Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
RALEIGH WAS LYING ON the bed when I reached our room, one arm draped over his eyes to block out the light.
He had half undressed. Only his trousers and undershirt remained, the latter partially buttoned, as though he tried to take it off and collapsed halfway.
My attention snagged on the slash of exposed skin.
His head rolled to the side as I entered, arm flopping to the mattress as he regarded me through his lashes. I couldn’t help but stare at his teeth. Though there wasn’t a drop of blood in sight, they were extended to their full length. His lips were trembling.
‘You look terrible,’ I said.
‘The road hasn’t been especially kind on you either,’ Raleigh bit back.
‘At least I’ve eaten.’
Raleigh tensed as I sat on the edge of the bed, but I didn’t push the issue.
‘Could you help me out of this?’ I asked.
I meant my gown. If I had to spend another moment bound in it I was going to scream.
For days I’d been plucking at the laces of my corset through my dress, trying to loosen them into some semblance of comfort while we rode.
Now it itched terribly. My ribs ached from the constant press of the boning.
‘Is that all right?’ Raleigh asked, sitting up quickly.
‘You helped me put it on.’
I shivered as he traced a finger down the line of buttons. ‘It’s a different thing altogether to take clothes off,’ he said.
‘Then just do the buttons,’ I breathed.
‘That much I can do.’
One by one Raleigh’s practised hands moved along the button line and the gown began to loosen.
I caught the bodice as it fell away, but Raleigh remained where he was, his fingers tracing the bones of my stays.
I could have reached the long laces with ease and should have called him off, but instead I stayed in place, silent, flushed, while Raleigh’s cold breath ghosted against the nape of my neck.
I caught the corset too before it could fall and expose me. Raleigh snatched his hands away and swivelled where he was so that he was facing the wall. ‘Your bag is next to the armoire. I brought it in while you were at dinner.’ His neck was as flushed as mine. ‘Tell me when I can turn around.’
I thanked him and quickly dressed into nightclothes, equally annoyed and grateful that he was such a gentleman. Once I was as decent as I could be in the circumstances, I gave him permission to turn around.
He looked tortured. I wanted to scream at him to just eat something. Someone. I didn’t care if he slaughtered all of the other guests in their beds, as long as he saved himself.
‘You’re starving, Raleigh,’ I said.
He turned his face away. ‘It’ll hardly kill me.’ He forced out a laugh, high-pitched and scornful. Was it me he scorned or himself? I found each possibility as irritating as the other.
‘At this rate you won’t make it home,’ I said. ‘You’ll lose yourself before we get there.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Will I be fine? What do you think will happen when you lose control?’ My words were growing sharper, falling out before I could stop them. ‘Would you prefer to kill me or Moira? Pull yourself together and take care of yourself for once.’
Raleigh’s expression was dark, resentful. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘No. I don’t.’ Sick of him not looking at me, I grabbed him by the collar and wrenched him to his feet.
He felt light, like a rag doll, but my violence shocked him into some semblance of lucidity.
‘I spent five years of my life on the brink of starvation. We did anything to get enough to eat. We put sawdust in our bread. My neighbours were so hungry they tried to make a soup from foxglove. How do you think it felt when we found their bodies?’ I was shaking, but I couldn’t stop.
‘It was a relief. A relief! Because one less family meant more food for the survivors. Because no matter how bad it was, we wanted to survive. We forced ourselves to survive. So don’t sit there and tell me you can’t be bothered to take care of yourself.
Do not pity yourself for starving when you can fix it so easily. Eat. Something.’
I let go of Raleigh’s collar and let him stumble backwards, preparing myself for a retaliation that never came. Instead he sank onto the bed and buried his face in his hands.
‘You don’t have to kill anyone,’ I said.
Raleigh shook his head. ‘I can’t just hypnotise someone to forget. The wound would still be there. How would you feel if you woke up knowing I’d drunk from you while you slept?’
He was right; it wasn’t something I would recover from quickly.
To know that he had been there and that I had been powerless to stop it …
it was the very fear that had kept me awake at night for so much of my childhood.
Finding marks at my neck would be violating on a level I couldn’t comprehend.
Raleigh could, though, and the sinking realisation made me feel lost.
I intertwined my own fingers, holding them tightly while I contemplated my next words. ‘I’m not asleep.’
Steadying my breath, I brushed my hair to one side, then loosened the cross at my throat.
Raleigh inhaled sharply and made to pull away, but I grasped his shoulders.
My strength was no match for him, of course.
If he were really resisting, I couldn’t have kept him there; it was only an encouragement, to push him towards what I knew he wanted.
‘You need to feed, and I’m human.’
‘Clara …’
‘You can drink without killing.’
He started to protest.
‘I know it’s hard to stop, but it will be impossible if you lose control.’
Raleigh was silent for so long that I thought he would refuse again. Instead he lowered his head and squeezed my hand. A silent affirmation. A resignation.
‘What if I can’t stop?’
I brushed his fringe from his eyes, then tilted his chin so he would look at me. His skin was so soft, so cold, his jaw trembling under my touch. ‘I trust you.’
It had been a long, long time since anyone had treated Raleigh so gently.
