The Craving sd-3

by Лиза Джейн Смит

  ‘Stefan! Don’t go to the club until later! We have a full day today,’ Bridget warned. ‘We absolutely must, must, must go visit Bram’s family. They just love Damon – Brammy’s been taking him to all the latest places, like that bar that serves real English-style Pimm’s Cups! I’ll have to wear my new blue muslin. To their house, not to the bar, naturally. It isn’t a suitable place for ladies. Fanny wanted blue muslin for her trousseau, but her engagement didn’t work out, poor thing…’

  The door to the kitchen opened, and Damon stepped through. ‘Good morning, all,’ he crowed, bright-eyed and chipper. He looked rested and sated as he gave Lydia a flirty bow and me a nasty wink.

  My shoulders clenched. ‘What are you doing here, Damon?’ I asked in as innocent a tone as I could muster.

  ‘You didn’t hear?’ He sat down at the table and unfolded his napkin with a flourish. ‘Winfield begged me to move in.’

  ‘Oh.’ I pushed my chair back from the table, plastering a wobbly smile on my face to mask my anger. ‘Er, Damon, would you mind joining me in the foyer for a moment?’

  He grinned at me. ‘But I just sat down and I’m ever so hungry.’

  ‘It will take but a minute,’ I said through clenched teeth.

  Lydia looked at me curiously, but after a beat, Damon scraped his chair back and followed me to the foyer. ‘Milady, I’ll return shortly.’

  The second we were out of earshot, I turned to my brother. ‘You are unbelievable. You’re moving in now?’

  ‘Why thank you,’ he said with a facetious bow. ‘And yes. Were you not listening last night when I talked about all the amazing…amenities the Sutherland abode has to offer?’

  The room began to spin around me as rage overtook me. My patience with Damon’s game was over.

  ‘Why bother with all of…this?’ I demanded. ‘These shenanigans? If you’re so powerful, why not just go into a bank and make them give you all the gold in their vaults?’

  ‘I suppose I could, but where’s the fun in that?’

  ‘The fun?’ I echoed in disbelief. ‘You’re doing this for fun?’

  His eyes hardened. ‘Tracks, brother. You’re not thinking ahead.’ He frowned and brushed some imaginary lint off my jacket. ‘Yes, I could just steal the money and leave town. But we’re going to be around forever. Or at least I am. And compulsion doesn’t always take. In case you didn’t notice, Margaret remains quite stubborn, and having her or Winfield, should he ever shake my Power, go around waving my picture and calling me a thief…well, I can’t have that. It’s much easier – and more fun – just to inherit it.’

  I gazed at the door that separated us from the happily breakfasting Sutherlands. ‘Inherit it? As in, upon death?’

  ‘What? Why, brother, what exactly are you implying?’ he asked, pretending to be hurt. ‘You keep your half of the bargain, and I don’t go on a killing spree. Remember? I gave you my word.’

  ‘No, Damon,’ I said. ‘You said if I didn’t marry Bridget you would start killing everyone in that room. You specifically did not say anything about what would happen after we were married.’

  ‘Good point,’ he said, nodding. ‘I’d like to kill a few people in their circle. Starting with that sycophant Bram. I think he has a thing for my Lydia, you know,’ he added with mock anger.

  ‘Damon,’ I growled.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You take care of your wife. I’ll take care of mine.’

  I looked at my brother sharply. ‘So then you do plan to kill Winfield after he signs over his fortune?’

  ‘For that, you will just have to stick around and see.’

  ‘I won’t let you hurt any of them,’ I promised through a clenched jaw.

  ‘You can’t stop me. Whatever I choose to do,’ he hissed back.

  We glared at each other. My hands curled into fists. He

  shifted his stance, ready for a fight.

  At that moment Mrs Sutherland poked her head into the foyer. ‘Boys? Everything okay out here?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Damon answered graciously. ‘We were just acquainting ourselves.’ He pointed at the door to the kitchen and gave a slight bow. ‘After you, Stefan.’

  Reluctantly, I passed back into the kitchen, Damon close on my heels.

