Chapter 20
20
F lora got the shock of her life the next morning. When she rolled out of bed, dressed in her new clothes, and stomped through the living room on her way to the barn, Sylvia, who never woke before ten, was sitting there waiting for her.
“I thought,” Sylvia spoke in the lingering dark of the morning, “that maybe there was a way we could both come out of this alive.”
Flora was frozen. She stood in the darkness of the room, gazing at Sylvia, startled and annoyed.
“What are you doing, Sylvia?” Flora said, a gasp contained in her voice. “Were you waiting for me?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I listened to you, with Ethan, thinking you were so stupid, that I should, that maybe I could just go?—”
“Go,” Flora said forcefully. “Maybe he’ll give you some money. You can just?—”
“I can’t, Flora,” Sylvia said, then laughed softly. “I can’t leave. You can, but I can’t.”
“Why not?” she nearly shouted, exasperated. “Why not? Because you’re nothing without him? A nobody with a drug addiction? He doesn’t love you, Sylvia, he feels sorry for you.”
Sylvia gazed levelly at Flora, unbothered. “He doesn’t feel sorry for me, Flora. He doesn’t feel anything. He’s dead.”
Flora gazed at Sylvia, mouth open in surprise. Dead? Emotionally dead?
“What do you mean?”
“Stop being a fool. You know what I mean.”
“He really is a vampire.” The words were on Flora’s lips before she had the chance to stop herself, to question how utterly insane they sounded.
“He is. And you already knew. You’re not surprised. He probably already told you. You’re not shocked, head spinning, asking how you couldn’t have seen all the signs. You saw them. There is no twist in the story, no blindside, no big reveal. Everything has been pathetically predictable, your every decision, your every movement on the chess board that he set up the day he first laid eyes on you.”
Flora gazed at Sylvia, her mouth still hanging open.
“No,” Flora said stupidly. “You’re crazy.”
“You know that I’m not.”
The two women looked at each other.
Sylvia finally spoke. “I tried to be cruel to you. I’ve never been a friendly person, but it isn’t in my nature to be cruel. It wasn’t before, anyway, a long time ago. Maybe it is now.” She chuckled sadly.
“I wanted to scare you off, to terrorize you into leaving. They usually only last a few days, but you stayed. I never counted on you being more in love with this place .”
Flora crossed her arms. She didn’t know what to say.
Sylvia kept talking. “I don’t know what else to do now except beg. Please, please, please leave. Here—” She took out a bag, a very expensive-looking leather handbag, and showed it to Flora. It was stuffed with cash. “Twenty-five thousand dollars. You can go anywhere with that. You can do anything. And here—” She pulled a diamond necklace out of the pocket of her robe and tossed it onto the coffee table. “A woman once gave me this and made me a very similar offer.”
“A woman?—”
“A very nice woman named Agatha. She wasn’t as strong as me.” Sylvia sighed deeply, and there was a sob contained in her voice. “She was kind, sweet, too sweet, and I was dismissive, went behind her back, pitied her. When she told me the things I am telling you now, I laughed at her and told her she was crazy. She told me in the beginning, she thought if she was just honest…”
There were tears in Sylvia’s eyes as she picked up the necklace, held it in her hand gazing at it. “Flora, you can’t know the pain I feel, the guilt!” A tear dripped down Sylvia’s sallow face. “You can’t, and I don’t want you to know. Agatha—she was so sweet to me, so honest. She told me the truth and begged me to save myself.”
Flora stared at Sylvia, crying, pathetic. She was begging her not to take Ethan, begging her. Flora knew that if she were in Sylvia’s position, standing between two people in love, she would have the dignity to hold her head up and walk away.
“You’re jealous of me,” Flora hissed. “You’re so jealous you can’t stand it! Agatha was Ethan’s mother. You think I didn’t know that? You’re the crazy one.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“You’re an addict.”
“No, not really. Sometimes I drink too much?—”
“Liar, you’re a drug addicted?—”
“No, I’m really, really not, sweetheart. Please, listen to me. Take the money, take the necklace, leave me here with him, let whatever is going to happen, happen. I barely even care anymore. I’ll live a while longer, enjoy my horses, and one day he’ll have to find someone new… but I won’t be around to watch.”
“Keep your money. I don’t want your crumbs.”
“No,” Sylvia said, laughing. “You want the whole cake.”
Flora smiled wickedly, disdainfully. “And I’m going to get it.”
