by Lund, S. E.
"I told you we weren't going to be together again," I remind him, but it sounds feeble. His expression—the look of pure possession in his eyes—does something to my insides. I know I could easily fall into his arms if he pushed a little.
"Of course," he says and rubs the skin, watching as it heals. Soon, the wounds are completely gone. It's not his saliva but my own vampire nature that heals them. I'm now immortal, or at least, very hard to kill.
He drops my hand. "The guard will bring us something to eat and then I must sleep. I'm exhausted."
“Where have you been?”
“Errands,” he says. “Nothing that need concern you.”
There's a knock at the door.
"Come," Michel says. He rises and goes to the door, holding it open as the guard wheels in a cart with covered plates of food. I see a carafe of some red liquid—it could be wine or blood. I'd welcome either, but I do need blood.
"Thank you," Michel says and closes the door behind the guard as he leaves us alone once more.
Michel inspects the food and then pours the liquid into crystal glasses etched with a delicate floral design. He brings them over to me on the bed and sits beside me once more.
"Here," he says, handing a glass to me. "Drink this. You look like you need it. I know I do."
I take it and sniff. Blood. I drink it down in one long draught and see that he does as well. It feels so damn good in my stomach—like relief. Now I know how an addict feels when they get their fix. A moment of euphoria sweeps over me and I sit with my eyes closed and enjoy the sensation. The taste of blood, its coppery tang, lingers on my tongue. I would like more but I won't be greedy. The amount I took is enough to keep me going for a day or so. I don't want to get used to drinking a lot. The guilt is too much because I know where this blood came from—Soren's and Blackstone's slaves.
"Better?" he says and as he smiles at me, there’s a hint of guilt in his eyes. "Sorry to have left you for so long, but I had things to do."
I shrug and say nothing, too interested in the food I can smell from across the room. "Can we eat now?"
I stand and cross the room, peeking under the silver domes at the meal. There's some kind of roast with root vegetables and gravy. On another plate is fruit and cheese. A hank of dark bread and knife sit to the side. I fix myself a plate, barely aware of Michel standing beside me.
"You're hungry."
I say nothing, and cut a slice of the dark rye bread, slathering it with butter from a small ceramic crock. I sit on one of the wing chairs by the fire and dig in, intent on the meat and what looks like parsnips. They aren’t my favorite, but my stomach is rumbling and the scent is amazing.
Michel fixes his own plate and comes to my side. Together, we eat in silence, the only sounds the clink of cutlery on fine china.
Finally finished, I lean back and sigh in contentment. I don't protest when Michel pours me a glass of wine. I take a sip. The wine mixes with the remains of the blood I drank earlier and while that would have turned my stomach only a few months ago, now I appreciate the mix of flavors. Michel pours himself a glass and leans back in his chair, his eyes on me.
I remain silent, waiting for him to speak.
"You’re very quiet," he says, his own voice soft. "Are you never going to speak to me again?"
I meet his gaze, our eyes on each other. "Where were you?"
He shakes his head. "That's of no importance to you."
I sigh. "Will you ever tell me the truth about anything?"
He takes a sip of the wine and then carefully places the glass on the table beside him.
"This is the only truth you need to know,” he says, leaning closer to my chair. “Everything I do, I do to save humanity from slavery. Everything."
I say nothing in response, for how can I respond to that? I could deny it and say he’s doing it for his own benefit, but I know him too well. He’s the most selfless person I know.
"I'm sorry that you have to suffer,” he says, his voice solemn. “If I could have had things turn out differently, I would have. I would have had you in Boston University, completely oblivious to this world."
"That didn’t work out so well."
"No, it didn't. My plans to keep you hidden didn’t work. You can't begin to realize how that breaks my heart, Eve."
I sigh. He's right. I know he tried to change this fate. He did what he thought was right but I still resent how much he’s lied to me about his role in my mother’s death, about his relationship to my parents, his role in my life after my mother died—about so much. And then it comes to me. A realization.
