“Okay,” said Sabina, happy to obey any suggestion he gave.
They weren’t lovers. Not in the strictest sense. They had made love, at Sabina’s bidding, but they weren’t lovers. Mikhail couldn’t love. Not properly. He just didn’t know how.
Still, he needed to figure out what they were and settle it with her. He feared, in her innocence, she thought they were more to each other than he had intended. Then again, after over seventy years together, it seemed understandable that she thought they were bound to each other.
It’s not like I can marry her, he thought as his hand returned to the pocket of his embroidered waistcoat where the little leather pouch waited, the small ring still encased in it.
When life was for an eternity, binding oneself to another person took on a whole new meaning. It was for this reason he didn’t go back to his father’s farm when the sun set after being turned. That night they had emerged from the molding barn only to kill and feed. It was then that he realized he could never go home to stay.
Briefly, Mikhail had considered snatching Nina away and turning her, so that they could be together forever. It was Sabina’s unusually eloquent words that stopped him: “Will you subject her to this life for your own comfort?”
Instead, Mikhail snuck home, kissed his dying father goodbye, and left the money on the kitchen table.
Mikhail looked at his feet as he made his way down the slope and into the apple orchard surrounding the west side of the modern house. Even in his fine silk stockings and doe-hide slippers, Mikhail had no difficulty jumping onto the second story balcony. He peeked through the crack between the heavy curtains.
And there she was, lying in a large, elegantly carved bed with her grown children sitting in attendance.
Nina.
Mikhail felt the pain stab through him anew. She had not had the life she deserved. Yes, she was wealthy, with servants coming at her beck and call, and children and grandchildren galore, but she had been subjected to abject cruelty and stark negligence.
Anatoliy was not a lover. He was barely even a husband.
It was all Mikhail’s fault. He had left her to live a human life, never dreaming such a life would be so filled with pain and sorrow. There were moments of brightness; Mikhail had seen it all, checking in on her each year.
Each birth of a child had brought her joy, but it was not long before Anatoliy sent the small child off to a boarding school in Kiev, as was the fashion. Nine children later, Nina stopped producing.
A few years after the last child was born, Sabina convinced Mikhail to stop his secret visits.
It had been fifty years, at least, since he last peered through the thick curtains into Nina’s bedchamber. Though he knew she had changed in the last fifty years, Mikhail only saw the same bright-eyed woman he had known in his youth. He didn’t see the wrinkles of her face, the white-gray of her hair, or the way her eyelids drooped over blinded eyes. He saw a curvy woman, with black hair billowing down her back, and blue eyes staring back at him.
Mikhail closed his eyes, forcing himself to see what Nina had become. She was the last person left to have known him when he was human. As her last crackly breath escaped her lips, Mikhail felt the last of his humanity slip away.
Knowing she was alive was all that kept him from giving into the darkness inside him. Mikhail turned away, willing himself to make the leap down to the ground. If he stayed, he would interrupt the family’s quiet moment; he would barge in and steal the body away, to be buried under the tree they had climbed as children.
Like he had when he was human, Mikhail brushed his curly hair out of his face.
He needed a haircut.
She was gone, and he was just the same. Frozen in time.
Chapter Two: This Sucks
Samuel Bligh waved goodbye as the last clerk packed up his bag and headed out the door. A quick glance at the clock confirmed the late hour. It was past nine o’clock. Elisabeth would be furious with him for working so late. She didn’t have the same aspirations as he did. She was content with their London townhouse, but Samuel saw a life for their son Jonathan that included a real estate outside the confines of London.
The middle-aged lawyer slumped into his seat as he ran his hands through his speckled hair. He hadn’t been gray when they married two years ago, but the stress of business and having a baby at his age had changed his appearance. Elisabeth insisted she didn’t notice any change, but he knew otherwise. He knew some piece of her regretted marrying a man so many years older than herself. Samuel tried to keep up with her, but after a long day at the office the last thing he wanted to do was join some other family in a night of cards or musical displays. As a married man, he no longer took joy in watching the single women display their skills at the pianoforte.
Samuel let out another sigh, resigning himself to going home before the work was completed. He just didn’t have the energy to continue sifting through the papers spread out before him. He rose from his desk, grabbed up his overcoat and the neglected newspaper, trimmed the one lamp still burning, and left his office. He locked the door before heading down the lighted street.
As he walked he opened the Oxford Gazette and perused the headlines. One caught his eye, and as he walked he read the details of recent entanglements between the so-called Colonialists and Her Majesty’s navy.
Samuel shook his head over the article. What were those colonialists thinking? he wondered as he reread a few of the more poignant sentences. As he walked he refolded the paper and tucked it under his arm.
They couldn’t pay me enough leave England for that horrendous new country.
Samuel had just turned down a side street when he noticed a small pack of men leaning against a blank brick wall and watching his progress. Samuel wasn’t a violent man by nature and felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick with warning. He picked up his pace and kept his eyes on the path before him.
