I whispered soft apologies in Alicia’s ear for almost ending her life while mentally berating myself for lacking the strength to take responsibility and do so. Hello, dichotomy.
Looking back, though, I probably wouldn't have done it any differently.
◆◆◆
After dropping Alicia off in the bedroom of my Port Townsend home, I was outside again, the dawn like a bonfire underneath my skin. I swiftly skirted the edge of the two-hundred-foot cedar deck that wrapped around two sides of the house. At the northern edge, I came to the hidden entrance to my private chamber, the only way in or out that didn’t require digging and dynamite. I jumped down into the smooth-walled shaft that went twenty-two feet into the earth, my feet touching down lightly on the concrete shelf at the bottom.
In front of me stood a massive door more suited to a missile silo than a part of a private residence. It could only be locked or unlocked from the inside, and while locked, an Abrams tank couldn’t have broken it down. Obviously, the intent. During the design stage, Jeffrey had told the builders that it was to be a bomb shelter, and had them install the oxygen system to uphold the image. In theory, I don’t need air, but after twenty-five years of relying on it, breathing becomes a difficult habit to break, and suffocation is not a pleasant sensation to deal with once, never mind every day.
With a mental flick of my mind, I unlocked the door, pressing against the smooth, glazed surface with a considerable amount of effort. The door lumbered inward with a heavy scraping sound, and as it opened, I sensed Gisele’s presence about the same time that I breathed in her lovely scent. She said nothing as I entered, and the room echoed with the power of her thoughts.
Ohh shit. In the short time since Gisele had left the Summerfield, the crack I mentioned earlier had become the fucking San Andreas fault.
Stunned to the core for too many reasons to count, one of them the fact that I’d never thought her strong enough to open the door, a thousand thoughts assaulted me at once. I would have stopped dead where I stood if the sunrise hadn’t placed my body on auto pilot. I pushed the door closed, and only when it would go no farther did the physical warnings of the dawn subside. Without that mental clamor, I was able to focus solely on Gisele, who hadn’t so much as twitched since my arrival. I could feel her watching me, could see her sitting on the edge of the bed, left ankle tucked beneath her. Her face was quietly troubled and her mind was chaos; I sensed her waiting for me to speak.
Weariness flooded me. After everything that had happened in the past few hours, I wanted nothing more than to surrender to Slumber, content to sort through everything after sunset, but apparently, that was not one of the choices on this morning’s limited menu.
For the first time since I’d known her, Gisele’s presence annoyed me to the point where I wished I was somewhere else. She regarded me silently, her face bearing a seamless mix of pain and betrayal, as if everything she had been through last night, and all the baggage she was lugging around in the aftermath, was entirely my fault. Though I wasn’t blameless by a long shot, it’s not like I’d held a gun to her head and forced her to come with me, but she, of course, would never see it that way.
Her accusatory stare and otherworldly silence caused bright red splotches to dance around my vision as the BloodHunger gave my still-bubbling rage a boost over the wall of will that was already having trouble containing it.
Gisele was deeply hurt, and she desperately wanted to take it out on the person she blamed for the hurting. It was a shock for both of us when we realized at the same instant that the person in question didn’t particularly care what she needed, and had absolutely no inclination of discussing anything with her at that moment.
“Who says it is up to you?” she snapped, eyes glittering with anger spawned by my apathy.
I raised my eyebrow, not even dignifying that ridiculous question with a vocal response, which incensed her further, and then I let out a long sigh, leaning up against the cool, rough granite surface of the inside of the door. I could feel the Blood sweat being absorbed by my clothes and skin, and I tried not to dwell on any of the evening’s events, not ready to deal with them so soon. Instead, I tried valiantly to focus on what could happen in the next few minutes, but it was difficult when the finger of sweet Oblivion beckoned, and the road ahead seemed to be just out of the reach of my headlights.
