Читать книгу Rebirth - Dmitry Nazarov - Страница 18

But I didn’t need to hurry. I’d barely had time to put on my underwear, which was very revealing, by the way, when I heard muffled voices in the hallway.

– Is it tonight, Rachik? – Mila asked me in a pathetic way that made me cringe.

– Busy,» cut off the alpha. – I’ll come when I can, Mila.

– All right, sweetie,» she said disappointedly, but compliantly. – I’ll wait. You don’t even have to call, just drop by.

What a free woman! Free in everything except dependence on fucking the impudent boor, for whom the frank melancholy, not too artfully hidden behind frivolity and humility in this woman’s voice – an empty sound. I wonder if he doesn’t notice her feelings because of a general emotional deafness inherent in men, or because he doesn’t care deeply about her feelings. No, I don’t give a shit. I am not going to occupy my mind with the reasons for the behavior of people who are completely foreign to me. I had more pressing problems of my own.

The dress was shimmery white, with one open shoulder, tight and much shorter than I was used to wearing. I preferred to avoid that kind of style, because I always felt that the tight fabric and the short length made me look more petite and fragile than I really was. It was as if I were just a teenager or a really vulnerable, fragile doll that made others want to coddle me and look at me patronizingly. The stockings with an elastic band were not a familiar closet item, either. The situation, in my opinion, was slightly remedied by the elegant «fuck me» shoes and the just-awesome-to-the-touch lengthened jacket made of soft embossed black leather. I loved and always willingly wore stilettos to compensate for my lack of height, but leather was my passion. Though a secret one. Where would I actually wear it with my lifestyle? Once when I was shopping a couple of years ago I tried on leather pants and open top with laces in one of the boutiques, and I blushed even to myself at that time. Because such clothes instantly turned me from just a pretty doll, which everyone saw in me, into a doll from a sex shop. Well, at least it seemed that way to me, and so, of course, I didn’t buy anything in that store. Now I slipped into the hallway to the big mirror and stared at myself. Well, what can I say… This Aurora was a beauty, with unusually suddenly bright eyes and glowing skin, with cheekbones that were outlined in an awesome way, and this dress magically made my usual curves and feminine virtues more obvious. At the same time it was not sticking out in the style of «notice me necessarily», but just emphasizing that I have them in all the right places and quite decent. In short, you wouldn’t take me for an underachiever girl like that, but I didn’t look like a cheap girl ready to offer everything I had to the first person I met.

– I was always sure Mila knew her stuff! – Reer appeared behind me silently.

Is that his way of saying I’m not bad-looking? Well, what do you want, Rory. Compliments come with the man. All the more reason I need them from him, like a rabbit’s stop sign. And in principle, I could agree with him, because I liked the results. I could, but I won’t!

– I look like a penguin to me,» I objected out of sheer stubbornness.

– I’d have to keep you on the couch for six months and feed you eight times a day to make you look like a penguin, baby,» he snorted and suddenly pulled his shirt off over his head, leaving me waist-deep in nudity behind me. – Or even ten.

I swiveled on my heels and almost tangled in my legs, turning toward him and backing away at the same time.

– What are you doing? – I asked, frightened, pointing my finger somewhere in the middle of his muscular torso. Wow… I mean… come on… I mean, there are no men in real life built like that! I mean, I understand models… or actors… again, photos are retouched and accented and shaded for more relief, and we all know they spend hours posing in all the right places, and one good shot out of a million, but in real life it’s much more trivial… Okay! Rory, stop! Put your brain back in its place.

I guess the effort to turn my brain from liquid to solid was reflected in my face, because he grinned impudently, and took hold of the button of my jeans.

– I told you before that increased libido is normal, especially in the days before and after a full moon, as is increased appetite and severe irritability. – He unzipped, and I started to move sideways toward the room because he was standing closer to the front door himself. – Give me a break, I just want to change too!

– Just change? – I said sneeringly, looked down behind some devil, and immediately looked up, inhaling involuntarily and feeling myself for a moment like a conductor of a powerful electric charge. Just a change of clothes, huh? Well, well, then I am, following his own line of comparisons, Nikolai Valuyev. – I don’t have any heightened libido. And, by the way, I’ve always been indifferent to male striptease.

– That’s because strippers were so bad, poopsie,» he snorted smugly, but I looked away, trying to comprehend my own reaction to the man. And no, it wasn’t even about the transparently provocative nudity and the display of a boner. A horny man wasn’t such a big deal that I was so freaked out. And I could see from the very beginning that this dog had a great body. Not me, of course; I’d always preferred guys who were… well, first of all, easier, because handsome men were all arrogant assholes. And secondly, not with such a… um… let’s call it a difference in live weight between me and my partner. So it wasn’t the generously presented abundance of smooth tanned skin and all too clearly defined muscles that had such a disconcerting effect on me. No, it was Rier’s changed scent. Some kind of smell-image, or rather, a whole series of images and even sensations. The shocking chill of recently fallen leaves and the scent of earth and crumpled grass mixed with the scent of heated skin and fresh perspiration. A sizzling, piercing, moist glide inside, seasoned and amplified a hundred times over by the spicy and dizzying amber of sensual lust, too frank and sharp and primitive to be only human.

