by Claire Cray
Chapter 13
I awoke to the sound of crows.
My eyelids felt like they were sewn together. It took enormous effort open them just a small amount.
“What were you thinking?” Merrick asked beside me in a voice as black and heavy as iron.
“I’ve lived,” I whispered, surprised.
“You are alive, yes. After steeping over a tablespoon of wolf’s foot in an act of idiocy I cannot begin to comprehend.”
He was beside the bed. I turned my head with difficulty and found him seated on the wooden stool and looming over me. A pungent resin was burning and the smoke rose behind him like dark halo. He looked furious, and also entirely aghast.
“Were you trying to kill yourself, William?”
“No, sir,” I replied, surprised. “What is…what is wolf’s foot?”
“It is a poison. You claim to have mistaken it for thyme.” He spat the name of the herb as though he could not believe the stupidity of it. “What would compel you to such carelessness when I have warned you repeatedly of the potency of natural—”
“I’m sorry, Master Merrick,” I interrupted.
“Explain yourself,” he snapped.
My mouth felt dry again, but this time I knew it was not from poison. “Am I recovering, sir?”
“Yes. I have drained you of the poison. You will be all right by tomorrow.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I was simply trying to make tea.”
“Out of thyme?” he demanded sharply. “What was your motive, William? Do not lie to me.”
My throat was tight. My eyes felt funny. I closed them. “Master Merrick,” I whispered. “May I rest? I will explain…”
He was silent. At last he muttered his assent, and a cool cloth was laid on my forehead.
I was too tired to think, and sleep was pulling at me impatiently. There was that blessing.
Chapter 14
The trinkets above me greeted me familiarly.
I gazed at them for awhile. The room was dimly lit by a flickering candle, which meant Merrick was awake. And hearing no birds, I supposed it was night.
What I recalled in the next several minutes should have alarmed me, but it seemed I was out of alarm to spare.
Would Merrick tell me all that had transpired?
My throat tightened at another, more pressing thought:
Would he forgive me for this?
I lay for a long while before I slowly climbed out of bed. My body felt clammy and smothered in my nightshirt, and I wondered how long I’d been asleep. Cautiously, I ventured into the main room. Merrick was nowhere to be seen.
I supposed he was in the cave. It seemed to me I might have been in the cave, as well. From what I remembered, it seemed Merrick had taken me there and…
I lifted my hand to look at my wrist. There were no marks there.
Had it been a fever dream?
Or had he really bitten me, and healed the marks afterward?
I felt such dismay. There were so many puzzles to untangle, and I was so tired.
Perhaps a bath, to start. I headed outside, unsteady on my feet.
The soap and water were a relief, and I allowed myself not to think as I bathed my tired skin. I wearied sooner than I had expected, however, and had to brace my elbows on the tub and lean heavily upon it for a moment.
My heart sank when I heard Merrick enter the lean-to. I could not bring myself to open my eyes.
“You will weaken yourself,” he said gruffly. A rustling sound indicated that he was shedding his robe.
I had not the voice to speak, nor the heart to face him. When his arm encircled my waist and pulled me back against him, I let out a breath in surprise. He wore only breeches, his chest bare.
Supporting me with his muscular arms, he started where I’d left off washing my chest and continued to bathe me silently, his head next to mine.
I could not protest. In fact, though my mind was quite awake, I was so weak in body that I couldn’t stop my head from falling back to rest on Merrick’s shoulder. Nor could I feel anything beyond a relatively mundane trace of embarrassment when Merrick washed below my waist.
“Can you lean forward?” he asked quietly, and when I nodded, he gently urged me forward in order to wash my back and my legs. After he rinsed me, he laid his own robe about my shoulders and guided me to sit upon a wooden stool.
I pulled the soft material around myself as he turned away. His bare torso was impressive, smooth and strong, with elegant muscles that rippled as he moved. As I watched, he shed his breeches.
Well, there, at least one question was settled. There was nothing about Merrick that failed to impress.
And I had nearly killed myself for nothing, it seemed. The potion I’d hoped would cure my desire had not. Even in this weakened state, I yearned to reach out and trace the hard lines of his thighs, to test my grip on his muscular back.
Tears pricked my eyes and I looked away, unable to bear the sight of his Olympian body, especially the parts that…
I rose unsteadily, wanting to go inside.
“Sit down, William,” Merrick said sharply.
I could only obey, hanging my head. He had never sounded so unhappy with me.
Oh, I was a wreck.
Wearing his breeches again, he came to me and pulled me up. “Come.”
Supported on his arm, I walked into the cottage again. He deposited me on the edge of the bed and then stepped back, crossing his arms and staring at me for a long, terrible while.
“Do you need to sleep?” he asked at last.
“No, sir,” I mumbled. He was quite frightening looming over me like that, the not-human creature that, in my memory, had recently sucked my blood straight from my veins.
And yet it was not his bite I feared. No. I was terrified of his disappointment.
“You were putting on airs,” he accused at last, “When you said my nature did not offend you.”
“No!” I blurted. Desperate to forestall the interrogation, I abruptly asked. “Did you drink my blood, sir?”
“No,” he said. After a pause he added, “It was too full of poison.”
I couldn’t help looking up at him then, and cringed inwardly and looked away from his glowering face. Still, even as I stared at the floor, I pressed on. “But you would have, if not?”
“If you were not in my care, I would have.”
“Then you are a vampire.”
“Yes.”
The admission was surprisingly anticlimactic. I’d had a long time to get ready for such a revelation, after all. “Whose blood do you drink? And do you kill them?”
“Travelers, people who won’t be missed. The occasional animal, if absolutely necessary.” He paused. “Yes, I kill them. It is difficult to be satisfied if I do not.”
I thought about that for a moment, found I could not quite process it, and put it away for later. “You must travel far to find them?”
“I ride at night.”
“And what do you have in the cave?”
“Records and artifacts from other lives, and supplies for the natural magic I have practiced of late.”
“So you are a witch as well.”
“Occasionally.”
I was silent.
“Are you finally disturbed, William?” He sounded a mite bitter.
“What?” I looked up at him, blinking. “No...”
“You ought to be,” he muttered.
“You intend to harm me, sir?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to be disturbed?” I asked, a little lost. “You’ve been nothing but kind to me, Master Merrick. I’m sorry if my reaction seems odd, but I’ve never met a vampire before…and you haven’t given me cause for fear.”
He studied me closely. His face was stone, his bright golden eyes fierce and calculating, and for the first time I found it rather easy to believe that he was two hundred and eighty-two years old.
“You know very well how to prepare tea,” he said
at last, accusing.
I kept my eyes on the floor, at a loss.
“What were you trying to concoct?”
As he waited for me to answer, I found that I could not.
“William, did you mean to harm yourself?”
“No, sir.”
He paused, and when I reluctantly met his eyes, I found them hard and resolute. “You will tell me the truth or I will get it from you.”
“Then you will have to get it from me, sir,” I whispered miserably. “For I cannot speak it.”
“For God’s sake, William,” Merrick muttered, frustrated.
“I beg you, sir,” I said unsteadily without lifting my head. “Don’t send me back.”
“There is no chance of that,” he said. “But you will tell me why you mixed those herbs.”
I swallowed. It took me a moment to speak, and when I did my own voice sounded torn and desperate. “Please, Master Merrick, I’ll do anything you ask of me if you will let me stay. I cannot be sent back to the courts and—”
“I said you will not go back to those godforsaken courts!” he snapped. “Is your estimation of me so low? Do you think I would have you back in shackles and your mother on the street?”
I bit my lips, shaking my hanging head. At last I began to confess.
“I don’t know what’s come over me, sir.” I could not meet his eyes, and my voice was half-choked. “Since I came here, I feel things I’ve never felt before – on my mother’s name, I swear, never before.” I paused to collect myself, feeling my shoulders tremble. “And I can’t bear the thought of…when you’ve been so kind, to have you think ill of me, think me perverse, I…”
Merrick spoke softly. “What has this got to do with the wolf’s foot?”
“I heard you giving that girl a tea to ease her through her own…unwanted…desire, and I thought I might well try and get some of the desired effects. It was stupid, sir, I know that. But I didn’t mean to use the wolf’s foot…”
“What did you think would improve if you drank that tea?” Now he sounded truly baffled.
“I thought at least it might not get any worse,” I said, my voice retreating to a whisper. “I might prevent myself from exhausting your patience with…”
There was a terrible silence. It felt like a century before he spoke.
“You desire me, William?”
I could not force myself to speak or move in reply.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured.
“Can you help me, as you helped that girl?”
“You don’t need help.”
I looked up at him, distraught. “Don’t need help, sir? I’ve tried, each day I’ve tried to purge this…this…” I put my face in my hands again.
Merrick was looking at me with an expression somewhere between disbelief and exasperation. Slowly, he uncrossed his arms and closed the distance between us. Sinking to one knee, he put his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me, William.”
I reluctantly lowered my hands and looked into his amber eyes, finding there the tender patience I’d come to count on. A funny feeling touched my heart, perhaps a flicker of hope that he would not cast me aside, would not turn away out of disgust for my unseemly thoughts.
“I am a vampire,” Merrick said softly.
I stared at him. What did that have to do with anything?
“I ride out at night to find travelers, bite their necks, drink their blood and leave them dead.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Had you suspected this?”
“It had entered my mind as a possibility, sir.”
“And you are afraid that you offend my morals by…” He paused and raised his eyebrows, speaking the next words slowly. “Finding me desirable?”
I parted my lips to speak, but found nothing suitable to say for a moment. It did sound much more ridiculous than it felt, when he said it aloud like that. But… “I am a man, sir,” I said at last, hesitantly. “It struck me that you would find my untoward behavior...disgusting.”
“Would I have touched you that night if I found you disgusting?”
My eyes widened a notch.
“I would have thought,” he murmured, as his hands moved slowly down my arms. “That would have put you at ease somewhat.”
“I thought it was a dream,” I whispered.
