Wicked as She Wants (20 page)

“
Tsk
. That’s not the reason. You glow because you’re a Bludman. The glass of my spectacles was especially made to reveal your vile kind to my eyes. I’m a sort of trophy hunter, you see.”

“You mistake me,” I said, but I heard my own voice waver.

“I don’t mistake you at all. Ahnastasia.”

His hand tightened another notch. The pressure would have broken a Pinky’s arm at that point, and I would surely have bruises for at least a few hours. I clenched my teeth and held in the hiss fighting to escape.

By then, we were standing over the tank. I could smell the horrid salt of it, and I turned my head and closed my eyes as the light spray from the fountain caught on the breeze and blew against my cheek. It burned.

“Do you know much about the creatures of the sea, princess?”

“I know nothing of the sea.”

“This is a touch tank. Within are the golden jewels of the ocean. Bright corals, waving anemones, tiny crabs, toothless sharks, harmless fish, even a baby Kraken, if Miss May isn’t lying, although she probably is. It’s considered greatly sensual to touch the soft, fleshy body of a Kraken. Would you like to try?”

“I would not.”

He took my hand and forcefully unclenched my fist, gently tugging at my satin glove. My fingers sprang closed like a trap.

“I want you to feel the Kraken, princess. Put your hand in the tank and touch it.”

“And if I won’t?”

“Everyone will know you for what you are. I’ll kill you and collect the reward and your fangs. And you’ll be the ninety-seventh bloodsucker I’ve destroyed.”

My hand hovered over the water, shaking in his unforgiving grasp. Behind me, Keen gasped. Casper’s playing didn’t skip a beat. He had moved into a rousing quadrille, and everyone’s feet were pounding on the floor.

Over the merry sounds of the dance, Miss May’s voice rang out. “Don’t be scared, Miss Carol. Van Helsing will take care of you. The Kraken doesn’t bite!”

I looked at Keen. She knew what would happen if I touched the water. My skin would burn, and everyone would know what I was. Either way, I was doomed.

“Now, princess,” Van Helsing hissed in my ear.

I took a deep breath and fought to keep the beast down. When the blud took me over, I was all brawn and no brains. And I needed an intelligent solution more than I needed a bloodbath.

“Let me go, and I’d be glad to touch the Kraken.”

He released me. I pulled my glove back up over my wrist and shook my arm, trying to get the feeling to return to my fingertips. Taking a step back, he gave me a slow, vicious smile.

I scanned the deck, barely containing my panic but ready to take a desperate chance. No one was watching
us. I reached for the edge of the tank, grabbed it with both hands, and pushed it as hard as I could. The glass rocked for a moment, the water spilling away from us and splattering over the deck. Then, in one fluid movement, I yanked the glass back toward us as hard as I could and leaped away. The tank fell in slow motion, the water sloshing in a graceful, slopping wave. Van Helsing was but a simple human, of course—he hadn’t moved quickly enough and fell with the tank.

I was already halfway across the deck. I turned to watch as the tank shattered over the man’s fallen form, raining broken shards of glass, bits of coral, and flapping fish all over the wood of the deck. Crabs skittered drunkenly over the boards, their claws snapping. Panic broke out, the women shrieking and the men running about drunkenly.

I was down the steps before the salt water could touch the hem of my dress.

18

I huddled in the closet, waiting for a flood of seawater or an angry Miss May to claim me. When the door banged open, I cringed only a little. The blud in my wine had sharpened my senses. I could tell by the smell that it was Casper, and he was alone.

“Ahna, where are you?”

I unfolded myself and crept out of the closet. “Are they coming for me?”

“No. Everyone’s too busy cleaning up. No one saw what happened. Including me.” He watched me, waiting for answers.

“He knew me.” I checked the floor for seawater before slipping off my boots and gloves and curling up on the bed, my arms wrapped around my knees. “He knew what I was. Who I was. He called me Ahnastasia, and he tried to make me touch the water. So I pushed it over on him.”

He nodded. “That worked out well, then.”

