Chapter Eleven Taranis #2
“Though I did some digging and saw that you two started working together recently. It was so nice of you, Taranis, to come rescue your new employee like this. But I suppose that makes sense; you are the best of them.” She smiles so sweetly at me, and while I work through whatever’s going on in my arm, my temples, and my chest, I listen to Monika suck in a small, wounded breath.
“Monika, my eomma wanted me to come get you and tell you that they’re ready for your photo op.
” Her face twitches, her smile off. Jealousy is an ugly monster.
I can see it now. But what I cannot see is what’s keeping Monika from fighting it off.
No matter. I’m used to killing. I’ll slaughter it for her quickly so we can get back to where we were before we were so rudely interrupted.
“Yes, Monika, why don’t you go now and give me some time to get to know your friend.
” I level my gaze at the woman in the red dress and give her my best, most provocative grin.
It seems to stun the woman momentarily, because her own smile falters before picking back up in the next breath with even more brilliance.
I can tell she’s forgotten Monika—Monika, who is staring at me agape.
I tip my chin at her, refusing to wink, because that would be too obvious.
Also, what do I care that she knows that I’ve got this?
She can go off and mope in her own despair .
. . Yet why does that thought make my skin crawl?
Nodding, Monika’s impossibly smooth shoulders curve slightly inward. “All right,” she says, voice soft. “Yeah. Yes. I should go . . . the photo . . .” She swallows repeatedly, gaze passing between me and this newcomer; then she stalks off.
My headache explodes through my skull, and I hiss between my teeth, able to feel as Monika retreats out the door that leads to the Tunnel of Lights, like I’m holding a tether linked directly to her disappointment and it’s been pulled.
I balk, annoyed at her all over again. Petty human emotions.
Doesn’t she realize I’m doing something nice for her?
Then again, I haven’t exactly done anything nice yet.
Let me rectify that.
“So, you are Monika’s friend?” I ask the irritating female.
She stiffens up, straightening and slamming her jaw shut. “Her godsister, in a way.” She flicks her hair with her elegant fingers. “My mother is Monika’s godmother, and Monika’s mother is mine.”
“Long-standing rivalry? That kind of thing?” I say as she leans in, the scent of her perfume invading my senses and making me choke. It smells good enough, but all it does is remind me of Monika’s perfume. I hadn’t noticed how subtle and smoky it smelled until now.
“Hardly.” She rolls her eyes, but I don’t miss the clench of her mouth. “I’m a model, mostly based out of New York and Seoul, but I’m in town for the weekend visiting some people . . .”
“And decided to take time out of your busy schedule to come harass one of your mother’s honored guests?”
“‘Harass’?” she says, sounding so appallingly innocent.
She touches her fingertips to her chest. Through her pale skin, I can see the outline of her skeleton.
“I just came by to see if my eomma had lost her mind when she told me that you two were here on a real date, or if it was just another one of your acts of heroism—providing permanently single Monika Kim Neumann with her very first date.” She sticks her tongue out at me in a way that’s meant to be cute and teasing.
All it does is make me want to cut it off.
“Since I can clearly see it’s the latter, I’d love to invite you for a drink if you’re interested in slipping away at some point tonight.
I’m staying at the Beverly. It’s not far. ”
“Did it look like I was here out of pity when you showed up?”
Her mouth curves down but corrects itself at the last second. She smiles and nods at whoever passes by behind us. I turn to face her fully, backing her into the wall of lanterns. “You looked like you were about to punish her.”
“I was about to punish her. And now you’re making me wait.”
She takes a step back, the top of her head and her shoulders brushing the fabric of the lanterns behind her and making her jump. “You . . . like to punish?”
“Oh yes, I like to punish. I like to break. Does that sound like something you’d enjoy?”
Her brows have knitted. Her heart-shaped face looks stricken, but she’s a determined sonuvabitch and a dogged flirt.
I’ve met flirts like her before, who want to be able to fuck me so they’ll have a story to tell.
Use me—a trait these humans have been so good at since I was a child.
But I get the feeling this woman’s motivation is even stupider than that.
