Take Me Slowly (Forever in Their Thrall Book 1)
Page 24
Jie threw up a hand. “Sil, you know if I didn’t he would just do it himself and fall down the stairs and break his neck. If you think this is bad, just watch him try to heal from paralysis.”
Alissa’s slender body slipped out of the library. With her red hair spilling over the white lacework of an Edwardian dress and her feet bare, she looked like a ghost. The most beautiful of ghosts. She was so young, and it was easy for me to forget she only knew eighteen years of life. I was used to young faces with wise minds, and the longer Lisbeth stayed with us, the more she would start to remember bits and pieces. She would seem like an old soul. But right now, her innocence was maintained in more ways than one.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You should be in bed! I don’t care how strong vampires are. You look…” She stopped herself, like she realized she didn’t want to insult me.
“I look awful, yes. I am aware.” I grinned at her. “But your blood was quite rejuvenating. I’m only going next door to visit the witches.”
“Didn’t you say they would take your blood and…um…”
“Yes,” Silvus said. “He’s not going over there for tea. It will weaken you and cause you pain, and then you have to summon up some kind of release on top of it all. None of this sounds like a wise idea. In fact, I can’t imagine you’ll be able to see it through.”
I glared at him. “Never doubt my virility, Silvus. You should know better.”
Silvus gave me such a look of stone that Medusa would be impressed. “Please.” He whisked a hand at me. “Fine. I won’t stop you. But you’re still not going to be able to storm the place until you heal up.”
“I would rather secure the spell.” It was always better to hedge one’s bets. Something could happen to Mimi and Wanda. I resumed my painstaking march down the stairs. Had they always been this steep?
“Rayner…” Tulip’s toes padded, soft and quick, down the stairs to my side. “Can I go with you?”
The world held still for a moment. Her face was hesitating, but those feet—they had not hesitated. Bodies were always ahead of brains, and her body—it was starting to know what it wanted.
My cock twitched. I wanted to kiss those feet. And then, every other bit of her.
“Will it help if I go with you?” she asked. “After all…you’re trying to help my sisters. I don’t want to wait another second.”
You and me both. If only we meant the same thing.
I brushed my hand over her hair, my fingers twisting the ends for a second before I forced myself to let go, because even this small motion caused me pain. “Put your shoes on. Of course it will help. I’m sure I could do anything with you at my side.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alissa
Rayner leaned on Silvus as he limped out the door, down four more steep steps, through the little garden, out the gate, and down the sidewalk. He couldn’t put weight on his broken ankle. I stayed close but he didn’t try to lean on me. I’m not sure I would have helped much. He was much bigger than me. Jie and Thom followed a few steps behind like they were just curious to see if he’d make it.
Rayner seemed worried that I would think he was weak, but it was the opposite. I could see he was in much more pain than he would let on. Everything inside of him was fighting his injuries so he could help me save my sisters. Maybe it was just so he could make me his, drink my blood and do the things men wanted to do to women.
But at some point, I don’t know if the reasons mattered.
At some point, I couldn’t ignore the urgency in my own body, the lightning that crackled inside me when he looked at me or gave me a glancing touch.
So this is a Sinistral witches’ house, I thought as we approached the house next door. It was also run-down on the exterior. There was no garden, just tangles of weeds and brambles with a few pots of herbs competing for sunlight and attention. The stoop had two gargoyle statues and the door knocker was the face of a horned goblin. There was also a collection of jars sitting out with dark liquids inside. Silvus rapped on the goblin and then stepped back.
At our feet was a small door that must be for letters or milk bottles or some old-time purpose. It opened and shut with a little click as someone must have looked out. Then the door opened. An elderly white woman with a ragged mane of gray curls said, “Mr. Van der Berg…well, you look like you need something. But you never came over for tea.”
“I apologize. I’ve been somewhat preoccupied, but you’re right. I haven’t been very neighborly.”
A black woman appeared next to her, each as wrinkled as the other, both wearing a lot of mysterious jewelry. Necklaces were getting tangled up in the first witch’s hair.
“What does he want? Who is the girl?”
“He hasn’t introduced her.”
“That girl’s touched with something. I don’t even need to cast a spell to tell that much. We just got home from vacation. I need a nap before I deal with this.”
“This is Alissa,” he said. “Alissa, this is Mimi. And that is Dee’s great-aunt, Wanda. I promise you, I will make it worth your while. I can give you precious ingredients for spell working.”
“We have all the eye of newt we need,” Mimi said.
“And don’t you be stepping on my pennyroyal, Silvus,” Wanda said, with a look of death that seemed to mean, I’ve seen my niece looking at you.
Silvus looked at his feet, which were planted in a nondescript patch of what looked like weeds, and moved back onto the sidewalk. “Terribly sorry about that.”
“Extractions from a vampire who has recently tasted the blood of a virgin,” Rayner said. “That is what I can offer.”
Wanda and Mimi looked at each other.
“I knew it,” Wanda said. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“But he is a warlock,” Mimi said, pointing at Silvus.
“Vampire warlock. Double trouble.”
“But we could use—“
“Well, sure, but—“
“If it’s not—“
“Maybe.”