“You found me on purpose,” I say, my voice low. “You knew where I was. You were waiting.”
He says nothing, and I know I’m right. I continue, figuring it out as I speak.
“You decided that when I went looking for the translator, you would come for me. You already knew I was immune to compulsion so everything that happened afterwards was a lie.”
“I gave you every chance not to become a vampire hunter,” he interjects. “You took every chance to do it.”
“Did you know Franklin would abuse me?”
An expression of pure horror comes over his face. “Of course not! My, God, Eve…” He shakes his head slowly and I can see real pain in his eyes. “As soon as we learned the truth, we took you out of his home and put you somewhere safe. I had no idea. How could you even imagine…”
“You see the future.”
“I had no gift of prescience then, just vague dreams of a future I didn’t recognize as such. It was my ascension that brought out my precognition.”
“But you did know where I was and knew I was intent on pursuing my mother’s calling.”
He rubs his eyes and is silent for a moment. “I gave you the choice. You didn’t want to study music. You wanted to study science and become a vampire hunter for the Council. You were operating blindly with no contacts in the Council, so theoretically, you would have been unable to become a vampire hunter unless someone initiated you. You would have become a forensic scientist, but not one involved in the Council’s work. That was good enough for me. It was your choice. When you started looking for a translator, I could see you were going to try to find the Council. I had to be the one to guide you in the life if that was the case.”
“But you knew I couldn’t be compelled,” I insisted. “That’s why you gave me the drug to wipe my memory of you killing my mother.”
“No, I gave it to you because I assumed you could be compelled. I didn’t know. I tried to compel you. Sadly,” he says, adjusting his position, and taking another sip from his wine. “I was unable. If you had gone back to playing music, I would have been happier. If I could have kept you hidden, I would have, but you have such a strong will…”
“You wouldn’t have had me as a lover if you had succeeded.”
“Eve, I was celibate before you.”
“So you say…”
He puts his glass down hard. "Why do you fight me in everything?"
"Because you're not honest with me," I answer, responding to the tone in his voice. "You don't tell me the truth. Not all of it. So now I never know when to believe you. If you had told me the truth from the start, I'd cooperate."
"No, you wouldn’t," he says with an audible sigh. "You wouldn’t have the heart to go on. I know, Eve. I've seen it. I tell you only as much as I need to. Any more and you'd give up."
"Then you must think I'm a coward."
"Not at all," he says softly. "I know you're very brave. Too brave. But your heart would be broken."
I shake my head. "So what am I supposed to do? Just blindly do what you tell me to?"
"Yes. Blindly. Have faith that I know what I'm doing and am doing what's best."
"I have no faith and you know it."
He nods. "I know. What else can I say? It's imperative that you obey me now. Trust me. This is the only way. The only way. Please."
I sigh, my mind plagued by doubt and confusion. P
art of me knows that I have to obey, but it still rubs me the wrong way regardless.
"I'll try,” I assure him. “But if you think I'm going to sleep with you, you're mistaken."
He shakes his head and says nothing in reply. He finishes his glass of wine, then stands up and straightens his sweater before coming to my chair. He bends down and before I know it, he takes my head in his hands and kisses me squarely on the mouth, his lips covering mine. I'm too shocked to pull back and the kiss goes on and on. Finally, he pulls away, his hands holding my face.
"You will," he says and looks deeply into my eyes. "When this is all over, you will. Happily. Eagerly."
I say nothing and wait for him to pull away. He kisses me once more briefly and then lets go of me, standing up straight.
I sit mute and watch him go to the armoire and begin undressing. He removes his clothes, leaving only his black boxer briefs. Then he goes to the bathroom and I hear the sounds of water being poured into a basin. He's washing up. When he comes out of the bathroom, his hair around his face is a bit wet, the long strands hanging in his beautiful eyes.
"You're so sure of yourself," I say as a stab of desire for him, even now, goes through me, warming my body. I respond to the sight of a nearly-naked Michel like Pavlov's dog to a bell.
