NYX
I watched her, the human I had perceived her scent from the moment I woke up from a century of slumber, the same one who was about to fling herself to death before I found her.
She was just little, and wouldn't survive a week in my world, but there was something about her. It wasn't just the fire in her eyes, the hard twitch of her lower lip, or her stubborn resolve. I couldn't tell what it was aside from her scent that made me want to help her.
I had promised, right there on the cliff, to help her get revenge on all those who wronged her. I didn't think I would do that the second I woke up, but seeing her tear-stained face had made me do something I never thought I would ever do, sign a contract with a human. My human.
"So…" She turned to look at me, her black eyes taking me in from my head to my toes, like she had been doing for a long time. She let out a sigh, tucked a strand of her curly black hair behind her ear, looking at me, almost waiting for something.
"What's it?" I asked, realising she was waiting for me to speak.
"What do we do now? I have signed the contract. What next?"
I smiled, knowing she could see my fangs. "Now, I tell you exactly how I love my sex."
It might have been a long time since I last slept with a woman, but that didn't mean I had lost my touch. I still knew what I wanted, and the right way to press my buttons.
She gulped.
'It's just a year, Rex. You can do it. Just a year. Put up with him, and he will help you out. Isn't revenge what you wanted?'
I smirked at her inner thoughts. I loved it whenever she spoke in her mind. It was more entertaining than the words she said out loud, and she never lied.
"Follow me." I turned my back to her, striding straight for the exit, while trying not to give a remark on how well-rounded she thought my butt was.
I had this inkling of suspicion that Rex was a good woman, a funny one to be with, but her situation caused her to turn bitter into a woman who didn't think twice about signing a contract with a vampire.
As she had given up on life, being stuck with a vampire might have sounded the same as dying. She only chose the lesser of two devils. At least she was still alive.
She followed me down the hall, towards a room I had my servants prepare for her. I stopped in front of the third door in the hallway, next to my room, waiting for her to catch up.
She seemed to drag her feet as she walked, probably thinking of how to get out of her current predicament.
"Hurry. We don't have all the time in the world to wait for you. The clock is ticking. I can't have you waste my one year just by walking," I teased, expecting her to smile or give a snide remark, but she didn't.
She let out a tired sigh, looked at me, then at the door. She increased her pace, but her shoulders remained hunched. I didn't need to eavesdrop on her thoughts to know she was thinking about her family.
Those motherfuckers had treated her badly, even when she had done nothing to deserve that. I'll make them pay, I had vowed, and I would do that.
Rex had said little about them, but I knew how much they had hurt her, how they had ripped the joy in her eyes and left behind a void.
"I will make them pay."
Her eyes lifted to mine at my words, and for a second, I saw something there, not the annoyed looks or the bleak stare, but another emotion, one I couldn't grasp. I wasn't that huge on emotions.
She nodded and stepped into the room, looking around at the space that would be hers for an entire year. Two, if she gets pregnant, something I wasn't banking on.
As the last of the pure blood vampires, the curse on my lineage was one I knew I might never break. A mate? How the fucking hell do I find one among the humans? It was impossible, just like searching for a drop of water in an ocean.
I'd searched, looked for her for the fifty years I spent away from my kingdom, but hadn't been successful. I knew it was all futile, and had planned to return to my world, disappointed when I woke up from my slumber, only to perceive her sweet scent.
Spending one year with her didn't sound so bad, at least until I discovered why her scent is so different from the others and why my heart skipped for the first time when I saw her. There must be something about her, something different from the others I've met.
"Not bad," she whispered, looking around the place in awe. I tried to look at the room in her eyes, to know what she thought about the space, but I found nothing different about it.
It was just a splash of golden and black, from the black bedcovers to the golden blinds and the black rug on the floor. It was just plain, like the rest of the house. The only difference between my room and hers was the presence of gold.
"Do you like the room?"
I didn't like how I sounded, so unlike me, I was eager to hear her response.
She turned to me, black eyes staring straight at me as she could see through me. For a minute, she said nothing. She just stared before she let out a sigh. "It's not that bad," she repeated. "Anything is better than getting found beneath the cliff with my bones broken, and my flesh scattered."