Serenity's Key

by Charlotte E Hart

  “Why did you hit me?” What? He swung his head around to see Alexander standing there again, the priest now walking away in the background dangling his beads again.

  “Here?”

  “Yes, here.”

  “I am not convinced…”

  “Why?”

  He raised his foot again, ready to leave once more. This was not happening in front of the small crowd. Prayer and humiliation were one thing. Discussing matters of degenerate jealousy were quite another. “If you move one more step without answering me, you can consider all of this finished.”

  He hovered his leg, hearing the malice suddenly threatening in the man’s tone. There was no chuckle, no nicety. The tone was menacing, utterly malicious and so gloriously welcomed he could do nothing more than lower his leg again. “And put your head on the floor while you do it. It’s time you remembered what’s happening here.” That was an unappealing prospect, but he did it anyway, understanding the implicit impact of the words. Submit.

  He pulled in a breath, inhaling the smell of the slabs beneath his nose and remembering the feeling associated with being down here. It had been so long since the last time. Lilah was almost there, but Alexander commanded it. There was nothing but submission in this moment, nothing but the true resolve to give in, surrender, yield and honour the man above him.

  “I was jealous,” he said quietly, remembering the thud of metal against bone and shivering from its effect on his innards. A hand touched the back of his head, gently fluttering about in his hair until it fingered its way down his jaw, picking it up as it did. He lifted his head slowly, allowing the man to support his weight a little, as it should be.

  They just stared at each other, Alexander crouching, and him on his knees, and he felt the same sensation he always felt near the man. Love. Not the same as his love for Lilah, though. He realised that now, Lilah’s was elemental somehow, entrancing. No, this feeling was less profound, more physical in its demand on his being. He gazed into the man’s eyes, hoping for absolution, maybe even for the release he felt himself craving.

  “What do you need from me, Pascal?”

  “Your hatred, Sir,” he replied instantly, whispering the words and waiting with baited breath for a response. That was what he needed from the man. Not love, although that was welcome, too, but it was the pain he needed, the effortlessly blinding pain that came from an aggravated sadist in full swing. He gazed on and watched the crisp blue eyes nodding in reply, hoping that the man would drag him to the nearest dungeon and rain hell down on his spine with vengeance. Instead, Alexander simply leant forward and kissed him on the forehead, then stood and waggled his fingers to get him to his feet.

  He walked a few paces behind at first, lingering in the feeling of his lips on him, and then stared up at the man’s back as he cut through the crowds. As always, the world parted for such a presence. Women gawped in delight, men scowled and then moved anyway in begrudging respect. Alexander himself hardly noticed. He simply carried on moving without thought for the matter. Probably remaining in his own mind rather than worrying himself with the admiration or irritation of others. He seemed calmer, more relaxed in general. His shoulders seemed less stiff, and his body seemed more fluid. Perhaps the time was here now. Could it be that he had found his way through the conundrum without his guidance? Had Elizabeth endured something new?

  His own feet caught up with the man as he watched the swing of his legs and they crossed towards Castel Sant’Angelo.

  “You are changed,” he said eventually, still labouring a pace behind and wondering where this new Alexander had come from.

  “I am enlightened, as you would say,” Alexander replied, turning his head to smirk a little and then tipping it towards himself. “What are you doing back there?”

  “Being submissive.” Was that not obvious?

  “Stop then. That’s not how this is going to work and you know it.” Did he? He scowled at the thought that the man was ahead of the game. It wasn’t unbelievable, but it sat uncomfortably nonetheless.

  “You just had me on my knees in St. Peter’s Square and now you’re telling me not to submit?”

  The man chuckled, then laughed raucously as he crossed the Piazza Adriana and continued left for Piazza del Popolo at a rapid pace. Presumably, they were heading for the villa Borghese. Why the man loved the place so was beyond him with vile tourists constantly littering the grounds.

  “It was good that you made me come here again. Everything is always clearer here.”

  “It is hardly clearer. Jon is coming for my daughter.” Alexander stopped and swivelled so quickly Pascal nearly knocked into him.

  “Yes, how are you feeling about that?”

  “Jon?”

  “No, that’s mind-numbing. I meant having a daughter.” That was definitely not mind-numbing, and he was still not entirely sure he had forgiven the man for not telling him about it in the first place.

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  “It wasn’t my place to tell you. It was Lilah’s.”

  “It was your job as my…” The man raised a brow, halting the imminent tirade of irritation, his hands in his pockets as he crossed into the street again and flagged down a passing water seller.

  “Lilah is what you asked me for. Lilah is what you’ve got,” he said, handing some notes over and taking a sip of the liquid. He finished his mouth-watering guzzling then opened his mouth again. “Even though I’m bored with the thought, you lied to me about Jon, didn’t you? What did you do that pissed him off so severely that he is after your daughter?”

  “I may have extinguished a family member some time ago.”

  “Thrilling,” the man drawled, starting to walk again and reaching into his pocket. “Andreas?”