"Not of myself."
I exhale. "Then you're so sure of me. Of me still wanting you after everything that’s happened.
"No," he says and shakes his head. "I'm sure of what I feel. That I still love you and you still love me, no matter what happens."
I watch as he crawls into bed, pulling the thick duvet over himself. Silence passes between us, and I hear his breathing slow and deep.
"I'm not fucking you, Michel."
He turns over, the sound of the sheets against his bare skin audible with my enhanced sense of hearing. I hear him sigh.
"I won't touch you," he says quietly. "You can come to bed and sleep without any worries."
I sit in silence for a long while, fighting with myself. I don't want to seem like a petulant child, but at the same time, I don't like that he's sleeping in the same bed as I am. I'm afraid that we'll end up making love despite my promise to myself—and to him—that the sexual part of our relationship is over.
"Come to bed, Eve," Michel says, his voice tired. "You have a big day ahead. You have to help Soren gain power so we can play out this game."
I exhale in resignation. I am tired. Whatever I have to face tomorrow will be better if I have a good sleep. I relent and go into the bathroom and wash my own face and brush my teeth, using the remaining water from the carafe.
I remain in my clothes, refusing to put on the t-shirt I brought along to sleep in.
I don't trust myself. When I get into bed, I make sure to sleep on top of the sheet instead of under it so that if he does sleep beside me or against me at any time, I won't feel his naked skin.
I need all the help I can get to keep my promise.
Chapter 96
“Nobody has ever measured, not even the poets, how much the heart can hold.”
Zelda Fitzgerald
When I wake in the middle of the night, Michel is, as I expected, spooned against me, but there's a thin sheet between us and so we don't actually touch. Still, there's no denying the ache in me from the feel of his body warm against mine, his arm around my waist over the covers, his head on the pillow next to mine. I say nothing and merely slip a little further away from him so that there's an inch or two of space between us. I'm instantly cold, for despite how little warmth a vampire's body creates, put two of them together and the effect is mutually reinforcing.
Now, I shiver all alone in the bed, and pull the thick coverlet more firmly around me. Beside me, I feel Michel shift and hear him breathe in deeply.
"Stubborn girl."
"I'm not a girl." I make a face, realizing that I'm being stubborn but I have to fight my base desires for him. He can't think that I'll just happily reestablish our sexual relationship after learning he put my father away in an asylum despite his being sane. I can't forgive him for that. Not now. Maybe not ever. Who knows how many lies he's told me and how much he's still keeping from me?
He grasps my arms and rolls me over so that I’m underneath him. The sheet between us can't hide his arousal.
"To an immortal who has lived eight hundred years, you're a girl." His gaze moves over my face and while he started out with an expression of frustration touched with anger, detectable in the downward curve of his mouth and the crease above his brow, as he continues to examine my face, his expression changes. His frown relaxes and his eyes soften.
Without my conscious consent, the walls fall between us. I feel his emotions well up and overwhelm him. And me.
"Oh, Eve…"
"Don't," I say and try to wiggle out from underneath him, but he's far too strong. "Don't force me, Michel!"
He doesn't let go, but his grip loosens and now I'm halfway out from under his body, the sheet still between us. His face is directly over mine, his eyes on mine, his mouth a few inches away. He blinks, his thick black lashes dark over clear blue eyes.
"I would never force you." Then he kisses me, and at first I don't respond, but it's impossible not to, my body quickening and my muscles tensing even as my flesh swells and throbs. I don't know any longer what my desires are, or his, because it's just one big mass of lust, one mixed up wall of need.
Before I'm even aware, I'm kissing him back, my mouth on his. I gasp when my tongue finds his, the warm wetness sending a jolt of lust to my core. When his tongue touches mine, he thinks of licking me, tasting me, the hard nub of my clit beneath his tongue, my scent in his nose arousing him, the soft moans I make as desire builds in me making him harder.
