The Cherished One

by Carolyn Faulkner

  He frowned at her, but didn’t make any move towards the door.

  Finally, Fawna leaned towards her brother and whispered with deliberate, evil calm, “Dain, do you remember the pictures I found on the internet of you and that dancer?”

  He colored most spectacularly while clutching the bat and ball, as if she might reach out and take them from him in a fit of pique.

  “And who you really didn’t want to see them?”

  Dain rose as gracefully as he could when his little sister was strong-arming him. “I think I’ll go call Ty and Andy, see if they want to come over and gawk.” He stopped directly in front of Max. “Thank you for the gifts. But, you know what my mother said?”

  Max nodded.

  “Well, it goes double for me.”

  “Of course. I understand. I want to assure you that I intend her absolutely no harm, Majesty.” Again, Max bowed dramatically low.

  “Oh, dear God, you’ve got to stop doing that!” As soon as Max rose, Fawna smacked him hard on the shoulder. “He’s going to be impossible to live with! He’s gonna want everyone to start calling him that and bowing and scraping. Cut it out!”

  “You know, sis, I think I’m beginning to like this guy!” Dain quipped on his way out.

  Fawna put her roses on the table in the foyer, where the mirror reflected their beauty. “These are just gorgeous. Thank you. You didn’t have to come over here bearing gifts, though.”

  Max smiled sheepishly. “I supposed it wouldn’t hurt, though. All I can do is continue to say I’m sorry, and not hurt anyone. Eventually maybe they’ll forgive me.” He reached out and took her hand, kissing the back of it. “Maybe even you’ll forgive me.”

  Fawna reached back and rubbed her bottom compulsively with her free hand, remembering the spankings she’d endured at his hands, both during their stay at the enclave as well as when he’d made so bold as to invade her sleep. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, you misunderstand me, Cherie. I don’t want to be forgiven for spanking you in the least. Biting you, yes. Holding you against your will, . . . probably. But spanking you, definitely not.”

  Fawna stared at him incredulously, her hands on her hips. She couldn’t help it. He wasn’t much of a repentant soul.

  “Go out to dinner with me. We can talk.” Max held out his hand at least as imperiously as Dain would.

  Sighing, she put her hand in his. “Were you a king in another life?”

  He held the front door open for her, and that was one thing she really liked, women’s lib aside. Old-fashioned men, generally, had old-fashioned manners. She liked having doors held open for her, that Dag had always opened her car door first, and come around and helped her out of the car, and had sheltered her with his umbrella to the car, and had gone and gotten the car and brought it to the entrance to the store if he didn’t have an umbrella...

  “You just liked to be pampered.”

  “Yep,” Fawna agreed, unapologetically.

  When they were comfortably ensconced in his Jaguar, she returned to the question he had neatly sidestepped. “So? Were you a king in another life?”

  He didn’t want to answer her question. He might as well have said as much by his attitude, and she could feel him tense in her mind. “No.”

  “A prince.”

  Max sighed, and she knew this line of questioning was not popular with him. “Yes.”

  “You don’t want me to ask you any more questions about this, because it falls under the category of your original life.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I am curious about it, though, only because I want to know you better.”

  He reached over and took her head. “Well, that’s a good thing.”

  She wasn’t at all sure where she wanted to go. She could hardly suggest The Roma, with all of her memories of herself with Dag there, it would not be a good choice. Instead, she opted for her favorite non-chain steakhouse. It, too, was family owned. They also had a butcher shop, and her family had bought their meat there for years. As a result, they got an excellent table, even though it was a busy night and they didn’t have a reservation. The waitress knew Fawna and was an excellent server – just right chatty and very knowledgeable about the menu.

  Max, as usual, settled for an exceptional glass of red wine, pleading an upset stomach as an excuse not to order food, but he did stick his finger into the sauces of most of what she ordered, just to get a sense of the taste. She found this practice to be very interesting. He wasn’t really ingesting anything, and he never excused himself to void during the meal, so whatever he was doing must not be upsetting to his system.

  She indulged herself with a baby order of their onion loaf, which consisted of small strings of onions packed into a baby loaf pan then fried. It was like rings, just served in a loaf, with a wonderful sweet sauce on the side that was to die for. Then she had a small salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and a large steak that Max was amazed to watch her mow her way through. He actually looked around her and under the table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking to see where you’re actually putting that! How can you possible eat that much and remain that thin? You’re a stick!”

  “I have a high metabolism. My Mom says that that’ll slow down after my first child.”

  “Ah.”

  “So, if I refuse to have a child, I’ll remain thin.”

  Max sat back in his big wing back chair. “No children for you? I thought it was still requisite, even nowadays.”

  “It is, for most. Just not for me.”

  He sensed her discomfort immediately. “Sore subject?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, but was now playing with her food rather than eating it. “Only between myself and my Mother, who is dying for a grandchild.”

  “Oh, bebe, I’m sorry.”

