Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (7 page)

BOOK: Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem)
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Okay, so Tyler had told me that I wouldn’t react well to the cold, but the near paralysis I
experienced after only a few minutes wasn’t what I’d expected.  I couldn’t feel my fingers.  I couldn’t feel my toes.  I couldn’t feel anything.  But, being stubborn—and blatantly stupid—I pretended the cold seeping through my clothes in an attempt to reach my bones didn’t even faze me.  I clenched my teeth when they started to chatter, refusing to give in. 

“Just tell us when you’ve had enough, Em,” Tyler said, looking worried. 

“With all those layers on, she should be able to spend the night out here,” Sierra muttered softly behind me with another laugh.

Giving her my best go-to-hell look, I forced my sluggish body to move toward the patio table.  If I found it disturbing that I only knew I was walking because of the jarring sensation I felt in my hips, I didn’t let it show.  By the time I sat down, though, I had started to feel a little…loopy. 

My entourage followed me, but I blocked them out and let my head fall back to look up at the sky.  I knew they were watching me, waiting for me to cave, but I wasn’t going to give Sierra the satisfaction even if it meant I turned into an ice sculpture.

“I do believe she wants to be alone,”
Sierra said when I still hadn’t cried uncle after the first half hour.  “I think we should let her have her way this time.  Let’s go have a drink, boys.  I think a little brandy.  Nothing
warms you up
like brandy.”

They walked back into the house chattering about how warm they were going to be in a few minutes.  I watched them go without a word.  The deadly look I was giving them was all the communication I could manage without my teeth clacking together hard enough to shatter on impact.

Leaning my head back again, I watched as the sky got darker, as the stars began to come out.  Those stars had never looked so far away.  In my loopy state, I equated them to everything else in my life that was out of reach.  I picked out one for Kim and another for Blake.  Grams got the next one.  My other half got the brightest one I could find.  My dwindling senior year got the one next to it.

“And there’s Nathan’s,” I whispered, surprised to find that my teeth had stopped chattering.  “No, wait, that’s a planet.  Oh well, he can still have that one.  I have a better chance of touching Mars than I have of touching
him
.”

I’d been sitting there, giving all the stuff I missed a star, for about an hour when I started to feel warm—then hot.  I knew it was a bad thing that I felt that way.  I knew I shouldn’t take off my jacket.  I knew I should be worried when I tugged
off my earmuffs and cap in a fit of sweltering heat.  I knew that taking off my hoodie wasn’t the brightest plan I’d ever had.   

And I
damn
sure knew that when the back door of the house next door banged open, letting out a blast of music and one solitary, obviously drunk, young man, that I should get my ass up and run back in the house.  But is that what I did? 

Oh, come
on
, people!  At least
try
to remember who you’re dealing with here! 

Our intoxicated neighbor stumbled over to the fence that separated our yards, oblivious to the fact that I was there.  I wanted to wince in sympathy when I heard him retching into the bushes, but a giggle slipped out instead.  The sour smell of vomit reached me within seconds, thanks to the wind, and I wrinkled my nose at the smell—and then breathed deeply as a completely different scent drifted to me as the guy stood up and leaned his elbow against the top of the fence to brace himself.  He noticed me sitting there about the same time I focused on his coppery-colored aura. 

Peering at me through alcohol-glazed eyes, he gave me a sheepish smile.  “Well, this is embarrassing,” he slurred, his cheeks turning a deep red.  “Sorry.  I didn’t see you sitting there.  Don’t mind me.  Afraid I can’t handle Uncle Eddie’s eggnog.”

I nodded, but decided speaking wasn’t in my best interest.  Honestly, I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth.  Taking my silence the wrong way, he ran a hand over the back of his neck nervously and glanced toward the door he had exited through. 

“Some party in there,” he said, trying again to smooth over what he considered an extremely awkward moment.  “You wanna come join the fun?  Just avoid the eggnog and you’ll be fine.”

