My pulse lurched at the mention of her name. Though I wasn’t happy about the circumstances, I was thrilled at the thought of seeing her.
“Sounds good,” said Ruben into his phone before he ended the call and turned to me. “Let’s grab some dinner then we’ll pick up Jules at the Cauldron and Isadora at the house.”
I nodded. “After our hospital visit, we’re going straight back to The Green Light.”
My beast was hungry to bend that fucker’s mind to find the other assholes he was in league with. Those texts he was sending were to his ringleader, preparing to abduct one of those four girls who’d come in last at Barrel Proof. Until he made me, that was.
No matter. I was a Stygorn. And I had everything I needed. One malleable mind in my hands. He would find out soon enough what one of my kind was capable of.
But first, I would have the pleasure of Isadora’s company, whether she liked it or not. I couldn’t help but smile at that.
Chapter 9
~ISADORA~
I wiped the tears from my eyes and half-squatted on our front porch, trying not to pee on myself from laughing so hard. Tia laughed with me, though she was still standing without any difficulty. Unlike me.
“I know, right? Poor Marcus,” Tia continued. “But he handled it like a champ. Even after she used that lie detector hex to make him spill the most embarrassing moments of his childhood.”
She propped a hand on her hip, her face even more beautiful with the utter joy suffusing her expression. Her tight curls bounced on her bare shoulder when she laughed, her hair pulled back with a turquoise bandana as a headband.
I shook my head. “And he wasn’t angry?”
“That was the weird thing. He really wasn’t. He laughed after Aunt Beryl’s little test of wills was over and told her she reminded him of his own Sicilian mother. ‘Tough as balls’ he said right to her face.”
“Wow. And what did Aunt Beryl say to that?” I asked, leaning against one of the columns by the front door.
Tia grinned coquettishly, her hazel-brown eyes glittering with dangerous glee. “She said he was fine for a white man, and since he handled himself like a class act, I was allowed to go out with him.”
“Aunt Beryl-approved dating material? He must be impressive.”
She winked as she reached for the doorknob, but then I wrapped my hand on top of hers, preventing her from getting away.
“So you’re really dating him now?”
I was a little shocked. I couldn’t remember the last time Tia had dated anyone. Like me. She and I had been united in solidarity against the opposite sex. Well, not against them really. But maybe we enjoyed a joke or two at their expense. And had been bound together in our attachment to singlehood for a long time.
She sobered, looking over her shoulder at me. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I am.” Her little smile told me this was more than a passing fling. She hadn’t said anything, but I could read Tia as well as my sisters.
She twisted the door and shoved it open. I fell in behind her, hearing familiar music coming from the living room television. The same Bollywood music I’d been hearing coming from next door this past week.
“I guess it’s convenient he’s your neighbor,” I continued, walking beside her down the hallway. “Easy access to your Italian stallion, right?” I nudged her playfully.
“Oh, Isadora. You have no idea.” She stopped and squished my cheeks between her hands then whispered, “You should try sleeping with your neighbor. You might like it.”
I pulled away and marched ahead of her. “As if.” I’d spent the afternoon complaining about the nuisance vampire neighbor. Rather than sympathize, she said it sounded more like sexual frustration, which I should use him to get rid of. I wasn’t about to admit that the very same thought had crossed my mind earlier that day. But I’d always found men never lived up to my expectations. I’d rather avoid the hassle and just use my toys. I liked keeping things simple.
“And you hit the nail on the head with that stallion part,” Tia added on a laugh. “Damn does he know how to use that body.”
“Stop it! Now you’re just trying to make me feel bad about my lack of a sex life.” We stepped into the living room. “What in the fresh hell is this?” I murmured to Tia.
Violet and Livvy were sprawled on the giant living room sofa, popcorn bowls in hand, while Clara was facing the television with a pink scarf wrapped around her waist and shimmying her hips to the music coming from the blaring TV. None of them bothered to look up.
“I can’t make my hips do that,” complained Clara, swaying her pelvis in figure-eights. Sort of.
Then my gaze landed on the giant plasma screen that Evie insisted we needed for all of her sci-fi and Avenger movies she loved. I gulped, immediately breaking out into a sweat.
