Redeemer of Shadows

by Michelle M. Pillow

  Hathor regretfully drew her lips away. The wound closed. Glancing up to him, she saw his upturned face, the trail of his blood having moved over his neck to the base of his throat from when he had bitten himself. Her limbs felt alive with energy. Her heart thudded out of control. She could still feel the press of his skin against her mouth. Pushing his arm aside, she went to him. Hathor licked the trail from his neck with her tongue. Servaes stiffened as she moved up him in soft kisses.

  Servaes knew that soon she would not need to drink from him to live. His blood had the power to heal her human body. Leaning his head down as she passed over his chin, he didn’t move to hold her. He watched her face. Her eyes were closed to him. The tender strokes of her mouth were a very unfamiliar sensation to his skin. She went to his lips, licking every drop from his warm flesh. Her tongue lapped inside his parted mouth, stopping when she felt the barrier of his fangs. She pulled back from him with a confused jolt of surprise.

  Backing away, she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

  Servaes frowned. His eyes glinted in silver, purple, and green slivers. If he had been human, his lungs would have panted uncontrollably for air. “It’s fine, Hathor. Think nothing of it.”

  Servaes sat down on the bed, weakened. He lowered his head.

  “Are you all right?” she inquired.

  “I will be.”

  She went to him. Gently pulling his arms, she laid him on her bed. Servaes glanced at her in surprise. She motioned in concern. “Lie and build your strength.”

  Servaes did as she bid, moving gracefully back onto her pillow. She looked down at him questioningly.

  “No,” he said.

  “What?” she asked in surprise. “I said nothing.”

  He chuckled. “You were wondering if you could get me anything. The answer is no, not unless you have a willing sacrifice I could feed on.”

  “Can’t you eat cows or chickens? Does it have to be human blood? I might have some steak in the deep freeze. There should be some blood in that.”

  “Ugh,” he wrinkled his face in disgust at the very thought. His pale hand moved to fall over his eyes. The long fingernails pointed up at the ceiling. “The blood must be fresh. I could eat live animals, and I have. It would be like you trying to survive on nothing but bugs—not very filling, not very appetizing, and after awhile you would start to get malnourished and weak. Only with us, the pain is greater and we would never die from it.”

  Hathor stood quiet. She couldn’t keep her eyes from roaming over him. His body was well toned—lean and hard. His movements were graceful and defined. He crossed his legs leisurely at the ankles. Her hands itched to grasp the side of his calf and explore up his inner thigh. Her breasts were heavy with the need to rub their naked tips to his bare chest. Her flesh longed for his flesh, her mouth for his mouth, her body for the force of his body. She wondered if he could desire her like a human man. His body was not like hers. No, what he ached for was her blood—her life’s liquid to fulfill his needs. The thought left her faint.

  “How do you choose? Do you hurt them?” she asked, trying to understand him, his dark world. Her words were not accusing. She should hate him and his kind for preying on mortals, but humans preyed on themselves for much less. At least he needed to kill for survival, whereas her kind did it often for sick pleasures.

  “There are those of us that try to make it as pleasurable a death as possible,” he answered. “Choosing is not hard. Almost any will do so long as the blood is fresh. It is much like you deciding what you will have for your supper. Only we decide if we would dine on passion or fear or self-contempt. There are wide varieties of emotions that flavor the blood. Then you have your modern medicines and drugs. They too flavor the blood. As does one’s heritage. Besides, not all humans need to live. Some of you aren’t very kind.”

  “But how do you know which ones?”

  “My particular tribe is very good at reading thoughts and controlling actions. We can delve within the mind and learn what that person has done, what they are doing and thinking. I have heard it said that some of the older ones, older than I, can read into a person’s future—to an extent. That is why you intrigue us so, why the others wanted to kill you. Your mind is closed.”

  “So you’re our judge,” she concluded, “like with Franklin?”

