- VERONICA -

"Sit up straight and take your elbow off the table," Remus scowls, his voice cracking at me like a whip.

I draw a long breath and hold back the urge to stick a knife into his eye for the tenth time that evening. Then I do what he says. I pull back my shoulders and straighten my spine, tucking my elbows neatly to my sides like I'm trying to keep something from falling out of my armpits. When I find out whose wretched ancestors had invented these useless upper-class etiquettes, I swear I'm going make every one of their descendants pay for it with their teeth and see if they can suck in their soups without making a sound. The whole charade of trying to make oneself look good for the satisfaction of a complete stranger is not only degrading, it insults my self-esteem, and devalues my self-worth as a person. I mean really, trying to do this at all is like supporting the idea that people who know how to hold a fork a certain way are better, more superior human beings when half the world's population doesn't even use the damn thing. We deserve to be eaten alive by vampires. We really do.

"You are contemplating whether to stick that knife into my eye, aren't you?" Remus grins at me from the other side of the table. He is obviously enjoying this a little too much. "You know you could have said no."

I plunge the fork into the chicken on my plate, imagining it was Lucien that I'd just stabbed in the throat with my utensil, and put the whole chunk of it in my mouth.

Remus winces as he looks at me chew it with a vengeance. "Oh for God's sake, Veronica. You look like a hamster. That chicken needs to be cut into at least three pieces before you stuff it into your mouth. If I hadn't known better I'd think you were raised by hyenas!"

I open my mouth to tell him to make up his mind and pick an animal to insult me with, because that logic doesn't work, and he holds up a finger in front of my face to stop me from speaking with my mouth full, to which I obeyed. That's a basic manner I can understand, but what's so wrong with putting your elbow on the table anyway? That, I'd like to know and so far nobody has been able to give me an explanation worth the education I've had.

It's all my fault, really. My ego has gotten the best of me. The moment I tell Remus to accompany me to the gala, he rose to the occasion and said that if he's going to be my escort then I'm going to need to be trained enough to not embarrass him. I wanted to give him a mouthful of how much of an arrogant prick I thought he was, but with Lucien sitting there waiting for me to prove myself unworthy of His Royal Highness' attention, I had no choice but to take the challenge. So here I am, following a strict training schedule for the next five days which includes taking ballroom dancing lessons, memorizing every last name that matters in the upper-class circle, and dining with Remus every night in his penthouse in the city for him to fix what he calls my 'Neanderthalic' manners.

The penthouse, I'm happy to say, might be the only good thing that's come out of this mess I've foolishly put myself into. The monstrous apartment he keeps on my side of the realm is a five -bedroom, rooftop living space with its own pool and a private garden big enough to hold a party of fifty quite comfortably. It sits on the top of a 120th-floor building, with floor-to-ceiling glass panels in every room that offer a 360 degrees, bird's eye view of the city below. The kitchen alone is probably bigger than my whole cabin, and I doubt he ever touches a single appliance. From what I know, Remus doesn't even come here. He just keeps it for when he has to be here, like those billionaires who keep an apartment everywhere just to find a place to put away their mistresses.

Since I've been given a new identity as a daughter of some made up guy who owns an oil company, Chris has suggested that I move into this apartment, in case Damien ever sends someone to follow me home. So I've been living here for the past two days and nights, getting the entire apartment to myself safe for when Remus arrives for my daily table etiquette lesson, from which he heads out at the end of every meal, never staying past nine. My ballroom dancing lesson is also conducted here with a private trainer Chris had found. I have a cook and a team of cleaners who come every day now to make sure I'm comfortable. For everything I'm getting, I should say I'm having a blast. It's only during these sessions with Remus, that I find it a form of torture no luxury can possibly alleviate.

"You could have said no." I glare at him when I finally finished chewing my food and respond. If he'd done that, then I wouldn't be stuck in this situation, would I?

"And miss seeing you eat like a primate? I wouldn't trade it for the world." He chuckles. "You have sauce on your mouth, by the way," he adds, pointing at the left side of his mouth to show me.

That's the third animal he's associated with me tonight, but I guess he's sort of right on this one. I release a sigh of pure defeat as I dab the corner of my mouth with the napkin. Maybe I have been raised by hyenas after all. Well, compared to Remus at least, I must be.

I look at him slice the chicken with the grace and thoughtfulness of a Michelin-star chef before putting it in his mouth. Now that I'm forced to learn these things I realize his manner is more than spotless. He moves with such natural elegance in everything he does, sits always with his back incredibly straight, his shoulders are pulled back all the time like Captain America when he walks, and there's always an air of princeliness around him that's impossible to ignore. You can snap a picture of Remus Valentin at anytime and it'll be good enough for a centerfold in GQ magazine.

"You know, you should be the one trying to seduce Damien." It might take a lot less time and effort, truly. "Or his father," I add. "I would imagine you're hot enough to turn any man gay if you try."

He stares at me in disbelief for a moment, and then he begins to laugh, really laugh.

