by Lund, S. E.
"You're in no position to tell me to do anything," he says, his voice cool.
I cover my eyes, tears of sickness and frustration welling up despite my best intentions to be strong. I say nothing, trying to avoid him as long as I can.
I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you…
I toss on the bed, gritting my teeth, my hands shaking so badly that I can barely push myself up.
"Are you going to make me come to you?"
"Yes."
"Why?" I say, barely able to stand. I have to grip onto the post at the foot of the bed for support, my knees are so wobbly. "Just to torture me?"
"Because I can."
I struggle to walk across the floor to the window, holding on to the chest of drawers for a moment to control my dizziness.
"Just to show me how powerful you are? Like a pimp and his junkie prostitute?"
"To teach you some humility."
"Humility?" I say, my fists clenching. "By humiliating me?"
In the moonlight he looks so damn desirable, the silvery light caressing his bare skin, highlighting his cheekbones and lips. He's truly beautiful – it hurts just to look at him. I hate that I need him.
Finally, I stand in front of him on unsteady legs. "Your wrist?"
He shakes his head and then reaches up and runs a fingernail along the skin on his chest over his heart. A thin dark line forms, and blood drips from the wound. "Here. Where you stabbed me that day."
"You're a bastard," I say, my voice breaking. He says nothing, just sits there like some god waiting for his slave to swear obedience. "You want me to kneel?" I say as I crouch down on my hands and knees, barely able to keep my balance. "Then I'll kneel. Don't expect me to call you my god."
I creep the rest of the way, tears of anger and frustration – and need – on my cheeks. Then I crawl up into his lap, my arms around him, and press my mouth against his wound, gasping in relief when I taste the blood, but crying as well. I have to lick the dried blood to get any, and it isn't nearly enough to quell the sickness in my body and mind.
"It's stopped," I say, frantic. "I need more."
"Suck."
I stare up into his face. "I hate you."
"You already said that."
I pull away and glare at him through my tears. "I won't forgive you for this."
"Yes, you will," he says. He leans his head back and closes his eyes, a look of sadness on his face. "Because one day, you'll use this to kill Soren."
I can barely believe what I hear though the fog of pain.
"You're going to let me?"
He hesitates, as if it hurts to say.
"Yes."
I lean in and suck the wound, and soon fresh blood flows again, just a small trickle onto my tongue and into my mouth. When I swallow, the relief is immediate. The pain and sickness flees, draining out of me as Michel's blood drains into me. I soon lose myself in the taste of it, the feel of it, the blessed relief of it – of his skin against my mouth, under my hands, his body pressed against me. Bliss fills me, and all the anger, resentment, and frustration vanishes. I no longer know where I end and he begins, and finally, when I've had enough, I pull away and release him, slipping out of his lap, between his thighs, and onto the floor, lying on my side, satiated.
He picks me up and carries me to the bed, then lies down beside me, his arms wrapping around me, his body spooning against mine. We connect, and I don't care what happened before or what will happen in the future. The experience of his blood in my body, his mind meeting mine, his emotions feeding mine, of our bodies joined through shared blood and touch overwhelms everything that I felt just moments earlier. I know without words his true regret for what happened. He fears this fate even though it gives him the most solace he's felt for eight hundred years. He did everything to prevent it and would have stopped it if he could go back in time.
There is no going back in time. He undresses me and I him, and we roll around on the bed, wrapped in each other's arms, drowning in each other's senses. His mouth is on me, mine on him, the sheets caught up around us. I forgive him.
We lie together, recovering, and while his passions calm, his mind won't leave me, and I feel him probing my memories, searching for something – what it is I can't tell – but the search is determined, focused. He lingers over certain memories and feels my emotions as I re-experience them. I realize he's reliving everything that happened between Julien and me, searching for how I feel about him.
“Stop,” I say. “I love you.”
“You said you could love him as well.”
“I said I could. I didn’t say that I loved him. And that was only because I thought I might never see you again.”
“I don’t want you even looking at him.”
“You’re so jealous,” I say, smiling, tucking his hair behind his ear. “But you don’t have to be. He was a substitute for you. I fought letting him be that, but in the end, I was so lonely for you.”
“I am as jealous as ten jealous men, Eve. You have to understand that. I feel as if I have to banish him from my life now.”
“Don’t you dare,” I say. “He loves you. You love him. You’ve had each other for eight hundred years.”
“I don’t want you in the same room with him. I don’t want you ever to be alone with him.”
“Michel!” I take his face in my hands. “I love you. Period.”
“You fucked him and you enjoyed it.”
I shake my head in exasperation.
“If I could take it back, I would.”
He sighs and pulls me back into his embrace.
Then, he starts searching my past life by stimulating my memories.
Happy scenes of my childhood in our cottage west of St. David's in Pembrokeshire on the southwest coast of Wales, the warmth of the large kitchen with the bright yellow curtains at the window overlooking a spray of wildflowers in the garden and beyond it the ocean. The smell of baking bread in the old cooker stove my mother rescued and refurbished at great expense, the heat of the wood stove on my face and hands after playing in the surf. The scent of salt water in the wind as I play along the rocky shore, the seabirds wheeling in the sky above me, diving down in a circuit for the bits of bread I throw to them.
