Me, of course, but with something new that wasn’t there before.
I knew right then why my neck felt itchy, why my entire body felt like rusted metal, as if I’d been lying dormant for a while.
Because I had. Because I’d died. Because that bastard Bram found me, caught me off-guard, and hacked away at my neck like the maniac he was. He had actually killed me, and yet I now stood, a man who was quite literally sewn back together like some sort of misshapen doll.
I lightly ran my fingers over the stitching around my neck, flinching when pain rose from within me. The stitching was heavy and black, and it stood out against my pale skin terribly, as did the thick red wound under it, where Bram had severed my head completely. Such a strange thing to think, as most people, once they’re decapitated, tend to remain so.
It looked downright hideous. Ugly and garish, it was almost hard to look at. Yet it was me, my reflection, my appearance, what the others would see when they looked upon me. A strange reality to face.
My eyes lifted up, spotting the red staining my lips. That red was a much more delicious thing to think about: Felice’s blood. I watched as my tongue curled out, snaking around my lips and licking up every last bit of her I had with me. God, she was scrumptious, wasn’t she?
My thought processes were clearly messed up, because that was another thing I should never think. The word scrumptious when compared to a living, breathing human…but then I recalled what had happened in the basement. She’d nicked her finger, and I’d brought that blood to my mouth. I’d tasted her right then—and had sex with her shortly after, mostly due to her insistence—and, as strange and disgusting as it might be, I’d known it right away.
Her blood was something special. Her blood might just be the key to all of this. It’d had proved itself by being the key to awakening me; it was very possible that without her, I would’ve remained in limbo for all eternity. I’d always avoided Bram when he was out, but I’d gotten sloppy because of her, because I’d instantly wanted to protect her from the murderous madman. Whether I really was dead or Grimmstead simply wanted to play tricks on us was debatable, but I knew one thing for sure now.
Two things, really.
The first being that I was alive, breathing once again, with a heart beating in my chest. I might look like some kind of haphazardly stitched-together doll, but I was up and walking around, able to think and feel. That’s more than you could say for the typical dead person.
And, of course, the second thing I knew was that I craved one thing, the one thing I’d become obsessed with the longer I’d lived underneath this dark roof: blood. A feeling in my gut told me it couldn’t be any blood, though; it had to be Felice’s. I didn’t want anyone else’s. Just hers.
Did that make me a monster? Probably. I didn’t feel particularly bad about hurting her. I’d bit her and felt absolutely no remorse about it, and something like that should’ve weighed on a conscience. Alas, I was pretty sure everyone in Grimmstead knew by now I didn’t have one of those pesky, annoying things. I did what had to be done—for this place and for me, to sate my rampant curiosity.
I must’ve lost track of time, because the next thing I knew, I heard a knock on the door to my room. I’d left it ajar, so whoever it was could walk right in, but they didn’t, which meant they either didn’t want to, or they were hesitant to do so. I tore my gaze away from my reflection, from the mirror and its truths, slowly walking out of the bathroom to see who it was.
It was Felice, though she wasn’t alone. Lucien accompanied her, and he eyed me up like I was some strange entity, a foreigner in this place. Maybe I was. This whole situation was unlike anything that’s ever happened here before.
Felice’s wrist was bandaged, and she held it gingerly against her chest, as if trying to keep it from me. I knew without a doubt I was stronger than her; if I wanted to bite into her again, I would be able to do so without question. The only problem with that would be Lucien. He would not allow me to hurt her in such a way…unless Felice wanted it. Making her crave it as much as I did might be the only way to get that beast of a man to step aside.
I immediately noticed she still wore the same dress she had; the sleeve on her left wrist was stained a dark maroon from her blood. I kid you not, I could’ve sworn right then and there that I could smell it in the air, even though it was just in her clothes, dried up. The metallic twang, luring and enticing.
My immediate instinct was to run to her side, toss Lucien out of the way—as much as a man of Lucien’s build could be tossed aside—and breathe that beautiful scent in.
