Page 57 of Grotesque
Corban twirled his finger, motioning for me to move. I did, lifting my hair off my neck.
“A good luck charm.” He looped his arms around me and grazed his cool fingers against my collarbone as he fastened the clasp.
“For what? It certainly hasn’t warded you away. Ah!” I jerked away from him as a sharp stinging pain slid up the back of my neck. I whirled, one hand holding the locket in place against my chest and the other diving for my neck.
Corban turned out his palms. At the end of one of his long claws was a smear of blood. “Oops,” he said and stuck his finger into his mouth.
“What the fuck.” I rubbed my smarting skin. “Be careful with those things.” I thumbed the door of the locket.
“The locket holds a piece of the manor, one of the mirrors, if you recall. With you at my side and the charm in your possession, I think Glamis will let me go.”
I frowned, turning the locket over. “Have you tried this before?” Is that why he tried giving it to me the first night?
“No, but it is a theory I would like to test now. You’ve anchored me into the light. Now I need you to anchor me to the manor. I’ve never gotten this far with anyone before.”
His voice wavered ever so slightly. It sounded ominous, like what we were about to do was forbidden.
“Besides,” he ran a thumb over the hollow of my throat, catching the chain on the end of his nail, “I like how pretty my token looks around your neck.” He slid two of his fingers over my shoulder and took a step back. Raising his hand, he twisted his wrist and made a gracefuldownward motion.A warm tingling sensation started at the top of my head. It trickled down my shoulders, arms, and the rest of my body. Down, down, down.“It will take the place of my other marks on you for tonight,” he said with a smirk.
I looked down at my legs. The bruising, bites– they were all gone, save for the “C” carved above my knee. I touched my throat tentatively. Smooth skin replaced the bite marks that had graced it moments before.
It was then I realized he had changed my clothes as well. Gone were the shorts and horror film t-shirt I had been wearing. In its stead was a little black dress that hugged my chest and cut off at the middle of my thighs. The entire thing was somehow sophisticated, yet sexy at the same time. It accentuated my curves perfectly. Especially the neckline, which highlighted my full chest and the locket that rested above my breasts.
Something about this felt incredibly wrong. I couldn’t put a finger on it, other than that Corban seemed too eager. But the feeling ebbed when I looked up into his wicked green eyes. Whatever spell he had cast over me, I would happily be a slave to it.
Did I have the power to break his curse? This felt like a real-life fantasy. Dark, like one of Grimm’s fairy tales, but magical all the same.
He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me against his muscular chest.
“How generous,” I breathed. I gripped the front of his shirt to steady my shaking hands.
He hunched down and brushed his nose against mine. “This is just the beginning, Sorcha. Now, let us see if this works and get me the fuck out of here.”
Corban was stiff as a board as we made our way down the driveway. He’d hesitated before getting into the car and I’d wondered if he’d been worried whether he could really leave or not. But as Glamis disappeared in the rearview mirror, I wondered if he wasn’t having second thoughts about me instead.
“Everything ok?”
He turned his head. That was another thing he either couldn’t or refused to change, the gleam in his large ever-changing eyes. Every time light from a passing car or streetlight hit them, they lit up like reflective mirrors. “Everything is fine,” he said silkily. He looked back out to the road. I could feel the tension leave his body as he settled back into his seat. “Everything is just fine.”
We went into the first nice place we stumbled across.
I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I was sitting across from him, at a place called White Porch, and that he looked completely human. This was the first time I had seen him without any trace of the monster lurking beneath his skin.
In fact, there wascolorto his skin. Gone was the ashen grey. Blood heated the top of his sharp cheekbones; it warmed his full lips. Even his eyes, as they swung to me, were not as hungry as they had been earlier that day.
Despite his ‘human’ costume, his very inhuman presence radiated lethal power that commanded the room. From the second we had walked in people couldn’t stop staring. Corban’schin remained lifted as if he were preening from all the attention he was getting. If only they knew what kind of creature he really was.
I leaned forward. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” he asked, his voice dropping as low as mine.
I motioned to him with my glass of wine. “You look different, and I don’t just mean the lack of wings and horns.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “You brought me back to life, Sorcha. I merely want to thank you for doing so.”
Pressure expanded beneath my ribs. It was twisted, wasn’t it? That those silly little words were enough to make me feel special? As much as I tried to fight it, I couldn’t suppress a smile of my own.
He took my hand and pressed it against his lips.
