Dominic (35 page)

With a barely discernable inclination of his head, Landon made to go, but Vincent stopped him again. “The situation in Else World could turn ugly

at any time,” he said with necessary bluntness. “If anything should happen to me, you’l watch out for her?”

Landon froze in the doorway, his back to him. Then he nodded slowly and took his leave.

9

N
ormaly Vincent was exhilarated by the prospect of work. But the folowing morning there was a distraction in his study. A female one. Cara.

She was unwrapping and examining al the sil y gifts he’d brought with him from Else World,
ooing
and
ahhing
over each in turn.

Across the room, Landon sat in his usual place when he wasn’t in the vineyard, making a pretense of reading a reference treatise on viniculture

while his hungry eyes tracked Cara’s every move.

Upon opening a long, slender object, she suddenly leaped back from it, looking frightened for some reason. He and Landon both half rose from

their seats, preparing to go to her aid. Then both sank again as they noticed the harmless nature of what she’d uncovered—a foot-tal painted wooden

soldier with a black hat, lying on its side.

“It’s a nutcracker,” Vincent informed her.

Stil looking inexplicably horrified, she sidled closer again to study it. “What is its purpose?”

Landon went to it and, opening its jaws, he revealed a void in which he set one of the nuts that had been sent along with it. Pounding downward,

he then pul ed out the meat and shattered shel . “There, you see? To crack nuts.”

She stared at it, transfixed. Then with a forefinger she drew an imaginary line across the base of her throat. “Death.”

Landon laughed, and Vincent looked his way, surprised. He hadn’t heard the sound of his ful laughter since he’d returned from the war. He sat

back in his chair. “I suppose it does have a rather evil, guil otinelike aspect about it.”

“Evil,” she pronounced with a nod.

Having apparently lost her taste for exploring more gifts, she came to perch on the edge of Vincent’s desk. The same edge upon which Landon

had taken her the previous night. “What is your purpose?”

“By that, I assume you are asking me about my business pursuits? I’m in the profession of law.”

“Law.”

“A system of codes that govern behavior and determine regulations for how a people live. The rules of society here are based on the Justinian

code in Roman law, which sought to lay down clear, concise, understandable rules of government.”

“As your body has governed mine…before.”

He was surprised at her understanding. “Somewhat similar. Yes.”

“What are the rules of government between us now?” she inquired.

He shifted, growing uncomfortable with the direction of her questions. “They are changing. We must alter them to suit us.”

She leaned closer. “To suit us? Or to suit you?”

He looked to Landon for help, but he only raised his book higher, shielding himself. Vincent gathered the distinct impression he was stifling more

laughter.

“Both, I suppose.”

Her brow knitted. “How did you arrive at your choice of purpose?”

“I suppose it began with my talent at mazes and puzzles. Wading through the intricacies of law is much like solving a puzzle. One gravitates toward

that at which one excels.”

She looked confused.

He eyed her, suspicious. “It’s odd the things you understand and those you don’t.”

She nodded. “Odd.”

“It’s also odd that you can speak perfectly complete sentences when it suits your purpose.”

“Yes!” she grew suddenly more excited. “My purpose. What is it?”

He stared in exasperation. “Ask Landon. I believe he may be better able to answer you, for I am preoccupied with thoughts of Else World and my

meeting there tomorrow.”

She turned on Landon, and he straightened in his chair, looking alarmed. “What is my purpose?” she demanded.

Vincent kept his head down, leaving Landon to fend for himself.

“Whatever you wish it to be.”

This seemed to annoy her. “What is
your
purpose?”

“I tend the grapevines on the estate,” Landon replied.

“Why?”

“Because it suits my disposition, I suppose.”

“Why?”

“Because I enjoy making things grow. Al of us here on the estate work toward one purpose—to keep this land safe in order to protect the Satyr

legacy, the vines, and the gate.”