"What's so funny?" I scowl at him.

"Nothing." He shakes his head and gives me a smile that I might have considered cute had he not shoved his blood down my throat. Okay, he didn't exactly do that, but the difference is minuscule, in my opinion.

"You can't just laugh at me and tell me it's nothing. That's rude."

"I was just thinking," he picks up the wine glass and swirls the content, sniffing it while keeping his eyes on me, "that it's the first time I've met a woman whose one and only reaction to finding me hot is to pair me with another man. I don't know if I should find it flattering or insulting, to be honest."

I scrunch my nose at that. "How is that insulting?"

He leans back on the chair and leers at me. "The fact that you've removed yourself from the picture completely, of course."

From under the table, his foot brushes the side of my calf as he raises one leg to cross over the other, and I jump a little at the contact. Then I remember how I did the exact same thing to him the other night in my bathroom, and I draw the conclusion from the way he's grinning so smugly right now that this is how he's paying me back for it. As much as I'm willing to admit that it's working quite a bit, I'm not the kind of girl who enjoys being on the receiving end of such an advance, not without leaving my own mark in return. I'm the hunter, not the hunted, that much I need to make clear.

I pick up my wine glass and mimic his grin. "How do you know I wasn't imagining spreading you out on this table naked and licking you all over?"

He snorts at that, even though I can see a flicker of desire in the way he looks at me, regardless of how hard he's trying not to show it. "Because you weren't."

"No?" I send that exact image down the bond.

Remus stiffens and then smiles at me, sucking in a long, agonizing breath and makes sure I notice it. "You keep doing that," he says, dragging a thumb down the stem of his wine glass and back up again as if it were something else he's touching, "and we'll never finish this dinner."

I return the smile, leaning forward on the table and resting my cheek on my knuckles, angling my neck to offer him an unobstructed view of my naked throat. "I'm not in a hurry." I know he's attracted to me, and I'm guessing it has to do with the bond, coupled with the danger of it. For all his efforts to hold back, Remus is still a man and I'm pretty sure he's bound to lose it sometimes. I just need him to drink my blood, just one drop of it and I'll have the leverage I need.

He puts his glass on the table and slides his hand slowly down the stem, then spreads his palm on the tablecloth. The way he rubs his fingers on the white linen as he fixes his attention on me tells me he's giving it consideration. I hold my breath as Remus continues to leer at me from across the table, stripping me down to my bra with his eyes, his fingers digging into the fabric the same way they once did on my leg that night. I can still feel the forcefulness of that grip, the roughness of those fingers as they traveled up my thigh, how they dug into my skin hard enough to give me a bruise. It scares me sometimes when I think about what I'm doing. I'm luring a beast out of its den, and I have a feeling he's going to tear me to pieces when he finally decides to pounce.

"Tell me something, Veronica." He leans over but keeps his hand where they are, and I find myself swallowing at the scent of his aftershave that reaches my nose. "How exactly are you planning to do this?" He asks, trailing his eyes down my nose to pause at my mouth. "Are you going to bite your lip when I taste it or are you going to cut yourself and smear your blood all over me when I fuck you?"

I resist the urge to bite my lip at that. He's one step ahead of me, as always, but that is what makes it a challenge I can't resist, on top of the obvious need I have to bind him to me. "What does it matter?" I ask, tilting my head further back to expose the nape of my neck and the veins in it. "Either way, you're going to end up licking it off me."

"Perhaps." He gives me a grin that makes me grip the edge of my seat. "Or I can tie you up and make sure you can do neither until I'm done fucking you. Your elbow," he says, flicking his eyes down to my arm, "is on the table."

And just like that, he draws back and continues eating as if nothing had happened. I know then that I've lost this game. Remus is too disciplined for what I'm trying to do, or what he has to lose is too valuable for him to risk it. That, or I'm just not quite enough for his standard. I forget sometimes, that he's a three-hundred-year-old vampire. For all that immense lifespan, I can't imagine how many women have shared his bed. For all I know, it's probably the bond alone that is pulling him towards me, and I might have underestimated its influence a bit.

I bite my lip and pull my elbows down, glaring at him as I continue to slice the chicken on my plate. This is not going to be as easy or as quick as I thought. The fish I need to hook, I remind myself, is really the one sitting across the table looking at me, and Lucien is right, I have no idea how to catch one that big.

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A/N: I thought I should leave some notes now that I feel a bit less awkward on Wattpad ^^! This is probably the shortest chapter I've ever posted in my life which also breaks my never-less-than-6,000 words an update rule, but seeing that Wattpad actually suggests keeping it 2000 words-ish, I'm going to give it a try. That said, it's the first time writing first-person for me, and I think it gives me an opportunity to change POV often so perhaps it's not a bad idea. Anyway, thank you for reading if you've come this far. Please let me know your thoughts on the story as well as the short chapter thing. I'm utterly defenseless so I can't bite even when I want to lol *is such a loser*