by Lund, S. E.
The street has been cleared as if this is a protected zone, only a single vehicle parked on each corner like sentinels, watching for any approaching cars or pedestrians. The streets downtown are deserted. There’s no food left and since people can’t live in cities without frequent shipments of food, they’ve fled south or to the rural areas in search of food.
We enter the underground, brightened by floodlights. The solar power system set up on the roof must provide electricity to the entire building. We park near an elevator and Michel gets out from the front and opens the door for me, taking my hand to help me out. I don’t need help, of course, but he does it so he can touch me once more and reestablish contact with me. He doesn’t let go and I stop and look up into his eyes.
I touch his cheek, brushing a strand of his black hair from his cheek. “Michel, I won’t be with either of you until we can talk. It’s going to be awkward living in the same building as you. You shouldn’t be touching me in front of Julien.”
He nods, but still he brings my hand to his lips. “I’m just wanted to say how sorry I am about all this,” he says, and I can hear the regret in his voice. “I’m sorry that your life isn’t your own.”
“Maybe someday.” I force a smile and he smiles back, but his is just as forced as my own. I’m starting to believe there will never be a day when I can have my life back. Finally, he drops my hand and it’s a good thing, for Julien appears at my side. I glance at his face to check if he saw us, but his expression is neutral.
We take the elevator to the third floor. The building is wide with five floors, one apartment on each floor. The apartment itself is luxurious and large, obviously once owned by someone wealthy. I walk through and glance in every room. The floors are either hardwood, tile, or plush carpet. There are three bedrooms, all nice enough to be in a five-star hotel. There are two bathrooms and a formal dining table on which maps and papers are spread. Michel and Julien have been using this apartment as some kind of operations center. There’s an ancient HAM radio set up on a desk in the corner and a map on the wall with pushpins marking off locations.
In the kitchen, a pot of coffee sits on an electric stove.
Julien puts my suitcase in the largest bedroom and I peek into the other two and see that there are clothes and other items belonging to Michel and Julien on each dresser. Perhaps this is where they’ve been living all along, just waiting for me to come to Boston.
I turn to Julien, who stands in the hallway leaning against the doorjamb watching me. “You’ve been living here together?”
He nods and crosses his arms. “We’ve been using this as a home base. We’ve set up security for the twenty-four blocks surrounding this one with guards and sentries on each corner. 24/7 coverage.”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
I sigh. “You expected I’d come here eventually?”
He nods again, a crooked grin on his lips. “We’ve both been dreading it. The walls are thin.”
I close my eyes and sigh. These two…
“You’ve got it all planned out?”
“We do,” he says, biting his bottom lip to keep from smiling even more widely.
I turn away, frustrated with them, although they were only following my own wishes.
“Eve…” Julien frowns. “You’re the one who insisted on this sharing thing.”
“You accepted it.” I shake my head and hold up my hand. “I know, I know,” I say and exhale. “You’re right. I did insist on it. But not like this, with the other in the next room. Maybe…can we hold off for a week while I get settled in and we figure out what our plans are? You know—our plans to fight Soren? There are some things more important than a fuck schedule…”
“What?” Julien says, only half in jest. “How is that possible?”
I ignore his attempt at humor. “Maybe when it’s your week, Michel can stay somewhere else. You know, so we can have some privacy.”
Julien makes a face. “Can’t do that. We need someone to protect you when one brother is otherwise occupied. We don’t trust anyone but each other to do that.”
I exhale heavily. “Suit yourself.”
Julien returns to the makeshift office in the dining room and I stand in the hallway glancing between his room, Michel’s room, and what I take is going to be the fuck room.
I clench my fists. I don’t know if I can do this—not with both of them under the same roof. I will not become Marguerite.
I will not…
* * *
After a meager meal of bread, cheese, and some beer, I yawn and head for the bath. I turn on the tap but no water comes out, so I return to the dining room.
“I want to have a bath. Can I heat up some water?”
“Sure,” Michel says, “but it will take some time to heat.”
“Where do you get clean water?”
“Springs outside the city,” he replies and helps me fill several big pots with water from a large container. “We truck it in and are almost self-sufficient. Solar panels provide all the electricity we need for most things, but water has been a big problem. That’s why the city is deserted. Without the water treatment plant operating and without city workers, all our services are out.”
“What about the plastics in the solar panels?”
From the table in the dining room, Dylan replies. “Blackstone’s been busy for a while developing new technology that doesn’t use plastics in production.”
“They knew what was coming and were prepared?”
Dylan nods and joins Michel and me in the kitchen.
“Won’t Blackstone be out for you and Julien?” I ask Michel, watching as the burners heat up. “They should know you were helping Soren—or at least appearing to do so.”
“Lord Blackstone trusts me,” Dylan answers. “He knows we’re related and has given me authority over this sector of the city. No one but our own loyalists know Michel or Julien are here. They’re being hidden from Blackstone as much as you are from Soren.”
I turn to Michel. “I have no clean clothes.”