  Pascal nodded. There seemed little reason to deny it now. Alexander smirked, nodding to himself as if he already knew the answer anyway and was simply testing for truths.

  “Is that all? Nothing else lurking in your closet that you feel the need to lie to me about?” Many things, but nothing more to do with Jon Innsbrucker.

  “That I’m aware of.”

  Alexander held a box back at him over his shoulder as he began to move ahead again, still not bothering to get out of anyone’s way. He simply owned the pavement in front of him.

  “I thought you might want this, assuming it was you that put it on her. You might even keep her if you try hard enough.”

  He took the box from the man’s fingers and opened it. Lilah’s bracelet lay there, sparkling at him. He stopped and stared at it, realising the connotation of her ripping it from her skin in the first place and wondering if she would ever wear it again.

  “I might love her, but I doubt she’ll wear this again,” he mused to himself, given the fact that Alexander was already turning into Villa Borghese, and he had the sudden urge to leave. To go back to Lilah maybe and see if she would wear such a thing again. He could still feel her nails in his skin, still feel them shredding and gauging their way through his soul. Perhaps if he told her about his mother and the affect she still held over him then she would acquiesce to the request to stay. Alexander’s head popped back around the corner, a wry smirk on his face as he tipped his head in the direction of the villa and then disappeared again.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had been here as he stepped into the gardens. Maybe five years ago when Sabella had wanted an afternoon promenading. She was more able then, less inclined to need support. He watched Alexander pluck a rose and tuck it into his pocket, clearly smiling at the thought of Elizabeth. They were so similar. Sabella had the same vacant gaze in the throes of frustrated passion. She, too, dwelled in the same constant darkness as Alexander. He’d never introduced them, but Sabella had seen the man many times at Eden, watched him and helped Pascal find a route forward. She was older, wiser, and knew herself well enough to understand such hatred. He’d never found out the reasoning behind her anger, never probed sufficiently to seek the truth, but he owed her
a great deal for her guidance. Lilah, should she choose to visit with Sabella, could learn a great deal from her indeed. She was one of the most destructive sadists he’d ever known, Alexander included.

  “Are you ready for Jon,” the man asked, dragging his hand across the waist height flowers.

  “Why are you so nonchalant about such things? This is distressing to me. She is my daughter.”

  “Would you like me to kill him as he steps off the plane?”

  “Yes.” The man nodded and smirked, raising his brows as if the whole situation was hilarious. It was not. “No, I want to see him in pain. Claire is my daughter. He should be dismembered for even thinking about obscenities involving children.” If not decapitated, too. He scowled at Alexander, wondering if he was recovered enough for such undertakings. “Are you able to do such things? You are not fully recovered from the…” he continued, flapping his hand at the man’s head and refusing to say the words out loud. Alexander nodded again, his brow continuing with its amused reaction. “Why are you are still smiling? It is not comical to think her in harm’s way.” The man carried on walking, turning his gaze away and across to the small lake instead.

  “If you think I’m amused by Jon or the thought of Claire in harm’s way, you’re wrong. I’m amused by Elizabeth sanctioning me doing something that I said I would never do again, for her. I’ve had fun being free to play again. The chase has been simulating.” Again? As far as he could see the man had not yet begun to play.

  “It is not unpredictable she would allow such things. She understands my child’s worth.” Alexander stopped sharply, enough so that Pascal nearly collided with his back.

  “She merits your worth to me, Pascal. Nothing else.” Hmm. A compliment of the highest order.

  He was honoured by the thought given the woman’s absolute abhorrence of anything morally incorrect. Although, killing the likes of Jon was hardly of consequence to humanity’s vanilla morality guidelines. The man, friend though he might have been in some ways, would be better off dead. His contacts, too, if he could find them and put a stop to the abominable trade.

  Some time passed as they kept wandering, both comfortable in their own minds and letting the other think. He watched the people milling around, some sitting on benches, holding hands, being in love. It was pleasant, as pleasant as it could be anyway, given thoughts of murder and decapitation.

  “What are you doing about Roxanne?” What? He swung his head from gazing at a child who had been frolicking about with another, enjoying the sunshine and smiling.

  “Lucinda is of no interest to me. She will be sent back to New York and can rot in her own cesspit for all I care.”

  “She’s still the mother, Pascal. You can’t just keep her away. She has rights.”

  “She will give up those rights the moment I threaten her with ruination. Without money, Lucinda is nothing. And everything that she has I can get to and take away should I choose to.”

  The man chuckled slightly, and then lifted his phone to his ear as he turned back to the entrance of the park, ambling on his way and looking up into the sky.

  “You do complicate my life,” he said, having pocketed the phone after a short conversation. Complicate? He should very much hope so. Although, there was a better explanation for such things than complication.

  “I do not complicate anything. I illuminate. It is what I do. You are enlightened, hmm? You said so yourself, did you not, when we walked the river’s edge earlier?”

