Much to my own shock, a little spark darted through my body. Desire? Empathy? No, no. I would offer them nothing. I clenched my fists, resisting. He was just giving me honeyed words now. Like Father Joshua.
I bit my lip. Father Joshua never sounded like this. When Silvus spoke I could see Rayner in my mind, his arms around a limp, tired old body, clinging to what he could, the way I wished I could have clung to Mom.
“He is waiting for you with bated breath,” Silvus said.
“He must be good at that,” I said, since vampires didn’t have to breathe.
“Ah, there’s a little of your spunk.” Silvus patted my cheek. “First, we must dress you and on the first night, Rayner likes to relive your wedding night.”
My heart immediately started pounding again. “Oh, no, no.”
“Oh, yes. There is no escape for you, so you might as well try your best to enjoy it.” He opened a trunk on the floor of the cabin with the tip of his shoe and took out a bundle of clothes. They were scented with lavender sachets, one of which tumbled out when he picked them up, but there was still a faint underlying mustiness. The clothes looked old. We wrestled my body into a linen shift. I say ‘we wrestled’ because he was trying to dress me and I was trying to dress myself. Stays came next, pulled over my arms in a no-nonsense way and trussed behind me while I hardly dared move.
“He wants me to dress like it’s the 1600s?”
“We have old-fashioned tastes,” Silvus said. “Except Jie. He fancies himself a modern man. More power to him if he can use a computer. I could keep up with the telegraph, the photograph, and the phonograph, but once we moved past ‘graphs’, I was too perplexed to keep up…”
“You have a computer?” I didn’t have any experience with the modern world either, isolated in the Order’s village. One of my friends got her hands on an old iPod in middle school and after our initial flurry of excitement, no one could figure out what to do.
“We have a number of them, and the young vampires have taught me a bit but I prefer books and letters. Why improve on a good thing, I say.”
“What young vampires?”
“Our renters.” He waved a hand. “We have properties around the world.”
My vampire captors were in real estate? Well, I guess you might end up buying a lot of houses in five hundred years. “Do you own this cabin?”
Silvus briefly considered the log cabin setting, with antlers, plaid sofa and framed photographs of bears. “Oh, lord, no. This is a rental property to get close to you. I certainly don’t want to spend any more time in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. It’s absolutely crawling with Ethereal witches. Step in.” He drew stockings up my legs, so quickly I couldn’t muster up a good protest to his hands sliding up to my thighs.
The clothing he had put me in was surprisingly…dull? I mean, it was hardly more interesting than what I wore in the village, except it showed off a little more cleavage and shape. The stays weren’t too tight, they just improved my posture. The fabrics were sturdy, cotton and wool, brown and green against the white linen.
“Rayner wants me to dress as…a pilgrim?”
Silvus paused. “Yes. You could say that. You look like a sweet little Dutch wife. You should eat something first. Let me check on the supper. Take a seat.”
I was completely bewildered. I was shivering all over, because in the end I knew I was about to be ravished. It sounded like I was in no danger of being killed, but I wasn’t sure what was worse—death, or spending the next several decades as the beloved pet of four vampires. Pet? Silvus called me pet, but Rayner called me his ‘thrall’.
That was another word for a blood slave.
I wasn’t convinced in the least that I was truly more than that. I had barely escaped Father Joshua and I knew what selfish hunger lurked inside of him, the power he held over the priestesses and me. I didn’t want any man to touch me.
Even this clothing, I thought, was too similar. Demure and clean and modest, as if to make the soiling of me even more satisfying for him.
I knew I could not escape for good, but I didn’t have to submit either.
They can smell me. They’re so much stronger than me. And I hardly know any magic.
But what did I have to lose?
I only had seconds to try something, so my eyes flew to the antlers on the wall. Antlers were a deer’s weapon, and magic came easiest to a witch when it drew from the elements of nature. I put a hand on the antlers and whispered quickly, “You were born of bone and horn. If there is any fight left in your name, I beg your power, this very hour—please help me block Rayner from his claim.”
