Page 12 of Cryptic Dreams
The appearance of a goddess and the mind of a scholar.
This female will surely be my undoing if I let her, which is why I can’t fucking let her.
“Ah,” is all I manage to say as I practically peel my eyeballs away from her skittish posture and worried expression. I lift my drink and school my features. “Why would that create a need for introductions?”
Orion gives me a rather knowing look but doesn’t say anything. Nothing other than, “Because you’re old as fuck and lived through the shit she’s learning about.” Then he smirks. “And I also want the people I care about to be as happy as Aries and I, and thought maybe you two would be a good match.”
I choke on my liquor and start coughing. “Why... in the bloody hell... would you even think... such insanity?”
“Call it a hunch.” He shrugs. “Z is pretty isolated but she’s the total package. Hasn’t found her mate yet and all but refuses to date. She deserves to at least make a friend or two that isn’t me or Aries, and I thought you’d hit it off.”
I push down the frenzy of nerves that flutter about my chest and take on a mask of disgust, though it’s the furthest thing from what I’m actually feeling. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Wraith, sadist extraordinaire and Purist leader of the Uprising. My interests include but are not limited to hardcore bondage, fetishes galore, sexual torture—all consensual of course—as well as overthrowing the Great Counsel and killing anyone who gets in my way.”
Orion frowns and opens his mouth, but I continue.
“I rejected the idea of relationships or mating well before you were a swimmer in your sire’s nut sack, despise the idea of monogamy, and can say with the utmost sincerity that any female stupid enough to entertain fantasies of a future withmeshould be checked for severe trauma to the brain. I am very literally everything your cousin should stay away from if you want to keep her alive and you damn well know it.”
An unreadable emotion passes over his face but it’s gone quickly and replaced by a nonchalant grin before I can attempt to analyze it.
“Whatever you say, Wraith.” Then Orion raps his knuckles on the table. “I won’t push for introductions but you’ll have to meet her sooner or later. I have a feeling Z holds the key to unlocking a pretty crucial part of your plan and when you finally accept that, you’ll have everything you’ve never wanted and more.”
And with that, the berk takes his leave and swaggers his arse toward the VIP booth I will be blatantly staring at until Z takesherleave.
I’m right bloody fucked indeed.
4
Sunglasses at Night
ZEPHYR
“No, Orion. There’s no need for that.” I sigh as I shelve another book about aborigines.
He scoffs in my ear, seemingly offended. “Whatever, Z. You’re lucky Aries and I didn’t march down to that fucking prison he keeps you locked up in and murder him while he slept.”
I roll my eyes.
I know my cousin and his mate would have absolutely done that. I practically had to hold Aries back after I walked into Plasma looking like a loser in a prize fight, but it wouldn’t have helped.
Ok, so, short term it totally would have helped. Not havinghimaround anymore would be a massive benefit, but it also would have landed my only family—only anything—right in jail, and more likely in front of the executioner's block for murdering a human civilian in cold blood, abuse be damned.
The courts don’t look kindly on that, especially when it’s vampire-on-human violence. And they really don’t give a shit about what happens to vampires in my situation.
I’m basically an indentured servant.
When the Species War broke out just before I was born, my parents, as well as my aunt and uncle, entered into an agreement with those of the Moreau bloodline. In exchange for housing and protection, they paid a large sum of money and promised to help the Moreau’s in any way needed, including but not limited to, cooking, cleaning, and every other mundane thing they could think of.
It worked for a long time.
My parents lived through almost four generations of Moreau’s before they passed on—Orion’s parents too for that matter—but once Mom and Dad were gone it was like some switch flipped.
The branch of the Moreau tree that Orion ended up with eventually died out. The widowed, childless great-aunt to the monster I’m living with was the last of them when she passed, and that essentially meant Orion was on his own and free. He met Aries shortly after and they’ve been happily mated for almost thirty years now, living in their own nice house in the Garden District, running a successful business and doing whatever they do in their free time.
I, on the other hand, have been passed down from great-grandparent, to grandparent, to parent, and now the monster. It wasn’t so bad until Ian Moreau had me alone full time, and when that happened, everything went to shit.
“No need for that. With the way he drinks he only has a few years left in him anyway.”
“A few years?” another scoff. “Zephyr, that asshole is only in his forties. Drinking problem or not he could easily live another thirty or forty years.”
