Darling

by Claudia D. Christian

  The vampire’s proud shoulders sagged. It was all she needed to convict him. He beseeched, “Darling, you are my love. It is not as you see it—I swear.”

  Cassandra covered her face. She wanted to die. Everything she believed was real, her very existence, it was all a cruel lie. Lenore was right—Cassandra was wrong in trying to gain a vampire’s love.

  If this is what he would do to me now, what would he do if he wanted to really hurt me?

  Lord Constantine rested his palm on her back and murmured his love for her, continuously swearing things were not as she believed them to be. Cassandra nearly vomited.

  “Do not touch me with that disgusting hand! Did you have the decency to wash yourself before you came back to me or do you carry the stink of your whore all over you now, Constantine?”

  “It is not how you see it.” He repeated it louder, impotent and useless beneath the weight of her scorn.

  “Do not tell me what I see, you lying, traitorous vampire! I hate you, Constantine! Do you hear me? I hate you! I wish I had never been born if that meant being here with you!”

  “Take back those words, Cassandra.”

  “No!”

  Lord Constantine yanked Cassandra off her feet and sped into the castle. The mammoth doors flew off their hinges. Destruction followed them through the receiving hall, up the grand staircases, and into her rooms.

  Cassandra pushed at him in vain. She screamed for Lenore, begging her guardian to take her away from Lord Constantine. She yelled how she never wanted to see him again. She pummeled his face with her bloodied hands.

  Lord Constantine crouched to the ground, holding onto her as an anchor in danger of disintegrating if he loosened his grip for one moment. “What must I do for you to forgive me? Tell me, Cassandra.” He repeated it over and over until his darling screamed herself hoarse. Cassandra finally lay still in his arms, limp and broken from betrayal.

  “Darling, please forgive me. I never wanted to hurt you. I swear it!”

  “But you did, my lord. You did.”

  He took stingy comfort in her use of “my lord” even as her raw whisper branded him. Lord Constantine shook his head as if to escape the searing pain. “Cassandra, you are my only love.”

  “No. I am but a responsibility to you. A burden. You spend all your personal time with your mistress because she is your joy. I am a mistake. I should not be here.”

  “Stop it!” The vampire cupped his human’s face and forced her attention to him. “You belong here with me, darling. My feelings for you have never wavered, have never been in doubt. I love you, Cassandra, more than you could ever know.”

  “And I loved you more than anyone in the world. I loved you so much, Lord Constantine.” Her lips curved into a dead smile. “I do not love you anymore.”

  “You lie.” His fangs flashed. He looked capable of murder, especially with the blood from her hands drying on his face. “You cannot tell a lie to a vampire and hope to keep it.”

  Cassandra sagged. She wished to disappear. “You are a cruel master to have. You will not even allow me to lie to myself.”

  Guilt softened the hard edges of his face. “Darling, listen to me. That woman was food. Nothing else.”

  “You treat your food very well.”

  Lord Constantine cursed softly. “Please do not doubt me, Cassandra. I have loved you your whole life. You cannot think I would ever put another before you.”

  “You touch women like her but not me. If you love me then you must love her more.”

  “I am not a human, darling! Do not put human morals on me!”

  “Then must I adopt a more vampire way of being, my lord? Will you let me have any handsome man I fancy? Will you look the other way, secure in my feelings for you, as I spread my legs for him?”

  Lord Constantine’s handsomeness became distorted by the vicious predator laying in wait beneath his pretty skin. A terrible growl built deep in his throat.

  “Ah, so my human morals are not so human after all?” Cassandra’s mockery pricked his mutinous silence.

  “I would not dishonor you once you became my lover. I would have no need of any others. What you speak of is not the same. I feed off of those women because I cannot feed off of you. Not yet, Cassandra.”

  “So you save your dishonor for me now. I fear what will happen to me in the future.”

  “Do not twist my words, darling. Please do not.” Lord Constantine’s gloved finger brushed against her cheek. “I never wanted this. I only wanted to keep you happy. I thought it was the best for us both. . .I was wrong.”

  “Yes, my lord. You were very, very wrong and Lady Lenore was very right.”

  “Cassandra, what do you mean?”

  She pressed her palm against the hand still on her cheek. “She told me I was unwise to want your love. She told me it was dangerous. She was right.” Cassandra moaned piteously. “I hurt so badly, my lord. I love you so much that it kills me to know this. I wish I had never known you for the man you truly are.”

  Lord Constantine flinched. His dark eyes filled with tears he could not allow himself to shed. “Do you really mean what you say, darling?”

