by V M Black
“Thank you, sir,” she said almost brightly. She stood and nodded to both of us before hurrying out of the room.
Chapter Two
I hugged myself hard as Dorian dismissed the shifter guards. I couldn’t help the instinctive revulsion I felt whenever Dorian used his powers on someone. It was impossible not to become all too aware of the bond that was between us—and how it meant that my mind, also, would never be free.
“You should hire yourself out as the world’s most effective therapist,” I said, making a weak joke to cover my uneasiness.
He turned toward me, and in his eyes, I felt like I could see every year of his age. “I am so tired of fighting, Cora. So. Damned. Tired.”
I reached out and caught one of his hands between both of mine. “I know. Even though I can’t really imagine, I know.” I could feel it in him, through the bond that joined us.
He closed his eyes, and for just a moment, the completely perfect skin of his forehead creased. “I wonder why I fight at all sometimes. It seems like everything we do only makes matters worse.”
I lifted a shoulder. “You’re the one trying to convince me of the importance of your cause. The future of humanity and all that. And I may not be entirely human anymore, but I actually do still care whether all humans are turned into nothing more than vampire cattle.”
He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, and his face went perfectly, impossibly smooth. “We could not have won without this research. You realize that, right?”
I nodded. “Since the Adelphoi don’t feed whenever they feel like it, only when they must, they wouldn’t be able to find cognates often enough to keep from dying out. The test narrows the chance of finding a cognate with a feeding from one in thousands to one in ten or so. Yeah. I got it. It’s been just about drilled into my head.”
“But developing this research also has its risks. Imagine, for a moment, that any agnate had the ability to pluck ten people out of a crowd of thousands, feed from those ten, and find a cognate. And that he might not be content to do it once but two, three, perhaps a dozen times.”
“Oh,” I said, and his hand in mine suddenly felt colder.
“Yes, ‘oh,’” he agreed. “I was hoping we’d have time to at least convince agnates that multiple cognates is an infraction deserving of death rather than simply being in bad taste. We’ll deplete the genetic supply of those able to become cognates too quickly otherwise, never mind the other consequences.” He gave me a kind of lopsided, humorless smile. “Perhaps introduce to our people the idea of birth control, once they begin to adjust to the idea that there is no scarcity any longer.”
The other consequences. I could imagine all too well what they would be. Once the vampiric agnates could find mates quickly, they multiply quickly, becoming not ten per a million as they were now but perhaps one hundred per million, one thousand per million, even. Each demanding more blood, more cognates to fulfill their need and in turn giving birth to even more....
The fight between the Adelphoi and the Kyrioi had been a battle waged largely through the breeding of armies. And if it continued, it would mean the end of everything—not now, maybe not even in ten years, but in my very long lifetime, human society as I knew it would be destroyed.
Unless we kept the research from being used by the Kyrioi.
“How can we stop them?” I asked. “How can we get the cultures back?”
He shook his head. “It’s not just the cell cultures themselves. Those will merely make it faster for the Kyrioi to develop a test of their own. It’s information. Data. And that, once leaked.... ” He trailed off.
“We can never be sure that it’s not out there, can we? And if they’re smart, it probably already is.” I searched his face for some indication that I was mistaken. I saw none. “What have we started? And what are we going to do?”
“We’ll do whatever we can,” he said simply. “It’s what we’ve always done. And in the meantime, you’ll finish your school and we’ll have our wedding.”
“But it doesn’t even mean anything anymore,” I protested.
He shifted his hand in my grasp so that he was holding on to mine more firmly. “But it does. It does to you, and that’s enough for me in itself. But it still does to all of us, too.”
His brow lowered as he continued, “Before the research of which you were the first success, the Adelphoi were losing. We had to lose. Historically, it has only been the fights between the various Kyrioi factions, the difficulties of long-distance communication, and our aggressive recruitment of new members that has allowed us to survive at all. Now, perhaps our great advantage has been lost, but we are at least on an equal footing with the Kyrioi for the first time ever. You mustn’t ever underestimate how important that is, Cora. How important you are because that’s what you represent to all of us, my beautiful, brave love.”
I nodded even though I was neither of those things.
He continued, “And if we Adelphoi cooperate with humankind, perhaps we gain an advantage that way. It’s that cooperation that has brought us this far, after all. Our basic beliefs have been confirmed—that humans, largely left to their own devices, create far better life for us all than they do when they are enslaved because they have the creative urge that we so utterly lack.”
“Is that the only reason you aren’t a Kyrioi?” I asked, indulging in my momentary bitterness.
“No, Cora,” he said softly, catching my elbow with his free hand.
He pulled me from my chair and into his, gathering me into his lap. The tension ran out of my muscles in the circle of his arms. His touch didn’t make anything better, but I was tired of fighting, too. First I’d fought cancer, then Dorian, and now the Kyrioi and myself. It felt so good to give up, to give in, if only for a moment, and I rested my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes.
“You know that’s not why I’m with the Adelphoi,” he said, his voice so close to my ear that I shivered.