  When her eyes met his, they shone with tears. “I’m her only child, and I was with Dag, and there was no hope for babies. And then Dag left me, and I think she saw a light at the end of the tunnel. And then you show up at the front door and blow that out of the water... I just feel really pressured some times, even though she rarely says anything to me. She doesn’t have to. I know how she feels. She wants to hold grandbabies in her arms, and I don’t blame her. It’s a natural desire. I just... didn’t get the maternal thing, you know?”

  Max reached across the table and cupped her face in his hand, but with his mind he was placing tiny kisses all over her face and whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

  The waitress appeared at that exact, wrong moment, but at least it gave them both something else to fixate on.

  Max insisted that she indulge herself in one of their famous ginormous desserts, so she got a strawberry shortcake that was served in a goblet that was the size of her head. “I wish you could have some of this with me.”

  “Believe me, I do, too. That’s why I keep trying things, hoping they’ll taste better to me than they do.”

  “I wondered why you did that. You’re always welcome to dip your finger into anything of mine.” Whoa. That came out entirely wrong, but she couldn’t reclaim it now.

  He, of course, was sitting across from her, looking like the cat that ate the canary. “I fully intend to, believe me.” His voice said it all. It was so gravelly and deep, it was almost a threat.

  When they were back on the road, he said casually, “You and I have some unfinished business from the forest.”

  Trying to appear as innocent as possible, Fawna said, “We do? Whatever could that be?”

  He chuckled, and it wasn’t a good chuckle, either. It was definitely his evil chuckle. He reached across the car and laced his fingers with hers. “Well, there are two things, actually. The first time I pleasured you, afterward, you crawled across the bed to get away from me and cry, and you evaded my attempts to bring you back. I told you then that it was a punishable offense. Do you remember?”

  She was damned if she said yes, and damned if she said no and also
damned if she remained silent. So Fawna sighed and said yes, but in a tone that let him know that she wasn’t happy at having to answer him at all.

  “And then there’s this business of escaping me altogether. Now that is a very punishable offense.”

  She couldn’t keep the broad smile from her face. “I thought it went quite well, myself. I couldn’t believe I’d done it! I was very proud of myself.”

  His reaction wasn’t quite as happy as hers. “I can imagine you were, but I wasn’t happy in the least, and that’s definitely something you’re going to have to pay for, Cherie.”

  Fawna hadn’t been paying much attention to where they were going, and now that the car had stopped in front of an isolated stone mansion, she was wishing quite desperately that she had. But Max was already out of the car and had come around to open her door for her. That hand of his was already reaching in for her, and she didn’t think she could refuse it without getting herself into more trouble than she was already in.

  So she let him help her out of the car, but she had a point to make and she wanted to do so before she forgot it. “Wait a minute! Didn’t any of those spankings I got while I was asleep count for anything?” she asked as he guided her into the house.

  Max allowed her to precede him into the kitchen. “Why, I’m sure I don’t have any idea what you mean, Cherie.”

  Fawna turned to confront him, her hands on her hips. A slightly amused smile playing about his lips, Max folded his arms across his chest and stood his ground. He was surprised when she didn’t say anything, but rather closed her eyes.

  Fawna was trying to reach out to his mind, to find out for once and for all whether or not those dreams were really dreams. If they actually happened – and they damned well felt like they had to her - then as far as she was concerned, he couldn’t consider that she hadn’t already paid for whatever sins he was trying to hold against her now.

  Max was impressed. She had a powerful mind, and he could feel her making inroads already around the fringes of his mind. Of course, he’d been at this for long enough that, as it stood now, since she was an untrained novice, unless he allowed her access, she wasn’t going to get very far, but he was very impressed at what she was able to do as a complete neophyte. “Brava, my Fawna, you have wonderful, untrained skills already. We’ll work on them together. But you can stop now, because you won’t be getting anywhere with what you’re trying to do.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and he knew she was dejected that her efforts had come to no good end. “That’s not fair!”

  “No, it’s not. Regardless of any nocturnal rendezvous that might or might not have occurred between the two of us, you are still in hot water for avoiding and then escaping me. Neither of those behaviors is acceptable.”

  He was wagging his index finger right in front of her face, and she had a sudden impulse to bite it, but she didn’t figure that was going to earn her any points, either, damn it. Perhaps she could distract him, though...

  Max chuckled at her thought as she wandered away from him, investigating everything like the curious kitten that she was. “Is this your home?”

  He decided to indulge her. He had a soft spot for her that he knew he would do better to curb, but he loved her, and he was finding that harder and harder to do.

  He loved her.

  Mon dieu.

  He loved her.

  Suddenly, he was very glad that she couldn’t read his mind.

  Max shook his head, knowing he needed to keep up with the little minx, or she’d take over his house while he wasn’t paying attention, and the next thing he knew, she’d be disciplining him. “No, it’s my house. I don’t have a home.”

  Fawna stopped in mid stride, where she’d been admiring the glass front cabinets, and turned to him, her face revealing how aghast she was at that simple statement. “No home?”

  He shrugged. “No.”

  She marched towards him and hugged him for the first time, he thought. “Well, that’s not right. Everyone should have a home.”