  ‘So tomorrow we pick out our suits,’ he said. He was acting as though we were continuing a mundane discussion from the foyer, rather than just having ended an argument over the fates of everyone in the room. ‘Stefan, we should match! Why, Bridget, weren’t you just saying last night how someone, I forget who, matched her sister at another wedding? Silk or something?’

  He knew. He was my brother and he knew precisely how to torment me. Eternally.

  ‘Yes, of course, Damon,’ Bridget said with a gratified smile, turning to me. ‘Stefan, you have to hear this. I thought about matching me and Lydia, but I’m not sure the effect would be as dramatic, what with Lydia’s figure…’

  I slowly sank down at the table, drowning in her words – and the knowledge that Damon was right. I had never been able to stop my brother, especially not when it mattered most.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next few days drifted by, chock-full of wedding planning and menu sampling. At night, the Sutherlands settled into a steady routine. Mrs Sutherland took to the sewing room, teaching Lydia to make quilts and bonnets. Bridget indulged in a late-night beauty regime that involved brushing her hair with one hundred strokes and lathering herself in cream that I could smell all the way from the parlour. Winfield always retired to his study with a tumbler of brandy, perusing the paper or going over his accounting books.

  I’d taken to pacing the first floor, coming up with plans to ferry the Sutherlands to safety only to shoot down most of my ideas. I also now needed to plan my feedings. My steady diet of city animals was harder to keep up now that I was under the watchful eye of every Sutherland and servant. It was almost like they expected me to try and make a break for it, though it was impossible to know how much of that was genuine wariness versus Damon compelling them to follow me. Sometimes I managed to slip away, whether up to the roof or silently down to the backyard to try and find a rat or pigeon or even a mouse to satisfy my needs. Hazel, the house cat, was off limits of course, but fortunately her wild tomcat friends were not.

  Damon had no such nutritional problems. Nor did he care much about secrecy. He came and went as he pleased, doing God knows what in the darkest corners of the city. I often saw a maid or manservant summoned to his suite in the coldest hours of the night as I skulked about tending to my own needs. For my brother, life with the Sutherlands was like living in a grand hotel – he attended dinners in his honour and was feted all around town at the top establishments. He was a prince and New York was his adoring kingdom.

  When Damon arrived home on Thursday, Winfield poked his head out of the study.

  ‘Oh, good. I’m glad you’re here,’ Winfield said, holding out two glasses of whisky. ‘Please come join me.’

  There was a stray drop of blood carelessly smeared on the corner of Damon’s mouth. Anyone else would have assumed it was a shaving cut. Suddenly the cosy study seemed suffocating and the corners darker.

  He casually wiped his lips, his eyes on me, then threw himself down on the couch next to his future father-in-law, less like an Italian count and more like…well, Damon. ‘Good evening, sir.’ The fact that he dropped his fake accent in their presence highlighted just how under his thrall this family was.

  ‘I wanted to have a chat with the two of you about your futures,’ Winfield began, chomping on his cigar.

  ‘Oh, I have big plans, I’m thinking long-term,’ Damon said. ‘Living here with the family, of course. I love close kin.’

  My throat went dry and I ran a hand through my hair, beginning to panic, reminded once again that I had no idea what Damon really wanted.

  ‘I think I should like to go into business for myself,’ he began to say. But then the door of the study opened loudly and Margaret came striding in.
<
br />   ‘Papa!’

  Without a word to either of us she threw a copy of the day’s Post down into her father’s hands and tapped at an article. ‘Read this.’

  Winfield fished around in his pockets for his glasses and slid them on, peering at the paper.

  ‘Sutherland house is scandalised as two penniless suitors sweep away the last of the eligible Sutherland girls. Heartbroken sons of bankers, politicians and empires of capital complain bitterly about the sudden move. Is it blackmail, some wonder? An unnamed source close to the family claims that…Oh, rubbish,’ he said, throwing the paper aside and taking off his glasses. ‘People talk about the silliest things.’

  ‘We will be ruined,’ Margaret said, almost pleading. She completely ignored Damon’s and my presence. ‘At the very least, can’t you see how it would be bad for business?’