I didn’t, of course. Couldn’t lose myself completely…even though I wanted nothing more than that.
“Payne,” Felice spoke, her voice a few octaves softer than it usually was, “how are you feeling?” Her dark eyes did not drop to stare below my waist, not that I cared much for modesty. After all, I’d been inside her before. Hadn’t seen her naked, but…I would not be opposed to doing what we did in the basement without clothing, and with a little blood thrown in.
My shoulders went up and down once. “I’m up and walking around.” My way of saying I’m alive.
Felice threw a worried glance to Lucien, who didn’t seem to care too much either way. Lucien probably hated me for hurting her, and I couldn’t blame him for that. We’d all grown to care about Felice in different ways.
“Yes, but how do you feel?” she said, emphasizing the final word, as if my feelings were important. As if I felt a whole host of things. As if she truly cared.
And maybe she did. Who was I to say?
“I feel…” I trailed off, trying to gather my thoughts. Truth be told, my mind raced. The possibilities, the reasons, why I was like this now, why I felt like some kind of abomination of nature. I was both curious and confused, eager to test my limits and find my weaknesses. “I feel stiff, like my body forgot how to work.” My eyes fell to my hands, and I watched them slowly curl into fists. “But beyond that, I feel strong. Better than I was before.”
Felice and Lucien exchanged looks I could not read, mostly because I didn’t want to. The only thing I wanted to do was throw Lucien out of my room and have Felice all alone and to myself.
Letting out a long sigh, Felice began to smile and say, “That’s good—”
But I wasn’t done, so I cut in, “I also feel hungry.” That got her to stop smiling and stop talking. Her budding smile was instantly replaced by a frown, and I watched as Lucien glowered at her side.
“You will not lay a hand on her, Payne,” Lucien stated, his wide chest rumbling beneath his dark suit. “Do you understand? If you do, I’ll—”
Whereas I might’ve been fearful of him before, I was not as much now. While it was true he had ties to this place, to the strange aura filling the air here, I did now, too. We were more an even match now, but I wasn’t about to question it or him. Yet.
“I won’t hurt her,” I whispered.
Lucien’s lips turned into a frown, and he looked at me with an uncertain expression, his dark eyebrows furrowed, his gaze narrowed. His jaw ground beneath his short beard. He appeared every bit as intimidating as he did before, but for whatever reason, I was no longer afraid of whatever repercussions he could bring. I had a new, inner strength, and I knew that strength came from one thing: blood.
More specifically, Felice’s blood.
Felice turned to look up at Lucien, and Lucien scowled. “No,” he said.
“No?” she questioned, pouting. “I didn’t even say it.”
“You didn’t have to. I knew what you were going to ask, and the answer is no.” Lucien glanced to me, a glower I felt in my core. “I will not leave you alone with him. In fact, I never want you two to be in the same room without any supervision.” He said those things only to try to keep her safe, I knew.
Felice, however, didn’t see it quite like that. She huffed, “You cannot control me like that. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Lucien said nothing else, only narrowing his s
tare at her.
“Please,” she said, “leave us.”
The man who was both the guardian of this place and the technical headmaster of this bizarre, twisted academy harrumphed to himself, turning and walking out of my room. He didn’t leave entirely, though, for the moment he got out into the hall, he stopped. Once he faced both Felice and I again, he crossed his arms, an ever watchful gargoyle from the hall.
Rolling her eyes, Felice went to the door and slammed it shut, right in Lucien’s face, all the while staring up at him in defiance. It was an amusing sight, but I was too enraptured by each and every movement she made to do much else of anything but watch her.
After she turned to face me, her dour expression turned into a hesitant smile. She still held her injured wrist close to her chest, but she stepped toward me all the same. Trusting, though not completely. Plus, I didn’t doubt Lucien was still outside the door, waiting for her to come out. He would not leave her here with me.