“Maybe, but not until I’m dead. I’m his familiar, Flora. We’ve been together for so long, we are linked. He doesn’t love me, but we can feel each other, can’t be apart for very long without getting… uncomfortable. He feeds off of me, my blood is his blood, and he won’t give me up as long as I’m alive. He has power over me, but I have power over him too, and it grows. That’s why he needs to replace me.”
“No. I don’t believe you.”
Sylvia shrugged.
“I have to go take care of your stupid horses,” Flora said, standing up. “This is ridiculous.”
“You know it isn’t, but go, feed the horses and think about it.”
“I’m not going to think about anything,” Flora hissed, “except what a bitch you are.”
At that, she turned and left, walking out of the back door to the sound of Sylvia’s sad, pitying laughter.
Sylvia didn’t come out of her room that night for dinner. The cook came back and brought groceries Flora ordered. She realized she never had a reason to leave Rainshadow as long as the cook came and brought food.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Ethan said, when she mused about it as they sat across from one another, a candle burning between them.
“I don’t want to leave,” Flora said. “I want to be here, with you. But I wish we could be together during the day.”
“Well we can’t. You know that.”
“Why though? I don’t understand!”
“Of course you do,” Ethan said, looking her in the eyes. “I’ve explained it, Sylvia’s told you too, I think, by now.”
“You’re a vampire.” Flora felt an icy cold feeling pulsing through her, like she was realizing something she already knew. Blythe had told her. He had told her. Sylvia had told her. She had known it. She wasn’t sure when she knew, but she knew. She could only pretend surprise.
“I am, Flora. I am a four-hundred-year-old vampire. I am much, much older than Sylvia, contrary to what you seemed to believe.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “But I want you to send Sylvia away. Tell her you don’t love her, don’t need her anymore.”
“Maybe,” he said. “You have to trust me. We do have a connection, but it can be broken.”
She stared at him, feeling a tingly, terrible feeling. The calmness with which he delivered this information was what most unsettled Flora.
No.
What unsettled her most was how jealous she was of Sylvia and her connection to Ethan. She didn’t care that he was a vampire, had known. In fact, there was something deeply exciting, appealing about him that was only enhanced by the knowledge. He was dangerous, but he loved her, he chose her. She was safe with him because he loved her. How could she break the connection between him and Sylvia? Perhaps it was through love. The idea was so seductive it made her want him right then and there.
She stood up.
“What?” he asked her.
“I want you,” she said, staring straight into his eyes. “I don’t care that you’re a vampire. You could be… you could be anything. I want you. Now.”
He smiled at her, and for the first time he really let her see his fangs, sharp, white, and gleaming in the flickering firelight. She felt a shock of complete terror, but went to him anyway.
He kissed her, and she felt him growl against her. He had been holding back, and now he was showing himself to her, his true self. She let him turn her to the table and lift her up onto it. He lifted her skirt, one of Sylvia’s, and pressed himself to her. Then, he tangled his fingers in her hair and tilted her head, making her soft, white neck prone to him. She felt a frenzy of excitement and fear, her whole body sizzling with it, like every nerve was jumping, lighting up, raw to touch and light.
When he bit her, it hurt. She had tried to tell herself that it wouldn’t, to believe that he wouldn’t do it to her if it was going to hurt, so she cried out, screamed, and strained against him. He was so strong, though, so otherworldly strong, and he held her tight against him, his cock straining through his pants, his mouth fused to her now-open vein. He held her tight, and she squirmed, but he only seemed to enjoy her struggle. She felt, then, a connection running between them like an electrical current. It was faint, running from the open wound in her neck to his open mouth, but it gave her the feeling, intense and only growing more so, of the deep pleasure and satisfaction he felt at tasting her. It became her pleasure, too, and she went slack in his arms, swirling with dizzy pleasure and desire.
He groaned as he drank, and she collapsed against him, gasping. When he’d had enough, or as much as he could take before hurting her, he leaned back and loosened his trousers. She leaned back, felt blood on her clavicle, on her chest. Ethan’s beautiful mouth was smeared with it and his eyes were as bright as if they were lit from within. How had she not noticed how otherworldly he looked? How beautifully supernatural? She realized that she had known for a long time that there was something terribly wrong with Ethan. Now, she thought, looking up at his bloody, ecstatic face, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.
He was perfect.
He entered her, pulling her close.
She whimpered, wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I love you,” she said, her voice a childish whine. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
He didn’t say it back, but he didn’t need to. She knew that he did, and one day they would be as connected, more connected, than he ever had been with Sylvia.