Cursed (35 page)

Lying atop Greyvian’s chest, his arm around her, she could think of nowhere else that she would rather be. Especially when he proceeded to show her a side of himself that she had never imagined she would ever see—in fact, never would have imagined ever existed.

“I love the smell of your hair,” he told her, his words slightly slurred as he drew in a deep breath. “It’s like sunshine.”

Raising her head, she looked down into his eyes, finding them a bit dazed and unfocused. “You are so drunk right now,” she accused, loving the fact that he was a happy drunk. Who would have thought?

“Hmmm,” he agreed happily, a smile curving his lips. “It feels good. Just like you do.” At that, a firm hand gripped her butt, kneading her flesh.

“What else do you love about me?” she asked, holding her breath as she waited for him to realise what she’d asked of him. A declaration of love while he was drunk was probably as good as she was ever going to get from him, so she was going to take full advantage of the situation.

“I love the colour of your eyes,” he told her, focusing with some effort on the feature in question. “So vibrant. They almost seem to glow.”

“What else?”

He sighed happily. “I love your total lack of good sense.”

“My what?” she asked, pretending to be offended.

He chuckled and kissed her once, twice, on the lips. “Why else would you be here with me right now? Why else would you claim that you love me?”

Shaking her head in amusement, she brushed her fingers through his hair. “I believe we’ve been over this. I love you, and that’s that. You can’t change it, so you’re just going to have to live with it. Think you can do that?”

“Hmm,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “I think so.”

With that, he fell asleep. Or perhaps she should say that he passed out? Smiling, she kissed his cheek and then lay back down beside him, truly happy for the moment. She knew it probably wouldn’t last very long, knowing the kinds of demons that Greyvian wrestled with, both figuratively and literally, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it while it lasted.

22

Greyvian would have liked nothing better than to live off of Sienna’s blood, to never have to hunt evil again and have those images burnt into his brain, but unfortunately, it seemed that it was more like alcohol to his system than anything overly sustaining. For a number of hours he felt fantastic, high as a kite, his mouth running away with itself—to Sienna’s delight—as he told her all of the ways in which he desired her. Her smell, her face, the way her hair shone in the light, her positive attitude to life; anything and everything he could pick out about her appearance, her character, her spirit.

When he came back down the next morning, having somehow made it into his bedroom at some point, he would have been appalled at himself if it had not been for the ravenous thirst that gripped his entire body, the pain causing his head to spin and his bones to ache. For a moment he was a boy of sixteen once more, his mind foggy, his body emaciated, incapable of standing, but then he came back to himself and had a lucid moment where he realised that by feeding Sienna and then having her drink from him again afterwards that he had been completely drained. Drinking her blood had sustained him for a while, or perhaps masked the symptoms of his blood loss with a mental high, but now that he was sober, his body cried out for blood. Human blood.

Raising his head, his gaze fell to where Sienna still slept beside him on the bed, her dark hair spread out across the pillow in a silky wave. Her neck was bare and stretched into a long length, calling to him. Without hesitation, he fell on her, his fangs punching into her skin and then retracting to allow the blood to fill his mouth. Not the nicest way to wake up, but she didn’t seem to mind as her hands came up and grasped his head, pulling him against her. He barely felt her fangs sink into him in return as time lost all meaning.

When he came back to himself, the pain in his body had subsided and his thinking was a little less foggy, if inebriated, but he knew it was just a temporary measure. He needed to find a human. Fast.

“I’ve got to go hunting,” he told her, giving her one last kiss before rolling off the bed and collecting his leathers. As he pulled them on, he was aware of her disappointment, but in his present happy state couldn’t give it much thought.

“You still need human blood?” she asked, her tone of voice reflecting her disappointment.

“Unfortunately it seems that way, yes,” he replied, pulling his t-shirt on with an idle thought that he really should buy some clothes that weren’t black.

Sienna sighed, her accepting nature taking it in stride. Suddenly her face lit up. “Wait, what about Jacob? You drained him. His blood is obviously palatable. Didn’t it sustain you? Couldn’t you two just feed each other from now on?”

It seemed insane, but his ability to feed from Jacob had completely slipped his mind. He could blame it on his bad mood at the time, all of the distractions that had happened since then or he could simply admit to himself that perhaps he had
wanted
to forget about it. Forget the perfect taste and consistency, the fact that it
had
been able to sustain him afterwards, that he had felt just as strong and revived as if he had fed from a human.

