* * * *
Rillan had been holding back the hunger for days. His indecision was annoying him again. Over the past couple months, he watched Mira visit the library a couple times, but she mostly remained in her own rooms.
Rillan was pleased. She wasn’t wallowing in her own misery, as he tended to do. Still, the small pleasure he took from that was like adding more salt to the wound which had opened in his soul since she arrived. It was constant and nagging. He wanted to be near her, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that she could ever be what she seemed. Then his mind would drift to Elizabeth again, and he would become angry. The continual shifting from sad longing to irate anger had him tired from the inside out. The only real decision he made about the situation was that she at least deserved some amount of consistency in his behavior. So, until he could figure out which way to go, he was keeping his distance. After a great deal of debate, he decided on a solid middle ground for his emotional state and chose to warn her that he would be coming for her again in the near future.
Walking down the hall, he heard it start, softly. The notes were sad and slow. He could almost feel the loneliness in the tune, as it slipped through the cracks in the stone and filled the dark hallway. She had been practicing.
Mira immersed herself in the pages of the books she found on music. It didn’t take very long to master the scales, considering she spent all day, every day practicing. She soon found the line in the book which said music was only variations on the scales. It was as though something clicked into place in her mind. Suddenly the music poured out of the little tin whistle.
First she tried playing happy songs and imitating the ones she heard at solstice or in the market. She remembered songs played by old men with beards, accompanied by fiddles and sometimes dancers. Unfortunately, the happiness needed for playing those was simply not in her. The soft lullabies she remembered from her childhood followed, and from there she began playing with the notes on her own. The songs that she found herself playing were low and slow. They started from inside her chest and flowed out the tin whistle, causing the candlelight to dance the shadows around her in time with the soft sounds. She had no idea how far the stone walls of the cave carried the music.
Rillan stood outside her doorway listening and breathing. He closed his eyes and let the sound pass over him. Even as sad as it was, the music was beautiful. How could something that comes from her be anything but beautiful, he thought. After a few moments, he finally knocked loudly on the door. The abrupt stop to the music was almost painful. He knocked again.
Mira wasn’t sure she heard right at first. It had been so long since noise came from anything other than herself. When the knock came again, she set down the whistle and leaned over the edge of her bed to look down her hallway at the main door so far away. Uncertainly she called, “Come in.”
Rillan didn’t know if the tone in her voice was fear of letting him in or confusion for his presence. He opened the door and walked down the hall, not realizing how much the music softened his features.
Mira stood as Rillan approached and watched him coming toward her. He noticed that she looked concerned, but not upset. The bruise their last encounter left her with was completely gone. His dark blue eyes met her soft brown, and he almost looked away. It was still strange and unsettling to him. After all this time and the realization that he was unlikely to break her spirit, even if he tried, her strength still baffled him.
Rillan cleared his throat, as he realized he was staring at her. “Why don’t you play something happy,” he asked to break the silence.
“I’ve tried,” she said softly. “Those don’t seem to come out right. I need more practice. Is that why you’re here? I didn’t realize you could hear it outside my rooms,” she blushed, as she realized he could have been listening all this time. “I’m not very good. I can close more doors and play more quietly,” she said quickly.
The blush across her chest was a tempting target for him. Though Rillan was sorry he had embarrassed her, he took great pleasure in the sweet way she reacted. “No. That’s not why I came. And I enjoyed listening. I wouldn’t want you to stop. It’s a much more pleasant sound than silence. There has been too much of that of late,” he sighed.
Even as he spoke, he could hear her heartbeat and almost see the pulse of blood running through her warm body. Rillan closed his eyes, and he could smell the rose scented water of her bath, mixed with her own scent on her skin. Mira watched his eyes open, and the black of his pupils bled tellingly into the dark blue irises, and then out into the white until his eyes were solid black in their sockets, giving his face the demon appearance that sent chills over her skin.
“You’re hungry,” she breathed.
Rillan watched her hug herself, as she said it. The movement was subconscious and spoke volumes of her total lack of desire to experience that again. Even so, neither her gaze nor her voice wavered at the certainty of the statement. She was amazing to him. Smart enough to know that it was not something she wanted to do, but she accepted it and was sensibly afraid of it. She gave the appearance of someone facing down an approaching storm and knowing there was nowhere to run. He nodded.
“Now,” she asked in a quiet but certain tone.
“Soon,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to be now. I’ve only come to warn you.”
Mira’s eyes shifted to the walls and then the ceiling. “Last time you said it would be worse the longer you waited, and when I came to you it was still not so bad as it could have been.”
Rillan nodded at the statement. She was weighing her choices with a logic he admired.
“How bad has it gotten now? I mean in comparison to what it was last time,” she asked with concern.
He sighed heavily. Rillan had yet to admit to her that he took it too far the last time, and normally it would never be that bad. “I’m not as far gone as I was,” he replied, trying and failing to sound reassuring.
“Alright,” Mira said haltingly. “I guess if I have any choice in this, then I would prefer that it be done sooner rather than later. I don’t mean to be insulting,” she added quickly. “It’s only… the after effects are not very pleasant.”
Rillan smiled at her phrasing, and the look of distaste that crossed her face. “I’ll be in my rooms. Come to me when you like,” he said. “I take no offense at things that are fact.” With that he turned away from her and walked back down the hall toward the door.
Once he was outside, he stood and waited to see if she would start playing again. After a short time, he heard the song start, low at first and then gaining in volume. For the next few hours, he stood against the wall outside her room and listened to the sad sweet music. It was as though she was singing to him in the darkness and knew the exact notes it would take to reach into him.
Getting herself cleaned up and lighting a lantern to take with her down the hall, Mira wondered what time of day or night it may be. She lost track long ago. There was no way of telling how much time passed, without seeing the sun rise and set.
Mira waited until she was so tired that she was almost falling asleep sitting up. She hoped that if she was tired enough, then she wouldn’t stay conscious as long as she did the last time. As she walked down the hall, she considered asking Rillan for something to tell time with.
Rillan’s door was closed when she reached it, and she knocked loudly, setting the lantern down next to the door. Almost instantly, he called for her to enter. The cold metal latch clicked open, and the door swung slowly. Mira crept down the tunnel toward Rillan’s bedroom. Stepping inside, her eyes instantly went to the closed door over the shaft that led to the sky.
“It’s not yet sunset,” Rillan said.
Mira flinched at his voice. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know he was there somewhere, but she hadn’t actually noticed him when she entered. He was standing next to his fireplace, staring into the flames. Shadows darkened his features and made him seem more menacing.
“When the sun ca
n no longer reach it, I’ll open it. Not before.”
Mira nodded quickly, but remained silent. She was very tired and was afraid of how he would react to any continued conversation about the shaft. He didn’t seem upset at the moment, even so she wasn’t willing to risk it. “I suppose then I should get ready,” she suggested and yawned.
Rillan was amazed. Her voice didn’t waver a bit. He was strangely pleased by the yawn. In a way, it was a compliment. Generally frightened people don’t find time for yawning. “You look tired,” he said gently.
Mira blushed. “I suppose a little.” Her heart started racing a bit. Would he be angry if he knew she had planned it that way? She was trying to read his face, but the shadows obscured any clue to his mood. “Why do you always keep it so dark?”
Rillan looked around. “I don’t need light to see the way you do. Darkness doesn’t bother me.”
Mira nodded. She knew that. “Well,” she started uncertainly.
“Are you truly in such a hurry,” he asked. He wasn’t sure how to take this.
“Not a hurry exactly, just… I don’t know.” Her eyes fell on the door to the shaft again.
Rillan watched Mira do her best to look everywhere else. You simply don’t belong down here, beautiful, he thought sadly. “Mira,” he asked seriously. “Why are you here?”
She looked up at him in confusion. “Because you said—“
“No,” he interrupted. “Why did you choose to be a sacrifice? Why did you choose this life?”
Mira stared at the shadowy figure in front of the fireplace. She didn’t want to answer that. There were too many sad memories there. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” he responded in an authoritative tone that bit into her. “I need to know why you chose this.”
A long pause filled the space between them, while she tried to find a way around the question. There was no point in lying. The only reason she didn’t want to talk about it was because she didn’t like talking about it. She didn’t think it made a difference. “You killed the man who killed my father.”
Rillan wasn’t sure he wanted to know who or when. If she felt like she owed him something, that could explain a lot. “I do my assignments. I didn’t kill anyone for you, Mira.”
She shook her head. “I never said that. I didn’t have anyone left after he died. I volunteered for this because it gave me a purpose.”
“Purpose,” he echoed quietly, and then turned back toward the fire. He could certainly understand that. “Far be it for me to impede someone in their purpose. Take your clothes off Mira.”
He didn’t watch. He listened, as soft swishing sounds told him that she was complying with his order. Rillan had been longing to take her again since that first night. It felt like ages since any woman responded to him the way that she did. Mira found him terrifying when he turned. He had no delusions about that. She forced herself to bottle the fear well enough that she responded to his touch with something other than fear. She would never know how much that meant to him. When the room went silent except for the crackling noise of the fire, Rillan finally turned around.
Mira had her eyes closed. She was waiting for him to descend upon her, fangs protruding from a mouth too large for his face and black coal eyes sunk deep into shadowed sockets. The image in her mind started her heart racing and she waited.
Rillan stepped up to her. Mira’s chest was expanding and contracting with labored breaths and he watched her breasts rise and fall with the effort. He could guess what she was thinking. Leaning in close to her, he breathed in the scent of her hair, his breath on her cheek making her flinch. She hadn’t realized that he was so close.
Mira’s heart pounded in her ears. The vision in her mind grew progressively worse. She imagined his thin pale lips curled back from his fangs, his ears set farther back on his head and his skin almost translucent white pulled tight over his sharply angled cheeks and jaw. His voice startled her.
