will never hurt you. Think what you will of me, but I am not lying. And I certainly do not say those words to my prey. Never once have I said them to another.”
He reached out to touch her face, and she flinched. She was shivering as he traced his fingertips over her cheek. It sparked something in her that she couldn’t understand. She wanted to lean into him—she wanted to embrace his words.
She wanted to believe him.
Terrifyingly, she really rather did. She was so tired of fighting. So tired
of the constant struggle she had known her entire life. Always running, always battling, never experiencing the better things in life. Like love. Like sex. Like belonging somewhere. “You don’t know me.” She was grasping at straws now. “You can’t love me.”
She needed to keep herself from giving in to him. Giving in to everything he offered her.
“Don’t I know you? From the moment I looked into your eyes, I saw a beautiful heart. One so full of life, even though you surround yourself with death. You danced with me, talked with me, stood with me and spoke of the world you had traveled and seen. Such love for humanity, despite all its flaws. I see in you a heart wider than the sea. One I would happily drown in, if you would but let me swim the waves.”
His hand slipped to hers, and he gently took it. She did not know what to do. She realized she was trembling. His words shook her, left her reeling and uncertain how to react. No one had ever spoken to her like that before. Not even Eddie. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers slowly, one at a time.
Eddie had told her he loved her one night and had gone to kiss her before even waiting to hear her reply. When she had pulled away from him, he had acted crestfallen and frustrated with her. He had held a grudge ever since. Their friendship had deeply suffered for it. Despite any insistence that he did not hold it against her, she knew he did.
But never with Eddie did she feel like this.
This pull.
This draw.
This desire.
It was making her dizzy. She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried very hard to ignore the response he was drawing from her body. It didn’t feel like the hypnotism he had placed over her before—no, he was right. This was entirely her fault. Her face was burning. Her cheeks must be crimson. Need was pooling low in her body, boiling and unexpected. It was a forbidden fruit she had never tasted and a poison to which she had no resistance. “What do you want from me…?”
“Mmmh, besides the obvious?” His hand holding hers moved down to his lower abdomen, dangerously close to something else. She squeaked and yanked her hand away. But she had paused there for a moment before she realized it. A moment too long. He grinned and took a step away from her, holding his arms out to his sides as if to display all of himself to her. “I want you to be my mate. My bride. My one and only.”
“But you’re…you’re a…”
Mordecai sighed dramatically and stared up at the ceiling as if asking God for patience. What an odd concept. “Mortals.” He looked back down to her. “Do you know anything about my kind?”
“I know that you…you—”
“Fuck,” he provided helpfully with a grin.
“—to feed on mortals. You kill them. You—you—” She stopped in horror as she realized the word she was about to use had new connotations to her. A flash of memory washed over her. Him, buried down her throat. Her, moaning and begging for more.
“Suck?” His smile looked like it was going to split his face in half, he was so amused.
She let out a groan of dismay and put her palm over her face. It smelled like him, and she moved it away just as fast. “—People dry.”
“Besides that. What do you know?”
She was silent for a long moment. “That’s all there is to know.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “I would point out that you’re being rather narrow-minded in your views of race and culture, but…another discussion for another time. Yes. We fuck to feed. That’s true. But that’s different from love, Bella. Certainly, as innocent as you clearly are, even you know the difference.”
“Simply because there is a difference, doesn’t mean there should be.”
“Ah. Ah, there it is. There is your burden. Explain. Why?”
“Because…sex should be about love.”
“Mmhm. So, if you wanted to crawl into that bed with me, and have me ride you until you screamed my name like you did last night, again and again until you fell asleep purring like a kitten in my arms, that’s wrong?”
“Yes!” Her face was warm again—or maybe she hadn’t stopped. She wanted to huddle in the corner and hide away from it all.
“Wrong of me to do it? Or wrong of you to enjoy it? You did enjoy it, trust me.”
“Both!”
“Why is it wrong for you to have enjoyed your time with me?”
“Because it is. It’s impure. Improper. You’re a monster. You hypnotized me, coerced me into doing terrible things.”
“Terrible? Why were they terrible?”
“Because they’re sinful!”
“Sin. Yes. Right. And are you harmed? Are you wronged? Are you at all injured? Did you not enjoy what we did?”
“But…you defiled me.”
“Define ‘defiled,’ please.”
“I…what?” Bella shook her head. He was so confusing. She wanted to curl into a ball and weep. She did not want to be stuck in this strange argument with a demon. But he seemed intent on continuing the conversation. “No. I won’t bother. You’re goading me.”