“That was more information than anyone else has been able to draw out of him in the weeks that he has been home,” Vincent informed her.

“Perhaps your abilities lie in the area of interrogation.”

“Interrogation?” She screwed up her face, confused again.

“I’m teasing, Cara. Landon and I have had al our lives to determine what our purposes are,” said Vincent. “You’ve had two days. Give yourself

time. There’s no rush. You’l find a purpose.”

She ignored his somewhat patronizing smile. “But I
am
in a rush. I wish to find my purpose. Today. Where am I to look for such a thing?”

“Look to your interests, as we have. Or look to the needs of others and determine if you can make yourself useful to them,” Landon suggested.

“Why this ongoing interest in finding a purpose?” Vincent asked.

“Another wants to take me,” she whispered, repeating the phrase she’d used in the carriage.

His eyes narrowed on her, wondering now if he’d misinterpreted those words last night. “Landon, do you mean?”

“No,” she admitted after a moment. “When I was taken last night. There were two men.”

He straightened.
When she’d been taken? What the fuck?
“What happened?”

He went to her, but she refused to look at him. “One of them hurt me—the one who resembles a nutcracker. Then the other one asked if I had

remembered my purpose. He said he’l continue to take me until I remember my purpose.”

“Gods!” This from Landon, who’d dropped his book and slowly risen to his feet.

Cara turned to Vincent and put a hand on his shirtfront, her eyes desperate. “What is my purpose?”

His big hands covered her smal one.

But he had no ready answer.

10

T
he second time Cara was taken out of herself, it was worse.

For she was lying in bed. Vincent’s bed, where she’d believed herself to be safe.

She sat up in the pitch of night, unaccountably afraid, and spread a hand over the sheets next to her. They were cold. Vincent, her protector, must

have gone to that other world. For law. His purpose.

Across the room, the nutcracker grinned at her, its teeth leering white under its coal-black mustache. It had grown tal er, as big as a man.

“Landon,” she whispered, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. He was only a few doors away, down the hal .

She turned to leave the bed and seek him out, but someone stood there, blocking her way. Looking upward, she saw then that her persecutors

had come again. And this time, there would be no one to see or hear. No one to cal for her or worry over her as there had been at Marco’s home.

The dimensions of the room abruptly shrank to include only the three of them, and again she saw the dripping silver candles, but now there was no

couch, only the bed. The larger man—the nutcracker—was dressed in the usual crimson vest and was drinking from a wine bottle that was only a third ful .

Drunk. The other olive-skinned one was naked and watchful, waiting for whatever was to happen to unfold.

She tried to remain calm, to pay attention this time. Tried to notice details as Vincent had suggested she do this morning, if this happened again.

This, after he’d drawn from her a complete confession of al that had occurred during her first taking.

The nutcracker pushed her to lie on the bed and lowered his green bottle, sliding it smoothly under her gown and between her legs, nestling its tip

at her brink.

No!
The word resounded in her mind. These were her private parts. Vincent had spoken with her about this as wel —had said these parts were

inviolate. That she could choose who touched her there. She struggled to say no to him, yet she could not.

The bottle pressed higher, its smooth green mouth and then its neck slowly invading her soft, pink flesh. It went deep, and then he tilted it, douching

her feminine tissues with the spil of wine.

“Drink,” he told her. “And let it cleanse you of
his
seed before I take you. Before I butter your buns for
him
instead of the other way ’round, for once.

He’s always gotten everything handed to him. So easily. So unfair.”

With an abrupt movement, she swept her arm out, pushing him and the bottle away. When she sat up, wine stained the sheets under her like a

pool of blood, as if she’d hemorrhaged. But stil she couldn’t say the word
no.
Couldn’t make herself leave them.

The nutcracker looked angry at being thwarted. But the olive-skinned one ventured closer and wrapped his arms around him from behind, dipping

his hands inside the front of his trousers to stroke his stunted cock and soothe him.

