He brought his laced fingers behind his head and awarded me with a wicked smirk. "You truly are the most infuriating woman on this planet."
"I'm sure I'm close. I don’t need any handouts and I will not leave here owing you a damn thing. I don’t need to be kept and I'm not some fucking plaything you can dress up and show off Ryder. I'm a damn good enforcer, top of my class at the Guild. Show me someone who needs to die. And I will make it happen, I'll bury the fucker six feet deep and no one will know the why or who of it—but I am not arm candy!" I was shouting with my fist balled up on my hips when I finished.
"You won't owe me anything, the only way you will get inside the club will be if you impress the bouncers who know their lords taste in women. So I will send Claire out to get you a dress, size 5?" His eyes skimmed over me slowly, ravenously.
"Yes," I wondered how he knew what size I was from just looking at me, but then he'd probably dressed—and more the point undressed thousands of females. And Claire who? Not that I would be asking him, since I wanted to scream right now.
"You will dance for me, so I know you can do it when it's time," he answered smoothly.
"No. Freaking. Way."
His lips twisted up, "Okay, then Larissa can do the job. She's to his taste as well and she does not seem to argue as much as you do Synthia."
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I wouldn’t let Larissa do this. She was too sweet to go into a nest of vipers like the vamps. She'd more than likely pass out at the first sight of Vlad. I opened my eyes to catch his sparkling with interest.
"When and where?"
"My room, now," he purred.
My body responded instantly. It disturbed me on so many different levels that I was getting mental whiplash from it. "I am not coming to your bedroom, not willingly. Ever."
"Is that so?" He moved silently as he stood up towering over me. This man was carnal, his beauty mixed with a frightening twinge that left me boneless. "I could force you in, or you can walk. The choice is yours. Decide now."
His eyes slid down to meet mine, challenging me, daring me to say no. I opened my mouth to do just that but the words I wanted to say didn’t come out. Instead I stood there with my mouth open as his eyes burned with his need to feed. "I'll dance for you Ryder, but that doesn’t mean I'm on the menu."
"You think someone like you could feed me Synthia? I'm the Dark Prince. I need more than some little itchy Witch with a big mouth for dinner."
Ouch! I wasn’t sure why his words made my stomach hurt and plummet to my feet but the fact that it did bothered me. "Good."
"Fifteen minutes, I want to see skin," his eyes slide to my shorts as I bit my bottom lip waiting for him to say more. "I'll have Claire bring you something for now. If you can manage to impress me I won't ask Larissa to go to Nightshade."
Claire came in a short time later, all leggy, beautiful and impossibly Fae. Her long blonde hair the perfect shade of platinum, with milk chocolate eyes the perfect shade as well. She was incredibly beautiful and friendly.
She was overly excited about helping me dress, almost to the point of annoyingly so. I held my tongue and allowed her to give me any advice that would keep Larissa from having to do anything with Ryder, or Vlad Tepesh.
Seventeen
Ryder's room was in the lower level of the house, on the ground floor, larger than his room back at the Dark Fortress and more sadistic. He had chains hanging from the ceiling and some sort of chair set up that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what it was used for.
The bed was as big as the other's I'd seen, easily fitting a full out orgy party. Black silk sheets covered it invitingly like a tractor beam to catch and hold you within its smooth clutches. I'm sure they were a distraction for what he did to the women who ended up in it.
I stood barefooted and alone inside his room. Claire had manifested a skirt that barely covered my ass and the shirt was barely made with enough material to cover my breasts—which she had suggested that I go braless in order to get more of a reaction from Ryder.
It was idiotic to do this, hell it was suicide to make a Fae want you sexually and yet here I was in nothing but a hookers outfit with no panties on! My head was telling me to get out even as my hormones demanded I give in and make him want me and oh so much more. I reached back for the doorknob when I felt his eyes on my skin.
Electricity flickered over the surface, scorching my flesh. I turned, looking over my shoulder to take him in. His white button up shirt was undone completely, his smooth chest exposed to my greedy eyes. The top buttons of his jeans were undone as well, showing a thin line of dark hair that trailed low into his jeans.
"Leaving?" He inquired, sauntering further into the room from the archway he had just entered from.
I bit my bottom lip struggling for courage to see this through. "This is a bad idea."