  Her concern touched him, but it was unnecessary. “I don’t need one.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears, her hand cupping his cheek, and he could feel how her heart ached for him, and he couldn’t bear it. Her lips parted, as if she was going to say something, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned away and wandered into the dark hallway. He knew she was crying, that the idea that he was homeless – in the emotional, not physical sense of the word - hurt her terribly.

  But it wasn’t even something that was on his radar any more.

  Chapter Ten

  Although he knew she didn’t need it, he turned the lights on in the rest of the house, showing her around the place a bit. It was big, but not enormous, definitely larger than he needed as a single person, but he liked his space. He didn’t own the house but rented it, preferring not to have the ties that property ownership required.

  She found his study, and settled onto the tapestry couch there, where he came to join her. “Can I ask you a question?”

  He hauled her up against him, not wanting any more distance between them than was absolutely necessary. “You may ask me anything you like, although I want you to realize that we’re not going to talk forever, because you’re definitely getting spanked tonight.”

  That earned him a deep frown, but she decided to completely ignore what he’d said in favor of her own considerable curiosities. “Is your early life off limits still?”

  She felt him stiffen, but then he said, “No, you can ask me anything.”

  Considering her original query, her next question caught him completely off guard. “Tell me about Musette and you and Dag and what happened with the three of you.”

  It was the last thing he expected her to ask about, so he had to marshal his thoughts for a moment before responding. “What do you want to know?” It was a delaying tactic, yes, but he needed the time to collect himself. This subject was almost worse for him than if she had asked about his early life, and at least he had been somewhat prepared for that.

  “The story. What happened. Not just the bare bones, but what was she like? The both of you fell in love with her? Or what? Was Dag a bad guy at that point, and he was just trying to hurt you? Or her? What happened?”

  “I hadn’t been... involved with anyone since I’d turned. At first it’s pretty easy to do that, because humans are merely food. But when that wears off, the loneliness set in. I didn’t feel comfortable anywhere, especially since things began to change so quickly as civilization advanced and everything and everyone I knew fell away from me. I’d always been a bit of a recluse, and I guess I let that dominate my way of life. I kept myself apart from everyone. In the end, it really saved me. Most of my kind was hunted down, but I managed to survive, because I didn’t intermingle much with humans.

  “Until her. I saw her in a park in Paris one evening, just after dusk, scurrying home like the little mouse that she was, running from she didn’t know what. Running from me, probably, although she didn’t know it. I used to hunt in that park. Quite successfully, if I remember correctly.

  He cleared his throat. “We had always known of each other – Dag and I. I traveled in... different circles than he did, shall we say, but word gets around in the vampire community just like it does in any other. We both met Musette at about the same time, I think, and began to court her.” He sounded lost in his memories, and she turned her head to look at him, wishing she could relive them with him. His voice sounded different somehow, less dark when he spoke of her. “You remind me of her a bit. She brought the sunshine and flowers with her, too, but of course, she wasn’t a faerie. She was always laughing and fun to be around, kind and generous and loving. She loved me, and I was never that type, even then.” Fawna could hear the raw emotion in his voice, and she fancied she could even feel the love he’d had for her, all those years ago.

  “But she did love me. And I was head over heels for her, and would have very happily have given my life
for her. But Dag had set his cap for her, too. I don’t know much about what his character was back then. As I said, he and I weren’t really a part of the same social set. All I know is that she was apparently dating the both of us, and he found out about me before I found out about him and it enraged him.

  “Instead of coming to me to work it out, he got her and found me and killed her right in front of me. Drained her in an instant, and then she was dead in a heap at my feet. No more flowers, no more sunshine.”

  Fawna hugged Max, knowing that reliving this was – although he would probably never admit it – devastating to him. He had truly loved this woman, and she, very much like herself, had been an innocent bystander in the proceedings. Fawna felt very sorry herself for her loss, and she could hardly ignore the similarities between their stories. What had happened to Musette was meant to happen to her, only Max hadn’t gone through with it. She was meant to lie bloodless at Dag’s feet.

  Fawna shook her head, trying to bring herself back to the story at hand. “She sounds like a wonderful woman, and I’m sorry that he did that.”

  She kept her arms around him, and they remained silent for a few moments. “If it’s any consolation at all, I don’t think he’s like that anymore. He doesn’t feed on humans at all, and I know he hasn’t in a long while. Perhaps since Musette. He was nothing but gentle and loving with me – well, except for the spankings. He’s changed.”

  “I’d really rather not talk about Daggar right now, Fawna. I’d rather talk about you.” Max moved, just tad, so that her head was on his shoulder, and she was looking up at him.

  “Sorry for making you discuss something that hurts you.” There were tears trailing down the sides of her face.

  Tears for him, and for the long gone Musette, he knew. Max wipe them away, and kissed her, very gently. “It’s all right, Fawna. It happened years and years ago.”

  “Yes, but you haven’t dealt with the pain, so it’s still there, hurting you every time you think about it. I can feel it.” She put her small hand over his still heart.