Over the nutcracker’s shoulder, ruby eyes peered from olive sockets, burning over her. “Your purpose. Have you remembered it?”

She shook her head at the dreaded question. Then something clicked in her brain, tel ing her what she must do to please him instead. Scooting

across the bed, she crouched on the floor to look underneath it. Spying the tapestry bag Marco’s wife had given her, she pul ed it out. Taking it onto the

mattress, she sat in her former position and opened it.

The garments she’d been given now hung in the armoire. The only item the bag contained was a large square of linen that had been folded with

almost ritualistic perfection in order to conceal its contents.

The nutcracker’s black eyes had fal en shut, a blissful look on his face as another’s hand masturbated him. But the olive-skinned one’s gaze was

keen as he watched her unfold the linen and fondle the hoard of injurious objects within. Forks, knives, writing instruments, and more—she’d stolen them

al from those who cared for her, having no idea why she’d done so.

She selected one from among them—an ancient dagger she’d taken from a glass case in Vincent’s library. Its solid, silver handle was as fat as

two fingers and was carved with vines and bunches of grapes that wound over the muscular torso and furred haunches of a mythical satyr. At the rounded

end of the decorated handle were his cloven hoofs. Near the middle of the knife, the satyr’s silver tongue extended from his mouth, flattening to become a

long, sharp-tongued blade.

Lying back, she poised the blunt tip of the handle to nether lips, where the bottle’s mouth had been. Her hand shook with the effort to stop herself

from the impulse that held her in its thral . A single tear fel to her temple, dampening her hair. “No.” she whispered. “No.”

The olive-skinned creature’s ruby eyes snapped menacingly. His clawed fingers reached into the pocket of the nutcracker’s vest. Pul ing out the

golden coin she remembered from before, he laid it over her lips with a gentle menace that sapped her wil and rendered her mute.

Straightening, he unfastened the nutcracker’s trousers and shoved them lower. The bottle fel from the nutcracker’s hands to the floor, and his body

arched as he was brutal y entered him from behind.

Three gasps mingled as cold, blunt silver pricked her at the same moment. Her knees rose, and the soles of her feet dug into the bed linens. She

didn’t want this, but another wil guided hers now and she was helpless against it. As the dagger’s handle navigated deeper, her body caressed it,

conformed to it. Loved it. Until it was entirely embedded in her and only the blade protruded obscenely from her slit.

As the figures rutted next to her, they seemed to merge into one another, slowly and eerily. Until two became one. Except for the ruby eyes and

olive cast to his skin, the nutcracker looked the same as before. But she sensed he was different now. More lethal. He leaned close, his lips at her ear.

“When next I come to you, I wil fuck you where your satyr has been,” the amalgam said in the nutcracker’s voice. “I’l leave my cum behind for him

to discover. You wil ask him to place his mouth on you there afterward, that he may taste my leavings.

“And when he does, you wil plunge this very dagger into his broad back. Kil him as he’s tasting me, so that I wil be in his mouth forever.” A clawed

finger scraped along the blade that protruded from her.

Her lips sealed with gold, she could only gaze at him with wide, terrified eyes. Heat pricked over her, washing her with numbing panic.
No. Please.

No.

And then the coin was abruptly plucked from her lips and secreted in the vest pocket again, and then her persecutors were gone.

“No! Please, no!” As she pul ed the dagger from her body, the words shrieked from her, quaking the air and echoing off the wal s.

“What!” Almost instantly, Landon fil ed the doorway, blinking at her. He was naked. Muscular. Fresh from his bed.

Vincent joined him a second later. Handsome. Strong. Concerned. “Cara! Are you al right?” He made to pass Landon and go to her, but Landon

put a staying hand at his chest as he noticed what she held. The dagger.

She turned to face them then, her expression solemn. “I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I

was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation, which

reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum….”

“It’s another passage from
The Pit and the Pendulum
, almost verbatim,” muttered Landon.