Passion By Control (Passion Series Book 2) (17 page)

He surprised me by shaking his head. “It does not bother me that you can remember what we have done. What does bother me is what you chose to do to me last night. You hurt me physically, caused me extreme discomfort, and I stupidly had thought that there might have been something between us.”

I gaped at him before snorting again. “Are you serious? You don’t bother with women Fabian. You told me that. Your reputation for having no respect for women is well known. Now you expect me to believe that you thought there might be something between us? All you ever want from a woman is sex and her blood, so don’t try and give me this shit about thinking there might be more. Don’t act surprised about the spells. You know exactly why I cast them. I was sent to do a job. I’m working for someone, you know that. I’ve told you that. If you’ve come here to seek revenge, then go ahead. You have me to yourself. I’m vulnerable. Do your worst.” I challenged him.

I locked eyes with him, determined not to back down. It was risky to piss him off. I was vulnerable, lying in bed. I would have to act fast to stop him if he tried something. Was he still angry? He seemed surprisingly calm given how angry he’d been last night. That might be a trick on his part. I had to be ready to react if he did something. It would be more challenging when he had Damien and Lucian here. I might be a witch, but if it got down to a showdown with all three, it would be harder for me to take them on. I could only hope it didn’t come down to that.

Instead of striking me or trying to choke me as I half expected, he sighed heavily. “I came here wanting you dead. I admit that. I was not comfortable with what you had done to me. Do you have any idea the level of humiliation I felt, lying on my bathroom floor and powerless to stop the effects of your spell? My sons saw me like that. I think that was the ultimate embarrassment for me. As their leader, I am the one who is strong. I show no weakness, until last night. They saw me grovelling on the floor like some pathetic loser. You did that to me after our bath too, when I’d washed you and cared for you. I never bath a woman. I never bath anyone and yet with you, I felt the compulsion to take care of you. Then you hurt me the way you did.” He looked down briefly at my quilt before his pale eyes met mine again, and suddenly the gravity of what I’d done to someone like Fabian truly registered with me.

He was a proud vampire, used to being in control and to controlling others and I had robbed him of those things that were important to him. I should be happy about the way I’d treated him. I was here to do a job after all. I’d done the first round of what I was being paid to do. I wasn’t supposed to be considering his feelings. I wasn’t supposed to give a shit about how he felt. I should be gloating, but I wasn’t. He wasn’t a nice person. He wasn’t a person at all, he was a vampire. He was self-centred, selfish and he didn’t care about anyone else but himself, but even as I tried to convince myself of that, in my mind I saw how gentle he’d been with me last night. For all that was wrong and bad about him, inside, deep, if one really looked hard, there was a tiny bit of good too. I’d seen it. It was wrong to feel the way I did, I knew that, but I couldn’t pretend indifference any longer. I liked him, I liked Fabian.

I had a decision to make. I either continued doing my work for Dominick and Allegra or I didn’t. If I chose to continue working for them, I would have to walk away from Fabian. That would mean not thinking about what I was doing to him when I cast spells against him. I would have nothing to do with him at all. Of course, he would probably come after me, so I’d need a protection spell. Or the alternative was to tell Dominick and Allegra I couldn’t work for them anymore. I would still walk away from Fabian of course. After last night, he would not want me anywhere near him. I had to think all this through, even though a part of me already knew what I had to do.

I looked up at him, where he stood staring down at me. I couldn’t read what was going on behind those pale eyes of his at all. Slowly I raised my hand, my fingers finding the tenderness of my sore cheek, which was my reminder of that dangerous side of him. I saw his focus move to follow my hand, and something shifted in his expression. It was barely decipherable, little more than a slight darkening of his eyes, but I longed to know what was going on inside him right now.

“I’m sorry Fabian.” I said quietly. “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’ll stay out of your way from now on. I will not bother you any more, or come after you any more. It is over. I will contact my employers to tell them I can no longer continue to do the job they have paid me to do. So I guess the question is, can you move on?”

