by Ana Calin
The door creaks open, but the chamber presents some minimal amenities this time. The decorum is a shade gothic—a dark king size bed with a black canopy and golden pillows, a stone fireplace, a vintage vanity table and, of, course, my portrait of him. He places the torch in an iron bracket, and I stop in place.
“This will be your bedroom,” he says.
“Of all the rooms in this manor, you choose the tower for a marital chamber? You have a fetish for ‘grim’?” My face burns, and I can’t blame the torch anymore.
“Oh, this will be your chamber alone. I won’t be sharing it.”
I should be relieved, and yet I’m not. “So you don’t intend to consummate the marriage?”
He gives a low laugh as he approaches, tall and warm behind me. His chin lowers to my shoulder, his fine fingers brushing my hair away, freeing the curve of my neck. A thrill goes through me at his touch.
“I like the symbol of the tower,” he murmurs, his undertones dangerous. “It’s where many great men imprisoned the women they desired.”
“Is that what you intend to do? Imprison me?” I struggle to keep my voice from shaking.
“You’re bold, Saphira. I like that. But I can smell your fear. The human body releases certain hormones when it feels fear, and I’m equipped to sniff them.”
I remember the kind of monster he is, and I can’t restrain a shudder.
“I’ll have you do things for me, Saphira,” he says, low and dark. “I’ll command, and you’ll comply.”
I snort, bitter and defying. “I will not obey your orders. I’d rather die like Pukov.”
“Oh, I know you’d rather die, Saphira. You’re noble and just, and this isn’t personal. But you happen to be the daughter of a highly despicable maggot and the wet dream of many an oily bastard, so you’re the best tool I could ever dream of.”
“And you’ll use me without scruples.”
“I’ll accept your fair sacrifice.”
“I will not obey you,” I repeat, squaring my shoulders, more to persuade myself than him.
“I imagined you’d want to rebel. Which is why I said I’d make my revenge epic.”
His lips touch the curve of my neck, soft like velvet, and my skin electrifies. I stiffen and decide not to give him satisfaction, but it’s a challenge. His hand pushes my hair further to the side and drapes it over my other shoulder, while his lips trail to the nape of my neck. I try to turn and stop him, but his hands tighten on my upper arms, keeping me in place, while a deep calm clouds my head like an opiate. I know he’s using his powers on me, and I wish I could defy him, but I’m falling deeper under his spell.
His fingers start unlacing the back of my dress, slowly, his kisses light on my neck, sending ripples of pleasure all over my skin. My laces now unfastened, he brushes the dress off my arms, and the silk pools at my feet, leaving me half naked. I can feel his hips against my naked buttocks.
He undoes my bra and, before I know it, his hands cup my breasts, my nipples hardening under his velvety palms. He loses a low moan of satisfaction and turns me around.
I’m now facing him, a handsome demon with fine ivory face and pitch black eyes that drill into mine, taking possession of my mind. He’s still fully dressed in his dark suit while I’m standing vulnerable before him in my thong and garter stockings, my hair undone and my high heels still on. He drinks in the sight of me with avaricious eyes and pushes me to the wall, his lust unleashed. My back slaps against the cold wall while the Marquis presses his body on mine, his abdomen rock-hard under his shirt. He grabs me beneath my thigh, crushing my lips under his, and invading my mouth with his tongue.
I’m hot and burning as his other hand works between us on his fly, and only a moment later I feel his manhood like smooth stone between my upper thighs. He pushes a strong knee between my legs, and forces me to pull up one knee, while he rips my thong. Oh, God, he enters me, his grip sinking in the flesh of my thigh.
I arch my back as I receive him, burning with lust and knotting my hands in the rich gloss of his hair. I’m hot and pasty down there, but he’s long and thick and it hurts as he grinds deeper into me. My walls split painfully, and when he’s all in I feel him in my lower belly. He frowns and groans as if he’s barely restraining himself.
“Aw, you’re so tight, Saphira,” he says in a gruff voice.
No, you’re huge, I’m thinking, but what comes out of my mouth is a whimper and a moan.
