by Alicia Ryan
He bent his head and bit into her flesh in one swift movement. Ariana tried to break free, but she couldn’t even begin to budge him. She just hung there, feet dangling above the floor as Ash’s teeth burned through her flesh and pain shot down her arm. She had a mental picture of a hunting dog with a bird in its mouth. She’d seen it often in childhood, never imagining that one day she’d be the bird.
As the pain lessened, Ariana knew she was going to die, but she found she didn’t care. Warm contentment had replaced the swirling conflict of her passion and fear.
Eventually Ash raised his head and shifted her weight so that he could bring one of his arms to his mouth. He bit into his own flesh, reopening the wound made by the letter opener, and drank. Then he bent to kiss her.
Ariana did not resist. She opened her mouth to him, savoring the taste she knew from their previous kiss and the new, cool flavor his lips now imparted.
Ash broke the kiss and carried her across the room, dropping her roughly on the sofa. Ariana looked at him through lowered lids.
“Prepare yourself,” he said dryly. “This may hurt a bit.”
For a long moment she just looked at him, still drugged from the feeding and the kiss. Then things began to change.
The room went out of focus, and a blinding pain shot between her left eye and ear. She winced and tried to sit up, but the pain only got worse. She put a hand to her head to try to contain it, but her brain burned, and strange images swam before her closed eyes. Try as she might, she couldn’t recognize any of them. It was like watching a masquerade ball. She turned her head back and forth, trying to escape, but the images kept coming.
Soon they began to feel more familiar, like a movie she’d seen a hundred times. A young girl, unseen by all the guests, watching a wedding feast she wasn’t allowed to attend. Ariana shook her head. She didn’t want to see more. She knew how this one ended.
It had begun in the usual way, of course. Samson had admired her sister and arranged with their father to marry her. Everyone had said they made a beautiful match—Samson’s large, dark figure a striking contrast to the pale, quiet beauty that was her sister, Anora. They might have had beautiful children had Anora lived more than a week past her wedding day.
But she hadn’t. Instead of a happy, full life, Anora had been burned alive, along with their father. Delilah and her mother had barely escaped with their lives.
She remembered hearing her sister’s screams as they ran, her mother’s hand pulling her along through the cool night air, as flames and screams clawed at her back.
Even as the years passed, she was trailed by the horrific screams of her sister as she was consumed by fire. Sometimes those screams drowned out everything else. Sometimes they were faint, far away echoes from a half-forgotten life. But they were always there, always reminding her that Samson had taken everything from her and the people she loved. All her life Delilah had hated the man responsible, and she had vowed to make him pay.
CHAPTER 29
Ariana opened her eyes and glared at Ash. “What did you do to me?” she demanded, spitting the words at him. Her eyes widened. “You!” she shouted, getting shakily but quickly to her feet.
Ash was gratified that she recognized him. Vampire blood released past-life memories in humans, but the results were not always predictable. He couldn’t give her much more of his blood without risking turning her, but he needed her to remember everything. If she remembered, he could finally get back to the business of hating her.
“Why aren’t you dead?” she asked, the hatred in her voice unmistakable, but somewhat unexpected.
Ash welcomed it, though, and gave her a cold, leering smile. “You’d like that wouldn’t you, Delilah?”
“Yes!” she shouted back.
“After all, you did your best to kill me before,” he said. “You almost succeeded.”
“You deserved everything you got, you miserable, selfish, arrogant bastard!”
The force of her fury took Ash aback. “What are you talking about?” he cried, crossing the short distance to stare down at her in disbelief. Her black eyes burned with fury and Ash hated himself for remembering how they’d once burned with other emotions. “You turned me over to the Philistines,” he reminded her, “to have my eyes burned out and be left to rot in a prison cell.” He grabbed her shoulder. “You sold me to them!”
Ariana lowered her voice, but it was no less virulent. Her gaze cut into him, making him aware that she didn’t seem to fear his superior size or strength. Ash knew a moment of relief that she wasn’t a vampire. She looked like she wanted to tear him to ribbons.
“It wasn’t for the silver, you ignorant lout.” The words seemed pulled from her against her will. “It was for my sister and my father.”
Ash’s brow furrowed. He tried to recall if he’d ever met her family. He didn’t think so. “Del, I think you’re confused,” he said. Maybe the sudden onslaught of all the memories of her past lives had been too much for her.
She stopped talking and looked him up and down. “You still look the same,” she said, her voice now reflecting the puzzlement Ash had expected.
Ash saw her eyes widen as she put a hand to her neck. There was no bleeding, but the two wounds were still there. She fingered them gingerly.
“What are you, Samson?” she asked.
“You were always a smart girl, Del,” he said, “too smart for your own good.” His voice was smooth, sinister. “You figure it out.”
He took a long stride and grabbed her by both arms this time. “And while you’re at it, maybe you can figure out why I’ve been looking for you all this time, and why I’d bother to give you your memories back before I killed you.”
