I tried to breathe, but my lungs cramped tight and brittle like glass, and I gasped, my eyes stinging wet. “You’re lying.”
He folded flexible fairy fingers over my bare shoulder to steady me. A stray laser caught his hair, lighting it up like hellish rainbows. “Find out.”
His flowery scent sickened me, but longing churned my guts harder. Diamond was a liar, an enemy and a lover of sweet fae chaos. Surely he played with me, lured me to betray my boss with promises he couldn’t possibly keep.
But what if he wasn’t lying?
Raw need thinned my blood like a drug, boiling in my veins. He asked for the one thing I could never give. I’d never sink that low. I should go to Joey right now and tell him everything Diamond said, only Vincent had already made Joey suspicious about me with that stupid text message. Vincent probably watched us right now. Spied on me. Was already telling Joey what a dirty lowdown traitor I was.
I swallowed a spelldrenched scream, twisted my arm from Diamond’s grip and strode away.
He let me go, and the sound of his giggle as he swept away slid over my skin like hot slime. I stalked along the wide corridor, my heels crunching as the pitted metal floor gave way to concrete. My ankle twisted as I hopped too fast down the steps, and I righted myself with a curse and a vicious swipe of hair over my shoulder.
Cobalt lounged against the steelbarred fire door, texting rapidly with one pale hand while he knotted three feet of dusty nightblue hair at the base of his neck with the other. There was always something chalky and earthbound about Cobalt, and sweat bled his earthfae colors, his white skin stained gothblue like inky paper. He twirled his phone away as he heard me coming, and flitted up the steps to meet me on wings like torn black velvet.
I attempted a casual smile, though my blood still stung like poison from Diamond’s insolence. “Hey, C. You on?”
Cobalt sniffed, his long curled nose twitching, dark remnants of a sparkle hit showering wild glitter deep into his indigo eyes. He blinked feathery black lashes, focusing. “What did he want?”
“Who?”
“Diamond. Asked me about you. He said, where’s the flexy blue songstress? I said, fuck off, glitterboy, heh heh.” He wiped multiknuckled white fingers on his jeans, smearing them black. He wore a stained white shirt with no sleeves, a silver belt buckle and dusty boots the color of rain. All he was missing was a cowboy hat and a guitar. He shrugged loose shoulders, that lazy movement I liked, and the dust springing from his wings smelled of warm earth and sunlight. “So what did he want?”
I liked his smell, too, even if it came laden with the memory of pain. Once, Cobalt was my friend, sort of, and we got drunk together, shared greasy hamburgers at four in the morning, called each other
bitch
and
skankface
and pretended we didn’t like each other as awkward sort-of-friends do. Now, he was my dealer, and I avoided him whenever I could. Except on nights like tonight, when Joey broke my heart and scraped my composure raw, when the old need blinded me and the heart-ripping quest for vengeance became my solace.
My palms itched, ready. “Nothing. He didn’t say much. You good?”
He chewed one inkstained claw, his pointy white chin bobbing. “You look like shit, Min-bin. You sure this is a good idea?”
Did I spy a twitch of guilt in his narrow face? Caution plucked tinfoil melody from my nerves, but I ignored it. I didn’t care what he meant. I didn’t care if it hurt. I just wanted tonight to be over, and for once I didn’t want to be alone.
I stuffed my hand in my pocket, pulled out a wad of bright plastic cash and rustled it in front of his face. No mystery about Cobalt. Only two things he wanted from me anymore, and money was one. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Unease shone violet in Cobalt’s eyes, but he took both the cash and my hand.
6
Dim and almost invisible like a glassy shade against the metal wall, Diamond stretches out a long ghostly finger and caresses her hair as she walks by. So soft, that ultrablue cascade. So vulnerable. Just like the girl behind the façade.
Glamour crackles his fingertips, and she tosses her head, like she’s shrugging off a fly, but doesn’t turn. When she and her dustified blue friend disappear into the crowd, Diamond giggles and snaps back into sight, and static shatters a few glassy fragments off his wings to tinkle on the floor.
The wiry, muscled feel of her shoulder still stings his palm, and black covetousness warms his shining blood. She’s easy prey, her secrets transparent to his fickle faesight. Too easy to tease her, tempt her, plant treachery’s tasty seed deep in her belly.