  “One of them, I suppose.” He lifted his hand from his eyes, but didn’t look directly at her. The light still stirred in his gaze, but was beginning to fade. He kept himself steady, as not to attack her and force her into his bed. Slowly he sat up, reaching a cooling hand to her cheek. “At first I had a hard time of it. I could remember what it was to be like you. As the years passed, I realized it’s a food chain. It’s our survival. If there is a reason for you to be here, then assuredly there is a reason for me.”

  “Can you turn back?” The long tips of her lashes dipped over her eyes.

  “No, there is no way.” He wondered at the sadness in her. “My body is long dead.”

  “Do you have to kill what you eat?”

  “It’s hard to stop once we start. The young ones can’t, or don’t want to. If we only drank a little from each we’d spend every waking minute searching for enough blood to sustain our needs. There is too much risk in letting our meals live. If enough of them remember, we risk exposure. It is not like the old days. If we were exposed we simply moved to a new country and started over. Now things are too connected. Besides, I have no desire to let men like Franklin live.”

  “So you don’t miss it? You don’t miss being human?”

  “There are things—sunlight, warmth, waking next to someone warm and naked in my arms.” His eyes dipped to her parted mouth, her breath even and low.

  “But,” she hesitated. Her body stirred and pulsed with longing. His soft, melodic voice filled her head. She wanted to succumb to him, to his charming movements, the soothing lilt to his soft voice. Though, inside his eyes she saw a lingering hardness that not even he could hide.

  He leaned closer to her. His nose brushed alongside her nose. “Touching flesh with no desire to bite it.”

  Hathor turned her face away. Her fingers dug into the bed. Her throat became dry.

  “And there is the loneliness, more unbearable than you could imagine. Whole worlds pass you by. Life spans slip within an instant.” His voice was distinct and clear. His gaze never left her face and there was sorrow in his confession. “To me, you will be dead in only a fraction of my life, and soon this moment will become a hazy dream until it fades altogether. No matter how hard I cling to it, it will eventually fade.”

  “I’m next on your menu then?” she asked, unable to stop the thrill the idea caused. She felt the energy of him swirling in her head. Her body shook, desperately wanting to be known by him. Her mind held back, frightened he couldn’t feel as she did.

  “No,” he stated, pulling away. “I will not harm you. At least, I will try my best not to. I do want you. I want to feel your body. I want to see your naked flesh. And yes, I do want to take your blood. I want to feel myself inside of you. I want to feel your blood within me. I want us to join.”

  “I thought vampires…you didn’t actually have se—do that sort of thing.” Hathor leaned away from him, frighteningly aroused. She moved from the bed. Her feet stumbled in her haste. He followed her with the floating grace of a weightless feather. The show of power didn’t calm her nerves.

  “What? Sex?” he questioned in blunt amusement. “Why ever would you think that?”

  “Well, you indicated that passions flavor the blood, which explains why the others were making out with their food at the club but none of them were really doing the final deed,” she answered. “It’s more like they were preparing a meal.”

  “That is a very culinary description for it.” Servaes could smell her desire as she tried to suppress it. Her breasts heaved under her cotton shirt. He saw the lacy design of her undergarment outlining the shape. She was not immune to his lust.
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br />   “We’ve also been together quite a bit and you’ve never tried to, ah…” The question was more absentminded than curious. She inched away as if she could escape by running through the cracked bedroom door.

  He glanced over her shoulder, knowing what she was doing by keeping him talking. “It is sometimes rare for us to sleep with our food when we can bring passion so much more easily with the mind, but we can. In fact, it is more pleasurable for us in some ways.”

  “How?” she inquired before she could stop herself.

  He continued to follow her around the bed. “We feel more. We taste and see more.”

  “Then you’ve done,” she paused, as if not thinking fully about what she was asking as she plotted an escape while she talked, “do it often?”

  “Not for years. Let me read you. Why are you stalling? I know you want me. I could tell you wanted me as we danced in the moonlight.”

