I would lie to her today.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alissa
The moment Carrie collapsed into unconsciousness, they scooped her limp body off the sidewalk, tossed it in the back seat of the car, and drove away.
Jie and Thom would not let me stop them. No matter how I cried or screamed or fought against them. I scratched Thom’s face and he just said, “There ya go, pussycat. Let it out.”
They told Dee she remembered nothing and Carly came over to fetch her.
I hated them. I would never trust them again. I vowed to escape and find some way to save Carrie, but as soon as I started to consider how I would save her, I came up blank. If she was purified, she wouldn’t have any will to leave the village. And I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t face him. I was too scared, too weak, too cowardly.
An anger like nothing I had ever felt started to rise up inside me, until all I could do was pace the parlor. Jie and Thom left me alone. I slammed my hands on the piano keys. I knocked a lamp off a table. It crashed to the ground and the shade crumpled. It seemed like such a naughty, childish thing to do but something deep inside me enjoyed doing something naughty. I kept expecting them to appear and yell at me, hit me or lock me up in a dark room.
They never did.
Calrose eventually came into the room, swishing his tail, looking at me and then turning back to the door and wrapping his tail around the doorframe. It almost seemed like the cat was asking me to follow him.
“Mrow?” He led me upstairs, all the way to a door with a set of attic stairs. I kept expecting someone to stop me. I walked up the steep, shallow stairs and stepped into the attic.
For a moment, I was frozen. I could hardly breathe.
I knew this room, or at least, I knew the furniture. Calrose jumped on the quilt and started licking his leg, then rolling around happily. I ran my fingers over the quilt, which was made of old scraps of calico, flannel, denim…
I know this fabric, too.
The wooden dresser, the china pitcher and basin, the candlesticks, the mirror and comb, the pocketknife, the stack of books, the worn-out chair, the rug, the lacquered Chinese box and the tiny embroidered shoes. I was feeling dizzy. These were Li Mei’s shoes, just a few inches long, and her box and…inside the little box were pieces of stunning antique jewelry she must have worn. Every simple object felt like something I’d seen before. Two photos hung on the wall. One was a delicate, tiny photograph of a beautiful Chinese girl in a Victorian ballgown that showed off her pale neck and shoulders, and her long hair hanging loose over her shoulders. I imagined Rayner running the comb through the long hair and how heavenly his gentle caress would feel, his touch teasing the nape of my neck before he bit me…
I looked away from the photo, my stomach churning.
No. No. That isn’t my memory. I’m not her.
But I was just as surely drawn to the other photo, a snapshot of the four vampires, completely unchanged. Even their clothes, it wasn’t hard to imagine them still wearing. There was one unfamiliar face. A fair young man, tanned and grinning, his arms crossed as he leaned back against a fence, flanked by…
His lovers.
My lovers.
I felt faint.
Every inch of my being knew these faces and these objects and these lives, even though I could only remember tiny bits and pieces.
But the part of me that was just Alissa—that part of me fought against it just as fiercely—felt torn apart, nauseated. I didn’t know what I was fighting, exactly. It was all just too strange.
“Mrew?” Calrose gave me a silly little cheep, standing on his hind legs and looking like a groundhog for a moment as he tried to get my attention. I scratched his cheek and he collapsed back down on the bed and got so happy that he accidentally rolled off the edge and fell on the floor.
“You certainly are no warlock’s familiar, you silly thing,” I said, with the tiniest smile. “But you did show me this room, so thank you.”
On the lower floors, I heard the front door bang open and Jie and Thom hurry down the stairs, and a commotion. They quickly came tromping more slowly back up. I peered out. Silvus was carrying Rayner, who was scratched and bloody and one of his arms had sort of a funny angle.
“Is—is he okay!?”
“Well…he will be,” Silvus said, grimacing a little. “I’m sure he would love to see your face, pet.”
