Then she released her bite and her form faded under his hand. He didn't feel her warmth either, but the ambient temperature of the room had lifted, as if her rage had sated—even if he knew that wasn't true.
"You were solid," he said in a rush. Searching for her, he found her form in a corner of the room, looking more solid, but still milky white. "When you were feeding, you were solid. I could feel you."
She gave him a dismissive look, which would have pissed him off if it wasn't for that fact that he was still getting over the feeling her up part. His fingers still vibrated with the touch.
Getting out of bed, he walked toward her. She didn't move, only stared at him with the familiar hatred in her eyes. His fingers slipped through her waist like it wasn't there. No remnants of her solid state remained now. "Did you feel me touch you?"
She only stared at him, which made him wonder if she had. "Did you feel me?" he repeated more firmly.
"Not that I recall," she finally said. Her voice wasn't quite as distant as when she was icy.
"I bring you closer to life," he said. Suddenly he wondered if she could feed off others, and for some reason, he didn't want that. He wanted to be the only one who could feed her, who could make her solid, as if she existed on this plane, though his doing.
"I am not alive. I am dead."
"But feeding makes you more than just the blood itself." He wondered what that meant. For a moment, he wanted to do it again, just to see if it happened again, just out of curiosity, but she was fed now and wouldn't feed until she had grown cold again. Perhaps he could seek out the woman in Iceland to answer, but wasn't in the mood for her riddles.
If her teeth were in him, she was solid. This was an interesting development. This was a two-sided issue now. She needed to be near him and when she was, he could touch her. The thought that he could hurt her crept through his mind, but he knew full well that hurting her had not been the prevalent instinct in the heat of the moment.
He also wasn't sure she had been truthful when she'd said she didn't feel it. Everyone knew that for most parasitic creatures, taking blood was pleasurable. "What does it feel like, sinking your teeth into me?" He'd felt her tongue lapping at his neck, her grip on his arms.
She floated backward, into a wall. "Coward," he said with a grin. "Running away when we were having such an interesting discussion."
With a smile, he returned to his bed and saw two drops of blood on the white sheet, looking black in the darkness of the room. Just like a virgin, he thought with a snort. The bite of his neck was warm and stinging as he lay down and closed his eyes, feeling energy running through his blood—energy she needed, energy the feeding had created.
*
The sun was bright when he woke. His neck still ached and his fingers felt the tender wounds. Immediately he sought her out, but couldn't see her in the bright sunlight in the room. Instinctively, he knew she was there. He could feel her—fed and contented.
Leaning back on the headboard, he placed his arm behind his head. "Well, that was an interesting development last night," he said. "So fully feeling you straddling me, solid and firm. Some would go so far as to say I was ravished last night." He grinned, unable to see her, but instinctively feeling her bristle. He remembered the feeling of her breasts rubbing against his chest, and he really did feel a bit ravished by the experience—a state he never expected this whole debacle to turn out.
"Hello, darling," he heard brightly from the door. "Thinking of me?"
"Claudine?" Castran said, almost choking on the words. "What are you doing here?"
Claudine walked into the room and sat down on the rumpled bed. "I love seeing you like this." She wore a duck blue short dress with white sleeves. She almost looked girlish, and his skin bristled when she reached out for his bare chest. He moved off the bed, suddenly feeling self-conscious—not that he could really manage feeling self-conscious, let alone guilty that he'd been having dirty thoughts about the vengeful spirit tormenting him—but the tormenting part had become infinitely more interesting last night. "I've hardly seen you lately. You've been hiding away at home for weeks. I am starting to feel neglected."
Striding over to the wardrobe, he dressed quickly, knowing she was in full pout mode behind him. Claudine bursting into his apartments usually annoyed him, but right now he hated it, because there was someone else watching this.
Pulling on his black jacket, he turned, to his shock finding Claudine naked across his bed. Mortification ran up him, partially because he really didn't want to touch her, and more, he didn't want to do it with Lucy watching.
"I'll take you out to breakfast," he said, watching his fiancé’s mouth tighten. "I am ravished." His cheeks even managed to blush at the statement, which was highly unusual, but he really was extremely hungry. Must be the blood loss.
He knew he should go over and make it better as Claudine dressed, but he just couldn't, reticent to show any intimacy in front of the silently watching eyes that Claudine couldn't see. Maybe he would explain to her that his apartments weren't exactly private at the moment, but then he couldn't bare being intimate with Claudine anywhere else at the moment either.
"It has been a very stressful time," he said as Claudine joined him at the door. He knew she was confused and embarrassed, but there wasn't much he could bring himself to do to rectify that at the moment. He would get her some jewelry. That would quell her concerns quick enough. Claudine had no expectations he was loyal, but they hadn't really been in a position when he'd denied her, and that was creating worry across her brow. "It is a trying time, and I need you to just let me deal with this."
She looked a little mollified and with a tight smile, she took the crook of his arm as he led her downstairs. He still didn't relish the touch, but this was a reaction he would have to get over. Likely it was a fleeting issue that would pass once this thing was all sorted.
