Page 2 of A Love So Deadly (Kissed by Darkness #1)

Chapter

Two

Lucian

“ D o you know why I’m here?”

My question makes Vinnie jump.

And he should. More than that, he should be down to his fucking boots scared.

My question’s soft, almost friendly. A voice like smoke in the dark.

“You can turn on the light,” I say.

He does, even though I can see him and everything else perfectly, like the defiance and fear and hate that were on his face right as he stepped into his office.

Right when I spoke.

I don’t mind. It is what it is and nothing more.

People don’t have to like me to do business with me.

They need to uphold their end.

Or else bad things happen.

To them.

Vinnie’s eyes are a little wild as he looks between me and Vittoria who’s bored out of her mind, and probably, knowing her, very hungry.

I swallow my sigh as he tries to come up with words, and I tune him out. I’ve heard every excuse under the light of the moon. Every threat, every plea, every bargain, and ever promise. There’s never anything new. Ever.

So I take in the office once more, now the man himself is in it.

Vinnie’s desk I’m sprawled behind is garish.

All the curlicues and carvings, the deeply polished wood, the heavy price tag I know it came with.

Even though it’s not a real collector’s piece.

Though it has been around longer than Vinnie.

It hasn’t existed that much longer. It isn’t worth what I suspect he spent on it.

But he wants to be a man of substance; he wants to elevate.

I can see he takes pride in the shit in his room.

There’s only one good piece, a small mirror, the silvered back worn, the glass itself warped. He has it hidden half behind a pot plant. So, I’m guessing it was given to him.

The man is, to quote Oscar Wilde, a cynic. ‘A man who knows the price of everything and value of nothing’…Lady Windemere’s Fan, I believe. Excellent play. Saw it opening night in 1892 in London’s West End.

The mirror’s the only thing of value in here. The rest, cost. Fakes and pieces that only idiots collect.

Then again, Vinnie the Snake’s an idiot.

The thump of the music from his nightclub penetrates, and he’s still fucking whining about extenuating circumstances for his late payment, or something like that.

I stand and dust off my jacket. “Enough.”

Just like that he stops. But the cogs turn and he swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he starts talking again.

“But, Lucian?—”

“Mr. Vale.” I fix him with my darkest stare, and Vittoria crosses her arms and taps her talons against her upper arm.

“M-Mr. Vale…” His gaze darts once more to Vittoria and then back to me. “Please. You don’t understand…”

I laugh softly and shake my finger at him. “Vinnie, you’re a mobster. Let me ask you something.”

“Anything,” he says.

“When people come to you, people who owe you things on certain days, for certain…services, what do you do when they don’t deliver?”

He opens his mouth to speak.

“That,” Vittoria says, “was rhetorical. Stay your tongue if you want to keep it. Or I might at it to my collection.”

He actually steps back, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“Those people,” I say, “don’t end up with all their limbs.

Some of them don’t live. No need to tell me if I’m right.

I make it a point to have my facts in order.

And I’ve been at this much longer than you, Vinnie.

So just in case you forgot how things go, I’ll tell you.

I grease your wheels and you deliver payments.

I told you that you had three days to pay up. Now is your witching hour.”

He doesn’t move.

“I’ll ask once more. Do you know why I’m here?”

He swallows again. Hands clench. Sweat breaks out.

If I listen hard enough, I can hear the beat of his heart, the whoosh of his blood as it moves in his veins.

He’s fucking lucky I fed tonight.

Vittoria on the other hand… She likes to stay hungry on nights when we stalk and hunt the streets. And this is hunting.

She hisses so low and soft I don’t think Vinnie hears. It’s a warning, one I ignore.

Most people know me as the CEO of VMR, or as the crime boss of the Vale Hart family. Vittoria is the Hart side, though I don’t think she had one even when she was human.

Vittoria fascinated me when I met her as a human. She was cold, vicious, hungry for power, for something beyond social standing. She wanted more. Beyond the frailties of humanity.

A rare breed is Vittoria Hart. Rare, deadly and compelling. Then and now.

Turning her was a no brainer.

And I’m honestly not sure she changed much since the moment I turned her in 1921. At least not in her behavior. If anything, she’s only grown deadlier, honed her skills. Bloomed into everything she could be. A perfect hunter.

I wait for Vinnie’s answer. “I don’t have it, Lu—Mr. Vale. We had unexpected expenses?—”

“How important is he?” I ask Vittoria, flipping through the accounts book on the desk. I’m bored with him, and as I look at the accounts book, I see Vinnie’s right. He doesn’t have it this month.

