Chapter 3
Xander
Ignoring the woman and looking at Will, I say, “You didn’t tell me you’d already brought home groceries.”
The woman wrinkles her nose and mouths “Groceries?”
“Don’t worry, subbie, he’s rude to everyone,” Will says, patting her naked thigh. Twin punctures ooze blood at the base of her neck, another set above one of her pale pink nipples. “Get in here, Xander. I saved her legs for you.”
“Where’d you find her?” I ask, pausing on the threshold.
“Low Vice.”
I nod, approving. We have an arrangement with Margot, the owner.
We can seduce whoever we want as long as they’re safe, as long as they consent.
As long as they never remember what happened to them in our library.
Low Vice is the best place to find women who want to take what we give. Pain, pleasure.
“Are you here to play with me?” the woman asks, her deep blue eyes meeting mine.
“Only for a little while, but you’d best use honorifics if you want the release you’re craving, subbie.”
Her pretty face twists in consternation. “Dom? Master? Sir?”
“Sir will do.”
“Yes, Sir,” she says.
I should be excited, yet all I feel is bored. I inhale deeply, hoping something about the rush of blood beneath her skin will do something for me. It works, somewhat. My sense of smell is impeccable, after over one hundred years of honing it.
The next couple of hours pass in enjoyable decadence, I suppose.
We have intercourse, taking her in every possible orifice.
We get her off several times, and she gives us her blood.
Yet it all feels rather transactional. It’s not a true power exchange; it’s more like we’re all going through the motions.
When she’s limp and panting on the bed, Will asks her, “Do you remember the other part of our agreement?”
“Something about forgetting,” she says with a frown. “Because you’re vampires. I still can’t believe it.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t believe it for long,” I say.
“This night was unforgettable, though. How are you going to make me forget?”
Will has already gotten up. He goes to the wet bar at the far corner of his office and removes a small, unlabeled bottle from the collection of crystal decanters.
In comparison to its brothers, this bottle is ugly, yet inconspicuous.
He pours some into a sherry glass and holds it up so the woman can see it.
“This is oubliette. It won’t harm you, it just makes you forget. ”
“Will I remember anything?”
“Only what we tell you to remember,” I say. “Is there anything in particular you’d like?”
“I want to be happy. I want to remember feeling powerful in my submission. I want to feel like you didn’t want to let me go but you had to.”
Fuck if her words don’t cause me to feel things in my heart. I don’t love this woman. But hearing this is as piercing as the sharpest fangs.
“We’ll do our best,” I tell her.
“Thanks.” She puts on her clothes—underwear and a slinky gold club dress—and slips on a pair of heels.
We take her to the back door of our quarters, Will carrying the glass of oubliette. This door leads out from our living quarters to the street. While we walk a safe block away, I take out my phone and order a ride service for her. “What’s your address?”
She tells me, and I plug the information in.
“Drink up,” Will says, handing her the sherry glass. “We’ll give you a good cover story.”
She pauses with the cup next to her lips. “I haven’t done this with you before, have I?”
“No,” Will says. “This was the first time.”
She’s right to ask, though, because she would likely have no idea.
I’ve heard of oubliette memories being recollected when coming into contact with the people involved, but that situation is rare.
If she sees us again at Low Vice, she might remember a connection.
We’ll have to avoid her, but our lives are long and hers is short. It will be fine.
She swallows the draught and blinks up at us expectantly. I count downward in my head. Five, four, three, two…one.
“Sorry,” she says, her dark eyes squinting at us in puzzlement. “I’m confused.”
“You partied a little too hard,” Will says smoothly, his British accent softening as he speaks.
After a hundred years living in the US, he doesn’t actually need to keep that accent, but old habits, I suppose.
“You had amazing sex with two handsome men, and the pleasure will come back to you in flashes. The two men were lovely and attentive, but you ultimately decided they wouldn’t suit you for future play.
However, the experience will remind you that there is good in the world, and it will keep you from accepting poor treatment from any lovers you entertain in the future. ”
Fuck, that isn’t bad. I raise my eyebrows at Will, nodding in approval. We should write that shit down to use in the future.
The woman’s ride rolls up and we help her safely into the back seat. Will and I stand at the curb while she drives off. She waves goodbye through the window.
Will and I return to our building. The three-story library has a multitude of secret rooms, our living quarters being among them. The hidden entrance at the back allows us to come and go as we please, without arousing any human suspicion.
Will unlocks the door and we step inside. He pauses in the hall. In one direction is his room and office, in the other direction is mine.
“Don’t you want to know her name?” he asks.
“It’s better if I don’t know,” I grumble. “Better if you don’t, either.”
He grips the back of his already-messy black hair. “I can’t be like you. I can’t fuck without any connection.”
“Do you think I enjoy this?” I ask.
His pale blue eyes brighten with anger. “I don’t know, maybe. Or maybe you’re just fucking scared.”
“Shouldn’t I be? Shouldn’t you be? Do you wish to repeat what we did to Elisabeth?”
He looks as if I’ve struck him. In a way, I have.
Neither of us has said her name since we lost her, and that was over a century ago.
I don’t know what has compelled me to say it now, other than the aching of my heart.
Every woman since Elisabeth has been a temporary stand-in for what we lost, and it feels a betrayal to her memory and to the promises Will and I made to each other in the aftermath.
“Never again,” I remind him. “We said never again.”