He coaxed me down onto the sheets, positioning himself over me while I tried to ignore the heat coiling inside me.
The sheer proximity of him, the gentle skim of his knees on either side of my hips.
I could only imagine how this would feel in any other situation.
One without death’s voyeuristic gaze lurking around the corner.
‘I’ll stop at any time,’ he said. ‘You change your mind, I’ll stop. If you feel dizzy or weak, or in any way feel like I’ve taken too much, tell me to stop.’
I nodded, trying not to wonder how I would know that he had taken too much unless it was too late.
His breath was cool against the sensitive skin of my throat.
Trembling bursts of air pushed through shaking lips.
His nose brushed my skin first. Then came the softest press of his lips.
I jolted, burning rivulets of static racing through to the furthest reaches of my body.
A noise escaped my lips, but whether or not it was one of fear I no longer knew.
‘You’re sure?’ he whispered. Each syllable seared across my skin.
No. I wasn’t. It was so much easier to be determined when I wasn’t lying beneath him. My heart was beating too quickly. My blood would flow too fast. He wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d die. I didn’t want to die.
‘Certain,’ I lied.
I felt him nod, felt his lips draw away.
Then pain exploded at my throat.
It was all-consuming, the sort of pain that catches your breath and squeezes tight.
This time the noise I made had only one meaning.
But just as it toed the line of unbearable, a numbness took over.
And then the fangs were gone, replaced by the cool softness of Raleigh’s mouth, his eager lips, a searching tongue.
In place of pain came something else entirely.
My head felt distant. Thoughts lost all meaning.
There was only me and Raleigh and the point where our bodies met.
I wished I could die, because I knew I would never feel such pleasure again.
Later, when my thoughts returned to lucidity, I recognised the signs of intoxication from vampire venom. I’d read about the effects, but only from observers, and Moira hadn’t spoken of the experience. Nothing could have prepared me for how it really felt.
Raleigh jerked away too soon, though if we had remained intertwined for days it would have been too soon.
I was only dully aware of him pressing his balled sleeve to my throat in an attempt to slow the bleeding, and then of the dip of the mattress as he curled up beside me.
We remained that way for some time while my head returned to normal.
Part of me was sickened by what I’d just done. Part of me was inflamed for more.
‘Are you all right?’ Raleigh murmured.
I gathered myself and rolled over to face him. His face was flushed, eyes glazed, and his lips were bright red with the lingering remains of my blood.
‘Did I hurt you?’
I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. I knew I had to stop, had to look at his eyes instead, but I knew how they felt now.
‘No,’ I lied again. I finally tore my gaze from his lips and met his eyes.
That was a mistake. If I was hypnotised by his lips, then his eyes were a glamour, stripping me of all self-control.
It was the venom, I told myself. This was a side effect of the venom.
No matter that this breathlessness, this weightlessness, this desire, had all existed within me before the bite.
So I told myself it wasn’t really me.
And I kissed him.
It was only a small kiss. I felt him still, felt his breath stop. Tasted my blood on his lips. But when I tried to pull away his hand was at my jaw, holding me in place. Then his lips were on mine again, consuming me with an entirely new kind of thirst.
I was gasping for air by the time Raleigh broke the kiss. He plucked my wandering hands from his chest and kissed them softly, once. ‘We can’t,’ he whispered.
‘We can.’ I cupped his face in both hands so he could see the sincerity of my expression. In turn Raleigh brushed a thumb over the wound at my throat. The lingering venom tingled and the feeling rippled to my core.
‘Would you say the same if I hadn’t drunk from you?’
‘This didn’t start because you bit me.’ I leant in again. Our lips barely brushed before he pulled away.
‘Then you can wait another night.’
Letting him go was the hardest thing I had ever done. I knew he was right. But through my delirium, all I could see was the rejection. I’d seen the sort of woman who captured his heart. What was I next to someone like the Queen but a comely peasant girl in borrowed finery?
‘I understand,’ I said.
‘No.’ His words were rough. ‘You don’t.’ He took my hand and my breath hitched when I realised where he was guiding it.
Hard flesh pressed into my palm. This part of him, at least, was very much alive.
‘This is what you do to me.’ His fangs had grown again.
‘Believe me, I want nothing more than to pin you down and ravish you until sunrise. But I’m blood drunk, and you’re intoxicated. ’
He dropped my hand. I let it fall reluctantly, his words finally reaching me. With a final kiss on my neck, just above my wound, Raleigh peeled himself off me and found a bandage in his trunk. When he finished tying it, he lay back down by my side.
I wanted to be mad at him. The desire throbbing through my senses left me inflamed, and with no outlet the discomfort was unbearable. But of course he was right.
I rolled over, pressing my face into Raleigh’s chest. I was too embarrassed to look at him, but still couldn’t bear to be away from him.
I didn’t know what he would do, if he would lie there stricken, arms stiffly at his side, or if he would find a new creative method to push me away.
So my heart threatened to spill out of my chest when his arms snaked around me, his chin gently pressing against the top of my head.
There was no one to pretend for anymore. This was real.
My wound ached, my body aflame with unspent desire. A monster had dined on my blood tonight, and a whole army of them were on their way to hunt me down.
But there was nowhere in the world I could have been happier.