Now that she and I were alone in my room, she let her amber eyes drop to my legs, only I knew it wasn’t my legs she stared at. “Can I…can I help you get dressed?” As she asked, her gaze slowly traveled up my body, taking in the smooth plane of my chest.
I felt stronger, and I wondered if I looked stronger, too—if I had more defined musculature than I did before. Hmm. I’d been too caught up in my thoughts and the thick stitching around my neck in the mirror to study anything else.
All I could do was nod.
Felice gathered clothes for me. My pants were draped across hangers in the closet, as were the white dress shirts. My socks and undergarments were in the dresser, and she was able to pull everything out and lay them on my bed with her injury-free hand.
I moved behind her as she leaned over my bed, unbuttoning the shirt to ready it for me. My eyelids shut as I breathed her in. If I was quiet, I could hear the beating of her heart, the blood pumping through the vital veins in her neck. So tempting. So luring. She had no idea how badly I wanted to take her here and now and taste her again.
My eyes opened the moment she turned around, jerking back onto the bed. “Oh, I—I didn’t realize you were so close,” Felice spoke softly. “I didn’t hear you move at all.”
Really? It wasn’t as though I tried to be overly quiet. I simply was. That was yet another new thing, and I couldn’t help but wonder what else I’d discover about this new me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Instead of moving away like I should’ve, I lifted a hand and reached for a tendril of her hair, running it between my fingers. Felice didn’t flinch, but she did look a tad uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame her. This would be an adjustment for all of us. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just…you smell so good, Felice.” Normally I wasn’t one to talk so much, but what could I say? She just brought it out of me.
She made me feel things, want things, I never did before.
What she said next made me smile: “Maybe it’s my shampoo?”
I still had that tendril of hair between my fingers, and I was loathed to let it go, taking a step away from her and giving her more space. “I don’t think so.” If I had any hope of tasting her again, I had to give her space and time, had to agree to move things at her own pace, pushing and nudging when necessary.
Oh, I’d have her again, I was sure of it. Just not as soon as I wanted her.
Felice gave me a smile, though I detected traces of unease. She offered to help me dress, but I turned her down. I didn’t want her to think of me as some sort of invalid, even if my body felt rusty. Soon enough that rusted feeling would be gone, and I would be back to being me, only better.
And then, once I was fully myself, once she was no longer uncertain about me, I would have her.
It would be glorious.
Chapter Fifteen – Dagen
Ian really meant it when he’d told me that after the pale one—AKA Payne—was up and walking around again, I’d have no other reason to push it off. And by it, I meant his ridiculous idea of him and I seducing Felice together. I still wasn’t quite sure how that would work, but if I was honest, the idea did give me some relief from that god-awful noise.
Thump, thump.
It was dinner time, and Ian had already pulled me to the side and told me what we were going to do. I sat beside Payne, while Ian was near Felice. Lucien sat at the head of the table, on Felice’s right. The food was good, as it always was, magically waiting for us on the table, along with plates and silverware. Drinks, too. Tonight was a red wine. I wasn’t often a drinker, but tonight called for it.
Just a little.
Strange wasn’t a word strong enough to describe how it felt having Payne back again, seeing him up and walking around, sitting beside me as if nothing was wrong. As if, with a sudden gust of wind, his head wouldn’t snap off from the stitches.
Medically it made no sense. His spine had been completely severed, along with everything else in that neck. He shouldn’t be up and walking around, even with some blood poured down his throat. The blood had nowhere to go.
But this was Grimmstead, and things rarely made sense here. I couldn’t explain that constantly-repeating sound or why I was the only one in the house who heard it, either. There were just some things you had to accept, and Payne’s recovery was one of them. None of us should look a gift horse in the mouth. My idea had worked; if it wasn’t for me, Payne would still be upstairs, dead, and Felice would still be saddened over it.
She still was upset over the Bram and Koda situation, but we had to celebrate the little victories when we could.
