You know that I only have eyes for you
17
The club we frequented was certainly more packed with people than I’d ever seen it in the past. Each attendee at the VIP event was decked from head to toe in gaudy accessories that glimmered in the many lights like coins in the eyes of the greedy. They had only shown up to flaunt their wealth and status, but I suppose it was hypocritical of me to judge all of them equally. I had, after all, once been one of those who would love to attend such an event wearing as many diamonds as possible with the city’s most revered man on my arm. Then again, maybe I would choose to kill me, too, if my previous self was put before me now.
“Well, you were right,” I told Riftan as we entered the club, taking my seat that he’d thralled to be open at the bar. “There’s certainly plenty to pick from tonight.”
“If I’m being honest, there’s more than I expected. It’s going to be more difficult to go unnoticed. As I warned previously, I’m not going to lend you any aid tonight. Not like last time.”
He was referring to a specific scenario in which I was supposed to be feeding on my own and successfully cleaning up after myself, but had encountered a bit of a hang-up. A passerby witnessed it, and I hadn’t detected them. Riftan thralled the man and sent him on his way, but I’d gotten a stern talking to over it. Now I knew better, and I could handle the cleanup on my own. I was certain of it. I was, after all, supposed to be self-sustaining after so many years with Riftan as a guide. “Last time was a fluke. I’ve got this. I’ve done it on my own multitudes of other times.”
He continued to press with an air of unyielding concern. “I’m serious. If something like last time happens, I’m going to let it go. I won’t always be here to back you up for the rest of your eternity, and if someone like that slips through the cracks, you’ll probably have to answer to the Council. Though that’d be a minor reprimand, it’s best to stay off their radar, okay?”
The Council to the underworld was an entity that I was only recently becoming acquainted with. They were the “government” that oversaw vampire relations and drove to keep our inner workings a secret from the mortal world. I’d met a member once, a nice girl named Suzua. They were merely normal vampires appointed to their positions to keep order; nothing sinister or malevolent. Though there were many vampires within the underworld who did have vindictive minds, many of them were older and more revered, which put them in high positions in the council. So, it was still a rather humorless place that I did wish to avoid.
“Yes, I know, I know,” I repeated, touching my hand to Riftan’s, where it sat at the counter of the bar.
Ordering us a round of drinks, Riftan made a point to pull my seat closer to his so that our legs were together before I turned toward him.
I was in no hurry to find a meal, though I was rather hungry that night. As usual, I would simply be content to spend my time out with Riftan. We could talk some, then maybe dance a little—or a lot. Then maybe I’d look for my meal.
With a mere glance around the room, I could see any number of potential victims, and they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon either. I had plenty of time.
A holler from the large group of guests toward the back caught my attention as my gaze scanned past them. Several blonde women with low-cut dresses entertained the group of mostly men who hooted and clamored as if they were the only ones in the joint. A man at the table grabbed one of the blondes by the skirt and she protested, futilely pushing against him. He complained, but one of the other women at the table bickered at him and he unhanded the girl. Another man at what seemed to be the head of the table stood to his full height, looming over the others and reprimanding the group in a gruff European language. He threatened them with a hard stare until they settled into a mediocre hush that matched that of the clubgoers around them. The man, with a short, blond head of hair and alarming broad features, then sat and continued to talk with his closest guests as though nothing had transpired.
While I was nearly certain that I’d never met the man, my brain tingled with recognition so strong I could nearly taste it. It was as if I’d seen him in a photograph. Something in passing like… a news article. But not just any news article, one I’d committed to memory.
The article was about a man who owned a large construction firm that’d built many of the newer buildings in the cities east of Czech. He was someone who would hardly be of interest to me, except that there was a rumor I’d heard floating around the underworld about him. Immortals had warned he was using his company to front a large human trafficking operation. While I didn’t like to feed into rumors in my past life, I’d found that rumors from the underworld were always based on some sort of fact and always held an abundant weight of importance. We knew of things many mortals wouldn’t find out about for years. Sometimes that meant being witness to atrocities that could have been stopped.
When I’d heard about this man, and some of the graphic things he’d done to innocent people, I’d promised myself then and there that if I ever saw him for myself, I’d kill him on the spot. And this was him.
No longer was I in that club to have a jolly time with Riftan. I was fixed on a target.
