by Kallysten
Chapter 14
The latch clicked softly as the door closed on Grace. Ray had heard that sound dozens, hundreds of times; it had never seemed so final.
"Anything you want to tell me, Childe?” Keller asked, his voice deceptively mild. He had held his temper in front of Grace, but his scent did not lie, and anger dominated it.
"No, Sire."
Quick steps took Keller away; by the sound of it, he went to the bedroom. Ray knew better than to look or move. He'd been ordered to his knees, and until Keller said otherwise, he had better stay where he was. He should have known better, also, than to antagonize Keller in front of someone, but that hadn't stopped him earlier. He'd been hoping for a word from Grace, a gesture, anything that would acknowledge he had been supposed to play with her that night. Although he supposed he had put an end to that when he had refused to let her in. He didn't know anymore which of them he had intended to protect by keeping them apart; or maybe he had been trying to protect himself.
"What should I be more concerned about?” Keller came back and stood in front of Ray. A page from his drawing pad fell to the floor between them. It was Keller's ruined portrait. “That my face looks like you took a knife to it, or—” The sound of paper being torn off a spiral filled the room before a second page fell on top of the first. “—that hers is perfect?"
Ray's eyes detailed the drawing in front of him. It wasn't perfect, far from it. Grace's hair needed refining, her dress seemed too stiff, the umbrella in her hand was unfinished. Nevertheless, he could see Keller's point.
"It was an accident,” he said calmly, although he felt anything but calm. “My pencil slipped—"
"Your pencil slipped and happened to draw a Special Enforcer, yes."
The notepad joined the two drawings on the floor, falling open upside down so that a page was creased. Ray flinched. His fists tightened at the small of his back. The urge to pick up the pad and fold it correctly was almost too strong to control. Keller knew exactly how much his drawings meant to him; this was punishment, pure, simple, and crueler than blows.
"The very same Special Enforcer who happens to drop by unannounced, dressed in an outfit more suitable for a visit to Carte Blanche than for her line of work. Look at me."
Ray raised his head, although he was unable to meet his Sire's eyes. He wasn't ready to deal with the disappointment he knew was there, not after he had seen the same thing on Grace's face.
"You dressed up for her, didn't you? The make up, the subbie look ... You've been playing with that woman."
Ray couldn't miss the surprise in Keller's voice. For the first time, he regretted not having told him, that first night, when he had come back from Carte Blanche with Mistress Red's words in his mind and the pain she had offered him still coursing through his body.
"I did. I have."
"Was it before or after you knew she was looking for me as a murder suspect?"
At that, Ray's eyes found Keller's. He didn't want Keller to think he had betrayed him, not when Grace had clearly thought that very same thing.
"Before,” he said, putting all the strength he dared in that simple word. “And when I found out, I tried to steer her away from you."
Keller looked nonplussed. “You did? How?"
"I ... I gave her partner a drawing of Stephen and said it was you."
Laughter burst out of Keller's throat, loud and deep, and somehow reassuring. The sound slid over Ray like a balm. If Keller was amused, then maybe he hadn't messed up as badly as he'd thought.
"You know,” Keller said when he had calmed down, “you being jealous of my other Childer was amusing the first couple of days. It has only become annoying since."
There hadn't been a question in there, and Ray found himself unable to explain himself, unable to say he wasn't jealous, just lonely. He tried to put it in the look he gave Keller, but already he was walking away, back to the bedroom. For a few minutes, all Ray could do was listen to drawers being pulled open and wonder what Keller was looking for. Finally, the call he had been waiting for came—"Get in here."—and he almost sighed in relief. When at his most angry, Keller's best weapon was to ignore Ray; he was extremely good at it.
Ray did not even think of getting to his feet. He crawled to the bedroom on all fours, rehearsing in his head the apology he would be asked for, eventually. When he entered the room, however, the first thing he saw was one of Keller's suitcases standing by the bed, the top bulging. The matching one lay open on the bed, and Keller was placing a pair of pants inside.