The look of disbelief on his face would surely have amused me at any other time.
“I hoped it was a dream,” I added in a smaller voice.
“Then it was you who found my behavior disgusting?” His hands met my knees now, squeezed them through my night shirt, and moved up my thighs. The linen dragged a bit beneath them.
I shook my head, thoroughly disoriented. My heart was thumping in my chest.
“Suppose I enjoyed it, William?” Merrick’s hands were near my hips now, his thumbs stroking my inner thighs, and his face was closer to mine.
“Enj…” I swallowed, trying to find my voice again and failing. “Enjoyed, sir?”
He replied in a whisper. “I enjoyed it very much.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath as his fingers crept up my hips, dancing over the ridges of my stomach and spreading over my ribs. “Enjoyed it…”
I could not quite get the words to sink into my mind. I was reeling. Enjoyed it? What…the notion was so absurd it made my head swim a little, which was the last thing I needed.
“Do you find me disgusting, then?” He was so close that his breath touched my lips.
I exhaled sharply as his fingertips found my nipples. “No, s…” Drawing a shaky breath, afraid to move lest I – what? Encourage him? Discourage him? – It was hard to keep my wits about me as he teased those inexplicably sensitive little peaks until they were stiff and aching for something more.
“No?” His lips touched my cheek then, moving there with the softest touch, less a kiss than the suggestion of one. One of his hands moved from my chest to my neck, slipping around to the back of my head and gently twining his fingers in my hair. His mouth moved closer to mine then, moving softly against the corner of my lips as he breathed his next words. “Do you desire me still, William?”
I suddenly realized that my breath had deepened, my chest rising and falling in slow heaves, and my heart was pounding beneath the fingers that continued to tease and stroke me there. My head would have fallen back if not for the hand that cradled it, so stunned I was by this turn of events, so dizzy I was from the hunger that he stoked with his caresses.
I could not answer him. I could not…
“Or are you still intent on purging this desire?” His lips brushed over mine, tantalizingly close.
I felt a rush of breath leave my own lips, and it might have been either of us who sealed up the space between us.
I devoured his kiss as hungrily as he crushed his lips to mine, and when I heard his soft groan of pleasure I could not stop myself from reaching up and plunging my fingers into his hair.
It was as soft and silky as I had imagined, just like his lips; and the clean taste of him was more thrilling than I could have conceived. His hands moved restlessly over me, lighting my nerves up wherever they touched.
Nothing could have prepared me for how it felt to melt against him like this. It was as though my body had found its true purpose, and that was to be caught in Merrick’s arms and consumed.
I gasped when the kiss was broken, opening my eyes to find his perfect face still close to mine, his golden eyes turned fiery with lust and moving appreciatively over me. He was kneeling between my legs, and I had slipped to the very edge of the bed to get closer to him. My nightshirt was rumpled about my lap, nearly exposing me.
Merrick’s eyes met mine and locked me in their gaze. “Have I put your mind at ease?” He ran his thumb gently over my lips and then kissed me again, firmly and briefly this time.
“Yes,” I whispered. My hands were still molded to his shoulders.
“You have to rest.” He gently removed my arms as he rose to his feet.
<
br /> It was terrible to feel him pulling away, and I didn’t know how to keep the dismay off of my face. My senses were returning to me, however, and as I realized the full weight of what had just transpired I felt my cheeks grow hot and my eyes widen in belated disbelief.
“I have to leave you for awhile tonight.”
God, he was beautiful. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him as he was stood over me bare-chested like that, with his hair a bit tousled (from my fingers!). But the thought of him leaving was a gloomy one.
A trace of a smile touched his lips. “Lie down. I’ll bring you some tea.”
I did as he asked, slipping under the blanket and listening to him move through the kitchen.
Was I still delirious?
Or perhaps I’d died?
Merrick returned with a steaming cup of tea in one hand and a pitcher in the other. He set the pitcher upon the nightstand and sat beside me on the bed. “Sit up and drink this down. It will help you rest well, and reinvigorate your body.”
My body felt fairly invigorated, but I did as he asked. The tea tasted pleasantly of chamomile and ginseng.
“Drink as much water as you can.”
I nodded, unable to look at him.
When my cup was empty, he took it from my hand and set it on the stool. “Are you all right, William?”
My answer came surprisingly easily, and sounded quite calm. I supposed I was in shock. “I’m very confused.”
“That is understandable. Why don’t you lie down and rest?”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes. I have not been out in a while.”
Vampire. Right.
Of course.
My eyelids were growing heavy, and I lay down at last. How shocked would I be when I’d finally escaped this fatigue?
“Sleep well, William.”
Chapter 15
A large meal awaited me in the kitchen. It was already afternoon, and Merrick was at the table trimming roots over a basket. The shutters were cracked to let in the daylight and he was wearing his hood.
“Good morning, William. I hope you’ve rested well. Eat heartily.”
“I have, sir. Thank you.” There was ham, venison, eggs, potato, bread, and something that looked uncannily like fruit pies. My stomach didn’t just growl, it snarled. I poured myself some tea and sat down.
