Page 30 of Grotesque

T he sound the page made as I turned it seemed obscenely loud in the comfortable silence of the library.

I peeked up at Corban over the top of my book.

He looked so out of place against the burnished leather chair.

His grey skin had a smooth polish to it beneath his fitted t-shirt and slacks.

The black chain he wore around his neck, which I’d only just noticed – had he glamoured it on recently?

– glistened the same way his horns did, as if they had both been dipped in oil.

He’d glamoured his wings away but he was still much too large for the space he occupied.

The library was one of the larger rooms in the manor, but with him inside it felt cramped.

His attention remained downcast, lost in the five books he had been sifting through for the last hour, but I could tell his focus had never left me. Whenever I wasn’t looking at him, I’d catch his gaze on me from the corner of my eye. Drinking me in like I’d quench his thirst.

He’d been so gentle this morning that I’d wondered whether the spell had something to do with his cold and ruthless demeanor.

If binding him to the house had somehow made him cruel and aggressive.

Wishful thinking, considering he’d already told me his kind ate people.

As those jade eyes lifted to me, I had the good sense to be scared shitless again.

The way he ogled me made me wonder if he was weighing the benefits of eating me, versus not.

It gave the phrase if he wanted to he would a whole new meaning.

It was strange seeing him in the daylight. In a way it made him seem less real, like the kind of monster he clearly was should only be able to exist in the deepest hours of the night, or lurking in the shadows. But here he sat, in broad daylight. Reading.

“What is running around in that little head of yours?” he crooned.

I shut my book. Corban leaned forward, setting his own book atop the stack, and rested his elbows over the top of his thighs. The movement was so sudden, so calculated it almost made me flinch.

“You’ve been trapped here for decades. You’ve finally told me the incredible thing that you are and all you want to do is watch me… read?” I waved my book at him.

Corban frowned, his brows pinching to the point they touched.

“Don’t you want to…. Leave? Go out somewhere? See anything other than these walls?”

He blinked slowly, his frown deepening. Sitting back, he stretched his long arms over the chair. “Leave.” The way he said it was like he was testing the weight of the word on his tongue. “Leave,” he said again.

“Yeah like… I don’t know, we could go for a drive into town. See the water. Why spend another second here if you don’t have to?”

His fingers drummed over the top of the armrest. In a single smooth movement he rose to his feet and strode out of the room.

“Corban?”

I hurried after him. Shadows flared down the stairs, whipping my hair around my face.

By the time I got to the bottom he was gone.

It had taken me only seconds and yet there was no sign of him.

I padded through the living room, into the kitchen, and back again.

All the doors and windows were shut tight. And all of the rooms were empty.

I felt torn. Something like relief had flooded my system as soon as I’d felt his presence fade away, some kind of relaxation of my fight or flight reflex I guessed.

But in the same breath, I was desperate for him to return.

Certainly he wouldn’t leave me, after finally revealing what he was. Letting me see him in all his glory.

I don’t know how I was supposed to go on with my life after experiencing him. He’d ruined all other men for me.

I scoffed. He wasn’t even a man .

Daylight was fading again by the time he finally returned. I was pacing the front porch, my nails red raw from how much I’d bitten them down. When I turned on my heel for the thousandth time he was striding up the driveway, his long legs eating up the distance between us. My heart lurched.

Fuck. He looked absolutely lethal – and the way he was looking at me!Now this was relief. Relief that he had come back. Relief that he looked at me like I meant something. A cruel wicked smile tugged the corner of his mouth, revealing his fangs.

“Miss me?” he purred.

“I thought I finally had the place all to myself.” I tried to will confidence into my voice. I hoped he thought my tone was teasing instead of desperate.

“And leave you in peace?” Corban stood in front of me, his face tipped down so the fringe above his brows cast shadows across his reflective eyes. “I had to get something.” At the snap of his wrist, a silver chain fell out of his palm. I recognized the locket from the first night we met.

“You tried to give it to me before. What is it?”

Corban twirled his finger, motioning for me to move. I did, lifting my hair off my neck.

