Chapter Two #2
“My dear, is the food not to your liking?” the Count leaned in and covered her hand with his. He gave her a light squeeze. His whole face was alight with love and kindness that for a moment Dulior allowed herself to love him back.
“It is, husband,” she nodded and lifted the fork with her free hand.
Rorgon had tried to teach Dulior the devices in this devilish game of mimicry; to be an echo of the woman she once was, not the daemon wearing her face.
How to dine on food she could no longer chew and swallow, how to sip from cups she filled for her husbands but never herself.
She had never mastered the pretence of eating, disliking the ugliness of lifting morsels to her lips or tearing bread only to toss it under the table.
“But tell me more of Lombardia. You promised you would take me there.”
“Ah, yes,” the Count smiled, already overcome with emotion at the memory of his homeland. He snapped his fingers and a servant brought a flagon of red wine. The servant refilled her glass first, then her husband’s and last her master’s.
Gustave di Flaviari took a long sip and smacked his lips in approval.
Neither daemon moved to mimic his drinking.
They watched, unblinking, as he fell into a songlike account of his travels to Italia.
One day he would take her there, so she could bask in the sun and feast on sweet wines and local delicacies.
Her current husband was a tentative lover, patient when the Countess did not wish to venture outside during the day.
Her fragile health did not allow her to travel far and the sunlight hurt her eyes.
She would rather spend the days indoors tending to his household until it was nightfall and they could walk together through Paris.
Gustave arranged carriages and servants to take her to balls and galleries.
He counted the days until he could take her to the court and see her wear a dress worthy of her station among the other ladies.
Despite keeping a room with them, Rorgon spent little time in the mansion.
As in the past, he disappeared for days at a time, but Dulior no longer relied on him to feed her.
A daemon’s instincts had taken root and she had begun to hunt alone.
Desperate for the blood of sucklings, she was distraught to discover that infants were hard to find and even harder to take without drawing suspicion.
Feeding quickly became a chore; something she both craved and resented.
The children she came across on the streets were too old, too dirty.
She needed something smaller, innocent, still carrying the scent of its mother’s milk.
Finally, defeated by hunger, she extended her palate to adults.
In a city as big as Paris it was easy to leave their emptied bodies on the cobblestones and resume her evening stroll.
She would drain two, sometimes three a night.
They did not taste as sweet and savoury as the children.
Nor could they quench the thirst. And yet, the more she drank, the stronger she became.
Within a fortnight, she discovered she could now lift the heavy stone benches in the garden.
If she concentrated hard enough, she could hear her servants talking on the different levels of the house.
Once she even glimpsed inside their minds, startled by the uncontrolled volley of thoughts.
Dulior would ask a maid a question and listen as the girl’s mind galloped across the day’s activities before it arrived at the task her mistress quizzed her on.
She listened and pried into the people around her, lost in a symphony only she could hear.
No matter how hard she concentrated, Dulior could not hear Rorgon’s thoughts. He would sit and talk with her husband at dinner, and her husband’s mind overflowed and drowned her, but her maker’s remained locked; that silence made her uncomfortable.
“Why can’t I?” Dulior had asked, her patience worn thin.
Her master looked up from the letters he had fished out of Gustave’s drawer.
He was searching for a seal, a letter of introduction of some sort.
He did not bother explaining himself to her.
Why would he anyway, she was nothing more than a flower meant to be plucked by any man he deemed worthy of her dark petals.
“Daemons cannot read the minds of those who made us. The Blood is too thick,” he had answered.
“But can you read mine or not? Does it work both ways?” Dulior could barely hold her excitement. She needed to be sure. If she was locked outside his head, and if the same was true for him, then her secrets and desires were hers and hers alone.
“Why?” Rorgon finally turned, an expression of distaste contorting his face. He threw the letters on the desk and took a step. Suddenly he was right beside her, pressing his body against hers. He had always been faster and stronger than her, even after he had turned her.
His hand grabbed her face and twisted it up so she would look at him. The fingers of his other hand combed across her loose curls and yanked her head back, forcing her to bare her throat. She flattened her palms against his chest and tried to push him away.
Rorgon remained unmoved.
“Is my darling bride plotting something?” he purred. From the moment he had dragged her in that dirty hole, he called her his bride, as if he had not moulded her to be the wife of other men. Men of his choosing.
“No, I—”
“I told you… I warned you, Dulior. This one dies by my hand,” Rorgon yanked at her hair, making her cry out.
His nails dug into her cheek and broke the skin.
His thumb scraped at her lower lip, baring her teeth.
“Or have you grown tired of him? Is a loving husband not to your liking? Are the jewels and dresses he orders for you not finely crafted?”
“No, I would never—” she tried again, but the words died in her throat.
With both of his hands still holding her head, she felt something pull and tear at her dress. The laces of her bodice tightened cruelly around her ribs. She gasped and heard the necklace snap and spill from her throat.
He is doing it with his mind!
Her heart raced, overcome with horror, as more of her clothes tore and ripped.
Rorgon had never tried to lie with her. He had seen her naked, intruding when the maids were bathing and dressing her, and he never shied away from being near her.
When in a good mood, he was even affectionate, like a father doting on a young daughter.
He had left kisses; little pecks across her forehead and cheeks.
If he was feeling particularly giddy, drunk with blood, he would go as far as to kiss her collar bone.
Never anything beyond. Never anything to disfigure her.
If he touches me now, it will undo me.
“Then what? Why the questions?”
Dulior looked into his yellow eyes, his sharp features framed by soft ashen hair, his short beard and moustache. His Cupid’s bow mouth and the rows of sharp teeth now bared in a pitiless grin.
He let go of her hair and grabbed her face again, his fingers digging deeper into her cheek. She could feel his thumb pressing against the bone. He could crack her face so easily.
If he broke her face, would she heal?
Years ago, after the hellish transformation had run its course in the hole where Rorgon had birthed her, Dulior had never fallen sick.
Her hair and nails had stopped growing; her body had shut down.
If she cut her skin it healed before her eyes.
No bruises appeared if she stumbled or got hit.
But there had to be a limit to this power.
“I…”
Slowly, with tears running down her face and Rorgon’s hand, Dulior tried to speak. Her whole body trembled from shock.
“I can see in Gustave’s mind and the others…
the servants… I know what they are thinking.
I thought…” she choked, and saw her own fingers gripping tight at the lapels of his coat.
Hadn’t she seen these very clothes worn by her husband before they had gone missing one day from his chest? “I thought…”
Rorgon’s mouth brushed against her face and sucked at the tears. For a fleeting moment his lips scraped the side of her mouth. The sound that escaped her was so small, so nauseating to her own ears. Like a trapped animal.
“My flower,” Rorgon breathed low, the exact opposite of her frantic breathing. Her heart was pounding, as if it meant to shatter her ribs. “You will let me know if he hurts you, won’t you?”
Dulior nodded. He kept sucking her tears, the grip on her face finally loosened. The hands that moments ago tore and bruised her, now held her close against his chest, cradling her like a child.
Deciding to kill Rorgon came easily, now that she knew he would never interrupt or pry the schemes from her mind.
What worried her was the uncertainty; could a daemon like him even die?
What would happen if she failed? Would he confine her back into another pit of his design, starving her, leaving her to wither in the dark and dirt?
Dulior spent her waking nights devising ways to rid herself of this plague.
Rorgon had never shared the circumstances of how he had come to be.
What daemon made you, Father, or did we all crawl out of Paris, besieged by a thirst for blood?
The two of them seemed similar in the age of Blood, she could not fathom him existing long before her.
If he could threaten her under pain of death, then surely death could reach him too.