“You’re bleeding,” he remarked.
I glanced at his erection. It glistened with trickles of crimson droplets. The tip glistened like a ruby. The burning juices of my arousal felt no different from blood, so Envy dipped a finger into my gash. He brought his fingertip before my eyes, showing me the blood that gleamed like scarlet dew.
“Don’t stop,” I whimpered.
He thrust into me again. He pinned both of my wrists over my head as he came into me again and again, drawing spurts of blood. My moans and screams must have been a symphony to him. They vibrated along with the crashes of the waterfall and the gurgling of the stream. At the climax, Envy roared as he dug his nails into my hips, stabbing me over and over, leaving me with bruises that bloomed like black roses as his viscous ejaculations flooded out of me, mixing with rivers of my blood.
At the end of it all, my legs trembled and dripped with his seed and my blood. When Envy cradled me in his arms and carried me out of the room, I caught a glimpse of the water lotus bed. Streaks and splotches of blood defiled it, displaying incriminating evidence of my defloration.
Perhaps Gabriel was right. Perhaps the loss of my virginity would lead to my ruin. At my performance the evening after my intimacy with Envy, my legs quivered from the shuddering soreness Envy’s weight inflicted on them. I could not kick as high as I normally would, nor could I twirl as fluidly. Audience members even gasped at the conspicuous bruises on my pale skin, like black spots on a white dog’s fur.
“A horrid performance indeed!” quipped an old woman as she traipsed out of the theater with her friend. “It was like watching a little girl pretending to dance!”
Hearing the wedding bells ringing for Gabriel and his bride did nothing to alleviate my bitterness. On their wedding day, I caught a glimpse of them riding through the city in a crimson carriage, waving to the cheering passersby as the bride’s veil fluttered behind her like a white flag—a flag that signaled her surrender of virginity to the man I desired.
There was an evening when no one came to my performance. As I stormed through the city streets, I spotted Gabriel and his wife clinking their wine glasses by the glow of candles through the window of a restaurant. Shrouded by the shadows of the streets, I fled home.
When I arrived back at Château Angélique de Verre, there was Envy, sitting upon a chaise lounge with crossed legs, enjoying a glass of absinthe. He glanced up at me, his eyes the same hue as his beverage.
“The city no longer cares for me,” I spat at him. “They couldn’t care less if I died.”
Envy stroked my hair and kissed my brow.
“At least you’ll always be with me.” I felt like a lost child as I threw my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his chest. “You won’t ever leave me, will you?”
“As long as you dwell on your losses, I will always be yours, sweet little Giselle.” Envy rested his cheek atop my head. He rubbed my back. I didn’t want his kindness. I felt angry. Resentment raced through my veins, lusting for an outlet to explode.
“Take me, Envy,” I ordered. “I’m yours to do with what you will.”
He whisked me to the library. A large black birdcage sat hidden between two shelves, with a chair inside to provide a comfortable reading spot amidst the maze of books. After tearing off my clothes, Envy threw my body over the side of the chair. My stomach pressed against the soft velvet. I could have hung my head, but Envy gripped my hair like the reins of a horse. I screamed and moaned as he yanked me back, slowly easing into me, filling me with every inch of him.
“You like this, do you, Giselle?”
He yanked harder on my hair, ramming his girth into me. His nails drew blood from my waist as he gripped me and thrust harder. It was not long before I felt him loop ropes around my wrists. I was suddenly yanked up to my toes. He tied both of my wrists to the bars of the cage. My hands were raised above my head, forming a V. Envy then looped a cord around one of my ankles. Because I was flexible enough, he tied the rope to the top of the cage so that my foot was raised high above my head. My other leg was left dangling.
“Perfect for penetration,” he remarked, grinning at his handiwork.
I felt sharp pain as my wet opening widened for him. It was as if I was a virgin again. He clutched my throat and thrust into me. As his hands burned around my neck, my thoughts flew to Gabriel and his wife, who would surely enjoy a night of pleasure after their dinner. I thought of the emptiness of my theater.