  “You clouded my mind when we danced. I know that now. It was like I was drugged. At the time I didn’t really believe you were…and then I was attacked…and having to drink blood…it’s all a bit much.” She glanced behind her. The doorknob was close. Her fingers trembled. His eyes dared her to try.

  “I don’t influence you now.”

  She bolted for the door. It slammed shut before she could reach it. Her hands stopped in mid-action, never bothering to test the latch to see if it would open. Instead, she turned and ran into her dressing room to the other side of the vanity. He followed her easily, gliding toward her without effort. Finally her attention seemed to focus on their conversation. “Years? I don’t believe that. Ginger said she saw you take a woman on stage. I thought she was lying, but now that you said you do have sex, well…”

  “Ginger is lying.”

  Hathor ran for the dressing room door hidden by the side of the vanity. She made it through before he could stop her. With a grin, he went after her, liking the chase.

  Hathor hurried to the staircase, skipping steps as she raced from him. Then, seeing him at the foot of the stairs, she halted to a stop halfway down, nearly tumbling forward as her feet slipped. She grabbed the rail to keep from falling and pulled herself back up. Servaes grinned up at her, a devilishly handsome effort. Unhurriedly, he stepped up, one leisured movement at a time. Hathor backed away, shaking her head in denial of his pursuit. It didn’t dissuade him.

  “If you must have the details,” he said. “I’ve only done it a few times, right after I turned, when the passion for blood was too much for me to control.”

  Hathor wanted to stop fighting him. She was too frightened. Her body shook in indecision. She needed time to think, to make sense of all that happened now that his blood’s influence over her was starting to dissipate. How could she perform under such daunting circumstances? It wasn’t as if she was experienced enough to be with one of her own kind who was wild in his tastes, let alone a handsome vampire who had tasted most of the world, and knew and saw more than she could ever imagine. She was nothing to him. He admitted as much when he said she’d be dead in only a fraction of his life, a hazy dream that fades. The idea stung. It made her feel small and insignificant.

  “Why would Ginger lie? How do I know you’re not lying? Maybe you just want to passion up my blood before you eat me.” Hathor once again made it to the top of the stairs. She started to run the length of the house, tripping when she bumped into an antique table. The vase of silk flowers fell to the floor in a shattering crash. Crawling up as quickly as she could, she met with Servaes’ eyes. He was in front of her. His hand reached out to touch her cheek in a gentle caress. The movement met with air as she jerked her face away.

  “Ginger was trying to seduce you with human words. She was unlucky that night in finding a suitable partner, and thought to take you as her own. But I wanted you. I laid claim to you.” Servaes tried again and succeeded in grazing her cheek with his fingernails. She jerked back, trying to go the other way. She leaped over the shards of broken glass, avoiding injury. Servaes moved to block her path again, shaking his head with a small, “tsk, tsk.”

  Servaes held back, curiously moved by her rejection. He studied her for a moment. “Let me read you. Why are you resisting?”

  Hathor shivered. “What if I don’t want it?”

  At that he laughed, his hands moving at his sides. “You cannot lie to me. I feel that you do. I can smell—”

  “I don’t want to,” she broke in. “I don’t care what you think to smell on me. I don’t want to be with you like that. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “It’s too late for that.” Servaes didn’t move, and she didn’t bother to try to run again. She knew it would do no good. If he wanted to catch her, he could have.

  “No, it’s not. Just go away,” she pleaded, growing desperate. She was scared of him, scared of what she felt, scared of what he couldn’t feel. “What do you care? You said it yourself, I’ll be dead soon anyway. I’m only human.”

  “The last time you bid me to leave, you regretted it and came after me. Tell me what you wanted from me then?”

  “To give you back that necklace. I told you that. I felt bad for my rude behavior and thought to apologize. I thought you were human.” Hathor placed her hand on the guardrail as she backed through the open section of the upstairs hall. She looked down over the side, tempted to jump, and knowing she would break her legs if she tried. She wondered if his blood would mend her.

  “You lie,” he asserted.

  “How can I want you? I don’t even know you.” Hathor moved back. Her fingers gripped tighter to the rail. She thought she might try sliding down the pole.