"Tell me about the girl,” he said without looking at Ray. “Start from the beginning."
Ray needed a few seconds to find his words. Keller never stopped packing.
"The night ... the night I asked for your permission to play,” he said at last, “she showed up at Carte Blanche. I ... I made her play with me—"
"You made her play?” Keller interrupted, throwing Ray a frown. “I was under the impression she was a Domme."
"She is. I...” Ray remembered, as though it had just happened, how Mistress Red had told him she'd let Keller deal with the rudeness he had not had permission for. “I was rude to her, publicly. It was her first night at the club."
Keller chuckled. “You made her play,” he repeated. “Always so clever when you really want something.” Abandoning the dresser he had been emptying, he came to sit on the edge of the bed just three feet in front of Ray. “Why did you want her that badly anyway?"
Taking a chance, Ray shuffled forward until he was just inches from Keller. He held his eyes the entire time. He couldn't see any anger left in them. He couldn't see any emotion at all.
"You'd been gone three days,” he murmured. “And we hadn't played for more than a week before that."
Whatever Keller thought of that answer, he didn't let it show on his face.
"So you played with her. And you didn't tell me when I asked what you'd been up to.” He raised a hand, stopping Ray before he could explain himself. “When did you find out she was a S.E.?"
"The next morning. She and her partner barged in here looking for you."
Keller snorted. “That must have been quite a shock. Why didn't you give them my number?"
"I...” Ray blinked, taken aback by the way Keller jumped around topics. “I didn't think about it. It all went very fast."
"I'm sure. Did you play with her again after that?"
With each question, Ray was becoming more and more uncomfortable. This quiet, hands off interrogation wasn't like the Keller he knew. There should have been fire in his eyes and anger in his scent, not this cross between amusement and indifference. Something was going wrong, so very wrong, and Ray didn't know how to fix it any more than he had known what to tell Grace earlier. All he knew was that refusing to answer now could only make things worse.
"We played that night. At ... at the club. I—"
"The club you didn't ask permission to return to,” Keller commented. “Go ahead."
A desperate pleading crept into Ray's voice. “I wanted to get information from her so I could protect you."
"Really. And yet I have this feeling it didn't quite go like that. She asked you about me, didn't she?"
"Yes, but I didn't say anything."
"Why not?"
Ray was surprised that he didn't know. Even Mistress Red had understood. “Because you're my Sire."
The faintest smile appeared on Keller's lips. “I am, yes. Your Sire and Master. And yet you lied to me, disobeyed my orders and didn't tell me I was being investigated. I could have cleared my name right away. Did that even occur to you?"
Ray's mouth opened, but no sound came out. For the first time since he had come closer, he broke eye contact, dropping his gaze to the carpet in front of him, whose patterns he knew so well he could have drawn them from memory. Keller forced his head back up with a single finger beneath his chin. He looked, and sounded, stunned.
"You thought I had done it? Why?"
All of Ray's hopes an
d fears resurfaced. He didn't want to answer, but at the same time confirmation that his theory had not been too far-fetched would have been nice. “I didn't. I ... I just ... wondered. You were mad at her after she played with me, so I thought maybe..."
His voice trailed off when Keller stood abruptly and returned to his packing and Ray wondered what that meant. Had he guessed right? Was Keller embarrassed that he had figured it out? Was he worried because he had lied to Grace?
"I don't kill.” The words slipped under Ray's skin like an icy blade. “Not even when I make a mistake and get you hurt. I despised her, I wanted to kick her ass, but I didn't kill her."
Ray had no idea how to respond to those words, or to the trace of regret he thought he guessed behind them. What did Keller regret, exactly? He didn't dare ask.
Minutes passed in near silence. Ray watched as his Sire finished packing, and tried to understand what was going on. As much as he tried, he didn't, and the clicking sound of the suitcase being shut almost startled him.