Chapter 11:
* * *
Castran felt pensive the next morning, unsure how he felt. There was an awkwardness that had stolen into his life the minute Claudine had walked in, as if the future he had been meant for sat more uneasily. He'd never questioned the expectations of him and the arrangement that had been made with Claudine's family. There had never been any issues with them sleeping together when the mood struck, but he wasn't an exhibitionist who'd want to show 'affection' to his intended in front of an audience, even if there was a part of him that wanted to let it serve his ghost right. She had, after all, decided to attach herself to his life; she should be willing to then deal with her choice. And if she wanted to pry her way into his life, she could just accept that women were part of it. But there was more to his reticence than that, but he couldn't entirely put his finger on it.
He knew she was here somewhere, could feel her, even if he could only see her faintly during daylight hours, like a shimmer. Her presence didn't disturb him now, maybe because the unknown element was gone, and he more or less expected her to be there. The inherent creepiness had alleviated now that he knew who and why. Admittedly, he didn't know fully why someone so seemingly sweet-natured would become militant enough to join the Resistance, then rage so profoundly she'd haunted someone after her death. There was definitely more to Lucy than met the eye—something that shifted her between the sickly sweet girl with her tedious teenage concerns, still reflected by her tiny and girly room in that Paris apartment, the one exploring her budding love affair, to the thing that now raged and hated. There was a trajectory that led from one to the other, and she was now a puzzle he could figure out.
Picking up her journal from the nightstand, he continued reading. It was eye-rollingly nauseating. Her main concern was her hopes for her and her boyfriend living together, and his studies in chemistry. There was apparently a job he wanted and their life would just be perfect if he got it.
Castran wanted to put it down again, because it was just dull reading this dribble. There was even a section on the painful choice between yellow or duck blue fucking bath to
wels.
And then he turned the page—a page warped and brittle, the writing smudged and running, dissipating in circles across the page. He couldn't make any of it out, but it wasn't uniform enough for her to have spilt something. Then it struck him: these were tears—her tears. Castran felt something tingle up his spine. Something had happened. Maybe perfect-boy wasn't so perfect after all.
The next page was entirely blank. The one after that started with a black pen, while the whole journal so far had been written in blue, probably some pen with pink fluff on it, he would imagine. Even her writing was more stark now.
Mum thinks I should go away, seek a distraction. There is nothing that can distract from this. What is there to distract from; he's dead. A distraction isn't going to change that; nothing is going to change that—ever.
Comprehension dawned on Castran. Lover-boy had been killed. He leaned back against the head board and dropped the journal down on his lap. Flicking through the pages, there were pages and pages of her lament.
"Is that why you joined the Resistance? Because he was killed?" He saw her over by the window, which made her translucent to the point of invisible, but she stepped to the side of the window so he could see her more. He could see her frowning as if she looked confused. She didn't remember.
The soothsayer's words returned—'make her remember.’ "James; he died and you cried." The frown deepened. "Then you decided to avenge him." Castran could understand that; she had just taken on an enemy that was so much stronger than her and she'd lost. "Got yourself killed."
"You killed me," she said. "You killed him; you killed anyone. That is what you do. Cause suffering and despair. That is your purpose."
"No, it's not," he said sharply.
"IT IS!" she screamed. The air suddenly turned freezing cold. "YOU KILLED HIM!"
The air was growing charged as if static electricity was generating. The hairs on his arms were standing. "This was in England; I wasn't even there."
"YOU KILL; YOU DESTROY. THAT IS ALL YOU ARE."
She charged him and her icy fingers came down on his chest, scraping across his skin and pain shot through him. Okay, maybe she could maim while fed. The soothsayer had said so, hadn't she, that Lucy could tear him apart.
He tried to grab her wrist, but his fingers moved straight through her. Pressure was building, he could feel it in his ears. She really was attacking him now and he had no defense. The pressure grew so high he felt his eardrums burst. This was more than she'd ever done before.
Throwing his sheets off him, he ran for the door, feeling her chase him as he ran down the stairs, fleeing.
A tactical retreat, he told himself as he rushed out of the house, feeling her icy fingers grip for him. He felt her give at the boundary of the house and now he stood barefoot and bare chested on the cold street, people looking at him as they walked past, probably believing a lover had thrown him out. Crossing his arms, he braced himself against the cold. Fuck!
Lucy had just found her claws again, and she'd learned a new trick. She was capable of ripping into him; he'd been told and she was now discovering her more damaging capabilities. Why did he have to be a guinea pig for this?
He couldn't stand out here all day, but like any woman, Lucy probably needed time to cool off and he had to be absent until she had. Walking in now would just see him suffer through round two, and he still had no defenses against her. Damn that fucking soothsayer for not giving him anything to restrain Lucy with.
Walking up to the front door, he rang the intercom and told whoever answered to have the driver bring the car out front. Freezing cold seeped up his feet and legs as he stood waiting, people still staring at him. Fuck them, he told himself as he rubbed her hands down his bare arms.
The car came and he jumped in the back and told the man behind the wheel to drive. Their staff knew not to question their orders, so the man drove until he got further directions. Castran wasn't of mind to decide where to go; he just needed to be somewhere for a moment, so he turned on the heat and sat back, staring out the window.
