Watching my old self walk now, from the outside, I was astonished to see I didn’t appear as clumsy as I’d always believed. That didn’t negate the revulsion I felt at seeing the thick, waist-long black hair or passably pretty face. Still, it was kind of a surprise to watch reality (if this was reality) and memory meshed.
It was just after dawn, and I was carrying a large amphora of oil out to a storage house beyond my family’s home. My steps were light, careful not to spill any of it, and I again marveled at the way I moved. I set the vessel down beside others inside the shed and started to head back toward the house. I’d barely taken two steps outside when Kyriakos, my husband-to-be, appeared. There was a covert expression on his face, one that instantly told me he had sneaked over here to find me and knew perfectly well that he shouldn’t have. It was an uncharacteristically bold move for him, and I chastised him for the indiscretion.
“What are you doing? You’re going to see me this afternoon…and then every day after that!”
“I had to give you these before the wedding.” He held up a string of wooden beads, small and perfectly formed with tiny ankhs engraved on them. “They were my mother’s. I want you to have them, to wear them today.”
He leaned forward, placing the beads around my neck. As his fingers brushed my skin, I felt something warm and tingly run through my body. At the tender age of fifteen, I hadn’t exactly understood such sensations, though I was eager to explore them. My wiser self today recognized them as the early stirrings of lust, and…well, there had been something else there too. Something else that I still didn’t quite comprehend. An electric connection, a feeling that we were bound into something bigger than ourselves. That our being together was inevitable.
“There,” he said, once the beads were secure and my hair brushed back into place. “Perfect.”
He said nothing else after that. He didn’t need to. His eyes told me all I needed to know, and I shivered. Until Kyriakos, no man had ever given me a second glance. I was Marthanes’ too-tall daughter after all, the one with the sharp tongue who didn’t think before speaking. But Kyriakos had always listened to me and watched me like I was someone more, someone tempting and desirable, like the beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite who still carried on their rituals away from the Christian priests.
I wanted him to touch me then, not realizing just how much until I caught his hand suddenly and unexpectedly. Taking it, I placed it around my waist and pulled him to me. His eyes widened in surprise but he didn’t pull back. We were almost the same height, making it easy for his mouth to seek mine out in a crushing kiss. I leaned against the warm stone wall behind me so that I was pressed between it and him. I could feel every part of his body against mine, but we still weren’t close enough. Not nearly enough.
Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere.
“Letha? Where are you at?”
My sister’s voice carried over the wind; she wasn’t nearby but could no doubt show up if she sought me. Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he’d never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze.
“Have you ever been with anyone before?” he asked wonderingly.
I shook my head.
“How did you…I never imagined you doing that…”
“I learn fast.”
We stood there, locked in time for a moment. Then, he pulled me back to him, his lips crushing mine once more. His hand returned to my dress, hiking it up over my waist. He held my bare hips firmly and pressed himself to my body. I felt him hard against me, felt my body respond to something that seemed both new and natural at the same time. The fingers of one hand slid over, feeling the wetness between my thighs. His touch felt like fire, and I moaned, wanting him to stroke me there more and more.
Instead, he turned me around so that I faced the wall. With one hand, he kept the skirt of my dress up, and with his other, I had the vague impression of him fumbling with his clothes. Then, a moment later, he pushed himself into me. It was a shock, like nothing I’d experienced before. I’d meant what I’d said earlier: that I’d never been with another man. And even wet with desire, it still hurt to have him inside me that first time. He seemed too big and me too small.
I cried out at the pain, an odd sort of pain that didn’t diminish the fire that had been building within me. His thrusts were hard and urgent, no doubt fueled by feelings he’d long been holding back on. And after a while, the initial pain seemed irrelevant. Pleasure began to grow as he moved into me over and over, and I adjusted myself so that I bent over more and let him take me more deeply. He thrust more forcefully, and I again exclaimed in surprise and blissful pain. I heard a muffled groan, and then his body shuddered as he spent himself, his movements at last slowing down.
When he was done, he pulled out and turned me around. It was the first time I’d seen him naked in all of this. There was blood and semen on both of us, which I tried to clean off my thighs before finally just letting my dress fall back over me. I’d be bathing before the wedding anyway.
Kyriakos had just finished putting his clothes back on when we heard my name again. This time, it was my mother. He and I stared at each other in wonder, scarcely believing we’d just done what we had. I was aglow with love and the joy of sex and a whole host of new feelings I wanted to explore in more detail. Fear of my mother drove us apart.
Stepping back, he grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. “Tonight,” he breathed. “Tonight we…”
“Tonight,” I agreed. “We’ll do it again. I love you.”
He smiled at me, eyes smoldering, and then hurried off before we were caught. I watched him go, my heart filled with joy.
The rest of the day went by in a dreamy haze, partially because of the flurry of wedding activity and partially because of what had happened with Kyriakos. I’d had a vague idea of what would occur on our wedding night, but my imaginings had never come close to the real thing. I practically danced my way through the rest of the day, impatient to truly be Kyriakos’ wife and make love again and again.
