Relish: A Vicious Feast Book 2 (7 page)

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. The truth of it struck me. I really didn’t know.

“I’d already spoken to your dean.”

“Of course you did.”

She nodded. “He’s willing to push your final defense forward to accommodate our schedule. We need to meet up with the band at the end of the week in New Zealand. I know I’m not giving you much of a window to really think about it, but we need to get the book started if we want it released by the end of the world tour. We only have a few countries left before we circle back to the States.”

The deer in the headlights feeling enveloped me completely. I sat there but my mind was elsewhere, almost as if I stood in a corner of the room to watch Yana tell my seated self about yet another opportunity of a lifetime. I concentrated on my breathing to keep from bolting.

“When’s…” I swallowed. My throat refused to work properly. “When’s the defense?”

The triumph that entered Yana’s eyes chilled me more than the snow falling outside. “It’s set for Wednesday.”

“I’m not saying yes.”

“I’ll have the dean assemble the panel anyway.” She crossed her legs. “I will be there waiting. If you show up then I will assume you agree to be the band’s official tour photographer.”

Despite the chair supporting my weight, the sense of slowly sinking into the depths of the ocean came over me. I could do nothing but stare at the woman in all black in front of me.

“And you don’t have to worry anymore about Luka.” She smiled as if that was supposed to make me feel better. “He’s in therapy. He won’t be bothering you during this trip.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN
D
EFENSE

I stood by my bedroom window in the darkness. The snow fell in soft flurries on the other side. It was a welcome change from the sheets of the last week. I placed my hand flat against the windowpane, not feeling the cold. Moisture condensed around my palm, creating a ghost of an outline. I hadn’t felt the cold since I left Yana and her too tempting offer. My bare feet had gone numb hours ago when I stripped to nothing but my thermal leggings and ribbed shirt.

Yes
hovered on the tip of my tongue. I inhaled and held the breath in until my lungs ached. On the exhale, I wondered if saying no would change anything. If I accepted the offer, I could travel the world with a rock band. How cool would that be? Yet, something inside me hesitated. Maybe the impulse to run away from the opportunity came from wanting it too much. Wanting to see Luka again. Hear him speak. Feel his callused hands against my skin.

I closed my eye, conjuring the dream where he kneeled before me. I’d never felt more powerful than in that moment. It was like I held his life in my hands. I snorted, a corner of my lips twitching upward. I leaned my forehead against the glass, letting the cold ease the throbbing caused by all my brooding. I blamed Luka for my sick subconscious. Not since meeting him did I ever feel vindicated by someone else’s distress. He hurt because I hurt. This scared the shit out of me. I knew no matter how far I ran I would always end up circling back. Like something inexplicably linked me to him.

The metal slide of a key into a lock woke me from my mood. I pushed away from the window, but I didn’t move to check on who arrived. The door knob twisted, closely followed by the door pushing open.

“Why the hell is it so dark in here?” Larry muttered. He flicked the switch.

In my periphery, light flooded the living room, sending a spear of illumination into my room. It wasn’t enough to banish the darkness embracing me, but it did elicit a gasp from Larry.

“Jesus!” He dropped the pizza box and bent over, grabbing his chest like he experienced some kind of attack. “Geez, you scared me.”

I faced him fully then leaned my bare shoulder against the window. I crossed my arms. Larry picked up the box and placed it on the coffee table.

“I passed by the Showcase, but you weren’t there.” He grinned before moving to the kitchen. A quick release of the fridge door suction then the
clink
of beer bottles pushed together reached my ears. “It was crazy. Did you expect the fans to come in droves? I mean, even with the cops, I didn’t think they would actually camp out in front of the exhibition hall in this snow for a chance to get in. I had to show my ID when this big guy blocked my way. Scary.”

He babbled on about how amazing the response to the pictures was while I stood there thinking how he managed to enter my apartment. I remembered locking the door. “When did I give you a key?”

Placing the beer bottles beside the box, he straightened and put on an apologetic expression. “I actually made a copy while you were sleeping a couple weeks back. I thought it would be easier that way.”

