I See Hell in Your Eyes
Chapter Two
“Does the deer forgive the wolf?”
Josh Kiszka x Vampire!Reader
Warnings: None other than descriptions of blood.
Word Count: 3504
You hobbled through alleys and back streets for what seemed like hours, desperate to get to your destination without being seen, or worse, stumbling upon a human and doing something stupid. Your wrists were still burning, bleeding, and locked together because of those stupid fucking silver handcuffs that asshole shackled you with. As you twisted your way through the city, your mind was reeling with theories as to how that man was able to resist your Persuasion like that. It was unheard of! In the three centuries you had been alive you had never seen a human of all things resist that. Humans by nature were so gullible and easily persuaded to do anything that it was hardly even considered a “power” by other creatures. But he not only resisted it, he completely fooled you into thinking it was working. Arguably this was much worse, a fucking human getting the best of you? He needed to be dead. You needed to bleed him dry, watch the light slowly leave those pretty brown eyes of his, and leave him behind in some alley while you get on with your life.
Turning a corner, you finally spot the heavy metal door you had been walking towards all night. It was very nondescript, blending into the alley wall it was stationed in. With the last bit of strength you had, you start kicking the metal hoping the occupant on the other side would hear you and let you in. Your hands were too sore to knock properly, your fingers curled into your palms in defeat from the sterling silver of the cuffs.
You kept kicking the door, getting more and more forceful the longer you went without a response. Finally, you could hear slow footsteps on the other side, a familiar grumbling voice complaining on its way to the door, before dramatically sliding it open and flooding the alley with light.
“Alright, alright, calm the fuck down-” a thick New York accent greets your ears and older, crinkly blue eyes took in your appearance and looked you up and down, immediately spotting the cuffs and blistering wrists, “Ah shit come inside, love.” He was probably one of your favorite faces, but you wouldn’t admit it. He went simply by “Les”, no last name, and never elaborated on what it was short for. He was one of the most prolific arms dealers this side of the country. He was human…as far as you could tell, but you always suspected he was a lot older than he said. Les had bailed you out a few times after you pissed off the wrong creatures, and here you were again, needing his help.
You gave him a half smile as he stood aside for you to come in and swiftly slammed the door shut behind you. Your ears were met with familiar Italian opera music playing on a record player in one of the other rooms. Various weapons he had collected over the decades lined the walls, with a few taken apart sitting on his work bench in the center of the room. You made your way over to the bench, sitting on a vacant stool and hauling your mangled wrists onto the surface of the workbench, wincing as the cuffs dug deeper into your skin and making the most unpleasant sizzling sounds.
Les sat on a stool next to you, immediately dragging over a tool kit to start picking at the locks. “Now what have you done this time?”
You start rattling off details of your night, how you just wanted to go out and have a nice meal in peace, running into…him, and how he blind sided you in the alley behind the bar. Les nodded along while working at the locks, you noticed he was being extra careful to not break them, which started to annoy you, “Can’t you just cut them off?”
“And damage sterling silver cuffs like these? Hell no. That's more work for me to fix later, these have more value than you think.” Of course, business always came first. You slouched in a petulant matter, sighing in relief as one of the cuffs popped open, freeing one of your hands. Les started in on the second one immediately as you shook out your free hand, letting the skin heal and close up.
Les looked up at you curiously, “now what do you mean he wasn’t affected by your Persuasion at all?”
“It didn’t even phase him! He just kept going on his little ‘I hate your kind you will pay for existing’ spiel and trying to say I was behind a bunch of bodies being left all over the city? I never leave bodies behind!” Les narrowed his eyes at you, “I mean, not in a long time!” The second cuff popped off your wrist, and you were finally free from the blasted things. You shook out your hands as your wrists healed, relief flooding your body as the wounds closed. Your skin healed quickly, but it still left you in your original predicament of being hungry.
Les scooped up his tools and slid the cuffs off to the side, “Now…don’t quote me on this but I’ve heard that some hunters have gotten their hands on some sort of magic to protect themselves from your kind.”
“What kind of magic would do that?”