The wedding was taking place at our home, so there was enough work (along with my own preparation) to almost keep me distracted. As the ceremony time grew nearer, I was bathed and dressed in my wedding gown: an ivory tunic of fine material, wrapped with a flame-red veil. I had to kneel a little for my mother to adequately adjust the veil, earning a number of jokes about my height from my sister.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except me and Kyriakos being together forever. Soon, guests began arriving, and my heart rate increased. Anticipation and the day’s heat made me sweat, and I fretted about ruining the dress.
Someone called out that Kyriakos and his family were approaching. The excitement in the air grew palpable, shared by everyone now. Yet, when Kyriakos arrived, he barged right into the house, going against the traditional procession and stately ceremony that should have taken place. For half a second, some girlish part of me thought that Kyriakos—in his burning love for me—couldn’t wait through the drawn out process of a ceremony. I was quickly enlightened.
With a face flushed with fury, he marched up to my father. “Marthanes,” Kyriakos growled, finger in my father’s face. “You insult me if you think I’m going through with this wedding.”
My father was clearly taken aback—not an easy thing to accomplish. People chastised me for my sharp tongue, but that was largely because I was a woman. I wasn’t half as bad as my father, and he’d intimidated a lot of men twice his size. (It was a sad irony that while I was tall for a woman, my father was short for a man.) A few moments later, my father recovered his usual bluster.
“Of course you are!” he exclaimed. “
We’ve made the betrothal. We paid the dowry.”
Kyriakos’ father was there, and judging from his fine clothes and surprised expression, this was all news to him too. He set a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Kyriakos, what’s this all about?”
“Her,” said Kyriakos, pointing his finger at me. His gaze swung to my face, and I flinched from its force, as though I’d been slapped. “I will not marry Marthanes’ whore of a daughter!”
There were gasps and murmurs from those around us. My father’s face turned bright red. “You’re insulting me! All of my daughters are chaste. They’re all virgins.”
“Are they?” Kyriakos turned back to me. “Are you?”
All eyes turned to me, and I blanched. My tongue felt dry. I couldn’t muster any words.
My father threw up his hands, clearly exasperated by this nonsense. “Tell them, Letha. Tell them so that we can end this and get our dowry back.”
Kyriakos had a dangerous glint in his eyes as he studied me. “Yes, tell them so that we can end this. Are you a virgin?”
“No, but—”
Chaos erupted. Men shouted. My mother wailed. The guests were a mix of stunned shock and delight over a new scandal. Desperately, I tried to find my voice and shout above the din.
“It was only with Kyriakos!” I cried. “Today was the first time!”
Kyriakos turned away from where he’d been telling my father the dowry would not be returned. He glanced over at me. “It’s true,” he said. “We did it today. She spread herself as easily and knowingly as any whore, begging me to take her. There’s no telling how many men she’s offered her body up to—or how many she would even when married.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “It’s not true!”
But no one heard me. There was too much arguing now. Kyriakos’ family was raging over the insult. My family was bristling against the name-calling, and my father was trying his best to do damage control, though he knew perfectly well that my own admission had damned us. Premarital sex was not so out of the ordinary for lower classes, but as a tradesman’s family, we modeled a lot of our customs on our betters among the nobility—or pretended to. A girl’s virtue was a sacred thing, one that reflected on her father and family as a whole. This disgraced all of them—and had serious repercussions for me. As Kyriakos well knew.
He had moved toward me so that I could hear him through the noise. “Now they all know,” he said in a low voice. “They all know you for what you are.”
“It’s not true,” I said through my tears. “You know it isn’t.”
“No one will have you now,” he continued. “No one worth having. You’ll spend the rest of your life on your back, spreading your legs for whoever comes along. And ultimately, you’ll be alone. No one will have you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut to try to stop the tears, and when I opened them again, I was surrounded in blackness.
Well, not entirely in blackness.
Before me, the Oneroi glowed more brightly than before, lit from within by that eerie light.
“An interesting dream,” said Two, with what I think passed for a smile. “One that gave us much to feed on.”
“It’s not true,” I said. There were tears on my cheeks in waking, just as there had been in sleep. “That wasn’t true. It was a lie. That wasn’t how things happened.”
The dream was muddling my brain, almost making me question myself, but my own memories soon won out. I remembered that day. I remembered kissing Kyriakos by the building and how we’d then gone separate ways, strengthened by the knowledge that we would soon be man and wife, making our wedding night that much sweeter. And it had been. It hadn’t been rushed against a wall. We’d taken time to learn and explore each other’s bodies. He’d been on top of me, staring into my eyes—not my back. He’d told me I was his life. He’d told me I was his world.
“It was a lie,” I repeated more firmly, fixing the Oneroi with a glare. “That’s not how it happened. That’s not how it happened.” I knew I was right, yet I felt the need to keep repeating it, to make sure the words were true.
