Pretend With Me (Midnight Society #1)

by Jemma Grey

  “I still don’t,” he said and a dazzling smile lit his face, “but tonight proved just how much of a badass you were. Now I’m pretty sure you can take care of yourself and don’t need me or Jason around… so I have no excuses to keep you here,” he chuckled “besides, if I’d told you not to go, would you stay?”

  “No,” I smiled back at him. “Was that why Jason was at the ball tonight, to protect me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Jason is always around you when you’re unprotected... That’s kind of his job.”

  “I had pureblood eyes tonight...” I commented, not knowing how to phrase what I was trying to ask. Eric must’ve been in my head though, because he caught on instantly.

  “Yeah, I saw,” he swallowed. “It means that you’ll go through the third stage and become a full pureblood really soon...” he trailed off and all I could do was nod.

  For a long while, I remained quiet as that sunk in. “Hmmm... Did Katalin hold you back?” I mumbled, instantly feeling disgust and shame rising in my stomach. I couldn’t even bring myself to admit it, to say the words out loud; that I had killed Zane. Even if everyone though what I did was okay, it really wasn’t. It was still wrong and that would never change no matter what they said or thought.

  “Yeah she did…” Eric’s voice broke into my thoughts. “When he had you pinned to the wall I was about to step in but she stopped me and told me it wasn’t my fight,” he explained nonchalantly.

  “Oh,” I said and then added, “how did she kill all those men..? They all just started bleeding and then they died… Is that her… inheritance, she can kill people?”

  “It’s one,” he sighed, “she has many and that’s putting it lightly.”

  “How?” I whispered, so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open.

  “Her main ability allows her to copy the abilities of other purebloods… I don’t know if it happens on its own or if it’s something that she can control though…”

  “So…” I mused thinking about what he’d just said, “Katalin can very well have the abilities of every pureblood that she’s ever had contact with?” I frowned. Eric’s only response was a nod.

  Whoa, Katalin was scary. I saw what she did to all those guys with plain human eyes, I didn’t want to know what she could do when she had pureblood eyes… Now, to imagine she could do more was beyond frightening. Now I fully understood why she was so feared by everyone around her.

  “Tell me about Jason,” I whispered after a long while. “Katalin said that he’s an incubus…” Even though I already knew this, my tone made the statement sound like a question and in response Eric nodded. “What is Jason’s ability? Is it that chi swapping thing that he did?” My frowned deepened.

  “Nope, only purebloods have an inheritance,” Eric murmured.

  “So how did he do that thing with Katalin and Dean?” I muttered, pressing closer to Eric hoping that his scent would give me something else to focus on but the headache now threatening to split my skull apart.

  “Being an incubus - or succubus,” he added as an afterthought, “is very similar to being a pureblood. There are only two main differences - the first is that they don’t have an inheritance. The second is their… diet,” he explained slowly while measuring my reaction. When I didn’t do or say anything he continued. “Instead of feeding on blood… they feed on a person’s life force…”

  “…Like someone’s soul..?” I said frowning, struggling to keep myself focused.

  “Something like that. What Jason did with Katalin and Dean isn’t something he’s supposed to be able to do… Katalin took a big gamble with Jason tonight… Every incubus or succubus can take a person’s life force… they’re not meant to be able to give it back.”

  “Hmmm…” I sighed, pressing myself closer to him.

  “You awake?” he asked and I could hear the amusement in his voice. “Should I shut up now?”

  “No,” I said instantly. “I have a headache and your voice gives me something else to focus on.” In fact, it wasn’t just his voice. It was everything about him and I didn’t know what I would do if he ever left me. “Eric…” I whispered breathing in his scent for what had to be the millionth time. “I’m glad that you’re not hurt. I don’t know what I would do if something ever happened to you. I can’t lose you…”

  He wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly and kissing my head. “You won’t lose me, Jen; I promise.”