I should have been angry at the massive invasion of my privacy. By now I should be irrationally screaming at him for taking liberties. But I did none of those things. Instead I said, “Yana offered me a job taking pictures of the band while on tour.”

The atmosphere in the room shifted. Larry’s shoulders tensed and his features hardened. His brow crumpled right before he lifted his hand to rub it away. “I should have known the bodyguards in front of your exhibit were from them.” He paused. “From
him
.”

“Luka has nothing to do with this.”

“Bullshit.” He moved his hand from his brow to his hair, raking through the strands until they fell in a mess over his forehead. “Luka has everything to do with this. Are you taking the job?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“But you want to take the job.”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t be stupid.” He took a couple steps toward me only to stop just outside my room. “I don’t know the details of what happened when you were with the band, and hell if I ever want to know, but you can’t really think I will be okay with you going back to work for them, do you? NDA or not, it’s clear being with them isn’t healthy. You almost didn’t make the deadline for your project.” He paced as he lectured. “Do you think watching that stupid video every day is healthy? And don’t get me started on the Google Alerts. Yeah! I know about those. I was passing by your laptop when it pinged. You were in the shower at the time. I’m not apologizing…”

My heart twisted with love for him. Not the kind of love he wanted from me, but it came from a similar place. Larry wouldn’t be reacting this way if he didn’t genuinely care about my wellbeing. I wished I could tell him everything. But I knew, even without the NDA, I wouldn’t have found the strength to tell someone else about Vicious. About Luka. A part of me was selfish with the information, wanting to keep it all to myself.

“I didn’t say yes,” I said, interrupting the turn Larry’s tirade made to reckless musicians.

“You’re going to say yes.”

The panic in his eyes constricted the walls of my throat. I swallowed several times before I could speak again. “Believe me, I really wanted to say yes when Yana told me about the gig. I immediately thought about all the possible shoots and candid shots I wanted to take.”

“But?”

“But I meant it when I said I don’t know.” I pushed away from the window and moved toward him until my forehead rested on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me at right about the same time I circled his waist with mine. He shifted so his chin rested on top of my head. Despite my height, Larry was one of the only guys I knew who towered over me. I liked that about him. He made me feel petite and delicate, no matter how much I was none of those things. “After I left the dean’s office, I just walked around campus, not really knowing where I was going until I ended up back here. If I’d been stronger maybe I wouldn’t have allowed things at Lunar Manor to escalate the way they did. I let myself get caught up in their pace. I got comfortable, forgot my real place. I deluded myself into thinking there was more happening than what really was.”

“So why didn’t you just say no?”

We started swaying in place to music only in Larry’s head. I let him guide my body to the slow side to side rhythm he’d set. I shivered then sighed, finally feeling the cold when his body heat mingled with mine. I closed my eye and listened to the calm beats of his heart.

“Did you know I haven’t taken a single picture since I came back?”

He paused before resuming our lazy dance. His lips replaced his chin for a quick kiss at the top of my head. I pulled back so I could look into his eyes when I continued.

“Then when I saw Yana again today, I took a picture of her without really thinking about it. Like the act was instinctual. I didn’t notice that I’d opened my bag, grabbed the camera, powered it, and took the picture until I was already putting my baby down.” I lifted my hand to touch my patch for the first time in weeks. Tenderness entered his eyes. He took my hand in his and kissed my palm before returning it to join the other at his waist. “When I lost my eye, I relied on photography to get me through. Taking pictures became my way of looking at the world. And then I got a chance to take pictures of such beautiful people.”

Larry snorted.

“Not just physically,” I clarified. “Yana, Dray, Demitri, Phoenix…” I bit the corner of my lip. “They were beautiful people on the inside too. Yes, they had their issues, but I don’t believe the pictures hanging at the exhibition hall would have turned out the way they did without their inner beauty shining through.”

“Even Luka?”

“Especially Luka.”

He raised an eyebrow at that.

