Chapter 31
Thirty-One
JULIAN
“P-please don’t.”
It’s pathetic when humans say please. Like manners will actually save their lives. It’s downright disgusting when the worst kind of humans try to Emily Post their way out of fate when they’ve done nothing to warrant mercy.
I consider the human in front of me. Naturally, he’s an idiot. Even more so with the way he’s treated Maris but he does have audacity.
I crouch down next to him and grab him by the hair.
I force him to look at me. “Turning up here means you’re either crazy or you really think you’re something.
Did you think she was going to let you back in her bed?
” He hesitates so I backhand him. If I wasn’t holding his head up he’d be in the dirt.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She always takes me back. I-she can’t do any better than me.”
I frown. Maris has horrible taste in men. She’s lucky that I found her. I’ll show her that a vampire is a more suitable match than a pathetic fickle human.
“She’s already done better than you,” I tell him and slap him again. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, oh god, yes. Please let me go! I swear I won’t come back here. I won’t tell anyone what you did to me. I-about any of this. I won’t.”
I don’t let Billy go. I pull him closer and grab his throat with my free hand. I stand up and drag him with me. He gags and claws at the hand choking him. I let him struggle for a minute before I loosen my grip and give him enough air to keep him conscious.
“Maris is mine,” I tell him, “you are never to approach her again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he whimpers.
“If she looks in your direction, go the other way. If you see her in the store or on the street, you will leave. Wherever Maris is, you are not. She will never again see you. You will never speak to her and if I hear you say her name, I’ll fucking kill you.
” I bring him closer to me so that we’re eye-to-eye.
The moon is bright, it hangs right over us in the sky, the perfect spotlight for my crime.
I let the human mask I wear slip and fall away.
I think about healing him after I glamour him so that no one even thinks to ask him what happened.
Even if he tries to find a way around what I’m about to tell him, he’d look crazy.
That’s the trick with humans, apply enough pressure to their mental state and they break all on their own.
Reality is a tricky, slippery thing. Reality is the only thing that exists based on sheer belief.
Anything is real if the human believes it deeply enough.
A healed Billy screaming about being attacked by me looks like a lunatic.
After I saved Maris today, I’m a hero to the peon townsfolk of Vesper Point.
Not a soul would believe Maris’ scorned ex.
The tables would turn and he’d be treated to a helping of the isolation and ostracization Maris has had shoved down her throat.
No. I’m not going to heal Billy. I want him to look at himself in the mirror and remember what I did to him. What will happen if he crosses Maris.
“Look at me,” I order. Billy looks because he must. I’m all vampire right now.
He couldn’t disobey me if he had an army of priests praying over his ass.
“When anyone asks you about why you’re injured, you are going to tell them that you got drunk and fell on your way home.
You’ll tell them you came to Maris’ house but couldn’t work up the nerve to face her after how you treated her.
You’re going to tell anyone that will listen that Maris is a saint.
Do you hear me? Tonight is going to be nothing more than you being an idiot drunk fuck trying to pay your ex-girlfriend a visit but instead, like the failure you are, you fell down and fucked yourself up. Isn’t that right?”
Billy nods weakly. “Right.”
I bring him closer and his boots drag the ground as I do and I smile at him.
Billy whimpers and I know what he’s seeing.
I’m not the new easygoing doctor. I’m a demon.
“Oh, and one other thing. Anytime that you try to tell someone about what happened, you’re going to pass out.
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you are.
You will faint. Blackout. No matter how many doctors try to help, they’ll never find out what it is.
You’re going to die with my hold on you, Billy.
When you close your eyes, you’re going to see my face. ”
Tears shine in his eyes and I watch as tears roll down his cheeks. “What are you?”
“I’m Maris’,” I answer and because I am Maris’, I add on extra to his lifetime sentence of having me in his head. “That fiancee of yours. What’s her name?”
“Minnie,” he whispers.
“Minnie Mouse, right. Any time she comes near you, touches you, so much as tells you she loves you, you’re going to throw up.
She will repulse you from now until the end of your days.
There will be no fixing it. Her scent, her taste, the sound of her voice will make you sick to your stomach.
You’ll feel like killing yourself to get away from it. That’s how sick she’l will make you."
“Wh-why?”
“I wanted you to pay. To say you were sorry and admit what you did. I waited for it, but it never came. You both just went on your stupid fucking way together like I never existed.”