Mordecai folded his arms across his chest as he watched her with a raised eyebrow. “Fine. Did I take your innocence? Your first time?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I…I had too much to drink in a pub, and—and it isn’t your business.”
“Someone took advantage of you. And are they a demon and a monster?”
“It was my fault for what happened. I should not have drunk so much.”
Mordecai put a hand over his face and groaned in dismay. “We have so much work to do, you and I.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are so backward in your thinking! I swear this society has ruined your species. You blame yourself because some drunken piece of shit bent you over a barrel. What he did is far worse than my crime.”
“You hypnotized me!”
“I did no such thing. I compelled you. There is a difference. I cannot make you act against your desires. If you did not want me, if you did not want what I offered you, you would have been unaffected. Otherwise we incubi and succubae would rule humanity, don’t you think?”
“Then…then what I did was wrong. What we did was wrong.”
“Says who? Who will judge you for such things? Your friends? Society at large? The Church?”
“Yes.”
“Your body is their commodity, then? They own your flesh?” He huffed. “My mistake. I didn’t realize I was impinging on someone else’s property. My apologize to Alfonzo, Eddie, the Church, and all the other mortal men in the world.”
“Well, n…no—” She looked up at him, confused. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
“Don’t you? If you belong to yourself, and you enjoyed me, then for what reason are you ashamed? Do you love the boy Eddie? Is that it?”
“No!”
“He clearly loves you.”
“I—I know.”
Watching her stammer, he tilted his head curiously. “And you don’t feel for him in return?”
How on Earth was she standing here trying to defend herself to an incubus? “I don’t. I feel terrible about it, but I—”
“Why? I never understood that particular social defect. You poor mortal women are supposed to keep your bodies locked in a cage, but your heart is free to the first person who asks for it. And if you don’t grant it to them, it is you who are supposed to feel grief? How are you the villain here?” He sighed. “Your race is evil to make you feel such a way.”
“We are not!”
“Explain to me how your heart isn’t the world’s commodity, then.” Mordecai shook his head, as if disappointed. But not in her, perhaps. “You cannot fuck when you wish since your ‘purity’ belongs to the world. You feel as though it’s your fault you don’t love every man who wants to crawl in between your legs, but if you let them, you are labeled a whore. You are shamed either way. Your world is cruel to your gender, Bella. Your society wants to keep women like pets. Subservient and docile. Slaves to the
ir wants. How is that not evil?”
“Don’t you keep me here for that same reason?”
“Oh, if you want to play with whips and chains, sweetheart—I will be there with literal bells on.” He winked, and she looked shyly away from him again. He had a wicked sense of humor, and it made her squirm in a way that was, well, shameful. “No. You’re not here so I can break you in to being my good little mare. I’m keeping you here so neither I, nor anyone else, will have to kill you. Dracula knows you’re here safe with me, and he condones and approves it.”
“He…approves?” That didn’t sound like a positive to her, but it was also confusing.
“He wants me to be happy. He also doesn’t enjoy pointless murder, believe it or not. If there’s a way to spare your life that still serves his ends, he prefers it over putting you in the ground.”
It was her turn to scoff.
“I said believe me or not.” He walked up to her slowly, carefully, as if he were afraid he would scare her. “My kind mate once in all our immortal years. Once. We get to pair ourselves to one other soul in all our time. If one dies, the other will never find a second. It is a soul bond forged out of love. Not fucking. Although there is a lot of that involved.”
She wailed and shut her eyes.
He laughed. “Sorry. You are so stunning when you blush and hide away so bashfully.” His voice was close to her, and she felt the warmth pouring off his body. “Do you know how my kind are made?”
“No.”
“Two ways. We are either born or bred. I was born here on Earth to my proud parents. My mother was born a succubus. My father was made into an incubus when he fell in love with her and agreed to lay his seed in her womb. As he did, he became as I am.”
When his hand slid along her stomach over the fur blanket she wore, she nearly jumped out of her own skin. She looked up at him in shock and horror. “You didn’t!”
He laughed hard and leaned his head down close to hers. “No, darling. Unlike humanity, we do not work that way. You are not with child. You have to want it. You have to ask for it. You have to love me first.”
Before she could react, he was resting his forehead on hers. He was so close. He smelled of spices and something sweet. She should push him away. She should shove him, fight him, punch him. But instead, she was trembling and clutching the fur.
Curse of Dracula Page 8