“I do. I’m sorry.” I breathed in the smell of him, the sandalwood and musk of his cologne and the heady smell of his cool skin underneath. Would I ever be able to get enough of him? Even the blankets where he’d slept, the pillow where his head had lain could drive me half out of my mind. “But everything’s changed now. How can I act like it hasn’t?”
“Everything’s changed, but you still deserve your dreams.” Dorian’s voice rumbled against my ear.
“You don’t think they matter.” I raised my head and looked accusingly into his eyes. “You’ve made that perfectly clear, you know. You don’t think my friends, my college—any of those things—you don’t think they matter. So why are you telling me to go back to a school you don’t care about when everything’s falling down around our ears?”
He lifted a finger and pressed it to my lips, cutting me off. “Because you care. And right now, of all times, what matters to you must matter to me.”
Because of his oath not to change me. Because of his damned ethical code that was both my salvation and my curse. Right now, I could see in his eyes how much he wanted to tell me that my petty life with its petty concerns should no longer force him to divide his attention and his resources, not when there were more important things at stake.
And there were. That was one of the reasons that I’d hesitated to give myself over to Dorian and his world—because I knew that however much he cared for me, I could never fully matter, especially not the parts of me tied to my old world and my old life. How important were a degree and my friendship with Lisette when compared to the fate of the world?
In the long run, how important was Dorian, even, other than for what he did to save or damn it?
He dropped his hand, and I blew out a puff of air and shook my head. What did I even want anymore? So many of my values had been changed in the past few weeks. How much more would they change in another month? In two?
“Okay,” I said, still not sure of anything. “We’ll just keep going. Or I’ll just keep going...and you’ll do whatever
it is that you do when I’m not here.”
He caught the back of my neck and pulled my mouth down to his, and in his kiss were my surety and my future.
I kissed him back, long and hungrily, begging him to take my mouth with his own, wanting the certainty of his possession even if the security that it promised was no more than a delusion.
And he did as I pleaded, entering my mouth, ravishing it. The reaction he called from me went straight down through me until my body hurt with my need for him and I throbbed, swollen, between my legs.
Everything had gone wrong. I’d just watched a man die at my feet. And yet the irrational part of me—the deepest part—still firmly believed that as long as I had Dorian, nothing was entirely beyond repair. He’d find a way to fix it all, even if I lost myself in the process.
Dorian’s mouth worked down my jaw, the electric heat of his touch sizzling across my skin and running through my body within my veins, and I arched my neck into him in offering.
He pulled back and cupped my face in both his hands. “I would love nothing more than to dally with you here.”
“Dallying? Is that what it’s called now?” I quipped, catching his wrists in my hands as I straddled his lap. “I know, I know. You have your duty, don’t you? People to tell. Wheels to set in motion.”
“I do,” he agreed. “Will must have informed Elizabeth by now, but there will be very many questions for me from many other people. Questions that I currently don’t have the answers to, for the most part.”
“The Kyrioi will have had the samples for over a week now.” Another ugly, dangerous fact among far too many.
“Longer, I’d wager. Dr. Sanderson could have been corrupted any time between the day that Jean was killed and the proving before that. The following Monday was the next scheduled proving, and immediately afterward, the cultures were contaminated.” The darkness within him rose to cast shadows over Dorian’s face. “There are many things to be done about what happened. That must be done if we are to survive. What good those things will yield in a year’s time or in a century’s will remain to be seen.”
“And I’m in your way,” I concluded. “I know it’s just Saturday, but I can message Jenkins to drive me home now so you can get to work.”
“No,” Dorian said. His arms were suddenly like steel bands around me, his beautiful face drawn into tight lines. “You will stay here tonight.”
“But we’ve uncovered the plot,” I protested. “It’s done. They’re finished. The Kyrioi got what they were coming for. I should be as safe in my dorm as I ever was.”
His face was as still as if it had been carved of stone. But his words, though spoken evenly, had a force that cut through me. “I may not be, if I you leave me alone here tonight.”
I couldn’t speak. I could hardly even breathe. I just nodded, and after a too-long moment of silence, his face reanimated, and he gave me one of his twisted smiles.
“Did you get enough to eat for dinner?” he asked. It was a light question. A deflecting question. And I was glad to seize upon it, to leave this dangerous place to where the air was thinner and could actually move easily through my lungs again.
“Well, there was the mint ice cream,” I said, replying in the same tone. “I was looking forward to that.”
“Go on upstairs, then,” he urged, releasing me. “Get your shower. I’ll be up soon. And I’ll send the sherbet.”
“Sherbet,” I repeated. “Of course it was sherbet. You can’t just serve ice cream like a normal person, can you?”
I was making conversation just to fill up the room with sound as I slid off his lap and straightened my clothes. There were too many things I wanted to say, things there wasn’t time for right now. I wanted to promise to be there for him just as he had been there for me. To tell him that he’d never have to face the darkness alone again, as he had when his friend Alys Gramercy was dying.
But he was right. There were things he had to do now that didn’t have anything to do with me. So instead of saying any of that, I went to the door that led to the sitting room and the back stairs to my bedroom.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” I told him, even as I thought, Always. And then I left him sitting alone in the room.