  The rest of the day passed in an uneventful blur. Brandon only stayed long enough to see Kris when she came to say goodbye. Once Kris was gone, Brandon left too. He barely said anything to me. Mostly he spoke to Eric, telling him what he planned to do and where he was going and I couldn’t blame him for hating me, he had every right.

  I hated lying to Kris. Every cell in my body told me that I should tell her the truth, but I couldn’t. Brandon and Eric didn’t want me to and I didn’t agree with them, but I couldn’t go against them either. It was so frustrating.

  I felt cheap and dirty; doing this to her made me disgusted at myself. In my past - before the entire Thirdworld, pureblood thing had happened I wouldn’t have lied to her. I would have told her the truth. Kris and I shared everything.

  I was losing myself in this world and that scared me more than marrying Eric did. In fact marrying Eric wasn’t a crisis as it had been before. At first, I hadn’t wanted to marry him because that would have meant I was moving on and forgetting about Daren, but now it was different. Over the past months I had gotten to know him - the pureblood behind the hot blue eyed boy - and he was amazing. I had even grown to love him. Yet at the same time I didn’t want to be a part of his world – a world where killing and revenge was okay.

  I wasn’t a person that killed out of revenge, or anything else for that matter. Last night taking Zane’s life had been too easy. I didn’t lie to my friends; I didn’t keep things from them and today I had lied and hurt my closest friend. I didn’t know how to be a part of the pureblood world and not lose myself in it. I was already tied to it by Eric’s blood, but could I strengthen that tie to a world so dark and cold even more by marrying him, and becoming a princess to the entire pureblood population?

  I fell asleep with that thought in my mind, but I didn’t remain asleep for long. It seemed like only minutes had passed when my eyes shot open to complete darkness. The first thing I was aware of was that the headache I’d gone to bed with hadn’t gone or even subsided during my short sleep. If anything, it got worse and was the source of waking me up. My head was about to explode, or at least that’s how it felt, like it was going to burst apart from the inside out.

  I smelled everything, the food in the kitchen downstairs, the grass outside, the exhaust from cars on the streets; absolutely everything. It was so intense I could almost taste the scents on my tongue, bitter and leaving me feeling as though I was about to throw up. Everything was completely black, yet I could see it all clearly. In fact, all my senses were amplified, and they only made me feel worse.

  My head throbbed and burned as though there was a fire raging inside my skull, burning my brains to rubble. Or maybe the fire was my head, I didn’t know; all I knew for certain was pain.

  I couldn’t think about anything else. All that filled my mind was the pain licking the back of my eyes, no doubt turning me to ashes. I didn’t know what was happening to me, or even who I was. The fire was so intense it burned away everything that I was and all I could do was stay where I was, writhe in it.

  I could hear footsteps outside the bedroom, getting louder and louder as the distance between the person and the bedroom closed. Then seconds later, when the footsteps reached the door they stopped. I knew it was Eric instantly recognizing his breathing, his heartbeat, his scent... everything about him.

  It was strange, I didn’t know who I was, but I knew who he was. He didn’t come into the room though; instead he leaned against the bedroom door, and then slowly slid down to the floor, sitting there.

  I was
so confused. I wanted to ask him what was happening to me and what it meant. More than anything, I wanted to know why he was staying outside. I said nothing though. My lips remained stuck together. I didn’t think they worked anymore; either that or I was too consumed by the throbbing in my head to make my brain work.

  “Jen…” Eric sighed from the other side of the door, his voice was low and soft, yet it seemed to scream inside my head. “I can’t come in… I know you want me to, but I can’t… Me being in there is only going to make it hurt more,” he said, swallowing loudly. “I know it’s painful... it’s your body changing… becoming stronger...” he explained.

  I stopped listening at that point. It wasn’t that I wanted to stop. I wanted to hear his voice, his assurance, but the pain wouldn’t let me. It became too much and for a long while all I could think about was how much it hurt. I gritted my teeth, gripping onto the material of the blankets, not being able to do anything else.