He grows brutal, stripping off his gentleman polish and showing his true savage nature. He’s relentless, his thrusts making my shoes fall off and clatter on the stone floor. My feet no longer touch the ground.
He takes me like I’m a wanton, and yet I build up like never before, coming hard around him and unable to restrain cries of ecstasy, tugging at his hair. It’s not enough to even move him, and he takes in the sight of me with rapacious black eyes. I can feel him throb inside me as he finds his release, his groans deep and animal-like, looking me intensely in the face. I can’t sustain the eye contact. I avert my gaze and fall apart in his arms, heaving and looking down over his arm, ashamed of myself.
We spend moments like that, and his spell on me begins to lessen. Still, the flutter of my heart and the clench of desire inside me don’t relent, and I’m forced to admit it’s not his mysterious powers that have me charmed. He makes me stand again, his hands on my shoulders keeping me to the wall as he searches my eyes. I blink often to come back to my senses, but then he lets me fall down to my knees before him.
Puzzled, I look up. The anger in his eyes strikes me. He buttons up his fly looking down on me, like a pimp who’s just tried out the new goods, and walks to the fireplace. From the tripod candelabrum on the mantelpiece that holds the top candle he removes a small camera. I feel dirty, used, worthless, and I crouch in a corner, covering my breasts with my hands, and glaring at him with powerless reproof.
“You won’t obey me, you said.” He makes a half-turn to look at me, his gaze dark and dangerous. “But I’m pretty sure you’ll cooperate quite willingly in order to keep this from reaching everyone you know. And matters could get worse. You wouldn’t want your friends, Jeanie and Vivienne, to be used the same way, right?”
My God. That’s why his men are after them. That’s why Joyous pretends to be courting Jeanie.
“That’s beneath you, Marquis,” I breathe.
“It’s the only way to manipulate an ice queen,” he sneers. “You will be my instrument against the Elite, and you’ll help me take them down, one by one.” And then he speaks the first name on his black list. A name that makes my jaw drop and my synapses fire like crazy.
CHAPTER VIII
AN EPIC REVENGE
The drunkard hangs on me like a big monkey as we leave the pub. His saliva is sticky on my cheek and neck, smelling of alcohol. My stomach churning, I let him drag me around a corner in a dark alleyway, where he throws me against the wall and starts groping me under my skirt.
“You’ll like this, Saph’ra,” he blabbers, lowering himself and grabbing my backside greedily with both hands. My fingers claw the stonewall behind me, my throat clogging in disgust as I expect his tongue to touch me down there, but it doesn’t get to.
The Marquis’s blade flashes from the dark as he grabs the drunkard by his hair and forces him up, bringing his bloodshot eyes to the level of mine. He speaks in the man’s ear, probably telling him why he’s dying, and I watch those puffy eyes widen in dread, all signs of intoxication gone. The bastard is one of my father’s best friends, and the Marquis intends to torture him right before my eyes. But the man tries to struggle, and his fate is sealed faster.
He’s a lucky bastard.
The Marquis slits his throat, warm blood splashes my cheeks and neck. The gush makes my breath catch, and I throw my head to the side. I’m gasping for air, blinking, realizing what’s happening just inches from my face.
Joyous and Stone Mask grab me and shove me in the car waiting at the end of the alley before I get a
chance to come back to myself, or see the bleeding body, but I hear the metallic swish when the Marquis wipes the blade clean. On the ride back to the manor I can’t stop shaking my head, scared and shocked and disgusted.
We’re there soon, and the guards see me to my chamber in the dark tower. It’s still very much a gothic dungeon, barely resembling a place to reside but for the bed with ragged black canopy, the fireplace and the few furnishings. The guards start the fireplace to warm up the luxury prison, while I scramble to the bathroom.
I grip the edges of the sink as I breathe in deeply to calm the nausea. I don’t have the heart to look up at myself in the mirror, so I keep my gaze down on the red pumps made of patent leather. Whore-like. The black leather skirt is a little too tight on my hips, and bits of pale flesh swell through the loops of black net-stockings.
