Chapter Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
In the dark of night, moon shining in the windows, Orrin wraps one black-banded arm around me, caressing the gentle curve of my soft, warm stomach.
For a minute I still, worried that he will pull away from me, leave to go sleep in his own room.
Because I never expected this, because I know he didn’t either.
However, he doesn’t leave. Instead, he brushes his warm lips against the back of my neck, whispers my name once more, gently lifting me up and turning me onto my knees.
I let out a sigh of sleepy eagerness as he touches me from behind, running his rough hand between my legs, across my bottom, nudging the slick heat of me apart in a tantalizingly slow way, bringing me to the brink but never allowing me to find my release. Not yet.
I lean further forward, onto my elbows, offering myself to him. I don’t tell him this time. But with my prone position, I let him know he can have me, that he can take me. That this time, maybe, I don’t need as much tenderness; he can do what he wishes.
Then Orrin is joined to me, holding my wrists hostage, pushing my hair aside to kiss the nape of my neck, then grabbing my hips hard as he pushes forth again and again.
The movement teases my already taut nipples which scrape up against the bedding, my heavy breasts swinging with each of his deep thrusts.
I ache with the need for him. Even as he is inside me, I ache.
He leans forward, bites the side of my neck, and I find my voice, screaming out his name. Minutes later, he whispers mine.
The sun shines in my eyes. Throwing one arm over my face, I try to block out the light.
Wil—the same handsome boy who’d started off with winks when I passed by the docks at sixteen—used to laugh at me when I grumbled in the morning about bright light or loud noises.
I’d sneak onto his ship late at night and spend hours there, as the night faded and brightened into morning, learning how to be a lover. Learning how to be loved.
“You’re a nighttime creature, huh?” he’d tease, pulling me in, warm, sticky breath on my neck, wide mouth pulled into a grin. “Not much for mornings, are you?”
I’d crack a smile, for him, say something like, “I can’t help it. My eyes hurt.”
“Your senses are just stronger.” Then he’d pin me under his lanky frame, help me to wake up with the ease of his warm body, which was covered in tattoos, The Pins sailor’s symbol on his torso—an anchor with a heart, crossed with three large pins, the words courage, heart, home, scrolled across in a banner.
My own skin was free of ink until Wil took me to get the first tattoo—an anchor on my left ankle, not the sailor’s one, but a miniature anchor, for him.
Then, I wanted more. Each time, Aven would glance at my inked skin, lips pursed.
But she never said anything. Mavis had died already, and at that point we were old enough to be on our own, to make our own choices.
Then Wil sailed away for grand adventures I wasn’t ready to have, and that was that.
After him, there were a few less sentimental memories.
Then came Tanna, who started as my teacher, and then became my lover.
My dark beauty, my bright flame. Where Wil had been jovial, laughing, she’d been difficult and abstract, always speaking in poetry, always a riddle for me to figure out.
The roses I got after she left. Beautiful, but painful.
I knew loneliness after each of them left my life, after any person I loved went away.
Mavis, Wil, Tanna, Darius. Aven. The empty feeling of not having parents.
I’ve known the find and lose, find and lose of each home the three of us girls went to, were kicked out of, were removed from, were thrust into. I’ve known pain all my life.
But I’ve also known great love, joy, passion, and hope.
When Orrin settles back onto the bed, mattress sinking slightly under his weight, I remember that hope, the same that has carried me through the ordeal of Aven’s death and not-death.
Somehow, we will get her back. I nestle into his hard body, and I trust.
“Morning,” he says low.
I slowly peel open my eyes and turn to him. He’s dressed and clean. So beautiful I almost can’t stand it. “Morning.”
“Breakfast is here, if you’re hungry.” He gestures to the food laid out on the table.
I wrap a sheet around my nudity, climb out of bed, and walk over with him, where we both sit.
“Last night was…” I begin, shocked to feel a flush creeping along my skin, as if I were some blushing virgin and not a woman of experience. I pour us each a cup of coffee then look back at him.
