Bears of Burden: HUTCH

by Candace Ayers

  For a wild moment, I thought she was begging for Raoul’s life, and I wondered how he’d gained her loyalty so quickly. And then I realized that she was thinking of her father, and I hated myself, and this blasted situation we were all in, more than ever. She truly believed I’d kill her father because she’d kissed Raoul.

  I touched her arm, trying to calm her. “Anna. Anna, I won’t harm Anthony. It’s not your fault. Raoul has a certain…effect on human women. The French are less…stoic about these things.”

  “You looked so angry,” she whispered, looking up at me with her wide, dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Dimitri.”

  “You’re not the one I’m angry with.” I gently nudged her towards one of the seats, and walked purposefully towards Raoul. He was leaning back against the mantle now, an unapologetic look on his face.

  “How could you?” I murmured, gritting my teeth. “That’s my wife, Raoul.”

  “You said quite plainly you had no intentions of claiming her in any physical way,” Raoul said, shrugging. “This was a marriage of convenience, yes? So why shouldn’t I try my luck? After all, she has nothing to be angry with me about.”

  I felt a stab of anger at his words, and curled my hands into fists. “Didn’t you think that perhaps you ought to talk to me first, before helping yourself to what’s mine?”

  “I would think it’s Anna’s decision as much as yours. Or did you expect her to live her whole life as a virgin, since you’ve sworn not to touch her?”

  “I said I wouldn’t unless she wanted me to. I’m no monk, Raoul, you should know that.” My tone was dark and biting. “Or have you forgotten what things are like between us in our bed?”

  I heard a soft gasp behind me, and I remembered too late that Anna had known nothing of Raoul, or of our relationship. But it was too late to worry about that now.

  “She will never want you to,” Raoul said softly. “She hates you, I expect, and she has every right. So you’ll doom her to live a life without love, without sex, like some kind of nun?”

  I blinked at Raoul. “What on earth makes you want her so badly?”

  “Stop it!” I heard Anna shout suddenly, and I turned, astonished. She was standing next to the chair I’d directed her to, her fists clenched at her sides, and her dark eyes nearly had sparks flying out of them, she looked so angry.

  “Stop it,” she repeated, her voice lower now, but no less firm. She looked at me directly. “I’m your wife, Dimitri. It was wrong of me to let…Raoul…touch me.” She said his name oddly, and from the look on Raoul’s face, I deduced that he hadn’t even introduced himself before trying to seduce her. It didn’t surprise me.

  “I am your wife by law,” she continued, “but I am no one’s property. I will not be haggled over by the two of you as if I’m a pack of steaks for dinner. Raoul is right, Dimitri,” she said, her voice low and angry. “I do hate you. I hate you because you threatened my family, because you gave me no choice but to marry you, because I’m now forced to live my life without, as Raoul put it, love or sex, or else my father dies.”

  She stepped back. “I am going to bed now. Please, leave me alone. Both of you. At least you have each other.”

  She spun on her heel and fled out of the room, and Raoul and I were both left staring after her, at a loss for what to say.

  ***

  Three Months Later

  I was sitting at my desk in my study, the door firmly closed behind me, staring at the papers in front of me. As was rapidly becoming par for the course these days, I was distracted. And it was because of Anna.

  On the surface, the past three months had passed relatively smoothly. After the incident in the library, Raoul had kept his distance from Anna, physically, at least. But I saw the way he looked at her—at meals, passing in the hallway, at events—and I saw the way she avoided his gaze, her eyes dropping to the side and her skin flushing in that uniquely human way. I hadn’t seen much of what had passed between them in the library, but their reactions to each other made it hard not to imagine it.

  When I’d proposed the match between Anna and I, I’d put any idea of bedding her firmly out of my head. When she’d glided down that aisle looking like a candlelit princess, I’d made sure to appreciate her beauty in only the most purely aesthetic way. And while I’d felt the stirrings of lust when I’d kissed her, first at the altar and then again at the reception, I hadn’t dared to let my mind wander further.