  “Yes.” Cassandra laid her head against his chest and sobbed. “Why, my lord? Why have you made a fool of me? You express yourself freely with her but not with me. You make her laugh but make me cry. Why did you make me think I was special to you?”

  “You are special, Cassandra. You are my most special girl for precisely that reason.” The vampire threaded his fingers through her disheveled hair and promised, “It will be all right, darling. I can fix this. Look at me.”

  She flung her head back. “How can you fix this?” Cassandra’s venomous voice slid into a whimper. His stare caught her wide, unblinking gaze and she was as lost as if she had fallen into a tunnel to nowhere.

  8

  Constantine peeled Cassandra apart, burrowing deep into her mind and stripping away all that had brought them to their ruin. Guilt leeched the vampire even as he probed deeper. Frustration lashed him as he unsuccessfully tried to see how Cassandra had stumbled across his sin. Crystal memories glistened dark, drawing Constantine to them. Caught in suspended time, he saw himself through her eyes. Cassandra’s sense of betrayal stung him to tears. The intimate knowledge of her suffering poisoned him.

  I truly broke her heart. Lady Lenore warned me but I did not want to believe. Now I wish I had. . .

  The incriminating memories flaked away from his beloved human only to reassemble in his ageless mind. Cassandra’s evening became a blank slate for him to write his lies on.

  “You fell ill while bathing. You have yet to leave this room. You have yet to see me tonight. Close your eyes and sleep, my love.”

  Caught deep in his trance, Cassandra obeyed him without resistance. She fell against him with a kitten sigh. Constantine picked her up, mind still absorbing and dispersing her volatile emotions. Cassandra’s beautiful hair tumbled over his arm, making her look more a doll than the beloved human of his heart. He clutched her closer as he made his way to her bed.

  Pain plucked him with each step. He concentrated on the present task, wishing to devour his stolen memories without experiencing them so thoroughly. His non-beating heart burned, making him feel useless and crippled. Constantine pulled back the plush covers and slipped Cassandra between the sheets. Her arms flopped, hands striped and still oozing with blood.

  Constantine leaned over her. His fangs descended in blasphemous ardor. His gaze pulsed red. Lifting up one delicate limb, Constantine took in her delicious scent. Justification wrote the script—he had to heal Cassandra or all would be for naught.

  All an excuse for me to be a very, very bad man.

  His tongue rasped over her skin slowly. She tasted of all things sinful and wonderful. Constantine licked up every drop of blood, damning himself for how much pleasure he took in consuming Cassandra’s base essence. Her moan echoed his. Constantine left her pristine, skin healed and evidence destroyed.
/>   Never had he felt so ashamed of himself.

  Why do I do these things to you when I am supposed to love you?

  Constantine undressed her, refusing to linger on her tender curves and unblemished flesh even as he hungered to press a kiss to her gorgeous hip. He flicked his wrist and her undergarments, gown, and shoes flew back into Cassandra’s gorgeous dressing room.

  Constantine tucked her in, careful to ensure her physical comfort and warmth. He surveyed his handiwork. Horror seized him. Cassandra looked as if she were lying under a death shroud. Fractured sanity demanded he rip the covers off and restart the process five more times before finally finding paltry satisfaction.

  It has to be right. It has to be perfect.

  Constantine reluctantly left Cassandra to wash his face. The dried blood left from her hands tainted him as a fiend and he couldn’t stand it for another moment. Staring at his reflection in the enchanted mirror, Constantine watched as each pass of linen further erased the evidence of his deceit. He wished flushing his mind was as easy. He flung the small towel to the counter. It refolded itself, dry and clean as before he touched it.

  I am king. I can change everything in this world. I can change this. Everything will be as I wish it. Cassandra will love me again and things can go back to where they were.

  Constantine walked away, momentarily flush with conceit. He climbed onto the massive bed and lay next to Cassandra. Careful to keep his body a respectful distance away from her, he held Cassandra’s small hand in his and wept.

  Self-contempt tore into Constantine. How could he have been so despicable to believe his dalliances would never harm Cassandra? She had turned his thoughtless cruelty against him and easily unmasked him for the disgusting creature he was.

  “Then must I adopt a more vampire way of being, my lord? Will you let me have any handsome man I fancy? Will you look the other way, secure in my feelings for you, as I spread my legs for him?”

  No matter his rationalizations, Constantine had taken pleasure from his human women, thinking them a necessary balm to the dangerous craving he had for Cassandra. He used them, ignorant and believing himself to be a good man for keeping his lust away from his darling. Instead, Constantine had been anything but a good man.

