Afterimage

by Jaye Roycraft

  A rush of victory washed over her even as her heart and body raced on. No death wish on Drago’s part could possibly be as powerful or elemental as the forces now urging his body to ride the limits of his control. She felt his body tighten with the strain and marveled that she, so young and inexperienced, had both the ability to arouse and the power to undo a being as ancient and skilled as Drago.

  But it wasn’t a contest of power or a test of expertise. It wasn’t mortal against vampire, youth opposed to age, or female versus male. In this they were partners, equal in their passion and longing. They each took, and they each gave, and when he joined with her in a cry of both possession and release, her feelings became indistinguishable from his. She felt his pain, his joy, his victories, and his defeats, and the heat and sweat and musk that cocooned them were a part of them both. At last, when her mind and body could take no more, she surrendered to her release, and his followed immediately.

  His final shudders faded away, his body relaxed, and she despaired, knowing he would once again leave her side. But this time he didn’t. She didn’t question him, but simply enjoyed the pleasure of lying in his arms. Perhaps it was nothing more than the two days of rest repairing the damage the silver had done him.

  Whatever it was, she took a deep breath and delighted in the afterglow of his lovemaking. She felt safe from the world, but more than that, at peace with herself and who she was. She felt accepted for the first time in her life, and she felt a oneness with another being for the first time. That he was a vampire no longer mattered.

  In a day or two, he’d either be dead or gone from her life. She didn’t want to think about either possibility. She had shared something miraculous with him, and right now nothing else mattered.

  Sixteen

  DRAGO’S LEFT HAND held the back of her head and stroked her hair. She caught a glimpse of the mark on his arm, and she had the strange impulse to kiss it. But she knew he’d only pull away from her if she did, so she lay still, moving nothing but her eyes.

  He started talking, and for a moment she reveled in nothing but the silky sound of the soft words flowing over her. She quickly realized, however, that he was not telling a fairy tale this time.

  “In 1478 Ivan the Great began his second invasion. Great.” Drago sounded the last word as if it were a piece of sour fruit he wanted to spit out. “When Ivan and his Muscovites invaded, they not only swept a land clean, but also a way of life. The city-state of Lord Novgorod the Great included thousands of square miles of wilderness beyond the Volga, and Ivan took it all—the land, the houses, all our possessions, even the churches. But he went beyond that. He took our independence and abolished all our democratic institutions. Go ahead and smile. It always shocks Westerners to learn what a grand democracy we were back then.”

  “And the people?”

  “We were purged from the land like a disease. No one was exempt. Merchants, clergy, boyars—the aristocrats of the day—were all deported to the far wilderness. The land left behind was converted into service land and given to cavalrymen from Moscow. Reward for loyalty and service rendered. Even the archbishops of the independent Novgorodian church were replaced by Russian Orthodox leaders from Moscow.”

  “And you?”

  She felt his chest rise underneath her with the long inhalation of a deep breath. She was sure this was something he never talked about.

  “Princes, who had no great power to begin with, were certainly not exempt. Some went quietly. Many did not.”

  “I can imagine that you were not one to go quietly.” She tilted her head and saw his mouth twist in a bittersweet smile.

  “No, cherie. I did not go quietly. I would have preferred to die bravely in battle, but I was denied even that dignity. Many perished, it is true, but most who died did so not in battle, but by deprivation, hardship, and the ignobility of torture.”

  He was silent for a few moments, but she saw his Adam’s apple work, as if he struggled with choosing his next words.

  “So what happened to you?” Somehow she knew Drago would not kowtow to those who wished to conquer him. She was coming to know not only Drago’s stubborn streak of independence, but the cruelty of the ancient Russians. A feeling deep in her gut told her they would make him pay dearly for his defiance. Pay with everything short of his life.

  “Most who would not go quietly were taken before the Church. We were labeled heretics under any pretense the Orthodox Church could come up with, no matter how far from the truth it was. The Church was all-powerful. What I told you before about my eyes was no mere story, but the truth. They took one look at my eyes and proclaimed me one of the Undead. The supreme irony, for at that time I was still human. Solely by virtue of my blue eyes, I was deemed to have at least dabbled in black magic, or witchcraft, or, at some point during my life, have sold my soul to the devil. All of this, of course, was more than enough in their righteous eyes to prove I had seriously deviated from the teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church.”

  “What did they do with you?” She spoke softly, because her throat was already tight with the pain she felt in his voice.

  “I was cleansed. Purified.”

  She waited for him to continue, fearing that if she said anything he’d stop telling her the story.

  “Over the centuries Russians have become very adept at unusual ways to torture without killing. The knout, for example. It was nothing more than a kind of flail—a wooden handle attached to a thick strip of rawhide that had been boiled in milk until it was as hard as metal. With only three strokes an experienced wielder of the knout could kill a man.”

  He paused and tilted his head away from her. She closed her eyes, but the images she saw in her mind were as raw and agonizing as his voice was. “They did that to you,” she whispered, no doubt in her mind.