Chapter Three
I mounted the hidden staircase to my room, unable to untangle the emotions roiling in my gut. I knew I couldn’t be any kind of help to Dorian right then. But I still irrationally resented it, feeling like a child being sent away while he did the “grown-up work”—all while simultaneously hating myself for being so selfish and feeling embarrassingly, pathetically glad that he felt that he needed me, if only in a limited way.
Not one of those feelings was I proud of, and not one would I ever like to admit to outside of the privacy of my own mind.
Even as I battled against my own base thoughts, the images of all the deaths I’d seen over the past few weeks kept rising in my mind’s eye. Hattie and Jean with their heads blown wide open, Lucretia in the pool of her own blood, and now this Dr. Sanderson, whom I barely even knew, with his eyes rolled back and his mouth flecked with foam.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it. The only completely clear thought I had was that I wished I was a better person, that I had the vision, skill, and determination to not only see the right thing but to do it.
But I didn’t even know what the right thing was for me just then.
I made it into my room—my beige room, my blank room that was like a canvas ready for me to assert myself, if I even knew who I really was. Not caring for once what my lady’s maid Jane Worth thought of me, I pulled off my clothes as I crossed to the bathroom, dropping them heedlessly on the floor. Once inside, I flipped on the lights, shut the door, and leaned against it, blinking dully at the marble and chrome.
Dorian even realized my tendency to flee into the bath or the shower when I was upset, I realized. He’d suggested that I shower not just because I took my showers at night but also because he knew it would make me feel better.
But it shouldn’t. A shower wouldn’t change anything at all.
I was still wearing my underwear, but my pants with my new cellphone in the pocket were outside in the bedroom. I suddenly felt crushingly, impossibly lonely, and I went out to root through my discarded clothes to retrieve it.
My bargain-bin Hello Kitty case had ended up in a pool of Lucretia’s blood, removed and hidden in her clothes before she had smashed my old phone’s glass screen to cut her own throat. I hadn’t wanted it back, but the new phone that Dorian had gotten me, with its plain purple case, still didn’t seem like mine.
I relaxed, though, when I pulled up Instagram and pictures belonging to my friends streamed across the screen. I liked a few and switched to Facebook, where it nagged me to move to the Messenger app.
I clicked over and saw a message from Lisette.
Nice birthday? she’d written, accompanied by a sticker of a broadly grinning yellow face.
I snorted at her message because that was as close as she’d ever come to asking me about my sex life.
It was pretty good, I wrote back, walking over to sit on the closed lid of the toilet as I typed with my thumbs. Did you have a fun time this weekend?
Thought about seeing a movie, she wrote back almost instantly. Went to the STAMP instead. Invited Clarissa. She’s amazing!
I made a face at the screen. I know. Amazing how, exactly, though?
She beat everybody at ping pong. Even Ross! And then she beat everyone at bowling. And pool.
I hope no one was taking bets, I wrote. Not that it was something that we normally did, but with Clarissa in the picture, I couldn’t be sure about anything.
Let’s just say that she didn’t pay for any of her sodas, Lisette wrote back.
Yeah, I’d bet.
So what have you been up to? she wrote after another moment in her usual, innocently prying manner.
Dorian took me on a date to a closed track to drive a fancy car, I wrote her. And he gave me some
Jane Austen books. Fancy ones.
That sounds creative, Lisette wrote.
I couldn’t help but smile at her diplomacy.
It was actually awesome, I typed back. I wouldn’t have picked the driving, but you know, it was pretty exciting, and I ended up having a lot of fun.
There was a pause, and then Lisette wrote, You’re not going to be back tomorrow night, are you?
Tomorrow was Sunday. I’d intended to spend every Sunday night in the dorm so I’d be ready for early Monday-morning class.
Probably not, I wrote back. Monday morning.
Your homework all done, then?
That wasn’t very subtle. But then again, neither was the way I kept taking off to spend time with Dorian—or the way I worked desperately in any spare moment I could wrangle to try to get some of my schoolwork done.
Yeah, I typed, glad I could be honest. I finished it all yesterday.
I’d done it when Dorian had gone away on some business of his own and I’d been left feeling bored and a little sorry for myself to be alone my birthday, if only for a little while. I’d gone back to the library and sat under the disapproving glares of the muses painted there—the nymphs and satyrs didn’t pay me any attention at all—and spent a solid four hours getting caught up, so I wouldn’t have a repeat of the last econometrics test.
Good. Lisette’s answer practically oozed primness. Oh, my gosh, Sarah and Mike got in the biggest fight after your party last night.
What about? I asked. That wasn’t like them at all. They were the most drama-free couple I’d ever seen. After Hannah and Sarah had rented Bridget Jones’s Diary, we’d spent the next month calling them the “smug marrieds.”
Wedding nerves, I think. The whole planning thing is pretty stressful, even for Sarah.
Sarah, who’d already had a five-page wedding Pinterest board her freshman year of college.
I smiled at Lisette’s attempt at fishing for information. I decided to answer it directly. Dorian and I are doing fine. There’s just lots of drama with his friends. Bad things keep happening to them, and it gets him down.