"You played with her in this room, didn't you?” Keller asked out of the blue. “You fucked her in my bedroom. In my bed.” He snorted. “Were you going to do that tonight again? Should I feel sorry I ruined your plans? She didn't look too happy with you. I guess that makes two of us."
Ray didn't know if he was supposed to answer any of those questions, but he needed to say something to explain or apologize; he wasn't sure which. Keller didn't let him do either.
"Sire—"
"Be quiet, Childe.” He came back to the bed and sat down in front of Ray again, grabbing his face with both hands. “I'm moving to California for a while. I came back for three things. My clothes, my car, and you. Guess which one I'm leaving behind?"
The world started tilting around Ray. Without thinking, he brought both hands in front of him to cling to Keller's hands so he wouldn't fall. “Sire, please—"
"The rent is paid for the next year,” Keller continued, still as calm. “You don't need to worry about the utilities or the club fees, those are taken care of as well. You can keep using my credit card for the rest."
"Sire,” Ray tried again, but Keller ignored him.
"You are not to call me. I might call you. Or maybe I won't. If I haven't come back for you in one year, you're allowed to come and try to find me. If you come before that, don't expect me to even acknowledge your existence."
Surely, this was a joke. A test. A punishment. Keller couldn't possibly mean that. The fear of being left alone tore at Ray's mind and body. He was shaking, and his fingernails were digging in Keller's wrists so hard the scent of blood rose between them. “Sire, I'm sorry, I promise..."
Keller slowly, gently let go of Ray's face and freed his hands. “Save it for your Mistress, Ray. You're going to need it."
Moments later, the door was clicking shut for the second time that night. The sound was almost a signal, allowing Ray to break out of position. He did so without the fear that Keller might return and chastise him for moving; Keller wasn't coming back, or at least not anytime soon.
Mind blank but aching, he lay down on the floor, arms spread out on each side of him, and stared until he thought he could see each stroke of the paint roller on the off-white ceiling—each flaw in the paint job. With the clarity of hindsight, he could move back in time and find each of his mistakes just as easily.
He remembered his certainty, eight years earlier, that having a Sire would mean never being alone again. He'd been so relieved at never having to explain to anyone else that, if he wanted to give them entire control over him, it wasn't because he was sick or twisted, it was just the only way he could feel safe, warm, and loved.
He also remembered meeting Keller's other Childer, and being sure that he was different, that Keller would never tire of him just as he would never tire of Keller. He had made the vow then to be the best Childe a Sire might want, along with the best submissive a Master might need. He had never imagined it wouldn't be enough, but he had realized, as years passed, that it wasn't—for himself, it wasn't. He wanted and needed more than a Sire and Master. He wanted a lover, too, in all senses of the word, and while Keller could be sensuality incarnate, passion and love seemed foreign to him. Ray had hoped he was just really good at hiding his feelings. He had refused to see what now was blinding him. Keller was who he was, and no one, not even Ray, could change him.
On the canvas of his life, small incidents, looks, words were like many brushstrokes forming a simple, predictable picture. Keller had left. Maybe he wouldn't have left so soon if Ray hadn't lied to him over the phone, but he would have left some day. It might not have been any more difficult to bear than it was now, but it wouldn't have been any easier either.
If he had any regret, it was that he had ruined whatever had been happening with Grace by trying to protect Keller. At the very least, he decided he owed her an apology, and if she would listen, an explanation. It would probably only be a couple more strokes on another painting, smaller but strangely just as painful as the other one.
Hours had passed when he finally got up from the floor, feeling disorientated and sore. Before anything else, he walked to the living room and picked up his notepad and the two loose sheets, smoothing the pages as he brought them back to the bedroom. Standing by the desk, he flipped through the pages. A drawing was missing, one of his oldest ones, a self portrait whose clumsy lines he had never liked but had never been able to improve either. He couldn't begin to understand why Keller might have taken it.
