“I reckoned that Blake fancied himself a Christian Grey,” I muttered as I edged passed a rack of ball gags under the ambient lighting: I bet he had handpicked soundtracks to go with his sessions too.
But then...?
In the shadows at the back, I discovered the only honest — true — item in that dungeon, which was devised to break a man or Blood Lifer.
A medieval rack.
Hartford was chained, stretched by hands and feet across it, pulled so impossibly tight that his ribs stood out sharply; his pale belly was hollowed to a cavern. His limbs were strained and dislocated, whilst his skin gleamed with sweat.
Shocked, I couldn’t make myself move any closer: this was because of me. Hartford had come to this sodding place to get help but instead…he’d taken it for me, as he always did.
What could I ever say? Do?
Then I swallowed my bloody pride, kicked my arse, and rushed to him: my family. I was here now and I’d never allow Hartford to sacrifice himself for me again.
Then I remembered Sun’s shrug.
She’d known. She’d stayed up there blood sharing on silk sheets, amongst wool butterflies and steel trees, whilst knowing that Hartford was down here on the rack. Had she ever truly loved my family or did family simply mean so much less to her?
Hartford’s eyes were closed, and his head was turned away. He was whispering something, over and over, “Let my people go, let my people…”
At once I was tearing off the padlocks around the chains and choking on the dust, as they snaked to the concrete floor in angry coils. First one hand and then the other.
Hartford groaned, before his eyes snapped open. “Little bunny,” to my shock, Hartford smiled, even though I saw the pain that it caused him, “I knew that you’d come for me.”
I smiled back to hide my tears. “Let’s save the love-in and get you free.” I winced at Hartford’s whimper, when I eased the chains off his ankles.
I knew the level of agony that Hartford could take in silence: I’d witnessed it. So, when he screamed as I lowered his arms…?
Someone was going to pay.
I scooped Hartford off that wankering rack; his legs were knackered. There was way that he was strolling out.
Hartford was giving these small gasps of pain like he was trying to hide them. I wasn’t bleeding having that. I cradled Hartford down to the floor. I knew starvation and if they’d been feeding Hartford, then I’d be a Dutchman.
I pressed Hartford’s lips to my neck in invitation. He glanced up — just once — questioningly. Then his fangs sank in deep, and those stars that Sun had seen…? I saw in singing technicolor, backed by Les Pauls carrying me away on electric waves, as spiders danced. It was a blinding, pure communion. I vibrated with it, died and lived in the moment…
Then there was a hand pressing into mine. Hartford had stopped feeding and was resting our foreheads together.
“I’m going to bloody kill them, you know,” I promised.
When Hartford pulled back, his expression was serious. “They found you and Sun, didn’t they? We can use them again, this time to free Donovan.” I shifted, unable to meet his eye. How could I tell him about Sun’s betrayal or that I didn’t trust this new family to help us? “What is it, mac?”
“We’ll talk later. Let’s get you out of here.”
Hartford’s fingers tightened around mine. “Just don’t take any wooden nickels. Promise me? They’re not family, not like we are. Will you remember that?”
I read the desperate question in Hartford’s gaze. It broke my bleeding heart.
I nodded. ‘We’re family, and I won’t forget that.’
Yet Hartford’s fear of my ancestor and his First Lifer echoed my own. Was this billionaire’s home as dangerous as any terrorist’s lair? Yet at least it was more luxurious than most.
The bathroom contained a bath that was a hollowed-out soap, in glowing green porcelain, as well as a swirling mirror that hung frameless above a double basin, which hovered ghost-like. The radiators were concrete scrolling flames.
Hartford sprawled amongst the green, soaking up the warmth into his torn muscles on the outside, as my blood healed him on the inside.
Blinding bit of evolution that.
I circled my fingers into the steaming water. Resting on my knees beside the bath, I’d washed the grime and blood out of Hartford’s golden hair. I’d had to change the water twice already.
Sod it, Blake could afford the water bill.
Sun hovered in the doorway, biting at her nails. Hartford hadn’t spoken to her since I’d carried him up. I wondered how much he guessed.
