By My Side ... (A Valentine's Day Story) (20 page)

His next question confused and
shook her completely: "What will happen in an hour?"

Her eyes flickered to the clock
on the mantlepiece and she realised with shock that he was right;
it was only just over an hour until midnight, until her own
personal biological clock threw her into hell. She sucked in a
breath.

"What will happen in an
hour?"

He repeated the question,
clearly reminding her that she had not yet answered it. The problem
was she was not entirely sure how to respond, how to comply with
his request. Did he want her to tell him how to bind an ErGer? She
thought that it was common knowledge among vampires and, to be
honest, she did not know how the bond worked from their side. The
sex and blood seemed to be clear, but she did not know the mental
component. She could tell him what she did to try to keep it from
happening but was not sure how much that would help, as she had
promised not to resist. And in all this there was the question if
she wanted to answer.

She still tried to explain, to
give him as much information as she could. She had given her word
and that was pretty much the only honour she had left in her life:
"When you take my ..."

His finger came to rest on her
lips, halting any further words. A wry smile stretched his lips.
She noted that he was able to smile without letting even a glimpse
of his fangs peek through.

"I do not need instruction on
what to do, I am well informed there. What will happen to you?"

That was a harder question to
answer, and for a moment, she almost hated him for asking it. Could
he not leave her one piece of dignity? A bitter laugh escaped her
lips. Dignity? She had not had any since she had turned fourteen
and been recognised as an ErGer.

"My memory is a bit spotty in
places but apparently I fuck everything in sight."

Her answer was deliberately
crude, her voice dripping with all the hate and disgust she felt
for herself and those forcing her into this existence. He did not
flinch, did not react in any way, save for a rise of his eyebrow as
he stared evenly back into her blazing eyes. She could barely stand
it, the even gaze, the lack of any blame or disgust in his
expression. It undermined her bitterness, her repugnance, her
perception. She started to squirm in his hands in order to escape
her own thoughts.

"What happens?"

Kathryn could not meet his eyes
anymore, her equilibrium severely threatened by his
matter-of-factness. Her front teeth started to worry her lower lip
and her hands started to tense, dig into the soft velvet of the
arms of the chair. He did not let her escape, captured her chin and
turned her face to meet his eyes. His thumb ran over her lower lip,
gently teasing it free from the abuse her teeth inflicted on it. He
held her there, ensuring she knew, in her bones, he would demand
her compliance.

"What happens?"

Low, slow words. His voice
still held no anger, not even demand - simply a calm confidence in
her ultimate submission to his will, in her ultimate answer to the
question. She would not escape, but as she spoke she could not look
at him, had to avoid those eyes. So she let hers flicker over the
room, coming to rest again and again on the clock:
10.49
.

"I don't know," she
admitted.

"What do you know?" He was
relentless in his pursuit of information, she would learn this to
be an essential feature of the man.

"I have only been caught once
on February 14
^th
after that
first time, I ..." She was lost for words, her mind too full and
too blank at the same time to answer. Her breath rose, its panicky
edge audible in the silent room.

His voice broke through the
mounting terror: "What happens when you are alone?"

She could answer this. Holding
onto that thought, the necessity to string words together,
helped.

"I go find an abandoned
building, preferably with a deep cellar, lock myself in and hope to
hell that no one finds me before the day is over."

She met his eyes with a
challenging look of her own and that is how she saw his eyes
flicker down to her wrists. Suddenly she felt deflated again, felt
obliged to clarify: "No, not from those times, not from any of the
cellars."

He nodded, not pressing any
further. She was almost grateful for the small amount of privacy he
granted her with his lack of pursuit, for the small amount of
self-respect he allowed her.

"What happened last February in
Tirana?"

Her eyes became empty as she
let her mind wander back, and she heard her words almost without
having made the conscious thought to tell them:

"We had been in Albania only
two weeks, freshly arrived from Rome, when Paul handed me over to
the Lord of Albania for one million
leke
.
It sounds so much, but it was barely over 6000 pounds."

She sighed, lost in her own
thoughts.

" It was February
1
^st
, thirteen days before St
Valentine's, thirteen days in which he thought he could prepare me
for a bond, break my mind. By the 14
^th
I was weak and ill and yet, at midnight, the
Need rose. Apparently I screamed from arousal whilst he kept
everyone away from me. Only then did he gave me to his court. He
believed by the time they were done with me, their seed would have
sensitised me enough to his for a bond to be inevitable. I do not
know how long they had me. I don't even know when he took over. I
just know I suddenly could feel him in my mind, could feel him rape
even that. But he was not particularly strong, and his
concentration slipped. I don't know what I did, exactly - it was as
if, in that moment, he showed me where his mind linked to his body,
and where I would have to cut. So I did. I cut that link with my
mind and felt him scream and whither in my mind and body."

Kathryn looked at him, waiting
for him to judge her too dangerous, to see she was best contained
now, killed now, before she could pose a threat to him personally.
She waited with hope, but the blow never came.

Instead the questions
continued: "How did you get away?"

"The weaker of his court were
dead because they had not emancipated from him and even the older
ones were disoriented for a moment. I just left, just walked out,
found Paul and the children and left town."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"Take another grape."

He said the words as if they
had not just talked about her killing a Vampire Lord in cold blood.
Her eyes were drawn to the plate, but could not convince herself to
reach for any of it. When he did, she tried to speak: "No."

A frown marred the beauty of
his face and she tried to qualify before it appeared as if she
wanted to disobey his order: "I don't think I can."

