“If you ask this of me, my wife, you shall receive it. I would corral the fires in the sky for you, enslaving them to warm you forever.”
The woman squeezed the man more tightly, and he reciprocated in kind, curving his body about hers as though the two were a mother and her gestating infant.
When Peter came to, he saw the truth. Finn’s mother would be dead before he reached his lands again. The young hunter would only become more vulnerable in Saba’s eyes, abandoned by the only other woman who loved him.
The vampire tore open his coat to bare his chest, then picked up the battenti, holding it out, the points of its nails shooting upward to his god.
“Come reclaim what I foolishly declared hers, my Lord,” he whispered. “It is yours once again.”
The nails stood at attention, poised to pluck out his heart on command. He held his head to the sky, offering his god the winsome smile that could win him over anew, then he let fly his hand and belted his chest with the points of all twenty nails. The steel punctured his marbleized flesh, his force unmatched, his verve beastly.
“Don’t rush in,” he muttered. “Go softly, little lamb.”
Peter carved up his torso, stripping himself of his dignity more than anything else. His business wasn’t bloody, but he shredded his skin for good measure. By the following day, his torso proved smooth again, repaired with the blood of his kin. With his body remade in his god’s image, he stood bold once more, knowing it to be the sole evidence his indulgence was accepted.
* * *
Finn gave her a welcoming wave from the ground, squatting next to a trap. Freyit had taken a liking to the young hunter and gifted him with some of his own gear.
“For beaver,” he said with a smile.
They still struggled to communicate about most things, but hunting was the subject for which he acquired a new set of words.
Saba had already been to the shed to fetch her longbow, strapped to her back where it served as an added appendage.
“I’ll show you where best to lay those if you want,” she said.
He squinched up an eye, as he looked at her standing tall before him. He hadn’t kissed her since that day in the brush but had put nothing else to mind. Beyond her beauty, he admired the things about her that seemed most otherworldly. She moved through the trees as if she knew each one, just like him back home. Her stride was elegant and confident at once. She took to her bow better than him, though he’d never admit it. He thought about her in deeper ways, too. The feel of her lips on his, a more experienced mouth, one whose tongue showed him things he thought she alone had invented. His life on his lands, with his brothers and mother and father, could never be so exhilarating. Despite the neighboring clans, his world was small. He struggled with the idea of losing Saba if he returned. He didn’t think he could live without her, just as all men do of their first love.
“I’ve got to be back before the sun is at the midway mark.” Her voice broke his concentration, as he tied the traps together. “My sister’s got me watching her babies again.”
She rolled her eyes, and he laughed. He could guess her words when she said them. He’d met Hannah and Andor and their children the previous day when Saba took him with her to get the skins her mother had requested. The twins adored him instantly, almost as if they could tell he was nothing like Saba. He liked children. He got down on the ground with them and rolled around, allowing them to make him their prey. They threw toy spears at him, and he played dead. Over and over again, he let the girls have their way with him, and they loved him for it.
“You seem to like babies,” Saba said.
He raised an eyebrow and lifted his chin, then pointed at her and said, “You, no?”
She shook her head. “Not in this lifetime. I’ve got better things to do than run around after babies.”
He pulled his mouth into a frown. “Why?”
“Why what? I don’t like babies?” She looked away. “I just don’t.”
“Moor, you no?”
“Nope, I’m not interested in being a mother. I want to be something else.”
He shrugged.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she said, leaning in and dropping her voice. “But I want to be like my kin.”
He shook his head, unable to understand.
“I want to be made a vampire.”
“Vam-peere.”
“Vamp-i-i-i-re.”
“Vam-pire.”
She nodded, and smiled.
He thought her smile the loveliest ever, but he’d no idea what it was she said. The word meant nothing to him, even though he’d been caught in the claws of the very thing she wanted to be. He could never understand the depth of her purpose.