  ‘Don’t you think you should leave that sort of talk for the menfolk?’ Damon asked lazily, returning to his accented English. But his ice-blue eyes bored straight into her head, as if he wished he could put a bullet there. I stood up, placing myself between Margaret and him. She didn’t seem to notice his hatred, or the danger she was in.

  ‘I understand your concerns,’ I said quickly. I had to convince her to drop this, for her own sake. ‘But believe me, I want nothing but the best for your family.’

  ‘And in fact, we menfolk were just talking about business,’ Winfield added. ‘Damon, you were saying?’

  ‘All I need is a small sum of cash,’ my brother said, turning his head and effectively cutting Margaret out of the conversation. ‘Which will allow me to travel to my home country and start picking out vendors for exports…’

  Margaret let out a gasp. ‘You’re not actually thinking of giving him more than his dowry?’

  ‘Don’t be greedy, pet,’ Winfield said, shushing her with a patronising gesture. ‘It’s just seed money to get him on his way…’

  ‘Have you gone crazy?’ she demanded. ‘You don’t even know this man. Let him work for you first. Or give him one of your smaller businesses to run.’

  Damon rose from his seat, coldly furious. I tried to take Margaret’s arm, but she shook me off. She pulled herself up to her full height, staring straight back into his eyes. Though she wasn’t quite as pretty as either of her younger sisters, she was certainly imposing.

  ‘You have all been acting completely mad since he showed up,’ she said to her father, not looking away from Damon. ‘Letting him – and him’ – she gestured at me – ‘become practically members of this family, live under our roof, share our bread and then offer them cash and your daughters and everything else! Doesn’t anyone besides me think this is strange?’

  Winfield looked upset, but confused.

  Damon widened his eyes.

  ‘Stop,’ he compelled her. ‘Just accept Stefan and me – we’re here to stay.’

  She looked at him for a long moment. I waited for her eyes to glaze over, for her pupils to dilate ever so slightly. But all she did was shake her head in disgust. ‘Your phony “count” act might work with other people, but not me. I want no part of this.’

  I stared at her, stunned, as she stormed out. I’d never seen Damon fail to compel someone, not even when he’d been young and weak. I inhaled deeply, searching for hints of vervain, anything to explain what had just happened. But there was nothing there.

  All I could do was hope that whatever it was, it would continue to keep Margaret safe.

  CHAPTER 13

  That night I lay in bed, gazing up at the ceiling. The moon shone through the gauzy white curtains, and the house hummed with activity, a melee of footsteps, heartbeats and mice skittering inside the walls. It felt as though the entire house were alive, with the exception, of course, of myself and Damon. The Sutherlands had no idea, but when they’d opened their home to me, they had invited Death in. I was a cancer on their happy existence, and soon the darkness would spread, eating through their world until there was nothing left.

  Though I was no willing participant in Damon’s twisted plan, it would be no different from how Katherine wormed herself into my life and destroyed the entire Salvatore family. Like it or not, this family’s well-being rested squarely on my shoulders. If Damon killed them, their blood would be on my hands, too. But how could I stop him? I was so much weaker than my brother, and I had no plans to begin feeding on humans again for fear that I’d be unable to stop.

  I rose from bed and pushed the curtains aside with a violent flick. As I stared at the moon, that orb that had witnessed so much of my ill-doing, I replayed the conversation we’d had with Margaret over and over in my head. The firm set of her jaw. The clear tone of her voice. The way her lucid blue eyes had sized up me and Damon, as though she could see straight through our skin to our unbeating hearts. Winfield was ready to sign his fortune over to Damon, yet his daughter remained immune to my brother’s Power.

  But how?

  The only protection I knew against vampires was vervain, but I’d not inhaled its cloying scent since arriving in New York. When trying to draw out Katherine, my father had spiked my whisky with vervain, sending Katherine into a miasmic fit when she drank my blood. If only my father had thought to protect me sooner, he and I might still be in Mystic Falls, poring over accounting books as I studied to take over Veritas.