The beginnings of censure on
his face smoothed and he nodded, pity in his eyes. His hand
returned to her waist now beginning a gentle massage of the tense
muscles lining her spine. Slowly, her back relaxed bit by minute
bit.

"Have you ever made love?"

She looked at him, exasperated.
Had he actually asked that question? How often she had been found
and caught, how often she had been raped. The foregone conversation
indicated that he knew this. Had she ever had sex? Obviously.

Before she could answer,
though, he tried to clarify - tried to rephrase his question:

"I do not mean how often you
have been raped - I want to know if you ever have given yourself to
a man without force?"

She winced, uncomfortable with
the distinction, with the personal information she was requested to
provide. There was no way out though, no way to escape the answer,
locked in by her own promise.

"Tell me about it."

There was not much to tell. Her
eyes flickered to the clock again:
10:53
.
Now she had noticed the clock was there, it was impossible not to
fix on the slowly moving minute hand. It was too much to hope he
would not notice her preoccupation, but it still surprised her when
he sighed, frowned at her. She froze, too aware of the dangers his
anger could pose for her. His sigh was heartfelt.

"Get up." His hands pushed her
backwards, did not give her a choice in moving, forcing her to her
feet. Kathryn stood still before him, tense and resigned. There was
only an hour left, but truly she suspected her time had just run
out. She expected him to rise, to move the evening to its
inevitable crescendo - but instead he relaxed back into his chair
with a studied nonchalance.

"Go to the chest of drawers and
open the top-right drawer."

She turned and with every step
she took away from the fire, the cold of the room slipped over her
skin and soul more firmly. An hour ago she should have welcomed the
numbness it would have brought to her mind - but now there was no
numbness, just cold, and it made her shiver.

The drawer slid open easily,
almost silently - a well-made and cared for piece of furniture.
Unfortunately, she could name too much of its varied contents.
There were whips, restraints, dildos, nipple clamps and more
leather than she could even start to identify, even had she wanted
to. Finally, the numbness had returned, enveloping her in its
comforting embrace. She was only one step away from slipping into
true nothingness, from being able to put her body on autopilot and
leave it to have done to it what would be done, and from the
contents of this drawer, the last step would come soon.

First though, his voice reached
her: "Take the blindfold."

The words whispered over her
skin, chasing tremors up her spine. The voice was close, a sensual
caress ,whispered only for her ears, reaching her on a wave of his
power from the other side of the room. He had not moved, and she
did not have to turn to see him there, still in the chair, a
beautiful statue of elegance and danger.

"Bring it here."

She saw it, a simple black
satin cloth, laying on top of a bundle of other comparable items.
Innocent in its current form, just a strip of fabric - and still
she could not reach for it. Her hands had clamped so hard on the
rim of the drawer, she was worried her nails would leave marks on
it. The mere thought of reaching out, of loosening her death grip
to reach into the depth of the drawer with all the implements she
had been made too familiar with, with all the instruments that
meant more than just simple pain, suddenly exceeded her strength.
The pain she could take, the degradation was always what got
her.

"There is nothing in this
drawer you will get to feel tonight other than the blind-fold."

His voice was reassuring, not a
whisper of power but spoken aloud, and she might have felt better,
had she not also heard his almost silent after-whisper: "Not
tonight."

In the end, it was the ominous
bright bells of the clock on the mantelpiece chiming
11
which made her finally reach into the depth of the
drawer. The chimes were lashes against her mind, imagined pain or
remembered. It helped to push her mind into distancing itself from
her body. The cold, the place to hide when her life descended into
pain and humiliation, came closer, promising solace not too far
removed. It made it easier, made it bearable to turn to him, to
take that first step to the fireplace. The Lord followed her every
movement with his eyes, watching, analysing, cataloguing - but even
his intent blue gaze had no power to reach her anymore. It was
almost midnight.

She handed him the black cloth
and just stood there, resigned and calm. His expression, on the
other hand, was considering and not even in his relaxed position
could the word
passive
ever apply to him. She noted that he
had picked up the wine again and, playing with it against his lips,
met her gaze over the rim. Then he clearly came to a decision, set
it down and reached for her again.

Lucian pulled her back into the
kneeling position straddling him and came unresisting to his hand.
She had a good view of his hands playing with the blindfold,
running it through one palm, then the other. Kathryn expected him
to raise it to her eyes at any moment.

"Tell me about the first time
you had sex."

This must be the most confusing
man on the planet. Her eyes were fixed on the cloth slipping
through his hands, its movement hypnotic, only managing to
disengage her attention from that sight, as he stopped moving.

Unhurried, he waited for her to
meet his eyes again before speaking: "You are entirely too fixated
on the clock. When I will initiate your bonding is not your concern
-- it is mine. All choices, all decision are mine now. You have
nothing to say, nothing to decide regarding your future. Here and
now, I want your attention on me and as you seem to be unable to
give me that, the blindfold is a tool to ensure your cooperation.
If you are distracted again, I will take your ability to see the
clock away. Now: tell me about the first time you had sex."

"You could just have turned the
clock over." She just could not help blurting out
inconsequentialities, even at the danger of angering him. She could
have kicked herself.

"I could have -- but it would
be so much less enjoyable," and with a lightening-quick move he
played the soft fabric over her stomach.

It sent an electrifying shock
through her, the smooth silk strangely cool against her heated
skin. It made her gasp.

"Tell me!" His voice had turned
a lot less patient, each word enunciated precisely and a demand in
its own right. This first sign of temper, first sign of anything
but the maddening calm he had displayed until now, was comforting.
Kathryn knew about anger, about demands - it was the lack thereof
which kept her so off balance this evening.