“It was.” Orrin grins roguishly, eyes teasing along my décolleté.
I shake my head at his naughtiness and get to the point. “Tell me what happened while you were gone. The truth. Did you go to kill her?”
“Yes.” He takes a drink from his cup, serious now.
“But it was foolish. I thought she’d be taken unaware, asleep.
I thought I could get past her guards. She never used to be so paranoid, to keep them with her at all times—as we already saw.
I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to get her alone.
In any event, I stumbled upon one of her private parties. I stayed, to make her happy.”
“Did you see Aven while you were there?” I hold my breath.
Shaking his head, he says, “No. Not this time.”
“And why didn’t you tell me the danger to you? Mr. Brown made it seem a whole lot worse than you’d implied.”
He hesitates. “Because it’s not certain.
I’m going off of story, centuries-old rumor.
It is a reasonable theory that the connection to my maker might put me at risk, given we’ve had that connection for so long.
I have no proof, but I have to be realistic.
” When I open my mouth, he adds, “I believe with every fiber of my being, that the newest changed wouldn’t be affected.
It makes sense, given Elisavet’s connection is stronger with those she’s been with longer, our souls are entwined, in a way, after so many years.
The newest should be safe. I just…cannot promise the same for myself.
Elisavet and I sometimes seem to share thoughts at this point.
It is not out of the scope of possibility that I might suffer should she. ”
“Then we won’t do it!” I shake my head, stubborn.
“Corliss.” A rough whisper. He grabs my hand.
Leans down and kisses my knuckles. “Please trust me. I have to do this. I don’t want to die now that I feel like I’m living again.
I’m not being foolhardy, I swear to you.
If at any point, I hear something or feel something that changes my mind, I will follow that to a new plan. Do you trust me?”
I sigh. “I do.”
Our breakfast sits between us, untouched. He gently releases his hold on me, and I rise from the seat with my coffee in hand. I have to move. Then I turn back to him. “What was it like, when Elisavet took your soul?”
“It…wasn’t pleasant.” Which isn’t exactly an explanation.
I place my hand over my chest, where I’d imagine a soul to live, nestled in there somewhere in the middle—that is where I felt the flicker of his own in his body. “I suppose it hurt.”
“It hurt tremendously, although the details are a bit hazy. There was a period of nothing. Emptiness, if you will. When I woke—became aware, that is—I was changed.”
“Were you lovers? You alluded to it.”
His fingers tighten on his cup. “We were, and we shared many lovers between us, human and non-human alike. But there was no tenderness between us at all.”
Hearing that discomfits me, but I push it aside because he looks willing to volunteer more information to me. I recognize the heavy look in his eyes, and step closer.
He speaks, softly, “I made the trade because of a woman. Glisa. I’d hoped to make her my wife.” Orrin cracks a bittersweet smile, looking like he’s seeing something far off.
“She was a dancer,” I guess, taking his hand. This is what he was holding back. “That’s who the portrait was of, in the locket. And that’s why the ballet shoes.”
Nodding, he says, “She was. Although not nearly as talented as you. She was quiet, shy. But she had a wicked sense of humor. And such grace. But she was ill, terribly so—fatally, in fact. I hated to see her in pain, and I did bargain my soul away for power, but not in the way you probably understood it. In actuality, it was that I wanted the power to save her. I made the trade to save Glisa’s life. Me for her.”
I hesitate, seeking words to keep my query sensitive. I take my seat again. “I take it things didn’t go as planned?”
“No. I traded my soul in order for Glisa to be free from pain, to heal from her illness. But in my despair, I perhaps worded it inadequately. Elisavet took my soul, but she neglected to inform me that she wouldn’t be fulfilling the deal in the way I expected.
She made it with a loophole, knowing full well she could not complete her side of the bargain. Though she claimed it was honorable.”
“How?”
“Oh, she said Glisa was free from pain, because she was dead. Died while we’d made the trade. And she’d died alone because I was with Elisavet, bargaining for her. Elisavet knew the whole time.”
Rage fills me on his behalf. “That monster. What did you do?”