“That guy over there.” I patted Riftan and pointed at the man. “He’s Iosif Sokolov, I saw him online the other day. He runs Sokolov Inc. I heard he’s responsible for orchestrating all those human trafficking scandals,” I recounted, lost in thought, and then adding casually, “I’m going to kill him tonight. I don’t care about anybody else here. He’s going to die.”
“No way.” Riftan was firm. “He’s way too high profile. We are not getting into that tonight.”
“Riftan, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Tonight, he dies.”
“Seriously?” Riftan questioned, though his lax expression noted that he was not completely surprised. “What about his entourage? I told you I won’t be helping you tonight, and that’s a lot of curious onlookers. You’re making me nervous.” His tone lacked the fervor it might have if he intended to stop me but was instead thick with something like worry.
My eyes remained fixed on Sokolov, determined not to miss out on this opportunity to devour a real plague to society. “Yeah, I can handle this on my own. Just you sit back and watch.” With that, I got up and wandered to the roisterous table of men in the back.
“Hi,” I offered to the burly man who headed the group. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Iosif looked up at me with wide green eyes. He quickly nodded. “It’d be my pleasure, lovely.” His accent was thicker than most, and he was obviously native to the area, which only helped me to solidify his identity.
Scooting in close, I made some flirty small talk with him and his guests. It was easy to tell what he liked from the girls he kept at his table, and it wasn’t hard for me to copy. Before long, I had him eating out of the palm of my hand, both figuratively and literally, as I fed him the cherry from my drink. Iosif only had eyes for me, and I knew I’d struck gold. He was mine now. I would be able to do whatever I wanted with him, and I hadn’t even thralled him yet.
Taking a peek over my shoulder, I spied Riftan at the bar where I’d left him. He wasn’t watching me intently like I’d expected from his anxious manner before I’d left. Instead, he was nearly nose-to-nose with some other girl. She was cute and blonde and sliding her delicate fingers up his arm like she was trying her damndest to seduce him.
My skin crawled, my blood instantly boiling over the way she touched him and the way he watched her do it so complaisantly. I’d touched lots of other men while I was with Riftan, and I’d seen him feed from other women, too, but there was something about this interaction that made my skin burn hot and my heart ache like it was gripped in a vise.
I was biting my own tongue, nearly drawing blood as I fought against the urge to stand right up and walk over there when I saw Riftan lean over to whisper in that woman’s ear.
Iosof’s voice distracted me long enough to miss what Riftan had told the girl. “Hey cutie, what’s caught your eye over there?”
I looked at the fair-haired man whose lap I’d occupied before whipping back around to watch Riftan. The girl was already walking away from him, though he had the smuggest look on his face as he watched her leave. It pushed me over my boiling point. Riftan would never give me that look, and I loathed that he’d given it to a girl he didn’t know instead.
“Sorry, I was distracted for a moment.” I masked an innocent grin toward Iosif.
My heart was in my stomach, manifesting into a knot. The feeling was unpleasant, burdensome, and it felt like the only thing that would ease it was retribution. While I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe copying Riftan’s offense would phase him, I still needed that fair level of payback.
Gently, I slid my hand over Iosif’s thigh, anchoring my nails into the expensive fabric of his slacks. “Hey, do you want to go somewhere more private?” I asked, fluttering my long eyelashes like the skanks I knew he liked.
He smiled like he might give in, but then sighed. “I can’t, dear. I have a whole table of guests here with me.”
I insisted, “Let’s go somewhere private.” All the while sprinkling it with a little more sex appeal and a dash of thrall.
“Yes. Of course.” His expression fell blank.
“And don’t forget to tell your guests you’ll be right back,” I added with a wink.
He turned to his dinner guests. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Order another round on me.”
“Good boy,” I murmured, pulling him by the hand toward the back exit.
Outside, the air was beginning to crisp, and not a soul was in sight. Whipping around to meet Iosif as he slipped out the door, I pushed until he was flush with the wall, laying my body against his large frame. He smirked, taking my face in his palm with surprising gentility for someone so gruff and big.
He was no Riftan, but he was certainly attractive in his own right. His blond hair shimmered in the light from the closest streetlamp, and I could confirm the chiseled features he was so well-known for. I would have fun with him for a little while to make myself forget about the way Riftan had looked at that girl.
Bringing my lips to his, I let Iosif set a pace. He was remarkably tender for such a notorious asshole, which almost had my heart dancing over the intimacy of our embrace. His lips painted mine with the kind of attention I hadn’t gotten in ages. It was divine and sorely missed.