Only a few features of his abduction had returned to memory by then, but sometimes he’d stand still, a shiver running up his arms, his eyes glassy. In those moments, he knew he’d been violated. He tried to recall the face of the one who harmed him, and each time his father’s aspect appeared. The ornery man weighed on his mind. He knew deep down he had to return to him. He’d get an earful once he got home, but he’d have to put his father’s mind at ease, for surely the man was sick with worry for his eldest son.
Finn eventually confessed his home seemed a distant place both in mind and on land, across the sea as it was. His mother’s face too was washed away with his ride on the ice floe. He said my family, Saba especially, was the thread he used to stitch himself whole again. He quickly considered us one and the same.
“Do you have sisters?” Saba asked.
Finn and she were deep in the forest now. She’d led them to the place where he could set his traps. Freyit had shown her the secret spot a long time ago, the best place to lure the rabbit away from its hole. She swore then she’d never show another soul, but she was merely a child, unaware of what her words meant.
“Syster,” he said. “No.”
“Oh.”
“Bror.” He held up two fingers to show her he had two brothers.
“Bror,” she repeated. “Brother.”
The corners of his mouth drew downward and he turned away. He missed his two little brothers. He was grateful he hadn’t listened to the youngest, who’d begged him to take him to the traps the following morning. Instead, he’d left the hut by himself before sunrise, leaving his two brothers to their furs and their sleep.
“What is it?” Saba put her hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away from her. He could do nothing else to hide his eyes.
Saba let him go, and turned to set one of the traps. She knelt down on the moss, unscrewing the inner casing to set the release. She was concentrated on the metal until the weight of his hand on hers stopped her. He bent down beside her, and took the cage from her hands, laying it at his side.
She looked at it for a moment, then back at him. His eyes were wiped dry, but the trace of tears remained. Saba grew nervous, as he swallowed, no words ready on his tongue, his breath smelling of their morning tea. She was about to speak, about to say she belonged to another, but he touched her cheek with the back of his hand, and looked at her with a softness Peter could never muster. Finn didn’t show hunger, but subtle longing.
“Yes,” she mumbled.
“Show more.” He leaned in, his eyes closed, his lips newly wetted.
Saba had a smidge of time to make her choice, his mouth closing in on hers. She wanted to kiss him, but not as much as she wanted to feel Peter’s lips on hers again. She turned her head to the side, giving Finn her cheek, his embrace crushing up against her face.
His blush wasn’t as awkward as his quick recovery. He bolted upright and reached for the cage, walking it a few paces away, where he toiled with it, his back turned to her.
“We should go,” she said, standing up and making a new trail through the brush.
She stopped to see if he’d follow, hoping the trap gave him enough time to recover. She admired his broad shoulders, as he squatted to lay the cage in place. He had all the makings of a sturdy partner
, she thought. But he wasn’t for her.
As he stood, he turned to her with a grin. He shrugged, then stepped toward her, promising to follow wherever she led.
They walked through the woods for a time, catching several birds on the points of their weapons. He tossed his spear with a precision Saba hadn’t seen in the colony’s other hunters, using it as if it were an extra limb given him at birth.
“You’re good,” she said, reaching out for the arrow she’d slung at a raven. She missed the bird by a smidge, and went to retrieve her point. The bark of the birch seemed bent on keeping her dart, so she put a leg up to its trunk to use as leverage.
Finn watched with admiration, her body doing things that made his stiff.
“Peelün fast gnat,” he said, stepping forward to help. He held his hand out, an offering to pull it for her. She gave in, and stepped back.
He took a similar posture to hers, but instead of pulling out, he pushed the arrow’s point in more deeply, slicing through the bark. He worked to create a bigger wedge, one that would eventually loosen the point. She watched his effort, admiring the way he put everything he had into rescuing her arrow. She hadn’t said it was her favorite, its tip honed by her own hand, the feathers on its end from the first raven she ever caught. No matter, he treated his task with the utmost seriousness, sweat beading on his brow despite the chill in the air.
“You’ve almost got it,” she said. “It’s loosening.”
