Chapter 15 The Creature
THE CREATURE
The Americans were creative. Feeding parlors disguised in the open as a gilded club. Where exclusion, secrecy, and scandal were expected—the perfect place to hide a Den in plain sight. Though this was nicer than any Den I’d ever seen.
The scenery was as impressive as any club in the city.
The walls were covered in painted scenes of hunts and landscapes.
There were many rooms to get lost in, with a bar poised in the corner.
Guests filtered in and out of the rooms like blood in a heart chamber, the life of the party.
It was less conservative than what I was used to, but I would not complain about that.
It had the prose of a Nest with the energy of a Den.
It was actually quite refreshing to have something so new, to witness it in the flesh.
At the head of the main room was a monstrous mantel, taller than any person.
I would imagine they must need to use ladders to decorate it.
Above it was a large mirror that reflected the shimmer of the chandelier that hung proudly from the crown molding of the ceiling.
Not one corner of the room was left plain, and I would assume the same was true for the rest of the rooms.
Amid all the chatter, all the bustling, all the fine silhouettes fluttering about like birds impressing their attentions upon each other, nothing could compare to my dearest shadow among the flames.
Alina’s elegant fingers swept along the face of a girl, our little sprite, Edith.
Her lean arms were bare aside from gloves since her dress did not possess sleeves.
The neckline dipped enough to reveal the slight curvature of breasts, held gently by the pressure of her corset.
Her form was more stunning than I remembered.
She had lost the sickly look she always had in the years she had hidden from me.
Her shoulders and neck were more defined, and her skin held a healthy pallor instead of the ghostly shade I remembered so well.
A vibrant blush adorned her cheeks and décolletage, though that could be from alcohol.
Which was an odd observation considering she was not holding any glassware.
The movement of her lips made my teeth itch with every word uttered out of earshot. I wanted to devour them, bite right through. They were as soft as the expression she held.
Her eyes were so bright, so relaxed. Even in their coldness, they were capable of warmth when no one was looking, like a ghost that did not wish to be seen by the living, disappearing when they were just about to be perceived.
I could make myself known, but I wanted to savor her before she was relieved of her peace. I could only restrain myself for the length of one more drink.
Her fingers slipped over Edith’s cheek again, and she gestured off somewhere that I could not see.
When Alina was left on her own, the sweet tenderness evaporated like steam. Her expression was not displeased, nor angry, nor holding remotely any discernible emotion. She was stoic, focused, but not unlike behavior witnessed prior.
I remembered that her fixative behavior could make her quite disordered and clumsy, even careless at times.
This was not that type of fixation.
That coldness hardened her eyes like a permafrost. She was a predator through and through. Her blood might be red, but it was black at heart.
That dangerous look in her eye narrowed in on what she wanted, and she stalked toward it.
Despite the hunger in her gaze, she moved with the grace of something otherworldly.
I would not blame anyone who might be lured by her energy alone.
It was dark, tempting, lethal. Everything about her made me want to drop to my knees and repent for the things that came to my mind.
All the terrible, awful things I wanted to do to her.
A heat lit at my core when I realized she was hunting.
She approached another man, sliding him a cool smirk as her fingers found her way to his lapel, complimenting an emerald green handkerchief poking from the breast pocket.
Careful.
He blinked a few too many times, trying to convince himself that a mirage like her would be interested in a plain thing like him.
She will eat you alive.
Her demeanor reminded me of the movements of certain felines.
Slow and calculated because she did not have to be quick to catch these fools.
She only needed to be still, and they would fall to their knees before her.
I would wager that they would knot their own nooses voluntarily if she said, “Pretty please.”
I had to remind myself to breathe, so easy it was to forget such an insignificant thing in her presence.
While she could not have become more beautiful, she became more terrifying.
Alina smoothed her hand over the fabric of his jacket, whispering sweet nothings in his ear. I half expected her to bite it off.
The man lowered his face into her neck, flirtatiously dragging his exposed fangs over her skin, teasing the flesh with a pale pink line.
