“As Miss Emily requested,” Volkov said. “We will let them go. But for now, make them sleep, my lady, and when they awaken they shall have their voices again. We must take them away from here, and begin this at last.”
Emily found herself leaning heavily against Volkov, overcome by sudden fatigue. To her surprise, he laid his arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer. Normally she would have at least tried to fight him off.
“Oh, so the task falls to me, does it?” the countess said, outraged. She stood with her hands on her hips, skirt flaring out which never failed to make her look more like the child she really was. “Thank you very much, Richard. Really. And where shall I put them, does it matter?”
Volkov nodded once, firmly. “Put them in the smoking room. We will ensure that they do not remember this.”
Emily’s skin grew even colder. He would make them forget, the way that he had tried to make her forget. She didn’t know if they were as strong as her or if any of them were capable of fighting off that eerie power and remembering the things that matter. She watched the countess, who had gone to Victoria and let her down; because she was more like them, the countess would show preferential treatment.
“It seems silly to let this one go,” the countess said, indicating to Victoria’s slumped body, which she held awkwardly in her arms.
Victoria groaned; the countess held her awkwardly, the look on her face speaking a thousand words. Though she had seen her way through the centuries, the countess was still not accustomed to proper labour of any kind. It was a part of her short but intense upbringing. Emily sensed that Richard was revelling in the fact that she had to work, and here she was committing this clumsy seduction, loathing his touch and yet, deep inside herself, irrationally wanting it, just a little.
“My lady,” Richard said, gripping harder on Emily’s arm and shifting his hips against her hand. “I said that we would let them all go. Except for Emily’s chosen first, after all.”
Emily lowered her head into his collarbone and awkwardly groped. She wanted to close her eyes, to take her hand away, but she kept at it, inexperienced and acutely aware of the fact.
“Make them go away, Richard,” Emily said. “So that we can be alone; just you, me and… my first.”
She had tried to say it like she meant it; she didn’t want to be alone with him, the very idea terrified her. But she reminded herself that she was not alone. There was still Nick.
Within minutes, everyone except for Nick had been sent to sleep and released from their bonds at last. Emily watched the countess carelessly drag them out of the ballroom, hands clasped around their ankles and pulling them across the floor.
Volkov’s finger traced the strap of Emily’s dress. He took her hand and guided it away from its intimate resting place. Then he turned her body so that they faced each other properly; to Emily it was like allowing the current of the sea to carry her away.
“Lie down, Miss Emily,” he said, softly. “It is easier that way.”
He guided her to the stone slab, and she went without question. It was cold and dry, rough against the softness of her skin. For an absurd moment, she was reminded of her childhood visits to Doctor Sewell’s office for inoculation after inoculation, and the small prickling fear that made her throat tighten. Impending pain is a terrible thing to deal with; it was no different in this case.
She turned her head, ever so slightly; it was only Nick now, and when she flicked her eyes up to inspect the rope she found it so frayed that it was only a matter of time before it snapped. Nick, incredibly, worked with precision and in complete silence; it would have been eerie in any other circumstances; here, it was more like a miracle. Nick had lost his jacket somewhere down the line, which meant there was no creaking leather to worry about, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Whenever the countess was present, he stopped altogether; only when he felt he did not have the attention of either creature did he continue worrying the rope. Emily tilted her head back so that she was looking at the high ceilings of the ballroom. They were quite beautiful, all painted with clouds and scattered with cherubim and winged horses; a portrayal of Mount Olympus. Emily supposed that Volkov and the countess were not too unlike the Gods of Grecian myth. They were powerful, but they were also detached, which in turn made them cold to the ways of their former selves and the people around them.
Volkov hovered over her as the sound of the last body, perhaps Abrahms, was dragged out of the ballroom at last. Emily’s eyes drifted to his, and he looked at her a while before speaking.
“Your eyes are not of this world,” he contemplated. “They are the eyes of the elf, the faerie child. You cannot deny this, Miss Emily.”
Emily lay there, still and unnervingly calm. It was like Rochester mistaking Jane for a faerie during their first encounter, her slight figure and her green eyes fooling him. Emily had to remind herself that Volkov was not her Rochester. She did not want a Rochester.
This had happened before; she already been violated completely and with such thoroughness, and it was about to happen again. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
“Just do it.” she said bluntly, willing a chill into her words. “Get it over with.”
As Volkov loomed over her she risked a look at Nick, and his face revealed in his own subtle way that he was almost done, but not quite yet. She turned her view back to the ceiling, only to have Volkov’s face fill her vision in a manner that was almost expected. They looked at each other for what felt like a long time.
“Faerie eyes,” Volkov said again with hushed awe. He ran his hand gently through her flaming red hair, fingers caressing her cheek, trailing her neck and down, down, down.
Emily gasped, exposed and vulnerable beneath him. With the caresses of his hand, Volkov pulled the dress up, exposing her pale thighs. Emily clamped her legs together automatically.
“I can still say no, Richard,” she said. “I’ll let you bite me, because you and I both know that I can’t fight you. But I won’t let you have my body in any other way than that.”