“Sigils mostly, witches are all about their sigils as you know,” he said with a slight eye roll. “But those hunter families, you know the ones who are born into it? Where their whole family line consists of hunters blah blah blah, they typically have a few witches to help them out for their…line of work. It's honestly a little hypocritical to me, using witches to hunt other supernatural creatures, but you know how hunters are, they’re not exactly ethical, even if they think otherwise.”
You inwardly groaned at the idea you ran into one of those bloodline hunters. You didn’t cross paths with them often, the last time had been a few decades ago when one of them had ended up in actual Vampire territory, way too confident for their own good. They didn’t make it out alive. You recalled their skull was used as a trophy, and a warning, for quite some time.
“There aren’t very many of those families left anyway. The Turners were wiped out back in the 60s, the McGavins haven’t been in the country in years, last I heard they were hiding out in Canada. I remember some French family that stupidly thought they had cleaned out most of Paris but found out the hard way that they had not.” you counted on your fingers as you tried to remember the fates of the hunter families, your eyes trailing off lost in thought.
Les nodded as he crossed his arms, “...have you heard of the Kiszkas?”
Oh no. Oh god no. Not them. You had heard stories, even lost some friends to those fuckers. They were a long line of hunters, from “the old country” as it were. You had kept your distance from them, they mainly kept to themselves on the western side of the country. There were rumors about how ruthless the newest generation was, and how there was an alleged set of twins that were particularly nasty.
“They haven’t been this far east in a long time. No…it couldn’t have been one of them…” You tried to reason.
“For your sake I hope you’re right and it was just some random dickhead adrenaline junkie. But you have to consider the possibility given that he wasn’t even phased by any of your Persuasion tricks.” He stood up from the stool and walked over to a small fridge in the corner, “still hungry?”
You looked up at the sight of the open fridge and saw a few blood bags sitting on the top shelf, and your mouth instantly watered, and your gums itched to let down your sharp teeth. Blood bags weren’t ideal, and no Vampire would say it was their favorite way to eat, but they worked when necessary. “Since when do you keep blood bags?” You tried to keep your voice steady and held onto the table so you didn’t launch yourself at the fridge.
“Since I seem to have little Vampires show up at my door at all hours of the night needing my help,” he said warmly before plucking a bag off the shelf and carrying it over to you. You took it instantly, ripping off the end of the tube that was connected to the bag, using it as a straw. It was almost embarrassing how fast you slurped it down, but Les handed you a second one to make sure you were ok. The two of you had a quiet understanding. He always stayed neutral when it came to the politics of supernatural creatures, never taking any sides and helped out whomever paid him what he was owed. Strictly business, he always said. His neutrality was what earned him his respect, but he never helped out hunters. Even though he was an arms dealer, he had never once done any sort of work with them. Not for any virtuous reason, but they had fucked him over a few too many times and he just couldn’t be bothered with them after that.
“The sun will be up soon…you need to get home before it does.” You glanced up at the clock on the wall, and saw you had about an hour before proper sunrise. Shit, you’d have to hurry to get back across the city to your apartment.
Standing up, you place the second empty blood bag on the table, “thanks, Les,”
“Any time, kid,” he always referred to you as ‘kid’, even if you were as far as you knew centuries older than him, “just promise to not be stupid out there, ok?”
You nodded as you slipped out the door, and back into the night.
~*~
However, across town, a particular hunter was not having a good night. Not only did you completely give him the slip, he lost his only lead on the case he had been given by his father. Typically, he worked cases with his twin, Jake, but this was one of his first solo missions, and he wanted to prove himself. He sat in his kitchen, pouring over the evidence folders he had been given, looking at the photos of dead bodies, all with familiar puncture wounds on their necks. It didn’t take a genius to know a Vampire did it, and this one was sloppy. One of the bodies was found in a shopping center parking lot, and was nearly discovered by other humans who still didn’t know Vampires existed. The hunter had wondered what ignorance felt like, and if it was as blissful as often described. He never had the chance to know if the world truly had monsters or not. His bedtime stories were always filled with creatures, his schoolwork always supplemented by “additional” education at home. He knew what weapons were best for whatever creature by the time he was in third grade.