He knows how good it feels for me, and I know how much it arouses him to feel me hard and wet and responsive under his tongue.
I pull away, gasping. "Stop!"
He does, his breathing harsh. In truth, my body wants him, but my mind doesn't. I breathe slowly, trying to calm the desire I feel, and soon he relents and rolls off me, collapsing on his back beside me, a hand covering his eyes.
"Just because you can make my body respond," I say, squeezing my thighs together reflexively, "doesn't mean my mind has said yes."
"I know," he replies, his voice low. "I can't resist you." He turns over so that he's facing me, resting on his elbow. "I don't want to resist you."
"I told you I won't be with you again."
"You will be once more," he says and it sounds more like he's trying to convince himself. Reassure himself. "You'll come to me and extend your hand and ask me to make love to you."
I frown. "You've seen it?"
He nods and brushes a strand of hair from my cheek.
I turn over so that my back is toward him. "Well, it won't be today."
I hear him sigh. "No, not today."
He lies back down and says nothing for a while, but of course, now I can't sleep. I'm achy with need, my flesh still throbbing from the desire he built up in me.
What I want is to slip my hand down and get myself off quickly, but of course I can't. Instead, I try to breathe through my desire, hoping it will fade quickly so I can go back to sleep.
In a few moments, I hear him sigh once more and then he turns over, the bed covers rustling, and now there's more than a foot of separation between us.
This is going to be incredibly difficult. I don't know if I can do it.
"Soren will know we're not fucking," I say.
"He knows we will, eventually."
"Goddammit!" I say in frustration. "I hate this. I hate him knowing anything."
"Quit being so petulant, Eve," Michel says, and I finally hear real anger in his voice. "You're smarter than this. Accept what fate has chosen for you. This has to happen if the future both of us want is to come to pass. Give in."
"You know I don't believe in fate any more than I believe in God."
"Fine," he says, still angry. "Be a child. Figh
t it every step of the way. Make it more difficult for us all."
"Difficult for you."
"No," he says and rolls back over, turning my face so that I have to look in his eyes once more. "Difficult for you as well. You want it. Deny that truthfully. Your body needs it. If you weren't so rebellious, you'd make love with me now so we both could go back to sleep."
I close my eyes; I feel close to tears. He's treating me like a disobedient child and I'm responding like one. It's just so damn hard…
"I am who I am," I say, my voice breaking. "I can't."
He sighs heavily and lies back down. "You will. I can wait."
"Don't hold your breath," I whisper, but of course he can hear me no matter how quiet I am. I hear him make that sound in the back of his throat—that characteristic sound he made the first night I met him and he was expressing frustration with me.
Poor Michel. He thought I'd be his happy little slave girl, doing his bidding and salving his wounds from living so long, complying with his plans so he could have things go his way. Instead, I've been his brother's lover and have fought him ever since we met.
"I love Julien, Michel," I say, aware that it will hurt him, but maybe it will stop him from trying to get back between my thighs. "If I had known that you were responsible for putting my father away, that he was sane when you did it, and that you knew where I was all along and were waiting for me to come of age so you could use me, I would never have asked you to share me with him."
There. I said it, finally said it to myself and to him. I would have chosen only Julien had I known. If I had known, I would have hated Michel. How would things have turned out differently?
I don't know, and I try to block it all out of my mind. I turn over and wrap my arms around myself even more tightly, pulling my knees up almost to my chin, trying to clear my thoughts.
But I do know how it would turn out had I chosen Julien, if I'm honest with myself, for I've seen snatches of it in his mind's eye. If I had chosen Julien over Michel, Michel would have become hard and even more calculating and heartless. He would have pursued his ends with no sympathy for anything or anyone. He would have become the monster I saw in the park way back when we met, his wings extended, killing in cold blood like the dark, avenging angel that he appeared to be. His heart would have been so brittle it would have shattered, and the shards would have cut at him for the rest of his existence, which he would be only too happy to end once Dominion was vanquished and Blackstone defeated completely.