Sienna was right. He could feed from Jacob. He would never have to kill another human again. Never have to feed on evil. Never have to suffer the consequences of doing that: of seeing the deeds within his mind, thinking the thoughts as if they were his own…

“I’ll talk to him about it,” he promised, leaving her to her morning routine. It was on the walk down the hallway towards Jacob’s room that he realised he had been asleep for a good eight hours and that not once had he dreamt that he was evil incarnate.

If he fed from Jacob and continued to sleep with Sienna was it possible that he could be almost normal? The thought caused reluctance inside of him. To be normal would mean he might forget that he had a debt to repay—that he had ended over a thousand innocent lives just to appease his own thirst. If he fed from Jacob… shaking his head, he immediately denied the possibility. Nope. Couldn’t do it. He deserved to suffer.

Of course, he wasn’t in a sober state of mind right now, so maybe he wasn’t thinking about this as rationally as he should. All the same, it didn’t particularly bother him right now that he was dooming himself and everyone around him to a bleak future. It was simply too ingrained in him that he deserved nothing better.

Smiling, he knocked on his son’s door and listened for movement. A moment later he heard the sounds of blankets rustling, followed by feet hitting the floor. When Jacob opened the door, he took one look at Greyvian’s face and grimaced.

“You look happy,” the male snarked. “Having fun fucking my best friend?”

Greyvian raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. His son was obviously not a morning person.

After a few minutes of staring at each other, Jacob finally broke and asked, “What do you want?”

“We need to feed,” he replied.

Jacob frowned. “We?”

“You and I. We both fed Sienna and haven’t replenished. Hence, we need to feed.”

His son’s gaze went down the hallway in the direction of Sienna’s room, returning with an obvious hint of satisfaction. “You can’t feed from her,” he said, smirking.

“Oh, I can,” Greyvian told him, smirking in return as he burst that bubble, “but it seems it won’t sustain me.”

Jacob grimaced as his mind was no doubt filled with images of the two of them together. If Greyvian hadn’t been so blood drunk he might have felt for the male, but he was too far gone for his empathy to give a crap. All he could think about was the time that Jacob had drained her; how he had come back from his little escape with her scent all over him; how the male would have had his mouth on her, her blood in his body. No, empathy had completely left the building, jealousy and a completely territorial vindictiveness taking its place.

“I’ll feed later, thanks,” Jacob said, dismissing him by trying to shut the door in his face. Unfortunately for Jacob, Greyvian had his foot in the way.

“Don’t be a fool, Jacob. I made you a promise. I won’t let you kill anyone.”

Pulling the door open again, Jacob glared at him. “Bullshit! Where the fuck were you when I almost killed Sienna? I didn’t see you walk through the door to see if she was still alive after you’d fucking drained me! Knox was the one to come busting down the door.”

Jacob blamed him for that?

“I didn’t expect you to go see her alone in that state,” he said rationally. “I can’t help you unless you tell me what you’re doing, Jacob. I’m not going to be able to watch you twenty-four seven to see if you’re going to do something stupid.”

“You should have known!” Jacob blasted. “Once I’d gotten a whiff of her scent it was all I could think about. You were the same. If anyone in this whole fucking world should have known that I’d go to her place when I was starving, I’d think it would have been you!”

Greyvian had to concede that point. “You’re right,” he said, stepping back from the door. “I should have known. More to the point, I should never have drained you in the first place, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.
You
of all people should know the effect her scent can have on your brain.”

Jacob’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he worked through the truth of the statement. Greyvian gave him as much time as he needed, until, finally, his son turned around and walked over to his closet, jerking on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

It said a lot about Greyvian’s state of mind that he hadn’t noticed the male was practically naked but for a pair of briefs.

*  *  *

Jacob knew it wasn’t fair to be angry with Greyvian about Sienna, but he couldn’t help it. The anger was as much from jealousy as it was anything tangible—like his father draining him and leaving Jacob to take off after his best friend. Yes, Greyvian should have figured that would be the first place he would go, but, as he’d said, it wasn’t fair to expect the male to always be thinking about what stupid thing Jacob might do—especially when the mongrel was dealing with his own desire for her blood.