Jie walked up to me and bowed his head a little. “Plum Blossom, I asked Silvus if he sensed any trace of your sister outside. He said there was nothing but an echo of some illusion. It wasn’t Carrie.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“Sure as the sunrise,” Thom said. “I’m certainly relieved.”
“Oh…”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were still upset at me,” Jie said. “I didn’t know for sure. It was just a strong suspicion. But I have to protect you. I always will. I won’t sacrifice you. That’s just the way it’s going to be, now that you’re with us.”
I swallowed.
“Eh, don’t listen to him and his apologies,” Thom said. “You’ve got to learn to trust us. We’re older’n you. We won’t let anything happen. And I wonder what I ought to do to a saucy little girl who breaks poor lamp shades.”
Jie jabbed him hard with an elbow. “Me and my fucking apologies!? You were the one who was two seconds away from opening the door and I talked you out of it!”
Silvus rolled his eyes a little. “Enough, lads. One of you, get the door so I can get our lord to bed.” He pointed his foot at Rayner’s bedroom door, which was closed.
I followed them wordlessly, surprised at how concerned I felt for him, and how I started to think of him holding me as he taught me to ice skate. If he was injured…
“Vampires heal, don’t they?” I asked.
“Yes, they do,” Silvus said. “The trouble is that…well, we are magical beings. We don’t live or die in the normal ways, so we don’t heal in the normal way either. The magic in his blood will heal him, but there is nothing my magic can do to accelerate the process. I can set the bones and dull his pain, but this fall would likely have killed him if he wasn’t a vampire. He won’t be up to fighting shape for weeks now.”
“Oof,” Thom said. “What the hell did you two get into?”
Silvus was looking very troubled. “I think he should tell you. It’s not my place. But I will say that we encountered Father Joshua and he is a bit more formidable than we first assumed. Rayner had a fall down an elevator shaft. Four stories.” He took Rayner’s hand. “Quiet, please. This is going to take a lot of concentration.”
Jie and Thom seemed to take this very seriously. They both gave me reassuring glances, but I could tell they didn’t expect Rayner to be hurt.
“But…he wasn’t purified?” I said. “He wasn’t shot with the rose bullets?”
“Oh, no,” Silvus said.
Now I allowed myself to truly feel relief. Carrie was never here and she hadn’t been purified. Rayner would heal, too. Silvus seemed very somber, however, so the injuries must be unusually serious. He gave Rayner an injection of something, then took off Rayner’s jacket and shirt, jerked on his arm, prodded, and bandaged. Then he moved on to removing his shoes and setting and splinting an ankle. I watched the whole thing. I couldn’t stop looking at him, and feeling some awe at how badly Rayner had been hurt for trying to fight Father Joshua. It made me very nervous—but I wished I could have seen it.
Rayner suddenly woke up, sputtering as if from some nightmare.
“It’s going to hurt,” Silvus said. “Don’t move if you can help it.”
Rayner hissed with pain. “Sil…I need more pain killers…”
“I hate to tell you, but I’ve already given you a heavy dose. You’ll have to muster up some old-fashioned grit. Pretend you’re in one of the old wars.”
Rayner glanced at me and shut his eyes. “Well, I don’t want Tulip to think I’m a bad patient. I have plenty of old-fashioned grit.
But—this is right up there with that fight with the dragon shifters in 1823. I’m ashamed at myself. I should have been able to kill him. But—“ He panted a little. “Father Joshua isn’t his real name. He’s Johannes Dederick, and he’s my sire.”
“He’s a…a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“So…the priestesses…”
“Are his thralls. Virgin thralls, I imagine. So he’s very strong.”
“That man is your sire?” Thom asked. “Oh, hell. But you don’t have his memories, Rayner.”
“No. I don’t. Because he ‘died’. He was born again, you might say, revived as some sort of Ethereal by the holy warlocks of Amsterdam. It’s some deep shit we’ve stepped into.”
Silvus rubbed Rayner’s hair gently, his touch affectionate. “You really should try not to get worked up.”