  Sliding the window open, I stepped out onto the narrow balcony. The night was eerily still. No wind rustled the trees, and even the pigeons that roosted on the neighbour’s roof were quiet. My balcony faced east, towards the muddy East River and the narrow spit of land they called Blackwell’s Island, where the city had recently rebuilt the lunatic asylum. A wry smile twisted my lips. If only I could check Damon in there.

  But then I let out a groan and clutched the wrought-iron rail with my hands. I had to stop wishing and hoping and thinking of millions of if onlys. I could not wish Damon into oblivion and I could not rewrite the past. What was done was done. Even at my peak Power, I could not cause the world to spin backwards, could not turn back time and undo what Katherine did to me and my family. But I was not powerless over the future. I had free will, I had experience and I had the choice to fight.

  Hoisting myself up on the rail, I leaped to the roof, landing on the tar with a soft thud. New York was a large city, and someone, somewhere, had to grow vervain or at least have dried sprigs. I’d run up and down the streets until I caught the telltale scent of the herb. Spiking Lydia’s drinks would be impossible – Damon was feeding from her – but if I could just sprinkle some in Winfield’s whisky…

  I ran across the roof, preparing to jump to that of the neighbour, before scaling down their fire escape to the street below.

  ‘Where are you going, brother?’ The cheery words sliced through the night like gunshot, and I froze on the ledge.

  Slowly, I turned around to face a smiling Damon. He looked ready for the second part of his evening jaunt, wearing a three-piece suit and twirling a gold cane in his hand. I recognised it immediately – it had belonged to Callie’s father, the man who had imprisoned Damon, torturing him and starving him before forcing him to do battle with a mountain lion. Damon must have stolen it after he killed Callie.

  Unbidden, an image of Callie bloomed in my mind. Her kind green eyes smiling at me, the freckles that dusted every inch of her body, the way she had so bravely given herself to me on the shore of the lake, offering her blood even though she knew what I was and what I could do to her…

  Her dead, twisted body lying in the grass behind Lexi’s house.

  ‘You bastard,’ I said in a low, fury-filled voice that I barely recognised as my own. Rage that had been building for weeks with no outlet tore through my veins, and I felt as though my muscles were on fire. With a growl, I threw myself at him. ‘Why won’t you just let me be?’

  Our bodies collided, like stone on stone. Startled, Damon fell backwards, but instantly he pushed me off and flipped to his feet. He wrapped his arms around my neck with a viselike grip. ‘If you we
re so desperate to be free of me, you shouldn’t have forced me to become a vampire with you,’ he hissed, all traces of joviality gone from his demeanour. I struggled to free myself, but his knee pressed more forcefully into my spine, pinning me to the roof. ‘You were the one who urged me to become what I am – to see what Katherine gave us as a gift rather than a curse.’

  ‘Trust me,’ I gasped, trying to twist from his grip. ‘I would take it back if I could.’

  ‘Tsk-tsk,’ he chided. ‘Didn’t Father teach you that part of being a man is living with your choices?’ He pressed my cheek into the tar roof, scraping open the skin there. ‘Then again, you were such a disappointment to him at the end – not wanting to marry Rosalyn, taking up with a vampire, killing him…’

  ‘You were always a disappointment,’ I spat. ‘I should have killed you when I had the chance.’

  He let out a dry laugh. ‘Well, that would have been a shame, because then I couldn’t do this.’

  The pressure on my spine abated as he hoisted me up by the back of the shirt.

  ‘What are you—’ I started.

  Before I could finish, Damon launched me forward with the force of a lit cannon. My body careened through the night air, and for a brief, weightless moment, I wondered if I was flying. Then the hard pavement of the alley between the Sutherlands’ and their neighbour’s home rushed up to greet me, and my bones cracked loudly on the impact.

  I groaned, pain radiating through my limbs as I rolled onto my back, blood dripping down my face. I lay like that for hours, staring at the stars until my Power healed me, resetting my bones and stitching up the gash in my cheek more swiftly than the most skilled medic could.

  But when I stood, a new pain shot through my chest. Because there on the brick wall of the Sutherlands’ home, written in red ink that could only be blood, were three terrifying words: