Chapter 26
26
F lora staggered from the wood in a swimming, dreamy daze.
On the edge of the wood stood a familiar form, solid and tall, beckoning and beautiful.
“Ethan,” Flora cried.
He looked at her, and his nostrils flared. She looked down and realized she was covered in blood.
“The queen is dead,” said Ethan. “Long live the queen.”
She collapsed into his arms, and finally let go of herself as he caught her.
He brought her back into the house, into Rainshadow, carrying her like a bride over a threshold. He took her to the bathroom in Sylvia’s old bedroom, where the smell of sickness still lingered. As he filled the tub for her, helped her into it, and bathed her, she thought of how, in the morning, she would open the windows, let in air.
Ethan cleaned her body so tenderly, it was as though he were preparing her for something. For himself, Flora thought dreamily, smiling and letting his strong, cool hands move over her in the hot water. She wanted to belong to him, wanted him to possess and care for her. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He gazed down at her, mouth open, and she saw his sharp white teeth. His eyes were shining and he seemed to be panting.
“Are you ok?”
He looked at her and blinked. “I’m just excited.”
“What’s going to happen now?”
Ethan shrugged. “We will go on with life. I’ll give you access to the accounts, so you can buy anything you need.”
“I can’t wait to replace the furniture,” she said, letting Ethan wash her hair.
He looked at her, surprised. “I chose the furniture,” he said. “I choose the furniture, Sylvia’s clothes. I choose everything. She just bought it.”
“Oh,” Flora said, relaxing back into the water and telling herself that it wasn’t that big of a deal. She didn’t really care about furniture.
“You can buy what you need for the horses, that sort of thing.”
Flora reflected that she didn’t even like the horses that much. All she cared about was Rainshadow, and it was hers now. She would never have to leave. She closed her eyes again as Ethan rinsed her hair with a hose attachment.
After Flora dressed in a long, silk black dress, she came down to meet Ethan for dinner. Of course he would not eat. Not yet. She would eat, then he would, and it would be bliss. Ethan was uncorking a bottle of wine in the kitchen when she emerged.
“Beautiful dress,” he said, looking at her, admiring.
“One of hers,” Flora said. “Sylvia’s. I’ll need to get my own clothes.”
“Oh, no,” Ethan said. “That dress, I think I bought it for Agatha.”
Flora felt a chill as she sat at the dinner table. “You know,” she said, trying to keep her voice light, “you told me Agatha was your mother.”
“Yes, but you know she wasn’t,” he said.
“I know Sylvia lied about a lot of things. I know she was jealous.”
Ethan snorted. “I very much doubt that. Sylvia wasn’t really the jealous type.”
“So, Agatha really was your… partner?”
“Familiar, as you will soon be. Yes.” Ethan fingered the stem of a wine glass but did not drink.
Flora felt like her mouth was dry. “And Sylvia killed her?”
“Oh, no. I did.”
Flora stared at him.
He smiled at her, his white teeth showing. “We all lived together for almost a year. Sylvia was so obsessed with horses, and I had a few. It was expected of an English gentleman to have a few good mounts, and I was an English gentleman. I hired her to train them. She was magnificent, and I found her quite interesting. Agatha begged her to leave, told her everything right away. I wanted to keep them both, but a vampire cannot have two familiars. One night, I fed too much, and in the morning, Sylvia found Agatha nearly dead. Sylvia dragged her into a car, tried to take her to the hospital, but she died before they even left the driveway, I guess.”
“Why didn’t Sylvia leave?”
“The horses. She knew she could never afford them on her own, not if she worked for a hundred years. She had worked so hard, had reached the pinnacle of her craft, and I gave her the last piece, animals that were so well bred, so well trained, that she could win everything, Grand Prix Championships, the Olympics, anything.” Ethan chuckled as he said it.
“But she didn’t, though.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “It’s hard to go to the Olympics when you’re missing a pint of blood.”
Flora stared at him. “My only dream is to be here, to stay here, at Rainshadow. And to be with you. That’s all I want.”
“Then you shall have it, my darling,” Ethan said.
She reached for his hand. She took it, and it was very cold.
That night, he ravaged her, and she knew, once again, she had done the right thing. The intensity of their connection was undivided by Sylvia’s presence, unbroken by Ethan’s yearning for his true familiar. She would meet all of his needs, give him all and everything, and she would capture his heart the way that Sylvia never really could.