The clear crisp starlit nights when my father took me out to watch the meteor showers, lying on our backs on sleeping bags, oohing and ahhing as the meteors burned across the heavens. Watching the moon through binoculars, joking that it looked like it was made of blue cheese not Swiss, and then later, seeing Saturn through our backyard telescope and taking a long-exposure photograph with our new camera. Hours of piano lessons spent alone in the quiet study, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves of books and family photographs, practicing arpeggios and scales till my fingers hurt.
Then, the trip to Hungary, the narrow streets and limited horizon such a change from the wide-open spaces of the Pembrokeshire coast. Dirty old buildings, the cobblestone streets of the old market square, the babble of an incomprehensible language surrounding me. The crisp white blouse and woolen skirt of my uniform, my mother patiently braiding my long fair hair into coils on my head as was the local fashion among girls of my age. To the one memory I want to deny – Boston, the university, my mother's death. I try to shut him out and he rises up and looks at my face.
"Don't shut me out," he says, his voice thick with emotion.
"Not there," I say, covering my eyes.
His voice pleads.
"I won't go back there, I promise. Just let me in."
I close my eyes and think about him, welcoming him in. It works immediately, and I feel him enter my consciousness as if a wind has blown in through an open window. He begins searching through my memories, and settles on one from before my mother died. I was seated in a salon in Prague just before we moved back to Boson, playing the piano surrounded by my father's friends and some prospective teachers. The huge room has high ceilings and windows, the walls covered in gilded paper and full-sized portraits of eighteenth century lord
s and ladies. I play on an old grand and those gathered to judge me sit and listen, assessing my skill, my touch, my interpretation of the music. I play a theme from a Beethoven concerto and there are tears in my father's eyes. I'm so happy, pleased that my father's proud of me. I crave his approval and work diligently in order to get it, performing to his standards so I'll get more attention.
Michel moves on, searching for more memories. One from a few years earlier in Wales in which I lie on the couch beside my mother, sick with a cold, my throat aching, my nose plugged. I'm happy though, because she's stroking me, smoothing my hair, my head in her lap. I'm perfectly content to be home from school watching cartoons on television while she reads a book.
Another memory of walking home from school in London with my babysitter. Rain falls and I stop to explore the streams and puddles formed along the gutters, the tiny rivers carrying leaves and twigs along to the drains. We make a boat out of a piece of paper from my backpack and I kneel, umbrella over my head, and watch it float along on the water's surface to the drain, spinning in a circle as it reaches the larger puddle.
Christmas in Boston, attending the cathedral in the city for Mass, the incense, the stained glass, the priest in his colorful vestments, the murmur of the congregation repeating the litany. I enter the church, dipping my fingers in the font, genuflecting at the side of the pew, the wooden bench hard against my bony knees, enjoying the sense of awe I felt being in such a holy place.
It's the last time I go into a church except for her mass and the last time I felt any connection to a god. The next day my mother dies in front of me, gasping from a bite wound on her neck, bright red arterial froth foaming at the wound, dripping from her mouth as I lean over her and try to stem it.
Stop! Grief overwhelms me and I shut him out, covering my eyes, the memory far too real, the emotions too intense.
"I'm sorry." He takes me in his arms. "I didn't try to go there," he says. "You went there."
"No I didn't," I say and wipe my eyes. "Why do you want to go there?"
"I don't. You keep thinking of that day as if you really want to go back, but you're afraid to do it alone."
I don't reply, just lie there with his arms around me. Like before, bits of him seep through when he can't hold it back and I understand the great loneliness the vampires feel as immortals, my heart breaking at their despair at ever getting back what they'd lost. Only in these brief moments when they connect with a mortal and even more so with an Adept can they begin to feel as they once did. Human. I have to forgive him because this bliss of union is almost too much for a human to bear. It will be mine for as long as I want it – until it's time for me to leave and kill Soren.
Chapter 47
"We know the truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart."
Pascal
"I WANT TO MEET WITH SOMEONE IN THE COUNCIL," I say the next evening, after the sun sets and Michel comes to me.
"We'll talk of that later," he says, sitting on the sofa in the library, opening his arms to me. "Come, feed."
"I'm fine," I reply and pace the floor in front of the window. "I've been thinking all day. Soren will have to think you and I have parted. We'll have to either break up or I'll have to be taken from you somehow."
"Yes. Now, come here," he says again, patting his lap. "Don't wait until you're sick. Have some now and you'll be good all night. You can feed again before dawn and then you'll be good all day."
He holds his hand out to me, as if impatient to have me comply. I stop and considered his offer.
"If I feed more often, is there any chance that I'll become more addicted?"
"You'll get used to taking less, but more often. To change the schedule would mean you'd be uncomfortable for a while, but no, you won't become more addicted. At least, not physically."
"But mentally? That's possible?"
"Anything's possible, Eve. But not likely. You're too strong."
I step closer, not yet convinced I need to feed yet. "You're not going to make me do the crawl on my knees thing again, are you?"
"Not unless you want to." He smiles, just a quirk on one side of his mouth.