  And now my Cassandra is paying the price.

  She stirred. Constantine quickly wiped his tears away. Her eyes fluttered. She sighed and stretched. Her fist knocked against his shoulder. Cassandra gasped and sat up. “Lord Constantine?”

  “Yes, my darling?” He stitched a false smile designed to dazzle.

  “Why are you here? Where is Lady Lenore?”

  He smiled wider, cursed for what he had done and miserable because he knew he would do it again.

  “The bath overheated you. Lady Lenore called for me, darling, and here I am.” He caressed her cheek with the backs of his gloved fingers. “Are you happy to see me?”

  Cassandra pinked with girlish delight. She flung her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Lord Constantine! I have missed you so much!”

  Constantine swallowed the hard kernel of remorse and found it choked him silent. He hugged her back and buried his face in her neck.

  “My lord? Is everything well?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, sick with what he had done to her. Cassandra tried to look at him but he merely tightened his embrace. “Everything is well, darling. I have just missed you so much.”

  Constantine heard her smile and shuddered.

  “I have missed you too. I love being with you, my lord. You are everything to me. I could never love you more than I love you now.”

  Please do not say those words to me, darling. Not after what I have done.

  “I love you too.”

  “My lord,” she whined. “Let me look upon you.”

  Constantine loosened his grip. In light of her unbearable sweetness, he wanted to hang his head and mourn. Instead, he gave into her wishes with widespread arms. “Look your fill, my precious darling.”

  Cassandra sat there, blankets around her waist and lacking modesty at exposing her lovely breasts in his presence. It had always been that way between them. Constantine wondered if he should have insisted on more decorum on her part.

  “Darling, perhaps you are cold?”

  She shook her head.

  “Really? Perhaps I can fetch your robe?”

  “No, my lord. I am fine. Truly.”

  Constantine shifted, feeling like a frustrated beast. He focused on her smiling face and attempted to purge all the inappropriate, lustful thoughts he had of kissing, licking, and biting her beautiful nipples. “I think we should cancel our outing, darling. I hope you are not disappointed.”

  Cassandra reached out for his hand. “Stay with me?”

  “Of course, my love.”

  “Then I am more than content, my lord.” She scooted over and patted the space next to her. “Will you lay here with me, my lord?”

  Constantine smiled again, suffering the strain on his conscience in face of Cassandra’s adoring countenance. “Anything for you, darling.” He got off the bed and approached the bedside table. He removed his gloves and top hat, wondering how in spite of the evening’s heartbreaking events, his clothes had managed to remain undisturbed.

  “I have so much to tell you, Lord Constantine. I learned how to…”

  Her cheerful words washed over him, leaving him slicked with guilt. Her unbridled joy scalded. He imagined his skin bubbling beneath the rays of her unblemished and undeserved regard of his character.

  I chose my path and will not deviate. Cassandra cannot hate me. I will not allow it.

  “I have something to show you, my lord.”

  Constantine shrugged off his overcoat. He looked about and spied the chaise. Constantine walked over to set the coat down and missed Cassandra sliding off the bed. Her feet pounded a merry tune towards her cavernous dressing room. Constantine heard her cry out just as the forgotten mistake blew apart his guilt.

  No!

  Cassandra came out, empty hat box clutched in her arms. “It’s gone! My hat is gone! I worked so hard on it, my lord, and…and…I…where did it go?”

  Constantine cursed himself for a brain-dead fool. “I am sure it’s not truly lost, darling—”

  She stared hard into the box. “Why isn’t it here? I remember…I remember…” Cassandra looked up. Her brow knotted into a perplexed frown. “My lord? I remember seeing you…no…you would never present yourself in that way…what is wrong with me…”

  Constantine watched his darling, most precious girl stumble over the resurrected memory. He imagined the stolen recollections’ ghostly tendrils wrapping around the anomaly, using the damnable hat’s existence to fuel them back to life.

  Constantine had only a few moments left to redirect her attention.

  Cold to his silent cry of remorse, Constantine approached Cassandra and took her in his arms. The box hit the ground to be kicked away promptly.

  She left off her pitiful mewls and stared up at him. “My lord?”

  “I love you, darling. I will always love you.” His mouth touched hers. He kissed her gently, coaxing her mind to leave off the raw scars he left behind. Cassandra melted into him. Her tongue swirled past the soft seam of his lips. She pushed her body hard against him, reminding Constantine she was more than ready for his plunder.