“You don’t have to understand—”

“Oh, but I do,” he cut me off. “You’re in love with him. You’re in love with all of them,” he added when I opened my mouth to protest. “How else can you explain the life in those pictures? I’m not blind. The second I saw those photos I knew you were in love with your subjects. Only a deep connection could bring out the inner beauty you’re talking about.”

I wilted into him, drawing comfort from his strength. “I’m so screwed.”

He rubbed my back with both hands. “You’re an artist. You have your muse. Unfortunately, one of those muses happens to be a guy I really want to punch out.”

I giggled into his shoulder. “I love you, Larry.”

He sucked in a breath then let it out slowly, tickling the top of my head. “Not in the way you love them.”

I pushed away again and held his handsome face in my hands. “I wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t helped me, Laurel. You have to know that.”

He bent down. I allowed the kiss without deepening it. This wasn’t the time for the oblivion sex gave me. And I had a feeling after seeing Yana today I wouldn’t find the same release with Larry. His words made sense. My love for Luka didn’t stem from some need to live a happily ever after with him. My love came from a place of art. I finally understood. When I first proposed my project at Sacrifice after Eli threatened to take away my camera, I thought I only wanted Luka for my subject. Then, because he challenged me to take pictures of the entire band, I knew Vicious had to become my subject. Despite the hurt of knowing Luka used me to further his own agenda of making Phoenix jealous or some shit like that, nothing had changed. I still wanted to take pictures of Vicious, like I had some claim to them. Like no one else could take their picture but me. There was so much more I wanted to show the world about the band. 

Larry pulled away and smiled down at me. I mirrored his smile, transferring my arms from his waist to around his neck. We stayed that way for a couple more minutes before he touched his forehead with mine.

“So, are you taking the job?”

I laughed softly. The reverberations felt good. “I really don’t know. I understand what Vicious is to me now, but I don’t know if taking the job is the best thing for my future.”

“You are one confusing woman.”

“Admit it, that’s why you like me.”

“More than you know.”

The seriousness in his response forced me to change the subject. “Yana offered to buy all the pictures for a grand each.”

“Holy shit!”

“Holy shit is right.”

We both laughed, untangling from each other’s arms. Larry handed me a beer before sinking down onto the couch and flipping the pizza box lid. I took a long swig and grimaced. I hated the bitterness of barley, but I didn’t think hot cocoa and pizza mixed. My savior in more ways than I cared to count handed me a slice of pepperoni with extra cheese as I joined him.

“Let me play devil’s advocate a second and say you’re missing out on an opportunity if you don’t take the job.”

I choked on the bite in my mouth. He thumped my back with an open palm until I could breathe again.

“I hate you so much right now,” I wheezed out.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT
B
REATHE

The drumming stops. The night becomes eerily quiet. Not a cricket song in the air. The women clasp each other’s arms and sway from side to side, their legs spread wide apart, bent at the knee. They roll their heads, still chanting. I twist and writhe on the ground, yet no matter how forceful my movements, I never shift from my spot on the ground. The old woman joins the chanting now. She closes both her hands over the dagger’s hilt and raises the blade above her head. The electricity in the air surges, clinging to my skin like invisible sparks.

Delirium swallows me whole. I no longer know what’s happening beyond the convulsions of my body. The lacerating pain in my abdomen reaches a peak that arches my back off the ground so high I fear I’m about to be folded in half. Sweat drips from my temples like tears. I scream then straddle the line between being fully conscious and succumbing to the darkness to escape the agony. The old woman is screaming her words, rhyming as they are. The swaying women hum like buzzing bees.

Something in me snaps. At first I fear it’s my spine since I no longer feel any pain. As the old woman brings down the dagger, I roll away from it. No real control over my limbs, something in me pushes my body up until I’m on all fours. The women scream the word
possession
. Complete disarray follows. The old woman stumbles back when the something in me growls at her. The women run away while a group of men from the shadows beyond the light of the torches rush toward me. With a flip of my wrists, I summersault to my feet. Then I execute a tight one-eighty before scrambling into the woods.