Gypsy's Blood (Page 38)

“And you endeavor to irritate me, gypsy girl?” I muse as I step back and let her into the house.

Even though the chase has ended quickly, she does make this part enjoyable when she’s being fun and prickly at the same time—my favorite combination.

After shutting the door, I set the gift aside and take her coat, since Vance mentioned something about her expecting a certain decorum of manners.

The concept alone is amusing—a monster with manners.

“So this is actually Vance’s house, right?” she asks as she looks around at the tacky floor-to-ceiling fabric walls.

“No art. No color. Just bland. Like the owner. And if I change something in his home, he changes something in mine. I want my house exactly the same when I return,” I gripe.

Just thinking about that smug prick lounging in my Jacuzzi in the Japanese garden—that I bet he hasn’t pruned—pisses me off.

“Why is he punishing you?” she muses as I study her.

“Why are you here?” I ask instead, and she turns and grabs the present I’ve put off to the side.

“It’s customary to bring a gift when showing up unannounced,” she says, as her stalker ghost drops to a chair and starts pretending to be snapping pictures of my ass in my slacks.

I’m not sure why I tighten my ass and discreetly pose a little like there’s a real camera, but it’s grating on my nerves that she’s even here.

I take the sock again, curious about why Violet’s smiling like that, and pull out a small, antique…mirror.

The shine on the glass surface is immaculate, not even a speck of dust, smudge, or lint marring the perfection of it.

It’s quite possibly the most beautifully crafted mirror I’ve ever seen.

“Where did you—”

“It belonged to my grandmother.”

“It’s far too nice to be a gift, gypsy girl,” I state absently, my eyes running over the finer, clearly hand-crafted edges.

“I was actually hoping you might trade with me.”

There’s nothing that feels better than finding something like this to barter for.

“What would you want in return?” I ask without looking away from the detail in the finishing.

True silver wrapped over just enough iron to give it proper firmness.

“Little of this and that, but mostly some self-defense skills. If monsters are my new normal, I need more than one trick in my pony’s saddlebag,” she says, confusing the ever loving hell out of me.

“What?”

“I need to be able to protect myself from things that don’t die from being strangled, and I’m asking you to help with that.”

“Wouldn’t a Van Helsing be the far more obvious choice for that task?” I muse, caught up with the reflection as my attention returns to the mirror.

“I don’t want to hunt things. I just want to fend them off and effectively get out of potentially sticky situations. You’d be better for that,” she goes on, moving closer to me.

“And I’m really curious about what you are,” she says as she steps closer, her head tipping back so she can stare up at me.

Feeling her gentle, cool touch is the only thing that breaks my concentration from my new mirror.

“I definitely want to take a spin on him. Like one of those sit-and-spin toys kind of spin,” Anna says from too close beside me, but not even she can distract me from the gypsy eyes I’m staring into.

“Have you ever heard the legend of Dorian Gray?” I ask as her breaths get a little shaky, her proximity to me messing with her head.

Terrible gypsy. Everyone knows to avoid the eyes. Why does she always look there first?

My hand slides against her cheek, and she leans into the touch as a drunken haze presumably fogs her vision. Like pure putty in my hand.

“The immortal who was all about orgies and whoring, but could die if he ever looked upon his special painting or something?” she asks quietly, a slight rasp to her voice as her hand slips inside my open shirt.

I hate that I feel it when she touches me. I deadened myself so long ago that it shouldn’t be possible to feel her. But her touch is just cold enough to force me to acknowledge it as she drags her hand up to my chest.

“Is that why I feel like this when you do whatever it is you’re doing?” she asks on a hushed tone.

A barrage of images assault my mind, as the dirty little gypsy fantasizes about all the things she’d love to do with me. She really doesn’t understand how dangerous it is to not fear me the way she should.

Someone should tell her.

“In a sense,” I murmur, brushing my hand over her cheek.

“So you’re Dorian Gray?”

