Strawberry
Page 8
I kissed his neck, right in the hollow where his shoulder and collarbone met and slid my hands up his back, relishing his weight and the reality of him. Our bodies rocked together in a slow, gentle rhythm and I whispered, “Take my blood, Owen. It is yours.”
I wanted to gift him something as sweet as what he was giving me. I had never before surrendered to his teeth; I had merely tolerated the bite. Now I offered my blood, my life willingly.
His teeth slid into my neck. He drank and kissed and sucked at my neck. My eyes closed and I gasped as he rode me harder. The smooth motion as he pumped into me, deeper and faster, left my thighs quivering and a sweet ache spreading from my toes to my scalp. The powerful need was obvious in his touch as he pushed into me, filling me, his arms wrapping me so tight I thought I would break. Something was happening, something I did not understand but his body was growing warmer than it ever had before.
That shift from cold to hot within me knocked me senseless and I came hard. My body shuddered and locked tightly as the pleasure hit me like a wall. Owen cried out in his own orgasm then he clutched at his chest in a gesture that scared me witless. A gesture full of pain and terror and disbelief.
My orgasm was still shivering through me when he withdrew from me and sat up. His fingers were interlocked over his heart and his eyes had gone a strange shade of… blue.
I stared at those eyes, at the terrified expression on his face and could not think of a single word to ask, to say. He fled, literally fled from me and I stared at his firm and naked ass as it streaked across the room and out the door in total bewilderment.
“Maybe it was too much garlic and he got heartburn?”
My voice quavered and tears slid down my face. I felt naked and exposed, not only because I actually was but because shame had set in.
The daylight splashed in through the open door and from somewhere in the house there was a wounded howl. My skin prickled and I crawled under the covers, smashing myself flat and small as possible. Fear broke out along my spine and I began to shiver while the rich food roiled and tumbled in my belly.
I didn’t know what was going on but I knew it could not be good. I lay there, looking up at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for him to come in and kill me or for the house to suddenly go up in a puff of dust but nothing happened.
The tension drew out nearly unbearably but eventually my mind and body could take no more and I drifted off into a dream-filled and restless sleep, marked by nightmares of Owen burning in the sunlight.
Chapter Eleven
Sometime in the afternoon I crawled out from under the covers, threw on Owen’s shirt that had been left in a crumple beside the bed, and began to prowl around the room. The chain yanked me up short every single time I breached its boundaries and I began to scream in anger and misery. The screams ripped from my throat and chest, leaving a pain in my body but clearing my mind.
The room had few to no personal effects. Just clothing and some cologne in the bathroom, several ancient books stacked on the bedside table. But the ghost of his presence in the room burned me. I began to kick the wall and tossed a lampstand over. I felt like a rock star trashing a fancy hotel room. Everything just piled up and I could not help it, I needed to destroy something.
It was when I tossed the bedside table to one side that one of the books popped open, catching my eye. The book had a fake interior, and a tiny wooden box tumbled out. I got on my knees and looked at it. It was a lovely little thing with silver clasps and inlaid ivory. The name stamped into it made me catch my breath: Adelle St Laurents.
I opened the box with trembling fingers to see a diary, bound in leather and marked in place by a black silk ribbon that had faded to nearly gray.
I opened the diary and began to read.
Adelle’s handwriting was rounded and flowing. It was also tiny and when I closed her journal my head was aching fiercely from the strain of it all.
Owen had been right about her. Adelle had loved an adventure. She had seen him as one as well, a young and handsome man she could kiss and flirt with, ride at full gallop next to, dance wildly until dawn with but long before he had ever seen her she had been betrothed to her husband, a husband she never had any intention of ditching.
Where Owen had gotten it was wrong was in assuming she wanted him just as badly. Adelle wrote of her manipulations and flirtations, always finding them amusing. Like the other men she kept on her string, Owen was nothing more than a flirtation, a way of passing the time and ensuring her dance card was always full at the countless balls and parties she attended. She never let any of her beaus go any further than kisses and groping up her legs because she was shrewdly and acutely aware that to do so would be to ruin her prospects for marriage.
When she did wed and realized she no longer had to stay a virgin in order to ensure her place in society she began to take on numerous lovers, of which Owen was just one.
He had no idea. She dangled her love in front of him for her own amusement. Her husband was indeed a cruel man who treated her with little more than contempt or rage at her inability to produce a child, but she was cruel as well.
When she was whisked away to France she became infatuated with Rene, a handsome man with ‘ebony hair and eyes, a walk that makes me shiver as it speaks of danger with every step and an endless hunger for life nothing seems to assuage.
‘From the moment we met I could feel a need for him, a starving and thirsting need that would not, has never, let me rest. I adore him despite his odd ways and violence in lovemaking. Just a fortnight ago he kissed my bosom so fiercely that he left a bite there, which made me so weak I could scarcely stand for days. The weakness passed but the bite remained in full view, making it necessary for me to stay in bed for days playing at megrims and other illness in order to keep anyone from seeing it, especially my hardly beloved husband. He would kill me if he knew I was once again cuckolding him but I think Rene would be worth dying for.