  But undressing her that night had lit the first spark. And then…seeing her in the library, her back arched, her body bowed against Raoul, I’d had even more of an idea of what I was missing out on. I’d kept myself away from humans for the last fifty years or so, since my last human lover had left me, and been only with Raoul and Bernard. But Anna was igniting my desire again, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw her in the library again, and wished for her hands and mouth on me. But I’d made a promise, and I wouldn’t break it.

  It didn’t stop me from trying to thaw the ice between us in small ways. I’d briefly touch her hand in passing, letting my fingers linger a little too long before continuing on my way. I’d catch her eyes when she was day-dreaming about something, and let my gaze skim over her in a way that let her know what I was thinking about. She’d always blush, her chest and throat and face flushing delightfully pink, and it was all I could do not to go to her and grab her. It was torture.

  With every passing day and week, I grew more and more frustrated. Anna and I barely spoke, but as three months became six, the distance between her and Raoul started to narrow, they were becoming something like friends, and I found myself growing even more jealous of that. Anna fulfilled all of her duties as my wife perfectly, joining us for every meal, spending most of her evenings in the library or the family room with us, and attending events on my arm, Raoul close behind. We never went out on anything resembling a “date” …no fancy restaurants or movies. But she didn’t seem to mind the solitude. At any given time, I could find her curled up in the library with a book, or working on an art project—she was apparently a master at watercolors—or in the small gardens behind the house. Every once in a while, she would send a message to me letting me know she was meeting a friend, but it was rare. And as a result of the time we all spent together, we should have all grown closer. But while she and Raoul seemed to have found a balance, she remained distant from me. And I grew more and more irritable.

  One evening, after a charity gala I’d thrown at a nearby hotel ballroom, I retreated to the library as quickly as I could once we walked through the door, not even bothering to take Anna’s coat or say goodnight to her or Raoul. I slumped onto the chaise lounge near the fireplace, staring bitterly into the flames. This wasn’t who I was. I had never been the brooding, emotional one—that was Raoul, with his affectations and romances and poetry. I was stoic, businesslike, hard and relentless when I needed to be.

  This had to stop. I had to put Anna out of my head. Let her and Raoul have their fling if they must, and turn a blind eye to it so they would stop smoldering under my nose. I would stop being jealous. I would stop thinking about Anna in a wedding gown, the sliver of pale skin showing in the moonlight under my fingers. I would stop dreaming about her the way I’d once dreamed about another woman standing in a castle bedroom in the moonlight, her skin bared to my hands. Anna was not Katerina. I had been a different man when I’d loved Katerina, and I could not now indulge the feelings that I was harboring for Anna. I had to put her out of my head—her laugh, the way her mouth curved when she smiled, the dry jokes she sometimes made on the nights when she’d had a few glasses of wine and was less tense around us. She was a woman I could have loved, but she was my wife by circumstance and not by choice, and I should not—could not—love her.

  But Raoul could. And it was selfish of me to stand between them. Raoul and I shared everything. There was no reason why I should not share Anna—especially since I could not have her at all.

  I heard the door creak open, and I looked up, expecting
Raoul. Instead, I was surprised to see Anna, still wearing the black satin gown she’d worn to the gala. She was wearing the rubies I’d given her for our wedding day, glowing at her throat and ears, and I felt my breath catch in my throat for a moment. She was a vision tonight, her pale skin made even whiter by the black of the gown and the red of the jewels, glistening like blood at her neck. I felt a sharp jolt of lust, a desire to grab her and pull her into my arms, to bury my fangs in her neck and drink from her. I forced it down, gritting my teeth.

  “Anna,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Is there something you need?”

  She walked towards me, her mouth tense. She sat down next to me on the chaise, and I stiffened, shocked. She rarely chose to be close to me.

  “Are you angry with me, Dimitri?” Her voice was soft, and her hands hovered in her lap. For a moment I thought she might touch me.