I might not have been here for what happened to Maris before, but I’m here now. Her suffering and humiliation by these inconsequential human debris is over.
“Because you don’t deserve peace. Neither of you do.
You deserve to pay.” I make sure to stare deep into Billy’s eyes to cement the glamour.
“And remember, the same rules apply on trying to snitch on any of this. If you tell anyone about why you can’t stand Minnie, even if you just try to hint at it or about any of this and,” I snap my fingers, “it’s lights out, Billy boy. ”
I drop Billy to the ground the second the glamour snaps into place.
It’s different for every vampire, but it’s easy enough to pinpoint.
It feels like a release. Like you’re finally able to put down something you’ve been carrying and hand it off to the human.
No one understands why, but I think the transferred weight is the command.
My will. That’s what I think leaves me to bind Billy now.
He’s not stronger than me, he never will be, and now he will carry the reminder of his inferiority until he dies.
It’s perfect.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I order him. “Don’t fucking stop until you’re home.”
“Yes, sir.” Billy picks himself up and bolts for the road. I make a face at the ‘sir’ it’s almost as bad as please. He practically runs through the yard’s wrought iron fence. The last I see of him he’s stumbling down the road in a half run, half limp combo move.
I dust my hands off on my pants. “Pathetic mortal.”
When I vault back over the porch railing, Maris is standing with her back to the house, waiting. She gasps when I land with a soft thud beside her.
“Holy shit, I thought-where did you come from?” She stumbles slightly with a hand on her heart.
She’s easily startled for a murderess.
“From there,” I tell her, jerking a thumb back at the side of the porch. “Where else?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The fucking stairs?”
I laugh. “Why would I do that? I’m a vampire.”
Maris is silent for a second and then sighs and wraps her arms around herself. “It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”
The second she says it’s cold, I’m on the move with one goal. I have to get my wife warm. If I had a shirt on I’d give that to her but I don’t. I’m walking around like an idiot on a romance book cover with no shirt.
I open the door and usher her inside ahead of me. At least I’m able to shield her from most of the wind this way. “Come on. We’ll warm you up.”
Maris follows me inside and stops just inside the door. “What did you do to Billy?”
“I taught him a lesson,” I tell her truthfully on my way to the living room.
There’s a fireplace in there. I can get that going and then work on feeding her.
My blood did a lot of heavy lifting for Maris’ health but it’s not a cure-all.
Not unless I turn her into a vampire and I’ll only do that if she decides. Until then she needs to eat.
“But how? Aren’t you afraid he’s going to tell? You didn’t kill him. I mean, I saw him run out of here but you roughed him up. What if he tells someone?”
“He won’t say a word.” I crouch by the fireplace and work on building a fire while Maris paces behind me. “Trust me. Billy won’t breathe a word of what happened, and he won’t be bothering you anymore.”
“But how do you know that?”
“I glamoured him,” I say, striking the flint in front of me.
It sparks and lights the tinder. Now all I need is a few more logs.
I look around and see a bundle of wood neatly stacked beside the fireplace.
More than enough to warm Maris while she eats.
I start to add wood to the fire. Behind me Maris stops pacing.
“What the fuck is a glamour?”
“A vampire mind trick.”
“What?”
I don’t answer her while I finish arranging the firewood.
It’s only when I stand up from the fire to face her that I speak.
“A glamour is the imposition of a vampire’s will on another being.
It’s like hypnosis but stronger. Now stay here while I go warm up the food.
You’re eating something and that’s final. ”
Maris glares. She really needs to consider the finer points of her health and sustaining herself. “Fine,” she mutters and sits down on the sofa with a soft stomp of her foot. Oh, she’s pissed.
I pause on my way out of the room and stroke her cheek. “I know you have a lot of questions for me and I know it’s overwhelming, but trust me with this. I will tell you everything you need to know. I swear it to you.”
The glare on her face softens. Maris looks up at me and when she does I see the trust I asked for shining back at me. “Okay. I-I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry.
Two words that don’t come easy from a human. When it’s sincere, those two words are much harder to utter than please. There’s no ego in being sorry, but there is vulnerability. That’s what Maris gives me now with her apology.
It’s a gift I’ll treasure until I’m given the Final Death.
“Thank you,” I tell her, and then I leave the room to get my mate her dumplings.