“Learning the name of a playmate isn’t the same as offering her a permanent place in our lives as our amant,” he says.
“Yes, well, that’s how it starts.” I turn around and stride to my room, the new blood in my system energizing me and giving me life…yet doing nothing to ease the heaviness in my chest.
“You’re a bloody arsehole,” Will mutters, just loud enough for me to hear.
I flip him off over my shoulder, not knowing or caring whether he sees the gesture.
Autumn
The debate with myself over whether to hide my money in my crappy motel room or take it with me out into the city is a long one.
Walking around with what’s left of my ATM withdrawal—about a hundred fifty dollars after paying cash for two nights in this crappy-yet-somehow-expensive motel—seems foolish. But leaving it here sounds even worse.
I tuck it in my bra. I’ll take everything with me.
Two nights in San Esteban. My money’s dwindling fast. I’ve never been more scared in my life. I’ve never been so alone. Even at college, Clarissa came with me and was my roommate the whole time.
What I need is a way to earn money. All day yesterday, I walked up and down the closest streets, asking businesses if they were hiring any short-term employees.
Some were, and they offered me applications…
but I would have to give a fake name. Plus, I have no address.
I have no phone number. I can’t use my ID unless I want Dale to find me.
No doubt, he’ll kill me if he does. Cold, hard logic will guide his next move.
The scents of baking bread and savory breakfast fill the street when I step out of my motel room and onto the second-story walkway.
The diner next door is too tempting for words.
My mouth waters. I clench my fists and close my eyes.
Food is not optional right now. I need this money more than I need to eat.
“Look out, girl,” a tall man says as he brushes past me.
My eyes shoot open and I immediately pat down my belongings.
He looks over his shoulder at me and laughs. “I didn’t steal your shit, girlie, but you best pay attention in this neighborhood.”
I nod wordlessly and hurry down to the sidewalk. This, what I’ve been doing, is not sustainable. I’m hungry, tired, and running low on resources.
This part of town hasn’t been forgiving, so I pick a street—Caro Boulevard—and walk down it.
The shops are just starting to open for the day. I walk into a few and look around, but they don’t look like the kind of places that would pay someone under the table. In fact, the farther I walk, the nicer the stores get.
The next shop I go into is a jewelry store. Cases display a wealth of gleaming jewelry. In my previous life, the one I left only two days ago, I might’ve done some shopping here. I might have bought a birthday gift for Clarissa, or even treated myself. Now, everything is out of reach.
The woman behind the counter gives me a friendly, yet cautious look. “Can I help you?”
With a little shrug, I say, “Probably not. I’m looking for work and I have no ID or phone.”
“I’m not hiring,” she says with a rueful smile. “And most places are going to insist on ID at minimum, for tax purposes.”
I nod. It’s no less than I expected.
Nobody in this area is going to hire me.
“Thanks,” I say, before pausing at the threshold. “This is a beautiful store, by the way. You have some really nice pieces.”
She beams and thanks me, and I’m back out on the street again.
I survey my surroundings. This city is beautiful, but untouchable.
I’m not going to be able to go back to the motel.
Unless I find work that will pay cash, right now, I can’t even afford another night.
I need to find an even cheaper place to stay, and again, they can’t be picky about ID or fake names.
Turning up one side street, then another, I try to get myself back to the seedier part of town where I might have better motel luck.
There’s a large building up ahead, possibly motel-sized. My stomach clenches with hunger pangs, but I force myself to keep walking. Soon, I’m standing in front of a well-landscaped grassy lawn peppered with flowering bushes and groupings of fat, happy daisies.
An antique-looking engraved metal sign nestled in with some daisies reads The Corbin Library.
Libraries are great. They’re welcoming, peaceful. They feel safe to me, over anything else.
I straighten up, hoisting the straps of my messenger bag and purse over my shoulder, and walk up to the glass-paned double door.
It feels disrespectful to be walking into such a hallowed place wearing a stranger’s skirt, flip-flops, and a hoodie, but it can’t be helped. Besides, books don’t judge people; people judge people.
There’s a woman at the front desk. She has curly black hair, deep blue eyes, and her pantsuit is a thing of envy, especially with the jaunty polka-dot bowtie she wears with it.
“Hello,” she says. “Are you a member?”
“Um…no?”
Her smile is pleasant even as she says in a practiced voice, “I’m sorry, but The Corbin is a private library.”
I mouth the words private library. “That’s a thing?”
She chuckles. “It is. Membership is curated.”
“Oh. Crap. I just wanted to look around for a little while.”
“You can purchase a one-time pass without becoming a member,” she says. “It’s not cheap, but you’ll have the run of the library for the entire day.”
Not cheap? I shouldn’t do it.
Yet something tells me that I belong here, that I need to do this.
“How much?” I ask.
“It’s a flat one hundred.”
Damn.
I’m not an impulsive person, but I look around at the large, circular room. The walls are mostly books, with the occasional piece of art on display. Corridors and doorways lead to more rooms filled with books and more curiosities, I’m sure of it.
I’m gripped by a need so strong, I barely consider my dwindling resources as I reach into my shirt and pull my cash from my bra.
The librarian’s dark eyebrows shoot up on her forehead, but she takes my five wrinkled twenties without flinching.
She puts the cash into a hidden drawer, then throws her arms out like she’s presenting the world to me.
“Welcome to The Corbin. Make yourself at home.”