  I shook my head. “Why would you think that?”

  “You were…different tonight. Especially once we were home.”

  It gave me a jolt, to hear her call this place home. It was her home, would be her home for the rest of her life, but it still startled me that she thought of it that way. I had always expected that she would think of it as a sort of prison, a place she wouldn’t have chosen to be but was forced to occupy anyway.

  “Anna.” I didn’t know what to say. “This isn’t a conversation you want to have.”

  “You’ve always been very good at deciding what I should want,” she said, a touch acerbically. “Perhaps you should let me decide for once.”

  She’d become so very different in the past six months. Gone was the shy, passive young woman I’d arranged a marriage with. She’d become more sure of herself, carried herself differently. The first event we’d gone to after the wedding, she’d looked as if she’d been about to faint at any moment from nervousness. Tonight, she’d glided around the room effortlessly, making small talk and charming everyone she spoke to. It made me wish, desperately, that our marriage was not all a sham. That she would talk and laugh with me as easily as she did with others. That she would look at me the way she looked at Raoul.

  “You want Raoul, don’t you?” I said, my voice flat.

  “Raoul and I are friends,” she said carefully. “Nothing more.”

  “I see the way you look at each other. If I weren’t in the way…”

  “But you are,” she said calmly, looking straight at me. “And that is the way it will be. There’s nothing more to say on the subject, Dimitri.”

  “I know there is nothing I can do to keep you from hating me,” I said. “But I don’t wish you to be unhappy. I did promise you that I would do all I could to see to your happiness.”

  “I don’t hate you,” Anna said softly.

  I looked at her, startled.

  “I did, at first,” she said. “I hated you with a passion. You threatened my family, forced me to marry you…what else would I possibly feel? But over time…I’ve come to see things a bit differently.” She paused for a moment. “I’ve spent time, at these social events, with the men you work with. I’ve seen how you interact with them. I’ve seen the respect they give you—something very like fear. And while I don’t pretend to understand how your business works, I see that it is your position that keeps them from trying to take what you have built. I also know that my father’s mistake cost you someone very dear, and I can only imagine what that must be like. I did imagine it, when I thought of the cost of refusing to marry you. I would have done anything to preserve my father’s life, and did, and I imagine that you showed restraint, actually, in not killing my father in retaliation for losing someone you loved.”

  I stared at her, unable to think of anything to say.

  “I’ve tried to think what else you could have done, besides killing my father or demanding my hand in payment. You could have taken more of my father’s profits, but that might have beggared us, caused us to lose our home or be unable to eat. You couldn’t be responsible for such a thing, not with my mother so ill, especially. At least if you married me, you could see to it that I was well kept, and my family wouldn’t suffer. I see now that you chose what you believed was the least painful way to make my father pay for his mistake—which I see now was terrible—and still maintain your power. And while it is hard to forgive you for what you’ve taken from me, I also see what you’ve allowed us to keep. And for that, I cannot hate you.”

  For a very long moment, there was nothing but silence. I could hear Anna’s heartbeat, could see the faint flush of her skin. I was suddenly awash with desire, unable to think of anything but how badly I wanted to touch her. She was looking at me, too, her gaze steady, and I couldn’t bear it a moment longer.

  “I promised I would never touch you without your consent, Anna.” My voice was husky, my hands clenched. “Anna. Let me kiss you. Please.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “Yes,” she said softly.

  I reached for her, the black satin slick beneath my hands. I pulled her to me, nearly in my lap, and I reached up, my fingers at the nape of her bare neck, just below the upsweep of her hair. I remembered touching the nape of her neck the night of our wedding, just as I began to unbutton her dress, and I shuddered with lust. Her eyes were wide, and she didn’t move. Her lips parted slightly as she waited, and I could take it no longer.