With his eyes cast downward, the men were easily able to cross the street without him noticing. One moment he was walking determinedly, the next he was sprawled across the street, his backside in a deep puddle. It took him a second to realize he hadn’t tripped, but rather that the men had grabbed him and dragged him out into the center of the road.
From his position in the puddle he could see that they were sailors, currently on leave. They smelled as though they had not had a proper bath in months, which, considering their employment was probably the case. Samuel opened his mouth in the hopes of speaking peace into the situation. Being a lawyer, he thought his chances were strong, but before he could get a word out, a foot caught him in the stomach.
Samuel bent forward, clutching his throbbing stomach. He rolled onto his side, curling his knees up to protect his organs in an instinctual move just as he felt another blow on his back. He groaned, his mouth filling with the muddy water of the deep puddle.
Quickly the kicks became so rapid he couldn’t tell one from another as the men took out their violent pleasure on him. Finally, the punishment stopped. Samuel felt their hands grope through his clothing, eventually finding the small pouch of coins he kept on his body at all times.
Samuel didn’t care if they took the money, even if it would set him back for his goals this week. He just cared that they left him alive.
“Whata we do wiff him?” asked one of the sailors.
“Slit his throat. Can’t talk iffen he dead.”
There was a moment of silence, during which Samuel felt a new fear trickle into his gut. Would they really kill him over a few pounds? Samuel opened his mouth to swear his silence, but found his lips and jaw to be too swollen for speech.
Before he could work past the swelling he felt a hand lift his head by his hair and press a blade to his throat. The bite of the blade was swift. Samuel gagged as the blood rushed into his throat. He would suffocate before he bled to death.
Through his gagging he heard the sound of the men running away, their wooden soled shoes clacking against
the paving stones. Samuel coughed and gagged, trying to pull himself up so that he could get the blood out of his throat, his mind too clouded with pain to realize he was beyond help.
He slumped back into the puddle just as he heard more footsteps approaching. Gentle hands rolled him onto his back, making it even harder to breath.
A beautiful, young face swam before his eyes as blackness took over.
Samuel perched precariously on a thin branch of the cherry tree growing outside his townhouse, peering in through the lace curtains of his drawing room. His young wife sat with her closest friend, despite the fact it was nearly three in the morning.
Before climbing the tree, Samuel had watched a police inspector leave the townhouse. His absence had been noticed and the police had been notified. Of course, they wouldn’t find him. Cecily, the woman who had saved him from his attackers, had insisted he could not rejoin his life. The thirst building in his throat confirmed her warning: He would kill his beautiful wife.
Samuel leaned forward, using his new hearing abilities to eavesdrop on his wife’s conversation.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” said Elisabeth with an inappropriate smirk.
“You don’t think he’s just working late?” asked her friend.
Elisabeth shook her head, her wavy brown hair shifting with the movement. “He works late plenty of nights, but not this late.”
“What if we went to a… well you know…” suggested her friend, a deep blush darkening her cheeks at the near mention of a brothel.
“No. Much as I wished he would.”
Samuel frowned. What did she mean by that?
“I thought he’d quieted down since you got pregnant with little Jonathan.”
“Oh he has, but evidently one child isn’t enough for the old bag.”
The girls giggled at her epithet before Elisabeth shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. At the rate he’s been working, he’ll be dead before I can conceive again. He comes home more tired each night.”
“And you encourage him to work late?” asked her friend.
“He wouldn’t think so. He’d think I wanted him home, but I word it just right so that he thinks it’s his own needs for more money and not mine. But sure enough, about four nights a week he works late. I’ll have his money before the year’s out.”
The women giggled again, and Samuel let himself slip to the ground, not wanting to hear any more.
It had all been a lie. He knew he had been too lucky to find a young woman willing to marry a middle-aged solicitor, but he never thought she had done it for mercenary reasons.
Samuel was about to sneak away when a thought came to him: Jonathan. He couldn’t leave his son behind, even if he no longer felt any qualms about leaving his wife. Then again, his new life of night and darkness was hardly appropriate for a child. It felt as though no matter what he did, he would be doing wrong.
Samuel loitered outside his townhouse until his wife and her friend drifted off to sleep in the drawing room. Moving as quietly as a mouse, he slipped into the house and up to his son’s nursery. He had spent the long hour of waiting toying with the decision he had to make. Samuel looked down at his sleeping son, his heart aching as he knew he would never be able to touch his precious boy again.
The day Jonathan had been born had been the happiest of Samuel’s life. He had long ago given up hope of having a family. He was too old and monotonous to attract a wife, and then along came Elisabeth, who seemed to see past all that. Or so he’d thought.
Samuel bent down and kissed Jonathan on the head one last time before slipping out of the nursery. He tip-toed down the stairs and into the small room he used as an office, where he snatched up the charcoal drawing of Jonathan that he had done when the boy was a little over seven months old. Samuel glanced at the picture of his wife—one she had begrudgingly sat for—and turned away. He didn’t need a picture to remind himself what she looked like. Her betrayal had imprinted her image on his heart.