“And Dee—“
“Well, Dee’s always—but we won’t—“
“Oh, no, we won’t.”
They had a conversation of unfinished sentences. “What do you want in exchange?” Mimi asked.
“Have you heard of the Order of the Blessed?” Rayner asked.
“Ohhh, yes we have. The ‘purification spell’ people,” Wanda said, with disdain.
“I need a spell that can get through the wards on their village so I can get Alissa’s sisters out.”
“And my dad,” I said, anxiously.
“And her dad.” Rayner sounded tense and now I worried he was having second thoughts about saving my dad.
“Come on in,” Wanda said. “Dee! Dee, can you take Kira out for a bit? It’s story time at the library! You take my car.”
“I think I’ll be going back to the house now,” Silvus said. “Good luck.”
“I’m trying to study,” Dee said.
“Hon, the library is a perfect place to study,” Mimi said.
“Not if I’m in story time with a bunch of toddlers. Aunt Wanda—do you want me to be stuck here forever? If I’m still working at Chik-Fil-A a year from now I might as well write Loser on my tombstone right now.”
“You do need to get out of there,” Mimi said, shaking her head.
“Just get going, it’s my house and I’m paying for your classes,” Wanda said. Once Dee left in a huff, she said, “Whatever, that girl isn’t going to become a nurse. She’ll be in the family business. She is already improving her intuition with the things we’ve taught her. Something happened while we were gone, didn’t it? You told her?”
“Jie did, from what I understand,” Rayner said.
“This girl is one of your thralls, then,” Mimi said.
“She is my only thrall,” Rayner said. “Our only thrall.”
“Four of you sharing one girl? Yeah, sure, bud,” Mimi said. “Don’t fall for that line, babe.”
Mimi and Wanda definitely seemed a little suspicious of something, but they didn’t let it hold them up. We were moving deeper into the house, which was cluttered with interesting things and very messy, although the layout of the house was almost identical to the vampire clan’s, with the same pocket doors and the same type of newel posts and railings curving up the stairs to a landing above.
In the Order, no one owned a lot, and no one had cluttered houses. I was fascinated by all the religious statues and icons, crooked piles of books, crystals and tarot cards laid out mid-reading. Every radiator had herbs drying on top of it. They were clearly in the middle of more spells and business than they could even keep up with. Brightly colored plastic toys were scattered around the house on top of it, Sesame Street character toys for teaching numbers or letters, dolls with messy hair and a rolling cart with big wheels holding a stuffed teddy bear.
And they’re…together? Father Joshua would never allow that either.
“Rayner, you step in here.” Mimi opened a door to a room with the windows draped in such heavy curtains that no light penetrated the room at all. She lit a number of candles so flickering light gave me eerie glimpses of an altar and some wands and other magical tools. “Remove your clothes and get comfortable on the chair.”
“I don’t think he can remove his clothes himself,” I said.
“Of course I can,” he said.
Yeah, right. But Mimi held me back. “We want to talk to your girl for a minute. It’s part of the spell, since she came from the Order. We won’t hurt her.”
“I’m fine, Tulip,” he said.
I was nervous as the two witches offered me a comfy chair and iced tea. They both looked friendly and concerned for my welfare. Were they going to ask me if I was safe and being treated well, like Dee had? No, there was something else underneath it.
Wanda’s eyes were a little too sharp as she said, “Can I take your hand?”
“Um…sure.”
She turned my palm up and put on reading glasses. She squinted at it for a little while. “This line, here…it has a severe break in the middle. Mimi, get my wand.”
“I already have it here.” Mimi handed it to her.
“How do you know these men?” Wanda asked.
“They rescued me from the Order,” I said.
“They’re going to want to turn you,” Wanda said. “Do you want to be a vampire? It’s not something to choose lightly.”
“They…can’t. There’s a spell on me to keep me from being turned.”
“Ah.”
“How did they know to rescue you?” Mimi asked. “Is there a family connection?”
“A past life connection.”
“Mmm.” Wanda shook her head. “That Silvus. He’s good. But he’s also bad. That isn’t magic anyone should be doing. But…” She looked worried. “Hmm. Mimi, you want to look at this? I’ve never seen a life line like this.”
“Oh, that is odd!”
I squirmed. Having an odd, broken life line didn’t sound like a good thing.
“I think…,” Mimi began. “She isn’t her, is she?”
“Is that story real?”
“Please—what is it?” I exclaimed. “Just tell me!”
“We are wondering if you are the girl in the legend of the Blessed Thrall,” Mimi said. “They say the Blessed Thrall originated in Holland and was the treasure of a powerful vampire, who was then blessed by the holy warlocks to protect her from him. She would live seven more lives, and then, if she was sacrificed, her blood would be the most powerful holy elixir.”
I jumped straight to my feet. “What? Why? Why would anyone—cast a spell like that?”
“That’s how spells are,” Wanda said. “You give and you take and you set up a structure. It might sound random, the seven lives, the sacrifice…but they’re the building blocks of a spell. Of course, we don’t know if it’s true. It’s one of the many stories that gets passed around over the centuries.”