A shower did little to warm him even if he stayed under the scalding spray until the water turned cold. Still wrapped in a bathrobe, he returned to the desk, opened the notepad to a new page and started drawing. He didn't let himself think about the images his mind and hand were creating, or why these memories were resurfacing rather than others. He just drew, fast, sometimes not very well, getting bored with each drawing before he completed it, until he had gone through seven pages and his fingers cramped painfully around his pencil. His eyes hurt from being focused on the paper for so long. When he put down the pencil, he realized with some surprise that it was almost the middle of the morning.
Both Keller's scent and Grace's still lingered in the bedroom, but he was exhausted enough that he managed to find sleep almost as soon as he lay down on the bed. Thankfully, he did not dream.
At sunset the next evening he walked out of the building in his street clothes. A taxi was waiting for him. Despite his better judgment, he had the driver stop in front of a flower shop for a few moments before he indicated the way to Grace's apartment. A peek at the mailboxes told him she lived on the third floor. He rehearsed what he would say on his way up the stairs, all too aware that he would only get seconds, if even that, before she slammed the door in his face or shoved a stake through his heart.
He took a breath as deep as it was unneeded as he stood on the threshold, and knocked twice. He could hear steps behind the door and got ready. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the child standing beyond the open door and looking at him with a small frown.
"Are you my mom's boyfriend?"
Chapter 15
The car behind Grace honked. She jumped, startled, and drove through the intersection when she realized the light was green. She had just dropped Laura at school and, without someone needing her immediate attention right then and there, she found herself drifting back to what had happened the previous night. She wished she could put the entire episode behind her as easily as she had taken Owens’ name off the suspects list, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't help feeling betrayed still.
She had tried telling herself that she shouldn't have expected anything else from Ray. After all, it had been all too clear from the start how protective he was of his Sire. She should have been more suspicious that he had volunteered to give her and Hugo a portrait of Owens after he had been so reluctant to give them a simple description. She should have guessed, also, that asked to choose between Owens and her, he wouldn't hesitate. The truly surpr
ising thing was that she had deluded herself into thinking it had been more than playing for him. From there, it hadn't taken her long to realize she had wanted it to be more than playing. She should have known better, both as a Special Enforcer and as a woman.
Her mother had been discreet and had refrained from demanding details, for which Grace was grateful. Nonetheless, she had asked, when she left, whether it was over for good or whether things could get fixed between her and her ‘gentleman friend,’ as Caroline called him. Grace had wanted to say it was over. She wanted to believe it was. Still, she had found herself unable to say the words, and had needed to resort to a vague “I don't know” that had made her mother smile a little sadly and had left her with an unsettling feeling of restlessness.
Chasing from her mind the image of Ray kneeling at his Sire's feet, she glanced at her agenda on the passenger seat where she had noted Spencer Nihls’ address. She was on the right street in one of Blackwood Falls’ most affluent neighborhoods. She only needed to find the right house—or as it turned out, the right mansion. She drove up the private brick-paved road, and tall evergreens blocked her view of the house until a slight bend in the road. They also hid an unmarked police car with a warning light on the roof and the medical examiner's van in front of the house.
Puzzled but already getting a bad feeling, Grace parked next to the van and proceeded up the path that wove through the manicured lawn to the front door. Her badge in one hand, she knocked on the door and waited only moments before a woman came to open it. She was maybe in her fifties, dressed in a housecoat, with her graying hair in disarray. Her eyes were red and puffy; she dabbed at them with a handkerchief as she looked at Grace.
"Hello ma'am. My name is Grace Alkins. I'm a Special Enforcer and—"
The woman let out a sob and stepped aside, motioning for Grace to come in. “The police ... they said you'd come. They also said you'd do a spell on the house to chase the vampires away.” She gripped Grace's arms with her right hand, her eyes suddenly wide and almost panicked. “You can do it, right? I don't think I can stay in here if—"