A slim finger of bloodscent traces down his cheek. He looks up, spearing his pierceglass gaze into the crowd. Images merge and shimmer, vanishing to show him what’s behind, and he glimpses short dark curls and golden chains, shining teeth and the flat glint of slategrey vampire eyes.
Diamond’s mouth crunches sour, and he snaps his faesight off with an electric zap. Angelo Valenti is here, vampire lord of the family, surrounded by sycophants and wannabes vying for his attention. Just like his opposite number, Joey, holding his rustified little court like it glittered with gold and jewels and wasn’t about to explode around him in a hail of hellflame.
Diamond’s guts squirm, hatred and jealousy fighting like scorpions. He should be there, with the other minions, fighting for a few seconds in the sun. Ange will like his plan to trick Joey. Bold subterfuge appeals to a 350-year-old schemer. That’s the sharp bit, the pointificality of the whole thing. Raise his profile in the family. Get Ange’s attention. Make Ange trust him.
And then, the fun can really begin. One day, Diamond will snatch that tainted crown from Ange’s failing hands. And then he’ll see just how long it takes for a tough-as-shit Sicilian vampire to bleed to death.
Molten glass hardens in Diamond’s bones like steel. He scrapes his hair straight in a shimmer of fiberoptic rainbows and heads for the bar, but Flora, Vincent DiLuca’s alleged girlfriend, floats up, her pretty green skin glowing in the warmth. She lights beside him, her face neutral under a nest of rosy curls. “What was that about?”
Her vinegar jealousy stings his skin. Gratifying. Diamond smiles, because he knows she can’t take his smile. She’s half in love with him, this little plaything. Too bad for her. “Patience, flower. Waitification. You’ll see.”
She pouts soft apple lips and snakes slender arms around his neck, her little waterfae body soft and wet. “Don’t see why you need her when you’ve got me.”
“But I don’t have you, flower. Vincent has you most of the time.” He tweaks Flora’s sharp nose with his teeth, careless of being seen.
She gasps and giggles. “And I already tell you everything he says.”
“Pity he never says anything interesting, then.” He’s had Flora too many times. The freshaliciousness is lost. But it pleases him to steal from DiLucas. Especially from Joey, if it comes to that. Slide secretive, illicit hands on that pretty blue banshee, hmm-mmm. Make Joey squirm.
Hot blood forces down to his loins, and glowing red veins pulse and swell beneath his skin. Flora murmurs and presses against him, imagining his reaction is for her. Flora is still succulent, her slim body inviting, the tastylicious flavor of her devotion a bleak distraction from lies and black treachery.
Once, the world was always like that, clear and shiny like sunshine on a windowpane, and to kiss a girl and mean it was its own delight. Now, Diamond doesn’t know who his friends are, or if he’s even got any, and a kiss means less than nothing.
He doesn’t think about
her
anymore. The girl he lost. She might hear him with those new virus-sharp ears, and hate him forever for what he’s become.
He tugs Flora back into the dark corner where no one can see, and she sighs and snakes one lissome leg around his hips. Her dress sticks to her small body, the fabric transparent with moisture, showing sweet green breasts, straining nipples, the druglike curve of her hip. Her dripping wings glow with desire, lighting his glassy skin like neon.
Diamond flares his wings for balance and lifts her, bruising her softness against him, and bites down hard on memory’s sharp spritz. No, don’t think about
her
. Never imagine how soft and wonderful she felt, her swelling red lips, those long dark lashes, her besotted eyes when she leaned in for a kiss.
Instead, imagine it’s Joey’s girl, surrendering to him so he’ll talk. His chest tightens. Crack Mina open like an oyster, peel that hard leather shell from her skin, expose the tender flesh beneath. Excitement grips his balls tight, and he nuzzles Flora’s dress aside and fastens hungry teeth on her eager nipple.
Flora murmurs in pleasure, wet waterfae desire soaking his shirt, his jeans, his arms. “Mmm. More.” Her nipple springs hot against his tongue, the flesh around it so taut and soft. He curls his tongue around her, sucking, and she pulls his hand down under her skirt where she’s naked, slick and delicious.
Her apple scent both irritates and inflames him. He squeezes claws into her thigh, drawing out a gasp, and his palm slides sticky over torn skin and blood, the crusted shape of fangholes where the vein pulses.
