Chapter Two #3
A pillow would not suffocate him. She could easily command someone else to do the final blow and bring the knife to him, but no human stood a chance against Rorgon, she had seen him move things across rooms without lifting a single finger.
When impatient, he would leap up through windows high above the ground.
He fed every night, fed until he tired of the blood’s flow in his mouth and death’s sweet scent.
Like Dulior, he enjoyed this monstrous feast, the salty nectar pulsing out of their victim’s veins, the bodies growing cold in their embrace.
Rorgon had always enjoyed having an audience, though he never shared.
The mortals he picked, he claimed only for himself.
She saw it in the ruby glow of his lips, the flush of his cheeks and the spark in his eye, as he greedily drank.
Unlike Dulior, he despised half feeding on a single human and refused to keep them alive afterwards.
His victims lasted like the morning dew.
He swept over them, dragged them into dark and solitary corners, whispering sweet nothings.
The mortals fell in love with him even as he sank his teeth into them.
The bodies he let slip down from his hands to lie in crooked angles on the ground, left them to be found by either dogs or scavengers.
Sometimes he robbed them, rifling through their pockets for coins or trinkets.
If their clothes pleased him he’d strip them, a habit he abandoned only after gaining access to Count di Flaviari’s wardrobes and chests.
Seducing him was pointless. They had never shared a bedchamber.
Even back in the hole they had slept apart.
If he touched her and played with her hands, her hair, the skirts of her dress, or pulled at her jewels, it was done simply because he could.
Never out of desire. Never had he kissed her with want.
Ownership was what he felt for her, and she in turn owed him gratitude.
Gratitude for being permitted a life by his side.
Tricking a mortal to lure him was useless, if not reckless. Rorgon would peel their mind open and see Dulior reflected back at him, her plans laid bare.
It would have to be me.
Rorgon had gifted her eternal youth and beauty, groomed her to be an eternal widow. He had moulded her from the earth soaked with his own blood—in the image of Lilith.
It has to be me. I have to end it.
Like a screeching owl she would come to him in the night bearing a gift of her own. One final offering to close the vicious cycle. He would eclipse her no more.
That night at dinner, her master kept urging her husband to drink. Rorgon had chased the servants out of the room and taken the flagon. He poured cup after cup of wine, praising the Count on the product of his vineyard.
“Your neighbour—Emil Hébert,” Rorgon’s voice was deafening. Dulior had never heard him speak like this. It worried her. “Your neighbour’s wine cellar is as exquisite as your own, Count.”
“Is that where you have been, sir?” her husband humoured him, raising his glass in a toast to sir Hébert.
“He has a son, does he not?” Rorgon asked, lowering the flagon. The red liquid overflowed from the Count’s cup and dripped on the table. Neither man took notice.
Dulior continued to watch in horror, her hand gripping the knife. If she moved to pull it under the table her master would see.
“Yes, Elay. Elay Hébert,” The Count nodded, and frowned trying to picture the young man in his mind’s eye. “A brave man. Very talented. Good with the pike. Fought at Cassel.”
“Ah,” her master inhaled sharply. Dulior could see his tongue running over the fangs.
“That explains the scars.”
“Yes, yes. He was twelve. That is why they gave him the pike—for a longer reach,” the Count laughed and made a stabbing motion with his fork towards Rorgon’s chest.
Both men burst laughing. Rorgon made little attempt to hide his fangs, his mouth stood open wide like a gaping wound. A gash with teeth.
Then, with a sweeping motion, he reached out—too fast for a human to follow—and snatched the fork from Gustave’s hand.
“The Flanders nicked him, here and here.”
He pressed the fork tip against Gustave’s chest, to the right, and jerked his hand upwards towards the shoulder.
“Nasty scar,” Rorgon shook his head and let the fork clatter to the table. “Not married, is he?” he asked with such genuine concern that Dulior could not hide her confusion.
“No. Wants to be a knight, I think.”
“Yes, he did mention,” Rorgon conceded, rubbing his chin. He made a face and looked at his hand, the sleeve of his tunic was wet. The wine spill had gotten to his side of the table. “He is young. He can still marry.”
The Count nodded in agreement.