“I know that your racing pulse has nothing to do with wanting me right now,” he said gently. He reached up and stroked her cheek. “In truth, I’m no better than your teachers. I gave you a foul impression of me.” He leaned down and lifted a handful of hair to his face. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t have to be like that. I’ve rarely done this Mira, but I’ll give you a choice.”
Mira’s brow had furrowed, and she appeared confused, her eyes still squeezed shut.
“Look at me. I haven’t changed.”
She opened her eyes and found that he was only inches from her. Rillan’s dark blue eyes bored into hers. Mira almost forgot that she was naked until his gaze shifted. She blushed a deep red that only worsened as he smiled. “What,” she asked, as she cleared her throat, desperately wanting something to cool her heated embarrassment.
Rillan’s eyes met hers again, and he reached up to cup one breast in a cold calloused hand. Mira shivered as his frozen digits closed around her soft mound and gently squeezed. He circled her nipple with his thumb and licked his lips, anticipating the feel of the firm nub in his mouth.
“In the past,” he said, and his eyes dropped to the breast he was fondling, “most of the girls who have come here have wanted as little contact with me as possible. So I waited as long as I could, before I went to them. You, however, seem to be capable of dealing with me better than the others have been. So I give you the choice. I need the same amount of blood no matter when I take it. I can either come to you and drain you near death once and a while, or I can come to you and take small amounts more often. You wouldn’t feel the kind of pain and sickness as you did before, but you would have to lie with me more frequently.” As he finished the suggestion, his eyes nervously returned to hers. He had never wanted to read anyone’s thoughts before. She was so strange to him.
“I don’t understand why anyone would choose pain and sickness, over time with you.” Mira felt his thumb and finger pinch her nipple. This time her racing heartbeat had nothing to do with fear. Mira momentarily lost track of what she had intended to say. “Uh,” she looked into his dark blue eyes. “How often would you need to…” Mira’s voice trailed off as his other chilled hand began to slide along her hip. He stepped closer, bringing his mouth so near hers that she could feel his breath on her lips.
Rillan smiled as a little whimper involuntarily escaped her mouth. He neglected to tell her that he had been too annoyed with most of the other girls to bother with little pleasantries like this. They were all so frightened of him that it made him feel as though he was raping them. With the others, more often than not, he took their blood and left their bodies alone. He couldn’t help himself with Mira though. He almost felt alive when his touch was able to cause her such obvious pleasure.
Rillan nudged her nose with his own, repositioning her face so that he could kiss her, but he only teased her with his lips, coming close and not quite touching her. To his delight, Mira’s hands snaked up into his hair, stopping his game and bringing his lips to hers. She felt the strange cold of his skin as her lips pressed against his. Heat flooded into his body from hers. Rillan pressed his tongue along her lips, and she parted them, allowing him to taste her mouth.
He rolled her nipple between his thumb and finger, and a soft moan bled into his mouth, stopping the kiss. Rillan lifted his head and looked down into her eyes, answering her nearly forgotten question. “The more often I feed the less I need to take and the less sick you will feel from the experience. I leave the choice of timing to you. Come to me when you’re willing. But know that if you don’t come to me, I will eventually come find you.”
Mira nodded, not really caring at this point what the rules were. She only wanted him to keep touching her. She had never known anything like this in her life, and she wished that this part would never end, as much as she hoped the feeding would never come. Is his touch worth the price of it?
Her obvious compliance only confused Rillan. He wasn’t sure if she was insane, masochistic, or so empathetic that it didn’t matter. He couldn’t make himself
believe the later. In truth, in this moment he didn’t care so much about the why. He hadn’t been with a compliant woman in so long; whatever her reasons were, they were good enough for the now. Besides, the conversation would serve as a decent reason to spend time with her later.
Cold hands slid across Mira’s heated skin, and goose bumps broke out along her flesh. Rillan leaned in to her and closed his eyes. Her hands were on his shoulders, and he pulled her body against his own, reveling in the warmth of her, even through his clothes. Rillan stroked down her back. His fingers danced over the goose bumps, as Mira shivered. Her breath was coming in heavy waves, and her little hands had fisted in his shirt. When he looked to her face again her eyes were closed, and her head had lulled back across her shoulder, exposing the pale line of her neck to him.
Everything in existence momentarily melted away. Rillan leaned down and kissed her neck, tasting her skin and taking in the scent of her arousal. A soft seductive beating just beneath the surface tantalized him. Rillan felt the hunger roll in his stomach and surge through his dead body, as certainly as he felt her heartbeat pounding in her chest pressed against his. Before he could lose his control he pushed her away.
Rillan paced across the room. Mira’s look of disappointed confusion was not lost on him as he stood near the fire. He laughed, almost manic as he stared into the flames eating away at the wood in the fireplace.
“Did I do something wrong,” she asked timidly.
“No,” he growled. “Get into the bed Mira.” He could hear her moving to comply with the overly harsh demand.
Rillan didn’t even look up at her. He knew full well that his eyes would frighten her. He was about to lose the fight with his hunger. He had waited too long. This one deserves better, his mind chanted. “Close your eyes Mira,” he said almost too softly for her to hear. “Don’t open them.”
Mira Page 7