“No one will miss me out there, will they?” I murmured.
Envy paused mid-thrust, his member only halfway in me, slick with my desire.
“No. They won’t.” His absinthe eyes stung my skin. “You’re safe in this castle of glass. This is your world. Our world.”
Millions of pages throughout the library fluttered like doves’ wings as my screams vibrated from within the black cage. I doubt anyone in the streets took heed of the thin scratches that began to slice the glass walls as my voice rang.
THE HARDEST KISS
Cairde Glass
Bás led the young man between the damp walls, past doors that belched little clouds of laughter and lantern glow, through sticky puddles to a cul-de-sac between buildings. It was dark and smelled like piss and soot-clouded rain, but it was private and that was what mattered. Moonlight spilled over the intermingling rooftops and fell in a splash of silver across the steep incline of the lad’s forehead and the rough wedge of his nose.
The boy, Luke he’d called himself, wetted his lips with his tongue, then wiped them with his shirt cuff. “Here?”
Bás nodded, remembered Luke could not see him in the dark and stepped closer. “Yes. Here.”
“You want I should go first?” His hands found Bás, groping downward till his fingers rested on the cold metal of the older man’s belt buckle.
“No.” He leaned forward till the cool light of the moon reflecting off the lad’s sallow face filled his eyes. “I shall start.”
The kiss was light. Not delicate, for Bás was not. Nor gentle. But he held the lad the way a lover might and laid his lips against the thin mouth with a measure of fondness. It was the one thing he remembered clearly. Not love. Neither lust. But there were, after all, many kinds of intimacy and this always seemed sufficient.
Luke grew bolder, deepening the exchange, and Bás allowed him that liberty. The end comes soon. Already the young man burned, his body growing weak as his passion swelled. “Sir.” His voice crackled like ash. “I know you.” His eyes stammered back and forth. “But I dun’ know you. How is that?”
Bás stroked Luke’s hair and rocked him like a child. “You know the idea of me. All men do. From birth, they know the idea of me.”
The lad coughed—his lips flecked with blood. “Think I’m dying, sir.”
“Aye.”
“Stay wi’ me? Till the end?” His eyes were wide and white behind the lank fringe of his hair.
Bás nodded. “That’s why I came to you.”
Luke frowned. “Ah.” Understanding dawned. “Tha’s all right, then.” He coughed again, dribbled blood and wiped it clumsily away with his sleeve. “Will it hurt?”
“Naw. Like going to sleep it’ll be.” He shook his head and cupped the young man’s face in his hands. “Now. Kiss me, boy.”
The kiss was hard. The last kiss always was. Luke’s soul filled Bás’s mouth, crowding down his throat and burning in his chest. The boy fell to the ground empty, his flesh resembling a discarded vessel, at home in the midst of the rain barrels and rats.
Bás coughed and spat, legs trembling with the aftershock. Warmth coursed through him, and he flexed his fingers, tingling instead of numb. But the heat faded as the soul settled into his belly.
It was time to visit the gate. He felt bloated—heavy with the dead, like having gorged on old meat or drunk from the tap until the keg was empty and he was sickened by it. And covetous. It was the point at which he felt the most alive; it allowed him the fantasy of being human again.
R
ain splatted on the shingles overhead, stray drops finding their way into the fissure of the alley. Bás turned up his coat collar out of habit. The rain would not make him any colder than he already was. Cold as the winter air. And in the summer he burned, hot and thick and smothering. Being wet made little difference. But there was an instinct, a shadow of the man he used to be, that turned up his collar and hunched his shoulders against the rain.
The street was empty, night and the weather keeping even indecent folk inside. He strolled unhindered toward the underground terminal. Candles flickered against the walls, each a prayer to the gods asking for money or health or simply life. The flames danced as he walked past and a scabby woman held out her hands, one empty, the other gripping a dirty candle stub. Bás shook his head. He had no need for money or health, and life, something he longed for, would never be granted.