Emily wasn’t sure how he would react; he was always so impossible to predict. Her whole body was rigid. For an absurd moment, she wished that the countess would come back.
A low laugh rumbled in Volkov’s throat, a dark sound that made Emily think of monsters in wardrobes and the itching desire to hide under the covers where it was safe. With one hand he stroked her neck, and with the other he roughly forced himself between Emily’s legs, staring at her intently all the while.
“As I said before, Miss Emily, your desires are irrelevant. Just because I can be a man does not mean that I must be a good one. I don’t believe in good and evil, I believe in survival.”
He began to stroke her in the last place that she wished for him to touch her.
“Just bite me, Richard, please,” Emily gasped. “Stop touching me. I don’t…” an involuntary moan rendered her incapable of speech for a moment. “I don’t want it.”
Volkov mounted her in a swift movement, hand still fixed to her, and brought his face down close to hers. The fingers of the hand on her neck pressed into the skin that little bit more forcefully before relaxing and drifting his hand down to her breast.
“I already told you that I was not immune to human ways. There are nights when I wish to drink, but wine holds no taste for me. There are nights when I hunger for ordinary food, sometimes I think I would even devour the bowls of gruel the other boys and I received when I was a child. If I can have you, Miss Emily, then I shall not hesitate to take what I desire.”
He was bearing down on her, his weight crashing against her. Emily’s eyes darted to the chandelier; the rope had snapped, and Nick landed on both feet, quietly and with catlike grace. He caught her eye and grinned. Maybe it would be all right after all. She began to smile.
Then Volkov sank his teeth into her throat, and during all the pain that followed she wondered if she would ever smile again.
10
&nbs
p; Countess Marika Fenenko was bored. She was not particularly interested in the theatrics of the change when it did not directly involve her in any way, and Richard had been so snappy, lost in his own little world with her. Marika, for in the end that is who she was, had lazily dumped the bodies on the landing of stairs, not really caring one way or the other if they woke up or not. Aside from the young man, who wasn’t even here, they held no real interest to her, and her hunger was, for the moment, quiet inside her.
For a time, she stood before the heap of unconscious humans and looked at the portrait hanging upon the wall, above everything. Marika was not certain if she could describe what she felt when she looked upon the painting as love, but it was something close to it, she was at least sure of that. She could never be sure of how she felt about particular things; often, there was simply numbness, and then hunger. But here, before her own likeness, she could be certain. Richard had captured her perfectly, thanks to her tutelage and perseverance in cultivating him into as fine an artist as he could be.
She had been beautiful once, and so she made herself appear beautiful to others. Her dark blue eyes, the flowing golden locks, the long, white limbs… no wonder men had wanted her so.
When she grew tired of beholding her own face, she looked around and wrinkled her nose. She did not care for this house; it was too old-fashioned, too English. She had been glad when Richard had covered up the dreary landscapes and hunting scenes, and the mirrors too. But the place was always so dark and so quiet, too much like the castle from their homeland for her liking. After all, they had left that place for a reason. They had slept in places much finer than this in their travels together; she had been bemused by Richard’s decision, but he had been growing so defiant over the years, earning smartly and becoming powerful, drifting slowly but surely away from Marika as time strode ever onward. And then, with a thudding inevitability, he proclaimed that he wished to be a maker to someone of his choosing, the way that she had chosen him when he was just a babe.
It was his right, she supposed. She was spiteful and cruel in many ways, but she respected the laws of her existence. It had been many centuries since he had undergone the change at her hands, yet she couldn’t help but feel resentful towards him for his lack of interest. She was his maker; she was surely more important than some little mouse of a human girl?
They were in Italy at the time, sleeping in an abandoned abbey, a place which attracted many bats, one of their many allies in the natural world. Then Richard announced that he wished to go to England. Marika recalled her protests: “England is so grey and dull. It rains there all of the time and the people there are so very dour.”
But he insisted, and Marika’s irritating fondness for Richard compelled her to grudgingly agree. Richard told her that he wished to organise this alone, which she allowed, only to then openly sulk over it for weeks afterwards. She still got a little thrill from being contrary, and Richard had always been her favourite toy. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to let him go. She was not certain what she must do now that her fledgling was to become a master in his own right. Marika supposed that she could find someone else and create a new fledging to play with, but she wasn’t sure if that was what she really wanted. She couldn’t imagine parting from Richard; he was her constant companion, even though he barely bothered to conceal his hatred and contempt for her. Marika was not stupid; she had never once been stupid throughout her existence, and did not intend to deny herself the truth of the situation. She continued to flirt and tease and torment because it made her dear Richard angry. He hated that she behaved this way to him which, being the child that she was, only compelled her to do it more, and to really dig beneath the skin.
Marika glided down the steps in front of her and headed slowly back to the ballroom, wondering if it was done yet. Richard didn’t seem to particularly care if she was there or not, so she thought that she might take her time.