I shook my head to shake it off, but Ri’er passed me, as if to mock me, and then he brushed his shoulder across the room and rummaged in his big duffel bag on my couch. I turned away again, feeling like some idiotic wolf that was spinning in place, trying to avoid having to look at his broad back, the outline of his muscular buttocks, and the long lines of powerful muscles on his thighs.

– You know, I’m not sure what the point of me getting dressed up and going out on the town is, given that I was attacked directly in the dumpster in the yard,» I said, trying to keep my mind away from all the completely irrelevant images and the desires of the flesh that were creeping through its inhibitions. – It would have made more sense to walk around her all night, but my clothes weren’t really appropriate for that.

– It doesn’t make sense,» Ri’er answered, his belt clinking, and I swallowed involuntarily. – Vidid has his henchmen planted everywhere around your house.

– Didn’t you agree that you were watching me?

– The agreements are mere words, but in practice, as they say, first come, first served, poops. And it’ll be a pain in the balls for Vidid if I catch the converted one and not him.

I remembered my recent reaction, so I didn’t comment on their rivalry, and I didn’t ask any questions about the reason for it. I didn’t really care which one of them had once had his tail so far up his ass. What matters to me is that, whether I’m nothing more than live bait in their hunt, whether I’m Rair or Vidid. And my main problem is to stay alive afterwards, for these beasts are only interested in catching game, not in keeping me safe.

– And this trickster couldn’t just sit around and wait for a suitable prey to come to him,» Ri’er continued. – A victim has to have a lot of energy to complete a summoning round, not just something he picked up at random. He marked you before, then summoned you.

He summoned you? No one summoned me. I guess. Though if you follow that logic, some devil made me drag myself to the dump, even though the trip to the store was mentally exhausting. It was as if I couldn’t wait until morning.

– I hadn’t left the house in over two weeks before that night.

– You hadn’t? – Ri’er stood in front of me, already dressed in a black silk shirt and jeans of the same color, buttoning the cuffs. And, hell, for some reason I involuntarily stuck my eyes on his wrists. – Why?

– It doesn’t matter,» I snapped, probably more to myself than to him.

– I decide what’s important,» he pressed in his trademark alpha voice, and, rolling my eyes grudgingly, I told him about the time I’d been robbed and nearly raped, and in general terms about the fear of leaving home that followed.

He listened to me with a nonchalant expression, but I didn’t really expect sympathy, either.

– So he must have tagged you somewhere in the supermarket,» Ri’er explained. – You must have had contact, even if it was just fleeting.

I wondered. Some kid shoved me at the door, and the guard was walking around, and a guy pushed past me when I was at the checkout counter. Naturally, I couldn’t remember any faces, much less notice anything strange, certainly not in the shaky state I’d struggled with in the store at the time. What was it about me, sweating through my struggles with panic, that attracted the fucking bastard that had derailed my life? Was it the energy of my fear? Or the process of fighting it internally? Yeah, I tell you, I’m lucky, you can’t get more lucky than that.

– I still don’t understand why we have to go downtown instead of walking in front of the same store,» I protested.

– Is he an idiot to wait there for you? – He grimaced in annoyance, and I thought he was going to tell me to shut up, but he condescended to explain. If I were him, I’d leave you to finish it later, when I’m less focused, if not quit it altogether. The loss of effort in one month doesn’t compare to the threat of capture. I’d rather throw myself into catching up and start putting together a new round. And for that it is preferable to choose strong and healthy young men. And where is the greatest concentration of them in the evenings and at night, when it is most convenient to attack? Kids are looking for where to get high and have fun and affordable sex, and he goes after them.

– Dozens of clubs, bars, parks where simpler companies hang out. Thousands of people, Riera! What are the odds of finding him in that crowd? – I pointed out the obvious.

– You’ll find him if you try, baby. – The alpha reassured me. – And he should catch your scent unmistakably, if you are together in the same street, if you are in a club full of sweaty bodies. If you don’t find him, he’ll find you. So come on, let’s go give him that chance.

– You know what? – I’m pissed. – I think you’re dragging me into the mob just to throw Vidal’s werewolves off your trail, and give yourself the sole right to win. Not a fair game, considering it might cost me my life!

– They say when you think you should be baptized, poops,» Ri’er snarled, leaning toward my face. – And who cares what you think of my methods? You will do as I say, and that is the end of it. Out, now!