“Plantagenet’s put out a wicked cream wool suit for you,” Sun smiled.
I didn’t miss how Hartford’s shoulders tensed, when Sun said Plantagenet’s name.
I peeked up at her from underneath my eyelashes. “So, some posh clothes make up for what he did?”
Sun booted the door frame. “You need to understand how difficult the decision was for him on account of he didn’t know Hartford: he was a stranger and a Long-lived. Why should Plantagenet have trusted him?”
“And don’t you, Sun? Trust me?” Hartford didn’t look round at her or raise his voice, but yet his words filled that small space until we were suffocating.
“Whoa, you don’t put this one on me. I didn’t choose any of this.” Sun crossed her arms across her chest; they were shaking.
I ducked my head because she was right. But wanker here? How I sodding wish that she had.
I snatched up a peach blossom scented bottle of some bubbly bollocks, dashing a dollop into Hartford’s bath.
Atishoo…
When Hartford and I both sneezed at the same time, we laughed. Then Hartford clutched at his ribs.
Finally, he sobered. “I’ll level with you: I never expected…Plantagenet,” that flinch again at the name, “to be like he is. Donovan loved him and the way that he’d talk about him… He just never let on that Plantagenet would be...”
I smiled, softly. “You always idolize your Author, I should know.”
“Do you?” Sun’s steely stare was dissecting me in a way that made me feel like I was back on that examining table.
“Not as an Author, mac. As a lover,” Hartford murmured the words, but I still caught them.
What was the bloke protocol here? Thump Hartford on the back in commiseration or swear blood pack revenge on Plantagenet?
I settled for growling, “Wanker.”
The thing was, however, Plantagenet might’ve been a wanker. Scrub that, I knew that he was in his own special way because he’d hurt Hartford and blood shared with my elected.
Yet the secret? The one that I’d never tell?
Plantagenet was also Ruby’s Author, who I’d heard stories, whispers, and myths about for decades, and yeah, when did I believe in bollocks myths? But now the myth was flesh and bone in front of me, the pull was…excruciatingly beautiful…like rainbow numbers cascading in orgiastic waterfalls, and I wanted it.
Not him.
It.
The blood, connection, and family.
If Donovan had experienced even a small part of that, then he hadn’t stood a chance.
Poor Hartford.
Still, I couldn’t help remembering the aching loneliness, which I’d sensed in Donovan back in his psychotic ‘60s days, as if there’d been a cog missing in his mechanical heart. I’d figured that it’d been love, when I’d seen him with Hartford at Abona, but now I reckoned that it’d been the loss of his Author, Plantagenet.
Donovan was going to have one hell of a choice if we got him back.
When…when we got him back.
I massaged Hartford’s shoulders, pushing my thumbs deep into the torn muscles. He let out a sigh halfway between heaven and hell.
“What about Ruby?” Sun wandered further into the bathroom, leaning against the sink.
I stiffened. “I don’t bloody know, do I?”
But I did…because a kiss do
esn’t lie. Ruby must’ve been Plantagenet’s lover as well.
“What about Donovan’s twin...?” Sun asked.
‘I reckon Aralt was too busy shagging Ruby; I saw the highlights.”
I shuffled uneasily on my knees, as Hartford eased his hands to cover his cock. Sun has that effect on you.
Then Hartford’s hands clasped hard onto the edges of the porcelain, as he leant forward in shock. “Jeepers creepers, mac, Plantagenet and his sugar daddy didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms, and I’m merely the boyfriend of Plantagenet’s ex-lover. But you, poor little bunny? Bumped off two of his elected. What do you reckon he’ll do to you?”
I was so buggered.
