CHAPTER 14
WREN
∞
We sit in awkward silence after that, until Alex decides to show up again. “Everything okay?”
He asks cautiously.
“Everything is fine, Alex,”
I sigh. Chess glances over at him and he smiles at her. She gives him a small smile in return and then drops her eyes to her plate again. She’s barely touched her food, and it’s sort of pissing me off. “Are you not eating?”
She glances up at me and rolls her eyes. “I am eating,”
she says dryly.
“Pretty sure you’re not. You’ve barely touched anything. There’s plenty of food, so you don’t have to worry.”
She lets out a small sigh and spears one of her sausages, bringing it to her lips. She bites into it and closes her eyes as a small hum slips through her lips.
“Is it good?”
I ask quietly.
She opens her eyes to look at me, and then looks away, clearly embarrassed as a hint of pink creeps up along her cheeks. “It is.”
“Alex, you may begin.”
I’m trying to change the subject at this point because I actually feel like an asshole for embarrassing her like that. It wasn’t my intention. I know she’s hungry, her stomach can’t hide its ravenous chorus as she sits a mere two feet away from me. Close enough to touch her if she would just allow it.
“I’m still eating,”
he mumbles through a mouthful of food. I glare at him as he stares at me with half a sausage hanging out of his mouth.
“Do you not have any manners?”
I snort. I can’t help it, he looks ridiculous.
“I’m enjoying the food you made, okay? I didn’t expect you to be good at cooking, Wren.”
“I’m not incompetent,”
I say through gritted teeth as he smirks at me.
“I wish you would cook for me too,”
he laughs.
Chess looks at him confused and then glances over at me. “Do you not normally have breakfast meetings?” She asks.
I open my mouth to respond, but Alex takes the chance to throw me under the bus. “He never cooks for anyone, and he never has meetings in his apartment.”
Her eyes widen in shock, and it’s taking everything in me to not launch across this table and snuff out his life for embarrassing me like this.
“I…don’t understand then. Why are we here?”
“Yeah, Wren. Why don’t you tell her why we’re here?”
I’m going to beat him within an inch of his life.
Alex gets away with a lot when it comes to our relationship. He’s not just my first in command…he’s also the only vampire I’ve sired in my nearly five hundred years. He’s a pureblood as well, and right now, I’m regretting my decision for turning him.
“Do you wanna die?”
I growl out at him.
“Sometimes, but not today.”
He tilts his head back and laughs at my clear hatred towards him in this moment. “Is there even a point in trying to keep this strictly professional? You sort of threw that away the moment you decided to bring your enforcer into your home.”
“Why am I here, Wren?”
I look back towards Chess and she raises an eyebrow at me as she leans back in her chair and crosses her arms across her chest. I’m a bit irritated that she wore a full coverage shirt today. A cut-off sleeved high neck shirt does not do her tits justice.
“You refused to have a meal with me last night, so I thought it appropriate to force you into one with me for our meeting.”
“I refused the meal because it wasn’t professional,”
she says bluntly. “You’re making this weird.”
“I…”
My eyes dart to Alex for some form of help, but he’s completely useless and settles back into his chair with a huge grin on his face. “Why is it unprofessional?”
“Clearly you don’t do this with any of your other employees, including Alex by the sounds of it.”
“Alex is in my home plenty, and we’ve shared…meals.”
“But he just said---”
“You’re reaching, Wren,”
Alex snickers. “Just because we share a meal as you put it, doesn’t mean it’s the same thing. You’ve never cooked.”
“Wait, do you mean food as in…”
“Sometimes yes, but we’ve ordered actual food as well.”
“Why did you cook this time then and not just order something?”
She says confused.
“Because you would have bitched about the fact I’m throwing money around again! Can I not just do something nice without you ripping into me like I’m a fucking villain?!”
“But you are.”
“What?”
“You are a villain. There’s nothing good about you. Not your personality or your existence. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but I’m here to do a job.”
“You think I’m a villain…”
“You’re no hero, that’s clearly obvious.”
Alex and Chess scramble back out of their seats when I roar out in frustration and flip the table over. Plates and food go flying across the floor and I’m breathing heavily as I try to rein in my anger. Alex looks confused and horrified by my reaction. Chess…she’s terrified. I’ve actually rendered her completely afraid of me with that outburst.
I stomp into the kitchen and grab the other plate of pancakes I have stacked there and move towards the trash. I startle when I feel fingers brush against my arm.
“Wren, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am. I didn’t think you would react like that.”
I whip around to look at Chess, and worry creases her forehead. “You can’t think I won’t react harshly to you calling me a fucking villain, Chess. Fuck…FRANKIE! Fuck! I hate that name!”
“Don’t throw that away,”
she whispers, dropping her eyes to the ground.
“Why not? Clearly me trying to do anything nice is unprofessional, and I’m just so fucking done with all of this. I was trying to make this right…with the money and this.”
I shake the plate in my hand and a few pancakes flop onto the ground.
She quickly bends down and picks them up. She rolls them up in her hand and looks up at me as she takes a huge bite out of them.
“What are you doing? Don’t eat those! They were on the floor!”
“I think you’ve wasted enough food for today.”
I glance behind her to see Alex bending down to the disaster zone outside my kitchen and shove a couple pieces of bacon in his mouth from the floor. “Gross, Alex.”
“She’s right. This is such a waste. It was really good, and you just went ahead and ruined it for everybody.”
Chess shoves the rest of the pancakes into her mouth and turns away from me towards the table. She bends down and starts to pick up the broken pieces of ceramic.
“You don’t have to do that,” I mumble.
“This mess is my fault. Let’s get this cleaned up and then we can start the meeting.”
She lets out a hissing breath and drops the piece of glass in her hand.
My nostrils flare as the smell of her blood seeps into the area. I’m moving towards her before I even realize it, and suddenly, Alex is in front of me. He has a hard look on his face as he settles his hand on my shoulder.
“Control yourself,”
he says under his breath.
“I…”
Panic hits me. I reacted to the smell of her blood without even meaning to. It’s so much purer when it’s out in the open, that it registered on my senses before my brain caught up with what I was doing.
I step back from him, clenching my hands into fists at my side. He turns back towards her and crouches down next to her, hesitating to touch her as well. “Are you alright?” He asks.
She looks at him surprised. “Yeah, it’s just a small cut.”
“We should take care of that.”
“It’ll be fine, Alex.”
“No. I really think we should take care of that.”
He seems to be struggling a bit near her as well, but he’s definitely more controlled than I am in the present moment.
Her eyes shift past him to look at me and they widen. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry."
“Don’t apologize,”
I snarl through clenched teeth.
Fuck. I can’t rein it in with her sitting there.
“Wren.”
Alex’s harsh voice rips through the room, snapping me out of the haze that was settling along my vision.
I rip my eyes away from them and head towards the porch, stepping outside. I gasp and gulp down the fresh air as it hits me, and grip into the railing hard enough to bend the steal.
Being around her is difficult on its own, but that just about sent me over the edge. I had no control over my thoughts. All I wanted to do the moment I smelled her blood was destroy her. I wanted to rip into her neck and bathe in the purity of that rich blood of hers.
I know it would taste amazing. I know it would finally cure my hunger. I can’t just have one taste with her. If I taste her, I won’t stop. I’ll end up killing her and I don’t even think I would feel bad about it. She’s infuriating and is already suicidal anyways, what with her wanting to do this mission.
She hates me enough to rip into me even when I try to do something kind. There’s no winning with her. She’ll never see me as a person because to her, I’m nothing but a monster.