‘He manages to come into the house at all hours of the night, unseen by the servants or passersby on the street. He always smells of wind and places that I have never been. Oh! To be with him there and forever!’
If Rene were anything like Owen I could understand the attraction. But not wholly. Owen was a vampire and that turned me off so totally. What made me care about him was his human behavior: his kindness and vulnerability. It was when he was at his most unvampire-like best that I…
Oh shit…
I blocked that thought before it could work its way into my head. I could not possibly be in love with him. It just was not possible. Not even if he was great in bed and a damn good cook. No way.
I turned my attention back to Adelle. Rene had bitten her and she had gone into a serious depression when she was hauled back to merry old England. Bored and lonely she had turned to Owen, feeding him tales of her love for him.
There was a sharp shift in her writing around then as well; it was as if Rene’s bite had made her somehow terribly aware of her own immortality. Was it possible she had known that he was a vampire? I believed she had, and she longed to be young and beautiful forever as well, to be able to keep her lovers enchanted and on her strings.
When Rene came after her she was ready for him, seducing him and using him just as she did all men. Together they had turned her husband into a thrall. He was seen in public and acted as normal as could be managed. He rode in carriages and attended balls for short amounts of time before pleading illness and leaving. Rene and Adelle kept him prisoner for nearly two months before she managed to convince Rene to bite her.
That was when things got very out-of-control. Owen had not given up on her love. Everything he had told me about the night he had been turned had been true with one exception. Adelle had been a vampire for weeks. She had simply lied so that he would not kill her too, promised him that her love was still true, and drank from him as greedily as if he were a giant-sized cherry Slurpee.
But Owen had bitten her back. He had know
n, somewhere deep down, that she was a liar, that she meant to simply drain him and dispose of him. He had bitten her wrist in a frenzied moment and she had been too caught up in feeding from him to stop him until it was too late. Adelle had been amused by his biting her, by the sudden and startling rebellion against her pretty lies. She had also thought it sexy as hell.
In some of their darker moments as a couple, they discovered that vampires could not kill other vampires. So she kept him around. While Owen was busy searching for a cure for them Adelle began to hunt not just for food but also for sport and to increase her wealth. Owen drank but never killed. Adelle saw that as a weakness. She always killed her prey and often haunted the places where men with money went so she would have cash on hand to support her ever-increasing love for luxuries.
Owen on the other hand began to build businesses on his own labors and small inheritance. He began running a tavern, only open at night time, so it would seem natural he only appeared then to manage the business.
Dark Raine. Duh. I mentally face-palmed. He must own the club the LARP was at. More than that, I was sure it was a worldwide chain.
Owen annoyed Adelle with his constant need to be returned to his human state and his ongoing love for her only made her angry. She viewed him as a weight and after her husband died while still in thrall she set out to find a lover that would be willing to kill Owen.
I could have killed Adelle for that. She bewitched a wealthy man and then told him that Owen was a vampire. He raised a mob and they came after Owen. He managed to escape and, in fury, she killed her latest lover.
The diary ended there.
I almost threw it at the wall in frustration.
I knew he had killed her but how if vampires could not kill each other?
“I see you are reading.”
He had walked up behind me so silently I had never even heard him. I spun around and my mouth dropped open. His face was positively glowing and his eyes were still that same light shade of blue. He was wearing blue jeans, something I had never seen him wearing and a plain white shirt.
Something very different radiated out of him but I could not put my finger on what it was. He did not seem pissed at finding me digging around in his dead lover’s belongings so I answered honestly. “Yes, I was.”
He held out his hand and I placed the book into it. He stared down at it for a long time. “I suppose you think me a fool.”
“I’ve done some crazy shit because of love.”
A smile turned the corners of his full lips upward. “Really?”
I deflected, playing down any meaning to my words. “Who hasn’t?”
He bent down and his shirt pulled up to reveal the smooth flesh above his waistband. I wanted to lick that skin until my tongue fell right out of my head. Owen set the book back inside the box and back into the fake book.
“I am guessing you want to know what happened.”
“She tried to have you killed.”
“Yes. It was after that I found her journal and realized how badly I had been used. Would you believe I had loved her for over a hundred years at that point and was still blind to her nature? She was cruel and corrupted but when I looked at her all I saw was beauty. All I saw was the one I loved. When I confronted her she laughed at me and said she had never loved me, that she would never love me.
“I wanted to strike her and that violent blaze horrified me. I left, going to my offices to get some peace and to think. I was heartbroken and felt betrayed. All the blood, all of the years, wasted. All of the killing she had done, all the people no longer on the earth for no purpose but to serve her selfish need to be beautiful, to be wealthy, and powerful, and worshipped. I was devastated. I was in agony.
“A mob showed up with stakes and torches, they swarmed through the tavern and into my office, killing two of my human bartenders — good men making a living for their families. They dragged me out into the street and beat me, stabbed me with their stakes. They narrowly missed my heart and I had just enough strength left to run.
“I staggered away, bloodied and dying. The first human to cross my path was a child. A child. I almost killed her trying to return myself to strength. I’ve done too many inexcusable acts in my time.”