I think she wants to fuck me only so that Monika can’t.
“I can do that,” she says, but she’s trembling. “Just so long as it doesn’t hurt . . .”
“Oh, it’ll hurt.”
“Why are you being like this?” she finally has the courage to ask.
This is the conversation I’m used to having with my employees.
The ones who finally figure out that Taranis is only a brand and his sweet smile is only skin deep.
Why couldn’t Monika have cowered and whimpered like this?
My whole life would be so much easier. “Why are you being an ugly, jealous bitch?”
She winces like she’s been slapped, and I know I’ve hit home.
I should just torture her with my tongue, whipping words at her like this, but I’m feeling amped.
The pressure in my head is getting outrageous, building, building, building.
I feel like I’m going to explode, and this little petty human female feels like an acceptable outlet.
“Monika must have really done a number on you. Normally, the men and women she leaves behind don’t look this pissed off.” She tries to break left, but I crowd her and catch her arm.
“I thought you said she was perpetually single.”
“It doesn’t mean she doesn’t fuck. She’s a huge whore. You know she’s bi, right? And she won’t have a threesome with you,” she adds quickly, as if that’s where my mind went to first. “If you really are into her, you should know she’ll probably just leave you for a woman.”
A splintering pain ricochets up the back of my neck.
I can’t wait. I palm the side of this woman’s face like a lover might and send electricity skittering all over her skin.
Her mouth parts and she tries to scream, but I quickly bring her face into my shoulder in a hug while I continue to blitz her with a pain that must be excruciating.
Footsteps alert me to the presence of humans. I glance left and see an older Korean couple walking past. They smile at us. I give them my best shy smile back and top it off with a wink. They giggle like schoolchildren as they shuffle past us, and we are alone again. How lovely.
I pull her away from my jacket by the hair and see the tears pooling in her eyes.
“What are you . . . What did you . . . I just came to warn you! If you really are serious about Monika, you should know she’s only interested in her fancy little cameras.
All she’s ever wanted is to do her little art projects that everyone seems to love her for.
She doesn’t date seriously. She’s just a huge whore.
She fucked my boyfriend in high school.”
Ah. And there it is. A jealousy this petty could have only been born from something that happened years ago.
I retreat just a little, giving this woman space—this woman whose name, for the life of me, I can’t remember. I recoil my gifts from her skin and straighten, or at least I try to, but my arm, my hands, my fingernails . . . it’s all pain. My eyelids are burning. I can’t quite see straight.
Blinking quickly, I hiss, “Let me make this abundantly clear since you seem to be harboring delusions that I care about anything that comes out of your pretty mouth.” I smile at her.
She winces, her legs shaking at the knees.
“I don’t care if she fucked your mother and every other member of your family.
I don’t care if she dates men or women or those that exist in the valley between.
I don’t care if she wants to leave me. I don’t care if she wants to have a threesome or a full fucking orgy.
“Monika doesn’t get to choose. I decide when Monika leaves.
I decide who Monika fucks, and for now, she fucks me and only me because I’m a selfish bastard and I don’t share the things that belong to me.
Monika is mine. For now . . .” I have no idea when I decided these things, but whether they’re true or bullshit, I don’t take them back.
They need to be said to this annoying creature.
I straighten the silk lapel of my tuxedo and watch the woman melt.
She lands on her ass on the ground beneath me, looking so stupid and small with little dewy tears trailing down her cheeks.
“B-b-but why? What makes her so special?” she asks, sounding like the high schooler she once was, having the same conversation she did with her cheating boyfriend.
Grow up, get over it, I’d tell her. But she’s human, dense, committed to focusing on the unimportant.
And yet, her question does stir something inside me.
Something softer than the headache radiating through my temples and shooting down the back of my neck, damn near immobilizing me.
Instead of pain fluttering through my chest, I feel pleasure.
The softest fluttering of butterfly wings brushing against all my organs.
“Because she isn’t full of bullshit,” I answer the woman, though she doesn’t need an answer. The pain in my head spikes. “Because she interests me.”