“Take something of mine,” he says, moving to his room and opening a chest of drawers to remove a t-shirt.
“Thank you.”
Michel smiles at me and nods. I return to my bathroom and then look at myself in the mirror. I look terrible, my hair a mess, my eyes tired. My skin is now vampire-pale.
The Damned, Michel calls us. A hint of blood hunger nudges me, reminding me that I need to feed. It hits me in a way it hasn’t before. I’ve never felt this starved in all the time since I became the thing I’ve hated the most all my life.
* * *
I have a bath and even the shallow water revives me a bit, the stress of the day and the trip vanishing down the drain to the sewers, which apparently still work. When I’m dry, I slip on one of Michel’s clean shirts and wash my underwear and shirt in the remaining water, hanging them on the shower curtain rod. Then I go to the dining room where Michel, Julien, and Dylan sit, poring over some maps. They all look up when I enter, and their response makes me self-conscious. Dylan has a pleasant look on his face, as if he’s glad to see me, but there is a palpable hunger in both Michel’s and Julien’s eyes. The t-shirt is too big, but it’s thin and in the chill of the room, my nipples are hard. I cross my arms to cover them.
I know where their minds have gone—to my bedroom, wondering when I’ll break down and ask one of them to join me.
“I’m tired, but I need some blood,” I say.
Dylan comes to me. “Let me get you some. It’s in the refrigerator.”
I follow him to the kitchen and stop him once we’re alone. “I’m so sorry about your parents,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“And I yours,” he says. “How easily our hearts become targets to our enemies. How are you holding up?”
I sigh. In truth, I feel nothing except the desire for blood. It overwhelms everything else.
“I’m numb,” I finally answer. �
��How are you?”
He shrugs and takes in a deep breath. “I should have had more security on both our parents. I didn’t think far enough ahead to see that they could be used as pawns to affect us.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Soren or Blackstone. Maybe they left quickly and didn’t have time to leave a message and the cottages were looted after they left…” It’s a plausible theory, but even I know it’s just wishful thinking.
I try desperately to come up with something other than the four of them being held captive to force Dylan’s and my compliance. I grew fond of Dylan’s parents during the short time I knew them. I can’t stand the thought our families are being tortured—or killed—so I shut it off.
Numb is better.
“Someone will contact us in the next few days if they’re being held,” he assures me. “Until then, there’s not much we can do.”
I hug him, my arms around his shoulders, and he hugs me back. We stand like that for a moment before he lets me go. He doesn’t seem to want to speak about this anymore, so I drop it.
He retrieves a bottle of blood from the fridge and hands it to me. “Here,” he says, watching as I remove the cover and drink. “Don’t take it all at once. We’re rationed, so that has to do for a few days. We have to be a little hungry at all times now.”
I nod, wanting to drink the entire pint, but I stop halfway. I hand it back to Dylan and he puts it back in the fridge.
“Where do you get it?”
Dylan shrugs and leaves the kitchen. I follow him back to the dining room office.
“We have donors. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Tell me,” I say, grabbing his arm. “Are they compelled or voluntary?”
“I can’t know for sure,” he says. “It’s either this or hunting. As I said before, no one was killed getting this. That you can be assured.”
I exhale, not wanting to think the blood was from one of Blackstone’s factory farms where humans have become the new feedstock.
I lean into the room and catch Julien’s and then Michel’s eye. “I’m going to bed. To sleep,” I say with emphasis. “Goodnight. I’ll see you both in the evening.”
Julien blinks rapidly, as if he’s frustrated. He had planned on spending the week with me and now this happens. I must admit I’d like to have one of them with me, for a deep sadness permeates me. I don’t want to be alone tonight. I could cry if I let myself because everything seems overwhelming. My cottage burning to the ground, my parents and Dylan’s parents taken. Being here in Boston and seeing it so devastated.
The blood wasn’t enough to send me into a euphoric state and so I go to bed tired, hungry, and depressed.
* * *
I dream, captured in a nightmare vision of someone stalking me, following me though a dark forest, the moonlight casting scary shadows on the forest floor. In my dream, bare branches scratch my cheeks as I run through the undergrowth. I can hear footsteps behind me, dry brush cracking under the stalker’s feet. I see a flash of pale hair and I know it’s him.
Soren.
He’s laughing and pointing in the distance. A cross appears in front of me, and it’s upside down. I go around it and see that Michel is crucified, a stake through his heart, his naked body pale in the moonlight.
“No…” I cry. “You bastard!” I run to the cross and touch Michel’s cold skin, checking to see if he’s still alive.
“He chose this,” Soren says, his voice gloating. “He died to save you.”
A scream begins to build inside of me, finally escaping my lips.
“Michel!” I cry out and my voice is so loud, I wake myself up. I sit up in bed, my heart pounding, my body tense, my cheeks wet with tears.
In an instant, Michel enters my room, closing the door carefully behind him. He’s naked except for a pair of boxer briefs, his body pale in the sunbeam from between the drapes. His hair is a mess, dark strands falling into his eyes. He sits on the bed and wraps his arms around me, holding me, and I’m a mixture of tears and gasps as I try to recover from the nightmare.