“I have no time to rest…”
“Would…my blood help?” I asked.
What was I saying?
I just hated seeing a person in pain.
No…it wasn’t just that. In fact, there were some people I wouldn’t mind seeing in pain. I was still thinking of that memory of Rayner brushing my long black hair, kissing my neck, and the anticipation I felt.
What am I becoming?
“It’s Sil’s turn,” Rayner said.
Silvus shook his head. “You’re right, pet. Your blood would help quite a bit. It’s a little soon, but I suppose, since we haven’t been drinking from you regularly yet, you can spare a little.”
He moved aside so I could come closer to Rayner.
Rayner looked pale, his jaw taut, his golden hair rumpled on the pillow from his small tosses and turns. He met my eyes and even through his pain, he looked satisfied. “Ah, but you never could resist a man in pain, Tulip.” He took my hand, a cool hand gripping mine. “And you never could resist me for long. This must be a difficult combination.” He kissed the back of my hand, the barest kiss. “I am so sorry to be such a fool, to be wounded and weakened, and return without Father Joshua’s head in a sack. But this is not over.”
“I don’t want to see anyone’s head in a sack. I mean that.”
“Tsk. Too gruesome for you, now? But it is the old way.” He was holding my hand firmly, not far from his lips. His lips parted, showing fangs. He ran his tongue over them.
He was drawing out the moment, adding to my sense of anticipation. Fear or pleasure? I was having a hard time telling the difference.
Rayner’s eyes made the briefest sweep of the room and the other three quietly left us, shutting the door behind them.
My chest felt tight, but I had offered. I wouldn’t allow myself to admit that I belonged here, that this man was my husband throughout time and his world was my world…but some part of me had crossed a threshold.
It was just Rayner and me.
“Tulip, when I’m with you, I can endure any pain,” he said. “Except the pain I see on your own face. I know what this man is now. I know your tormentor. I had no idea that he has been hunting you across the centuries as well… It’s a lucky thing that I was always better at finding you, but it explains some of the incidents that have taken place over the years. The demons who helped to conceal you, the holy men who would try to snatch you from us…” He stopped, gritting his teeth through a wave of pain. “Lisbeth, if I had known that when I made you mine, I would have doomed you to this life…but who am I kidding? I wouldn’t trade it for all the peace and comfort in the world.”
“Rayner…I…I saw the room upstairs.”
“That’s your room, my beloved. It’s already filled with your things.”
“They were familiar to me,” I said. “Rayner…I’m so scared. I was taught to be scared of you and I don’t…I don’t know what you’re going to do to me. Sometimes, the things all of you say, I can’t imagine I would like them.”
He smiled a little rakishly. “You might think that at first.”
“I hardly know what to think. You’re…you’re vampires, and…I never asked for this. It’s all very overwhelming.”
“You think we’re very wicked. And you’re not wrong. The boy you fell in love with was a god-fearing innocent, but the man who loves you now has been quite corrupted. The one thing that never changes is the spark I feel whenever I see you walk into the room. No matter what form you appear in…you are always my own, my heart.”
I swallowed. I wondered if someone stronger than me could resist. I wondered how I could feel heat stir within me even as I worried about my family and mourned my mother. I couldn’t fight him off much longer.
“Take my blood,” I said. “If it helps.”
“There is nothing better on this earth than to sip of your precious life. But I will never hurt you. I am strong because of you, Lisbeth…do you realize that? It’s because I love you that I quickly learned to control my impulses.”
I could tell his ability to speak had almost run out. His voice was barely a whisper by now. He licked my wrist. His tongue seemed to help dull the pain of the bite.
Then he sank his teeth into my flesh and this time I wasn’t scared. I knew the pain would be sweet, and he wouldn’t hurt me.
Seeing my blood still made me a little queasy, so I shut my eyes, but when he drank from me it felt almost like a kiss, tinged with a delicious pain. It didn’t sting, it wasn’t sharp, it was a feverish sort of ache that made me feel warm and want to sink deeper into him. Surrender to him. Let him devour me.