She thought about the old man that had lived here before. He had believed in God and he was good, but that didn’t really matter to beings like her. Richard had always been good at manipulation, a natural talent, and wormed his way into the old man’s life. He had met him in Italy in a whisky bar, and after that they exchanged letters for a few months. This is probably what had compelled Richard to drag them off to England, one of the last places in the world where she wished to be. The old man had gone down hard, in the end; how he fought against the inevitable. When it comes to death, they are all cowards. Even she was afraid of death, especially that night when her life went from one state to another at the hands of the prince from the north. She never did learn his name, and she was glad of the fact. Her hand drifted to the space on her neck where he had bitten her, long after the torment and the pain of her violation. Her fingers lingered on the spots, invisible to the naked eye but clear as day to her by touch alone: two little bumps beneath the pads of her fingertips.
The door to the ballroom was open, but only by a crack, inviting Marika to peep. She went eagerly, childlike glee surging up in her with a strength that she was not accustomed to. She put her eye close to the crack in the door and peered inside, standing on her tiptoes in the hope that this would help her see more. She looked around until her sharp eyes fixed on Richard’s back, upon which the young man was advancing, somehow free from his bonds.
And what a sight it was in front of her. The air was full of sounds that Marika’s ear caught with perfect clarity; the wet sloshing of the blood flooding into Richard’s mouth, the high-pitched mewling of the girl, who grasped at his back and tore into his shirt with her fingernails, digging into the skin as if she hoped to hurt him, but of course she could not. Marika tried to recall if she had done the same when she was changed, and found the memory to be vague and unclear like a smudged picture. It surprised her; she had always been able to remember it over the hundreds and hundreds of years that she had endured. She remembered pain, though. Pain is never forgotten.
But then something strange happened. The boy, Nick, went to strike, and Marika was prepared to watch Volkov toss him aside like a rag doll. But instead, the girl lifted her hand. Volkov was too preoccupied with Emily’s body and the drunken wonder of drinking blood from someone for whom he felt a great desire, for reasons that Marika was still unsure of. But the girl raised her hand, flexing her fingers; even through the crack in the door Marika could see the calluses on her fingers and wrinkled her nose in disgust. She had the rough hands of a worker; it was unseemly.
But the boy had stopped. He held rope in his hands, the ends of the lengths wrapped around his palms, so tight that his dark skin whitened against the rope. He stood still as a statue, and watched gravely. Meanwhile, the feeding went on, and Richard was straddling her and groping at the girl’s body, but artfully. This was not the clumsy pawing of a young, slightly frightened man.
Marika stood behind the door and wondered what she would do.
***
Emily knew that she would never forget the pain that assaulted her every agonising, unbearable second. She couldn’t catch her breath with Volkov laid on top of her, straddling her with his strong legs and trapping her firmly beneath him. When would it end? Would it ever end? She wanted to scream, but the only sounds that she could make were weak, wavering moans. His lips still fixed on her throat, his teeth still embedded in her flesh, Volkov tore her dress open, the way he had ripped her nightgown to pieces in the dream. Half mad from the pain, she was now convinced that the dream had been a prophecy; a taste of what was to come, and was now here.
When Volkov finally withdrew his fangs, like a syringe being pulled from the body, Emily thought that it could have been 100 years since he had bitten her for it all it mattered. To her, it had been nothing short of an eternity.
Volkov rose up and said, “The worst is over now, Miss Emily, but there is a kind of ecstasy to the pain, is there not?”
And then Nick jumped on Volkov’s back. In a single, swift movement he looped his hands, which held fast to a length of
rope, around his neck and pulled back with a sharp yank, wrapping his legs around Volkov’s waist and locking them as hard as he could. Nick was not by nature the strongest of men, but he was fast and limber. Maybe not as fast as a vampire, but fast enough when that vampire was distracted.
Of course, a vampire does not breathe in the real sense of the word, and so a vampire cannot be choked. Volkov’s neck strained against the rope, almost immediately snapping it in half. But Nick had just enough time to pull Volkov back, disrupting his footing and sending him to the floor, where Nick landed first with a heavy thud. But the rope broke, and though Volkov too fell to the ground, it was not long before he was recovered and back on his feet, limbs tensed and eyes wide with fury. He faced Nick, who scrambled desperately on the ground, futilely trying to get away.
“You dare?” Volkov tried to shout, voice thin and rasping. “You dare to challenge me?”
Nick must have done some shallow damage to the throat. Emily felt a thrill that burst through the pain, short-lived but wonderful. Evidently Volkov was a sore loser. Good, she thought, let him suffer a while.
But then there was Nick. Emily couldn’t move; most of her blood was drained, she was almost entirely depleted. But she had to move, had to get herself off this slab and back on her feet. It seemed impossible, but she didn’t have any other choice. She wanted to call out to Nick, but the pain would not let her form words, only agonised sounds. She watched, vision blurring in and out unpredictably, as Nick turned his body around, got to his feet and launched himself across the ballroom as fast as he could. He was heading for the door. Emily wondered if he had forgotten that the countess was about.
And sure enough, when Nick threw open the door there she was, skulking behind it like a naughty little girl, dressed in her finery. Just the sight of her was enough to stop Nick in his tracks. He froze up completely, his eyes trapped with hers.
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