Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
ORPHEUS
Alex had fed. Replete, he returned to the castle.
His victim had been a twenty-four-year-old rapist whom Alex considered fair game—hunting the hunter.
Alex still tried to shake the man’s thoughts from his own.
He sat now in the reading room playing the music that Jadeon had bought him for his new stereo.
Cacophonous noise blared through the speakers.
Making himself comfortable in one of the large leather chairs, Alex enjoyed the many books and magazines he had purchased.
“Alexander!” I said.
Alex leapt up.
My skin glowed, indicating I too had enjoyed a recent feed.
“Daumia?” Alex looked me up and down, having never seen me in modern attire. He was struck at how well the fashions of trousers and white shirt suited me.
“It’s been . . . too long,” I said.
God, he was beautiful. I had almost forgotten how perfect he was. I’d missed him.
“Where did you come from?” Alex was terrified.
“The underworld. Care to join me?”
He stepped back.
Alex came at me like a storm, fangs bared, eyes burning with fury. In an instant, he slammed me against the stone wall, and behind me, cracks split through the ancient mortar. Cascading books, glass, and shattered relics rained down around us.
We rose together . . .
Clashed in the air, a whirlwind of teeth and claws, dark silhouettes spinning through the shadows. On the ground, the fight turned brutal with elbows, knees, snarls, the old language of violence I knew too well. But even as his blows landed, even as he cried out with frustration, I laughed.
“Is that all you have?” I whispered into his ear as I drove him backward. “I expected more.”
“I hate you.”
“Alex, open your mind to me.”
He glared. “Get out!”
“So much for hello.”
“You are not welcome.”
“I promised I would come back for you,” I said.
“Yeah, right.”
“Don’t get pissy with me.”
“I said get out!”
I shoved him against the wall. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have, but I don’t.”
Alex could feel my breath on his mouth. “What do you want from me?”
Close to a kiss, but none came, a tease, a haunting of our hearts for all we could have been.
“Why so afraid?”
“Take a guess.”
“I’ve missed you. I had to see you.”
“You chose this life for me,” he began. “You tricked and lied. You murdered my father.”
“Your father all but murdered you.”
“He thought I was—”
“You would have bled to death.”
“Let me go.”
“I transformed Jadeon so that you wouldn’t mourn him.”
“You lie.”
“I just see things through a different perspective, that’s all.”
“Is that how you justify all that you do?”
“Look, Alex, I know that sometimes my moral compass can be a little off,” I said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
I smiled. “Do you remember when we spent that evening in that Marazion Inn, when I arranged that whore for you? Alex, you were so innocent then. You should have seen your face when you realized why she was in the room.”
Alex blushed. “You seduced me.”
I leaned in to kiss him. Alex closed his eyes, expecting my lips. He reopened his eyes to see me smiling at him.
Alex turned his head, abashed. “Why do you torment me?”
“Because it gives me so much pleasure.”
“No.”
“Shush.” I leaned in again.
He pushed at me. “I try to understand this hold you have on me,” he said.
Our lips met—no tenderness, only revenge.
His mouth crashed against mine with the fury of centuries, fangs grazing skin, drawing just enough blood to taste without breaking.
A shiver danced down my spine as pain flirted with pleasure, and in that kiss we poured everything—our hate, our history, the savage ache of love we could never speak aloud.
Alex faltered.
Our kiss was entrenched in secrets and longing.
The walls around us were lined with forgotten portraits of Stone Masters past who watched in silence as we moved against each other, me grinning and then him.
Two creatures born of night, bound by something older than desire.
The mind-gift taunting him, coaxing, my silent words curled around his thoughts, stroking the edges of control.
This, the sweetest revenge and yet a part of me cherished it, cherished him. Even as my heart twisted with guilt that I cared.
I drew back and Alex rested his head against me. “Still hate you.”
“Come back to me,” I said.
Breathless, Alex leaned his head back against the wall, uncertain.
“Say it. I want to hear you say it,” I said.
“And I want to hear where Catherine is,” Alex replied.
We stared at one another.
“She’s in London,” I said.
“Where in London?”
I let go of Alex’s arms and groped for his shirt buttons, undoing them one at a time.
“Tell me please, Orpheus, and I will tell you what you want to hear. But first, where is she?”
“How long have you waited for this? For me?”
“Catherine, where is she?” he pressed.
“Catherine lives with me, and she came willingly. She wanted to leave that dark, dreary convent that your brother chased her into. She is happy and just wants to be left alone. Now, take off your clothes. This conversation is getting tedious.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What? That you get to experience me?”
“I need to see her,” Alex said.
His shirt completely open, I reached for his zipper. Alex pushed my hand away.
“I have told you where she is. Now you are mine,” I said.
“Not so fast.”
“You dare to defy—”
“Yes, I love you. But I love my brother more. Please go.”
I leaned against him again. “I like it that you have grown strong. You are like a fine wine, like the wine we used to drink together on those long cold nights. Remember?”
“You mean the wine you weren’t really drinking?” Alex turned his head.
“Okay, I’ll go.” I stepped back. “I think I owe you—”
“An apology?”
“I wish to share with you my artful method of feeding. You see Catherine, when she first joined me, refused to drink from living creatures. Always has. From the moment I conceived her, she would only ever drink from me. After a couple of centuries, as you can imagine, it was becoming rather a drag. There is a solution. Now listen carefully. There is a place where blood is stored and tested. It is of the highest quality, refrigerated within laboratories in hospitals. Humans donate their blood willingly for other weak mortals. It is transfused into their body to prolong life. They actually call them blood banks, and I’m giving you the credit card, as it were.
There are no guards. And they would never miss the occasional unit or so.
Just think, Alex, you need never kill again. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look into it. Alex, over the next few weeks you’ll think of me. You will find you will be unable to resist coming to me, and you will seek me out. I will be in your every waking thought. You will become obsessed with seeing me. I’ll await you in my club in Belgravia called Belshazzar’s.
“Goodbye, don’t come here again.”
“Join us and enjoy the company of others like you. Then you shall know what true pleasure really is. Or perhaps you would rather spend another two hundred years alone in this dreary castle?”
“You knew I was alone. Knew I was suffering?”
“I made a promise to Sunaria, you know this.”
“I had no hand in her death.” He shook his head violently, as if trying to fling the thought from his mind. “You knew I was abandoned, enduring loneliness for centuries.”
“Your brother . . .”
“He was trying to save Catherine, from you.”
“All of that is over, Alex. The sweetness of revenge has been savored and its value diminished.”
“What, you think after all that you and I can be . . . friends?” He bit out.
“Would you prefer lovers?”
“Fuck off.”
“You know where I am. Come to me.”
“I’ll never be ready for your brand of evil.”
I scowled at him. “I’d say look in the mirror and you’ll see you are exactly what I am. But, having no reflection . . .”
“I will never kiss you again.”
“Then you will spend eternity betraying what your heart longs for.”
I left him to ponder my words.