Love is Fear

by Caroline Hanson

  The words were like a punch. “He’s changed,” she said. But she felt like Bill Clinton saying he hadn’t done anything with Monica Lewinsky.

  His voice was almost hypnotic. “The number of deaths he has been responsible for is incalculable. Lucas Tiberius Junius, slayer of Gaius, the King who had ruled in a time before the Christian God’s birth. You have no inkling of the number of your kin he killed. If you did, you would seek shelter from me. You would kill yourself rather than go to him. When I walked the Earth with him, he was a King so mighty, no one dared usurp him, no matter how depraved he became.”

  He paused as if giving her time to digest what he was saying. Like bitter medicine, the truth could only be given in small doses or her body would rebel. His eyes searched her face while he waited. “His own kind viewed him as perverse, child. Vampires were wary of Empaths. All of them were—except for him. He was a glutton for them. He could no more abstain from devouring an Empath than a dog could keep from mounting a bitch. Instinct.”

  She wanted to scream. Do anything to make him stop. To keep the words from burning into her brain.

  “In my time, the Empaths and the Wolves lived together. Rarely, one would be seduced into a vampire’s embrace. The draw flows both ways. Empaths are drawn to vampires—it is part of your nature. And every now and again, a vampire was curious to know what an Empath’s embrace was truly like. Similar to seeing a tall mountain and having to prove to one’s self that one can make it to the top, it is a contest—one’s self against nature. But that was a sick abomination, the mating of the two. Because it always ended in death. Always. Lucas has taken the liberties that all victors do—he has rewritten history to suit himself.”

  He was close enough to her that he might have kissed her had he chose. So close she couldn’t see anything but the truth of his words. No escape. “You may be rare. You may even be the very last of your kind, but that doesn’t mean he will protect you. Lucas will treat you like all the rest.”

  A beat passed. A moment where she noticed her own breathing, tried to keep her expression unmoved, and finally had to move away from him. The room was too silent. As if they were standing in a mausoleum buried deep under the earth, and any conversation was a sacrilege. Would wake the dead and bring them near. He turned away from her, walked to the door and she took a step, following him.

  She couldn’t give him anything—no indication that his words had made an impact. He hated Lucas. He’d kill him given a chance. This could all be a lie. Be brave. She smiled and followed him. Emptied her mind so she didn’t think, tried to pretend she couldn’t still hear Cerdewellyn’s voice in her head telling her that Lucas would treat her like all the rest.

  Because he’s right, isn’t he? After 1600 years, what are the odds I’m interesting enough to make him change? And the real flaw in my logic? After 1600 years, could he change even if he wanted to?

  Val followed him down the hall. Half-hoping to catch a villainous smile of satisfaction on his face so she could discount everything he said. He glanced back at her—down at her because he was tall. She was going to go to one of those slutty shoe shops if she ever got out of here and buy a pair of seven-inch heels. Then she wouldn’t be so short.

  Good prioritizing.

  “You do not have to believe me. Come and read your history. The history of the Others. See what he has left out. I promise to bring you food and drink that will not bind you to my world. And I promise that after we have talked—to my satisfaction—that I will let you leave.”

  “I want them to come with me. Rachel, Jack and Lucas.”

  He stiffened, picked a piece of invisible lint off the forearm of his jacket. “I will release the human. The female vampire I will release as a gesture of my goodwill. But Lucas…. I cannot let him go. I can think of nothing offered, nothing to gain, that would make me release him after what he has done to me and mine.”

  “You said you would grant me a boon.”

  “Yes, and the caveat was that it must not harm me or mine. There is no force or power on this earth that has brought more harm to my people than him.”

  Was he gauging her reaction to his words? A millennia is an awfully long time to do evil. She couldn’t leave here without Lucas, could she? No. She couldn’t. Not even after all the terrible things Cerdewellyn had told her. But there was no use arguing with him now. Especially when she didn’t have all the information.

