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To my curiosity, she doesn’t blush as I imagined she would. Instead, she takes a sip of her mojito, and I’m riveted by her pink lips wrapping around the narrow black straw. When she sets it down, I drag my gaze back to her eyes, where the embers of her arousal from Kells are slowly reigniting.
“How have you been, Wren?” I ask, keeping my voice smooth and calm. She’s like the bird she’s named after and if I’m not careful with my approach, she’ll fly away and hide where I cannot find her. If I want to turn Oberon’s scout against him, I must convince her I pose no threat. Only when the little bird is tempted within my maw will I clamp my jaws tight and crush her.
“Very busy,” she answers at last, her eyes flicking towards the display of liquor bottles behind the bar and back. “My team is finally producing golden samples for our next product that we hope will advance power technologies.”
I hum as I take a drink, my eyes never leaving her. Breathing deep, her scent of rosemary, lemon, and mint tease my senses. What will her blood taste like? “The hydro pistons?”
She startles, eyes narrowing and suspicion clear in her gaze. “How do you know that?”
I let a languid smirk form. “I deal in information, remember, my little bird?” Her pupils expand, and rather than push further, I lean back slightly, giving her more space. “Don’t worry. I have no interest in ruining Benoit Tech with corporate espionage. In fact, I respect the project you’ve spearheaded. Your hydro pistons will revolutionize hydro electronics and sustainable energy. It will help people across the globe, no matter their economic class.”
It’s the complete truth, and I deliver it as such. Her suspicion clears, replaced with a bright eagerness.
“That’s my goal,” she explains, leaning towards me and closing the space I’d created. She clings to her mojito with both hands but swivels her body towards me on the stool. “When I was an undergrad, I traveled to Borneo on a conservation and energy expedition and spoke with many small native villages who have little or no electricity. These pistons are small enough, yet powerful enough that they can be used with the small streams that provide drinking water. One piston can create enough power for a village of a hundred people.”
Her enthusiasm is admirable as well as engaging.
“But won’t having foreign corporations coming in with solutions simply make these people more dependent?” I countered.
She shakes her head, smiling. “That’s the brilliant part of my plan. Studies have shown that the best way to assist native people is to not just help them acquire the technology but teach them how to maintain it themselves. That’s what my team has been working on. Not only do the pistons have to work, but they have to be simple enough that we can train the villagers to maintain the system themselves.”
Wren glows from within, full of enthusiasm and conviction. She is a woman with incredible resources and intellect, and rather than spend her days planning parties, she seeks to help those less fortunate. How did a vile creature like Oberon father a woman so disgustingly good?
Unbidden, I reach forward and caress her cheek with the back of a knuckle. “You’re so beautiful.”
Wren’s ears turn pink and she captures her lower lip between her teeth, but she doesn’t look away. I tuck my knuckle under the point of her chin, and free her lip with my thumb, stroking it as if to ease the pain of her bite.
“Don’t do that,” I murmur, pitching my voice soft enough she naturally leans in to hear me easier. I stare at her plump lower lip, stroking the soft flesh, unable to pull away. “If it must be bitten, at least allow me to do it for you.”
Wren pulls back, breaking the spell she’d cast over me, and I clamp down on the desire building in my veins. Damn, even my cock is half stiff without my permission.
I hold back a snort at my own weakness. I must remember who her father is, and that she is not some woman meant to be trifled with. She busies herself with sucking down the rest of her mojito and signals the barkeep for another one.
Taking the time she’s giving, I take a long sip of my own whisky. When the bartender eyes me, brow raised, I give a short nod to indicate another for me as well. Sometimes I long for the ability to get drunk like mortals can. To use alcohol to temper and dull the rage inside of me. To remind me of who I used to be before my mortal life went to shit with the head injury.
Traumatic brain injury is what I’d be diagnosed with in the modern world if I were mortal still. Neurology was in its infancy in the late 1600s, and even Ambrose–who went by the name Oleksandr–tried to bring English physicians to examine me after I returned to my matka. The one thing I can be thankful of is his refusal to allow a priest to look at me, making it clear to my mother, Joséphine, that I was not possessed by a demon. I’d always disliked Ambrose, but at least I knew he’d had experience with true possessions. No, instead, I was subjected to bloodletting, purging, and forced exercise until I’d had enough and slipped away in the night.
My mother had to accept that I’d never be her boy filled with sunshine again. Even now, understanding traumatic brain injuries and their effects on personalities, it doesn’t matter. I’m a strzyga in my native tongue. A vampire with the blood of a true Child of the Night in my undead veins. The psychotic son she turned is who I’ll be for eternity.
One thing that General Jurgis Demencius–Oberon Benoit did not steal from me that night was my love for my mother.
Glancing at my wrist watch, I bring my thoughts back to Wren and my task at hand. Wren accepts her second mojito and I mouth my tab at him as he pours another two fingers of Johnny Walker Black into my lowball.
“So, was your successful week the only reason why you haven’t called me?” I murmur, watching her through half-lidded eyes. I don’t bother hiding my smirk as her neck flushes, and her eyes dart a look at me before taking another fortifying drink.
I don’t hide my appreciation and study of her body, and considering I have thirty minutes before her father is likely to show, I step up my efforts to throw her off-balance and catch her in my web.
“No,” Wren admits, appearing to weigh a decision from the hard set of her narrow shoulders. She turns her face towards me, only enough to meet my gaze. I want her, that much I know. I’d always planned on taking her to my bed, but feeling this level of desire and sensing its reciprocation sweetens my victory against Oberon.
Oh, how he will loathe me when I tell him how I had his precious daughter under me, begging for my cock and fangs.
I shift on the stool, my cock hard and straining against the fly of my slacks. Wren’s eyes drop down to my lap, her mouth parting in surprise as I don’t bother to hide from her.
Her pale green eyes meet mine, the black of her pupils allowing a glimpse of the coals of desire now burning bright. Her throat bobs as she swallows and I linger over the flutter of her rapidly increasing heartbeat at her throat. Then it hits me. The sweet tang of her arousal, and my smirk turns into a wolfish grin.
She rolls her lips for a moment before twisting once again to fully face me, one hand resting on her thigh just before the split in her dress, the other tracing nonsensical swirls on the bar top. Her eyes are half-lidded as she stares boldly at me, confronting me and the desire between us.
“I almost called you,” she says, her song-like voice feathery and honeyed. “Twice, in fact.”