Some part of me never wanted this to end. I wanted to die in his arms, right here and now.
I knew it was the venom, that later I would think this was insane. But when I was in the grip of it…
His mouth pulled away before too long and he pressed a cloth to my wrist.
I opened my eyes and saw his own, the ageless blue, strangely familiar, dangerous yet all his passion and all his affection seemed to be just for me. His face was surely the most gorgeous face in the world. Even when I first saw him…I noticed that. But did I think that because it was so familiar to some buried part of me?
I shivered. I had never even been allowed to speak to boys—mere boys.
Rayner was a man. Tall and muscular and strong, so strong that he could kill me as easily as Father Joshua might snap his fingers. I wondered if it was ever hard for him to hold back that strength. I wondered how agonizing it was for him to be so close to me, touch me and smell me, and resist from dominating me completely, as he knew he could.
My heart was beating fast.
Maybe it isn’t just the venom.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rayner
He’s older than me. He drinks fresh blood regularly. And god knows what magic he’s been dabbling in.
I tried to talk myself down from the indignity of being broken and in pain by a toothless vampire.
Of course, if I had not tried to save her father…I would have stayed and fought and…
The taste of her blood lingered on my tongue, more rich and sweet than the finest foods I could remember from my mortal life. But sweeter still was the way she was starting to look at me, in the old familiar way—with wonder and affection.
And yes, desire.
That was certainly motivation to heal quickly.
I couldn’t concentrate on the book I was reading. Silvus offered card games and music but none of this was any interest at all. My thoughts were too troubled.
This was much worse than I thought. We weren’t dealing with an arrogant human warlock, but a seasoned vampire. An Ethereal vampire, that rarest of beasts. They said you could make a deal with the devil, but they never mentioned that sometimes the devil was an angel.
“Jie, you looked up Aileen Bowen. Did you find anything?”
“I found a few. I couldn’t find any outside of Boston, with an A or an E, but magical folk are usually not spending much time on social media or making websites. We might just have to travel.”
“First things first, then,” I said. “Have Mimi and Wanda returned yet?”<
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Jie slumped in his chair. “Rayner, you aren’t still planning on storming the compound, in your condition? Silvus will never let you do it.”
“Who is the leader of this clan? Not Silvus.”
Jie gave me a look. “Yeah, right. When it comes to this sort of thing, what are you going to do? He’ll just refuse to drive the car.”
“I can hire a driver. I don’t need him. We need to save her sisters. I wouldn’t put it past Johannes to kill the infant as well. I’m afraid he will just keep one alive. He clearly knows she is close to Carrie. Jie, we have to take this seriously.”
Jie ran his hands down to the knees of his pants with a languid sigh. “Mimi and Wanda just pulled up about an hour ago.”
“Help me up.”
“We’re really doing this, huh.” Jie offered his arm and steadied me as I forced every screaming nerve in my body to move. I felt sluggish, like my body was reverting to the state of a corpse until it knitted back together, but I refused to let the wounds win. I could barely put weight on my left knee, while a sharp pain screamed through my left side like a banshee at even the slightest twist or bend of my waist and spine.
“You look awful,” Jie said.
I reached for the bed post to steady myself. “Give me my robe. I won’t look my best for this meeting, I fear, but it isn’t like those two old witches ever dress up.”
“We’re going to have to carry you down the stairs,” Jie said.
“No, you are not.”
I was not going to let my beloved see me carried around like a weakling. Jie helped me to the stairs. I was hoping to sneak out before Silvus even noticed, but I had to move so slowly and there was no way his sharp hearing wouldn’t pick up the slow creaks on the stairs.
He appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Where the devil are you going!?”
“Just next door.”
“You can’t possibly deal with that ritual right now. Jie, how dare you help him.”
Take Me Slowly (Forever in Their Thrall Book 1) Page 23
