by Lund, S. E.
"I've given her a minimal briefing on it. Nothing specific."
"She knows my plans to claim Dominion once we've taken care of Blackstone."
"Yes, in very general terms."
"What do you think, Eve?"
I say nothing. I can't lie. I just can't. I try to hide behind Michel's body, my eyes not meeting Soren's.
"Come on, now. Tell me the truth. What do you think?"
I struggle not to reply in a snarky or impertinent tone but I can't hold back.
"If you think I'll help you, you're crazy."
"Eve!" Michel says, taking my chin in his hand, staring in my eyes. "Remember your manners."
I feel tears bite at the corners of my eyes and press my nails into my palms, to get control.
"I'm sorry, my Lord, but I don't approve of Dominion. I can't willingly support you."
Soren rises from his chair and comes over to where I sit. I cower a bit as he stands over me. He's so tall and has such a strong build. He's a bit terrifying with his white skin and hair, his eyes so clear blue they look transparent.
"I don't expect your willing support. I expect your support only through coercion. I'm not an idiot. But I will get it. I have the perfect tool to gain your compliance. I have the twins."
He tilts my head up and even though I try to avoid his eyes, I can't. I put up my blocks, squeezing my nails into my palms to ensure he can't read me.
"When I get my blood into you, when you have the blood of the twelve in you, you won't be able to block me, Eve. Shall I give you a demonstration?"
I try to pull away. I don't want to have his blood in me.
"Please don't," I say and shrink away.
"Oh, I think so. Here," he says and runs a nail over his wrist, drawing a thin line of blood. "It doesn't take much, my blood is so powerful." He forces his wrist to my mouth and I can't help but take some of his blood onto my lips and tongue. Before I know it, I'm under some kind of drug-like spell, my body numb, my senses focused in on his wrist and the blood that drips from his wound.
"Yes, that's it, Eve. Drink a bit more."
Then he lifts me up and I'm helpless to resist because of his blood, and he pulls down the shoulder to my dress and bites me. His mouth is cold on my skin, the pain of his teeth sharp. He feeds only for a brief moment and then lets me drop back to my seat. I see into his mind when he steps away, see myself momentarily from his point of view, how my head leans against Michel's shoulder, how Michel tries to hold me up, his brow creased with concern, his lips pressed thin.
It's so good, isn't it? Soren says to me in my mind.
"Michel, feed on her just a bit. Then feed her your blood as well."
Michel complies, biting me over his mark, taking only a mouthful of my blood. He presses his own wrist to my mouth after he's made a wound there and I swallow, unable to resist.
The three of us are connected. Soren takes us back, far back in time to when he sent Marguerite on her quest to find and turn the de Cernay twins.
He's away in Germany and can't be with her, and so he sends her to find them and turn them for him. He plans to start a coven in France and Carcassonne is his desired location. He needs servants who know the area and can get a safe home for him and his entourage.
He'd do it himself, but he finds that using a woman to enslave men is one of the easiest and most fool-proof approaches to gaining their compliance. Men are such slaves to their cocks and hearts. He thought women were slaves to the heart, but men are even more so. They're such weaklings when it comes to cunts and their attractions.
Marguerite was one of his favorite mortals, and when he turned her, she became his primary lover. He'd grown quite fond of her because she couldn't be compelled. He had to spar with her mentally, use pain and threats, use coercion and promises, use pleasure and love, to control her and even then, he failed more often that not. It was that which made him love her –he realizes that when he sees me with Michel and Julien.
They can't help but fall in love with me because they have to treat me like a person – one who looks almost identical to their first love, Danielle .
When he comes back to Carcassonne to find her and see the results of her seduction, he learns she was burned at the stake by the very brothers he hoped to have as his servants.
He is livid when he realizes that the young whelp of a priest and his warrior-brother had the audacity to kill Marguerite. Burn her at the stake like a common witch? She was a princess from the Norse family – the daughter of kings!
He wanted the brothers enslaved, but he wanted her to be their constant source of torture. He misjudged her ability to keep them both under her spell.
He failed. He finds the charred remnants of her bones and takes them with him, keeping them safe in a golden casket until one day in the future when they will once again be of use to him – when she will once again return to him and be his plaything and servant. Until then, he plans on torturing the brothers as often as possible as just retribution for their crime.
He lets Michel and I separate from his mind so that I'm back in the room with Michel at my side and Julien watching me from across the table, concern in his blue eyes. Michel and Julien will play a role in the future he has planned, only because he's become fond of Michel. A priest who has fallen – Soren can't resist him. Michel still believes, even after everything. He still longs for a place in the Church. Soren's promised him one, as his own High Priest. As his Pope. Michel couldn't be one among humans because of his vampirism, but now, in his ascended state, he is no longer in danger from mere mortals. Only Soren can destroy him.
Together, the three of them will rule the new Church. The Twelve will rule the world. I'll make that possible.
I'll comply, Soren thinks, because when it comes time, Soren will kill them both if I don't. He's counting on my love for them both to make me help him gain power.
