The Picture Of Dorian Gray Novels & Stories

His fingers still wore the shades of red and black colours, while tiny drops of white and gold, glinted off the backpack he had scrapped off the floor, just a few minutes after Yvette's text. He tilted his head to the brick wall he stood before, and stared a few seconds at the half finished painting. He had managed the upper half of the skull with tiny rose petals floating over it, but the lower jaw was missing. The top had its complete set of gold lined smirking teeth, which among those was a fang soiled in mostly red and part gold. A second of satisfactory smile smeared on his face and disappeared, as he grabbed tighter the straps of his backpack, and picked his way to the location Yve had

He has not broken me yet. We sit in a Parisian café, him closing his eyes to inhale the rich scents of mochas and espressos and croissants as he pauses from his novel. It is The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of his favorites, and like the titular character, he is unchanging. After all these years, that self-same smirk still burns on his face. I take a slow sip of my white mocha confection, too sweet for my liking, and study him: that visage too cruel to be handsome, the cutting eyes like chips of glass. A predatory quirk of the lip. His fangs may be retracted, but he is still a vampire, immortal, midnight blood black as sin, his skin pale as bone.

We were so close I could smell his blood, and I yearned to taste, suck, and drink him in. "So have yours," he whispered, touching my cheek. "What? No way. What color?" I asked, surprised. "They're black and flecked - " He pulled me closer, so we were nose to nose. "Gold, green, red, vio - " A shriek interrupted him. I stood and stuck out my hand for Dorian to take. He did, bouncing onto his feet like a new man. And he was in some ways. "What's wrong with that guy?" One of the girls cried.

I then took out my phone. "Can I take your picture?" I asked again, realizing that I actually didn't have a single picture of Gray on my phone. "Go ahead, do whatever you want," he replied, making me finally start taking pictures from every angle that looked good, especially avoiding any angle that would make Gray look even slightly unattractive. His face was already perfect, and I couldn't even blink my eyes as I kept staring at him.

I frowned, crouched, picked it up. Weighty. Back inside, I tore it open, slow at first, then rough, like my instincts already knew this wasn’t good. Inside were photographs. Not digital. Printed. Matte. High-res. Intentional. Dorian and Venus. One shot in the elevator—she was laughing, looking radiant, and he was staring at her like she hung the moon. Another: the two of them seated at a restaurant, dim lighting, her fingers on the stem of a wine glass, his elbow just barely brushing hers.

Chelsea finished. "Holly. I think her name is Holly," Dorian informed her. "She's gorgeous too," Chelsea complimented. "Yes, she is," Dorian admitted as he stood, swooning over the picture that was displayed across the screen. In the picture, it looked as if they were at the beach, having fun. Holly's beautiful brunette hair cascaded over her shoulders, her beautiful skin tanned to perfection. He wished he could taste the warm, smooth, vanilla and cashmere softness of her skin.

He pulled out a photo and placed it on the table. "You mean this?" Dorian looked down at once; the animal in the picture stared back at him. Dark fur, silver tail, and eyes too intelligent for a normal animal--A wolf! His breath caught almost. His eyes widened to ten times the size of saucers as he stared hard at the photo, his hands resting on his knees, clenching. The room suddenly felt smaller at that instant, and his heartbeat became so loud in his ears he could barely hear anything else.

But I didn’t remember anyone taking my picture. The edges of the photo were worn, like someone had handled it too many times. My fingers tightened on the frame. Why would he have this? “You shouldn’t be in here.” I froze. Dorian was leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, watching me with that unreadable expression. I held up the photo. “When was this taken?” He stepped into the room, slowly, like a predator giving prey time to realize it’s cornered. “Years ago.” “Why?”

The head of intelligence entered, trembling, and placed a stack of high-resolution photos on the desk. Gavin snatched them. The first photo: Dorian draping his coat over my shoulders. The second: us, hugging in the lavender field. The third… me, tilting my head back, giving Dorian a bright, genuine smile, free of any shadows. A smile Gavin hadn't seen in ten years. "That's mine…" Gavin's fingers dug into the edge of the photo, his knuckles white, until his nails tore through the paper, right through Dorian’s face.

Nadia enlarged the photograph. She stared at it. And Dorian watched her face do the thing, the picture assembling and the assembled picture being wrong, except that this time wrong had a specific shape and the specific shape had a name and the name was someone they both knew. "That is not possible," she said quietly. He looked at the photograph again. It was possible.