“Or you could come over and join me,” I said, surprising myself as I realized how completely calm I sounded.  I heard something in my voice that scared the shit out of me, a kind of husky invitation that I had by no means put there on my own.  “The fresh air would probably do you a lot of good.”  

No.  No, wait.  He couldn’t
join
me!  He had to go.  And I do mean
go
.  Like the kind of exit that included a lot of blood-curdling screaming, adrenaline, and the lingering nightmares that accompanied any near-death experience. 

“Yeah, I could do that,” he said with an adorable grin.

Run!  Damn it, Ember, get your ass up and move!
the lingering smidgen of my humanity screamed.  Only…I couldn’t remember why I should.  I couldn’t remember anything.  I just wanted to sit there and talk to my new friend.  I wanted to enjoy the warm night and the cool breeze and the scent of flowers and spices in the air.  Was that really so bad?

Uh, yeah, it was.  Because that warm night was a sultry thirty degrees, at best, and that cool breeze was bringing that down to single digit range.  And that spicy-floral scent? 

Yeah, two guesses what
that
was. 

As pukey-drunk as he was
, the new neighbor took a step back and used his hands to leverage himself over the fence between us.  Some semi-hysterical part of my mind gave his landing a solid four when he had to grab hold of the fence again so he wouldn’t fall.  Steadying himself, he gave me a triumphant grin and started staggering in my direction.

With each step he took toward me, that funny
humming sensation under my skin got worse.  He was practically in front of me when my blurry brain realized what that feeling was.  It was the same humming I’d felt the day I woke up from Oblivion.  It was the same feeling I’d had when I’d tried to feed on my boyfriend.

I was hungry.

No!
my human side screamed even as my demon side smiled up at the young man who had unwittingly just put himself in life-sucking range.  Seriously, I wasn’t holding back on the ‘I’m beautiful so let me eat you’ vibes, and this poor, drunk idiot was eating it up.  I could almost see the less-than-pure thoughts going through his head.  My demon’s smile got even bigger when his aura started to glow brighter.   

“Sit down,” I told him, my voice even huskier and more compelling than it had been when I invited him over to join me.  He sat, moving like he was in a trance, and my demon started jumping up and down with glee as it surveyed its intended prey.  “So, what’s your name?”

“Clay,” he said, leaning toward me,
wanting
to get closer.  My demon growled in anticipation. 

“Clay,” I purred with a seductive smile.  “I like that name.  I haven’t seen you around here before, Clay.  Are you new in town?”

“Just here visiting my cousin, Cassie,” he said, waving a hand toward the house and the party still going full-force.  Grinning, he leaned even closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “She has a thing for the guy who lives here, by the way.  Thinks he’s hotter than fire.”

The human side of me bristled jealously at that.  Hotter than fire, huh?  Apparently, she didn’t know just how hot that particular element could really be.  Of course, messing with my boyfriend was generally a good way to find out.

Not anymore,
that sad little voice that had kept me company since I woke up dead said in the back of my mind. 
And you might want to ask yourself if Nathan
is
still your boyfriend before you go getting all territorial. 

Would you shut up?
I thought, not wanting to think about the fall of mine and Nathan’s relationship.  Really, who needed enemies when the voices in my own head were so sweet and full of light?

Before I could listen to my conscience and get all depressed, though, my demon kicked back in with a vengeance.  Wanting to see just how bright his aura could get, I leaned toward Clay, a sly smile pulling at my lips.   

“He’s cute,” I agreed in the same conspiratorial tone he’d used, nodding.  I felt a spasm of disgust when I realized I was the kind of monster who liked to play with her food before she ate it.  Laying my hand over his on the table, I smiled again flirtatiously.  “But you’re cute, too.”

He stared at me, wide-eyed, for a second and then smiled like a kindergartener who’d just gotten a gold star.  “And you’re gorgeous,” he murmured, actually scooting his chair around the table toward me.  My darker side laughed.  “So are you and that guy,” he waved his hand toward the house, “a couple or something?”

