The Maestro's Maker (3 page)

I looked at the huddling form in the corner, but could not manage to work up an

appetite. “I’m not hungry,” I said.

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Gunnar turned back to me then, taking my upper arms in his strong hands and nearly

lifting me off my feet. He looked into my eyes, letting a lecherous smile stretch his lips,

revealing his fangs to me. My fangs had grown as well, because he had startled me, and

because of a desire I felt, but did not want.

“Then I will have you, my child,” he said and began removing my clothes as the

priest chanted in Latin from the corner.

Gunnar’s body was like iron. He was as strong as he was old, strong even for a

vampire. Being taken by him was like being caught in a storm. When he laid me, naked,

back on the mattress, I thought of the beautiful Frenchman in the hold, and felt I should

be making love with him instead of taken by Gunnar. At the last moment, I pushed at

him and tried to squirm away. “No!” I shouted. “I don’t want to! Get off of me! You’re

a monster!”

It was a lie and he knew it. I hated that his body did this to mine, hated the fact that

I grew wet every time I thought about his hard, unyielding shaft penetrating me, the

strength in his hips as he pounded into me with a force as ancient as the trees. I hated that

he was beautiful and that the animal smell of him made me want to arch my back and

growl deep in my throat, and that I wanted to beg him to fuck me. I never had, but my

mind screamed it silently. My body always moved on its own under him.

Gunnar laughed deep in his throat. “Oh, Chloe,” he said, shaking his head and sliding

his fingers inside of me. “Foolish, young Chloe. Stop fighting, child.”

The certainty and calm in his voice killed my will to fight. Breathing heavily, I

submitted to his touches, and to the arousal he created in my body.

Gunnar opened his breeches and settled between my legs, pushing at me with his

erection. My body did not want to let him in, but he was patient, working his penis

against my folds, teasing me with a little smile on his face. He was perhaps the most

patient man in the world, an ancient predator.

He made my body yield to him, slipping his engorged member into me bit by bit,

making deep grunting noises, filling me up. “Ah, yes,” he said with a smile when he was

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all the way in. “My Chloe.”

I thought of the first time with him on the forest floor near my home, the day I was

captured, the day I was changed. I had screamed when he showed me his fangs. He had

placed his finger over my lips, working his hips against me in little movements. “Shh…”

and this, for some reason, had calmed my mind.

“I am your lord and master,” he had said that day, and pinned my wrists to the ground,

taking me without mercy, and without regret.

I had never been fucked the way Gunnar had fucked me that first time, forcing my

legs apart and grinding into me, slowly at first, filling me to the hilt with every single

thrust. I hadn’t wanted to respond, but my body couldn’t resist.

Nothing had changed. I felt myself grow aroused against my will as Gunnar watched

my face. He studied me while pulling the length of his erection out of me slowly, covered

with juices that I did not want to give him. He smiled while sliding into me again, deeper,

claiming me. Soon his thrusting became so forceful that I forgot how much I hated him,

and just lay there gasping, as I did each time he took me. My insides were on fire. There

was nothing I could do.

Except bide my time.

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Claude-Michel’s servant, Jean, was a girlish, pale-skinned boy with delicate features

and honey-colored hair. When I brought them their meals the next evening, I found him

looking at me, blinking in the light of my lantern. I smiled. “I hope you’re going to be

more talkative than he is,” I said, nodding to a silent prisoner in the corner. “He’s been

like that since he was brought here.”

“Why should we entertain you while we wait to be killed?” Jean spat. “I don’t want

your food!” It was not the way he normally behaved, but I didn’t know that then. I did

not know what to say.

“Jean!” Claude-Michel said. “Did I teach you these manners?”

The Frenchman’s tone made me shiver. Even as a prisoner fated to die, he seemed

strong and commanding. Jean and I turned to him, startled.

“I am sorry,
Monsieur
. Forgive me,” Jean said and grew silent.

I felt I should say something. “Will he eat if you tell him?”

Claude-Michel nodded, once. “Unless he wants stripes across his beautiful back when

your captain comes to his senses and releases us.”

His spirit touched me, and saddened me as well. “I am sorry,
Monsieur
,” I said quietly.

“That will not happen. But he will perhaps amuse himself with that priest for a week or

more.”

“And after that?” Jean said in a softer tone than before. He looked up at me with such

round, frightened eyes, I wanted to cry for him. “Will I be next?”

Jean noticed that Gunnar seemed to be working from the side of the room nearest

him.

“Eat,” I said. “Or you will be too weak to care.” I wanted to reach out and comfort

him with my touch, but didn’t dare. It did not pay to become too attached to Gunnar’s

intended meals, and I already felt something for his master.

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“No,
cher
,” Claude-Michel told him. “Not if I have any influence here.” When I

looked up, he was staring at me so intently I had to look away.

I moved on to Claude-Michel’s friend François, who stared straight ahead with

fevered blue eyes. Gunnar’s men used poison-tipped weaponry when they went out in

search of prey, and there were usually no injuries. But these men had fought hard, and

François had been cut badly in the arm. His blond hair was plastered to his face and neck

with sweat. He could not eat, no matter how I tried to entice him, or what Claude-Michel

threatened. When I touched his forehead, it felt as though his skin would scorch me. “I

did not realize it was so bad,” I said. François flailed his arm and babbled nonsense. He

was already too far gone with infection to recover. If Gunnar found out, he would simply

pitch him to the sharks.

I did not say any of this.

When I made my way to Claude-Michel, he was still looking at me. He tried to touch

my face with his fingertips, but I flinched backward, remembering my lip. It was still just

a little swollen.