I gaped at him, heart racing. “Well?” He shrugged. “It’s a disaster. Van Helsing wants me dead! He tried to force me to touch salt water. He hunts my people. He’s a monster.”

“
Was
a monster,” Casper said softly, crossing the room to sit on the foot of the bed.

“Surely the tank didn’t kill him,” I said, confused.

“Almost. Five hundred gallons of water and a ton of glass is a lot for one Pinky. But that didn’t kill him. I did.”

His gloved fingers unfurled to reveal the jagged stem from the goblet he’d broken earlier. Droplets of blood clung to it, and I unconsciously licked my lips. Casper placed it gently on the bedside table, just out of my reach.

“I’ve never killed anyone before. And he probably would have died on his own before the night was over. But he was trying to say your name. To say ‘Ahnastasia.’ ”

Hearing my name on his lips drew my attention away from the bloody glass and back to his face. He seemed different to me somehow.

We stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment.

“How do you feel?” he finally asked.

I took inventory and rubbed the place on my arm where Van Helsing had held me. “I feel shaken. A little bruised. You?”

“I need a drink.” He reached for the bottle on the bedside table, knocking the goblet stem to the ground with a growl. Sitting back, he uncorked it and took a long swig as his eyes captured mine. I held out a hand for the bottle.

“Are you sure you want more?” he asked. “It had a strange effect on you earlier.”

“It made me feel relaxed. I just had a big scare. I could use some relaxation.”

He handed it over, his fingers reluctant to leave the bottle until I tugged. “Have you never had bludwine before?”

I took several swallows and passed the bottle back. “Cora gave me a sip. And I’ve had bloodwine, with human blood. But not this.”

“It seemed a little like you were drunk, the way you were behaving on deck.”

“Then let’s get drunk.” I could already feel the warm, pleasant uncoiling in the pit of my stomach. I licked my lips and smiled, slow and wide. The world grew fuzzy around the edges. For someone as tightly in control as I normally was, it was a delicious sort of release. Before he could stop me, I snagged the bottle back and had another sip.

“Slow down, there, speed demon.” He tried to take the bottle back. But the taste was growing on me. I craved it. It was richer than the richest blood I’d ever had. If normal blood was a tributary, this was the river.

“I’m not a daimon, silly,” I said with a giggle.

I covered my mouth to burp, and he snagged the bottle, tipped it back, and drained it.

“That was mine!” I said.

“You’re a hungry little thing.” His voice slurred, just a little.

“Always.”

The slow smile on his face matched mine as he pushed back to sit against the bed’s headboard, just a few feet away from me. He crossed his boots on the velvet coverlet and leaned back contentedly.

“You’re right,” he said, eyes on the ceiling. “This is much better. I’ve never drunk so much at once. I’m going to feel like hell in the morning. Prolly go mad. But I just killed a guy, so I guess I deserve a little oblivion.”

I rolled my head over to look at him, and the room spun with me. I could barely move, but I managed to maneuver onto my side, smoothing his long hair out of my way. Up close, it was the color of burnished maple and smelled impossibly of fir trees.

“You’ve never killed anyone before?” I absentmindedly twirled a lock of his hair around my finger.

“ ’Course not.” He rolled over likewise to face me. I felt his knees graze mine but was too melty and fuzzy to react. Our eyes met with a sizzle, and part of me woke up a little bit, just enough to appreciate the fine blue of his irises, the knowing curve of his lips.

“Where I come from, killing is a serious crime. I’ve punched a few guys, but I’ve never drawn blood.” He paused to move a sand-colored curl that had fallen over my cheek. His fingers barely grazed my skin, but I felt his touch like trails of fire. It took everything I had not to purr under his fingers like the cat, yearning shamelessly toward his touch. Instead, I shook my head just the tiniest bit, to see if another curl would oblige.