Exploring his mouth, focused on nothing more than the taste and feel of him, my imagination could wander. His hands touched me so freely, light but curious—the way Riftan’s often were. I could pretend—no matter how unrealistic it may have been—that Iosof was Riftan, and that the warm, whiskey-tinted tongue that grazed over my teeth was Riftan’s. My heart skipped beats and I grabbed onto him, begging him to hasten his placid pace.
After wandering down my back, his hand grabbed under my thigh, pulling my leg up around his hips. In a split second, he flipped us around, pinning me to the wall and giving me his weight.
If I kept my eyes pinched tight, I could stay in my fantasy world as he kissed my cheek and my neck, down to my bare shoulder. His lips were soft and warm on my skin. They didn’t give me butterflies the way Riftan’s fingers could, no matter how much I pretended they were his, but I was still feeling something.
I knew that I could—and would—kill Iosof whenever I desired, which made the feeling of his warmth on me that much more enticing. He wasn’t my Riftan, but he was a toy I could break whenever I wanted. A disposable tool that was doing exactly what I needed it to.
This is fun. I haven’t had this much fun in—
“That’s enough of that.” Sharp displeasure edged Riftan’s voice and cut through my pounding heart. He grabbed Iosof by the cowl, pulling him off me and tossing him to the ground. Riftan’s lips snarled over sharp fangs, red highlighting his otherwise pale cheeks.
Some raw hope in me wanted to think Riftan’s look was in any way an admission that I’d gotten under his skin. That feeling bubbled up, lacing my voice with humor and a staved-off giggle when I asked, “What’re you doing?”
Iosif shuffled on the ground and Riftan grabbed him by the face, pulling him beside me and pinning him to the brick before he could make for any escape. Naturally, Iosof attempted to scream, but Riftan had his hand properly gripped over Iosif’s mouth, muffling the sound to near oblivion.
Still scrunching his dark brows at me, Riftan replied, “Shouldn’t I ask you the same question? I thought you were going to kill him?”
Iosif squirmed and Riftan knocked his skull against the wall until he stilled. His muffles, however, were getting more rattled by the second.
“I am going to kill him. I was having some fun with him first, Riftan.”
“What have I told you about—”
“About sexualizing my meals? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m pretty sure it goes something like ‘I’m a grumpy old man, don’t kiss your food more than you need to in order to lure them to their death.’ Blah, blah, blah.” I rolled my eyes at him for added effect.
“What’s this about?” Riftan looked me over, his tone heightened to something akin to authentic curiosity.
“I don’t understand why you get to have all the fun,” I complained. “I saw you with that girl. You certainly didn’t have any qualms about having some fun with her.”
He raised a brow at me. “What girl? Are you talking about the girl at the bar?”
I shrugged, feeling my cheeks weighing down into an irritated frown.
“Leanne.” His voice was suddenly soft again. “I thralled that girl to go out on the dance floor and bock like a chicken for two hours straight because she was bothering me.”
“What? Why would you do that?” She was cute. Didn’t he want her? That look had certainly said he did.
“Okay, look.” He turned his attention away from me and towards Iosif, who continued to wriggle. Clearing his throat, Riftan demanded, “Stand still, don’t move, don’t think.” He then dropped Iosif’s face, and his feet fell to the ground, where he obediently did what he’d been told: staring off into the other wall daftly without moving a muscle.
His hands now free, Riftan reached up and took my cheek. With a single step, he put the two of us eye to eye before continuing. “I have never been interested in any other women while you’ve been around, and I promise I never will be. You have my undivided attention as long as we are staying together. I swear it. Okay? Will you trust me on this?” His fingers trailed off my cheek and his eyes watched them as they followed the curve of my neck.
His touch both quelled and engaged my want. It was his touch I longed for in every waking moment. I needed it constantly, but what I wanted was more. I wanted him to kiss me the way Iosif had. I would do any number of horrible things for it.
“Leanne?” His eyes came back to mine, awaiting a response.
Swallowing my pride, I nodded. “Yeah. I trust you.”
Stepping away, his fingers left my skin, leaving the tepid night air in their place. An uncontrollable shiver came over me despite the atmosphere, and I did my best to shake it off before Riftan noticed.
“Well?” He straightened up and nodded toward Iosif. “He’s all yours. Hurry up, I want to go home now. I’m over this.”