He stared at me for a while, not saying anything, just those pale eyes of his moved over my face before finally resting on my red and swollen cheek. He reached out, his fingers tracing over my skin, his touch surprisingly gentle.

“When you say you will stay away from me, does that mean I will not be used for your amusement? That there will be no more spells?”

I shook my head. “No more spells. As I said, I will be calling my clients and explaining that I can no longer continue working for them. I promise to stay away from you and I hope that you can promise me the same thing. I don’t want to live, having to look over my shoulder Fabian. I just want to live my life. Sing at the club, that’s it. We can pretend we never met.”

He studied me closely for a moment. “Very well Sirene. I think we have reached an agreement that is mutually beneficial. Let us shake on the deal.” He offered me his hand and I took his, feeling the familiar pull of attraction.

Arousal uncurled low in my belly but I ignored it, shook his hand and released him again. He stood, looking down at me for a while, his expression watchful, intense and I fought not to shiver with reaction under his stare.

Suddenly he bent down, his lips found mine and he kissed me, gently, his tongue tracing along my bottom lip. I opened up to him, my tongue begging entry to his mouth, but he pulled away from me and straightened up.

“Good bye Sirene. It has been interesting knowing you; at times slightly pleasurable and yet extremely challenging.” He bowed his head to me and with one final look, he was gone.

I lay there in my bed listening to his soft footsteps as he walked downstairs and it amazed me how such a big man, very tall and muscled could be so light on his feet.

I heard male voices speak, muffled at times and then Chloe’s voice, and I guessed she was acting out whatever memory they had chosen to give her. The voices continued on for a few more minutes until finally I heard the sound of the front door opening and then closing.

Quickly I jumped out of bed, ignoring the throbbing pain in the side of my head and hurried to the window to look out. I watched Damien, Lucian and Fabian come into view and walk towards their car.

They were all such amazingly beautiful looking examples of the male form but I really only had eyes for Fabian. He moved with such effortless grace for a tall man, his stride long, covering the ground quickly. When they got to their car, Damien and Lucian climbed straight in, but Fabian stopped, looked up towards my window, and I could have sworn our eyes locked on one another, before he raised his hand in what almost looked like a salute.

Slowly he too climbed into the car and I continued to watch as it backed out of the drive. It wasn’t until the tail lights had disappeared from my view that I moved away from the window, collapsed on my bed again and promptly burst into tears. I wept uncontrollably and inconsolably and the craziest thing about it was, that I had no idea why I was even crying.

Fabian

As they drove towards home, Fabian listened to Damien and Lucian talking about what they’d done to Chloe while she was under their mind control and when they laughed about it, for the first time he actually felt slightly uncomfortable about what they did to humans.

Feeding and fucking were both necessary. Their very survival depended on them doing both, but making a joke of what they’d done to Chloe and mimicking her, for once didn’t sit comfortably with him. When he realised the road his mind was taking, he cursed under his breath. Damn her. She voiced her disapproval of what they did and suddenly he was questioning their behaviour.

That little witch was getting to him and if he was honest with himself, he was drawn to her in a way he hadn’t been drawn to anyone in centuries. It pissed him off since he didn’t want to feel anything for anyone, and certainly not for one tiny extremely frustrating woman, who happened to be the very thing he should be staying right away from, a damn witch.

She had weakened him, unmanned him and anyone else, would have been killed. Fuck, if anyone was a threat to him, he killed them or got someone else to do it. Sirene had used spells on him, she’d cursed him. He had been nice to her, and he wasn’t nice to many women, and yet she’d made a mockery of his kindness by unmanning him, attacking his manhood and totally humiliating him. She’d done all that and he’d let her live?  What the hell was wrong with him? He’d gone to see her intending to do something, kill her, or harm her and what had he done? He’d kissed her and wiped her tears from her face. He’d shown her more kindness, accepted her word that she wouldn’t do anything more to him, and fucking walked away? Damn her to hell and back. She was still unmanning him. She’d turned him into a fucking pussy.