  Val didn’t know what to think. She knew Lucas. Knew him intimately, had welcomed him into her body and anticipated doing it again. But knowing him physically didn’t translate to knowing him. Unfortunately. Sex should be like osmosis. All that time pressed up against each other should allow her to know him without having to wait six months before finding out they had mommy issues or unpackable baggage.

  But he’d never denied what he’d done to the Fey.

  He’d admitted it. Admitting what he had done did not minimize it. But he knows it was a mistake. What if Lucas were a regular person? If she’d met him and he told her he’d killed a lot of women but realized the error of his ways—and, hey, would she like to hit the sheets? What would she have done? She’d have run away screaming and called the police.

  Why did Lucas being a vampire give him a free pass on evil? Make it more acceptable? Because she knew going into it what he had done and how he survived?

  They stopped in front of a library with twenty-foot ceilings and rows upon rows of books. Every single one was incredibly old and beautiful. Even their bindings were eye-catching. Leather and suede, brilliant dyes and gold lettering. These were books made for the super-rich centuries ago. When owning a book was not only a status symbol—like owning a fancy car would be today—but a piece of art.

  Even as he pointed to a shelf, she could still hear his words ringing in her ears—that she’d be like all the rest.

  “Here is a history of your people. Read through this, and then I will come find you and we shall eat. This one—” He pulled a book off the shelf, the pages crackling as he turned them, his face transforming into an expression of killing rage when he found the page he wanted. “This is your savior, is it not? Read this while I am away, and then we can speak again, when you know the value of my words and the true nature of Lucas.”

  He held the book out to her and saw a drawing of Lucas in the heat of battle. Long hair, the tall, heavy form, drawn by a master in black ink. Lucas was in a burning city, bodies were all around him, his sword held high as villagers fled from him. The script was old and almost unintelligible.

  Cerdewellyn probably hadn’t collected a book since 1580. She’d taken classes on Middle English, had read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as well as Chaucer in the original text, so she could slog through this even if it was six centuries old…but, she didn’t want to. Because this was the truth.

  And she didn’t want it.

  Chapter 36

  Val couldn’t have said how much time passed in that library. There was a fire in the fireplace, and she’d sat down in a huge chair, looking at book after book until her eyes strained and her brain was fuzzy. Lucas had never given her histories. Never a complete text.

  He’d given her folders and copies of carefully selected pages. At the time, she had thought it was because the books were so rare they needed to stay protected. But now she feared it was because he wanted to control how much she knew.

  She could find guilt in almost everything he had said and done. He’d taken her to the British Library, one of the few libraries where there might have a book old enough for her to discover something about him, and he had stayed with her, hovering.

  She’d assumed it was because he wanted to be with her. But that wasn’t the reason. He’d stayed to ensure her ignorance. Which makes the the ass in assume. He was beautiful and compelling. So far out of her league that when he’d paid her any attention, she’d been pathetically eager to be with him.

  The guy had supernatural massacres named after him! And some of the things that she read about hi
m, what he’d done after killing a whole bunch of Empaths…. they were not the sort of things one could overlook, sugarcoat, or whitewash in anyway. Evil was evil. And this was some serious evil.

  If she had not known him, but had only read of him, she’d be scared shitless of him. In a choice between him and Marion, knowing what she now knew, she’d choose Marion as a safer option. How the fuck was that possible?

  And what really sucked was how desperate part of her was to ignore all of this. When Lucas came for her—which she knew in every fiber of her being he would—she wanted to run to him, have him hold her and act like all of this was a lie.

  Which was pathetic. It turned her into ‘that’ girl. The girl who went out with some shithead guy that everyone said was a mistake and she blindly ignored because she was different. And, this was the part, she could change him.

  Yeah, fucking right.

  She looked down at the book, but couldn’t see the words. Oh great, here come the waterworks. Her lower lip trembled, her throat closed up, and she felt a sob welling within her.