But there are ways of doing things, and lessons must be learnt.

“The Bonito family has holdings we use,” she says. “They have value.”

“Still…” I approach him, and he takes a step back. “You need to pay tonight.”

I flicker my glance at Vittoria.

She moves preternaturally fast and has him in a lock hold, head to the side, neck exposed. Vein… throbbing .

A need pulsates through me, and I descend. I can hear the rapid staccato of his heart. I can smell the perfume of his fear. It’s glorious. Fear always is. Heady, a particular bouquet that’s up there with sex and blood. I smile at him.

My fangs distend.

He screams.

“No one’s gonna hear you over that noise,” Vittoria says.“But keep screaming and that tongue of yours really is mine.”

I sink my teeth into his throat, ripping open a vein, and life blood, hot, and delicious floods my mouth. It’s euphoric. I suck, drinking down.

Just.

Enough.

To.

Still.

Him.

“Lucian,” Vittoria says from a distance.

But fuck the blood is delicious. I take some more.

Enough.

To.

Control.

Him.

Then I pull out, my saliva sealing the wound. He starts to stagger, but Vittoria turns him and rips into his throat again, guzzling the blood, moaning and digging her nails in.

She wasn’t warning me. She was wanting to feed.

And I let her. Fuck him, fuck them all. Every last one. I’m a little drunk on the blood, and I laugh, almost reaching for him again.

I catch myself, force myself out of the blood lust, and look at Vittoria.

She shows no sign of stopping.

“No more,” I say. “We don’t want to kill him.”

She doesn’t stop.

I move fast and rip her off him. In a second, I have her against the wall by her throat. “I said enough, Vittoria.”

Her eyes flash cold, vicious fire. The blood doesn’t even warm her in that way. It never has. I suspect it never will. She’s drunk, but she’s also ice.

“Fine.” She shoves at me. “I said fine.”

I let her go and grab Vinnie.

He’s glazed, swaying, and I hold out my hand. From the corner of my eye, Vittoria flips her long red hair and rolls her eyes, slamming a protein bar down into my hand.

I grab Vinnie by the throat. The wound will heal fast, look like a shaving nick. There are ways to leave it as an actual bite mark or a wound that doesn’t quite heal. But that’s when you turn a human into a pet or livestock. Or make them a slave out of some sexual perversion.

Fuck, I loved to do that. Back when I fucked humans.

I can mesmerize, so can all of my kind. But there’s nothing like your own slave.

Or slaves. Feeding off them, covering you and them in their blood as they come just from sucking their blood.

I used to love having my cock sucked by my slaves.

I’d make them service each other, too. And when I was done? Drain them.

Now? I don’t fuck humans. Vittoria tells me I’ve turned weak. But in a very long life, a very long unlife, I suppose, things change.

Sex with humans, and letting them live preternaturally long lives, or leaving a trail of drained bodies isn’t smart. It’s downright dangerous in this modern world. And though I conceived and run VMR as a way to control the narrative, its reach isn’t absolute.

“Look at me, Vinnie,” I say in my mesmerizing voice.

Like he’s charmed, hypnotized, he focuses glazed eyes on me.

“From now on, you’re mine and Vittoria’s.

You obey. You feed us your blood. And you don’t remember it.

We’re your number one business associates.

What’s yours is ours. Eat your protein bar, right now. ”

Vinnie doesn’t move.

“As far as you know this meeting went well,” I add, “and you’re paying us back.”

I click my fingers to snap him out of it and he almost falls. He staggers, then rights himself and peels off the foil wrap to eat his protein bar. Vittoria hands him another.

Every time he thinks of how he’s paying us or paid us, it’ll be a buzz of vagueness. But as long as Vittoria doesn’t kill him, or worse, turn him, then this will be perfect.

As long as there’s no sex involved, Vinnie’s life will be normal.

And looking at Vinnie, Vittoria would snap his neck over letting him touch her.

We’re done and we start to the door, but I stop, shifting the pot plant aside and pick up the mirror. “Oh Vinnie, thanks for the mirror.”

I take it, catching a glimpse of my reflection, pale face, high cheekbones, and dark hair. And eyes so blue they seem black. I tuck it under my arm.

“Good talk, Mr. Vale. Ms. Hart. See you next payment.” He grins, nods, eats his second protein bar. “Get a drink at the bar on me.”

We leave and Vittoria says, “Can we?”