  Alexander did not answer, nor did he give any indication that he agreed. He simply placed his unfathomably talented hands in his pockets again and waited by the side of the road for something. Pascal waited, too, not knowing what he was waiting for and caring even less. The man was more in tune with him than he’d ever seen. Ironically, the calm was quite handsome, regardless of the ceaseless hankering he himself had for more belligerent activities. He pondered the thought, sensing the man’s somehow soothed breaths as he stood there. What had made him so comfortable all of a sudden?

  “Why are you changed?”

  “I told you, I have been enlightened. I’m surprised you don’t know why.”

  That was all he said as a car pulled up. He did not know what car it was, nor did he feel the slightest bit perturbed as Alexander held the door open and nodded inside. He simply got in, doing as he was told with little thought to the end of the journey. For whatever reason, he trusted this new version of Alexander implicitly, never once doubting the journey they were about to travel. He smiled at the image of the man getting in, his aura now filling the space with peace rather than its normal tension, and stared at the bruising around his temple again.

  “I am sorry for that.”

  “I know. Where is it?”

  “What?”

  “Your cane?”

  “Discarded somewhere. It hung too heavily.”

  “Shame.” A shame indeed, but he would not be reminded of it again, irrespective of the lingering ache in his hand, or the fact that Lilah believed he should have another. “You seem incomplete without it.”

  He sighed at the thought. He felt incomplete without it, thoroughly and inexplicably depleted without its smooth sensation in his fingers. And he missed ramming it into people, or tripping them with it, or even beating people with it.

  “Lilah believes I should purchase another.”

  “I would do as Lilah says then.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Have you told her all your truths yet?”

  He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he watched a tourist woman placing a sunhat onto her child’s head and smiling at it as the car drove past. It warmed his innards further, managing to push the image of his mother’s truths away to the furthest corner of his mind for once.

  “Why have you never probed me for such things?” The man leaned his head back on the rest, turning towards him and smiling, still relaxed and seeming in complete control of everything happening around them. A true dominant indeed. Pascal watched his lips twitching, watched the way his hand reached over and landed on his thigh, then watched in astonishment as it travelled up to his face and began to pull his chin towards him.

  “Tell me you love me.” He was so shocked by the move, and the question, he almost had a heart attack in response. It stuttered in his chest, almost burning its way through him and reminding him of the love he felt for the man.

  “You know I do,” he replied quietly, finding the words hard to say for some inexplicable reason. Not because they weren’t true, but because this was more intimate than it had ever been. It was broad daylight. There was no sexual connotation, no woman involved, no urgency to get something completed, no aggression or force. It was simply them, in a car together, driving through Rome and pondering life.

  “Say it,” Alexander pressed again, sharpening his hold and refusing to allow him to look away from the moment, nor deny it. He was absolutely in control of the discussion. There would be no backing down, nor hiding from the truth, not that he wanted to but it was disconcerting to see him so focused on control. In just a few words, he was asking for everything. The grip on his chin grew stronger as he tugged again, lifting his lips closer to his own and promising the world with them.

  “I love you.”

  And just for once, time between them stood still as it did with Lilah. Vivid blue eyes stared straight through him, into his very core, disabling any unwillingness to comply. The man was very much ready. He appeared to need no guidance, no clarification, nor did he seem uncomfortable with the conversation. If this new version of him was staying, it was most definitely time to hand over the reins and submit. He dropped his eyes downwards a little, struggling to keep hold of such an intense feeling and yet, in the same breath, ready to give him everything. Elizabeth could go to hell if he chose to take her there, as could he himself. There would be no more looking after her, no more care for her safety. Alexander would deal with it, in his own way, whatever way that might be. It was time. What had changed he
did not know. Why he had suddenly become so much stronger, he couldn’t say, but it was there now, waiting and ready for use.

  Lips nudged his upwards again, opening his mouth at the same time and softly rolling around his own, shocking him yet more. They were tougher then Lilah’s, more able to dictate pace and force, and yet still he could feel her there, too. He could sense her in that moment, taste her even. His tongue wound itself around, searching for Alexander alone, but it wasn’t there to be found. They were combined somehow, filling him with thoughts of pleasure and contentment as a hand dragged him closer, deepening them and promising happiness.

  “I love you,” Alexander said, causing his heart to beat faster, tripling in speed as his cock rose beneath him. He’d give anything now, roll over and be taken for eternity if that’s what the man wanted. Strip and be humiliated for all time. He cared not as his mind cleared and all thought left him. He could only feel, and he felt everything. Even the prints on Alexander’s fingers gripping his neck. Warmth was here. Love, respect, honour, decency. Their teeth clashed a little, breaking them of the quietness surrounding the moment. He smiled into the movement, feeling like a hormonal teenager kissing for the first time behind sheds, then chuckled into Alexander’s mouth, which earned a returning smile.

  He didn’t know why, couldn’t for the life of him fathom the depths of the man or what had made him so complete. He could only let their lips find each other again and revel in whatever this was.