“Birds of a feather flock together,” she practically sang. “Ever heard of that? If I’m weird, you like it.”
“The thrill of the hunt,” I said. She gave me a blank look, so I continued. “That’s what life is like with you. It’s the thrill of the hunt. You’re different from me—opposites attract. All that you are calls to all that I am. The graceful in you makes me even wilder.”
She became silent as the restaurant came into view from the tinted window. After the car stopped, her entire body turned to stone, her playful mood turning dark.
“It’s just another day on the job, baby,” I reminded her.
“Just a job,” she muttered. “I—I’m sorry, Brando. If it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t be here now.”
“We both had a hand in this,” I took her hand, bringing it to my mouth, turning it, placing a kiss over her pulse. “Time to go.”
We were led to a side entrance, where we were taken to more secret rooms, no drinks this time, only the fastening of the masks. Our arrival was in time to the beginning of the music, so that when the fire erupted from the stage, and the artist was set in the circle, she surprised the crowd with her appearance.
As my wife began to move, I kept a short distance, but as she made her way to the long strip of feather covered turf that she danced on, mirrors reflecting her every move, I followed the line she took, keeping people at bay.
When the song ended and she fell to the ground, that drained look coming into her eyes, I picked her up and carried her out.
After eight dances, I started to realize that as much as the crowds expected her, they had started to expect me too. When she began to move, they didn’t close in until I was behind her, and no one ever dared to stand in my spot next to the stage. It was reserved for me.
The dance would end and a stunned silence would permeate the room, but when I picked her up and she rose in my arms, waves of released murmurs and sighs would break the quiet.
I was thinking about this when Nemours strode up, coming to stand next to me. He flicked his tooth, eyes absorbed in his pathetic world.
“You have become part of her story, Fausti.” He hissed out the last two syllables of my name.
“Yeah,” I said, smirking at him. “As what? A vampire? A wolf? Tell me what I am in your game for fools.”
“Her Beast,of course. You have become the impossibly beautiful Beast that has fallen in love with her. She commands him with only a look from her eye.”
Fucking hell.
“You are as safe as she is. For now.”
Yeah, keep telling yourself that you’re in control.
As we headed into deep spring, Scarlett started to resist the hold more and more. Tired and depressed, she didn’t want any more of it. Nemours felt her resistance, me behind her, and he pushed back even harder. A few times she had claimed to be too sore to perform—something she had never done before—and he went berserk.
Colette and Emory had come to warn us that his behavior was becoming more and more unsteady. To satisfy the contract, Scarlett needed to perform. My mind started to buckle under the strain, andmytendency to go berserk tilted precariously on some narrow rock. If she cried or felt less than who she was, my heart shattered. If she felt cornered, the beast in me would be unleashed. He was on a short chain as it was.
There were times I couldn’t concentrate at work. I hardly slept or ate. It was like the fast had brought me closer to feeling her, and on a hot day in May, right after I stepped on the plane back to Natchitoches, I stepped off, going back to her.
I found her in the apartment we shared. She planned to go back to the place she shared with Colette and Emilia when I wasn’t home.
“What are you doing here?” Her face was relieved, but then became suspicious—she thought something bad had happened.
“I’m not going back today. I have time.”
She nodded, touching my face. “I—” Her voice broke. She cleared it. “I was just about to leave—because you were late leaving, I was late getting groceries from the store. It’s my night to cook dinner. I promised Colette and Emilia.”
“Let’s go.”
We walked the streets in silence, our hands linked, my other holding the bag she used to cart around fresh produce. The closer we came to the apartment, though, the stronger my heart seemed to beat. My hand forced hers to shake with the tension coiling inside of me. I’d never let another see the twitch of my hand, but she felt it.
My wife was my secret keeper, my highest council, and if she ever destroyed me by betraying me, my life was done regardless.
A scream that could curdle blood met us before the owner did. Colette hit the glass door, scrambling to get out of the building, but not able to. The bag fell to the ground and I pressed the keys, opening it for her.
The ends of her blonde hair were saturated with blood, along with her face, shirt, jeans, and hands. She clung to me, speaking so quickly and so loudly that even if she was speaking English or Italian, I wouldn’t have been able to understand it.