“Or something,” I said, taking another deep breath of the scent coming from his aura. 
God
, he smelled delicious.  “We used to be a thing, but we’re kind of on the rocks right now.  What about you?  A hottie like you
must
have a girlfriend?”

Clay beamed at me like he’d won the lottery when I started sliding my hand up his arm.  I just felt sick—and even knowing what I was doing was despicable wasn’t enough to stop me.  I was too far gone; my demon had too much control.

With each word, I found myself getting closer to my completely oblivious victim.  His essence was all I could smell, his luminous aura the only thing I saw.  I wanted it.  I wanted it with a driving need that was just plain terrifying.   I wasn’t going to be able to fight the demon sharing my body.  I was going to feed on this guy whose only crime was that he’d been unlucky enough to stumble across me in the dark, and there was no one there to stop me.

Or, at least, I didn’t
think
there was…

“Yes, he does,” a cold voice said behind me.  My head snapped around to find Nathan standing on the back steps, Tyler
and Sierra right behind him.  Nathan’s arms were crossed over his muscular chest and his eyes were flashing furiously as he studied my almost-snack.  “Her name is Lisa, and she’s next door.  Where
he
needs to be.”

A feral snarl rumbled in my chest as I glared at Nathan, and my fingernails dug into Clay’s arm.  I was like
a wild animal defending my kill.  Later, I would be glad for that, because it snapped my drunken victim out of the trance I’d managed to put him in.  Clay shook his head like he was trying to remember what the hell he was doing there, and then looked at me in confusion—that quickly turned to fear when he saw the way my eyes were glowing.

“Go.  Now,” Nathan told him, walking over to jerk me out of my chair. 

When I snarled again, Tyler moved to put himself between me and my victim, that beautiful glow he put off getting brighter.  I cowered away from that light, as terrified of getting near it as I’d been that first day as a darkling.  There was just something about it that both mesmerized and scared the shit out of me. 

Once Nathan saw that Tyler had me under control, he turned back to
my would-be victim.  Staring deep into Clay’s eyes, he snapped, “You will forget all of this.  You came outside, you got sick.  You’re going to go find Lisa and call it a night.  Right?”

The compulsion in his voice was so strong that even I reacted to it.  I felt dazed, but he’d probably fried a circuit in that kid’s brain with his vampy little mind trick.  Clay went completely blank for just a second, then nodded dreamily, got up, and walked away. 

I watched him go, sanity returning all at once.  I could have killed him.  And for what?  To win some stupid pissing contest between me and Sierra?  Was that who I’d become? 

Was that
what
I’d become? 

By the time the side gate closed behind Clay and Nathan turned his full attention—and the full force of his anger—on me, I had already started to shrink into myself, so full of horror and self-loathing that I couldn’t even defend myself.

“We shouldn’t have let it go so far, Nate,” Tyler said, his voice calm and soothing. 


She
should have fought harder,” Nathan growled, glaring down at me.

“Don’t be such a prick, Ashley,”
Tyler snapped back, headed right for me.  “This was Sierra’s brilliant idea.  If you want to get pissed, at least turn it in the right direction.”

“She has to learn to accept her limitations, Tyler,” Sierra said, giving me a sympathetic, yet exasperated, look.  “She knew she had been out too long, yet she was too stubborn and pigheaded to come inside.  She has to learn that it is not weakness to admit
when you’ve reached your limit.  It’s the only way she’s going to survive.”

Tyler
reached out to touch me, but I caught a whiff of his essence and stumbled back, forcing my frozen body to respond to my commands.  Another wave of shame crashed over me when I realized just how badly I wanted to taste that essence.   

“I have to go,” I told them, backing toward the door and the promise of escape from
the revulsion in Nathan’s eyes, and the pity in Tyler’s.  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I turned to run. 

BOOK: Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem)
3.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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