When Hartford’s slender fingers massaged my shoulders, I also felt the steel of his grip. He grinned around his bruises. “The only reason I’m all balled up?” When he pressed his swollen cheek, it was me who cringed, not him. “For crying out loud, don’t you know me by now? I chose to take it. I was over a decade suffering every torture a twisted First Lifer’s mind could conceive: to hurt and heal for more. And I took it and survived. To start with it was for myself. It’s no line that it became…more…for every Blood Lifer trapped there. Of course, then there was Donovan. After all that, do you reckon that I’m no stronger than a pampered brat?” Hartford pulled himself up in the water, shaking the droplets in wild sprays across the tiles from his hair. “I’ll do anything to get my lover back, and they’re screwy if they reckon that I’ll let them harm my family.” Hartford brushed my cheek lightly. “You’re my family, just so Mr Low Self-esteem is clear.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“Why the frig aren’t we like that?” Sun blinked, as if surfacing from considering a deep problem. “Plantagenet, his Author, Ruby, Donovan and Aralt: they all loved each other. Why isn’t our family like that?”
I pushed myself up, whilst my chest ached. I tried to smile. “We do love each other.”
“Naw,” Sun drawled, as if explaining to the dim kid in class, “not love…lovers.”
Hartford and I exchanged a glance.
I took a cautious step towards Sun. “I love you. Only you. I want—”
“I want, I want, I want… Who elected you boss anyway?”
Stunned, I gaped at Sun, as she stood with her hands on her hips.
“Give Light a break,” Hartford commanded. “All families are different, and folks change. A fella don’t stay the same, does he? Donovan’s my lover now. He’s with me and—”
“You hope,” Sun’s eyes were frosty, yet so fragile, “but what the frig do either of you truly know?”
Then Sun swept out the bathroom, leaving us two blokes silenced.
I perched awkwardly on the edge of a vast sofa that was made out of molded soft toys, which squeaked — eek — each time I shifted my arse.
It was like the maddest Hatter’s tea-party ever.
Well, maybe not ever…
Blake’s lounge looked as if a creative mind had exploded its raw emotion across a billionaire’s canvas. Chairs of timber offcuts or rubber: the poor exploited for the rich. The coffee table was untreated birch logs, held together by a steel band like it was about to be hauled away by a lorry. The room was scented with eau de blood, which was an interesting choice.
Blake had certainly gone all out on his Blood Lifer adaptations.
A black rug puddled like tar. It reminded me of the rug in Grayse’s Primrose Hill apartment. I tensed when I thought how easily Sun fitted in here, as she sprawled on the toy sofa. Hartford was balanced like me on the edge, holding himself still, and it hurt me to see how hard he was working to hide his pain.
When I’d first prowled into the lounge at Blake’s bidding, I’d noticed the wallpaper. There were still no windows, so the rich Victorian steeples, spires, and cupolas had spun me back like I was truly there — home.
For one disorientating moment, I’d been in another time and place, smelling the smog of London, the mists of London Bridge, and tasting humanity.
Then I’d shaken myself and snorted. I’d started to turn away when…
“Bugger me.”
The man on the wallpaper under the tree? He had his cock out and was pissing against a grand old English oak. The bloke kipping in the leafy park? He was drunk.
I’d glanced at Blake, who’d been holding court on a chair made of hosepipe. Plantagenet had been kneeling at his feet.
Yet this wallpaper subversion was genius. Maybe there was more to Blake then the type of tosser who couldn’t date a real bloke and instead bought a Magnificoe as a toy.
Unless Plantagenet had chosen the wallpaper...?
Suddenly, Hartford had given a yell of delight and a clap of his hands. He hadn’t been quite up for dancing but he’d rushed (and I’d hated the awkward way that he’d held himself, gasping on each step), to a white grand Steinway, which huddled in the corner like a captive unicorn.
With a smile, Hartford had caressed the keys. He’d scrubbed up well in the clothes that Plantagenet had sneaked onto the bed as a peace offering: prisoner to guest.
“Do you play?” Hartford had asked.
“Don’t touch. I don’t want you breaking it.” At Blake’s sharp command, Hartford had withdrawn his pale fingers from the piano with a shudder, as if from blood.
I’d seen it, however, the flash of humiliation.
Now we sat here, self-consciously playing at afternoon tea, as if torture, secrets, and murder didn’t lie between us.
That’s the English for you.
Sod this silly buggers.
I raised my eyebrow. “So, you’re these Renegades then?”
Hartford slipped so far forward on the sofa in surprise that his arse practically tumbled off the edge. “I should’ve been the one asking the questions when I was on the rack, huh?”