So Lucy's lover had been killed, and he could assume that some part of it had to do with their empire. Perhaps the guy had been part of the Resistance, or maybe just some innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire. However it happened, it had motivated her to fight back.
For a moment he frowned, wondering at this devotion that would drive someone like her to revenge. Obviously vengeance was part of their world, any slight was met with brutal response, but no one in his family had never been motivated like this—like Lucy. And he'd taken on personal responsibility for this tragedy in her book. Admittedly, he had killed her.
The tears and the despair in her journal sank into his mind. Pure, irrational grief. If Claudine was killed, how would he feel? The sad truth was relief. He would feel relieved, and this was the woman he was to tie himself to for the rest of his life. He had to admit the shortcomings of it, but then he would never suffer the all-consuming despair Lucy had.
Lucy had accused him of being destruction, of wreaking pain and grief wherever he went. It wasn't like that. It was them; they needed to stop fighting. They were the ones baiting a bear, then blamed it for the consequences. They knew full well what the consequences would be, so at some point they had to take responsibility.
*
After stopping at one of the high end stores, he went to lunch on his own at one of his typical restaurants, feeling out of sorts all day. He could call someone to join him, but he didn't. He felt a bit like an exile and he couldn't settle on anything, knowing he was a refugee from his own house. Anger should be coursing through him, but it wasn't. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure how he felt. On one hand, he needed Lucy to know and acknowledge her life, on the other, he felt… sorry that she was raging so.
Annoyed that he didn't have a watch or a phone, he had to ask the waiter for the time, wondering if it had been sufficiently long that he could go back now. But then who knew with ghosts? He didn't normally bother with angry women, except Claudine, which he had to bother with. Jewelry solved all problems, he'd found, but it certainly wouldn't be of interest to Lucy. Nothing materialistic would ever be of interest to her. She wanted something else entirely, but he couldn't really get a grip on it.
He decided it was time to bite the bullet. There was a part of him that wanted to go back there and he couldn't really understand why, but it was more than it being his rightful place—his apartments. There was something fascinating about Lucy. Like an onion, he wanted to get to the next layer. They had come so far already, from a terrifying (if he were to admit it) entity, to a superficial person, to now a much more complex person.
Now he wanted to know what drove her to the Resistance—how that had happened. What had she done in the name of the Resistance? Had a bit of the grubbiness of it rubbed off on her? She couldn't have been part of that and remained as pristine as the girl he'd read about in her diary. The Resistance wasn't filled with innocents; they were just as hardened as anyone on his team.
He really, really wanted her to be tainted by the things she’d done in the name of this unrecognized war. Then she wouldn't be so completely out of reach.
Chapter 12:
* * *
There was no way of feeding that wasn't intimate, so Lucy didn't pretend there was. His hands were on her thighs, where they seemed to want to be when she fed. His hardness jutting into the apex of her thighs wasn't deniable either, or his heavy breath expanding his chest as his blood flowed. He didn’t fight the intimacy of her feeding, his hands intermittently running up to her hips. She didn't understand why. She was taking from him and he was letting her, welcoming her. Not that he could realistically do anything about it, but he wasn't even trying now.
When she'd had enough, she rose away from his neck and his hands immediately sunk through her form and a slight frown marred his face.
"Why do you want me to take from you?" she asked, not understanding his frown as her feeding ended.
&nbs
p; "Because it makes you warm; hence it makes me more comfortable."
His statement didn't ring true in her mind. He wasn't avoiding her, or taking himself from the house. He was staying here in his room unless he had to leave. The journal lay closed beside the bed. He had finished every part of it—her fighting with the Resistance, until the day she never came back to write again.
Thoughts were pushing their way into her mind. She was dead and in her anger and despair, she had chosen to come here, to seek him and to wreak vengeance. Instinct had driven her, but her victim seemed to seek her company.
She hadn't even really started her life. It was just starting when she’d met James, and it had all been taken away. There was no going back now. Nothing could undo what had happened. In truth, some of her own rage has dissipated. Memories had returned. The hated one, Castran, had prompted and prompted until the memories came back. Her lovely James and the sheer despair she'd felt when he'd died. His death hurt much more than her own demise. There had been little left of her after his death, just the urge to fight back. The urge to make them hurt as much as possible.
Castran had fallen asleep. Two small trails of blood ran down the side of his neck, creating stains on the white sheet beneath him. She didn't feel the unassuageable rage she’d had before. Too much of the sadness was returning. He still needed to suffer. It was a truth in her mind, but things were twisting away from that original imperative. Maybe because things had changed between them. He sought her company, and that could only be because he wanted something from her. It seemed utterly illogical, but his behavior was consistent.
Moving to the bed, she stared down at the sleeping man not much older than her. He'd ended her life and she still couldn't really fathom a reason. And now he sought something from her and she didn't know what. Forgiveness? Did he even have the right to ask for it for what he'd done? She was certainly not of mind to give it to him. If his conscience bothered him, then good. She may not rage, but he still needed to suffer.
Unrequited Page 6