He knew Vampires couldn’t stand silver, and had even witnessed it first hand when a particularly stupid one tried to break into his family's house when he was roughly six years old. The vampire had gotten ahold of his twin and he had the wherewithal to grab one of the knives hidden under his bed and stabbed the creature in the leg, disarming him until his parents rushed in and…took care of it. That was the night he saw a Vampire die for the first time as well. A silver tipped stake, shot out of his fathers crossbow directly into its heart. It didn’t turn into dust, like he thought. The creature collapsed onto the ground, lifeless, but it was what happened to the body that startled him. The skin shrank back and turned this disgusting gray color, almost shriveled on the bones, especially in the face. The eyes glazed over in a yellow cast, stuck open in surprise from being shot, and the death rattle it emitted would haunt his nightmares for months.
The hunter sat back, running his hand over his face, trying to think of any other leads. His mind kept circling back to the alley, and how easily you got past him. He thanked his lucky stars his brothers hadn’t been present, or else he would’ve never heard the end of it, especially from the youngest of the four. It pissed him off how ill prepared he was, he had been so confident going into that bar that he’d capture you and take you back to his family’s estate for questioning. The idea of dragging you in front of his father had spurred him on for over a week as he tracked your whereabouts. He could have, and was usually instructed to just kill you and be done with it, but he had the thought that you might be useful in leaking any other information on the Vampire nests that infested the city. It took a lot to impress their father, especially when it came to hunting because of how important their work was. Ridding the world of that filth and keeping fellow humans safe was paramount.
However, his brain would not stop flashing back to how you looked, and he hated himself for it. The stupid ponytail you had your hair in, the laughable get-up you had on to “blend in” with the other humans, the giggle you let out when he spoke to you, the way your eyes sparkled as you listened, but it was all a ruse. A sham, no different than a cheetah blending into the savannah grass in hopes to capture a gazelle. He closed his eyes as he remembered the kiss, still a little shocked that kissing a Vampire wasn’t much different than kissing another human. The warmth of your body surprised him the most. He hadn’t expected your hands to be so soft, let alone your lips. He hated himself even more for thinking about it like that. These were rookie thoughts about rookie mistakes and he had too much experience under his belt to get distracted by a single Vampire. He had to focus.
But most importantly, he had to find you again to get the answers he was desperate for.
~*~
Weeks went by and you hadn’t had any run-ins with that annoying human. You had been living your life in relative peace. Feeding where you could and being extra careful to not leave behind any “evidence”. Heeding Les’ advice, you kept yourself out of trouble. You were being good!
The human in your possession had been very easy to lure into the back corner of the park, where the trees were thicker and people hardly walked by. You had him up against a tree, fangs clamped into his throat as you enjoyed the rush of blood into your mouth. You almost moaned at the taste, your left hand gripping his hair to hold his head still. As always you instructed the human to remain quiet, assuring him that he wouldn’t remember any of this when you were finished.
You were so close to being fully sated, seconds away from being finished when you heard a familiar, and aggravating voice behind you, “let him go.”
With a small gasp, you pulled your mouth away from the human's throat and looked over your shoulder at the source of the words, “... can I help you?”
“I want you to get the fuck away from that man, for starters,” the hunter said.
Rolling your eyes, “Ok, fine.” You turned to the human, who was still in a daze from being fed on. Quickly, you bit into your finger to draw some of your own blood, rubbing it into the wounds of his throat to heal them as if they were never there. You took his chin between your thumb and index finger, looking him directly into the eyes as you instructed, “I need you to go home, you were never here in the park, you don’t remember me, or the lughead behind me.” The hunter scoffed at that, “you’re going to go home, eat some food, take some iron, and go to bed. Now go on and get a cab.” You smiled, tapping his cheek as the human nodded, and walked off into the main area of the park and out of sight.
“See? Catch and release!” You turned toward the hunter and threw your hand at the direction the human had walked off towards.
The hunter rolled his eyes, “You know I could kill you for even doing that.”
“And yet here I am. Alive.”
“‘Alive’ is debatable.”
You fully turned towards him, leaning back against the tree. “Alright, Boy Scout, what do you actually want with me?”