She moved closer, her gaze falling on his aspect. Finn’s features weren’t as distinct as Peter’s, his lines lost to layers of baby fat. She’d always found her vampire irresistible, but at that moment, as Finn struggled to free the arrow, she noticed he was all grown up. Suddenly it hit her: Finn will age, he’ll look as mature as her father one day. He’ll imbibe manhood and grow old, too. But Peter will forever look the youth he is now. The thought didn’t bother her for their sake, but it put her choice in perspective. She’d never questioned the budding faces of her foremothers. Both Evelina and Lucia looked like maidens, and always would, but when Saba pictured Netta, she thought how lovely is a woman with age and experience, lines and life on her face. Nothing compares to a woman who’s lived in an ever-changing body. She conveys a certain ferocity, a respectable maturity that only comes from sharing herself with another. Saba couldn’t grow old with Peter. But with Finn, it was almost a guarantee.
She shared these thoughts with me later, when she was recovering from the change she’d undergone. Her eyes were opened, and she needed to confess these childish ruminations, having held on to them for too long. I was her confessor, her only ear in a world full of mouths.
Finn turned to her with a smile, the arrow in his hand. Instead of handing it off to her, he leaned in and tucked it into the satchel hanging from her hip. His face was an inch from hers, but his proximity wasn’t fettered by his earlier intention. He’d relinquished his desire to kiss her.
He looked at her pin, the butterfly brooch Hannah had given her.
“For what?” He asked.
She shrugged. “A gift.”
“Gift,” he repeated.
She grabbed his hands, gesturing a gift as best she could.
His eyes lit up. “En gova,” he said.
She sighed, then repeated his speech. He smiled, but as he made to step back, she gripped his arm, stopping him. Fear raced down her thighs, her legs trembling beneath her. “Shuss mey,” she whispered, her breath hot on his skin.
Their faces were close, her lips at his cheek. She heard his breath drop, his chest quiver, his jaw tighten. Both remained still, only their shoulders falling and rising, the want swelling in each of them. She’d held his arm with some strength at first, but now she clamped down hard, her nails digging into the two layers of hide he wore for warmth. He closed his eyes, and tilted his head just enough to align their mouths, her taste a lick away.
He fell into her, his soul searching for hers somewhere in the back of her throat. He was a quick learner, soon taking Saba to the place beyond the ledge on which Peter had left her standing, and wanting.
Their bodies tumbled to the ground, she on her back, he straddling her on his knees. He didn’t know where to go next, but let instinct guide him. He dropped down on top of her, pressing his chest onto hers, crushing the bed of leaves beneath her. Their faces came together again, another kiss that was more of a feast than a union. She tore at his vest, and he pulled at the belt about her waist. The two growing lost to the sounds of all else.
For a moment, Saba saw herself in Finn’s arms forever. But the sight was fleeting, for all at once the voice of another came at her, rushing through the trees. Go softly, little lamb, it said. Don’t rush in.
Whether Peter interfered or Saba drew him to her, I couldn’t say. But his voice came into her head the same moment a party of Hematopes approached, their shouts dampening the pleasure she felt in her bones, her limbs soaked in Finn’s passion, and the heaviness her soul was forced to endure. The earth beneath her hardened like a block of ice.
“Stop,” she murmured.
Finn groaned, unwilling to let the moment slip from him.
More forceful now, Saba put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him up with a jolt, forcing his eyes open. “Stop,” she mouthed.
He hung his head, and sighed. “Sloota,” he said, repeating her command in his own tongue. “Stop.”
Her eyes darted to the side, and she cocked her head. He heard it, too. The voices were closer now, the hunting party moving in on them.
Finn jumped up, and straightened his vest before putting his hand out for Saba. She rolled to the side, slipping her belt back through its loop, then used her own strength to push herself up. She touched his hand once she was standing, but remained turned away from him. His cheeks flushed, hers wan. “Follow me,” she whispered, putting a finger up to her lips.