When she had asked him to forgive her, he’d weakened and decided to give her that at least. He was mad at himself for giving into her, but mostly he was angry at himself for caring. Much as he hated to admit it, she’d penetrated his thick skin and made him care. She’d made him like her, but fucked if he knew why, after all she’d done to him.  

He knew, if he had any chance of regaining some kind of control that he had to keep away from her. He knew, down deep inside, he knew, Sirene had the power to destroy him and she didn’t need witchcraft to do it. She made him feel things that were foreign to him and he didn’t want to feel anything for her. In fact he didn’t want to feel anything for anyone. Emotions weakened a person, made them vulnerable and he hadn’t made it over 500 years as a vampire by allowing himself to become vulnerable to someone else.

Hopefully if he didn’t see her or have anything to do with her, she would eventually stop plaguing his thoughts and maybe in time, he’d finally forget all about her.

Chapter Ten

Sirene

I settled into a routine at the club, singing four nights a week and the money was so good, I could survive on it far better than I could have waitressing for a full week. Tony was delighted with me. He’d found me a proper band and I even had a clothing allowance since he wanted me dressing sexy. I wasn’t very good at sexy, so I’d dragged Cassie and Chloe out with me, to help me choose a wardrobe suitable for making the men enjoy what they were looking at, while I hopefully had them enjoying what they were listening to.

It had been two weeks since Fabian came to see me that night. That night where he could have killed me, but he’d shown that underneath that tough, arrogant exterior, there was a man with a heart, even if that heart was no longer beating.

Of course no way in hell would I ever have implied to him that he had a heart, otherwise he’d probably have killed me just to prove he was the heartless bastard he portrayed most of the time.

I’m not sure why he let me off; why it didn’t turn into a showdown of witch power versus vampire strength. I’m glad that it didn’t of course since it had the potential to get ugly. I’d have either cursed him for all eternity so he was little more than a pus filled sack of flesh and bone, or he’d have killed me, and be stuck dealing with the body.

It was obvious that despite everything, Fabian wanted a peaceful existence. He didn’t want people knowing what they were, and I think he did whatever was necessary to keep their identities a secret. Perhaps killing me would have been too messy for him. I had housemates, a boss, people who would miss me, or at the very least, notice I wasn’t around anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to risk anyone pointing the finger at him. Chloe had seen us together, so she could have mentioned that to the authorities. Yeah, my guess was, it was too messy for him, so that’s why he agreed to leave me alone. A tiny part of me wondered if it was because he cared about me, but then I instantly dismissed that idea.

I hadn’t seen him at all since that night. He hadn’t even turned up at the house, but given I still had the spell on Cassie and Chloe denying him access to their bodies, that wasn’t really any great surprise.

I’d looked out for him at the club, but nothing. I hadn’t caught sight of him trolling for someone to feed from. It was like he’d simply disappeared. Of course, I didn’t want to think too hard about why it disappointed me, that I hadn’t seen a single sign of him since that night he’d showed up in my room.

I was gutless; a real chicken shit and still hadn’t contacted Dominick and Allegra to tell them I couldn’t work for them anymore. They had sent me a few text messages and I’d glossed over things, making it seem like I was still on the job of tormenting Fabian. I knew I couldn’t put them off forever. I was going to have to call them, bite the fucking bullet and tell them I couldn’t work for them anymore. I just hoped they understood since at the end of the day, they were vampires too. They seemed far more human than Fabian and his vampire children but that didn’t mean that if pushed, they weren’t capable of doing something evil or violent. I really could do without having any more pissed off vampires after me.

I had to grow myself a set though and contact Dominick, so one evening as the fourth week since Fabian had walked out of my life rolled around; I took a deep breath and rang my clients.