Without further contention, I took a bite of Iosif and nearly sucked him dry. I wanted to make him suffer as much as possible, so I took at least enough of his blood to leave him unconscious, lying there by the dumpster looking like a drunken asshole. Before he’d fallen wholly unconscious, I thralled him to do multiple things when he woke up. First, he needed to go back inside and end his party. He would then donate his entire operation’s wealth to a charity that’d been started by a family affected by his human trafficking ring. And finally, at 3 p.m. the next day, he’d cut off his legs and kill himself.
All of that was unnecessary, as he was going to die from my venom in twenty-four hours anyway, but I wanted him to go out with a bang for all the innocent souls that’d suffered at his hands—and I assure you, I’d heard of a few. His punishment wouldn’t be nearly enough for his crimes, but I did my best to make it near equivalent.
Riftan didn’t step in anymore. Instead, he waited patiently until we walked side by side down the sidewalk and away from Iosif’s unconscious body.
Riftan didn’t reach for my hand like he usually would have, and the air between us was thick with silence. I should have noticed how out of place that silence was from him, but I couldn’t be bothered after feeding from Iosif, thanks to the blood euphoria still pumping through my veins. The sensation would fizzle through my insides, massaging my brain and tingling under my skin. Until it started to fade away, everything would roll right off my shoulders.
It wasn’t until we were in the kitchen of our condo that the world began lacking its heavenly buzz and reality regained its normal level of dense once again.
Standing across from me at the counter, Riftan stared into a murky dark drink without making a sound. His glass grated along our marble countertop in repetitive circles, spinning its contents in a way that seemed absorbing to his interest. I knew that little tick, and I knew the look that paired with it.
Once his behavior caught my eye, I stared and waited until he noticed me. But he never looked up, choosing rather to ogle at that glass as though it held the answers to the universe.
“What’s wrong, Riftan?”
He looked up and quickly shook his head in denial. “Nothing.”
“Seriously?” I asked with piercing indignation.
He shrugged, taking a drink and dropping his gaze.
My heart dropped, the first thing coming from my lips being an aggrieved, “Hell no,” before I was hopping onto the counter and crawling toward him. The ice-cold granite countertop prickled my hands and knees for only a second before I was face to face with Riftan, taking the glass from his hand and sitting my butt down on the cold slab in front of him. I demanded, “Tell me what’s wrong. Right now,” from a position where he couldn’t deny me his attention.
He blinked, empty eyes shielded with dark lashes, and didn’t give an answer. When the muscles in his cheeks flared, denoting how hard he was clenching his jaw to hold his tongue, I feared he might make an escape rather than tell me the truth.
The breath in my lungs halted, but I grabbed onto the tie at his neck, spinning it until I had it wrapped several times around my fist. With his eyes held only inches from mine, he looked between me and the fistful I’d gripped at his neck. The only thing that changed in his demeanor was the beat of his heart, thrumming like it’d started taking lessons from mine. When I thought he officially wasn’t going to talk to me, he gave in, gaze settling on my wrist. “Leanne, did you ever stop to think how I might feel seeing Iosof all over you earlier?”
“What?” I froze.
His hands found my knees dangling on either side of him, but they sat idle, not caressing my skin like they usually would. “You said that you were jealous that I was flirting with that other girl. But what about me? How do you think I felt about you and Iosof?”
My heart might have stopped beating all together. “You were… jealous?”
His head dipped, feigning an answer.
“Riftan, tell me. Were you jealous?”
Clenching his jaw, he raised his gaze back to mine, lips parting to answer, but falling short with only, “I…”
Tightening my grip, I pulled him in until we were flesh to flesh, nose to nose, our breath uniting in an amorous dance. “Don’t you dare lie to yourself, Riftan,” I demanded, hardening my tone. “You know that I only have eyes for you. If you’re jealous, I can promise you I will never look at another man again if that’s what you want. But you have to tell me that it’s what you want.”
Finally, his eyes embraced me, darting back and forth, drowning me in the ocean that lived below his brows.
I pleaded, “Tell me it’s what you want.”
Light as air, more meager than I’d ever heard from his lips, Riftan replied, “It’s what I want. I hate it when you look at other men the way you look at me.”
My heart danced, making a ruckus in response to his remark. Before I knew it, his was doing the same so close to mine.
“What does that mean for us?” I asked, holding out hope for the kind of exclusivity he could be suggesting.
He shook his head, delicate enough to not disconnect from mine. “It means nothing.” So he claims as he begs for me to love him and only him. Nothing my ass.
