Page 35 of Stitched Up in You
It sits under the mansion, the room embedded in rock and only has two entrances, one hidden in my manor and the other in Jekyll’s mansion, with a small train connecting the two that travels within minutes to each.
A veritable fortress in the guise of a humble manor, all for show.
One that isn’t as necessary as we had once thought in the early days, especially since creating a village around the two compounds. Slowly more supernatural have come to live beyond our walls, and now it’s being polluted by a human. It rankles, even as delectable as she is.
She brought me to my knees with only her mouth.
An alarm sounds and I clench my teeth, bringing the voltage I’m outputting to a more sustainable level for the machine.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter, and glance out the large oval window as steam sprays across the contraption, allowing the device to cool itself as needed. Fashioned from a rare metal that can contract and bend without breaking, the pod absorbs the energy I generate inside of it and then sends it through a series of cables that effectively store the electricity for later use by running in a residual current around the complex.
I close my eyes and attempt to relax as I go back to my task, pushing thoughts of the vexing female away.
Pressure valves hiss, and the massive network of cables and hoses around the room hum as they fill with electricity, seemingly groaning as I exert my will and push it towards the underground cable lines. Despite its billion-dollar price tag, it still requires much skill to operate. Yet, no other being has the ability to collect and store energy this way, one that helps the ghouls and supernatural community overhead flourish and prosper.
Humans harness electricity and convert it into different energy sources, but collecting and holding an energy source in one place has proved impossible to them. For me, it’s just another Tuesday.
Except I have never experienced the energy levels like these.
Whistles blow and steam surges over the pod like it has done all night.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter to myself, the sound reverberating around the insulating walls and fading away. My body is betraying me with my temper is the only reason I can come up with as to why my power is acting this way.
Not a soul could hear me above stairs were I to shout. I could crush the floor to ceiling contraption and never return. And the idea has merit, especially after being publicly affianced to a criminal.
But what a criminal.
Her sharp intellect and self-assured demeanor are undeniably captivating, as her quick-witted tongue. She has a quick mind and uses it to get what she wants, something I admire.
And at least with last night’s ministrations, I’ve finally found a way to appropriately exhaust that mouth of hers.
It was clear the second she attempted to saunter off my lap that she had gotten what she wanted from me. And now is my turn to get what I want from her.
The machine valves whistling comes to a stop, shrinking to a soft hush with my control.
Today, I will use her intellect. If she is to be a thorn in my backside for the time being, I might as well put her skills to good use.
Far too chaotic to be kept at the penthouse, were Mikael’s words. He insisted we need her alive, even as we knew she would attempt to force her way into my office, we gave her every opportunity to do so, assuming she would take the opportunity to contact her handler.
She surprised us all by accessing the Talbot mainframe without attempting to communicate with anyone. Like a greedy magpie on the scent of gold, she nestled into the database in lessthan five minutes, leaving my cyber security team flushing with embarrassment at how easily she overran our own security.
If anyone else knew, she would already be in the ground, no matter how much Mikael would whine at the loss. He seems to think she is somehow important, integral, he said, wanting to use her skills somehow to hack into a specific cloud that I haven’t researched well enough yet. The fact that he sings her praises still after what she’s done sets me on edge.
The infuriating female donated to the city and announced our engagement in the same breath, something I’d never think to anticipate. It’s almost infantile, but rather brilliant.
Clever girl.
I shut my gaze and the arcing light flashing inside the pod reminds me of how the cameras had flashed on the street.
She is going to pay for every second of mischief she has caused.
And I can think of several different ways how.
After I shed off this extra current that seems to have built up overnight, there are several other things that need my attention, none of which have to do with the irritating female.
No matter how pleasurable her mouth is.
Finally, I sense where the static pool of energy within me begins to subside and allow myself to relax. 9 a.m. can’t come soon enough.
