Desecrated Beauty (Twisted Fairy Tales #1) (7 page)

“I’m not.”

“You are and they will know that. So no matter what amount of effort you might exert to try and attract them to you, they value their immortality a lot more than a romp in the sheets with a woman like you. No matter how beautiful you may be.”

It wasn’t the first time a man had called her beautiful, but something about Nero saying it made all the difference in the world. She looked away from his shyly, combatting the residual anger she was still feeling over his so-called rules.

“What else?” she finally said, trying to detract from her shameless behaviour.

“Nothing else. The rest is up to you. My rules are simple.”

“And what do you get out of me being here?”

“The pleasure of your company.”

“It can’t be that easy. Nothing in the world is that easy, there has to be a motivation for you taking me in and expecting nothing in return for sheltering me, clothing me and feeding me.”

“You took my Rose so your presence will pay off that debt.”

“Rose was here as your meal and I’ve already told you that I am not going to replace that position for you.”

“I am aware of that,” he said as he rose from the bed, moving back toward the door. “This bedroom isn’t actually your assigned one. If you’d like to come with me, I’ll show you your chambers.”

“Chambers,” she snorted, bemused by his archaic terminology.

“Yes,” he said lacking any amusement in his tone.

“You’re still avoiding answering my question. There has to be something in it for you with my being here.”

“Your presence is all I want.”

“You told me last night that you wanted me.”

Nero left the room and Quill reluctantly followed him. She felt a lot better in an unassigned room that she had chosen instead of a room he had had the opportunity to prepare for her with God only knew what.

“This is true.”

“And I said you won’t have me. Blood, body or mind.”

“I could take those things.” He reminded her.

“Yes, but my rule is no more of that compelling thing.”

“It doesn’t work on you half the time. You have to be rather emotionally distressed for your guard to be down enough for it to work I find.”

“Yeah, well, stop trying to use it.”

“I prefer that anyway.” She didn’t know if that was any better, she almost felt like she was playing into some unknown will he hadn’t warned her of yet.

“Why does this room have to be for me?” she said with a distrustful tone as he led her into a bedroom that felt far more girly than was appropriate for Quill’s tastes.

“I presumed you would like sunshine in your room every once in a while.” She turned to look at the window and realized it was half-way open. She looked back at Nero who had positioned himself carefully to avoid being touched by the light before nodding her head.

“Yes, thank you.” The words left a bitter taste on her tongue as she shrugged the jacket she wore off and laid it at the foot of the bed.

“You’re not going to tell me your motivation are you?”

“I am a simple man despite my reputation, I purely wish for your presence. And you will obey me by sitting with me for dinner.”

“I’m not going to watch you feed off a human.”

“No, I don’t expect you to either. It isn’t sexy and it’s not appealing. But I will watch you eat.”

“Sexy,” she retorted, tugging her sweater down more as she turned to look at him again.

“You didn’t bring clothes,” he noted with interest. “I’ll have someone go and find you a wardrobe in the evening when everyone is awake again.”

“Do you sleep during the day then?”

“Most do, yes. The younger vampires are compelled to by their necrosis, but someone as old as I am can resist the urges. I can go for weeks without sleep if necessary. But it can be taxing on my body after some time.”

“Good to know.”

“I’d be happy to tell you more about my kind at a later date, but you have had a trying evening: rescuing your sister, fighting me, cutting yourself open…” He nodded at her collarbone where the underlying cuts from earlier peeked out from under the fraying neckline. She covered her skin self-consciously making him laugh.

“Dried blood is as appealing to me as fresh blood is to you. You have nothing to worry about. If those injuries do start to bother you, however, let me know and I can arrange that you’re healed.”

“And how would you do that?”

“My blood has regenerative properties, you would find yourself back to full health with only a few mouthfuls.” Her expression showed her distaste at the idea and Nero laughed in amusement.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t make you do it unless you asked. But like I said if it begins to bother you I can arrange for it to be healed.”

Quill’s nose remained curled, “even if it was bothering me I think I’d leave it.”

