I exhale slowly and pretend to crack my neck this way and that before looking back at the still sneering vampire.
“Listen, Cardence, you don’t scare me.” the thought of him raping and turning my sister flashes before my eyes and I crack my neck once more to stop myself from lashing out right here and now at a man who could easily rip me limb from limb if he wanted. “You’re nothing more than a narcissistic coward who gets off on tormenting women.”
His eyes flicker with a hint of red bleeding into the dark embers of green. His fingers clutch into my arms and he rushes me so fast I see stars when my head bangs against the wall.
“And you’re an overly emotional wet dream, Six.” He’s breathing so hard that I can taste his excitement with every word he says. “But you’re not Kyra Vega. So… that begs the question: who are you?”
His head tilts curiously as he gazes down on me with manic excitement.
My heart is pounding so hard I swear I might die of a panic attack before he ever gets the chance to put me out of my misery. He’s different from the others. He doesn’t look like he wants to eat me alive. He looks like he wants to smother me. He’s… desperately clingy.
“What are you?”
“Whoare you?”
I roll my eyes at him and it just makes him smile harder.
Could this weird, pestering, pink-haired punk really have raped and turned my sister?
“I’ll answer your questions. Because you’re a stranger here, and I justknowyou’re filled to the brim with questions. So let me be your guide! And in return, you’ll tell me who you are and what you want.” He arches a dark eyebrow at me expectantly.
I shift in his hands, but he never releases me.
“Eventually,” I say in that same voice my mother used to use when telling Kyra and I “maybe” instead of yes or no.
He smiles harder, more alluringly if that is somehow possible.
A maybe is never a yes, Aston. Didn’t your childhood teach you anything?
His fingers ease their hold on me and he slides them down my arms slow enough to send a shiver racing across my flesh.
He likes it.
Why does he like every single little reaction that I give him?
Because he’s a fucking creep,my rational mind screams at me while my distracted, irrational heart can’t help but flutter when his fingertips tangle with mine before releasing me entirely.
“I’m an energy vampire. I feed on emotions instead of blood. And no one in Crimson City is as reckless with their emotions as you’ve been since you walked into this den of monsters just hours ago.” The man looks at me like the Cheshire Cat. “So. Who. Are. You?”
An energy vampire. That explains why he knew I wasn’t one of them within seconds.
I can deceive appearances, but I can’t deceive my heart.
“Are there others like you?”
He shakes his head. “Eh, not really. I’ve only ever met one other in a pub in Rome.” His flaming pink hair flips over his brow as he looks off with a reminiscent look in his pretty eyes.
I mean, not pretty. Puke green. Sickly green. Baby-poop green.
The kind of green the sea looks when poets and painters describe the waters just as the sun kisses the waves like God himself is touching the Earth with a little bit of Heaven.
Oh, my fucking God, what is wrong with me?
“Do you transmit your energy into others?”
“Aboso-fucking-lutely. You wouldn’t even give me the time of day if I wasn’t giving as much as I’m getting right now, Six.” His smirk is like sex and seduction with that disgusting word play.
And there we have it. He’s using his powers to brainwash me into being attracted to him.