Ariana looked at him through baleful eyes and laughed. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve been trying to track me down for 3,000 years just to kill me,” she said. “For heaven’s sake, I’ve died,” she paused, trying to count, “at least 20 times since then. What terror can death hold for me now? If you wanted to terrify me, you should have killed me over there in that chair.” Again she raised her black gaze to meet his. “Why didn’t you?”
When he said nothing, she struggled in his grasp. “Put me down!” she commanded.
Ash set her on her feet. She wasn’t afraid of him. He hadn’t expected that. He’d needed her to be Delilah so he could hate her enough to do what he needed to do.
“More importantly, how did you give me my memories back?” she snapped.
Ash frowned down at her. “Our blood has that effect on humans,” he explained. “Even the smallest drop will unlock the memories a person’s mind carries from their former lives.”
A glimmer of fear returned as Ariana looked at him questioningly. “But I’m not—”
Ash shook his head. “Like me?” he asked. “No, you’re still quite human. I didn’t take enough of your blood, or give you enough of mine, to turn you into a vampire.”
Ariana shook her head. “How did you find me—in this body after all this time?” Ariana gave him a scathing glance. “Or was it just chance? Have you not learned any more in 3,000 years than you did in the first 40?”
The hard mask returned to his face. “So now you can show your true colors, eh, Del?” he said. “Well, I was hoping to see the real you one last time.” He grabbed her face hard with one hand. “Tell me, where was this vicious tongue all those years ago, if you hated me so?”
“Not hated, Ash.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “Hate—present tense.” At his puzzled look, she pulled his hand free and continued. “You were much easier to trap with honey,” she explained. “Your weakness for women, after all, was well known.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
“And yet, the Israelites loved you, no matter how many times you fell off the wagon.” She moved closer to him, all traces of anger gone from her face. “If you had resisted me…” She ran her hands up the plane of his chest, and Ash drew a startled breath at the bolt of desire that shot through him. �
�If you had lived up to those pious principles of yours,” she continued sweetly, her body melting against his, “I might have had second thoughts.”
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t been able to resist her any more then than he could now. Her teasing had already made his body go tight. He remembered what it had been like between them, and his muscles grew harder.
“You’re taking this whole vampire thing rather well,” he commented.
Ariana withdrew from him, and gave a hard laugh. “Vampire, schmampire,” she said. “If Buffy can kill a dozen of you a week, what’s to be scared of? You’ll have to do better than that to terrify a girl these days.”
Ash sighed and sank down onto the couch. “You know,” he said, “getting revenge on you has sometimes been the only thing keeping me awake and alive all these years.”
“And so what now?” she asked “You think to get back in some divine good graces by killing me?”
“No,” Ash said, shaking his head, “no, I gave up on that a long time ago.” He looked up at her. “Killing you will just make me feel better.”
For a moment Ariana didn’t speak, seeming to consider the options. “And what if it doesn’t?” she asked. “What if revenge doesn’t make you whole?”
Ash smiled at her with all the cruelty he could muster. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take,” he said.
Ariana moved quickly toward him, clearly wanting to argue the point, but staggered before she’d taken the second step. She tried to catch herself, but grasped at empty air. Ash stood and put out an arm to steady her.
“What do you care if I fall on my face?” she asked. “I thought you wanted me dead...” Her voice trailed off as she fainted.
Ash caught her, all the while asking himself the same question.
“Somehow it just doesn’t seem a fair fight to kill you while you’re in a dead faint,” he said to her unconscious form. “But I can wait.”
Ash carried the limp body of his sworn enemy down the long hallway of the manor’s south wing. At the end of the hall, he kicked open his bedroom door and walked straight toward the large fireplace. It hadn’t seen a fire in centuries.
He pressed one of the large gray stones with his full strength. It gave, and the back wall of the fireplace retreated several feet into a previously hidden space. Ash clasped Ariana tighter against his chest, ducked and walked into the inky blackness. He knew where the stairs began.
Down they went, one flight, two, three. This part of the manor was his own creation, and it had saved his life many times. Tiny rooms were carved into stone tens of feet below the south wing with no apparent plan. If anyone ever found the stairs, they’d still have to navigate the maze below. And only Ash could do that. No one else could get in. Or out.
He found the room he sought. The room he’d had made especially for her. His chest tightened as he entered. He hadn’t been in here in centuries, not since he’d had it built to be an exact replica of the room where the Philistines had held him after his capture. He remembered the agony of those days. Chained to the wall like a dog. Unable to see. He shuddered and dropped his burden on the cold floor.
She murmured, but didn’t wake.
Ash dragged her effortlessly over to the far wall. Manacles hung there, waiting. They had gone long unused, and he had to pry the first one open.
He clamped the large metal ring around her wrist. It still had his blood on it. He’d taken them soon after he’d brought the temple down, planning to have his revenge on Delilah in short order. But by the time he’d returned to Sorek, she had disappeared.
He tightened the screw to fit her smaller frame. The other followed, pinning her arms to the wall above her head.