“Cherie,” Claude-Michel said softly. “Who has been treating such a lovely creature

so terribly?”

“Gunnar is rarely a nice man,” I said.

“How did you come to be with him?” Claude-Michel asked.

I did not want to answer. “I am sorry about your violin. Nothing is sacred to Gunnar—

not God, not music. Not life. Nothing.”

A dark, pained expression crossed Claude-Michel’s face. “Yes. It was a lovely

instrument.” He gestured with his hand. “But it’s nothing, a tool of seduction.” In spite of

his predicament, he smiled. “It worked, no?”

I lowered my eyes briefly. “I loved your playing. I have not heard music in a long

time.” I let myself get too close, and Claude-Michel struck out his hand to seize my wrist.

I pulled out of his grasp easily. He raised his brows.

“Very strong,” Claude-Michel said with a snicker. “You must have grown up on a

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farm.”

“Yes,” I said, realizing his words were not a compliment. “I worked very hard.”

“But such delicate features.”

“What can I say,
Monsieur
? Some of us are born lucky.”

“Are you on the menu?”

The question startled me, and cut through my anger. I lowered my head. “No. Yes,

I—He does what he wants with me, that is all.”

Claude-Michel pressed on. “Then he has not lost the ability to appreciate a beautiful

woman.”

Something about the tone of his voice, the accusations there, made me fear I would

burst into tears. “Please eat,” I said, and got to my feet in one fluid movement before

retreating without the lamp.

“Chloe,” Claude-Michel began. “My friend is going to die soon if something isn’t

done.”

“Then he dies soon, rather than later,” I snapped, unable to keep my voice from

quaking. “It doesn’t matter. You’re all going to die.”

Claude-Michel pressed on. “This …Gunnar of yours …likes to kill. Oh, but I forget.

He’s a vampire.”

I paused at the door, resigned to the conversation, aware that I would have to return

for my lantern. “He says when a man is his age, he has experienced everything there is

and knows how cheap life is. This is one of the only pleasures that still makes his heart

pound, he says.”

Claude-Michel smiled and gave me an expression of mock innocence that made me

want to touch him. Afraid I would lose control and do just that, I hurried back into the

room, reclaimed my lantern and hurried back to the door. His voice stopped me again.

“Chloe, when a man is my age, one of his greatest pleasures is keeping a clean-shaven

face.”

“I cannot give you a blade,” I said.

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“But you could shave me yourself. I think I trust you not to cut my throat.”

I turned and met his eyes. “But can I trust you not to cut mine?”

Claude-Michel lifted his wrists and again tried the innocent expression. “I am quite

helpless,
Mademoiselle
. Between these chains and your charms, I have no powers left

with which to defend myself. But I am a
compte.
I don’t want to die looking like a

vagabond.”

“He will kill the priest soon,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

Claude-Michel paused and cocked his head. “He likes to kill. Why does he not do the

same to you?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, suspicious that he knew I was a vampire. I was careful

with my words. “He does other things to me.”

“He doesn’t allow you to hear music,” Claude-Michel said softly, compassionately.

“That is very close to death.”

I shook my head. “There are no musicians on the ship, except for you. These boys…

they are useless for anything other than killing. And many of them cannot even manage

that.”

“I am no musician,” Claude-Michel said. “All gentlemen know how to play, as all

know how to make love. Some are simply better than others.”

My mouth went dry. I knew he was keeping me there, making me want him on

purpose so I would help him. I could feel myself sliding closer and closer to his trap. “Are

you better than others,
Monsieur
?” I asked. He responded only with a slow blink and a

smile. I cleared my throat. “I am sorry about your violin. I felt its death.”

“I would play for you all of the time if we were free, my dear.”

I nodded. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Yes. I am trying to get you to set us free. And yourself. You would come with us, of

course. And I would show you the pleasures of making love, which are very much unlike

what you feel when you are being used by some monster.”

“I have to go,” I said and hurried away, leaving them in the dark.

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“He’ll grow tired of you one day,” Claude-Michel called after me. “What will you

do then?”

I will not be here long enough to find out,
I thought.

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Later that night, I wandered aimlessly around Gunnar’s quarters while he sprawled

on top of his mattress, feeding with the young priest under him. I had not yet managed

to work up an appetite and felt bored. As for the human suffering mere yards away, I had

come to terms with Gunnar’s sport long ago and willed myself to think of his human prey

as animals.

If I could read
, I told myself,
Gunnar’s room would be endlessly fascinating
. There

were cabinets of books and contraptions kept latched so they wouldn’t spill in stormy

weather, and stacks of other books on the floor and in Gunnar’s chair. More books, and

devices like an abacus and various types of compasses, littered the table. There were

scrolls in the corners, and maps and sketches on the walls. The room was a testament to

Gunnar’s curiosity about the very people he used so carelessly.

When Gunnar finished, he raised his head and took a deep breath. “Magnificent!” he

said. “The pious always taste so much better than the sinful hordes.” The priest’s head

lolled. He tried to say something in Latin. Gunnar chuckled. “He’s trying to exorcise

my demons. How nice of him.” He fingered the crucifix dangling from the young man’s

neck. He had ordered his men to leave it there. “With all of their advancements, they are

still wearing talismans to ward off evil spirits.” To the priest, he said, “Cease that chatter

or I will rip off your scrotum with my bare hands. I am already bound for Hell.”

I looked over my shoulder at him.

“Drink,” Gunnar said to me. “You haven’t dined in days.”

My stomach rumbled, surprising me. My hunger had come and gone over the past

few days, but now it sprang to life, violently, so I joined Gunnar on the bed.

I felt myself kneel on the mattress and reach toward the young priest’s hot, seething