“My dear child,” Plantagenet leant towards Hartford, his waterfall curls sweeping the carpet, “you must understand how heartfelt my regret—”
“Hooey,” Hartford spat. “And I ain’t no child, fella.”
Plantagenet knelt back. “I am aware. In trust, however, we must now work together.”
“You want us to,” I shifted on the sofa…eek…sodding soft toys… “Join you?”
Plantagenet’s smile was infectious; I had to battle it. Hearing how hard Hartford was still struggling to breathe around his fractured ribs helped. “Imagine the glory; you are a miracle!” I jumped. What did Plantagenet mean? He didn’t know anything about me, apart from my slavery. Unless Sun had told him my secrets and surely she couldn’t have betrayed me like that? “Sun has made intimation of your wondrous memory and play with numbers.”
Private, private, private…
I was flayed bloody. Sun had stripped me bare for these… I didn’t even know what they were yet. I couldn’t look at her and that bleeding hurt.
“Sun’s already working on our financial side,” Blake chuckled. “She’s making millions, whilst we sit here. Now that’s what I call a miracle. I’m sure Hartford will be useful for something.”
I didn’t miss Plantagenet’s remorseful glance at Hartford, who was as still as a statue, which for Hartford was simply wrong.
“May I?” Plantagenet’s fluid rise (just as Hartford had mastered as a slave), a nod from Blake, and Plantagenet was diving behind the sofa. He reappeared with a bag like you’d get from one of those posh City department stores. Grinning, he swooped to sit on the coffee table, as if about to hand out pressies at a kid’s birthday. He sinuously slid out a box, which was strung with so many ribbons that I could’ve hung myself with them. Then he pushed the box onto my lap. His hands were trembling: I hadn’t expected that. “I’ve been a saddle-goose.” That quick peek at Hartford again. “I wish us to be one. Sun made suggestions that this would be of worth to you.”
I yanked off the lid.
A bottle of gin? E-cig? Fernando’s bollocks served on a silver platter?
My leather jacket.
I wrenched it out of
the tissue paper, wrestling my arms into the cool leather. I was me again.
I lobbed the empty box back at Plantagenet. I didn’t want anything of his or Blake’s touching me.
I remembered how Will had mended my jacket, passing it back to me in his grubby hands, in the needle-junked shadowed world underneath London Bridge. Even though he hadn’t had a coat himself on the freeze of the streets.
I knew which gesture meant more to me.
Plantagenet fiddled with the ribbons. His gaze was anguished. “Did I not get it right?”
“Cheers,” I said quietly as his distress pulled at me, “but what would be of the most worth to me? Donovan.”
A flash of pain across Plantagenet’s face, which was hurriedly smothered. “I as well, yet I spoke to you of sacrifices? They are mine too, alas. Jamie has a business empire, and we have a war to wage. Donovan will be saved: by this hand, I swear it. But for now…”
“Donovan ain’t no sacrifice. He’s the fella I love.” Hartford’s eyes blazed. “Just so you’re clear on that.”
Plantagenet glared at Hartford.
They both radiated power: ancient, dark, and dangerous.
“I am indeed clear.” Plantagenet licked his lips, as his hand trailed down his chest. “As long as you are clear that Donovan was the Blood Lifer that I loved and bedded so very long before you.”
I gripped onto Hartford’s knee to try (what would’ve been bleeding ineffectually), to stop his lunge forward, at the very moment that Blake called out grimly, “Blood time, Plantagenet. Where are your manners?”
Plantagenet’s shoulders tensed at the rebuke.
I smirked. “Earned a spanking, has he?”
“Why?” Blake clasped his big hands together: I noticed for the first time that he was also wearing a silver ring on his left hand. “Want to watch?”
I flushed.
Why the buggering hell was Blake wearing a slave ring too?
Then all thoughts, however, were driven out of my blood craving brain because Plantagenet was passing out packets of human blood from his expensive pressie bag: they looked like haggis. That explained the eau de blood. When Plantagenet pressed a packet into my hand, I almost dropped it.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 69