Dinner was unusually quiet, and that was because everyone’s focus was on Payne. Everyone watched him, waiting for him to either speak or actually eat the food that was on his plate. So far, he’d said nothing, and all he’d done was pick up his fork and move the food around, as if trying to make it look like he’d eaten.
Thump, thump, thump.
My ears itched, and I tried not to lose myself to the sound. One hand held onto a fork, the other rested on my lap, and it was those fingers that began to tap along with the low, rhythmic beat. I supposed it was less of a thump and more of a ba-boom, like each sound had two parts to it, almost like…almost like how a heartbeat sounded.
The box in my chest picked up its pace at the discovery, and I brought the hand from my lap to my chest, feeling my heart, wondering if, all along, I’d simply been hearing my own heartbeat. But…no, my heart beat at a pace that didn’t match the sound. That wasn’t it.
Felice finally broke the silence of the dinner table, asking Payne, “Why aren’t you eating? You should eat, regain your strength.” A good idea, in theory, but you couldn’t apply normal logic to anything that happened in Grimmstead.
A frown graced Payne’s lips, and I tried not to look at his mouth, because his mouth sat dangerously close to that thick red line and all the black stitching on top of it. He looked…well, he damn well nearly looked like a monster, like a thing that was trying to be a man but wasn’t. Payne had always been a little out there, but now, now he had reason to be. Now he was unlike any of us here.
“Ah,” Ian’s glib voice rose through the air, “let him be. He’s obviously not hungry.” He grinned, dimples on his cheeks as he leaned closer to Felice to whisper, “He’s probably hungry for you.”
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind Ian had meant that sexually, but Felice, of course, took it in a different way. Her eyes widened, and she flicked them back to Payne, unable to say anything in response.
Lucien, meanwhile, glowered. “Ian, that’s enough.”
“Oh, come on,” Ian went on. “It’s not a true Grimmstead dinner until you’ve said that at least half a dozen more times.” He flashed his teeth, perfectly straight and white. He radiated an aura of nonchalance, of laziness and uncaring, and yet he was still the smoothest one among us. I did notice, strangely enough, that he hadn’t touched his wine yet.
And it was strange, because it was Ian. Ian always drank. He smoked when he could find some
thing to smoke, got high when he could, drank himself into oblivion—which I often found tempting, just to ease the noise I was subjected to day in and day out—all for what, though?
We all had our problems here. Some of us were more willing to share, while some of us weren’t. We all knew about Koda and Bram, Payne’s fascination with blood, my paranoia and that unrelenting sound, but Ian? Ian never wanted to talk about it. His truth was the opposite of life, and I knew that had to weigh heavily on someone.
Felice shut Ian up by placing a hand atop his on the table, in view of everyone to see. “Ian,” she told him, and then she shook her head, wordlessly telling him to cool it. And, weirdly enough, he did. He did stop, which was a far cry from that first dinner with Felice, when he’d suggested having an orgy.
I mean, thoughts like those were still probably running through his head, but he was smart enough to keep those lips shut. Granted, he also had a plan for after dinner, so maybe that had something to do with it, too.
Dinners at Grimmstead hadn’t felt the same after the day Bram took over. Now we had Payne back, but he wasn’t quite right, and Bram and Koda were locked away in the basement. We weren’t allowed to visit him, or even bring him food or water. He should be withering away down there, but I knew without a doubt he wasn’t. Time was a blur down there, and I didn’t doubt Grimmstead was keeping him alive and nourished just to spite us all.
Even though we were at the table for over thirty minutes, Payne didn’t eat a thing. He was also the first to leave the table, and I watched him walk off. He seemed to be moving smoother, better than he was when he first woke up. Also no random erections, so there was that.
It wasn’t too long after Payne left that Felice got up. “I should check on him.”
Lucien stood as well, fixing his suit. “I’ll go with you.” Felice shot him a knowing look, a look that was probably meant to dissuade him from accompanying her, but Lucien would not be swayed. They left, which meant I sat alone at the table, right across from Ian.
Grimmstead Academy: Submission Page 15