A fit of madness takes over me, and I rip them off, groaning through gritted teeth, the nausea and anger pushing saliva at the corners of my mouth. Only when I sink in the hot bathtub do I manage to calm down, turning from furious to a vegetable.
I lie in the bubbles, staring at the dark vaulted ceiling, then at my own hair undulating in the water over my breasts. I’m sick and afraid, but both feelings subside when the Marquis’s presence fills my head like an opiate.
I look up at him, looming tall and elegant and arrogant over me. His pitch black eyes make a demonic contrast to his clear-boned, ivory face, and his lips stir me in a way they should not. Rich, dark hair frames the head I’ve painted so often with my bare hands, eager to feel him, to understand him. Now I’m half-successful at hating him.
He inspects me up and down, and I think there’s hunger in his gaze. A rough kind of desire that hurts more than pleases me. It seems to be an effort for him to turn and place the lonely rose he carries on the edge of the sink.
“Forgive me,” he says in his deceiving, luring voice, and makes to leave.
“Please.” Tears well in my eyes. “Don’t have me do this again.”
He keeps his back to me.
“He wasn’t a victim, Saphira. He was a dirt bag who experimented on children. You did it for a good cause.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you enjoyed watching.”
Pause. “I did not enjoy it.”
I scoff sourly. “You sound almost sincere.”
“Have I not always been sincere?”
Indeed, he has. More so than anyone has ever been to me.
“Just tell me it’s going to stop,” I whisper. “Tell me this will end someday.”
“When they’re all bleeding in the gutter, Saphira.”
“How many are they?”
“More than the Earth should have to bear.” His voice almost cracks. As I realize the implications for me, my stomach is sucked away.
“Please, don’t.” My lips quiver, and my body feels like it’s going to break into shards.
“I told you, Saphira. I’ll make my revenge epic.”
CHAPTER IX
SHADOWS OF THE PAST
Everything feels like a corset. The cream dress squeezing my middle in and my boobs out, the Marquis’s grand ballroom, the tuxedoed men, and the congratulating women. They clink their glasses and eye me up and down when they think I’m not looking, my image reflected in the polygonal crystal tumblers filled with champagne.
When they see me up close, some of the guests seem stricken, but by now I’m used to the effect of golden eyes staring out of a pale face. I lost weight, and this counts to the aftermath. My grammar teacher’s words crawl up from distant memory, “heretic gold.” I even caught her crossing herself once after I sat back at my desk. Now, without Mum’s usual help, the make-up only enhances the effect instead of damping it down, but the golden waves of my hair matching my eye colour make the sight a little more bearable like some kind of symmetry.
“You’re beautiful,” a familiar voice says, causing me to look to the side, seeking the source. Jeremy Simmons stands to my right like a guardian angel. He’s anything but, yet right now the kindness in his eyes makes it hard to keep back tears. It’s been a while since I’ve been at the receiving end of kindness.
“Thank you.” My whisper comes out a little raw.
He reaches for my hand, my fingers white and skinny, splaying over his palm in search of his human warmth, so different from the serpent smoothness of the Marquis. The engagement sapphire on my finger seems to glare at him. Ostentatious. Glitter standing for a dirty lie disguised as a fairy tale.
Jeremy takes this gesture of mine for more than it is, and squeezes my hand, pulling me closer a bit too fast and too roughly. I feel forced to look up into his face. A frown darkens his rough masculine lines, and his steroid-fed muscles bulge under his suit.
“You can’t do this, Saph. You can’t marry him.”
It sounds like an order, and I resent it. I pull my hand away, coldness quickly replacing my urge to cry.
“You’re in no position to tell me what to do, Jeremy. Even less at my engagement party, it’s particularly disrespectful.”
“Saphira, I see you,” he stresses, lowering his face close to mine. I feel awkward. In the end, to all eyes now gawking, this is my fiancé the Marquis’s ballroom, and I look almost intimate with my old boyfriend.
“You’re pale, uptight, and something weighs heavy on your mind,” Jeremy continues. “You stare lost, like a junkie. If I didn’t know what was going on, I’d say he has you on drugs, and pimps you at night.”
