Into the Darkness (Darkness #1)(33)

“Wow, when did you become such a jerk?” I muttered, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

“An occasional side effect of power,” Charles commented absently. He quickly lowered his eyes and hunched within Stefan’s hard stare, trying to turn invisible.

Black eyes flashed back to me. “I will contact you in a few weeks for testing. Stay out of trouble.”

He walked into the house, his back straight and muscled, the memory of his handsome face etched into my consciousness, quickly ruined by the slinky body and condescending stare of his lady love as she followed him inside.

“What’s her problem?” I muttered in a sulky tone.

“First off, she’s a bitch.” Charles stepped outside and immediately fastened some sunglasses on my face.

“I don’t need—“

“Shush, the sun is hard on the ol’ peepers. C’mon.” Charles gave me a shove in the direction of my car across the street, a few new scratches worked down the side of the fading red paint. He put his own sunglasses on, following me, before saying, “Second, she is probably going to be mated to that unlucky bastard—don’t tell him I called him a bastard—and is most likely pissed that he gave some dumb human blood but won’t pony up to her. No offense. You’re not dumb, but she probably doesn’t care. Anyway, she is an ambitious little soldier—she tries to use her beauty and great knack-in-the-sack to suck as much blood as possible to improve from red level to orange. People are on to her, but she can be…persuasive. I steer clear.

”Unfortunately for the Boss, she is prime real estate for a baby maker. She’s had one miscarriage already, her mother had two kids, and her grandmother had three. Good blood line. And you know, there’s the beauty, and the swirly hip thing she does, and her father is high in politics—she’s the best choice in a textbook sort of way. Although, you don’t seem to read your textbooks, so I guess you wouldn’t subscribe to the same views.”

“She miscarried his baby? That’s a good thing? Also…what the hell does baby making have to do with marriage? Don’t you people like each other?”

Charles laughed as he folded into my car. “It probably wasn’t his that she miscarried; but yes, it’s good. It means she is fertile. He is powerful and our leader, he needs offspring. He also needs stability and a co-leader. She can provide all that. Just sucks she’s a bitch, know what I mean? Hot, though.”

“So…you guys have sex all the time, not protected, and get excited when you randomly get pregnant, father unknown?”

“Humans wouldn’t understand—you guys breed like rabbits. You so much as look at each other with heat and you get pregnant.”

“So, you’re probably super sexual because of a need to reproduce?” I guessed.

“No, Dr. Over-Analyze-Everything, it feels good. But we don’t protect ourselves hoping we can work up a little procreation. Otherwise, we are just a dying breed of amaze-balls.”

“Seriously, how old are you?” I mumbled, turning into my parking spot. “And more importantly, where do you plan to sleep?”

“In human years, probably about sixteen. In our years, I’m thirty-eight. And in your bed. With you. Naked.” He waggled his eyebrows, probably trying for some sort of suggestive turn-on.

It had the opposite effect. “You aren’t sleeping with me, and do you use human years like we use dog years?”

“If the shoe fits.”

I shook my head. There was no point trying to figure out the fork in the evolutionary road all in one sitting. Especially with the equivalent of a teenage boy. I cut our dialogue off by calling him a douche.

As I got out of the car, I restarted the conversation with, “Why was Stefan such a dick to me?”

“Eh,” Charles waved the comment away with his hand. “He’s just trying to be all big-time and all that. He’s cool on a personal level, but a little stressed out and bitchy when he’s got a lot of people following him around. Plus, I don’t think he knows what the hell to do with you. You’re a complete anomaly, and he doesn’t like unexplained crap. Freaks him out. Although, admitting that would basically be saying he’s a weak Nancy-boy, which would then make him have to kill somebody to set the record straight, so…yeah, he can be a dick.”

“You need to work on summarizing.”

“You need to work on opening your legs. Crap, I forgot how small this apartment is.”

I woke up slowly, something eating away at my conscious mind, dragging my thoughts out of the dream world. Someone panted, as though in pleasure. A small sound, like a continual slide of hand on soft velvet, drifted to me from the floor.

“Charles?”

The sound stopped. “Yeah?” The sound started up again.

I sprang to a seated position, spying Charles lying on his blow-up mattress with the sheets around his ankles, his fist pumping his large erection.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screeched.

He stopped again, hand halfway down his shaft. He blinked up at me, his well-built chest halfway lifted off the mattress. “What do you mean?”

“Are you masturbating?”

He shook his head with a dramatic eye blink, ending with wide, disbelief filled eyes. “I’m certainly not trying to rip my c**k off. What else would I be doing with it?”