“Michel, oh Michel…” I grab hold of him and run my hands over his naked shoulders to reassure myself he’s real and alive.
“Shh,” he says, stroking my hair, his breath warm on my cheek. “You’re okay. It was just a nightmare.”
I pull back. “I saw you,” I say, wiping my cheeks. “You were crucified, upside down. Soren was there… He said you chose death to save me.”
“It was just a dream.”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t just a dream. Tell me the truth—it’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
He looks in my eyes as if deciding whether to tell the truth. “It’s one possible future. Not necessarily the one that will come to pass. Soren was trying to scare you into giving up. Torment you. Don’t worry.” He strokes my hair, smiling, but I can tell it’s forced. “We can make a different future.”
“Michel, I don’t want you dying for me. Don’t ever chose death to save me. I couldn’t stand to live if you did.”
Michel shakes his head, smiling softly. “Don’t worry. We’ll all survive this if we do what’s right. Now, relax and go back to sleep. I’ll lie with you for a while if it helps.”
I want to lie with him, despite this being Julien’s week by all rights. I don’t want to let go of him because that was a vision of the future and not a nightmare. Soren showed it to me to scare me.
Michel lies down on top of the coverlet. He pulls me into his arms and I lie back down, my head on his chest.
“Don’t choose death,” I say again, squeezing him more tightly. “I know you want to die, but don’t. Please.” I lift my head from his chest and stare into his eyes. “Not because of me.”
He smiles once more and runs his fingers over my cheek. “I don’t want to die anymore. You’re the only reason I want to live, Eve. I love you.”
Tears spring once more to my eyes at his words. “I love you,” I whisper and pull him down to me, our lips meeting in a kiss.
It starts out chaste, just mutual love being expressed, but soon it turns to desperate need and before I’m aware of it, his mouth is moving down my chin to my neck, to the sensitive skin beneath my ear where he—and Julien—marked me, claiming me. He sucks on the skin there briefly, pulling my t-shirt and then his briefs off before lying on top of me.
I welcome the feel of him against me. It’s comforting, his body reassuring in its solidity. The sensation of his skin against mine is arousing and then our limbs entwine, our mouths joining in a kiss that sends jolts of desire through my body.
No words are spoken between us. The only sounds are when we touch and caress each other as we make love. Our senses join, the boundaries between us disappearing so there’s only a blur.
* * *
Afterwards, we lie together recovering, the sheets tangled between us.
“This was Julien’s week,” Michel says, his voice soft. “He’ll be upset if he knows we’ve been together.”
“I know,” I say and sigh. “But I needed you after that vision. He has to understand…”
“He’ll understand, but he won’t like it. I wouldn’t. You were supposed to be his this week. Tonight.”
“I’m not his or yours.” I sit up and look at him as he lies beneath me. “You can’t treat me as a possession. I’m my own person.”
“We’ve been over this before. You’re ours,” Michel says, running his fingers through my hair. “You’re either with us or Soren. He won’t let you be with anyone else.”
“Soren doesn’t want me that way. He’s almost like my genetic father. I have his genes…”
“He’s an angel. The body he took form in is merely a vessel. He doesn’t see it the way humans do. He’d have you if we don’t. You must understand that. You were made for us, to keep us in line. You were made to serve him.”
“I have my own will.”
“You do,” he says and smiles, pulling me back down on top of him so that my face is above his. “Do
n’t I know all about your will, Eve…” He chuckles. “Controlling you has been pretty near impossible, despite all my military, masculine and vampire wiles.”
There’s a crooked de Cernay grin on his lips; I’m surprised by his rare show of humor. He’s been so somber lately.
“You want me tamed?” I say with mock affront. “You really want me as your pet?”
He strokes my cheek and is serious once more. “It’s not that I want you that way. It’s required. There’s a hierarchy even among vampires. Age gives power and rank. You must obey or be compelled to obey if you won’t of your own free will. Except you—immune to compulsion. You resist me every step of the way.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve been difficult. It’s just the way I am.”
“I know. I love the way you are, even when it’s not in my or your best interest.”
We kiss once more and it’s tender and sweet.
“I better leave,” he says quietly. “I don’t want Julien to wake up and find us together.”
He leaves the bed and I let him go with reluctance, watching as he pulls on his boxer briefs, appreciating his very buff body.
He turns when he’s dressed and leans down to kiss me once more, his hair in his eyes. He kisses me as if he can’t get enough. Finally, he’s gone. After I wash myself in cold water from a pitcher in the bathroom, I lie back down, but I don’t think I can sleep. Despite the endorphin rush I got from the sex, I’m hungry and still slightly unnerved by the events of the previous night and by my vision of Michel crucified on an inverted cross.
Like St. Peter.
I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling as a sliver of afternoon sun coming in between the drapes crawls across the room.
Chapter 87
“I'm not upset that you lied to me. I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”