The words bring tears to the back of my throat, salty and pushy. My cheek twitches, right beneath my eye. He’s so close to the truth, too close, making me want to spill it too badly, but I realize exactly what he said.
“If you didn’t know? What do you think you know?”
He looks around from under his sewn eyebrows, his scowl suiting the inspector he is.
“Not here.”
“I won’t be able to talk anywhere else.”
“You can’t talk here either, with all these Toms watching you like you’re Jerry. The catacombs. Do you remember them?”
Memories rush through my mind, not to mention my heart. Back when we were kids, he used to call Virgin Vivienne and me chickens for not following him and Billy down to the dungeons under this very manor, which stood empty for decades before the Marquis bought it from Father.
I swallow and nod. Curiosity makes the blood thump in my ears. I need to know what he knows.
“I’ll wait for you as long as I must, so take your time,” he says, now looking away, pretending casual. “Don’t take any risks.”
With only a few of his long legged strides he puts distance between us, getting lost in the crowd. As my gaze follows him it bumps into the Marquis, who’s staring hard at me. The blackness of his eyes is chilling. I swallow, unnerved by his beauty. He stirs emotions in me, and I’m not sure I can blame them on his hypnotic powers alone. I’m a victim crushing on her abuser, but I’m determined to kill the feeling or die trying. I move on through the crowd, but his black gaze sticks to me like a shadow.
He keeps watching me as I move around, making a show of my presence, but avoiding contact at the same time. It’s especially hard to keep the man who fathered me off my tracks. Nausea hooks in my throat as I grasp once more, once again realizing that I’ve grown up in a nest of deranged killers disguised as polished gentlemen, gathered in Northville to protect their ridiculous riches and festering criminal habits. Every time I catch a glimpse of the man I can’t stop thinking of as “Father” I wonder how rotten he actually is inside.
A shift in the Marquis’s attention triggers opportunity. He’s turned to greet Ronald Lord Barkley—the head of the lunatic asylum—and his family, who’ve just entered through the grand doors. They’ve been relieved of their coats by the valets, and now seek a welcome worthy of their aristocratic blood from the Marquis and his ever-present entourage made up of undercover bodyguards.
I pick up pace, gathering the folds of my dress in my hands to make a sprint easy
when I’m completely out of sight, but run into Virgin Vivienne as I turn at the nearest exit.
“Saph,” she says, holding her palms up to stop me. There’s a grave look on her face. “Not so fast, we need to talk.”
Vivienne is usually grave and serious, so I don’t stop to consider her reasons. She’s an aristocrat, and her attitude always makes a statement of it. She is tall, her back straight like a wood plank, and her natural dark-brown hair up in a tight bun. She keeps her make-up minimal, and the features of her face are truly noble, making me think of a princess almost every time I see her.
I grip her hand. “Cover me, please.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever you do, keep whoever might want to follow off my back. Say I went to powder my nose, change my shoes, change my panties from my part, just make sure no one picks my trail.”
I throw the final words over my shoulder, already running towards the service stairs that I know should lead down to the catacombs both Vivienne and I used to have nightmares about as children. The boys used to bring back all kinds of objects like rusty iron cuffs—the place used to be a prison centuries ago, in medieval times—or snakes. Snakes.
I stop running as I reach the hidden stairs in the ruinous left wing of the manor, a damp chill cooling my face as I descend. The lighting is faint, but it does the job, so I don’t have to fear stepping on small reptiles or heaps of roaches. Still, I’m dead scared.
Old lamps line the lime walls of what looks like dungeons indeed. The cells seem cavities carved in the wall, rusted iron bars separating them from the aisle. Creaking old metal and dripping water disturb the silence along with the click of my steps on the stone, giving me goose skin.
Jeremy emerges from one of the cavities, placing himself, broad and bulky, before me. I come to a stop, facing him. My heart is pounding because I know there isn’t much time. I must get back soon, Vivienne won’t be able to hold the Marquis and his people off my tracks for long. I square my shoulders and raise my chin, deciding on a line that would mean something to Jeremy if he knows at least as much as I do, and nothing if he doesn’t.