I felt a bright, unmistakable tingling of magic shoot up my arm and I jerked it away as the door swung open.
“Dinner is served.” The two men named Jie and Thom walked in with plates. I rushed back to the small table in the room, nervous about what I had done with the antlers. I suppose I didn’t quite expect it to work and now I was afraid of what I’d set off.
“Well, ain’t you pretty as a picture,” Thomas said.
“A picture of the Salem witch trials,” Jie said.
“All I can see are those scarlet locks,” Thomas said. “I’ve never seen hair like that on a Puritan. Was she ever worth the wait.”
“I made you your favorite,” Jie said. “Pork meatball and mustard green soup.”
“And I made you your even more favorite, my Ma’s baked bean recipe,” Thomas said, competitively.
They presented me with two ample bowls of food, neither of which were my favorite, considering I had never tried either food before. My mom made baked beans but they looked and smelled much sweeter.
These two seemed even more alien to me than Rayner and Silvus. I couldn’t believe that I had known them intimately in some other life. While everyone in the Order followed a dress code of neatly pressed suits, with men clean-shaven until marriage, only allowed a beard after achieving a certain rank in the order, Jie and Thom looked…dirty.
Well, maybe they weren’t physically dirty, but they were the unmowed field of men, messy and overgrown. Jie was Asian, wearing an absolutely threadbare cotton jacket with frog clasps that I sensed he had probably owned for much longer than anyone should own any piece of clothing. The faded Hawaiian shirt, work pants and boots underneath weren’t much better. His hair was shoulder length in a way that made me think he just didn’t think about cutting it much—did vampire hair grow, anyway?—and he had facial hair that was similarly unconsidered. The gold earring in one ear and a sense of playful wickedness in his weather-worn eyes reminded me of a pirate.
Thomas looked like he had just walked off a cattle drive or a rodeo. He seemed sort of dusty but there wasn’t dust like that in the woods of Pennsylvania. I guessed it was just baked into his clothes. Which also looked faded and worn-in, jeans and flannel. He was tanned almost brown, which made his blue eyes stand out bright, his hair medium-brown and just long enough to be a little tousled, while he had stubble that was lighter than his hair. He seemed more timeless than ageless. He had an air of youth even though he must be pretty old too.
Both of them looked strong, broad-shouldered and fearless, like they’d blown in on some wild wind from a faraway place. Rayner and Silvus, in contrast, were more urbane.
They sat down facing me, looking a little impatient and way more interested in me than anyone had ever been.
And I had no appetite, but as the aromas touched my nose they did seem oddly—or maybe not so oddly—familiar. Maybe I really had eaten these foods before, in some memory my soul knew, but I could hardly believe it. It sounded so strange. Father Joshua had never spoken to us of reincarnation in his sermons. Our focus was only on the end times and how we would survive them with our purity.
“Which would you say is better, darlin’?” Thomas asked, the moment I sampled a bite of baked beans.
“I haven’t even tasted the soup yet.”
“The sight of you has obviously ruined her appetite,” Jie said.
&n
bsp; “You’re the one who would ruin her appetite,” Thomas scoffed. “Wearing the rags you slept in again?”
“You’re calling my clothes rags, that’s rich.”
I sampled the soup. “They’re both…very good,” I said, and I realized I actually wanted to eat for the first time in many weeks.
Silvus peered in and seemed to approve. “The two of you arguing at each other did always calm her down.”
“Yes, it’s on purpose,” Jie said, chuckling. “Tell Rayner that.”
“So…you’ve all…been a clan for a long time, looking for me?”
“Thomas is the youngest,” Jie said. “And he’s only known you as a boy.”
“Oh—really?”
“I like boys, I like ladies…I like just about anything that’ll have me, but mostly I like you,” Thomas said. “It didn’t take much convincing.”
“When did we meet?”
