Don't Hex and Drive (Stay a Spell #2) - Juliette Cross Page 0,54
good. Would you like to try mine?”
“Even Jules’s fancy French toast doesn’t look that good.”
I cut a bite with my fork. “It’s the blueberry Bourbon syrup. Prepare to be wowed.” I held the bite across the table for her to take.
She frowned at my attempt to share a bite from my fork. I wiggled my fork and raised my eyebrows. Honestly, I was one hundred percent positive she was going to refuse to eat from my own hand, but I liked pushing her buttons. I prepared for a snappy protest, but then she leaned forward and opened her mouth.
Bloody hell.
I slid the bite inside and watched as she chewed and licked the syrup off her lips.
That was a really bad idea. I could barely breathe, wanting to lean across and taste the syrup from her mouth.
“You’re right. I’m wowed.” Then she continued eating her meal like she hadn’t just punched me in the gut with an explosion of lust.
We were quiet a little while. Her enjoying her meal. Me wanting to pull her across the table into my lap and eat her for my next meal.
Oh, fuck.
My tongue licked over my extended canines. I sure as hell didn’t need her to notice that lapse of control. And I didn’t need to be imagining what she tasted like because I was positive she wasn’t up for being my next blood host.
To be fair to myself, I hadn’t taken a new blood host since I’d arrived. As an older vampire, I could go a month or more without drinking blood to rejuvenate my magic and supernatural strength. It had been only two weeks, but that didn’t seem to matter. I craved the woman sitting across the table like mad.
“That’s a very unique bracelet,” she said, gazing at the gold cuff embedded with gold and black beads that I rarely ever took off.
“Thank you.” Wiping my mouth, I took a sip of water and pushed away my plate. It took a moment for me to force my canines to recede, but my control was something every Stygorn prided themselves on. Still, I was no longer hungry for food, my stomach tight with an unfamiliar knot of tension. “I made it from my mother’s mangalsutra.”
She finished eating and sat back in her chair, eyeing me curiously before studying the bracelet. “What is that?”
My heart clenched at the sudden flash of memory. My sweet mother and her sad eyes.
“A mangalsutra is a sacred wedding necklace in our tradition. A groom gives it to his bride.” Interesting that I’d had others admire this particular piece of jewelry and ask me about it, but I’d never bothered explaining to them what it meant. Perhaps I didn’t think they’d understand its importance or I didn’t care to open up this particular pain. But for some reason, I found myself explaining everything to Isadora. “It was my father’s promise to my mother that they would always be together. That they’d be protected from evil. In our tradition, a wife wears it until her husband’s death.”
She must’ve seen something in my expression because her own softened with sympathy. “And how long did your mother wear the necklace?”
“Until I was thirteen. The same year I was turned into a vampire.”
I was well aware my voice had gone a little cold, but it was hard to discuss, even now, centuries later, without some resentment. I’d never asked to become what I was. And though I didn’t resent the life I led now, it still grated my conscience that I carried guilt, being forced to drink human blood when I was once a devout Hindu. I often wondered how ashamed my mother would’ve been if she’d known. If she’d lived to see me now.
“Anyway, it was very difficult for my mother when he died. For any woman during that time period, being a widow was a painful struggle.”
Isadora’s intense expression roamed over my face, her voice a soft caress when she said, “But at least she had you, Devraj.”
Yet again, my stomach clenched with some foreign emotion I wasn’t familiar with. I’d wanted and sated my hungers with many women over the ages. This craving felt different. I didn’t just want her body, or her blood, if I was to be completely honest with myself. Just being in her presence, soaking up her smiles and sweet company, was feeding a hunger I didn’t realize I had.
“Yes,” I finally agreed with a smile. “She did have me.”