  I don’t know how long this went on for. It could have been seconds or minutes or days even, it felt like centuries though. Time had no meaning when my skull was being turned inside out and upside down. It seemed to blend into a continuous loop.

  After the intense wave had burned out Eric’s voice drifted back. That was my first clued that some time had passed. He wasn’t explaining anything to me anymore. He was telling me a story about him I think, him and Jason.

  He told me more things about him, mostly random things, trips he’d taken, stupid outings with Jason that most of the times ended in some awkward situation. He kept giving me something else to think about. I didn’t care what Eric was saying, I just needed him to talk to me. I needed to hear his voice, to have something other than the pain to focus on, anything other than the pain.

  Sometime later another wave hit me, harder and even more intense than the first wave and Eric’s voice faded into the background again. This was different though. This one didn’t attack my entire head, at least not any more than it was already throbbing; this time it was my eyes.

  The fire, the burning and pounding blazed at my eyeballs and at any second I felt like they were going to melt right out of my head. It was so agonizing I wanted to reach up and rip my eyes from my head, and I would have if I thought that it was going to stop everything. I turned on the bed, pressing my face into the mattress, wanting to scream.

  It went on forever, never seeming to stop and when I began to think that it wasn’t going to stop, it began to simmer instead. Excruciatingly slow, it started to fade and dull until I could think and hear again. I could hear Eric, still on the other side of the door as the pounding and throbbing inside my eyes seemed to slowly sizzle away. It took me a while to realize that I could see him too, as clear as if I was really looking at him through my eyes, but I wasn’t. I was still in the bedroom, my face pressed into the mattress as he sat outside the bedroom.

  He had his back against the wooden door while his legs were stretched out in front of him. His head was thrown back and his eyes were closed. He could almost pass for being asleep, but I knew he wasn’t because he was still talking to me. Eric was the last thing I saw before another wave of the agony, pulsed through me, this time so raw and intense that it seemed to take me over completely and I passed out, all too welcoming of the numbing unconsciousness.

  * * *

  The second I opened my eyes, I instantly regretted it. Blinding light pierced through my vision so intense and harsh that tears ran down the sides of my face. For a moment, it was all I could focus on, but as my vision adjusted everything came into focus as I sat up on the bed. I was in my bedroom at the Wilson's mansion, but it had changed somehow. It was difficult to describe because everything was the same yet utterly different. It took me a while to figure out that the change wasn’t external. It was me; I had changed.

  I raised my hands, staring down at the unfamiliar arms in front of me as I turned them this way and flipped them that way making sure the limbs were really my own. The shock of seeing my hands, triggered movement inside me and suddenly I found myself standing inside the bathroom, facing the full length mirror. The movement was instant, like a reflex action. I'd barely thought about doing the action and then before I could finish the thought the action was already done.

  The girl facing me, was not me... well she was, but she also wasn't. She had my face, and my body, but at the same time everything was different. My hair was darker and fuller than it had ever been, each strand tucked perfectly and tousled at the same time. My skin was like Eric's, unblemished, even and so smooth that it seemed as if I didn't have any pores. Every tiny imperfection, every hint of discoloration was gone, leaving me looking like a porcelain doll that'd just been unwrapped. More than my perfect hair, untainted skin and shiny, hard nails, the change that was the most startling and shocking were my eyes. I no longer had brown eyes, instead they were bright, lively blue orbs the color of ice and the centre of fire wrapped into one.

  I knew this was going to happen, that eventually I'd look more like Eric and his family but actually seeing it like this was uncanny. It was shocking how much of the old me the fire had burned away and replaced. I'd always been the plain girl. Even in Trinidad I was always the girl that no one remembered. Now though, I was otherworldly.

  Not being able to help myself, I started stripping, too caught up in my superficial moment to care about anything else. I was soon sitting on the floor, my foot in line with my face, examining the sole of my foot for an old scar. I had gotten it at the beach when I'd stepped on some pieces of broken glass and had to get at least four stitches. The scar, like every other scar that had been on my body was gone now. I was just about to drop my leg when the bathroom door slowly opened.