“A good luck charm.” He looped his arms around me and grazed his cool fingers against my collarbone as he fastened the clasp.

“For what? It certainly hasn’t warded you away. Ah!” I jerked away from him as a sharp stinging pain slid up the back of my neck. I whirled, one hand holding the locket in place against my chest and the other diving for my neck.

Corban turned out his palms. At the end of one of his long claws was a smear of blood. “Oops,” he said and stuck his finger into his mouth.

“What the fuck.” I rubbed my smarting skin. “Be careful with those things.” I thumbed the door of the locket.

“The locket holds a piece of the manor, one of the mirrors, if you recall. With you at my side and the charm in your possession, I think Glamis will let me go.”

I frowned, turning the locket over. “Have you tried this before?” Is that why he tried giving it to me the first night?

“No, but it is a theory I would like to test now. You’ve anchored me into the light. Now I need you to anchor me to the manor. I’ve never gotten this far with anyone before.”

His voice wavered ever so slightly. It sounded ominous, like what we were about to do was forbidden.

“Besides,” he ran a thumb over the hollow of my throat, catching the chain on the end of his nail, “I like how pretty my token looks around your neck.” He slid two of his fingers over my shoulder and took a step back.

Raising his hand, he twisted his wrist and made a gracefuldownward motion.

A warm tingling sensation started at the top of my head.

It trickled down my shoulders, arms, and the rest of my body.

Down, down, down.“It will take the place of my other marks on you for tonight,” he said with a smirk.

I looked down at my legs. The bruising, bites– they were all gone, save for the “C” carved above my knee. I touched my throat tentatively. Smooth skin replaced the bite marks that had graced it moments before.

It was then I realized he had changed my clothes as well.

Gone were the shorts and horror film t-shirt I had been wearing.

In its stead was a little black dress that hugged my chest and cut off at the middle of my thighs.

The entire thing was somehow sophisticated, yet sexy at the same time.

It accentuated my curves perfectly. Especially the neckline, which highlighted my full chest and the locket that rested above my breasts.

Something about this felt incredibly wrong. I couldn’t put a finger on it, other than that Corban seemed too eager. But the feeling ebbed when I looked up into his wicked green eyes. Whatever spell he had cast over me, I would happily be a slave to it.

Did I have the power to break his curse? This felt like a real-life fantasy. Dark, like one of Grimm’s fairy tales, but magical all the same.

He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me against his muscular chest.

“How generous,” I breathed. I gripped the front of his shirt to steady my shaking hands.

He hunched down and brushed his nose against mine. “This is just the beginning, Sorcha. Now, let us see if this works and get me the fuck out of here.”

Corban was stiff as a board as we made our way down the driveway. He’d hesitated before getting into the car and I’d wondered if he’d been worried whether he could really leave or not. But as Glamis disappeared in the rearview mirror, I wondered if he wasn’t having second thoughts about me instead.

“Everything ok?”

He turned his head. That was another thing he either couldn’t or refused to change, the gleam in his large ever-changing eyes.

Every time light from a passing car or streetlight hit them, they lit up like reflective mirrors.

“Everything is fine,” he said silkily. He looked back out to the road.

I could feel the tension leave his body as he settled back into his seat. “Everything is just fine.”

We went into the first nice place we stumbled across.

I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I was sitting across from him, at a place called White Porch, and that he looked completely human. This was the first time I had seen him without any trace of the monster lurking beneath his skin.

In fact, there was color to his skin. Gone was the ashen grey. Blood heated the top of his sharp cheekbones; it warmed his full lips. Even his eyes, as they swung to me, were not as hungry as they had been earlier that day.

Despite his ‘human’ costume, his very inhuman presence radiated lethal power that commanded the room.

From the second we had walked in people couldn’t stop staring.

Corban’s chin remained lifted as if he were preening from all the attention he was getting.

If only they knew what kind of creature he really was.

I leaned forward. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” he asked, his voice dropping as low as mine.

I motioned to him with my glass of wine. “You look different, and I don’t just mean the lack of wings and horns.”