“It was 1878,” Thomas said. “You were a handsome boy, let me tell you. You were with us until 1930 and then when we found you next you were behind the Iron Curtain and you died of something or other as we were making arrangements to get you out. So we had wait all over again and now we’ve found you.”
“And we won’t let you go,” Jie said.
“We never do.” Thomas reached for my thigh.
I couldn’t see his hand under the table and I immediately jerked back in a panic. I saw flashes of Father Joshua being touched by the priestesses. I swallowed my beans wrong and coughed a little.
“Don’t touch her until Rayner has his chance,” Silvus said from the door.
“If you resist me, I know every which way to tie you down,” Thomas said, and my appetite vanished again. I pushed the bowls away.
“Thomas, don’t be an ass,” Jie said. “She’s nervous.”
“I like the soup better,” I said, shrinking back.
“When I first met you,” Jie said, putting his hand over mine but keeping his touch light, “you’d already been married in an arranged marriage in China, and your husband had his way with you before, so you knew how to succumb, but…you didn’t know anything about enjoying it. You’ll enjoy it with us. I promise.”
Jie seemed kind enough, but he wanted me too. They all just wanted some idea of me, and worse—they expected it, because they’d had me before, but that wasn’t how it should work. I knew that much. I shook my head frantically, hoping the spell would do something.
Silvus cleared the dishes. “You’ve finished,” he said. “Then it’s time. Rayner will see you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Alissa
The cabin was so small that Silvus only showed me down a short hallway before he opened a door to a humble bedroom, but I felt as if I was walking down a long hall to my death. Rayner was standing in front of a window, looking out into the darkness, but when Silvus nudged me across the threshold, he turned slowly and looked at me.
“My god…it really is like the day we met…”
“Be gentle with her,” Silvus said.
Rayner walked up to me and cupped my face with his hands, so I couldn’t look away, although I was much more comfortable looking at the ground as I had been taught. I shut my eyes, remembering how Father Joshua made me look at him too.
“She is all yours tonight…,” Silvus said behind me. And then I heard the door shut softly.
“Tulip…I wish you could remember…” Rayner pressed a kiss to my trembling cheek while I shut my eyes even tighter. “…our first kiss, on the bridge…you trembled a little, then. We weren’t married and you weren’t supposed to be meeting me. I was still mortal. You risked so much for those meetings. Your sweet maid, too—she would keep watch for anyone we knew…and I waited until I couldn’t stand it anymore…to kiss your dear face.”
He certainly didn’t talk like Father Joshua. But I was still scared. Especially when he stopped cupping my face and slipped his hands to my wrists instead. His grip had tremendous strength in it.
“I hardly knew that was only the barest beginning of our pleasures…,” he murmured. “It was not so very long after that when I begged you to meet me on a moonlit night and I told you what had happened to me.”
“Silvus said I was a merchant’s daughter in Amsterdam…”
“Yes. Your family had a great deal of money and mine was just the ordinary kind. We had comforts enough, but nothing made me content but having you. I made you a pair of the most beautiful shoes.” He leaned down to my neck and kissed the spot just between where my jaw and earlobe met as he kept ahold of my wrists.
I shivered and then I struggled. “But that was then. That was Lisbeth. I’m Alissa—”
“Alissa. Close, isn’t it? Don’t you think that must be fate? You are just my Lisbeth now and nothing else.” One of his hands let me go, the better to caress me in other places, and it all started to blur into panic.
“No. No!” I tore away, breathing hard. “I have a family. I’m not just your Lisbeth. I’m not Lisbeth at all. You can’t treat me like you’re entitled to me.”
“You say this every time,” Rayner said. “I have no patience for this, when I know you’re mine. Soon, you’ll remember and I will hold you close at night as I always have. I’ll kiss your fingers and whisper to you. Whatever you fear, I’ll make it go away. And then I’ll taste you. In every way…”
He snapped me back to him and now he was holding me so I faced toward the door and I felt his breath on my neck. Although vampires didn’t have to breathe, I had read that they had to breathe to speak, and that they tended to do it when they were around humans in general, like a sort of mirroring. It calmed down their prey. Well, it certainly wasn’t calming me down. He held me fast and pressed his fangs into my neck, while at the same time he lifted my skirts and reached a hand between my legs. I felt his own hardness press against me.