  Seriously, how could she get it so wrong? And what would she do when she saw him again? How could she pretend she didn’t know? And once he saw how much she knew, what would he do? Best case scenario was that he would apologize. But is an apology sincere when one doesn’t feel regret?

  Would he kill her? Make her forget? She heard the door scraping open and dashed her tears away, setting the book down and standing by the chair.

  “Come. I have food and drink,” Cerdewellyn said, waiting in the doorway.

  “When will they be here?” she asked, voice a little raspy but not too bad.

  “A few hours.”

  She nodded. Followed him back to the dining room they had passed earlier. He led her to one end, away from the fire, but the room was so warm and well-lit with torches along the walls that it didn’t matter. And on the table was food. It made her stomach growl and was a little embarrassing. Cerdewellyn ignored it, pulled out a chair for her like a gentleman, and walked around the table so that he was sitting across from her. He poured her a glass of red wine, and Val looked at the assortment before her.

  “Wow. That’s a whole pig you have there.” Her stomach flip-flopped. “Eyes and all.” Did she sound as disgusted as she felt? She couldn’t help but stare at the empty sockets. The eyes had cooked away and…Oh, it was so gross. Its tail was burnt to a twisty crisp, and an apple was shoved in to the animal’s outraged mouth. The pig looked vaguely angry. As if he knew things had gone bad for him and was pissed about it. I feel for you, buddy.

  She looked away from the animal to the ceiling. Cer must have seen her revulsion because he snapped his fingers and the dish was gone. In its place was a silver platter with some sort of meat and Jell-O concoction on it.

  “What is that?” she asked, giving up on keeping the horror out of her tone.

  “Larks tongues in aspic. It is a great delicacy.”

  Val wasn’t hungry anymore. “So, the jelly stuff is the aspic, right? And probably made out of actual hoof. And when you say Lark’s tongues, you mean tongue, literally, and from…a bird. That’s…uh…what I’m looking at?”

  He frowned. “Well, it was a great delicacy. This is not going as I had hoped. Explain to me what people eat in your day, and it shall appear. Do you still eat cheese?”

  There was something vaguely amusing about the situation and Val couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, we eat cheese. And fruit. And bread. But there is no point. I’m not going to eat it. So thanks.” This place would be a dieter’s dream. No eating or there will be serious consequences.

  “So, this food, it’s real?”

  “Yes,” he said, as if he’d told her everything she might want to know.

  Oh shit, another guy who doesn’t talk. Is this what makes women lesbians? The desire to have a good conversation?” And?”

  He arched an eyebrow. Something that all poor conversationalists seemed good at it. In this case it meant, ‘What do you mean? ’ or ‘What else would you like me to say? ’ or even, ‘I’ve given you an answer so why are you still banging on about it? ’

  “And it comes out of the air with a snap of your fingers because….”

  He looked up at her, brows furrowed. “Because I am the King of the Fey,” he said as if he were talking to a child.

  She shrugged. “Okay. Thank you,” she said sarcastically.

  “You are welcome,” he said sincerely.

  Fabulous.

  “You will not eat, then? Regardless of my promise that the food is untainted?”

  “No, I won’t eat. But thanks.” I think.

  Cerdewellyn stood, clearly expecting her to rise as well. “Come. There is something you should see.”

  It’s not a dead body, is it? Val knew she was getting better at biting her tongue because she didn’t say the words out loud. But that was a pretty ominous phrase. Wasn’t it what they said on CSI and all those murder shows? Val didn’t watch a lot of murder shows. She’d seen it—not pretty. She’d rather take a good comedy any day.

  He inclined his head towards the other end of the room, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to see. They walked parallel to each other, the huge dining room table between them. She passed chair after chair, maybe forty all together before reaching the other end.

  There, laying on a red and blue Turkish rug in front of the fire, were two wolves. Gray, silent and massive, they were larger than any animal had a right to be. They also looked very, very dead. Maybe I should have said that dead body comment out loud after all.

