Not What She Seems (9 page)

Without energy to be gained from their union Sylvia still had to hunt to sustain
herself. At first Karl didn’t seem to mind. After all, he had the same needs that could not be met with Sylvia’s passion, but as time went by he became less and less tolerant of Sylvia fulfilling her basic needs from other sources. One evening, as she lay with a border who had just rented a room upstairs from the bar, Karl burst in just as they began to have sex. Enraged at the sight of his Sylvia with another man, Karl beat the boarder almost to death and made it clear to her that if she ever lay with another man again he would leave her.

Sylvia couldn’t imagine life without Karl and she had no doubt he meant his threat. She ceased feeding all to
gether, saving her body for him, and him alone. Meanwhile, he continued hunting and feeding off the girls that he met out on the city streets. Sylvia remembered one occasion where he picked a girl up right in front of her, in the very bar where she worked. She had stood there, open-mouthed, as Karl gathered his coat to escort the woman out of the bar to the room he rented down the street. He had simply smiled, then winked at her as she stood gaping in disbelief.

Karl continued to feed off the other women he had sex with while insisting Sylvia stay true to him
, despite her rapidly declining health. Her looks began to fade as her hair lost its sheen, her eyes their sparkle. Her once soft skin began cracking and flaking and her teeth began to yellow. He came into the bar less and less frequently, but still she stayed true to him. Their physical union was like a drug to her, and she couldn’t risk cutting off the supply. She faded out while Karl remained healthy and strong off the energies of the carnally curious ladies of Boston.

Looking back, Sylvia couldn’t imagine why she had tolerated that kind of treatment from him, but deep down, she knew the answer. She had loved him. He had made her feel alive for the first time in her unnaturally long life. Karl had showered her with genuine interest and affection
at first. By the time her looks and health began to fade due to the lack of feedings, so had his interest, yet still he kept her hanging on, drunk on his own sense of power over her. Instead of taking care of herself as she should have, Sylvia met his demands at her own expense with the hopes of keeping him. It hadn’t worked, and if Lilith had not caught wind of the situation and immediately forced her transfer to Philadelphia, she suspected she might have died in Boston then, from both an unanswered Hunger and an unrequited love.

She
stayed in Philly for a handful of years but it was never truly home to her. She longed to be back in Boston, and once word reached her that Karl had moved on, she went back. Free to be what she was again in her own hometown, Sylvia vowed to never get involved with another incubus, and to never let anyone, human or incubi, find their way into her heart again.

It had worked, keeping her lovers at bay all of these years. Never did she once feel any sort of attachment to any of the men she slept with. They were a means to an end, nothing more. She kept her heart guarded and her
Hunger satiated, and it had worked. At least until Karl showed up in her life again, under the new name of Keith.