Treading down the rusting steps, he stepped into the trembling belly of the gear-car. The conductor, standing in the far door of the car, checked his watch and nodded to the engineer. “Tha’ll be it. Take us home.”
Bás settled into an empty seat, the car shaking underfoot as the gears in the chassis were engaged with the screw that would drive them down the track. There was no need to watch for his exit. There was only one stop to be made—the last one.
The maintenance cavern was a billowing, screeching mass of furnaces and steam and coal dust. The shovelers trudged back and forth, skin sweat-slick under the stiff leather aprons, pushing barrows of coal from bin to fire and returning empty to start over again. One or two looked up with a shudder as Bás walked by, red-ringed eyes going wide behind the thick glass of their goggles. He smiled and shook his head to each of them. Their time was soon, but not yet.
Beyond the cavern was a tunnel leading down into the earth. A bore-hole through the rock, it only just accommodated the span of his shoulders. Wriggling and cursing he came out on the other side into a second cavern, darker and emptier save for the gate.
The gate.
It squatted in the shadows like a scrap-yard dog. Massive girders ran ceiling to floor, like the limbs of a fallen tree, some standing strong, some wilting toward the uneven ground. Pipes wound over and around, broken stubs dribbling hot water and oil. Steam chuffed out in rank clouds at his approach, gears beginning to turn until the bars drew back and the gate flung open. Beyond was uncertain darkness that rippled like water. Or fire.
Out of that darkness came something more monstrous than flame. “You are late.” Aithan’s voice was irritable.
Bás dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry, master. The last one…”
“No excuses. Show me what you’ve brought.”
Bás’s stomach roiled and he vomited out the souls he had consumed earlier. They swirled like bits of leaf caught in a gutter, drifting toward the gate and vanishing into the murk beyond. He wiped a dribble of bile from his chin. Once or twice he had tried to hold on to one, desperate to keep that feeling of being full and alive. But, always, it had torn free, leaving him an empty mass of flesh that lived beyond death. He grinned, mirthless. Beyond death. If only that were true.
“That is all you have brought?” Aithan’s voice drove the smile from his face. “Hardly enough to keep me waiting this long.”
“Please, master. I took all that you instructed me to.”
“Insufficient.” His hand gripped Bás by the collar. “You will be punished.”
“No, sir. I can’t.” He might be dead, but he was not beyond pain any more than he was beyond winter’s chill or summer’s heat.
“Do not argue with me or I will double that which you receive.” Aithan shook him like a man with a dog. “But I am tired. You will spend the night thinking on your shortcomings and the just punishment you deserve.”
Bás whimpered and squeezed his lips shut. It would do no good to beg for mercy. It never did.
Aithan dragged him into the shadows where a door stood wedged in the rock. It was not like the gate; there was nothing supernatural about it, but Bás shivered. There was the shriek of the key in the lock, the answering scream of rusted hinges. He dropped hard onto his knees as Aithan’s hand propelled him into the room beyond, preferring that to running face-first into the rough wall. The door rang like a poorly forged bell, water shaking loose from the slick walls in a splatter of dirt and cold. Then he was alone.
Bás covered his head with his arms and swallowed back tears with the same determination as he held down a bellyful of souls. He would not lend his master the knowledge of the depths of his fear. Settling in the center of the room, he tried to calm himself for sleep.
Perhaps if he had a bed it’d be simpler, but the room was nothing more than an old cistern; rough walls spiraling up and up from the muddy bottom. On clear nights he sometimes saw stars or a snippet of the moon. On stormy nights there was only darkness and the uneven fall of rain on his bare head.
He propped elbows on knees, chin on hands and tried to think of nothing. The dread of the punishment to come in the morning ate at him.
“A pox,” he whispered. “On Aithan, master of the underworld.” The words were cold in his mouth. His master was immortal and there was no pox that could touch him, no matter how much Bás might wish it. “A pox on the mother who bore me and the father who fed me. May sickness visit those who let me live until I fell into the clutches of the many-cursed Aithan.” The thought warmed him. In the early days it had been guilt that fired up in his heart with the proclamations, but it had slowly grown into the heat of spite. If he was to be miserable, he would not be the only one.