One gave a small shrug, unconcerned. “It doesn’t matter. I told you: Mother shows the truth. But dreams? Dreams are dreams. They can be truth or lies, and all provide food for us. And you?” He smiled a smile that was the mirror of his twin’s. “You will dream…and dream…and dream…”
Chapter 11
I was in Seattle. Modern-day Seattle, thankfully. I wanted to be nowhere near the fourth century, even though I dreaded what awful vision the Oneroi would show me now.
Not only was I in Seattle, I was with Roman. He had just parked on Cherry Street and was striding toward the heart of Pioneer Square, which was buzzing today with tourists and others enjoying the clear autumn night. This time, I wasn’t in the dream. I was an observer only, following along with him like a ghost or maybe a documentary camera. I wanted to talk to him, to communicate in some way, but I had no mouth with which to speak. I had no form whatsoever, only my consciousness watching this vision.
His pace was brisk, and he pushed through the meandering crowd with no concern for the dirty looks and occasional comment. He was focused on his destination, one I recognized immediately: the Cellar. Our favorite immortal hangout was crowded with mortals tonight. Yet, for whatever reason, no matter how busy the bar was, Jerome always managed to get the same corner table in the back. He sat there now with Carter but didn’t wear the usual unconcerned look we often found him with while drinking. The demon’s face was filled with agitation, and he and Carter were arguing about something.
Roman’s signature was masked, so neither angel nor demon noticed his approach. Jerome shot him a glare, no doubt thinking some human was bothering them. Jerome’s expression promptly changed when he saw who it was, and he opened his mouth to say something. He didn’t get the chance because Roman spoke first.
“Where is she?” demanded Roman. He sat in a chair and jerked it toward Jerome so that father and son could look eye to eye. “Where the fuck is Georgina?”
The music and conversation covered most of his shouting, but a few nearby patrons gave him startled looks. Roman was oblivious. His attention was all on Jerome. Anger crackled around the nephilim like an aura itself.
Jerome had been clearly distressed about something when Roman had entered, but now, in the presence of an underling, the demon put on the cold, haughty expression that was so typical for him.
“Funny,” said Jerome. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Roman glowered. “How the hell would I know? She vanished right before my eyes! You’re the one that’s supposed to have some sort of divine connection to her.”
Jerome’s face didn’t twitch, but his words were like a gut punch to both me and Roman. “I can’t feel her anymore. She’s disappeared for me too.”
I might have had no physical form, but cold fear ran through me nonetheless. An archdemon was connected to his subordinates. He always knew where they were and could tell if they were in pain. When Jerome had been summoned, that connection had shattered, cutting us off from our hellish “gifts.” Now, the opposite had happened. I had been summoned, so to speak, and torn from Jerome. The Oneroi’s words came back to me: He won’t find you. He can’t find you. You no longer exist for him.
“That’s impossible,” growled Roman. “Unless…” A troubled look came over him. “Someone’s hiding her signature?” It would be terribly ironic if the scheme he’d once planned came to be through someone else.
Jerome shook his head and gestured to a waiter for another round. “I wouldn’t be able to find her if that happened, but the connection would be there. I’d know she still existed.”
You no longer exist for him.
“Is she…is she dead?” Some of Roman’s initial fury had dimmed a little.
It wasn’t an unreasonable question, really. I kind of felt dead.
“No. Her soul would have shown up in Hell.” Jerome took a sip of his new drink and narrowed his eyes a
t Roman. “But it’s not your job to ask questions. What do you know? You said she disappeared. Literally?”
Roman’s face was downright bleak now. He glanced between Jerome and a grim, thus far silent, Carter. “Yes. Literally. She’s been having these…I don’t know how to explain it. She couldn’t even explain it.”
“I was there,” Jerome reminded him. “She told me. The music. The colors.” The sneer in his voice made it clear that he regarded those types of things as nuisances.
“It was like this weird force pulling her, enchanting her. It wanted her to come to it.” Roman was repeating known info, possibly to make Jerome take it more seriously. “She called it a siren song and kept sleepwalking, trying to get to it. And then…and then tonight, she went to it.”
“Did you see it?” asked Carter. It was odd to see him so serious and…well, confused. The former emotion I’d seen only a handful of times. The latter I’d never seen on him.
“I saw her disappear. Like, vanish into thin air. But I didn’t see it exactly. I felt it. I could sense whenever it was around.”
“What did it feel like?” asked Jerome.
Roman shrugged. “I don’t know. Just…a force. A power. Not an entity exactly. And not something I could identify. Not a greater immortal or anything.”
“That,” declared Jerome, “is absolutely useless information.”
Roman’s anger returned. “It’s all I’ve got! If you’d listened to her more, this wouldn’t have happened. You let this happen. You didn’t take it seriously, and now she’s gone!”
Yelling at Jerome. Not a good thing.
“Be careful, lest I revoke your invitation,” hissed the demon, eyes boring into his son. “And I did listen. I set you to protect her. You, apparently, are the one who ‘let’ this happen.”
Roman flushed. “I was in the other room when that thing showed up again. I hurried in as fast as I could, but it was too late. Georgina’d already given herself up, and honestly…I’m not sure I could have stopped it anyway.”
Succubus Shadows gk-5 Page 12