  He nodded. “Six times. Just short of death. They only stopped because they didn’t want me to die. That would have been too easy on me.”

  The scars on his back. There was more. She knew it. Her stomach knotted in anticipation of his words.

  He turned to her and shifted her body upwards so that she could better see his face. “Look at my eyes, cherie.”

  She looked at the incredible color, so unique. It was always the first thing her mind’s eye saw when she thought of Drago.

  “These blue eyes, which you seem to think have won me the adoration of females through the centuries, had me branded a heretic.”

  She stared at him.

  “Branded. Literally. Like an animal.” He held his left arm before her, his hand fisted, so that she could see the muscles and ligaments pop in his powerful forearm. He rotated his arm slowly so that she could see the mark. “A red-hot brand was pressed against my flesh and held there. This is the brand that has forever damned me as an outsider. The mark stands for ‘heretic.’”

  “It looks like an ‘E.’”

  “It is.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “In Russian the word is eretik.”

  She drew a shuddering breath and reached a tentative hand to his arm. This time he didn’t flinch or pull away, but allowed her to trace the ridges of the letter burned into his arm.

  “I was banished to the north. Three years later, in 1481, I died and was reborn into the Demi Monde. The half-world of the Undead. So tell me. Was the Church right about me? Was I unclean—unholy—all along? Predestined to become a vampire? Or was it just a twist of fate? A coincidence?”

  She was silent. She had no answer.

  “No, I don’t expect you to know. In over five hundred years I haven’t found the answer. I don’t suppose I ever will. But it still gives me nightmares.”

  “The nightmare you had in the hotel room.”

  He nodded. “I’m not sure what you heard me say, but I can still hear the bishop’s words when he declared me one of the unc
lean. A blood-monster. Now do you understand why this was a story I was not eager to tell you?”

  She dipped her head.

  He folded his arm back down and slid it behind her. “I’ve only told one other mortal this story, and Nikolena also knows. I didn’t tell her, but she knows what the mark signifies.”

  “I’m glad you told me. Thank you.”

  “Just one thing, cherie. Don’t presume to think you know me because of one story. And don’t feel sorry for me. I didn’t tell you all this so you’d pity me or be more willing to give yourself to me. I could tell you many stories that would just as easily horrify you. Some that would no doubt send you running for another syringe of colloidal silver with which to purge the earth of me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Ah . . . no judgments, cherie. I am simply what I am.”

  There was nothing ‘simple’ in what he was. “Then why did you tell me the story?”

  He paused, and his eyebrows quirked upward. “I don’t know. Maybe so you wouldn’t tell me again how beautiful my eyes are.”

  She frowned. She had forgotten how exasperating he could be. “I’ll remember that,” she said with as much dryness as she could muster.

  “I’m not a knight, a savior, a villain, or a monster. And don’t be fooled by anything you see. You can put a rhinestone collar on a tiger, but that doesn’t make it a house cat. I’m a vampire, not a human, and anything you see that glitters of humanity is just a rhinestone collar. Don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t.” She added a hard edge to her dry tone. What was he so afraid of?

  “On to a new subject, then. The evening is yours, cherie. What would you like to do? I will take you anywhere you wish to go.”

  Personally she’d be happy with spending the evening in bed with him, but somehow she didn’t think that would be such a good idea. She needed to get a grip on her feelings, and she couldn’t do that with his naked body putting her hormones in charge of her brain. Besides, he seemed more amenable to conversation than he had been before. Drago and amenable. Those were two words she imagined were not often part of the same thought. She might do well to take advantage of his mood while she could, but she really didn’t know where she wanted to go. She’d have to think about it. She looked him up and down, sucking on her bottom lip, but the contours of his body didn’t inspire too many ideas other than under the sheets.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll take a shower, think about it and let you know.” She leaned forward and kissed him once on the mouth, just to torture him for his comment about the cat. A house cat was the last thing she would ever compare him to.

  An hour later she stepped quietly into the living room. Drago was pacing back and forth in front of the French doors, dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt and black trousers. Both made of silk, if she knew him. He turned toward her and froze. His feet didn’t shuffle, and the fingers of the hand held at his chin stopped mid-stroke. Only the flick of the blue eyes she wasn’t supposed to mention told her he was taking in every inch of her appearance.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, feeling more self-conscious in her floral bustier and skintight skirt than she had with no clothes on at all. No man had ever looked at her like this.

  Finally he dropped his hand and glided up to her. “I’ve known a lot of women in my life, cherie. You make me forget them all.”

  She smiled, feeling her face take on a color she was sure would not look pretty with her tangerine skirt. “I bought this last year for one of my trips to New Orleans, but I never wore it.” Maybe it had been modesty, or perhaps a lack of confidence, but Drago erased all those feelings now. She felt just as sexy and beautiful as the outfit.

  “Where do you want to go?” he whispered, smoothing her loose hair over her shoulders.