One of the copper tubes that snaked into the cistern from distant rooftops rattled and clanged and a small, hard thing dropped from the opening and pinged off the stone wall. Then another, splashing into the mud. And another.
Bás pushed back against the door as the darkness buzzed. Something crept over his hand. “Get off.” He shook it away, but another one landed in his hair, on his cheek. Tiny metal feet scritched across his clothes and there was the tickling kiss of mesh wings against his face.
Beetles.
He moaned, certain it was another of Aithan’s torments, but shut his lips against the scream burning in his throat. If he didn’t struggle, perhaps they would be quick. The hair on his body stood up as dozens, then hundreds of little metal bugs covered him. He waited, barely breathing, for them to bite or sting or crawl down his throat. The hum of wings grew louder—the same cheerful dissonance as a calliope. His clothing pulled tight and his feet lifted from the ground.
They swung back and forth, like a small boat burdened with too many passengers, then steadied and began to rise. Bás glanced down. Blackness yawned between his feet and he shut his eyes, hard. Once or three times he felt his hand brush the hard-slick wall of the cistern, but the crash he was expecting did not come.
Smoke and mud tinged the air. Then wind touched his face and he opened his eyes, cautious. The city careened below his feet, a mush of gray and shadows and fire.
The beetle cloud dragged him swiftly among chimneys, over the hill and crest of rooftops until they came to rest on a balcony, the railing blooming with rust. The bugs drifted away like ash and Bás stepped into the house.
It was dark and smelled of rot. A fire burned dull in the grate, spitting a bit of coal onto the hearthstone with a derogatory hiss. Then, silence. And the sound of water running. A bath. Not simply running, but running over. Dread settled in his chest and he pushed open the door, expecting to see someone sunk to the bottom of the tub. Slipped, perhaps, and drowned. Or fallen asleep and also drowned.
The girl was neither. If he had been someone else, if the water trickling across the floor had not been rusty with blood, he might have thought she was asleep. It was so strong a feeling that he stayed in the doorway, afraid to make a sound that would wake her.
She stirred, water rippling down the side of the tub in russet threads, and opened her eyes. “Bás.” Her voice was broken. “You have come.”
A sliver of uneas
e cut through him. “How do you know my name, lady?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” A crook of her fingers. “Come here.”
He hesitated. It felt wrong to be looking at her; his hands shook at the idea of touching her. “Lady, I should not.” But his legs moved, step by slow step across the wet floor.
“Should not?” Her voice mocked him.
“Cannot…” He paused. “I don’t remember how to take a woman in my arms or the secret places that make her moan and tremble.”
Her fingers traced lightly down the front of his shirt, circling once over his crotch before she gripped him firmly. “Yes, you do,” she said. The palm of her hand rubbed against him, warm and tempting.
“Reflex,” Bás whispered.
“I’ll help you with the rest.”
“No.” He stepped away. “My body is scarred. And cold. Hardly fit to touch or…please you.” It was not merely Aithan’s spite that sent him to collect souls at night; his service as death had taken a hard toll.
She rose and wrung the water from her hair. Her skin was copper and milk, flawless except for the ragged slash on her left arm. Blood oozed from the wound, sluggish. She stepped out of the tub, and he watched as water dripped from the dark curls between her legs, trickling down the curve of her thighs, down the slender column of her legs to puddle on the dull floor. “If you do not want me…”
“I do.” The words came out as a groan and Bás took another step back. “I want you like breath, like daylight. Like life. But you deserve better.”
“Ahh.” She sighed. “That is where you are wrong.”
“Why?”
“You will understand soon.” She held out her hands, warm as daylight. “Please, Bás.”
A shudder ran through him and he closed his eyes, trying to remember the things he had forgotten. “Tell me your name.”
“Sephie.” Her breath curled against his cheek and he twitched.
Darker Edge of Desire Page 18