Samuel and Cicely sat at their favorite coffee house in the heart of New York City. Much to his chagrin, Samuel had followed Cicely to the colonies just a few short years after being turned. The war between the colonies and England had kept them from returning to her home, but once peaceful trade had recommenced, they had made the long, dangerous journey. It was difficult to hire crew who would not only keep their secret but let them feed off them. Finally, Cicely had resorted to using her large purse to procure the right crew.
Now, in the vibrant year of 1921, Samuel looked back over the expanse of time they had spent together in awe. Cicely had announced her intentions of returning to England and, much to her amazement, Samuel had declined the offer to join her. His life was here. He loved the great cities of America, where no one slept. Here he felt as though he was human again.
Therefore, on their last evening together, Samuel sat drawing a picture of Cicely sitting at their favorite coffee shop. She wore his favorite little dress—Samuel gave his hearty approval to the new styles that showed off a woman’s delicate legs—and a little pillbox hat crowned with feathers.
As Samuel’s hands flew over the paper, he contemplated the difference in his life now. He had spent a century and a half with Cicely, and yet their imminent separation caused him less pain than Elisabeth’s betrayal had. In fact, he was looking forward to striking out on his own.
Nevertheless, he wanted a memento of Cicely and all that she had done for him.
Chapter Three: Suck it to Ya
“What do you think you’re doing?” Nikolai demanded of his older brother as he grabbed Dmitri by the arm.
Dmitri smirked at him, his eyes still on the plump woman scurrying down the wide, gilded corridor of the Winter Palace. She stopped beside the tall, open door and winked at them.
“What do you think, little brother?” asked Dmitri as he shook his arm, freeing it from Nikolai’s grasp.
“You really intend to bed the empress? That empress?” whispered Nikolai.
“Not many can say they have.”
“Because no one wants to! You do and you will forever connect our family with her.”
Dmitri shrugged.
“Are you trying to make us look like German sympathizers? You bed her and the whole court will think our family is in her graces.”
“What better place to be than in the graces of the empress?”
They glanced back at Empress Anna—or better known as Ivan the Terrible, a nickname given in combination with her father’s name and her tendency for cruelty. The eccentric woman began to make soft mewing noises as she pressed herself up against the door and carefully lifted her skirts to reveal her ankles.
The courts might have forgiven the windowed empress her peculiarities if she had not mixed the courts with a generous supply of Germans. Along with fools like Dmitri, Anna had taken a German lover—to the shock and shame of her court.
“You’re leave is up tonight. Your commander will be waiting your return.”
“Then you go. You were always so keen on the army. Take my place,” suggested Dmitri as he gave his younger brother a clout on the shoulder and a quick wink before turning to follow the empress into her room, his hands quickly working to undo the many buttons of his waistcoat.
Nikolai shook his head as he turned away from the sight of the couple’s disappearing into the opulent bedroom. His brother was more right than he knew. Nikolai had always hoped on a career in the army—a place where he could gain a name for himself, devoid of any connection with his family—but that hope had been destroyed by Empress Anna’s newest edict. No longer did royal families have to send all sons into the army. One would suffice, so long as he remained in the army for twenty-five years.
The result of the new edict was that his father selected his eldest son to seek honor and glory in the ranks of Russia’s military, keeping his younger son, Nikolai, back to maintain their large estate. By the time Dmitri finished his service to the empire, Nikolai would be
too old to serve and gain a life for himself.
Nikolai sighed, trying to close his ears to the giggles coming from Anna’s bedroom. The empress was not an attractive woman, but that didn’t matter to Dmitri. All he cared about was the simple pleasure of conquering a forbidden woman, be she old or young, ugly or beautiful. The more forbidden, the more he felt the rush of the chase, and there was none as forbidden as the widowed empress.
Instead of hanging around, Nikolai marched back to his room in the palace. He had letters from the estate’s steward needing his attention. Unlike the eldest son, he didn’t have time to cohort with the women of court or throw money away at the card tables. He was too busy maintaining the estate so his brother might have something to inherit.
Nikolai had barely made it through the large stack of letters when he was interrupted by a gentle knock.
“Enter,” he said as he raised his hands over his back to stretch.
A woman he recognized as one of Anna’s ladies-in-waiting entered, bobbing a little curtsy.
“Sir, you’re presence is needed.”
“No doubt,” he said as he took his overcoat from the back of his chair and slipped into it.
Nikolai followed the lady-in-waiting back to the room he had last seen his brother enter two hours earlier. He followed the lady-in-waiting into room, trying to keep his eyes away from the naked woman in the bed. The thin sheets did little to cover her voluminous curves. Dmitri lay sprawled on the floor, tangled up in the edge of the wide sheets and laughing. From the near-hysterical tones of his laughter Nikolai knew his brother was drunk.
“Your Majesty,” Nikolai said, giving the angry woman a deep bow.
“Please remove that from my chambers,” she said, pointing to his brother.
Nikolai bowed again. “My life is to serve, Your Majesty.”
Not meaning to, Nikolai caught the empress’ eye and watched as her expression shifted from rage to a soft curiosity.
“You speak the truth, Nikolai,” she said, using his given name for the first time in their distant acquaintance. “Your life is wasted taking care of your brother.”
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