Wiggling past him, I jumped off the counter, letting his tie slide through my grip until I had a fistful of the end. His eyes grew heavy as I departed, lips twitching downward. He reached out a hand to grasp at my wrist. My poor boy seemed to think I would merely walk away after an admission like that. If he did, he was sorely mistaken.
Pulling on his tie, I beckoned him. “Take me to bed, and you’ll never have to worry about another man ever again.” In a surprising stint of obedience, he followed like a lost puppy on a leash as I backed toward his bedroom.
Never breaking eye contact, he slinked along with me, slow but steady. His newfound docility expiring all at once, he closed the distance between us, grabbing me up and tossing me over his shoulder.
“Eek,” I squealed but didn’t protest. There was only a moment to appreciate that his hand was gripping my ass before I was dropped onto his bed.
A breath lodged in my chest as his shadow encompassed me, pinning me against the sheets. I reached for him, craving his warmth in my hands, but he was quicker, snatching my wrists and pushing them both to the mattress. Interlacing our fingers, he supplied the kind of heat my hands had longed for. As he stretched both hands over my head, that heat traveled up my limbs and throughout my core, mingling a conflicting shiver with the overwhelming warmth seeping into my bones. Since becoming a vampire, I hardly noticed temperature changes, and very rarely felt too warm, so this was a foreign experience—the consuming feeling of broiling alive.
Riftan’s marvelous eyes held me fast in their grasp, unwavering and burning me with every second they stared down at me. His eyelids sunk into a ribald, haughty look, a snarl lifting over his perfect lips, searing me over the edge. The sensation was dizzying, disorientating, and adrenaline-inducing in a way I’d long forgotten.
Riftan had done exactly what I asked for, and yet the actuality that he’d indulge after all these years of continence had me completely flustered. Unfortunately, the fire rushing through my body pacified the longer he held me motionless. His look gradually fell to a newly forlorn expression, dark brows scrunching over his eyes. With a somber sigh, his forehead dropped to mine, our noses meeting.
Between us, the air was stagnant, hardly another breath escaping from either of our lips.
He didn’t retract but didn’t go any further. The stillness should have been unsettling under the circumstances, maybe even causing some saudade emotion, but I was in no way dazed by his behavior. This was the Riftan I knew. He could so easily make my blood rush but as easily run it cold. At some point, I came to expect this, and I could hardly hold animosity for it anymore.
As they say, fool me once, shame on you—and everybody knows the rest.
So, I was indeed the only one at fault for getting my hopes up.
Though, this wasn’t entirely the Riftan I knew, who astutely nipped my advances in the bud. He’d let me get this far and waited obediently for me to order onward. I could order him onward. I could ask him to give me more like I’d asked him to take me to bed. The passive look in his eyes told me he’d do what I asked, even if it went against his principles. And his twisted scowl told me it so clearly did go against his principles.
I wanted him. I wanted to be wrapped in his embrace until the end of eternity. I wanted more than that. But was it worth getting exactly what I wanted if he didn’t want it, too? Even if I played the devil’s advocate and believed his body wanted this, and he was merely holding himself back for some foolish ethics in his head, I couldn’t push him to do something he’d regret. His eyes squeezed shut under the v of his brows.
I could tell he would regret going further with me. As much as I hated denying myself a taste of him, I couldn’t put my longing above his. “Riftan, just hold me,” I whispered, letting go of any pent-up sexual tension with a hefty sigh. “I don’t expect anything else from you. Just hold me tonight. Please.”
Relieved of his painstaking duty as my dog, Riftan released a crushing breath, falling beside me on the bed. Wrapping me up, his arms pulled me in until I was practically melded into his being. Fiercely, he implemented my request, holding me tight against his racing heartbeat.
The thought that I may have missed my only moment to be intimate with him didn’t elude my mind. I’d denied myself the moment I’d always dreamed of, but the pain was marginal, vastly diminished by the comfort of his embrace. His arms were the greatest comfort I could ask for, even if they were the origination of my strife.
As close as we’d become over the years, moments like this shouldn’t have felt so cataclysmic. We shouldn’t be on the verge of some unbridled incident every time we got too touchy, and we shouldn’t be hiding our feelings from each other. Because, regardless of what he said, Riftan did have his own intricate set of feelings for me. The signs of it were too bright and too blaring to ignore. But his unsaid feelings didn’t mean I could rip them out of him due to my own impatience. If Riftan needed time, then I’d give him time.
Every day we shared together was a day closer to him giving up this chaste charade.