  “Hey, Jen...” came Eric's voice as he slowly pushed open the door and stepped into the room, stopping instantly when he saw me.

  Immediately, I flashed up in a non-human move, staring at him. A part of my brain was aware that all I had on was my bra and underwear. The human Jen would have been mortified and embarrassed right now, but I felt nothing of that sort. I was completely comfortable in my body, something I'd never felt before.

  “Holy fuck...” Eric breathed out, his eyes slowly travelling down from my head to my breast, along my waist, down my legs and then slowly back up. He swallowed loudly as his eyes roamed, then by the time they reached back to my face he'd pulled his lower lip between his teeth. His eyes had gone a shade darker and I could literally see the desire and hunger coiling around his body. It was like an iridescent pink mist that lightly coated his skin. I could smell it in the air, mixing in with his already heady scent, making my own desire rise.

  I breathed out, pulling my own bottom lip between my teeth biting down on it, not sure what my next moves were going to be. I wanted Eric just as much as he wanted me, but I had just discovered this new and non-human part of myself, I didn't know what was going to happen next. The need to have him was strong though, I could feel it running through my body, making me shiver and ache. It mixed in with my blood and body as though this intense need was a part of me. My blood called for him, my body ached for his, every part of me was screaming. It was all I could think about – the hunger, raw and undiluted that pulsed inside me and pooled between my legs. I wanted him. God I needed him like I needed air.

  A sharp pain pierced my upper jaw and before I could react to it, another wave of the same pain stabbed my bottom lip as blood pooled inside my mouth, sweet and addictive. I could taste my own desire and it was seductive, a sort of sweet and salty taste that sent shivers and sparks running throughout the rest of my body.

  Without thinking, I broke eye contact with Eric and turned back to face the mirror, staring at my teeth to find that I now had fangs. Two pairs of neat, short and sharp fangs stuck out from my upper jaw, making me look deadly and somehow seductive at the same time. They'd pierced my lower lip when they had pushed out from my gum and now there were four tiny red splotches on my lip still oozing blood.

  Eric grabbed my ar
m then, yanking me to face him. Before I could react, he crushed his lips to mine and in that moment I forgot about the fangs and the blood. Everything melted away into the background and suddenly nothing else mattered but satisfying the urge coursing through my body. I was beyond thinking now; I could only react to the need demanding to be filled inside me.

  My eyes closed automatically. My arms wrapped around his neck at once, weaving through the hair at the back of his head as I kissed him back with just as much passion and urgency as he was kissing me with. His hand had released my arm at some point and was now roaming my body, leaving piercing hot trails behind. He touched me everywhere, along my arms, the curves of my hips and bottom, over the material of the bra I wore, and it was like he was touching me for the very first time. I suppose in a sense he was, this was an entirely new Jen after all, a new body.

  Eric then broke the kiss and I literally growled with annoyance at him. Seconds later his lips touched my neck, sending pleasure shooting through my body. “So beautiful,” he muttered against my skin.

  Everything was intense in a way that I had never felt before. My hands left his head and grabbed o nto the countertop, bracing myself. I felt at any given second my legs were going to turn to mush and fall out from under me as he trailed burning sweet kisses down my neck, on my breast and along the middle of my stomach.

  My fingers grabbed the end of his t-shirt and in a super speed, non-human move I yanked it up and over his head, needing to feel his skin on mine. Just as I was about to reach for the buckle on his jeans, he bent down, his body dropping from my reach as his lips kept travelling down my stomach.

  His fingers hooked at the sides of my underwear and slowly – excruciatingly slow – he began to glide the material down my legs. I swallowed stepping out of my underwear and then threw my head back in pure ecstasy as his lips once again met my flesh, this time travelling up the inside of my thigh. Before he could, I reached down to him, catching his chin between my thumb and index finger, lifting his face to meet mine.