  Servaes’ eyes lit in amusement at the declaration. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Since she had become a part of him, he knew him as surely as she knew herself.

  “Oui, chéri, you do. You can feel me inside of you.” Servaes’ words stopped her. Her pale face watched him through the dim light. At his husky plea, she closed her eyes with a shiver. “Open up, feel me within you. All I offer is pleasure. Why would you deny yourself?”

  “I can’t. I’m frightened,” she admitted at last. “I’m frightened of how it would be. I’m frightened because I can’t trust you. I don’t know who you are, who you were. You are right though, about one thing, I do know you through your blood. But that is feelings, emotions and intense hunger. I don’t know the real you, and I refuse to want someone I don’t know.”

  “Do not be frightened, petite. Give over your mind to me. Let me read it. In doing so, you will read mine. All the answers you seek are there.” Servaes wondered suddenly why he offered such to her. He only sought to give her physical pleasure and find his own release. The mind thing he proposed was rare. Often the mortal who gained such knowledge had to be killed or enslaved.

  “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “How do I know this isn’t a trick to take over and control me?”

  “Then let me show you who I am,” Servaes murmured. He was by her ear, next to her chest. His arms wrapped slowly around her, holding her pliable body to him. His heart hammered nervously, as he whispered, “Let me show you who I was.”

  Unable to resist, Hathor nodded. He drew her in, his voice like the softened caress of a lover’s comforting hand. She closed her eyes, feeling him against the length of her. Holding her to him, he unlaced the neckline of his shirt, pulling it apart to expose his chest above his beating heart.

  “Drink,” he ordered. “Drink from my heart and see.”

  Hathor looked into the deep, vulnerable pools of his eyes. They searched her with the sadness of over three hundred years. She trailed her gaze over his handsomely pale face, to where his fingernail rested over his flesh. For a moment the sweet sound of violins strummed about them, faint, as if coming from outside. Moving his finger to his chest, he pressed his sharp nail deep into his muscle. A thin trail beaded behind the gesture, bubbling up on his skin. The darkness of his offering was a stark contrast to the ashen-hue of his flesh.

  Glan
cing up briefly to receive his nod, she lowered her mouth to him. Servaes placed his hand over her head, holding her to his chest. She heard the chanting of his voice all around her. His lips didn’t move.

  The world slowed. Time cracked and strained, stopping with the frozen beats of her heart. Licking his strong chest, she felt his muscles flex beneath her tongue. He helped her to move, urging her to take his life within her once more. Servaes moaned. Hathor gasped. And together, their minds faded into an all-consuming darkness.

  Chapter Twenty

  Palace of Versailles, Court of King Louis XIV, Versailles, France, 1682

  The bright summer sun shone over the beautiful palace gardens, which stretched out of the immense royal residence. Servants opened two wide French doors to the day. Great stone steps led down to a platform lined by intricately carved railings detailed with swirls and fleur-de-lis and supported by pillars. Beyond the platform, down curved steps, stretched a magnificent open courtyard.

  The garden was laid out in a symmetrical design, measured to perfection, with shorn grasses of the truest green, evenly placed shrubs, marble statues, and smaller fountains. The fleur-de-lis, being the armorial emblem of the kings of France, was formed in the patterns of the garden shrubs, cut to distinction in the green, even fields. In the middle of the gardens was a wide walkway, leading far into the distance to a stone building constructed on a grassy incline. Halfway to the building was a large circular fountain, spraying water high into the air.

  Noble couples strolled leisurely, spotting the gardens with their elaborate clothing. Men wore flat, saucer-like hats with wide brims, decorated with brightly drooping feathers and ribbon trim. Beneath the hats were their long periwigs, curled to the shoulders, some powdered white and others left a more natural brown. Rows of buttons, fastened only to the waist, trailed over the fronts of embroidered doublets—red and gold, blue and silver, yellows and every color in-between—hanging to mid-thigh.