The two ducked out of the clearing and into the brush just as the hunting party came through. Saba stretched her legs with a jog, trying to shake the need from her limbs. Finn followed, and soon the two gave chase, she leading him through an obstacle course of tree roots, and low hanging branches.
They spent their need on the fresh air in their lungs, their bodies quelling under the vigor of the race. At one point, Finn took the head, but lost his advantage when the path snaked another way. Saba knew the shortcuts, the birch forest hers alone. She regained her lead and didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the trees where the cliff begins. The expanse of sea at the end of the forest had always mystified her, and she stood tall looking out past her world.
“Fast,” Finn said, when he pulled up beside her, leaning his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Saba was barely winded, laughing at his posture.
“You need to practice,” she said. “What do they do over there, where you’re from, walk all the time?”
He laughed, satisfied in his state of confusion. In his heart, he thought he’d won the girl. It was only a matter of time before they’d seal their pact and become one. Finn’s father had taught him the sacred act of mutual bondage, the dressing of the yoke. “It can never be removed,” his father had said. “The woman you take to your bed, the woman you make your wife, will be yours forever. You must care for her even after you’ve left this world.” Before Finn set sail for his land anew, he’d do anything to make his father’s words a reality, and Saba the woman to don his yoke.
Saba looked out at the sea, watching the whales commune on the surface, their fountains spouting to the sky. She pointed to the behemoths and said, “Aren’t they magnificent?”
Despite not wanting to peel his eyes off his prize, Finn looked out, admiring the stacks of water, the rounded backs, the unearthly giants of the sea. He was lost in an instant, reminded of the one who’d taken him, a pinch in his leg so fierce he couldn’t stand. “No,” he mumbled.
“What is it?” She dropped to her knees beside him. “What happened?”
“Mitt blued, hans bilt.” He clutched his thigh,
his eyes wild and wet. “Mitt blued.”
“Tell me,” Saba said. “Show me.”
He yanked at his trousers, pulling the pant leg up over his knee, exposing the pointed scar in his thigh. “Mitt blued,” he mumbled.
Saba reached for the scar, touching it with the tips of her fingers. “Your blood,” she said. “You belong to him.”
She didn’t know who him was, but still she sensed him there, on Finn’s skin, raging for the blood of the young hunter he’d captured and made his.
“He’ll come for you,” Saba said. “You must be watchful.”
Finn shook his head, unable to understand her words. She leaned in, grabbing his head in her two hands, pulling it to her shoulder. “You belong to him now.”
“Vam-peer,” he mumbled.
“Your vampire.”
* * *
The vampire felt the floor drop from under him, as the whale’s carcass was sucked down into the deep. The abyss was quiet, the darkness heavier than that above. Once the behemoth touched solid ground, the vampire felt the thud in his veins. He’d grown weak in his captivity, regretting the young hunter’s life. He should have killed him when he had the chance. He no longer wanted to make him his, but desired to strip him of his manhood, and his skin. Rage fueled him in the cavernous ribs of the whale, as he awaited his escape.
The soundless sphere played tricks on his mind and he saw her again, returning to pay him homage as though he were a corpse. Her delicate irons, her miniature wrath, all of it awakened a fire within. For her, he thought, I must break free from this trap for her.
He took to the blubber again, inch by inch, peeling at the layers of skin. The whale was less active now, his lining weakened by the bite of the parasites beneath the water with him. Time stood still, as the vampire dulled the edge of his talons, softened by the viscosity and dampness of the mammal’s insides.
It wasn’t until he saw the spark that everything changed. The speck of brightness came at him from beyond. It consumed him, and entered him at once. He grew lightheaded, his surroundings opening up, a vast plain before him. He couldn’t know it was a god come to take his body and make it his vessel, he a surrogate for vengeance, the form the god would use to lay waste to the goddess he’d chased around the earth two times over.
Grief For Heart: The Vincent Du Maurier Series, Book 4 Page 13