by Finley Blake
“Survive what?” My voice came out in a sob. To my surprise, Nicholas sat on the bed and pulled me into his lap. He used the fingertips of one hand to move my disheveled hair away from my face and remove my hat, stroking my hair as he did so. I finally turned my teary-eyed gaze on him.
A visible tremor shot through him, one I felt reverberate through me, and he whispered, “I didn’t want this to happen,” before he kissed me.
It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was the most intense one I had ever experienced. His grip on me tightened as he cradled me in his arms. Something stirred beneath me, where my bottom met his lap. I gasped against his mouth, surprised both by the evidence of his desire and the perfection of the kiss. It was hard and demanding, and he moaned against me as if there was nothing he wanted more in that moment. When he ended the kiss and looked down at me, his eyes locked on mine, I felt heat spread from the top of my head all the way down to the tips of my toes.
He adjusted me in his arms and pressed his lips to my temple. It was an unexpectedly tender gesture after the moment of raw passion we had shared, and it set my heart beating at a frantic pace. “Let’s get some tea and then have a talk,” he said. “Get out of that coat and come to the living room. I think it’s time we discussed everything.” Nicholas slid me onto the bed and rose to his feet. He looked back at me, his hand on the doorframe, and said, “She always has her reasons,” then walked out the door.
After a few heartbeats, I took a deep breath and removed all my outdoor gear. A peek in the mirror showed slightly reddened eyes and tangled curls. I ran my fingers under my lower eyelashes and then through the blonde tendrils before I turned away from my reflection. A chill raced through me as I walked down the stairs. Heat and cold, passion and pain – what was going on with my life? How had I gone from my training as the perfect courtesan to this?
Nicholas was waiting in the living room. He pressed a steaming mug of tea into my hands and said, “It’s time to tell each other everything.”
At the moment, in light of the kiss after the way he had treated me for weeks, I didn’t know whether to hug him or hurl the teacup at his head. Maybe I was about to get the answers I had so desperately yearned for, so I nodded and sank down onto the couch, amidst my unfinished projects.
“I’ll be completely straightforward with you.” He remained standing, his hands folded before him. “Headmistress Eden sent you here because she knew we could help each other.”
“How can we do that?” I asked through my sniffling. The cup warmed my palms and the sensation was comforting. I took a sip. It was mint – soothing, refreshing, cleansing.
“Yes, I know who your father is and, of course, I knew you are his daughter. Dr. Morningside is the greatest scientist of our time. In fact, we were very close. He was my tutor when I was a child and he remained my mentor until the day he disappeared, the day I had him hidden to save his life. Though… I feel like I’m not explaining myself well.” He paused as if considering what to say next and then asked, “Have you heard of Doctor Nicolai Ferros?”
“Of course.” I sat up a little straighter. “He was President of the United States until the Regime change. It’s forbidden to speak his name, though. The Regime even went so far as to eradicate all pictures and media of him. All our history books give is a name and term of presidency.”
“Do you know why the Regime deposed him?”
I bowed my head. “I was so young when it all happened – when he was killed, when my father disappeared. My mother refused to speak about it. Rather than wallow in her grief, she focused on surviving under the Regime and securing good futures for me and my sister.”
“I can tell you what happened to your father. He was a Constitutional sympathizer, even though the Regime threatened him if he did not fall into line with their government. He refused and that decision to stand by his president placed him in grave danger. Dr. Morningside was so kind to me and so loyal, I had to see to his safety.” Nicholas sat next to me on the wooden loveseat, the side of his leg pressing against mine. “He has been safely hidden these past twelve years. The Regime can’t touch him. And they never got me, no matter what they would have you believe. They executed my double as a show of power.”
“What?” I raised my head and stared at him. Was he telling me…?
“Well, that’s not entirely true. They may not have killed me, but they got to me by assassinating my wife. Murdered her in cold blood during the inaugural ball for my first term.” He turned away from me, but not before I saw tears shimmering at the corners of his eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to feel like this ever again after I lost her, after I lost my office – my opportunity to continue to serve the people as their president, instead of their senator – but you…” He looked back at me and shook his head. “You bring music and warmth back into my life. You make me want to be more than just Nicholas, a solitary man in the wastelands. You make me want to be President Ferros again, if not in office then at least in intention and action.”
I gaped at him and my fingers loosened from around the cup I was holding. Nicholas reached over and slipped it from my slack grasp as I continued to stare at him. More memories – memories of television and newspaper, and a handsome young man waving from a podium to the crowd below… Mama telling me she was proud of daddy’s protégé and all that he’d accomplished…
“Holy shi… You can’t be…” I shook my head and reached up to dash more tears from my eyes. “W-why did they leave you alive?” When he looked at me, his eyebrows drawing together and his mouth twisted in a puzzled frown, I blurted, “I’m sorry. I did not mean that the way it sounded. But why would they let you live?”