“No—“ I gasped. “Let go—of me! Let go!”
Suddenly a jagged flash of light appeared and speared right through his hand while a second flash shoved him back. He tore his hand away, blood spattering across my clothes and the floor. Rayner staggered back to the bed and sat down.
He gave me a crooked grin. “Learned a few tricks, have you, Tulip?”
I hurried to the door. I was hot between the legs. Uncomfortably hot. I had cast a spell that generated some sort of barrier and it was burning me.
The door was locked from the outside. I pounded on it. “Silvus!”
“Silvus!” Rayner called. “He won’t come if you call. We have a bargain.”
I refused to look at Rayner anymore. I hated him. “You’re just as bad as Father Joshua,” I said. “You think you love me? You just want me and that’s completely different.”
“Father Joshua…who is he?”
“He’s the man I was running away from,” I said. “He was going to force me to marry him.”
Rayner was trying to staunch the wound on his hand with tissues. “You have already married me.”
“Lisbeth married you.”
“Lisbeth. Marguerite. Li Mei. Bertie. And now…Alissa. You’re a witch, hm? You haven’t been a witch since Lisbeth, but even then…she didn’t practice. It was in your mother’s family.”
“I don’t practice either.” I hugged myself.
“You had her wand,” he said. “I always thought you could have been very good.”
“My mother’s wand?”
“Yes. You kept it with you, even though your family was trying to be…’respectable’. If you aren’t a practicing witch, do you mind explaining to me how you made magic shoot out of your nether regions?”
Silvus opened the door as Rayner was saying this.
“What…on earth,” he said. “Did you hurt Rayner, dearest?”
“I’ll hurt any of you if…” I tried to muster my courage, but seeing blood on Rayner’s hand and the way Silvus was looking at me, I was afraid I had only made the inevitable worse. Besides that, the spell backlash was still burning my own tender flesh so I was fidgeti
ng. It felt like I was clenching a cup of hot tea between my thighs.
“How did you do it?” Silvus asked.
“I cast a spell on the antlers on the wall of the cabin…”
“So you tapped into the defensive power of the deer. Was this your intended result?”
“Yes. It was.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You have no control.” He breezed past me.
“I don’t need fixing,” Rayner said. “This will be healed by morning. See if my bride is well.”
“And what sort of night will you have with a gored hand?” Silvus said, grabbing his wrist. “I can fix it in a thrice if you’ll just allow me. Don’t be too proud…” He tossed the wadded Kleenex aside and waved a wand over Rayner’s hand, while the fair-haired vampire fidgeted just a little. He must be in a lot of pain, if vampires felt pain the way humans did. Hands had a lot of nerves. My father accidentally got his hand jammed in a machine once when I was little. Since we didn’t use electricity we had a lot of imposing old devices powered by cranks or water around the village.
“So she’s a witch,” Silvus said. “A clumsy sort of witch who casts spells willy-nilly.”
“She has learned her lesson,” Rayner said, looking at me. Our eyes met square for a moment and he said, “Tell me more about Father Joshua.”
I blanched.
“You’re afraid of him,” Rayner pressed. “More than you’ve been afraid of anyone.”
“I—He—“
“If he’s hurt you, Tulip, I’ll get rid of him. With your permission, this time,” he growled.
“Did you get rid of someone…without permission?”
“Oh, yes, and I’m still not sorry. I got rid of your in-laws in China. I saw how they were treating you and that was all I needed to know.”
“But after that, he did promise to ask your permission,” Silvus said, speaking over the end of Rayner’s sentence as he kept casting the healing spell, knitting together flesh.
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