I reached out a hand to Owen’s but he pulled away before I could touch him.
“I grew cold and hard inside. I travelled abroad, seeking answers. I discovered that while vampires cannot kill one another there is an ancient death curse for those who are corrupt, that may have worked even on her kind. It was held within a silver ring that was possessed by the spirit of a vengeful ghost, a young woman killed wrongly.
“I found the ring. The old Romani man who held it told me he could not give it to me, that the ring found those who deserved it. I told him of her and he told me if she deserved punishment it would come.
“I went back to see Adelle. I had no plan other than try to make her see that what she did was wrong, hoping time had changed her. I went back and when I opened her door she was lying there on a chaise, her hand in the air and the ring on her finger. It could be no other, with an immense ruby cut like a drop of blood, the silver setting tarnished to black. She was admiring it and I wanted to tell her to take it off, to save herself but it was not up to me. That ring chooses its wearer.
“I said what I wanted to then turned away. She laughed at me but then she stopped laughing. I did not turn around to see her die. I did not need to. Her ashes drifted across the room in a stinking cloud. I never stopped blaming myself, that somehow I had brought the ring to her. I found some forgiveness in dispersing her wealth to the poorest of peoples and by leaving England forever.”
“I’m so sorry.” My heart ached for him but he brushed my words aside.
“It’s over now. I promise you if I had not found your blood so sweet I would never have held you prisoner. That has never been my way. Harvey sends porn actors to many a game at my club, and I’ve often taken them to feed from after the night has ended. But I have never killed any of them, nor kept them prisoner before, until you.”
I choked. “I’m sorry did you just imply I’m a porn star?”
“What?”
“Oh god, you think I’m a porn actress.” I stared up at him.
His blue eyes bored into mine. “You’re not a porn actress?”
“I’m not a porn actress!”
He put his hands over his face and began to laugh, huge gusty laughter.
“But you’re so…” He bit his bottom lip, looking over my body. “I just mean…”
I considered the way I’ve acted under his captivity. I almost couldn’t blame him for thinking that way. “I’m not, I’m really not. I am an actress but I have never done porn. I’m the girl that always dies in the horror flicks before the hot blondes even start getting naked. It’s sort of the formula, you know, geeky dark haired girl with small tits gets chain sawed first while the blonde with the giant bolt-on tits survives until the shower scene.”
He looked completely nonplussed, “Bolt-on tits?”
Leave it to a guy to focus on that.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry I assumed you were. Kitty French even sounds like a porn star’s name.”
Ouch. I glared at him. “Not hardly. I mean…okay, it might, maybe, a little…” It did. Shit. I had taken to using Kitty instead of Kaitlin when I first moved to Hollywood, to be a new me, and all I did was make myself sound like a porn star. “That does not make me a porn star though.”
“He said you were.”
“Who?” Even as I asked I knew the answer. Harvey, that bastard. He had set me on a porn job after all. I wondered if he knew the real fate he was sending those girls to? A bit of role playing and a quick bite from a real life vampire. Owen must have had his pick of hot bodies to drink from. My stomach gurgled with jealousy.
“You didn’t, you know, sleep with all the porn stars as well as bite them, did you?”
Owen looked down at his feet, a gorgeous, bashful motion that m
ade my heart backflip. “No, you’re the only one.”
We stared at each other, and I couldn’t get over the shade of blue his eyes had turned. Like ashen cornflowers or a dusky winter sky. His face grew solemn and in that frown, tiny lines of ages showed around his eyelids.
“Can you ever forgive me, Strawberry?”
“Forgive you for what? I’m sure girls are confused for porn stars all the time. I mean there was the whole kidnapping thing…” I tried to make it sound light, but I could see a darkness closing over Owen.
The dim light from the hallway stroked the planes of his face while he paused for a moment then said, “I am so sorry, Strawberry. Maybe one day you will find it in your heart to forgive me but I do not think you ever will.”
Owen left me there and did not come back though I waited for hours. The house lay silent and deserted around me. I lay on my back, staring at the shifting shadows on the ceiling and alternating between wanting to scream, cry and laugh hysterically. It’s a good thing I could not get to the kitchen since I was ripe for a peanut butter jar and a spoon kind of moment. I missed ice cream, I really, really did. I lay there and to keep myself amused or maybe just to add a little salt to the wound I thought of gelato and soft serve, Italian ices and waffle cones. Rainbow sprinkles and hot fudge poured liberally over vanilla. I found myself dreaming about mint chocolate chip and the delicious texture of cookie dough ice cream.
Chapter Twelve
I woke up in my own bedroom with the sun shining in through the open balcony doors. Apart from a few birds chirping, the house was strangely silent. I rolled over on my side, prepared to face another day in captivity. My feet hit the floor and I pushed myself up so I could head to the bathroom.
I was halfway there when I realized what the silence meant; I had grown so used to the clatter and chatter of the chain that I no longer even heard it, until I didn’t. I looked down and stared at my ankle. It was red and chafed, the skin abraded in places but it was free of the cuff. I shook my head and pinched myself. Surely I was dreaming.