Her sultry smirk never reached her eyes. There was an unmistakable voraciousness, a narrowing-in on her next victim.
She was in the middle of making the poor boy blush when her lips stopped moving, and her eyes dazzled as she took in the gilded finery.
I watched them slowly track across the sea of people.
Her gaze cut across the room like a blade across a stone, sharpened by the time it landed on me, and suddenly there was no one but her and me.
Electricity shot through my spine and made my fangs twitch, like I was setting sights on something to be caught. Nature was taking over, and all I could think of was to pounce.
The tingling of blood filling my eyes made the colors alight, vibrancy bleeding throughout the scene, and replacing the colorblind binary.
In the moments we held each other’s gazes, her expression twisted. I could see scenes flash before her eyes, those of every horror I put her through resurfacing, breaking through the ice like a hot pickaxe.
I don’t know what was worse, the desire to see her run, or the fact that she was approaching, not helping to dampen the urges.
She was so polite in departing the conversation with the man she was toying with, moving through the crowd like she belonged, uprisen and proud. With every step she took toward me, the more my heart beat, faster and faster until I feared I would lose control.
She was close enough now to smell, to hear. Her eyes locked with mine. Everything around us was a blur, the blood flow to my vision making her vibrant as ever.
She stepped before me, her perfume overwhelming my senses. Black cherries and bitter almonds. I could get lost in it.
She placed a gloved hand on my shoulder, dragging it across my chest as she circled.
I followed her with my eyes, my hand reaching her waist as she returned to the front. I stepped, and we circled like an ouroboros, wondering when the tail ends.
She replaced her hand on my shoulder.
I took her forearm, extended it as my lips trailed over her wrist, then down her arm, until the coolness of her skin presented itself as the cloth of the opera glove ran out, and her chest pressed against mine.
The chill of her skin was almost unbearable, prickling at my nerves, sizzling like cold water over cast iron.
The flushed skin around her neck and her cheeks made the pulsing grow louder in my ears, in my chest. She began to pull her arm away, and I let my grip on her arm slip the silken opera glove off as she did so.
She was breathing rapidly; no matter how calmly she presented herself, the heaving of her breasts and her heart gave her away.
She leaned one way; I pulled her the other.
A natural push and pull that turned chaos into a fluid, impetuous capriole.
Her nails clawed at my clothes, desperate to pierce the skin beneath, a subtle violence that filled the heart with a gleeful fever, the very energy that made us move each other, forever locked in a deadly waltz.
Her nails retreated from my shoulders, but I held her closer before she could slip completely from me. Then, a sharp twinge in my side.
Upon looking down, I saw those beautiful, delicate fingers curled around the hilt of a small blade, buried intimately just beneath the surface of my skin.
“Creature.” Her voice was different, warm and stern, calm and deadly.
I relaxed into the knife, plunging it deeper. Like the pain itself was reassurance that it was all real, she didn’t take her eyes off me.
I shook my head at her. “And here I thought you liked to watch while you prod and dissect, you vicious thing.”
“I’m afraid that if I do, it may turn out to be some sort of dream,” she said.
“Well.” I pulled her closer by her waist, her skin tingling against mine from the flash of excitement. “Is it all that you hoped for?” I whispered in her ear.
She leaned close, angling the blade sharply upward, enough to make my lip twitch into a sneer before collecting myself. “Not as good as it would be if you were dead.”
Just the sound of her voice made me hold on to her tighter, a subtle clicking chitter rising in my throat and reverberating down to my chest. “There it is. I’ve looked forward to hearing the venom in your voice once more.”
A crease in her brow as she restrained herself from what she really wanted to say.
“Could you find it in you to put aside your anger?” I grazed my bottom lip against her ear as I spoke. Close enough to bite, but I refrained.
“I want nothing to do with you.”
“That’s a lie, I know you missed this.”
“I am happy without you.”
“Liar.”
“I do not need you; men are plentiful.”
“I am no man.”
“Creatures are just as plentiful.” She smirked.