Warily, I reached out with my mind, engaging the locks. I heard the faint whisper of lubricated metal on metal as the rods slid through their titanium tunnels, and then the simultaneous click of each rod into its respective door frame bracket.
Completely safe from the risen sun, I briefly wondered if I had just escaped the frying pan by jumping directly into the fire.
To test that thought, I began to walk around her, heading toward the bed, intent on saying nothing further. I could feel the anger shimmering off her body in waves, her eyes boring into me like a diamond drill bit. If I had not been so weary, if most of my mental resources were not diverted to fight off the siren call of Slumber, I might have found humor in the absurd string of situations in which I had found myself during the past twenty-odd hours.
Admittedly, some of them were of my own making, but that’s entirely beside the point.
As I came abreast of Gisele, I sensed the violence gather up inside her, felt the rage erupt in a savage attempt to empty itself onto me. I felt her arm move with startling swiftness, heard the strain of her muscles, and saw the blur of movement from the corner of my eye.
Slipping toward her instead of away as she expected, I caught her forearm in a crushing grip, and even her marble skin began to give way under my strength. She gasped in pain and surprise, her other arm moving. I caught it as well, exerting similar pressure.
Our eyes locked, her face rigid as she tried to hide the pain she had to be feeling. As I leaned in close, my anger evaporated into utter weariness, seizing every muscle and fiber in my body and compelling me to end this. “It’s you who has no say, Gisele,” I whispered, my voice a diamond cutting glass, and then I tossed her, ass over tea kettle, onto the mattress.
She careened into the wall with a dull thud, and I was on top of her just as she managed to push away from the wall and lie flat. I grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head, our breaths mingling and our eyes locked again in private battle.
How long we stayed that way, I don’t know, but what came next was something I never thought I had in me, not even if I survived a million years of being revenant. Maybe that was just one of the illusions carved away on a cold Seattle rooftop, or perhaps my rage and self-loathing had just found another, more convenient target.
Gisele opened her mouth softly, licking her lips in a blatantly sexual way before she whispered, “Show me your power.”
Time halted abruptly, the shock catching my breath in my throat, and I struggled desperately to figure out the rules of this new game. Her capitulation had me stumped. I had no clue what she was up to, but I was damned if I was going to waltz right into her trap like a deer in the headlights.
An ill-timed moronic moment made me forget that I am damned, and a moment was all it took.
While my mind was churning in distraction, Gisele slipped inside, stoking my throbbing BloodHunger into a nuclear reaction. It was an impressive mental feat, one of which I would never have thought her capable, which only intensified the shock inundating every crevice of my mind, alarms wailing. I might have screamed as I scrambled to catch hold of the BloodHunger before it took control, but its oily skin slipped from my grip and wallpapered my mind until the velvet surface of reason went up in smoke.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I felt a feral growl escape my lips as the BloodHunger sank barbed anchors deep into my brain. Flaming tendrils skittered across my consciousness, and then I was hurled aside by the beast waiting to be unleashed in all of us. It had not held such profound power over me in what seemed like an eternity, and I was stunned to the roots and grossly unprepared for any sort of guerrilla combat. In short,
it made quick work of my crumbling defenses, dropping me to the canvas in a furious combination of punches that would have put Rocky Marciano into a coffin.
And just like that, the San Andreas fault was about to become the San Andreas Harbor. I could almost hear the Early Warning sirens.
I flipped her over, savagely driving her face into the mattress with one hand as I tore her clothing off with the other. She began to struggle after the shock wore off, and panic gave her strength, but everything she had was the equivalent of a black fly fighting a tornado. She cried in frustration, bucking ineffectually as I captured her arms again and pulled them toward me. A moment later, I clasped them both in my left hand and wrenched her arms powerfully as I rested my hand on the small of her back.