“The execution of a look-alike was just a show of power. They had already demoralized me after killing my wife, keeping me imprisoned for nearly ten years, trying to force me to endorse the commander, and torturing me for refusing to be their puppet. By then I was ready to die. I wanted it.” He looked up at the ceiling, pain evident in his clenched jaw. “I think the commander wanted it too, but he found it so much more satisfying to let me live. Perhaps it made him feel powerful to have such a beloved political prisoner under his control. But letting me live was bad for business, so to speak. He ordered his soldiers to leave me here to die a slow, excruciating death on my own. I’m sure it amused him to think I would simply choose to give up on life. Stripping away hope has always been the commander’s first way of controlling the masses and bending them to his will.”
Commander Korroziya – leader of the Regime. I laced my fingers together to keep from digging them into the loveseat’s cushions at the mention of him. He was the man I had always believed to be truly responsible for my father’s disappearance. Rumor had it the Regime commander placed anyone who disagreed with him in internment camps where they slaved away on behalf of the totalitarian government as punishment. Most considered it a worse fate than the impromptu executions Regime soldiers often carried out in the territories.
“Your father knew what fate they had planned for me, which is why he designed this house. When he showed me the prototype, I thought it was for him and his family, should the Constitutionals lose the war to the Regime. Your father came here, oversaw the building of it – even assembled parts of it with his own hands. It was a labor of love. But, no, it was for me, and by the time I got here, he was gone, hidden on my orders. Well… sort of.” A smile curled his mouth. “I had ordered him here for his protection. He didn’t listen to me, but you should at least know that he is safe.”
“So he’s been alive all these years – twelve whole years now – and never told us?” I wrapped my arms around myself to ward off a sudden chill. Each moment of shock seemed to thrust me into a new emotional and physical extreme. “I was ten when he disappeared, when you… when the president was supposedly executed. Yet all this time you’ve both been alive and safe by working together. Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
“The Regime would have used such information against you,” Nicholas said. He
set the teacup on the coffee table, then reached out to rub his hand along my upper arm. It was strange to have him touch me so gently, so comfortingly, reassuring me with his nearness after he had spent the past few weeks trying to maintain his distance from me. “Your lives would have been in danger if the Regime suspected for even a moment that your mother knew anything. But there’s more.”
“Of course there is.” My fingers dug into my arms as another tremor shot through me. Nicholas grimaced and sat down next to me so we were shoulder to shoulder. The heat radiating from his body next to mine was calming, at least, even if his explanation was not.
“I received a message not long before your arrival,” he said. “One of the more influential supporters of the Regime is no longer with us – someone they counted on for a great deal of their funding, not to mention handling quite a bit of their dirty work.”
“So, what does that mean?” Politics and military coups weren’t exactly something I could wrap my head around, even living in a society thrown into turmoil by one.
He put his hands on my shoulders, turning me so our knees touched as I faced him, and I sank a little more into the warmth of his nearness. It felt so good to be close to someone again, to have physical contact with another human. “Mr. DeVille was responsible for carrying out a good many assassinations and other such orders, not to mention providing the majority of the Regime’s financing. You can’t have guns, bombs, and a loyal militia without money, after all. His loss is a crippling blow for the Regime.”
“DeVille?” Scrunching my brow in thought, I searched my memory until it came to me. “Oh no! What about Adette? Is she safe?”
“Who is Adette?”
“Icharus DeVille’s courtesan from the school. She was assigned to him before they sent me here. Oh no, not her…” I shuddered at the thought of something happening to my best friend, someone I loved nearly as much as my own twin sister.
“Violet, it’s alright. It wasn’t Icharus they killed. It was his father. As far as I know, your schoolmate disappeared to parts unknown after Mr. DeVille was assassinated and there have been whispers that she had a hand in it, though nothing confirmed. Icharus assumed his father’s responsibilities and control of his finances.” His hands tightened on my arms. “But Icharus is on our side and undermining the Regime from within, just as they sought to undermine me and the presidents before me until they saw their chance to strike.”
“Our side?”
“The Constitutionals. Now that the Regime is faltering, we’ll give a democracy back to the people.” He spoke with such passion, such conviction, I could see how he had become the darling of the people in the United States.
But it was that conviction that might make a bad situation worse.
“Shit…” I pushed at him, trying to put distance between us. His closeness was disconcerting, to say the least. I wanted to simply curl up against him, but at the same time I had to think about what he was telling me. “The Regime took everything from you. How can you even think about doing this? You’ll start another war when you should just be happy you’re alive!”
“I haven’t been happy these past twenty goddamn years, ever since they killed Lydia and took away everything I worked so hard for! Even when I got the news of DeVille’s death, I didn’t know how to take it. I’ve spent all this time full of hating, sinking deeper and deeper into despair” He pulled me back toward him, his face only inches above mine. “And then you arrived. Dear, sweet, compliant Violet – you never once complained, though I was such a bear to you. And you sang and traipsed around this colorless cabin like a princess in a fairy tale musical with talking animals. You saved my life. How could I not fall in love with you?”
“You’re in love with me?” I squeaked, my body going still in his arms.