“You would marry a knight, wouldn’t you?”
It took Dulior a few beats to realize Rorgon was talking to her.
She looked up—her fingers unclenching from the knife—her gaze shifted first to her husband, then to her maker.
The mortal man sitting at the head of the table was drunk but otherwise in good health.
She put much effort in ensuring that the Count was well fed and dressed.
Sometimes she wondered if giving him a little of her blood would make him age slower, but she never dared this sacrilege.
Gustave was the first husband she ever took precaution in keeping alive.
Rorgon continued to stare at her, his light eyes drilling into hers, impatient. A deadly stillness had fallen over, slowly devouring the rest of the room. She could no longer feel or see the light of the candles and the flickering flames in the fireplace.
“You would marry a knight, my flower” her master repeated, no longer framing it as a question.
The Count laughed, his hand clasped Rorgon’s shoulder and shook him playfully. There were traces of good humour in his voice but Dulior sensed how his hospitality had reached its limit. The desire to rid himself of this man—this stranger—was simmering on the surface of his mind.
The daemon who presides over our marriage bed.
“My friend,” Gustave di Flaviari smiled and the smile never reached his eyes, “do not give my wife ideas. She is lost in the beauty of simple things as it is. Only last night she lulled me to sleep by describing a tapestry she saw while visiting her friends. A tapestry!”
But the damage was done, as Gustave’s thoughts betrayed him.
He had never questioned his wife’s late night walks, nor her need for solitude.
She had her maids to tend to her, and dozens of little embroidery cushions to prove the amount of time she spent indoors.
No young lover or misguided fool had ever come calling. No servant talked ill behind her back.
Yet now, like a nail scratching at a scab of flesh, Rorgon was silently urging the Count to dwell on new suspicions—of his wife being with another man.
The mention of Elay Hébert had ignited the flame of jealousy into the Count’s heart and mind, and Dulior quickly closed her eyes, refusing to see more of herself in the arms of a lover.
A lover conjured by him.
“My love,” Dulior lifted a napkin to her mouth, feigning exhaustion. Rorgon was the first to look in her direction, putting a stop to the cruel game. “I’ve had too much to drink. I shall retire for the night.”
Instantly her husband rose and came to pull her chair. He held her hand a little too tightly and when he kissed her knuckles his mind cried out loudly for her: I love you!
Ignoring the guest, Gustave led her to the door, and called for a servant to escort her.
I love you, he repeated in his mind, kissing her hand again.
She saw the struggle in his eyes when he looked up. He did not want to go back to the table and resume entertaining that vile man, that creature wearing his clothes and rings. Gustave could tolerate and forgive these petty crimes, he could replace material things. But Dulior, he could not.
“Madame,” her husband began to say, his voice faltered. His breath was heavy with wine, the mirth from earlier gone. “Will you wait for me?”
Dulior nodded and let the servant with the candle lead her back to the bedchamber. Gustave lingered in the doorway, watching the candlelight, and her, fade down the corridor before he stepped back, back into the darkness of Rorgon’s company.
It was a crude little knife. The dagger fitted nicely in the palm of her hand.
She had taken it from the table when Gustave escorted her out, hiding it in the folds of her skirts.
All night it rested under her pillow as she pretended to sleep next to her husband, his drunken snores distracting her from the task looming ahead—until it was time.
She listened to the servants move about the house, and glimpsed through their eyes.
Rorgon had left the dinner shortly after her, and made his way out into the night.
He returned shortly before dawn, hissing at the maid who tried to take his coat.
Whatever foul mood had followed him out had not dissipated, it had deepened.
Through the maid’s eyes Dulior noticed how pale and drained her master looked, the opposite of when he had fed.
Dulior could not tell if the poor woman’s fright was playing tricks on her mind or if Rorgon had forgone to hunt.
Dulior waited, listening to the drone of her master’s heavy footfall as he walked to his quarters, and began to pace the room.
The song of birds alluded her to the rise of the sun, the heavy curtains of her room banishing the light.
Continuing to lie motionless and cold, she felt the hours ooze until she was sure the sun was high in the sky, and there would be no dark sanctum for a daemon to crawl under.