I tore my own pants open, freeing my rigid penis and ramming it inside her with a feral power that made her cry out so loudly that it echoed thunderously in the small chamber despite being muffled by the mattress. Explosions erupted in front of my eyes while I jackhammered away as if attempting to split her in two. Flames licked over my entire body as I moved faster, thrusting harder and harder, until her cries became a prolonged scream that raked like nails across the blackboard of my mind. We were both screaming as I yanked her arms toward me, pulling one shoulder out of its socket and lifting her face off the mattress as I emptied myself into her, each spasm punctuated by a guttural sound that caught a fresh wave of bitter bile and tore itself from my throat.
A sound that I had never before heard myself make, and one that I don’t care to make again.
...
Don’t be so shocked. You can’t possibly understand the primal fount of power at the disposal of the BloodHunger, which could wield it as deftly as a Samurai his katana. Until that moment, I certainly hadn’t. And don’t forget, she was partially responsible for its release.
Yeah, all right, it doesn’t really matter. I’m just a fucking bastard.
I let her wrists slip from my numb grasp, and she collapsed to the bed, trembling and sobbing miserably. Her little game had backfired wickedly on her, packing a thousand times more wallop than she expected. She should have known as well as anyone that the BloodHunger is nothing to fuck around with. I hadn’t really needed that lesson; however, it was immediately and appallingly clear that I had become entirely too comfortable with my control over it. Like a cobra, it had to be handled with kid gloves at all times, even by the most powerful of us.
At that moment, however, I felt about as powerful as a wet piece of tissue paper.
I withdrew from her slowly, my face burning with a shame so intense that it should have been melting, and her hips fell slack to one side. I sat back on my heels, forcing myself to look at her crumpled form as I engaged in a ferocious battle with the BloodHunger that left me battered and shaken. When it was over, I briefly surveyed the carnage within and found that the BloodHunger had given as good as it got.
Probably better.
Slowly, I lowered myself beside her, careful not to jostle her too much where she lay, still sobbing. When I was beside her fetal-positioned form, I gently pulled her into my arms and directed her lips to my throat, whispering for her to drink, to heal, and stroking her hair as she obeyed.
I could feel her body mending as she drank, and I wished my Blood was as potent a salve for the soul. Her fangs withdrew, but she kept her lips pressed against my neck. As the wound in my neck healed, I felt icy tears on my skin, hers and mine, and for several agonizing moments before Slumber overtook me, I caught myself searching for a reason not to watch the next sunrise...
◆◆◆
I awoke the next evening from Slumber to the movement of her body as she attempted to leave my embrace. I let her go, keeping my eyes closed as she tried the best she could to gather up the shreds of her clothing and her dignity, and when she was finished, she sat on the edge of the mattress with her back to me, her posture rigid and fragile at the same time.
I opened my eyes, probing the smooth walls of her mental shield and pondering the wisdom of speaking to her. When I decided to say something, she beat me to it. “There is nothing to say right now,” she whispered softly, her voice full of private anguish.
I accepted this in silence, even though I was sure that she did not mean it exactly. I was pretty certain, even without reading her mind, it was more along the lines that there was nothing for one or the other of us to say, and I had a pretty good idea which one of us that was.
I rose from the mattress, fixed my pants as well as was possible given the shape that they were in, and unlocked and opened the door to the vault. The cold, damp air that filtered into the room was welcome and refreshing, and I allowed myself a few deep breaths before turning to find her looking at me, her face slack and completely devoid of emotion.
She rose regally from the bed, walking toward me and the door, which was far more solid than I felt at that moment. When she reached me, she paused, her hand moving to touch my arm until she apparently thought better of it. It hung in the air for a moment before she pulled it back and disappeared out the door and into the night beyond.
I stood there, staring at the spot where her suspended hand had been and attempting to determine if something between us had been irreparably destroyed. Halfway through that contemplation, I noticed that California had become Atlantis, and as I watched all the imaginary Californians drowning, I could only wonder when this would come back to take another chunk out of my ass.