“Have you found the company of many creatures, then?” I raised a scrutinous brow, studying her, undressing her in my mind already.
“It is none of your business who I have.”
“Foolish of you to think such a thing, but I will forgive you.”
“You are the one who should be seeking forgiveness.”
“Should I? Will you make me?”
“You know I could.”
“Then do it.” My voice dropped lower as I hovered my lips over hers.
Alina was different. I would not call it maturity, but more like a fermentation of whatever she had been before. Her audacity was fascinating. Though she had never been truly afraid to begin with.
“No,” she breathed, “I want nothing from you, not even remorse. I can have any man I want in this room, this city, and all the populations surrounding. I don’t need you.”
“I do not care how many men have been inside you,” I spoke through a clenched jaw, tangling my fingers in her hair low at the back of her head and forcing it back. “It only matters that your body knows who it truly belongs to.”
“Using me like you always do?” she bit out.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Using? No, I am reminding you.”
“Was there something worth remembering?”
“So stubborn.” I tilted my head at her, but I admit I was salivating at the thought of putting her in her place.
I tightened my grip on her hair, and her hands flew to my chest to keep whatever distance she could.
Her pulse beat against my lips when they met her neck. Self-control was something I practiced often, but she made me forget every practice of such.
My other hand smoothed down her waist, then her lower back, holding her hips close to mine. Her scent was intoxicating enough to put me in a trance, fingers lingering along the seams of the dress she was wrapped in.
A thrum of satisfaction sounded deep in my chest, and I kissed down her neck before kissing lower down her chest as I dipped her backward.
“Tell me you don’t want it,” I breathed, looking up at her from between her breasts. Those cold eyes peered wide at me through her lashes.
“I despise you.”
“That’s not what I asked.” I smirked, fingers digging into her hip.
“Your gestures mean nothing.”
“That’s not what I heard when you used to scream my name.”
“Do you remember the last time I screamed at you, by chance?”
“How could I forget a single indignity that manifests on those soft lips?”
“Undignified certainly is an appropriate description.”
“I would use the same description for yourself.” I dragged my tongue between her breasts and back up to her neck.
“Alina?” A sheepish voice spoke.
Alina stiffened against me like a board, her eyes tracking over to the voice. If I didn’t know better, I would say she was mortified.
“Oh,” I practically purred. “Hello, Edith.”
Alina’s shoulders shrank with tension.
“Don’t be rude,” I scolded, jolting her by her hair and forcing her face to turn to Edith. “Is that how you treat your Nest? Not even a hello?”
“Edith, please . . . you have to go,” Alina begged.
Edith’s eyes were wide and unable to take themselves off the situation before her, frozen in horror.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” I managed an innocent, mocking tone, glancing at Alina. “I am getting déjà vu from the first time you laid eyes on me, my love,” I teased.
“Alina—” Edith cupped her hands over her mouth and nose, like she was about to apologize.
I pressed my cheek against Alina’s as I regarded Edith. “I should be thanking you for making this happen, Edith. I couldn’t have found her without you!” I laughed. How delicious it all was.
“What . . . are you saying?” Alina growled.
“Do you want to tell her?”
Edith looked like she was about to crumple into tears. I could see the wetness forming in her eyes and a trembling lip. She escaped the question physically, disappearing back through the crowd. People were beginning to stare at the scene unfolding.
“She is quite cute, chatty as well,” I whispered, gently nipping at her cheek before she began to struggle. “Ah-ah! I am not finished with you.”
“Let me go,” she gasped, shoving against my chest.
“Never again.” I took in a deep breath, holding her tightly. “Though, in the spirit of old times, I will give you one more night of peace.”
And despite the tension, I let her go.
She stumbled back, wasting no time slipping away from me, disappearing through the crowds of mingling bodies.
I grasped the knife in my side, yanking it out with one swift pull, the black blood dribbling onto the marble tiles. I shook my head, wiping both sides of the blade on my jacket.
Until next time, my dearest shadow.