Cake (59 page)

“
Traitor.”

T
wenty-Five

Conditioning

“
No, no…Master Marcus asked me to.”

Chesterton dropped the mug he was holding, and blood splashed everywhere, staining both our pants.

“
Liar! I heard
your
voice on the phone. How could you betray Marcus like that?” I felt a burning behind my eyes, and tears leaked down my face. “I liked you. Why did you do that to him?”

I started shaking, my whole body weak and trembling. I’d done too much in one night, pushed myself too hard. But I could hang on a little longer to see this through. Just one more ordeal to take care of, and then I could lie down and rest.

“
Tell me why, Chesterton. Tell me, or I’ll take it from you.”

“
Master Xavier…I was only carrying out…”

His voice wavered as he felt the muzzle of the gun vibrating against his skin. I couldn’t keep my hand from shaking. I eased up on the trigger a little. I didn’t think I’d get a dead man talking if my finger accidentally slipped.

“
Before you die, Chesterton, I’m going to know why you sold Marcus down the river. They shot him in the throat! Do you know what that’s like, to see all that blood?” My voice was getting louder and just a little bit shrill. I was so bone-weary tired, and now I was getting emotional too.

Still the butler remained tight lipped, and so I reached out with my hand for his forehead. “I know how much this hurts,” I told him, not feeling any sorrow or sympathy for him.

“
Sex!”

Marcus. His tone of voice froze everything inside of me, as it was supposed to. He only ever used it when I had done something unforgivable and had to pay for it. How I was going to pay was not going to be pretty or enjoyable. But I would pay and with my own blood, sweat and tears.

“
Xavier, Chesterton is telling you the truth,” Claudius said softly.

“
He called Monahan,” I cried, my voice shaky.

I could hear footsteps coming up behind me, but I never took my eyes off the target, my hand didn’t waver away from Chesterton’s face. Sweat was beading his forehead and upper lip and his tongue licked at his mouth nervously, his whole body trembling.

Marcus’s voice sounded right beside me. “Put the gun down, Xavier. You are weak and at the end of your tether.”

The weapon felt like a twenty-pound bag of wet sand, and held out at arm’s length, it was taking every ounce of strength I had left just to keep it steady. I was tired of holding it…but Chesterton had to pay, didn’t Marcus understand that? All I could see was him lying on his back, the blood oozing through the fingers at his neck, pooling on the dance floor in an ever growing black stain that turned crimson whenever the lightshow hit it.

I only have one more thing to do.

“
Sex! Obey me…
now!”

The deep conditioning that had been programmed into me kicked into high gear, and I immediately dropped the gun, ducking my head under my arms and crouching down at Marcus’s feet, waiting for the punishment to begin. I’d come to realize that it didn’t hurt as much if you gave in right away. And I just wanted it over.

I shut my eyes. I couldn’t keep my shield together. I knew he could rape my thoughts again, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. My legs were weak with shaking, and I ended up prostrate on the floor, my forehead pressing to the carpet. My arms were still up, protecting my head, and I huddled in the darkness behind my closed eyes, listening to the disembodied voices around me.

“
Marcus, what have you done?” Claudius asked accusingly.

“
Not now, Claudius,” Marcus dismissed, turning his attention to the butler. “Chesterton, are you okay?”

“
No, sir. I’ve…soiled myself.”

“
Get cleaned up, and take the rest of the week off. It will probably be best for Xavier if you are not around,” Marcus instructed.

“
I think it would be best for myself as well, Master Marcus,” Chesterton agreed. “Will Master Xavier be alright, sir?”

Would I be alright? I had fallen apart at the sound of my lover’s voice. Pieces of me were missing. I had slaughtered people, and I felt nothing…

I flinched as a hand touched my back. “Easy, my son,” Claudius said as he stroked me, the simple touch of his fingers soothing away my pain. I sniffed back tears. I hadn’t even realized I was still crying.

“
They had to pay,” I whispered out loud.

“
Yes, Xavier. They had to pay,” Claudius returned simply. His voice was accepting, and it took a heavy weight off my shoulders.

“
They did not have to pay in one night though,” Marcus countered, staring down at me. “The original plan was to move over two days, but when you get something in your mind, you cannot be swayed from your course of action, can you, Xavier? I will admit that, when you move, you move with a purpose, my Little One,” he said with a touch of admiration in his tone. “We could not keep up with you. That is why I thought it best to head home and wait for your return. Still, we almost arrived too late.”

“
Marcus, he is completely drained. There is no essence left within his body. It is a wonder he got in here at all,” Claudius observed.

“
His will was always a strong motivator,” Marcus replied.

“
You broke him, when you trained him?” asked Claudius.

“
No. I wounded him. I had to. He was too pigheaded when I first saved him. He would not listen to me, and I could not reach him,” Marcus explained. “If I had turned him before his training, he would have made the worst kind of vampire. He needed discipline.”