“No, I’m Damien Morpheous,” I tell her, lips twisting with wry amusement when her eyes dance with intrigue. “Dorian is just my bastard brother, who my father refused to ever give the family name. He’s far more popular than I, even to this day. However, that’s only because he doesn’t have the family curse, nor is he afflicted by my own personal additional curse. He and my other siblings enjoy life so much more.”

“What curse?” she asks as I drag my thumb across her lips, entranced by how soft they are.

“My personal curse? I can give a woman plenty of pleasure. But if I find my own, it’ll be at the cost of her life.”

Her hooded gaze stays fixed on mine. “Why are you the only one with that curse?”

Putting the mirror in my back pocket, my other hand snakes around her waist like I simply can’t help myself. She’s made my damn heart start beating with the images she won’t stop seeing—images of my hands all over her bare body.

It’s pure torture to a deviant such as I.

“Because once upon a time, two gypsy women cursed me at the same time as punishment, and they turned me into a bigger freak than I already was.”

My attention is still snagged on her lips, and her hands are sliding up my chest, moving up to my neck.

“Seems harsh,” she murmurs as her fingers tangle in my hair.

“You’d likely disagree if you heard the whole story,” I tell her. “Though, I think I’ve more than been punished for long enough.”

“This is really happening,” Anna says excitedly from somewhere close by.

Everything on me is hard as I press Violet against the wall, letting her feel what she’s doing to me as I rock against her, tempting her with the forbidden the same fucking way she’s doing me.

“You did hear the part about my curse that comes with the possibility of a death sentence, right, gypsy girl?” I muse as I lean over to her ear, nipping it.

She shudders against me, and her nails press into my shoulders.

“So not a problem. Do it, Violet. Do it now,” Anna, the daft, reckless ghost, cheers from the sidelines.

“According to Emit, I’m a freak too,” she says as she drags her lips across my cheek, her hands climbing up again and tangling in my hair as I lift her from the ground.

Her legs wind around my waist as I leverage her between the wall and my body and kiss a spot on her neck, telling myself I can have a small taste and back away.

“You’re a gypsy freak,” I say against her skin. “I can assure you it’s entirely different,” I add as she starts pushing my shirt off my shoulders.

I really should stop. She’s not thinking clearly, and neither am I.

Throw two forbidden fruits into the same fucking basket, and there’s no telling what chaos will spring free after that.

“How?” she asks, though it’s more of a moan, since I’ve found a spot on her neck she particularly loves having kissed.

My grip tightens on her ass as I grind against her, unable to stop myself when a fresh flurry of images roll around in my mind.

“Boring easily is a shared affliction among my kind,” I tell her as her lips brush the edge of mine and we both freeze.

“And?” she asks quietly, her tongue barely touching the corner of my mouth and driving me out of my motherfucking mind in a way that surely shouldn’t be possible.

“Sex is our weapon,” I go on, touching her cheek. “Illusions are our birthright. But I’m the only one who can’t have pleasure. That means a piece of me, the monster I am that craves the carnal, is denied unless I kill someone during the process, because it drains their life to give me that pleasure. Sort of a mood killer when your date drops dead before you can fully finish,” I tell her dryly, even as my stomach sours.

“What if you found someone who can’t die?” she asks as I press into her harder.

“Vampires die. Werewolves die. Creatures I’ve created die. I’m an alpha, Violet. Nothing is stronger than me,” I say as I stop myself from tearing her clothes off.

Just barely.

Her lips are on mine in the next instant like the insane gypsy just can’t refuse anything forbidden, and I forget everything when her tongue touches the seam of my lips.

For the first time in longer than I can remember, I kiss someone back, opening myself up to all the frustration I stopped allowing myself to suffer through.

She moans into my mouth, which just fuels everything in all the wrong directions.

Just as I decide to give her the pleasure she wants, minus the risk, of course, she tears her lips away from mine, breathing heavily as she reaches into my back pocket and pulls out the mirror.