6 intimacy
Alicia bolted upright as if a bomb had gone off right next to the bed. She could not remember being ripped from sleep so abruptly in her entire life. Her breath came in quick gasps, as if a pair of icy hands were pressing on her chest, and she peered into the semi-darkness, trying to shake the intense disorientation.
It took several moments for the cobwebs to clear, and when they did, in a manner so profoundly striking that she physically flinched again, she was shivering. The invisible hands now held her entire body cupped within their frozen, unyielding confines. She would have screamed if she had found the breath. Instead, all her effort was focused on taking in enough air to live, as if the supply around her was nearly depleted.
Drawing her knees to her chest and resting her chin atop them, she took shallow breaths, rocking back and forth with her eyes closed until the panic faded. Jason’s anguished voice filled her mind, whispering “No goodbyes today,” arms wrapped tightly around her as they hovered in midair.
A moan found its freedom breath, a massive tremor rocking her again. Since Jason’s and Gisele’s arrival last night, she had cycled through the most intense state of every emotion she knew. So deep and consuming, so utterly serious that, as she relived them this morning, each one piled atop a shelf of dread that threatened to collapse on her. She could taste the panic in the back of her throat, sour and rancid. She felt again the agony of a decision she had no control over, and the rapture of that decision being aborted.
Jason’s face, so intriguing in many explainable ways and even more that were not, flickered onto the screen in her mind. His voice was lost and weak, relieved and soothing as he whispered the most wonderful words ever uttered. No goodbyes today. Memory of those words brought her an ethereal peace this morning, and she was finally able to stop rocking.
Fully aware of her surroundings for the first time, she noticed that the room was deliciously warm, and she fumbled with the lamp on the bedside table. In an instant, the soft glow pushed back the gloom, revealing four wooden posts that rose like obelisks toward the ceiling, thick, ornate and exquisitely carved. She ran a hand over the nearest one to solidify this new reality, the wood smooth and perfect beneath her touch.
After a moment, she dropped her hand to the bed, the satin sheets still bearing a lingering warmth from her body. She traced an invisible pattern onto the fabric, her mind far away again. A ghost of a smile whisked across her face as she heard his words again before hunger brought her back from her memories.
She swiveled herself to the left, lo
wering her feet to the Berber carpet. Where were her shoes? She stood up slowly and began circling the bed, her eyes fixed on the floor, until she found them on the far side of the bed. Somehow in her sleep, she had managed to kick them off before climbing under the covers. Perhaps Jason had removed them?
Then she remembered. He was in a hurry, his usual unflappability severely dented by the approaching dawn. He just about dumped her onto the bed, and when she tried to pull him in with her, needing to be with him, needing him to hold her after all they had been through, he gently pried her hands away, kissing her briefly on the lips. Shh. Later, he said, and then he was gone, as if he had never been there at all. One moment he was beside the bed, the next she was blinking at empty air.
Picking up her shoes, she carried them to what she thought was the bathroom. A flick of the switch proved her suspicions to be correct. A rather lavish bathroom, actually, with a marble floor and counter, the latter interrupted by a pair of immaculate ceramic basins at opposite ends. A recessed toilet sat tucked into a water closet on the far side of a privacy wall, beyond that a whirlpool-type bathtub. Facing the water closet was a standup, two-person shower.
Having slept in her clothes following the worst and best night of her life, Alicia desperately needed to feel clean. She longed to run a hot bath and lounge in the tub but did not think she could tolerate being naked and vulnerable for that long. She was not sure she could even relax at all, so a bath was probably pointless. After a quick toilet stop, she was still up in the air about it.
While making her decision, she went back into the bedroom to find a robe of some sort and hopefully some clothes to wear afterward. After a few minutes of searching through his closets and drawers, after running her hands over various articles of his clothing, she found a thick, white terrycloth robe hanging in the back of a closet. It appeared to have never been worn, the cloth still stiff and thick, smelling only of fabric and bearing no hint of laundry detergent or fabric softener.
Corrupting Alicia Page 17