  “Well, there’s a big restaurant called The Quay right over the river. I’ve heard they have dancing and live bands.”

  “This is really where you want to go? You know I’ll take you anywhere in the world.”

  She smiled again. It was unrealistic, of course, but a pleasant thought. “You know I don’t have a passport.”

  He curved his mouth in return, showing very white teeth and putting the smile lines to work. The deep creases dug out an otherwise invisible dimple on the right side of his face.

  “It’ll be fine, really. I don’t go out much,” she added.

  The dimple disappeared with the fading of his smile. “‘Much?’ Not at all, I think. Come. We will fix that.”

  He escorted her to his car as though it were a royal carriage and she were Princess Marya of a fairy tale, decked out in satin and jewels instead of nylon and beads.

  “You would really do that, wouldn’t you?” she asked before he backed to the end of her driveway. “Take me anywhere?”

  “Bien sur. Of course.”

  “But why?”

  He cocked his head toward her, and a sickle of shiny, black hair fell over his right eye. “Because you’ve seen so little. There is so much beauty and art in the world. It would please me to see the joy on your face at such sights. For me, through your eyes, the world is fresh again.”

  That gratified her more than anything he had said earlier, even his claim that she had made him forget other women. For this remark showed an interest in life on his part, something she thought he had lost forever. It was a very unvampirelike thing for him to say, and yet, she realized, it was just a pretty fantasy. And wasn’t that what vampires were best at? Like ringmasters, they were experts at presenting flights of the imagination. Tonight, though, she was willing to indulge herself in the pretty pictures. It was all she would ever have.

  “So if you could take me anywhere in the world, what would you have me see?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I would take you first to St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Novgorod.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “A church? Don’t vampires hate churches? And I would have thought that you especially . . .”

  He cut her off. “I’m thinking what you would enjoy. St. Sophia is a thousand years old—even older than I am. The exterior is very austere—all in white—but it has five naves, six domes, and frescoes, icons and murals second to none in the world.”

  He had neatly evaded her question, but she pressed on. “Where in the world have you lived?”

  “The past fifty years have been spent mostly working in your country. The early part of the century was spent in France. Before the Revolution I split my time between France and Russia.”

  “I was born in France. My mother moved us here when I was small, so I don’t remember anything of the language or the country.” She paused. “But you know all that, don’t you? I told you that the first night you came to see me.”

  Had it really been only twenty days ago? All her thoughts and words to Drago that night came flooding back to her—her hatred and her frustration with her life. She had blamed it all on the Undead. She glanced at Drago’s profile. Somehow the most despised vampire on earth had changed everything for her. The hate was gone, and she now accepted her heritage—all of it—her dhampir and vampiric blood as well as her Roma legacy. Was that to be Drago’s final gift to her? What gift could be better? He had not only given her life, but a life. She had a past she could be proud of, and a future she could look forward to. It was more than she had ever had, and more than she could have ever hoped for. Yet when she looked at Drago she felt selfish and ungrateful. She wanted more. She wanted him.

  She drew a silent, deep breath and leaned back against the leather seat. She couldn’t have him, so there was no point in even thinking about it. His remark about humanity and the collar had been his way of telling her that, in spite of the union they had shared, he wasn’t capable of love. But she had known that all along, hadn’t she? From day one she had had no illusions about the nature of t
he being seated next to her.

  She was silent for the remainder of the drive, but it was short. Five minutes later they were at the edge of the Garden District, and Drago found a parking space along the river. They exited the car, and if true feelings of love were foreign to him, the trappings of chivalry and romance were not. He took her hand in his, and even when they stopped to look at something, his fingers found a home at her waist or the small of her back. When they strolled, he didn’t try to pull her along or even guide her, but adjusted his pace to exactly match hers. If she slowed, he slowed, and when she paused at some sight, he did nothing to hurry her along. Not that there was any danger in the quaint little town of Vicksburg, but it was reassuring to know that even if there were, he would allow no harm to come to her. More than that, his touch was a constant reminder that she was not alone. For someone who had led the lonely existence she had, nothing else he could do for her could mean more.

  The low sun bathed the world in warmth and light, and when they could see the great river, it was like a rolling mirror, reflecting back all the color and grandeur of the evening sky. They arrived at The Quay, and Marya enjoyed an excellent meal of crab cakes and lobster, ordered at Drago’s insistence. They sat on the open deck—built out from the rock and literally hanging over the river—and watched the sun go down. The ball of fire deepened from gold to coral to scarlet, and the sky and water took on each new cloak of color in its own unique way. The sky added shape and dimension with fingerlike clouds of lavender and rose, and the water swirled the color in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of sapphire and gold. When the sun nudged the horizon, the western shore and everything around them was a silhouette of black, and only the edge of the sky and the river held any remnants of golden light.

  Colored lights strung on poles and on the deck railings glowed with a bright gaiety, replacing nature’s colors, and a blues band started playing inside the building.