Ash stood looking down at her for some time, relishing the sight he’d waited so long to see. It wasn’t exactly as he’d imagined. Her hair was golden now, whereas in his mind it was always dark. But it still fell in thick waves around her slumped form. He stepped outside and lit a torch, leaving it in its place on the wall.
Silently he moved to a shelf carved into the wall on the other side of the room. No torchlight reached this place, but he knew every detail. He could see it engraved upon his memory.
He reached out and picked up a dagger. The wood on the handle crumbled under his touch, but the blade itself was hard and sharp. Like a shark’s tooth, it was somewhat triangular, designed to slice all the way into its target.
Ash turned toward Ariana. She was the reason it was here.
He lowered the blade as he approached. It wasn’t ideal for the task he had in mind, but it would do. He squatted in front of her and winged the blade across the space between them.
One golden lock fell into his outstretched hand. He twirled it between his fingers for a moment before slipping it into his pocket.
CHAPTER 30
The street in front of her stepfather’s house was hardly less crowded than the square. Word must have gotten out that Samson and his party would be dining with them.
Delilah avoided the front door and most of the crowd by going up the side staircase. The wooden door at the top swung open and she ducked into the dark upstairs hallway. Her own room was two doors down, past the one shared by the female servants.
Her quarters were quite opulent for Sorek. She had a window and a wooden floor strewn with expensive rugs. Her stepfather was very generous to her.
After her father and sister were killed in the fire, her mother had returned with Delilah to the city where she was born. They had lived with Delilah’s grandparents for a time, but her mother was never more than a shadow of her former self. She lived in constant fear that some awful thing would befall her youngest child. Perhaps that fear was what drove her to seek out Lilith.
In the lore of their homeland, Lilith was something between a god and a demon. Her aid was often sought by women in need of help or protection, but the price of her assistance was rumored to be high.
They had been living with her grandparents for a little more than a year when Delilah first began to notice her mother’s strange absences in the evening. She wanted to ask about them, but hushed whispers among the adults made her feel that her questions would not be welcomed.
Worried about her fragile mother, she finally screwed up the courage to follow her one night as she left the house. Delilah had worried how she would pass unescorted through town, but her mother didn’t go into the town. Rather, she left the house and went up into the mountains.
Delilah followed her, keeping an eye on her mother’s light as it bobbed in the distance. She’d brought no light of her own, and she struggled over rocks and low brush to keep that little speck of light in view.
When they’d ascended to a point where even the town looked small down below, her mother’s light disappeared. Delilah panicked and ran up the steep slope as fast as her young legs would carry her.
Luckily, her mother had not gone far. She had merely slipped around a large rock and into a cave that reached back into the mountain farther than Delilah could see. As she watched, a robed figure met her mother and led her into the cavern and out of sight. Delilah had been too scared to follow any farther that night, and her mother’s mysterious absences stopped soon after.
In time, her mother married a wealthy merchant, securing both their futures. For a long time, her stepfather, Demos, had seemed not to care for Delilah. He wasn’t a bad man, just uninterested in children.
When her mother died in childbirth several years later, along with her little brother, Delilah was bereft. Demos hadn’t seemed upset himself, but her utter desolation piqued some feeling in him. He was never fatherly, but he was friendly to her after that, and he had continued to care for her as his own child.
As she got older, Delilah came to understand that Demos, in fact, preferred the company of men to that of women, and she had used that knowledge and her own skills to create a role for herself. She took over the running of the household, and Demos was more than content to have Delilah serve the social functions of a wife for
him.
After a time, Demos began to converse with her about his business. Delilah would often take the nuggets of information he passed along and convert them into useful predictions about how people could be manipulated into doing what Demos wanted. It only took a few successes before Demos began to brief her daily on what was going on with his suppliers and customers.
Gradually, she learned his business and she learned that her beauty gave her power over men. She used them both—her looks and her mind—to cement strategic relationships for her stepfather. In time, she became almost a partner in his affairs.
Demos never commented on the nature of her tactics, and Delilah did not know if he disapproved or was grateful. He had become much more successful since she had gotten involved. He might not like her methods, but they were all she had, and they worked. And they would work on Samson.
CHAPTER 31
Ariana woke slowly and opened her eyes. It was very dark, and she couldn’t remember where she was. Dreams and memories swirled around in her head.
After a time, her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Where had Ash taken her? She wondered if she was even still at the manor; instinct told her she was. There was nowhere safer for him to go.
She looked around, but could only make out a dirt floor and rough-hewn stone walls. What part of the manor looked like this? None. None that she had seen, anyway. Ergo she was in a part of the manor she hadn’t seen. Probably underground.
She tried to sit up and heard the chilling rattle of chains. Her chains. The bastard had chained her in a dungeon.
Ariana pulled hard against the metal bonds. They didn’t budge, which made her furious even as her mind told her she should be afraid.
As Delilah she had bested Samson, but Ash was a different creature. He was still Samson, but only barely. She’d seen his human façade slip in the library, and instinctively she knew how hard he worked to maintain it. It must be lonely being the most powerful animal on the planet, but that’s certainly what he was. Delilah couldn’t hope to win against this creature.