“Not fucking likely. This place is horrible.”

“You’re so old-fashioned, Lucian,” she says. “Loosen up.”

I shake my head. “You need to get some control. You ate our intern.”

“An accident,” she says with a laugh and a flick of her hair.

Not even a lick of remorse. I’d probably fall over if she ever showed such a thing, let alone felt it.

Outside the horrible club in Downtown Tenebris, we get into our waiting car. The blood pumps hard through me, and I want to go on a frenzy. I want to rip out throats and drink the city dry.

I’m not about to. I’ve worked hard at this balance between crime and the dark ways and letting people live. We control so much of the humans, and I’m old enough I don’t need to go on frenzies.

Vittoria…

She’s old enough, too.

But she’s a wild card.

If she ruled, I’d fear for humanity.

They’d be here, but not like this. Not free. However, she’s content, and I give her enough leeway to keep her teeth sharp, her lusts fed. Mine… They were controlled before her over a hundred years ago.

I pull out my phone as we head back in the early hours of the night to VMR HQ. Twelve emails pop up.

From the same person.

One Elliot Montague.

My interest piques.

This is exactly what I want as my dogsbody. A man who doesn’t begin to tempt me, a man who’s smart enough to have found my job postings. And pay a man enough that he won’t dig.

I arrange for an interview tomorrow.

The next evening my exiting receptionist/PA Emily knocks, her pregnant belly in the way.

I smile at her. Emily’s sweet, and someone I handpicked. I just never thought of her as being of childbearing age. It isn’t on my list of things. But now it needs to be. Now I need to be smart and hire males.

Because that pregnant belly, her enriched blood and the child inside her, are exactly why I need to hire a guy as her replacement.

She isn’t ready for maternity leave, she’s said, but I don’t care. Emily needs to go and fast. I’m kind to her, though. I keep her protected, make sure it’s known anyone touches her, but temptation’s temptation and it’s the reason she has to leave.

I’m paying her beyond well, an extended maternity leave starting tomorrow followed by, when it comes time to return to work, offers from other subsidiaries of ours. Human run. Better pay.

She doesn’t know that yet. But I can’t have someone close to birth with vampires around. And after she gives birth? Even worse. All that blood pumping, producing nutrients her body makes into milk is like a vampire treat.

The blood. Not the milk.

Emily hovers. “Are you sure, Sir? I can stay I want to. I love this job.”

“And we love you being here,” I say, using my mesmerizing voice, just a touch, “but we need to take care of you and the baby. When you come back, your job will be waiting. Of course, that’s if you don’t get another offer. But you might and then you should take it.”

I lay the groundwork. I’ll really put it in when I visit her after she has the baby.

The extra extension of her leave, the better job.

It’s tricky work this kind of mesmerization, but it works.

Emily will leave with lovely stories of working here, and that’s going to help with some of the more unsavory rumors.

“I won’t.”

I don’t go further; the seeds are there. “Did you need something, Emily?”

She beams, rubbing her tummy and my hungers stir. “Sir, your five o’clock’s here. Elliot Montague.”

“Send him in.”

Emily nods and disappears. I breathe out a sigh of relief. Even with it being me, my control, my strength, the fact I know I won’t do a thing to Emily, I’m fucking glad she’s leaving. Because it gets harder every day.

Harder to hold it together. Harder not to slip, just for a moment.

No. Harder not to let myself slip. I’ve been this creature for too long to slip like that. But temptation like she offers, that rich, vital blood flowing through her right now, still calls to me. Before she got pregnant, I didn’t even think of her blood, her life force.

The moment she came in knocked up, even before she knew, I smelled the change. So did Vittoria. Then slowly so did the others.

We have a rule, my rule, that we don’t feed on the pregnant, on children and babies.

I’m no fool. I’m aware it’s not followed here and there.

On the grounds of VMR?

It absolutely is.

But even for me I think about Emily’s blood now.

This is a relief.

Having a man take over as my PA is perfect because he won’t ever tempt me now or eventually down the track.

A moment later, the door opens and Elliot Montague steps in.

Shock reverberates because it’s not a man who’s facing me now. It’s a woman.

He’s a she.

I can’t move. Something bigger than blood hunger stirs and swirls up inside.

Elliot’s soft and curved with big cornflower blue eyes and blond curls.

But those blue eyes are intelligent, bitingly so.

“Hi,” she says in a sweet voice that shakes open some long-shut part of me, “I’m Elliot.”