“
So, you gave it to him. Marcus, sometimes I fear for you. Now, I think I will have to fear for him also.” Claudius knelt beside me and his hands urged me toward him until I was half crouching, half laying on him. “Relax, Xavier,” he said. “You are home. You are safe. Everything is fine.”

I couldn’t feel anything. Something was wrong. I was crying, but not because of sorrow, or pain. I just felt tired. So tired.

Shade came up and brushed my hand with her head.

I can’t hear you.

“
I thought you said the blood bond only stopped when somebody died. I’m dead right. I didn’t make it,” I sobbed.

“
You are not dead, Xavier,” Claudius answered, the stroking hand he had in my hair stilling. “It’s just that your essence is expended. You need to be replenished.”

I rested my face on his thigh. “Everybody is safe. I can sleep now, right? I’m so tired.”

“
No, you need to feed first,” Claudius told me. “You are tired because you have used up all your reserves. Now, sit up.”

He pushed me upright on my knees, expecting me to keep the stance on my own, but my bones had dissolved somewhere along the way and I fell over backwards, landing on Shade’s warm furry flesh.

Slitting his wrist, Claudius dragged me back up a little and forced his bleeding wound to my mouth. “Drink, Xavier. You are not going to die today. Drink, damn it!”

I could feel his warm thick blood on my tongue as I weakly lapped, but there was no sensation to it, no taste. I should have been sampling cloves and copper. Instead I was just numb, and his offering to me simply overflowed past my lips and trailed down my chin and neck.

“
Swallow, Xavier.”

Pushing him away, I spat out what blood my mouth still contained. “Leave me alone. I’m tired. I want to sleep. Just let me sleep.”

“
Marcus!”

I heard Claudius’s urgent cry as I fell over again, landing on the pillow of fur that Shade provided. I can sleep here, I thought, closing my eyes.

Nothing bothered me for the longest time. I was in an unending place of darkness. Then images began flashing in my mind of heads exploding in a riot of color before fading slowly from view. I experienced the sensation of soaring on my wings, making a steep dive for a kill strike. I could feel the wind and the branches whipping and cutting at my face, and looking down I saw that my hands were stained red from the deaths I’d caused.

A little girl with golden curls looked up at me from a bed of blood. “Did you come for me?”

“
My Angel of Death.” In my head, Marcus’s voice was low and commanding. I fell to my knees and cowered before him, just like he wanted. “I do this because I love you, and I am going to make you worthy of my love,” he said.

The leather belt he had been holding cut into my shoulders. It snapped across my back, again and again, cutting bloody stripes into my flesh. I screamed at him. “Fuck me, Marcus.”

“
You are not worthy.”

“
Make me worthy,” I shouted.

“
I have tried. There is nothing here to work with. I set you free.”

“
You made me…You wanted me this way. You can’t leave me like this!” I pleaded with him, and I sobbed, but to no avail.

“
Do not cling to me. You are too weak. You cannot walk beside me.”

I sank to my knees, sitting in a pool of blood, my bloodied wings dripping more around me. My hair was saturated in blood too, and it ran off my shoulders, running down my naked form to add to the growing pool beneath me as Marcus walked away from me. He never slowed. He never looked back. I had done this for him. I had done it all for him, and he didn’t care. He was fucking walking away from me.

“
Marcus, you bastard!”

My eyes snapped open as I came out of my deep sleep, and my body made to sit up, but I was pulled backwards by my neck. I tried to raise my hands to my throat to find out why, but couldn’t move them. My legs wouldn’t budge either, because I was chained down to a bed. Whose bed? What the hell was going on? I had a damned collar on…and I was naked.

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Shade was mocking a popular television commercial. I was going to have to put a limit on her viewing if she was going to be doing this all the time, I thought, as her non-stop chant continued.

Shade, shut up.

Her cute, little housecat face popped up and rested on my chest.

Well, it’s about time, my Lord Emperor. It’s been ten days.

Why am I chained here like this?

It’s like
he
said…when you get something in your head, you pursue it with a vengeance. You thought you were dead, so you tried your damnedest to make it happen. This was the only way to keep the blood supply in your body
.

I glanced to one side and looked at all the medical paraphernalia standing beside the bed, with tubes leading to my arm. I turned my head back and stared at the ceiling.

Ten days? Did they feed you?

Only you can make the offering.

I pulled on the cuffs holding me down. They were like the ones that Monahan had put on me, before I killed him. My mind froze. I had killed a lot of people, not just him.

Oh God.

You are reliving the horror.

“
Stay out of my head,” I snapped.

I cannot get inside of your mind. The first thing to come back was your shield, and I can do nothing to ease your pain unless you drop it and let me in.