He’d been hoping when she transitioned that her scent would go away, like maybe it had just been her body’s way of calling out to vampires, trying to get them to drain her so they’d have to feed her their blood or something. Unfortunately, he was shit out of luck. Her scent was still there; perhaps not as strong as before, but he could still smell it. It still lingered in his nostrils, still called out to him to have a taste every time he walked past her bedroom during the night.

Which had been at least five times.

While the two of them had been inside fucking each other’s brains out.

He’d come up with an excuse each time he’d gone past—each one as lame and false as the one before—but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from doing a walk-by just to see if they’d stopped yet. Which they didn’t until about three a.m. in the morning.

Sad. So sad.

With a mental shake of his head, he followed Greyvian through the semi-crowded city streets and tried to pay attention to where they were going.

What were they doing again?

Christ, he was really out of it. This whole needing to feed thing was going to take some getting used to—especially the way that it messed with your mind. He’d been hungry before, knew the kind of irritability it could bring on, the physical effects it could have on you, but it was nothing compared to what his thirst for blood did to him. The worst part was that it crept up on him so slowly that he didn’t notice it until he was having visions of blood. Visions that took him right back to when he’d been getting insight into the mind of evil—a place he really didn’t want to visit any more than he already had—which was too fucking much since it had happened. He really hoped that this kind of hunger was something he would learn to detect
before
it got to that stage.

Although, he should have known he’d get there this quick after feeding Sienna his blood.

When Greyvian suddenly shot his hand out in front of a tall male walking the other way, Jacob had an ah-ha moment. That’s right. They weren’t just out for a walk. They were hunting. At least, Greyvian was hunting. Jacob was just following. Averting his gaze from the man, not wanting to see what it was the human had done to deserve death-by-Greyvian, he stared off into the distance until his father was finished.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Greyvian said, dragging the body towards an alleyway.

Jacob turned his back, not wanting to see what the male did to cover up his kill. After a moment, Greyvian returned and they began walking again.

“I can’t get her out of my mind,” he blurted without conscious thought. “Ever since I drank from her, I can’t get her out of my fucking mind.”

Greyvian was silent for a long moment, probably trying to work out how to tell him to back the fuck off, that Sienna was his, without sounding like a total psycho. Surprisingly, his father said none of that.

“I know the feeling,” Grey replied, a hint of wry humour in his tone.

Stunned, he came to a halt and stared at the male. Wry humour from Greyvian? Had the world turned upside down?

“Don’t look at me like that,” Greyvian said, a hint of that humour showing in his expression also. “It’s hard enough to show emotion as it is.”

“You’re not still drunk on Sienna’s blood, are you?” he asked dubiously.

Grey shook his head. “No. At least—not much.”

Jacob laughed shortly. “Yeah. I remember the feeling. It took a long time to sober up. But hey, at least there’s no hangover… unless you call this desire to fuck her and suck her a hangover.”

They took a moment to digest that possibility and then locked eyes. Jacob was the first to laugh and shake his head. Greyvian just smiled slightly.

“Maybe we should compare with Katarina,” he said, turning and continuing to walk. “She’s had some of Sienna’s blood. If she feels it too, there could be something there.”

“Perhaps,” Greyvian agreed. “Although, I wanted her before I’d tasted her.”

And wasn’t that just a kick in the pants? Jacob had known her for over a decade and had never wanted her the way he did since tasting her blood, but Greyvian had wanted her on sight. Maybe that meant there was some truth to the thought. Maybe Sienna’s blood did have some strange effect on those that tasted it. Greyvian just happened to have already been attracted to her so it didn’t matter.

He’d have to have a talk with Katarina when they got back.

Looking around at the flow of people milling past them, he tried to pick a human to feed on. Just when he’d made his decision, Greyvian’s hand settled on his shoulder and pulled him to a stop.

Meeting his father’s eyes, seeing the closed expression on his face, he raised a brow in question.

After a moment of silence, Greyvian offered up his wrist.

Taken aback, Jacob stared at the limb, absently noting the pale blue vein that was visible beneath the tanned skin. Looking back into Greyvian’s eyes, he tried to work out what his father was suggesting, but his brain was having a hard time putting two and two together.

Finally, it struck him. Greyvian wanted him to feed.