  I dipped my head, pressing my mouth to hers. She was soft, and warm—so very warm—and I felt her tense for just a moment, and then she was leaning into me, her hand resting on my thigh to brace herself as she let me kiss her, her lips parting as I deepened the kiss. I plunged my fingers into her hair, the pins loosening as I did so, and I tipped her chin up, devouring her. I could feel her body arch towards me, her breathing quickening as her tongue brushed against mine, her head falling back.

  In a flash, I’d grasped her waist and turned her so that her back was pressed against the back of the lounge, and I knelt over her, my hand tracing down her face, her throat, her collarbone. Her chest was heaving in the tight evening gown, and I wanted suddenly to rip it off of her, to see all of her pale skin in the firelight. I understood what Raoul had felt that night. I could sense the barely restrained passion in her, the pent-up need to be touched, and I wanted to give her all of it.

  But she’d agreed to a kiss. Only a kiss. I pulled back, dazed with lust, and she stared up at me, her eyes wide.

  “Dimitri,” she whispered. “How long have you wanted to do that?”

  “Since I unbuttoned your wedding gown,” I said, my voice rough. “Since I saw Raoul kissing you by the fire. I am not flowers and compliments, Anna, I don’t have the words Raoul does. But my god, I want you. I have wanted you.”

  “I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I thought…I thought you wanted as little to do with me as I wanted to do with you.”

  “Surely you saw how jealous I was of Raoul?”

  “I thought it was because I was your wife. Because you didn’t want him touching your possession.” I caught the hint of bitterness in her tone.

  “I don’t possess you, Anna. No one does.” I looked down at her wide eyes, her reddened lips. “But I want to.”

  Her fingers went to her throat. “Raoul mentioned…that first night…he said he wanted to taste me. Do you…do you really do that?”

  I felt my whole body ache when she said that. “Only to those who are willing,” I said, fighting to control the desire in my voice. “Sometimes donors, sometimes lovers. It’s not…quite what you’ve probably heard. It’s more…intimate than that.”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know if I’m quite ready for that.”

  All I heard in those words was that this wouldn’t be the last time I touched her, and I felt suddenly elated. “That’s okay,” I said softly. “I would never ask more of you than you’re willing to give.”

  “You and Raoul,” she said, hesitating. “I know you’re more than friends. But what…exactly? I’ve never asked, and you’ve never really said.”

  I raised
my eyebrows. I hadn’t expected that question. I sat back on the edge of the chaise, and she drew her knees up, the long skirt of her gown spilling around us. I struggled to organize my thoughts, still distracted from kissing her only moments ago.

  “I met Raoul two hundred or so years ago.” I saw her eyes widen. “I know, it’s hard to think of a space of time like that. Before I was…what I am, I could never have imagined it. And it is difficult, to be with one person for so long. It helps that we are not monogamous, so we are able to explore, knowing we will always come back to each other. Over the years, he has become my closest confidante, friend, and partner. About a hundred years ago, we participated in the marriage rituals of vampires, bonding us together for life. He is, for all intents and purposes, my husband.”

  “So you’re a bigamist.” Anna laughed, and I relaxed a little, glad that she wasn’t angry or frightened. “What are the rituals?” she asked, her expression curious.

  “For vampires and humans, it involves the exchange of blood. Between vampires, since we have very little blood of our own, it is more symbolic.”

  “So if you married me according to your rituals, what would happen?”

  “I would drink from you, and then you would drink from me, essentially mingling our blood.”

  Anna raised an eyebrow. “I thought it would be more…I don’t know. Weird, I guess. That doesn’t sound that strange, really.” She shrugged. “Kind of romantic, I suppose. Why didn’t you insist that we do that?”

  I stared at her. “For one, because I’d sworn I wouldn’t touch you without your consent, and the ritual is very intimate, as intimate as sex. And for another, our marriage was meant as an arrangement, to make a statement to the other humans with which I deal, a warning to others. If I made you my wife according to my rituals…it would be different. It would be because we wished to be married…both my choice and yours.”