He knows that I want to kill him. He knows that Michel has promised to help me. It doesn't matter what the two of us plan. In the end, he knows I will submit. That whatever little plan we have to use against him, I won't let him kill Michel.
He's counting on it.
Chapter 78
"Though lovers be lost love shall not."
Dylan Thomas
* * *
Soren says nothing for a few moments as Michel and I recover from sharing Soren's and each other's blood. We're speechless, for the experience is far too intimate. I feel as if I've had sex with them both, without the pleasure, for it puts me right into their point of view, into their bodies and them into mine. Now I know why drinking a human's blood is so sexual to vampires.
Once we recover enough to speak, the five of us leave the dining room and sit by the fireplace, the three men talking about the Council and its plans.
While I listen, Michel rubs my shoulder, then strokes my neck affectionately. I think of being in Soren's mind. He didn't hide his thoughts from us. Soren knows Michel and I are planning to destroy him, but he doesn’t care. He knows we must try. He also believes that ultimately, he'll use me to keep Michel from doing it himself and he'll use Michel or Julien – or both – to keep me from doing it.
He figures the bond we three share will be all he needs to keep himself safe, no matter what scheme we cook up.
Our task will be to find a way to kill him where he can't use us against each other.
As I sit at Michel's side, I dig my fingernails into my palms and it's then I know Soren is no Ancient. He's is a fallen angel just as Terri suspected – or at least, he sees himself that way. He took physical form and was made a vampire in a moment of weakness with a female vampire he knew.
He doesn't care. He loves being a vampire, loves the connection to mortals he feels by having a body and requiring our blood to keep alive. He thinks it's the final joke against a god who cast him out of heaven. The greatest joke of all – he, an angel, forced to worship humans by a god who loved us more than the perfect creatures he created first, now drinks the blood of those
very mortals who replaced him in God's heart.
His own brand of heavenly-father vengeance.
Now, with me under his control, he thinks he can create a new pantheon of gods from other fallen angel/vampires and reign over us all.
Finally, with Soren no longer apparently interested in harassing me, we leave, each couple going to our own rooms on the second floor. Michel closes the door behind me and turns the lock. I stand in the semi-darkness by the fireplace and wait for him. It's late, but I wait to see if he has something else planned for us. I don't need to feed now – not after drinking both his and Soren's blood. The way I feel from Soren's blood alone is like ten times the effect of Michel or Julien's.
Michel comes right to me and embraces me, kissing me, his passion overwhelming me and I can't help but respond. But just when I think he's going to push me down onto the floor and ravish me, he stops and presses his forehead against mine.
"Now do you believe?"
I pull back and look in his eyes. "Believe what?"
"That angels are real. That there is a God."
I say nothing. Soren identifies himself as a fallen angel. One of the two hundred around the world who took physical form as shape shifters after a battle with heaven.
"I thought the fallen angels were cast into the pit. That's what the Bible says…"
"It was a figurative pit, Eve. Being separated from each other and from God, cast onto the mortal plane was hell for them. They've been seeking some kind of heaven to replace it ever since."
"I take it 'The Twelve' are all vampires, like Soren?"
"Yes. It's the key to their creating a new heaven, using the Church to give them access to worshippers, and you to channel that worship so they can take power. They can do small things individually – shape shift, heal wounds, manipulate matter on a small scale, but nothing big that would impress a humanity inured to special effects, nuclear bombs and trips to the moon. They need to do something impressive to really show their powers and gain believers but they need to be connected to really mass their individual power together into one force."
"And that's my role? Collect that power through sharing their blood?"
He nods. "Soren is planning his own version of Ascension, using the Twelve and you. Do it in front of a mass of worshippers, use the sharing of blood to pool their powers. Impress the worshippers. Do that over and over until he has the whole flock believing he's a god. That they're all gods. A new pantheon, like the Roman gods before Christianity."
"They're not gods. They just have a way to manipulate matter."
"What is a god if not precisely that?"
I say nothing for a moment, trying to process this. Michel brushes the hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear.
"How do we stop him?"
Michel tilts his head. "I can't tell you."
"I just go into this blind?"
"Yes. Your ignorance of the plan is key."
"You said that to me before. I ended up brain damaged, living in Ipswich."
"This time, there's no alternative. We have to do this. Blackstone has struck." He sighs. "If humans can't find a way to stop the plague, the whole of civilization will fall and vampires will claim Dominion. Soren wants to strike Blackstone and the Council members who support it first. We have a way to kill them all or gain their compliance. Then, Soren will start locally, displaying feats of power to collect followers. Once he has power over Blackstone and the Church, he'll be in a position to claim Ascendance for himself and The Twelve. That's all I can tell you."
"We'll stop him before that happens."
"That's my plan. And that's all I'll tell you. Now," he says and bends down to kiss my neck. "You did very well tonight. You were obedient enough at times and resistant enough at times to convince Soren you were really willing to be my pet. He's counting on it."
I nod and play with a button on his shirt while he strokes my hair. I wait for him to do whatever he will do. He tilts my head up and looks in my eyes.
"I want you. Now."