"I'm not into the worship scene. I'm an atheist."
He tilts his head to one side. "Still don't believe in God?"
"Why would I? There's no evidence. I tend to need evidence before I accept something is real." I step a bit closer, enjoying just looking at him sitting there bare-chested. Behind him, his wings are unfurled. The place where I'd fed the previous night has healed.
"What evidence would you accept?"
I take another step in front of him, considering the question only half-seriously.
"A very powerful smite of some kind, I suppose. Maybe a big booming voice from the heavens saying 'I am the I am'." I grin and he smiles back, shaking his head.
"Even those could be manufactured."
"I was joking."
"I wasn't," he says and pats his knee. "Come."
"I see you haven't brought me a vial of your blood again."
I sit on his lap, my arms slipping around his neck. He looks in my eyes.
"There will be no vials of blood between us."
"You like it when I feed off your body." When I say it, desire surges through me, surprising me with its intensity.
"So do you," he says, his voice dropping to a lower register. "I guarantee drinking blood out of a vial would be a pale substitute for the real thing." He brushes my hair away from my neck and when he licks the skin over the original wound Julien made and over which he bit me, I feel a jolt of desire. It's healed quite well – faster than normal, but there's still a pair of marks where he bit me.
"I need something as well," he says.
I stiffen and pull away.
"Do you think it's wise? Am I well enough to lose more blood?"
"Yes," he says, lowering the strap of my nightgown to expose my shoulder and breast. "You've recovered. You have my blood in you. You'll heal much more quickly and replace your blood volume more rapidly than normal."
His words don't calm my fears.
"Don't you have some donor blood? I don't know if I feel right about this…"
I try to stand, but he stops me.
"Don't be afraid," he says. "What happened the other night won't happen again. I promise you."
I hold a hand over the wound on my neck, unsure.
"How do I know that Soren hasn't compelled you to kill me to punish you?"
"That's not his endgame."
"What is?"
He shakes his head. "Don't ask me what you know I won't tell you, Eve."
Then, my anxiety decreases and I relax, heaving a sigh, but it happens too quickly to be of my own accord. Michel's trying to calm me using his powers so he can feed on me. I block him, shutting him out immediately so that I no longer feel his mind at the edges of my consciousness.
"Don't do that," I say and try once more to stand up. "Don't manipulate me."
"Don't shut me out." For a moment, we just stare each other down. "Eve," he says, pulling me closer, his greater strength easily overcoming my paltry resistance. "You're mine. This is what we do."
I cover my eyes. "I'm not yours. I'm my own."
"So stubborn," he says. "Tell me you don't want me and I'll let you go."
I hit his chest lightly playfully.
"I do want you, but have you ever heard about a thing called equality?"
"We're not equal," he says softly. "Pretending that it's so is, I would think, unscientific."
"Pretending it's so is necessary for this to work," I say and lean in, pressing my cheek against his. "I'm human in that way, I guess." I pull back. "I may not be as powerful as you, or as old, or as wise, but I have just as much right as a sapient being to determine my own wants and desires."
"I know your wants and desires, Eve. Besides, those who have power have the right to take what they desire," he says.
"Might makes right?" Sadness fills me that he can make such a bal
d assertion. "Might may win, but do you really want to force me?"
"Of course not. I want you to offer yourself willingly as I've said from the start. I'm not a monster. But I know you want this just as I do. Because of your past, you feel this need to fight everything, to reassure yourself that you have power. It's to make up for all those times when you didn't have power."
"Don't remind me."
"Don't you see? That's what your resistance is about. In resisting, you only deprive yourself of what you really want. Being with me is what you really want. Being my submissive is what you really want. It's Fate."
"I don't believe in Fate."
"Nevertheless, like vampires and fallen angels, Fate exists in spite of your refusal to believe. All of us tread a very fine line, trying to influence Fate. She only listens so much, and in the end she has her way despite our best efforts. Just give in."
"Give in to you."
"Yes," he says and closes his eyes. "Give in to me. Acknowledge that this is your fate and your desire and you'll be happy. Finally, you'll be happy."
Emotion wells up inside me. "I can't," I say, my voice breaking.
"You can't what? Be happy?"
"I can't surrender."
"Eve," he says and runs his fingers through my hair. "Wasn't last night good?"
I shake my head. "It was beyond good. It was," I say, struggling with words to describe it. "Bliss."
"Yes, it was." He cups my cheek. "Take the bliss. You deserve it. You've suffered so much pain."
"It scares me," I say, remembering. "I feel as if I'll lose myself. Be consumed. Disappear."
He nods. "I understand. I promise you that you won't." He bends down and kisses the curve of my breast. "If anything, you'll come out stronger."
"Why?"
He runs his hands down my back.
"You'll understand what's important."
He kisses me, and I let him. There's no connection between us and I enjoy the feel of his lips against mine, his tongue touching mine, his arms around me – a separate being experiencing my own emotions and senses. I can almost feel him trying to get in and I know that unlike me, he feels that lack of connection as a painful reminder of his loneliness rather than a sweet pleasure. I want to delay the connection so I can just enjoy as my own desire grows.