  Chapter 37

  “You can help me,” he said, startling her. She’d been so absorbed in looking at the Wolves that she’d forgotten he was standing there.

  “How?” Val asked, really not wanting to know.

  “You are an Empath. You have power. Together we could begin to restore what has been lost.”

  There were so many problems with that idea she didn’t know where to start. “I’m only half Empath. And I don’t know anything about it. It’s like asking someone to do Tae Kwan Doe just because they’re Korean.”

  He looked at her blankly. Dammit. Couldn’t she talk with someone from the 21 century? If she ever made it out of here, maybe she should teach high school. Deal with people more on her level.

  “I mean, I haven’t been trained. I don’t know anything about it— power, energy, channeling, wolves. The whole enchil— thing is new to me.”

  Cerdewellyn shook his head. “You have power. It does not matter if you know how to use it. Magic is. Unless one is a witch, the training is minimal.”

  “Okay. The next problem is that I’m weak.”

  He smiled at her. “You may be…diluted, but the abilities I would call upon will be strong enough. Let us try. See how compatible we are. It will not hurt. Nor will it weaken you. But it would give me some idea if you can help me and my people.”

  Truthfully, the fact that it wouldn’t hurt made her more willing to give it a shot. “What would we do?”

  “We will try to wake up the wolves.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and she looked back to the huge beasts before the fire. They really looked like big dogs. “What kind of wolves are they? They’re huge.”

  “They are Werewolves.” He gave her that look again—the what-the-hell-has-the-world-come-to—look. At least that’s what she thought it was. “You have never even seen one?” He sounded very sad.

  “No. Sorry. Are these the only two left?” she asked.

  “No. There are more. But these two lead the pack. If they awaken, hopefully the others will as well. Do you not want to help them? Look at them. They are alive but unmoving. Their hearts beat, and yet, they are unaware. Your natural affinity for them should draw you to them. If you told me you didn’t want to help them, I would know you for a liar.”

  Val chewed on her lip as she looked at the Werewolves. “So, there are people in there?” She crouched down next to the wolf, looking at its closed eyes,
the long snout and its soft coat. She wanted to touch it. Her heart beat picked up a little, the desire to touch the wolf growing, as if acknowledging the desire gave it strength.

  It was decision time. Her instincts told her that Cerdewellyn wanted what was best for his people. And they were here because Lucas wanted to make amends. He’d told her humanity was better off with the Fey back in the world. So perhaps she should help Cer a little. A show of good faith.

  And you know what? I really don’t think Lucas is going to kill me. Even if he was, it was not going to happen here, in Fey. So, if she could make a bargain here, she should. “I will try to help you if you promise not to kill Lucas and to hear what he has to say. We sought you out. You’ve been stuck down here for centuries and everyone thinks you’re extinct. I understand that you want vengeance…but I don’t think you’re in a situation to ask for it.”

  “Beautiful and demanding. Now I know why you still live.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere. Oh! That was a joke.”

  Cerdewellyn crouched down too and put a hand on the wolf’s neck. The animal seemed to sigh, a fleeting expression crossing its face. She’d never thought of a dog as particularly expressive. Not beyond ‘food’ and ‘out, ’ anyway.

  “They are people. With families and wives, a life dedicated to protecting your kind. To killing vampires. I—” His voice faltered a little. “I failed them. Lucas is their enemy, too. If I agree to keep Lucas alive, it would be another failure.”

  “Promise to hear him out and not kill him for 5 years, then I will help you.” He’s Lucas, if he can’t talk this guy into giving up his vendetta or escaping in 5 years, I’d be shocked.

  “I promise to ‘hear him out’ and not kill him for a period of 2 years, But, if you ask me of your own volition to kill him before then, that promise is nullified.”

  Damit! I don’t know if this is a good deal!

  “He responds to your touch,” Val said, almost expecting the wolf to open its eyes and wake up. Now that would be a good distraction.