“Rayner is from Amsterdam…”
“That’s what got me thinking about it to begin with,” Mimi said. “If that’s true…your palm says you’re on your seventh life, and if it’s all really true, then your blood is incredibly powerful—when you’re dead.”
“That’s why Father Joshua wanted me.” I hugged myself. “He knows.”
“He’s going to do anything to kill you,” Wanda said. “But he hasn’t done it yet, so there must be something else to it.”
“He was going to marry me!”
“That’s it,” Mimi said. “He wants you to have a child first. There is probably something about it in the original spell, supposing he has the old records. Children are powerful magic. They carry on your blood.”
“I’m never having his child. And I—I don’t want to die.” My mind was full of all the pain and love in the eyes of the vampire clan when they looked at me. The way they lovingly preserved my things and kept my pictures…
I thought I didn’t want to be this person they wanted me to be. But now that I knew it could all be snatched away—forever—all I could think was how shattered they would be.
“I don’t think Rayner knows that I won’t come back,” I said. “It would destroy him.” He’ll never have a happily ever after with me.
He would kill himself. I was sure of that. Would we finally be able to live together in the afterlife? Father Joshua always promised us that we would be rewarded in the afterlife. But all we would ever know for sure was what we had now. I didn’t want to live for some future idea, a fantasy.
This was the life we had to save.
“Is there any way to stop it?” I asked.
“You have to break the blessing,” Wanda said.
“Let us do some digging…”
“Are we helping with this?” Wanda asked Mimi.
Mimi shrugged. “All I know is, I don’t want to give the Order of the Blessed anything. If it ruins their plans, I’m all for it.”
“True.”
“Don’t tell Rayner that this is my last life,” I said. “Not yet. He’ll be so upset and he needs to heal.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Mimi asked, sounding a little softer now. “Give us just a little time and we’ll see what we can do.”
Is that what she saw in my eyes?
“We’d better take care of his business first,” Wanda said. “Not my favorite thing in the world, but I’m going to wash my hands.”
I felt my cheeks heat. I would never forget the disgusting image of the priestesses wrapping their hand around Father Joshua’s stiff male appendage, and now the witches were apparently going to do the same. But no one was going to enjoy this at all. It seemed very embarrassing, but in a different way. When Father Joshua made me watch, he didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He made me feel shamed even though I was only a spectator. But in this case, it was Rayner I was ashamed for. I knew he was only doing this to get the spell that would help me rescue my sisters.
I never thought I would ever want to do this in a million years.
“Can I…help?” I asked.
They both knew what I meant.
“I don’t know your story,” Wanda said, “but I can imagine it wasn’t good, being in the Order. That isn’t a good place to grow up. I know the men are…well, we’re not going to ask, but I can tell you’ve had some trauma. Are you sure you feel comfortable with this?”
No. My fingers clenched the soft fabric of my skirt.
“Yes,” I said.
“You can come into the room with us,” Mimi said. “We’ll tell you when it’s time.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rayner
I took off my clothes and folded them. It seemed to take
forever. I was exhausted, in a way, although more mentally than physically. The pain was hard to endure, but with Tulip’s blood still coursing through me, I was restless beneath the surface of my skin. I still craved more of her. If she told me she was ready, I would endure any amount of pain to feel her body tight around my cock, smell her sex and hear her little panting breath in my ear.
I drew the blanket over my lower half and waited.
When the two old witches walked in, my Tulip came with them. I hadn’t expected that, and oh yes, I caught the tiny gleam of desire in her eyes when she saw my bare, muscular torso.
Buried deep within the modest maid we had chased through the woods was the same hungry girl whom I would leave curled up naked beneath the covers. She would tug on my arm when I tried to go to work, and beg me to come back soon.
There was only one good reason for her to be here, and I hoped I was right about why she had come with the witches. It would make this more than bearable.
But she was still scared. Scared of me. Scared of the part of my body that brought her more pleasure than anything.
Goddamn that man.
Mimi took a heavy bowl, glazed a deep blue, and chanted a spell over it. Wanda opened an old wooden box and took out a very small blade for the blood-letting.
“We’ll make this quick,” she said.
Mimi tied off the vein in my arm and rested it on the bowl. They whispered more spells, in both Latin and French, asking for the essence of my strength and immortal life to be preserved and offering thanks to goddesses they had chosen to follow. Nothing out of the ordinary, for any witch, Ethereal or Sinistral.
I felt a small hand reach for mine, as if to reassure me.
I closed my fingers around hers, feeling her warmth, and although this spell might weaken me, all I could feel was the strength of Lisbeth’s love surging through me.
Day by day, moment by moment, she was returning to me.
When Wanda made the cut I didn’t look away, although Alissa covered her eyes.
The knife stung. Unlike my fangs, the witches had no venom and didn’t cast any spells to ease my pain—that was part of the sacrifice, the necessary magic. My blood fell in heavy drops in the bowl and they kept murmuring their spells for what seemed like an uncomfortably long time. Finally, Wanda stirred the blood with a thick crystal wand and set it aside, covering it with a cloth. I felt slightly dizzy. When you acquired the strength of a vampire, weakness became even more disorienting than usual. The bar was set so high.