“Understandable.” Nero nodded his head and backed away to the door once more. “Well, I will see you in the evening then. I hope you rest well, I look forward to seeing you later.”

The way he looked at her as he left the room kept her stomach in tight knots for several long minutes after he was gone. Finally able to shake him from her system she went to the door and thanked him softly for giving her a lock on her door. Turning it tight and pushing a chair up against the door knob for good measure, she went to the window and pulled the curtains shut.

He was right about one thing, the last 12 hours had been exhausting and she was ready to sleep. Maybe when she woke up, this would all be a terrible dream and the world as she once knew it would be back to its rightful state.

Then again, if this disappeared so would he, and some sick, twisted part of her deep down inside didn’t want that either.

When Quill woke again, it was well into the evening and the house below her was bustling. The chair was missing from the door and the silent threat that hung there warned her: no amount of security would keep them away from her. She didn’t know how comfortable she was with that knowledge. It certainly took away the thanks she had registered before bed.

But with the chair replaced and the lock undone she found her closet filled with new clothes. Within it hung every sort of outfit for any situation she could imagine. Even some non-practical outfits she wasn’t entirely sure she would ever allow to grace her body. Nero, at least, had noted her sense of style and ensured that most of the outfits in there were to her tastes.

She showered, cleaning herself of the dirt and blood from yesterday’s adventure before she pulled a pair of jeans out along with a v-neck t-shirt. Once fully dressed she left her room and wandered through the hall. Anyone she past left her feeling chilled at the idea that they were dead but none of them even acknowledged she was there. As far as they were concerned she was a ghost. That had to be Nero’s influence.

At the bottom of the stairs, Clovis greeted her and guided her into a massive dinner room. At the far end of the table, Nero sat with a newspaper. It was a strangely normal sight that she didn’t expect from the knowledge of what he truly was. She eyed him suspiciously as Clovis guided a chair out at Nero’s left and she sat down. She would’ve preferred the seat at the far end.

“How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms and surveying the empty plate in front of her. As if they had read her thoughts someone appeared by her side, exchanging the empty plate for one laden with a full English breakfast. Her stomach grumbled at the irresistible smell of bacon and sausages that wafted up to her. To be honest, it had been a long time since she’d had something that wasn’t directly out of a can.

“I suppose your connections with the auction houses extends as well to the farmers that supply the inner city?” She glanced up at Nero, who merely nodded as she looked back down at the food again.

“It’s not poisoned,” he said chidingly as she picked up her fork and loaded it up with a full sausage.

“Poison would be better than bled dry, I assure you.” She returned the tone as she shovelled half the sausage into her mouth. The grease and juice exploded in her mouth and she couldn’t resist a moan of delight as she chewed on it.

The next time she made eye contact with Nero he was staring at her with bemusement, “good then?” He teased as she finished off the rest of the sausage in one swallow.

“The way to a woman’s heart is meat.”

“I’ll remember that for future use then.” He was amused with her as he watched her attack the plate with savagery. When she finished off a plate someone anticipated her needs and was by her side with a second one, then a third and by then she was starting to feel full. When she looked back up at Nero, he was sipping from a wine glass but her mind knew that the contents, although the colour of merlot, was not wine at all.

“I have business in the city tonight, but I wanted to see you before I left.”

“Right,” she said as she picked up her water glass and swished her mouth clean. It was comments like that which made her believe there was an ulterior motive to his keeping her here.

“What do you have to do?” She decided to bite at the leading statement.

“Well, you caused a bit of a ruckus yesterday and so the council is asking questions about what happened. I have to clean up your mess so no one goes looking for you.”

“Why would they go looking for me?”

“Well, you saw the auction house - which you shouldn’t have. How did you find it by the way?”

“Two lieutenants led me there… But why would that matter?”

“You’re apart, or that is - you were apart, of the Desecrated and so of course if you had seen anything - which we know you did - you would’ve gone back to your leader and told them - which you did - and so that would give them a reason to want to find you and the others that might know.”

“So then what are you going to do about my leaders then?”

He gave her a judgmental look before standing up, “I’m sure I don’t have to answer that question.”