Devraj stared out, his lips moving, his velvet-dark voice resonating through the soundbar and filling the room. The camera panned out, revealing his white button-down billowing open. He stood at the center of a gang of seven other fine-looking men who danced and sang in unison, clapping hands and stomping feet to a heavy drumbeat, hips moving, chests heaving. And Devraj, his long hair blowing in the wind, his come-hither eyes fixed on the camera, on the viewer, on me, felt like an electric zap that pierced my chest and sizzled much farther down. I tried to swallow, but my throat was Sahara Desert dry.
“What is this?” I was barely able to whisper.
My three sisters’ heads swiveled to face me. Violet grinned with far too much glee. “It’s the movie you tossed in your trash in your bedroom. Dilwala Deewana.”
“Are you kidding me?” I snapped. “Why would you rummage through my trash?”
Violet reached over to the coffee table and snatched my all-too-familiar weekly chores list that I’d posted on the fridge and waved it in the air like a flag.
“Just following your orders. And you tossed it out. Finders, keepers.”
“Oh, my,” said Livvy, leaning forward toward the television.
Devraj was now circling a beautiful woman, the music having dimmed to nothing but percussion, his body an artful machine of rhythm and seduction. The woman knelt on a blanket, heaving deep breaths as he circled, trailing his fingers up her arm, over the slope of her bare shoulder, combing then fisting her hair until he firmly but gently tugged her head back, arching her beautiful neck. Then he was singing sensual words—all subtitled in English—against her lips before he ravished them. And they fell onto the blanket in a tangle of limbs and moans as the camera panned away.
“Holy fuck,” breathed Violet, grabbing at her chest like she might hyperventilate.
I understood because the close-up angle of Devraj hovering a hair’s breadth away from the woman’s mouth and the lust-hazed look in her eyes told me this wasn’t all acting. An unfamiliar spark of emotion shot through me like a poisoned dart. Jealousy? No way. And was that the same woman in the pictures of him on Instagram? Of course, there were quite a few other women in those pics, too.
“Oh, my God.” Tia finally caught her breath and glared at me accusingly. “Is this the neighbor vampire?! You didn’t tell me he was Devraj Kumar!”
“What?” I was hot and sweaty and totally confused by my own swirling emotions.
“The Bollywood superstar?” Tia’s hazel eyes were wide and shocked and furious. “Are you fucking kidding me, Isadora?”
“I told you he was an actor! Why are you getting all over me?”
Tia scoffed then growled, sounding more werewolf than witch. Then she zipped around the sofa and yanked the remote off the coffee table, stopping the movie.
“Hey!” shouted Livvy.
“What the hell?” Violet protested.
Clara had stopped dancing but her blue eyes were bright with humor and wickedness, an expression I didn’t see often on her.
“Shhht!” Tia held up a palm while she flicked through Netflix, searching out a particular movie. She found it, another Bollywood movie. “You’ll be thanking me in three seconds. Just you wait.”
She started the movie but fast-forwarded through the opening.
“Come on, Tia!” shouted Violet.
“Just…wait for it.” Then she stopped fast-forwarding and pressed play.
Devraj was standing in the moonlight, singing a slow, sad ballad about his lost love, while removing his white linen shirt. Left in loose, flowing white pants, he stepped into the shimmering pool, water soaking through the thin fabric.
“Daaaaaamn,” crooned Violet as the camera panned to his glorious back, muscles rippling under dark bronze skin a thing of fantasies. Some women’s fantasies, anyway. Not mine. Totally not mine.
“Nice camera angle,” admitted Livvy, crunching on popcorn.
I snapped to my sisters who were literally drooling over our next-door neighbor. Heat raced under my skin, furious with them and, I have to admit, turned on by him. Or his acting skills. That was it. Definitely just the acting skills, and the fantastic lighting and sensual music.
“He’s so pretty,” Clara said on a dreamy sigh.
Steam rose off the heated pool he walked into, the water sloshing around thick, muscular thighs, the transparent fabric clinging. Moonlight bathed him, dipping into the shadows carved by his chiseled abdomen as he turned to face the camera. There was a tattoo completely covering one shoulder. A mandala in black and blue ink, an intricate design, feminine in some of the floral loops and masculine in the sharp lines along the outer edges.
Then he settled into the water, bracing his arms along the pool edge, his gaze fixed into some distant place beyond the camera lens. The water lapped at his chest, steam misting his face, his hair dangling in the water, his voice so very sad, singing about bitter longing and never having the satisfaction his body, his heart, and his soul craved.
I was completely and utterly transfixed. So much so that I didn’t notice three people enter the room. It wasn’t until I heard a deep, familiar voice directly behind me that I was able to snap out of my trance.