His expression said more than words ever could. When he closed the narrow gap between us, I knew I was in for even more of a roller coaster ride. “I tried not to feel it,” he admitted. “I should have sent you back to that blasted school, knowing this wasn’t good for me. But I didn’t have the heart to go back to the way it was before you got here.”
Before I could respond, he clasped his hands around my back and pressed his lips to mine. After a moment, I couldn’t help but respond, return the kiss and lean into him. I had always excelled at lovemaking – at flirting, teasing, kissing, and then kneeling to signal my readiness for anything a man could want. After weeks with Nicholas, I was afraid I would never get to do those things again; never know a man’s touch, sexual pleasure, or love.
Now his arms encircled me and there was no escape; not that I wanted it any longer. A month ago, the unexpectedness of this assignment had overwhelmed me. Now it was a very different feeling of being in over my head – in so deep, so damn deep.
Chapter 5
My life no longer read like a rewrite of a gloomy, classic gothic novel. Instead of the hired help thrust upon an unwilling employer who resented it, yet needed it to open his heart, I was now caught up in a situation that seemed like something out of a pulp fiction magazine: Danger! Intrigue! Sex!
Well, not the sex part.
Not yet.
Despite Nicholas’ growing affection toward me, we hadn’t tumbled into bed together. This was a decision he left to me, even though I was his submissive, and I appreciated that. As much as I wanted to explore this newfound romance, Nicholas still had his own pain to work through. We had to take things one step at a time and allow ourselves the opportunity to get everything out in the open, so the next morning as we ate our breakfast, I asked one of the many questions I’d pondered for weeks.
“Nicholas?”
“Violet?” His eyes crinkled at the corners now whenever he looked at me. What a difference speaking up and telling me everything had made in his demeanor. It was as if the weight of the world had lifted from his shoulders since he finally confessed his past to me, not to mention with the news that the tide might be turning against the Regime. He spoke now of hope for the both of us and hope for a better world for everyone.
“I was wondering where it comes from – the food you have,” I said, smiling back at him.
“Did you ever see your father’s design of the house?”
I shook my head. “I only saw a model of the house, but no notes or actual blueprints. I was very young at the time, so I don’t remember much. He didn’t get into the details of his work and my mother had all of it destroyed so the Regime would not get it. But I remembered the outside of the house, especially the back when I saw it. That’s what gave it away as my father’s work.”
“Well, that makes sense,” he said. “As far as the food, I get it from hydroponics farming.”
“Oh…” I looked down at the scrambled eggs on my plate. “That explains the organic produce and anything wheat-based, but not the animal products.”
“The animal products are all synthetic.”
“Synthetic eggs…” I poked at my breakfast, but I already knew it looked, smelled, and tasted completely normal. I never would have suspected it wasn’t real in the sense that a hen had not laid the eggs. “Are these foods the result of my father’s experiments too?”
“Yes. He wanted to create a completely self-sustaining isolationist environment that allowed people to cultivate anything they could possibly need.”
I looked up at him from beneath my eyelashes and asked, “Is that what you do in the basement all day – create food and other items?”
Nicholas grinned at me over the rim of his coffee cup. “Sometimes. Do you want to see what I have down there?”
“Yes please!” I bounced in my chair, before I realized “down there” could have implied anything. To keep my thoughts focused, I said, “Science was never my strong suit – Azure was always better at academics. But I love learning new things anyway.”
He reached across the table and his large hand curled over mine. “You don’t need to love it for my sake.”
“What?” I blinked at him and then burst o
ut laughing. “Oh, no. It’s not that. I don’t feel like I need to like the same things as you. I have a scientist for a father, so of course it fascinates me, even if I don’t understand it.”
“And what about this Azure?”
“She’s the twin sister I told you about.”
“I can’t imagine there being two of you. Your father didn’t really discuss his family with me, though I knew about your existence.” Somehow, he managed to look even more amused – perhaps it was the slight dimple that appeared in his right cheek. All I wanted to do was lean across the table and kiss those smiling lips, but I restrained myself.
“She’s my fraternal twin, remember? We don’t look exactly alike, but close enough.”
“Still, sounds like trouble to me – two beautiful ladies in one family.” He winked at me and I felt heat rise to my cheeks. “Well isn’t that cute,” he said with a chuckle. “She blushes.”
“Stop that,” I said, aware my voice was a slow drawl as I pressed my hands to my cheeks. That was one of my nervous habits and I hated it. Azure had no such quirks. She was perfect. I was a mess.
He stood, leaned forward, and kissed me, his lips warm and soft on mine. With that, the heat in my face spread elsewhere. My chest constricted as a memory resurfaced.
“What is love like?” I asked.
Azure kept her gaze averted, focused on some distant thing. “It feels like everything. You can’t go on without them. You spend every moment wanting to be together. When you are together, you want time to stand still.” She bowed her head and her voice broke. “Why couldn’t it just stand the fuck still?”
“Violet?” Nicholas put his hand on my temple and traced my hairline.
Looking into his eyes, I realized I now knew exactly what Azure had been describing to me only a few years ago, before we went to the school, before we became entangled in any contractual relationships or strange anti-government schemes.