Vampire marks. Just like Rosa.
Diamond squeezes his eyes shut on glassy memory, his stomach hot and sore. He hit her, that first night, dark hair cascading over her bleeding face, and he still remembers the shocked disbelief brimming in her eyes, that heart-wrenching distance he never quite closed again. He’s never forgotten that sick rush of power.
Never forgiven himself.
His cock swells harder, and he sinks his cruel teeth into Flora’s collarbone, marking her. He prods the fangmarks in her thigh, accusing. “What’s them, flower? You spreading yourself again?”
A delighted whimper of pain. “Just now. I set a little trap for Vincent. Iridium gave me the idea. You’ll like it, I pr—”
“I don’t share with a vampire.” Her blood stings his tongue, fresh and fruitified, and he lets go before he can really hurt her, even though she likes it, the little vipercat. It doesn’t make him feel good, that urge. As rotten as those he despises. Instead, he slides his hand up to where she’s swollen, pressing his fingers just where she likes it, letting her shudders feed slow desire into his body, clean like it should be. “Not ever. Understandify?”
“But Vincent—”
“Because I tell you so. Not because you feel like it. Get it?”
She nods, panting through a wicked smile. “Guess that makes me a bad girl, then.”
He pins her against the wall with his chest and a powerful pump of wings. She helps him, wet fae fingers fumbling together to get his cock out. He parts her flesh with hungry claws and pushes deep and hard into her, forcing her breath away.
Her hot flesh squeezes him, still slick with what she’s done. He can smell the feversick creature on her, blood and sweat and strange male flesh. He can see the thing’s fingerprints on her arms, shining ultraviolet in his eldritch faesight. Hot vampire come burns his cock, sliding down over him in a delicious caress. The mixture of fluids inflames him, and he grips her hips and thrusts harder, breathless.
Her wings flatten green against the rippled metal wall, and she arches and grips tighter with her thighs, murmuring tiny cries of delight. She’s not faking it. He can smell that, too, the rich fleshscent of tension rising inside her, the pleasure chemicals leaching golden into her veins. Fucking like this ignites her. His anger turns her on, and her breathless excitement is sweet poison.
Memories of Rosa’s betrayal boil into his blood, and guilt only fires his rage. He burns to kill the creature who ravished her. Scour and scratch and chew its foul touch from her skin. Reclaim her for his own, any dark and desperate way he can.
Don’t. Share. With. Vampires.
Flora’s muscles stroke him, squeezing as he thrusts, delicious friction but not enough. She squirms, her gasps coming faster. “Yes. Now. Hurt me.”
Toxified fucking relationship, Diamond. Dump her while you can.
To blot Rosa from his mind, he imagines Mina like this, jerking ever closer to the edge, that slutty blue hair falling in her face, her sweet sharp song caressing his skin, vibrating his throat as he swallows.
Scorching heat spears his balls. He grits his teeth and flits swelling wings, banging Flora roughly against the wall. “Mine, Flora. Say it.”
Candysweet pink hair tumbles over her quivering mouth. “Yes. Yours. All yours.”
Liar.
Acid untruth scorches Diamond’s mouth, and it whets his orgasm sharp like razors. Throbbing release drags from him on a curse, brief and hard and painful. She shrieks and sighs, and the instant she’s finished, he pushes away from her to clean himself up.
Flora wobbles on her feet, wings limp and glowing pink. Her swollen lips twinkle into a rosy giggle. “Naughty boy.”
“Bitch.” He dresses himself, spitting as his fingers slide in fluid not his own. Her fruity scent drenches his clothes, her clawmarks on his shoulders stinging like guilt.
She’s not Rosa. None of them ever will be. Rosa’s gone.
All that’s left is vengeance. Trickify the DiLucas, seduce Mina away so Joey’s weak and ripe for a killing. Get rid of Ange. And then Diamond will own the world and nothing will ever hurt him again.
To be untouchable, he has to win. It’s the only way.
Disgust clenches his guts to obsidian, and he sweeps his hair over his shoulder in a shining rainbow and stalks away to lie to Angelo.
Vincent slouches against the glass wall in scarlet-drenched shadow, sourness festering in his mouth, and watches his girlfriend fuck another guy.