Now he was in her home and by her side indefinitely. Sylvia thought she had let go of her anger towards him a long time ago, but seeing him face to face had proven that
to be untrue. She hadn’t forgiven him, or even herself, for what had took place two centuries ago. Seeing him unexpectedly today had ripped those wounds wide open again. The tears began to slip past her defenses and Sylvia sobbed into her pillow, angry with the incubus who had stolen her heart and broken it so completely, and angry at herself for allowing it in the first place.

~~~

A knock on her door roused Sylvia a few hours later. She blinked in confusion as the afternoon’s events came back to her. She must have fallen asleep some time ago as the sun had set and her room was dark.

“Sylvia? You okay in there?” Keith knocked again as he called to her softly.
She was glad to notice he didn’t try to open the door. He was respecting her privacy, at least for now.

“Yup, I’m fine.”

“If you want, I was thinking about ordering a pizza. Or maybe Chinese? You hungry?”

Sylvia didn’t answer him immediately as she rose from her bed and padded barefoot across the lush carpeting to the door.
She opened it and studied him with bleary eyes.

“Pizza sounds good, if you’re offering. Let me know when it’s here.” With that she closed the door in his face. Sh
e leaned against it and listened as he retreated down the hall, away from her. Finally she flipped on her bedroom light and thought for a moment.

He was here
, and there was nothing to be done about it, unless she wanted to face the Hunter alone. She was no longer some wide-eyed rube willing to fall for his charms and his tricks. While the pain within her over their failed relationship had been re-awakened by his sudden appearance back in her life, she was older and wiser now. She had made it clear to him there would be nothing physical between them and she was resolute in her decision to keep it that way. She would get through this. She only had to put up with him until the Hunter was stopped.

A hot shower washed away her dried tears and helped her to feel centered again. As she lathered up
her hair she thought of Mason and their brief time together that afternoon. While he hadn’t opened the door to physical intimacy between them yet, Sylvia was pleased he had at least admitted he was interested in pursuing more than a friendship with her. He had spent a decade avoiding an emotionally or physically intimate relationship with women, yet it was she who was pulling him out of that. As the hot water cascaded around her Sylvia trembled at the memory of his chaste kiss. The simple contact of an Innocent’s mouth on her flesh had left her with a sensation unlike any she had ever experienced.

With a start
, Sylvia recalled the last time she had felt like this, so obsessed with another. It had been Keith. She reassured herself that her interest in Mason was entirely different than her self-destructive dependence on Keith all those years ago. She had no need for Mason, outside of sleeping with him to take his Innocent energy, both to sustain herself and to win the Challenge against Elora. There was no emotional investment in him on her part, outside of her own selfish purposes. She had needed Keith, or so she thought at the time. Now she knew better.

She turned off the water and towel dried
her body and her hair before slipping into a pair of leggings and an oversized, shapeless sweater. No need to dress up for Keith, she mused as she padded out of her room and down the hall.

Keith sat on her leather sectional with his feet up, playing a video game on her huge flat screen
TV over the fireplace.

“You
brought your game system?” She frowned at him.

“Well, I didn’t know how long I’d be staying, so I figured I might as well. I hope
it’s okay that I hooked it up already?”

“Whatever,” Sylvia shrugged. She sat on the far side of the s
ectional, as far away from him as she could get.

“The pizza will be here in another ten minutes or so.” He
paused his game to look directly at her. “What’s with the getup?”

“What do you mean?”

“You think if you throw on some baggy old thing I won’t know what a hot bod you’re hiding under there?” He motioned to her oversized sweater.

“Wha
t I wear is no concern of yours,” she replied icily as she drew the huge sweater over her drawn-up knees, stretching it out to cover her completely. Her eyes never left the paused TV screen.

“D
on’t be like that, Sylv. I’m just joking around with you.” Keith seemed unsure of himself when she didn’t respond. “Look, I guess I owe you an apology.”

“You
guess
?” This time she ripped her eyes away from the screen and glared at him. She couldn’t believe her ears.

“I’m
sorry, okay? I was really young, and I had just turned, so I was kind of full of myself. I wasn’t much to look at as a human and I never got any girls, so when Lilith made me what I am today I kind of went crazy. I could get any girl I wanted, and any female I passed by wanted me in her bed. I wasn’t used to it, so it was a big deal, you know? I guess I kind of let it go to my head.”

Sylvia snorted out loud in disgust as he tried to explain his former
bad behavior.

“I was an incubus, but I still had too many of
my strong human emotions.” He scooted down the sectional, closer to her. She allowed it but narrowed her eyes in warning to him. He could sit closer to her, but he’d be foolish to try to touch her.

“You
… you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. You still are, even now. I didn’t care that I couldn’t feed from you, I just wanted you.” Keith paused as he remembered their sweaty, passionate unions. “I couldn’t believe you picked
me
to be with you, when you could have any guy you wanted. I knew you had to feed too, but… I guess the human jealousy was still there. When I heard you had gone upstairs with that boarder, I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the thought of some other guy knowing you in that way, even if it’s what you needed.”

“I loved you,” she
whispered with tears in her eyes, her anger fading away to the stark pain that remained. “I loved you and you abused me.”

Keith looked away, unable
to bear hearing those words from her. He cradled his head in his hands.

“I did, and I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I hope you
know I really did love you too. I just didn’t know how to handle what you are, what we both are.” He forced himself to meet Sylvia’s gaze again. “I have regretted how I treated you every day of my life since then. I hope you believe that, because it’s true. Losing you was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, Sylv.” His confession seemed genuine.

“I
came back to Boston to find you but I never asked Lilith about you. I think she had forgotten the whole mess between us and I wanted to keep it that way, but I wanted to see you again. When Lilith told me to guard some succubus the Hunter was after, I had no idea it was you. I was as surprised as you were when you stepped off of that elevator today! But now I’m here, and we’re together, and you told me the ‘rules’ about all of this. I don’t like them one bit.”

Sylvia tensed. As much as she had longed to hear an apology from him for the way he treated her in the past she wasn’t rea
dy to reconcile. Not like that.

Keith noticed her body language becoming tense again. “I don’t like them, but I’ll respect them,” he sighed. “I still love you though I understand if you don’t love me anymore. But don’t you see? It’s like Fate brought us back together. I come to Boston, looking for you, you need a bodyguard, Lilith sends me
… it’s like we were meant to be together but we just needed some time apart to figure it out.”

Sylvia stared at him mutely.
The anger and pain she kept pent up inside of her for all those years was at war the love she once felt for him.

“I can’t do this.” S
he shook her head sadly. “You show up here, act like a jerk, then confess your love for me again after the way you treated me. How could you do that?” She turned her attention back to the TV while she shut him out. Inside she was torn. Part of her wanted to scream and kick him out immediately, Hunter be damned, but another part of her wanted to fall into his arms and pick up where they left off, before it all went sour.

Keith studied h
er for a moment but when she continued to ignore him he moved back to his original spot on the sectional and picked up the game controller again.

“Fine,” he said softly.
“I get it. I won’t pressure you, but I want you to think about it. We were good together once, and I know we can be again.”

They sat in an uncomfortable silence until the pizza
man rang the buzzer downstairs.

Chapter 10

The next afternoon
Sylvia woke up late and groaned as she recalled the horrible night before with Keith. After his confession they had spent the rest of the night with a tense silence hanging between them, only broken by the occasional necessary word when it came time to eat and time to show him to the guest bedroom. He hadn’t tried anything with her, before bed or afterwards. She couldn’t decide if she was pleased or disappointed about that.

If only it were easier. She longed to be able to move one way or another
in regards to him. Throw him back out into the world with an angry slam of the door, or climb into his bed and enjoy each other again as they once had. She knew she needed his help to stay out of the Hunter’s clutches but she also needed to stay out of his clutches as well. She couldn’t put herself through what she had survived before because of him.

The smell of bacon and eggs hit her as soon as she opened her bedroom door. Her stomach rumbled in response, and another, more primal
Hunger began dully gnawing at her as well. Great. All the stress of yesterday had burned up the energy she had gotten from the two mid-grade feeds earlier in the week. She had hoped it would last a few more days at least, but stress, be it physical or emotional, burned it up at a faster rate.