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He leaned in, letting me get a good whiff of his intoxicating scent. Cedar and pine and… His gaze glowed brighter. Warm pools of hazel lapped at my senses, pulling me under his spell.
I backed the fuck up, ass grazing the bar sink. “Are you seriously trying to fucking compel me right now?” I lashed out, revulsion clinging to my words, hands gripping the edge of the sink so tight the metal whined.
The king’s brows pulled together. “Who the hell turned you?”
“What? Why are you bringing that up again?”
He leaned all the way across the bar. “I’m not trying to compel you, Eden. And you would know that if your maker had given you even a basic primer on our kind. Now, I’ll ask again. Who the hell turned you? I’d like to pay them a visit and let them know what an awful job they did.”
“That’s none of your goddamn business,” I yelled, loud enough to draw attention. “Just leave me alone, Julian. I agreed to work for you, not to be interrogated at my place of business.”
“Interrogating you? I’m only trying to get to know you, Eden. Why do you consistently think the worst of me? I don’t want to behead you and I’m not stalking you. Seems awfully shallow of you to assume I have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.”
How fucking dare he!?
I was not shallow. “You want to know? You really want to know, Julian? Normal people don’t buy other people’s apartment buildings. They don’t set their safe codes to the birthday of someone they’ve never met.”And they don’t make me want to rip off my clothes and fuck them on top of the bar.“I like to take money from the rich because I think the world would be a lot better off with one less billionaire in it. You use your money and resources as weapons. You bought my fucking apartment building. You let me take a priceless diamond because apparently you’re worth so much, priceless isn’t actually that big of a deal. That’s not normal.”
He sat there, completely unfazed. “Mmm, not normal for anyone but a king, perhaps.”
I shook my head, seeing red. “You’re part of the problem. Part of the system made to keep the working poor stuck and living paycheck to paycheck. I watched my mother scrape by trying to make ends meet. She worked her ass off and sometimes she still had to take handouts from her church.”
She was why I’d workedmyass off to make a nest egg. I never wanted to be in that position again. Wearing hand-me-downs that never fit right. Needing to eat the free school lunches. And getting made fun of for both.
Food scarcity was fucking awful and while there had always been a meal at mealtime, there wasn’t extra. Snacks just weren’t a thing in my mother’s house. And there was never anything to drink except tap water because I’d get in trouble for “sucking down all the milk” that was meant for her coffee.
Julian’s gaze trapped me, pinning me to the spot. “I didn’t make your mother poor, Eden.”
My hands shook, skin went icy, and I leveled a diamond-hard stare at him. “I know that, you arrogant fuck. As I already said, you are part of the system made to keep poor people poor. Now for the last fucking time, get the fuck out of my bar.”
Jerry appeared behind him, a deep frown on his face. “You all right, Eden?”
Before I could answer, Julian spun around and locked eyes with my teddy bear bouncer. I knew what was coming next, and there was no way in hell I’d let that happen.
I launched myself across the bar, putting my body between the vampire king of Laurel Cove and Jerry. “Don’t you dare compel my friends,” I ordered the king.
He gazed down at me, a small smile on his face. “As you wish. Though I’d be interested to learn the rules surrounding your double standards, since you seemed to have no qualms compelling my hired help. Or the county clerk. Or any of the safe companies you dealt with while researching my safes.”
How the fuck did he know any of that? “That was different!”
“I don’t see how.” A devious smile lifted his lips. “Why don’t you explain it to me? Over dinner. Let’s say, tomorrow night?”
He sweetened the offer by setting another limited-edition Starbucks cup on the bar top. The scent of warm blood wafted to me and the black raised diamond pattern called to the emo childhood I never got to have. I snatched the cup and put it in the wine fridge. The last thing I wanted was to blood moan in front of my customers.
“Tomorrow then. I’ll pick you up after your shift.” The king beamed at me.
“Fine.” I said. One meal wouldn’t hurt. I couldn’t wait to watch that smug face of his fall as I explained all the ways he was wrong. I didn’t have a double standard. What I did was about survival. It was completely different.
“I’ll look forward to it then.” The king stood and strode to the exit like he owned the place.
Ass.
The moment Jerry shut the door behind him, I could finally take a full breath.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I had been jumping to conclusions. But could he really blame me?
Nine
I knockedon the metal doorframe. “Hey, April. How’s he doing?” I asked my swollen-faced, tear-streaked coworker.