“You can’t kill them!” She leapt to her feet, thinking about her sister… Tate, Orion, Blast, Striker and all the others she’d come to class as family. There had to be another way, an alternative to offer them.

“It is you or them,” he said back, his voice just as loud and sharp as hers.

“Then me! Choose me every time!” she said, grabbing his arm and forcing him to look down at her. He glared at her, a heated look in his eyes. The second pull on his arm drew him into action, just not the kind she had wanted. He moved before she even had the chance to blink, his hands curled around her upper arms as he backed her into the China cabinet. The carefully chiselled wood bit into her lower back as his body pressed hard and possessive against her. His eyes were on fire as they stared down at her a burning passion she’d never seen before ignited there.

“Never. I would never risk you for some lowlifes.” His voice was tight with restraint. If this was him holding himself together, she didn’t know what it would look like if he let go completely.

“They aren’t lowlifes, they’re my family.” She struggled in his grip, trying to pull herself from the tightness of it and regain the upper hand.

“Your sister is your family and she is safe and free. But the others have been dealt with.”

“It’s done already?” It felt as though someone had taken a bucket of ice and dropped it down the back of her shirt. Reality around her spun. Tate was dead, Orion - gone, what of the breeders? Innocent women who had just been looking to avoid patronage. Her throat was too tight to ask, the probable truth too much for her to voice.

“Of course,” he said with the cold tone of someone delivering the answer to a math problem. But this wasn’t such a stupid, emotionless thing. She felt numb with horror as she stared at him. She wanted to hate him and yell at him, blame him for all of this, but that wasn’t true was it? She had done this… It was her fault.

Her knees buckled and if not for his steel grip on her arms she would’ve fallen to the floor, “no…”

Nero gathered her in his arms, holding her completely upright against his chest. He didn’t seem bothered by the weight he carried, keeping her off her toes completely. It was a good thing too, she would’ve been a heap on the floor.

“I am sorry for your loss.” It was the same dead tone he had used on her before. He wasn’t sorry, but he was trying to be kind. It was an uncharacteristically gentle gesture and she hated it.

“It had to be done,” he carried on talking, trying to justify his choice. When had he passed the order - because that’s what it had been wasn’t it?

He’d sent some of his guards to her home and massacred her family. Had they fed on them? Was there bits of them splattered on the wall? Quill pictured all the grisly details behind her closed eyes. Each image making her hate him more and more. Why did he pick her? What was she doing here?

“Or they would’ve come, we would be in danger here…” She had tuned out what he was saying, she didn’t care. “Your sister would’ve been ripped apart or worse. I am truly sorry for your loss, but this is the way it had to be.” He didn’t sound sorry at all, no matter how much he said it that much she knew as she glared at him.

She tried to shake his hands off of her, but he held fast. They stared at one another; her: fuelled by hatred and him: fuelled by passion.

“Why me?” She asked the burning question on her mind. She didn’t expect him to answer. Like all the times before he would change the subject and she would be left in the dark again.

“Why not you?” he countered with a smooth cock of his eyebrow. She growled in frustration, receiving a chuckle in response. “Because you took my Rose,” he said, repeating himself like always.

“You owe me a debt,” she finished for him with a sprinkle of sarcasm. She pushed both her hands into his chest and forced him away from her. He wanted her to live with the guilt of having killed her friends. That had to be it then. He wasn’t going to physically hurt her, but he would mentally torture her.

“When you’re ready I’ll tell you the truth, Isabelle.”

“Fuck your truth, Lord Nero.” She shoved him again, and this time he released her before she turned and stomped out of the dining room. Her single-minded thought was to get away from him so she heading back upstairs to her bedroom. But she knew even there she wouldn’t be able to escape him. She had nowhere to go.

Halfway up the stairs she turned and looked at the front door. It only took her a few seconds to rush to the door, slipping through it and past the bewildered guards standing on lookout. She hurried down the steps and started across the vast plains of the property. Nero didn’t follow her, which she was thankful for. It was for the best if he didn’t have a death wish. He might be old and difficult to kill but right now vengeance bubbled through her veins and she would find a way to get it.