It did. He moved that one, too, this time more slowly. I grinned at him, and he echoed it, complete with dimples. Somewhere inside me, the beast stirred. But instead of rising in a fury, hissing and spitting and fighting from the dark depths, it seemed to curl and stretch and unfurl, as Tommy Pain did when he found a nice sunbeam.

For the first time in my life, my beast didn’t want blood.

“You good, sugarplum?” Casper drew a finger down my cheek.

“Do we have more wine?” I asked, trying to cover my confusion.

“One more bottle.” He rolled over to rummage in his bag. “That’s all I have to hold me until Minks. But you can have another sip if you need it. Considering the current circumstances.”

He popped out the cork and handed me the full bottle. I took a moment to sniff it, drawing in the strange
combination of aged fruit and blud. I took a deep whiff, trying to detect what might have gone into the brew, whether it held the blud of one Bludman or many. I wanted to know how he had found it, how much it cost, whether the blud had been obtained by fair trade or stolen. But I wanted the oblivion more. I wanted the lack of control, a liquor I’d never before tasted.

Knowing that it was precious to him, still I drank deeply, wanted to drink it forever. But he gently took it from me, recorked it, and stowed it back in his bag. I could feel his eyes on my face, his gaze sharper than usual but also warm. Was he actually looking at me as if I was the prey?

“What is it I see in your eyes?” I murmured.

“Long enough have I dreamed contemptible dreams,” he replied softly, as if reciting something. “You are a dazzle of light, darlin’.”

Faster than I could follow, his hand cupped my jaw as his thumb stroked under my lip. I shut my eyes and let the effects of the bludwine wash over me in a haze of red velvet and sweetness. When I opened them again, he was biting his lip, and I saw that his teeth were sharper than I had thought, almost fangs like mine.

“Was that a song?” I asked, but he shook his head.

“Ahna,” he said, his voice husky and rough.

“Yes?” Lips parted, I held my breath.

His face angled toward me, and I closed my eyes, waiting. The kiss never came.

“Ahna. I should probably go. I’ve never had this much bludwine, and I can’t . . . I can’t control it. It’s like there’s some mad beast inside me, trying to take over. I should lock myself in the library and sleep it off.”

“No.” I leaned forward to put my hand on his sleeve. “I mean, you don’t have to go. I don’t mind.”

“I feel like I’m half panther, half drunk.” He looked down. His fingers idly stroked my own where they lay on his blood-spattered shirt, making me shiver. “I’m not fit for company.”

“How do you think I feel?” I said softly.

He looked up from our hands, gazing into my eyes as if searching for something there. “I don’t know how you feel,” he said. “You never speak of your feelings.”

“I feel the same as you. Muddled and drunk and not sure whether or not to let the beast out. It’s not a bad thing.”

“You have a beast?”

I snorted. “You’ve met my beast. She tried to kill you once. I think you laughed at her before you sliced her open. Tasted her.”

“Mm. I remember.” He reached out to touch my wrist. A thin pink scar crossed the white skin, and he lifted my arm to kiss it. “She tasted good. But I’ll make amends.”

When his lips touched my skin, I nearly melted. But not like ice. No, like mercury, like metal sizzling, as if my veins were filled with molten fire. I gasped and closed my eyes, and I felt him smile against my skin, kissing his way up my arm, every touch burned into memory with a hot iron.

“I can smell your blud now,” he said, his voice dark. “Right here, so close to the skin, beating like a tiny bird thrashing against a cage.”

His tongue shot out, and a little thrill rippled through me. It was a struggle to hold still, to keep the beast from attacking him in a thousand different ways that I myself didn’t understand. For just a split second, his teeth scraped
against the tender skin there, and I felt a thrum of fear and indignation and furious demand, but then his kisses turned harmless again and moved down to my hand, and I relaxed.

He kissed my palm and each finger, then released me. For a moment, my hand hovered in midair, my eyes closed. Then I went boneless and let my hand drop to the bed, the little thrills still running up and down, echoes of his touch. I opened my eyes and licked my lips. My breath was coming fast, the same feeling I would get on a hunt, watching the prey, waiting for the right moment to pounce.