He drew up to her tall counter and laid a forearm on it.
She fluttered her eyelashes at her ex-boyfriend, giving him a determinedly false smile. “Sorry, sir, we’re closed.”
One side of his lip edged upward. Not into a full sneer, but almost. “You have some of my wine.”
“No, I don’t.” She neatly sliced through the center of the green pepper. “Not unless you want that bottle of Côtes de France Bordeaux back that you gave me the night of our last dinner together. Which would be the height of tacky, by the way.”
A tightness passed through Dev’s hand, as if he was trying oh-so-very hard not to make a fist. “You ordered wine for your restaurant, and I ordered wine for my collection, but the Travelers accidentally delivered everything here.” He gestured curtly at the two crates stacked against her wall.
“Oh. Well, okay. Go ahead and take a look.”
Rolling his eyes, he crossed to the crates, muttering, “pain in the trash,” although it might not have been exactly that. He crouched down, and she stared at his broad back, watching his muscles flex beneath his shirt in a dance of perfect symmetry as he opened the first box and began to search it. She traveled lower, to his hard, powerful buttocks visible against the tight stretch of his jeans. A tremor of longing coursed up her spine. God, how she’d missed him, missed holding his hand and kissing him, longed for the time they used to spend together, laughing and sharing. In a couple of years, they probably would’ve been able to finish each other’s sentences.
She set down her knife and held up a basket of steaming bread. “Hey, do you want a roll?” Maybe he’d take it as a peace offering.
He cranked his head slightly sideways, his eyes seaming tight.
Or maybe not. “It’s one of my specialties.”
Nothing.
She set down the basket. “I just thought…maybe we could talk, Dev.”
“About what?” He rotated toward her, setting a palm on top of his corded thigh. “Since you’re obviously a chicken shit about bonding with me, there’s nothing—”
“Oh, that’s real nice,” she cut in hotly, her breath coming fast. “Thank you very much for giving my position no respect or understanding whatsoever.”
“’Cause you’ve done so well respecting my side,” he snarked back.
The CD of Daughtry ended. A pot on the stove came to a boil and hissed into the silence.
“Just because I’m not running off to bond with you, doesn’t mean I’m disrespecting you.” She shook her head at him, her chin tight. “You’ve lived with the concept of mating forever for your entire life. It’s no big deal to you, but for me…” She picked up her knife and stabbed it into one half of the green pepper, letting it stick there. “I can’t even sleep with you first,” she said through stiff lips. “A couple should at least be able to test the waters for compatibility before committing to drink from the same well for all-fricking-eternity, shouldn’t they? That’s how humans do it.”
“Yeah, I get it.” He reached inside a crate, eased up a bottle, and glanced at the label. “You’re worried we’ll suck in bed together.”
She flushed. “No. I’m sure we’d be fine with…I didn’t mean—” Water boiled over the lip of the pot, shish-shish’ing onto the burner. “Dammit!” She cranked the knob down.
He dropped the bottle back into its slot. “Or maybe it’s just me you’re worried about. Gotta test drive ol’ Dev before you decide if he’s worthy of your love, right? Heaven-fucking-forbid that you should be patient and understanding with a guy who might know jack shit about what he’s doing in the sack.”
She stared at him, her lips trembling. “Why are you doing this?” she rasped out.
“Hell, it’s probably a good thing you threw me over.” A cold laugh jerked out of him. “I wouldn’t have wanted to put my dick under that degree of stress.”
“I didn’t want to throw you over.” A feeling of cold desolation washed through her. “I thought we could…why can’t we stay friends?”
“Fuck friends!” He surged to his feet in a fluid explosion of energy. “I love you, Marissa. Do you hear me? Love. In the Vârcolac world that means I’m already tied to you. Your scent is planted so deeply inside my head, it’s like you’re a part of me. I need you to get that. When I’m near you, I can smell everything about you; if you’re fighting a head cold, or you’re nervous, when you’re on your damned period, when you’re”—his voice lowered to a resonant growl—“aroused.” He reached down and slammed the lid of the crate shut. “Being around you, smelling you, causes me actual physical pain because I’m not with you and I need to be. I was barely able to endure it back when I thought we’d be together some day. But now that you’ve rammed your stiletto heel right through the center of my heart—”
“D-don’t.” Her chest cramped, like a steely fist clenched around her heart: Dev’s fist. “You don’t think this is painful for me, as well? I-I…” I love you, too.
“You know one of the worst fucking parts about this?” He stalked right up to her, stopping only inches away. “On the day of the rock wall climb, you said you were the type of woman who wouldn’t run away from me. And I believed you.”
Her throat spasmed a couple of times with the threat of tears. “I’m not stepping back from us because you’re a v-v-v…”
His face hardened. “Right.”
She pressed a hand over her eyes. Crap. She just wasn’t used to saying that word, yet.
“Thank you for turning me into a circus act, Marissa. I love being a monster.”
She dropped her hand and glowered at him. “Would you stop it? This has nothing to do with you. I’m stepping back because I have important plans for my life, Dev. I’ve always wanted my own restaurant. I promised myself that—”
“Gee, and here I thought you had one.”
“It’s not the same here in Ţărână,” she flared. “This is a hidden community, for God’s sake. If I’m successful, I’ll never feel that to any depth; no restaurant critic will write me up, no Michelin stars will ever be awarded to me, no—”
“You’re willing to give up a life of happiness for that?”
Hot rage speared up the back of her neck. “I can’t believe how cavalierly you’re brushing this aside. You know the life I’ve had.” She felt her hands curling in on themselves. “I’m twenty-five and haven’t done anything. I spent the first fourteen years of my life at a fricking standstill, and then after that it was one responsibility after the next; I’m the one who had to drop out of college when my mom got sick; I’m the one who couldn’t go to a prestigious culinary school because of family obligations; I’m the one who had to help take care of my younger sister when my dad died. Oh, and that was a favor she repaid, by the way, by one-upping me in everything I’ve ever tried to do my adult life: stealing jobs out from under me and sleeping with my boyfriends, at least three that I know of, maybe more. But with half a million dollars, I’d be able to buy my own restaurant, free and clear, and that’s something Natalie could never take from me. Don’t you see? This is my chance, finally, to make something of myself, Dev, to prove that I’m not still that girl in the back brace. I have to take it. If I don’t, I’ll always regret it, and probably end up resenting you for it. Is that really what you want?”
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 b
een 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.”
The Community Series, Books 1-3 Page 53