Quill stomped around the grounds for as long as it took to cool down. Her mind was racing too much to focus on any singular thought or emotion. She yo-yoed between feeling heartbroken, guilty, worried and severely pissed off. Then there was, of course, the hopelessness she felt at being trapped here with nowhere to escape to anymore.

As she started to feel a little more calm, she realised someone was following her and she frowned, turning around to face him. He at least had the decency to not even try to act like he hadn’t been skulking around behind her as he stepped from the shadows and approached her.

“Are you my bodyguard?”

“I’m just here to make sure you don’t go anywhere.”

“Where can I go now? My home, as I knew it, has been destroyed now. He saw to that. It’s like he needed to give me a reason to stay with him.” The vampire guard didn’t say anything to her so she turned and kept walking. There was nothing else he could offer her if he weren’t willing to at least offer her words. She was sure Nero would be faithful to his promise that none of his people would be willing to get involved with her.

She was his.

The words made her shiver at the implication behind them. What did that mean for her future? Would she eventually become a subscriber to him? Would she eventually fall to her knees and offer him his neck?

No. Never. She would never do that. No matter what happened she would never let him have that part of herself.

Rounding back around the property she walked back up the steps, feeling childish and embarrassed as the eyes of the guards at the front door watched her go back into the house like a chastised child. She walked up the stairs to her bedroom and closed the door, uselessly locking it as she slumped onto the bed and stared at the wall.

She didn’t know what else she could do now that the anger had subsided and given away to defeat. She hated the feeling but without Nero she had nothing here. She had to rely on him. Perhaps that’s what he had wanted. She would feel better if she had a weapon though and for a moment she considered making one.

Then the thought struck her: somewhere here, behind one of those forbidden doors, she could find a weapon that he kept in some secret armoury. She couldn’t imagine he would dispose of any weapons that his guards took off of people who entered the property. They were too valuable and it would be a waste to not keep them, just in case.

But then, if she did find it and took something from it, he would know she had snooped. He would know she had something dangerous to defend herself with. No, she wanted something he didn’t know about, just in case. Something no one knew about and then maybe she could take back a little bit of the control that she felt slip through her fingers the longer she stayed here with him.

Grabbing the mattress she hauled it up and pushed it aside, revealing the slats of the bed underneath. Prying one out of its holder she quickly replaced the mattress so no one had any reason to suspect. Sitting down on the bed she turned the slat piece over and over her hands, considering how she was going to carve a stake without a knife or anything.

Balancing the two sides of the slat in between her hands she pressed them in toward each other. The wood they’d used for the bed was flimsy and flexible, it caved under the pressure she exerted and after a few tries snapped in satisfaction. One piece was more pointed than the other so she discarded the piece she had on the bed, moving into the bathroom to look around for anything sharp enough to carve the stake.

Nero had been true to his word, ensuring there was enough to keep her comfortable - including a razor. He must’ve deemed the item safe. She grinned to herself and filled the tub up with warm water, pushing the wood underneath and watching it swell. When it was soft enough she pulled it back out and sitting on the closed toilet she worked the razor’s edge slowly along the point.

It was slow, tiresome work, but she soon had managed to fashion the wood into a decent enough point. The razor hadn’t fared as well. Dropping the useless beauty tool into the bin she grabbed the stake and brought it back into the bedroom.

She set it on the windowsill to dry before sitting on the bed again. She didn’t feel any safer with the stake when the only thing she knew that guaranteed real safety was knowledge. She needed the truth from Nero about why she was here without the facades and masks he used with ease. If she was going to accept being here with him, she needed to know everything.

Her hands were shaking with nerves as she walked through the second floor looking for his room. She suspected his room was the one guarded by two surly looking vampires eying her with suspicion as she approached them.

“You can’t go in there.” The one to the right spoke first, angling his body so he loomed in front of the door but also over her. Pulling herself together, calling on the cool, steely killer that lived under the surface she rose to her full height, letting him know he didn’t scare her.

“Nero asked me to wait for him in his bedroom.” Righty looked at Lefty for confirmation before looking back at her.