He pinned her to the bed, the one in the guest bedroom, and she arched her back to draw him inside of her, rolled her head to expose her neck. She offered him everything, completely submitted to him, became entirely his. He sank his teeth into her, and that feeling, delirious pleasure twined with pain, washed over her. She cried out, rocking against him, wrapping her legs around him burning with a feeling of triumph.
She had worked for this, and all of the women who had thought she was beneath them, who didn’t know what it meant to work, to fight for what you love, would never know the ecstasy of getting what you truly deserve.
In the morning, she felt like shit.
Her body ached. She was so thirsty she thought her mouth might be paper dry. She dragged herself from bed, filled a wine glass with water, and gulped it down. Then she filled it and drank again.
She went to the barn and fed the horses, the two left, Mars and Zeta, who looked at her with big, beseeching eyes as though asking her where Sylvia and Mithras were. Their final moments in the woods, the horrible noises they made, bubbled up in her memory like a nightmare. Like a nightmare, she told herself none of it was real. As soon as she picked up the rock she had said “This isn’t happening, I am not doing this.” But it had happened. She had done it. And now Rainshadow was hers.
She walked the grounds, and saw the first signs of spring, pale sprigs emerging from the lavender bushes. She drove to town in the Range Rover, bought whatever she wanted with money she’d found in Sylvia’s purse. That night, Ethan had told her she could get more whenever she wanted, that it was practically infinite, in portfolios and bank accounts all over the world. She could have as much as she wanted, as long as she didn’t spend in a way that attracted attention or broke the law.
“You’ve already broken one law, after all,” he’d drawled, smirking at her.
“What law?” she asked, surprised.
Ethan laughed. “You’ve committed murder, Flora.” He said it so casually.
“I did it for you,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I love you, Ethan.”
“I’m flattered,” he said, then smiled at her.
“I felt terrible today,” she said. “How… how often do we…”
“Well,” he said. “You need to get in touch with the doctor. He’ll get you some supplements. B-12 injections do wonders. I wish they were around when I started out. It’ll really help your recovery. And to answer your question, if it gets too much, I will leave and hunt.”
Flora realized with a creeping anxiety that that’s what had been in the syringes in Sylvia’s bedroom. “She was never addicted to anything.”
“Addicted?”
“You let me think she was an addict.”
“Flora,” Ethan said. “You thought whatever you needed to think. Come now. Don’t make me into some monster.”
“You are, though,” she said. “You’re a vampire.”
Ethan smiled at her. “You wanted Rainshadow, and now it’s yours.”
“Yes,” Flora said. She felt a satisfaction at that, but it was cooled. “It’s mine. I never have to leave.”
“You never will, my darling.”
Flora felt better the next day and had an easier time getting up to work. She let the horses out and cleaned their stalls. She worked Mars out, then Zeta. She started readying the lavender for spring. There was a faint scent of rot in the air, mixing with the mist from the sea, but she didn’t let herself think about it. She called the cook and housekeeper and asked them if they’d resume work. They refused. She sighed, and started making a list of people she would need to hire.
In the late afternoon, bored out of her mind, she went into Sylvia’s room. She tried on her dresses, her sweaters, her shoes (too small, which surprised her). She rifled through her silk negligees and bras and underwear. She put on her Chanel makeup and Harry Winston jewelry and gazed at herself in the mirror. When Ethan surprised her there, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, he smiled at her in a teasing way.
“You shouldn’t try to become Sylvia,” he said.
“I’m not,” Flora said, gasping. “I’m not, sorry. I was just messing around.”
“Messing around by rifling through a dead woman’s things.” He was still teasing her.
“No.” She felt her heart thumping. “I mean, yes, but it isn’t like that. You make it sound so… morbid.”
Ethan shrugged. “I’m a vampire. Morbid doesn’t bother me.”
Flora looked back at herself in the mirror. She looked like a child trying on her mother’s makeup and jewelry. She had no mother, though. She felt, suddenly, like crying.
“Have you eaten?” Ethan asked. “We could go out to dinner.”
“Ok,” Flora said, wiping mascara-black tears from her eyes. She couldn’t understand why she was crying.