The abrupt turn in his demeanor, the sound of urgency in his voice makes me almost shudder with desire.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I say, guilt and a touch of sadness suddenly welling up in me. I bite my lip for emotion is rising in me, bringing tears to my eyes.
He stops what he’s doing. “Shh,” he whispers in my ear. “Eve, you love me. You want me. That’s the only thing that’s kept me going despite everything that’s happened. Don’t feel guilt for your love and desire. It’s good,” he says and kisses me softly. “It’s pure.”
Then he kisses me and he must do something to calm my emotions, because I feel acceptance, the guilt and sadness dissipating.
He opens himself to me and I feel a rush of warmth from him.
He loves me…
Chapter 79
"Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings."
Gustave Flaubert
* * *
The next day, Michel, Soren and Julien are out on some business, leaving me alone. After I dress for the day in one of Michel's gowns, I play my entire repertory, and then read for a while. Finally, wander around the mansion, bored out of my mind. A guard stands at the window, watching the grounds and the road outside the mansion. There are other homes just as rich along the streets bordering Soren's, with the same tall stone walls with barbed wire. I stand behind the guard and examine the yard, noticing several guards patrolling the perimeter of the grounds. A horse and cart pull up and waits at the gate. A guard goes to speak with the driver and then passes the cart on.
It drives up and stops in front of the rear service door and a couple of men in uniforms emerge with large tool boxes in hand. One of them wearing a cap and sunglasses sees me, then pulls his equipment into the hallway outside the library.
"Eve, come with me." When I stay where I am, he grabs my arm. "I need to speak to you."
I frown. When I look up, he removes his sunglasses.
It's Dylan.
"Come to the back door."
He lets go of my arm. I follow him to the rear entry, knowing I probably shouldn't leave but I do anyway. One of the guards pulls a crossbow and points it at him and Dylan immediately holds his hands up, and he uses that strange power I saw him use once before to send the weapon flying, the guard falling to the floor in a heap. Dylan goes to the man and touches his neck like he did to the men in the park. Then he turns to me and pulls me out the rear door and into the cart, pushing me down, covering me with a tarp while another man drives the cart away. I glance out the back of the cart and see a number of Soren's guards running after us, but they're too slow and we're outside the gates and driving down the road before they can respond.
Dylan turns my face to his. "Eve, just keep quiet and do what I say."
I nod and lay on the hard floor of the cart as it jostles over the road, wondering who the heck Dylan is working with.
* * *
We drive for some time along the coast road, past an old cemetery and stop at a small park by the sea. Outside, it's very warm for this time of year. Dylan ushers me out of the cart. He points to a small seating area along a sidewalk looking out over the water. I walked over to the bench and glance around. A few meters away stands a woman with her back to me. When she turns, I don't recognize her. She smiles at me and walks over to where I stand.
“Eve,” she says. “It's been so long. I know you don't recognize me. I'm Terri Starr. I worked with you at the SCU before the accident."
I look closely in her eyes, but I don't remember her. She has large brown eyes, wide cheeks, and short steel-grey haircut in a masculine style.
She embraces me, and it feels so strange to be hugging her – a complete stranger.
“I’m sorry, Eve, but all this cloak and dagger stuff is necessary.”
I nod and follow her and Dylan down a path to a small cottage on the beach and enter the whitewashed house that feels like it belon
gs in California instead of Boston. Inside the home, we sit at a small wooden table on a quiet patio.
Terri and I sit in silence and watch as Dylan prepares tea. Sunlight shines on his skin, the paleness contrasting with his dark hair. He bends over the small jade-green teapot and swirls the hot water inside. He stirs the tea and then looks up at us, smiling.
“May I offer you some tea?”
Terri nods and I do the same. I see a very sharp sword in a scabbard on his hip. A Samurai sword.
Dylan pours the amber liquid into our cups, and then sits back on his seat. We sip at the fragrant jasmine liquid and the scent calms me.
“I wanted to see you, to talk to you about what's happening,” he says.
"I thought you were working for Blackstone."
"I am, but on behalf of the Council. We know you're with Soren and Michel. He’s busy preparing for conquest. We have a plan to stop him.”
"Michel has a plan as well," I say. "But I don’t know the details."
"Michel can't be trusted any longer," Dylan says. "We have to move on our own."
"You don't think Michel will follow through on his plan? I thought it was the Council's plan."
"He can't be trusted. We're moving forward. We need you. We think Michel is now truly siding with Soren. That he's seen Soren and the Twelve as the lesser of two evils."
In all honesty, I don't know what to believe any more. I can't imagine that Michel sees Soren's rule as the better choice. He hates Soren.
A breeze blows through the courtyard making a wind chime sound. My anxiety dissipates as I listen to its soft melody. I close my eyes and try to imagine what life would be like with Soren as a god ruling over us. Probably not much better than if vampires ruled us in Dominion.
We sit for a few moments and I sip at the last of my tea and feel a heavy weight of sadness descend on me. Dylan reaches out and squeezes my arm, but I pull my arm away, not wanting anyone to take away my feelings, however bad they might be.