Diamond’s doing her against the mirrors, her long green legs folded around him, her glowing wings splayed behind her. His massive arms bunch and relax as he grips her bare bottom, and he flexes those powerful thighs, thrusting deep and hard. She comes, her luscious mouth shuddering open, and a second or two later, Diamond’s right there with her.
Humiliation scrapes like potato chips in Vincent’s throat, and he cracks his head back against the mirror, his heart raw and bleeding and his cock aching hard.
Music rips his ears, some skinny blond waif screaming jagged melody. The hatred in the singer’s voice crackles painfully along his spine, a side effect of his accidental faetalent, and he knows he deserves the discomfort. He’d only slipped back here to spy on Mina. But if you slink around in corners, you might see something you don’t like. No mystery where Diamond’s getting his sneaky information now.
Diamond lets Flora slide to the floor and jerks away on impatient glass wings. No kiss. No caresses. Not even a thank-you. Vincent slams sticky palms hard against the mirror. Fucking prick.
Flora straightens her dress with a wicked smile and walks off, her skin flushed and damp, her guilty wings swelling pink. She’s even wincing as she moves, her step awkward like it hurts. Vincent’s throat swells. He’s been tempted by others. Almost succumbed a few times. Flirts like a whore, always has. But he’s never actually cheated, not on Flora, and she looks far too pleased with herself for this to be the first time.
Not that it’s a fucking surprise, or anything.
After all, she’s a fairy, dazzling and magical, sweetly crazy under that tricksy glamour, and Diamond is a fairy god, hot and male and stunningly, unapproachably beautiful.
Vincent’s just a pale, ordinary, boring human, stumbling starry-eyed through a seductive shadow world where he neither belongs nor measures up.
He swallows bitter inevitability and turns away, shouldering through the faebright crowd toward the bar. A gift, they reckon, the trick of seeing past fairy glamour, and he should be grateful because not many pathetic humans can.
Gift. That’s a good one. More like a curse, this constant acidscratch reminder of his own mediocrity.
He flings himself onto a stool and slouches his elbows on the glowing white bar. The cute blond guy pours him a bourbon and Coke, and the alcohol glitters warm and dangerous on his tongue. Bitterness twists his heart, and to amuse himself he flicks through his phone for the sneaky photo he took of Mina and Diamond and texts it to Joey’s number.
That’ll learn the snarky glass-ass fucker. They’re only talking, but Joey won’t know that, and Diamond’s long knuckles on her cheek look intimate enough.
It doesn’t. Amuse him, that is. Remorse scrapes him raw, but too late. He can’t unsend it. And he can’t stop seeing them together, his apparently ex-girlfriend and Diamond. Glowing glass hair tangled damp on her shoulder, her petalpink lips swollen open, her bared nipples hard and wet with sharp-toothed fairy kisses. Glistening male muscle, pulsing veins, the smell of sex. Glassy hands on her skin, under her skirt, those slender green thighs spread around the bastard’s hips.
Fucking her. Biting those lovely breasts. Making her squeal, first that light breathy cry Vincent knows so well, and then a deeper, more throaty sound that made him shiver and ache. Last time they were together, he almost told her he loved her.
His eyeballs burn, and swiftly he blinks so he won’t embarrass himself any more. Hell, for all he knows, she faked it all along.
“Oh, dear. Is that fresh-cut grass I smell?” Delilah saunters up, tossing crisp winedark curls over an elegant brown shoulder. Her slinky dress glitters in rainbow lights, showing off her curvaceous hips, the deep cleft between her breasts glistening like warm chocolate.
Joey’s demon princess. Beautiful, cunning, a royal pain in the ass. Vincent tilts his glass to finish his bourbon, ice stabbing cold on his teeth. The liquid aches as it goes down, and burns in his stomach like guilt. He throws her a sarcastic smile. “Never liked her that much anyway.”
Delilah purses sexy brown lips and strokes his hair, sultry. “Obviously. But you can hardly blame her, I suppose. He’s richer than you, right?”
He never knows if she’s teasing him or pulling moves. Her ashen scent angers him, and his hard-on isn’t helping. He adjusts himself, aching, trying not to stare at that stunning cleavage. “Wouldn’t know.”