In a speed that you weren’t aware humans possessed, the hunter was on you once again like in the alley that first night, silver knife once again pressing into your throat, burning the skin. “I just have a few questions.”
You threw your hands up near your face, you weren’t risking him cuffing you again. “Yeah? Same here.” He was so close, his face inches from yours. This time the moon was shining overhead, its nearly full face was reflected in those big brown eyes of his. They looked so determined as they glared at you, he wasn’t faking his disgust at all.
He ignored your response, “well, since we last met,” he hissed, his mouth twisting into a snarl, “three more bodies showed up just outside the city.”
“Once again, that wasn’t me,” you emphasized, rolling your eyes.
“I know your kind are more in contact than you’d like for us to believe, do you know of anyone who would be sloppy enough to do that?”
Staring at him, “it's not like we go over that in the meetings,” you deadpanned. He pressed the knife even further into your skin, blood starting to trickle out of the wound, “Ok! No, I haven't heard anything. None of my friends are that stupid. Anyone who leaves bodies behind like that are normally really young and either don’t know any better, or don’t give a shit.”
“Do you know of any new Vampires around this town?”
“I haven’t heard of any newbies for awhile. We’re more selective than you think.”
“How did you get turned?” For a fraction of a second you saw his face soften, as if he hadn’t meant to ask that out loud.
But the question itself made you pause. You never thought about the how, and why you were turned. It was so long ago that you firmly shut the door to your previous life in your mind. You weren’t one of those self-loathing Vampires who felt cursed by their existence. You loved your life. You loved the power you had, forever young, being able to do whatever you wanted and go wherever the wind took you. Longing for human life was only in the movies. Being turned freed you in so many ways, any reminder of before was unnecessary. You weren’t that kid anymore. You never would be again, and you were fine with that.
Cutting your reverie short, you straightened your shoulders against the tree, and smirked at him, “personal questions like that require dinner.”
“Yeah well I’m not a big fan of the kind of dinner you like,” the corners of his mouth twitched. Did he almost smile? Whatever expression it was, it was gone instantly. The snarl returned.
The two of you stood there, staring at each other. The mutual resentment was palpable.
“All these questions, Boy Scout, and I still don’t have your name.”
He studied you for a second, weighing his options. He briefly thought about giving you a fake name, but his ego wanted you to know exactly who he was. His name had weight in their world, it meant something. Well, his last name did. His first name on its own hadn’t been given its own reputation yet. He had always been in a unit with his brothers that just their last name was all they needed to get anywhere. It struck fear into other creatures. Sometimes, fear is good.
“Josh.”
You were really being pinned to a tree by a man named Josh? Of fucking course. You were right by calling him Boy Scout, it fit almost too perfectly.
“Josh what?” You narrowed your eyes, he was playing keepaway with the details on purpose.
Pressing the knife even further into your throat, the dark blood trickling even more onto the knife, spilling onto his thumb that held it in place. Vampire blood was different from humans, not nearly as red, but a darker, sludgier color. The stain it left was unmistakable.
He leaned even closer to your face, all but whispering, “...Kiszka”
Well, fuck.
Tag List: @lightmylove-gvf , @dannyandthekiszkas , @gretasmokerising , @sinners-go-to-drink-the-wine , @wideminded-dreamer , @runwayblues , @wildbluesorbit , @llightmyllovee , @rhythm-of-space , @sacredthefran , @writingcold , @alwaysonthemend , @wetkleenex-gvf , @josh-iamyour-mama , @lightsofthe-living-gvf , @gvfcinema ,
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LOVE + FEAR TOUR: NADYA DZYAK & OTHER
We have finally arrived at the third and final chapter of our “Love + Fear” world tour fashion breakdown! After we looked at the designs of Maggie Barry and Olima, it’s time to tackle down all the looks created by the other designers who were involved in this epic tour.
This week I'm introducing you to Ukrainian emerging fashion designer Nadya Dzyak whose designs were adored by Marina and stylist Mercedes Natalia for her tour.
First up, we got the Spring/Summer 2019 long ruffled nude tulle dress with matching round belt ($822.00).
M also wears the Versace’s heart-shaped Love gold ring with Medusa icon and meander pattern...
...and her beloved Nike Huarache sneakers in full white!
Nadya Dzyak’s Resort 2020 lookbook showed the designer experimenting with unusual color combinations and new shapes. Here, our girl wore the nude tulle mini dress with multicolored dots, ruffles and silk trim.
Her jewelry here included a pair of Alison Lou’s green neon Jelly hoops from her iconic “Loucite” collection...
…and a vintage Chanel gold sunburst logo chain necklace.
Next, Marina looked dazzling on stage in another Nadya Dzyak Resort 2020 confection: a blue dotted tulle tiered mini dress with silk trim. Check out that circular pleat at the front!
This look was crowned with a pair of ZARA gold hammered earrings with three flat faux pearls...
...plus her Hermina Athens Amalthea gold-plated sterling silver statement necklace.
At her Dublin date, the Greek-Welsh singer chose this crimson red tulle mini dress with dots, matching belt and silk trim from Nadya Dzyak’s Fall/Winter 2019 collection.
Manchester-based label The Dolls House was founded in 2012 by Rebecca Henry. Marina debuted the sparkly Cindy silver sequin dress which features a square neck and ruched sash detail. HOT!
A pair of Steve Madden’s Carissa metallic silver sneakers with silver-tone rhinestones all over perfectly tied the look together.
We’re almost at the end! Marina wore two colorful looks from the Resort 2020 collection of Maisie Wilen, the young emerging designer who was discovered by Kanye West back in 2019!
First up is this orange & blue psychedelic abstract print long-sleeve mini bodycon dress with asymmetrical hem.
The other look is the Body Shop psychedelic printed green & blue long-sleeve top and matching leggings.
All of her jewelry is Sylvia Toledano. She wore the Petite Candy hoops in gold brass with turquoise, turquoise verte, cornaline, yellow onyx, amethyst, died ruby and moonstone…
…the Fall/Winter 2019 Lee long necklace with multicolored stones which she wrapped twice around her neck…
…and the Byzantine cuff with green turquoise, dried ruby, turquoise, amethyst, cornaline, green onyx, tiger eye, yellow onyx, black onyx and calcedoine.
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Timeless Trends: Western Jewelry Styles That Never Go Out of Fashion
Western jewelry has long held a unique place in the world of fashion. With its rich history, cultural significance, and distinctive style, it has transcended trends and continues to captivate jewelry enthusiasts around the globe. Whether you're a long time collector or new to the allure of western jewelry, understanding the timeless trends that define this genre can help you make informed choices and appreciate the beauty of these enduring pieces. In this post, we'll explore key western jewelry styles that never go out of fashion and why they remain so beloved.
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Navajo Pearls: Elegant and Enduring Navajo pearls, handcrafted from sterling silver, are an elegant addition to any jewelry collection. These beads, often oxidized to create a vintage look, are strung together to form necklaces and earrings. Why It’s Timeless: Navajo pearls offer a subtle yet sophisticated way to incorporate western style into your wardrobe. Their understated elegance ensures they can be worn daily or reserved for special occasions, making them a true wardrobe staple.
Conclusion: Invest in Timeless Western jewelry is more than just an accessory—it's a piece of history, culture, and artistry. The timeless trends of turquoise jewelry, silverwork, concho belts, bolo ties, leather and silver bracelets, and Navajo pearls have stood the test of time, and their popularity shows no signs of waning. Investing in these pieces means more than just following a trend; it’s about owning a part of the enduring legacy of the West. Whether you’re looking to start your collection or add to it, these timeless western jewelry styles are sure to remain in vogue for years to come. Embrace the beauty, craftsmanship, and history that these pieces offer, and enjoy the lasting style they bring to your wardrobe. Call to Action: Explore Our Collection Ready to add some timeless pieces to your collection? Explore our extensive range of western jewelry and discover the perfect pieces that will never go out of fashion. From handcrafted silverwork to vibrant turquoise, we offer a selection that embodies the spirit and style of the West. Shop now and find your next heirloom-worthy treasure!
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