Soon, we leave the horny couple behind and I find myself completely alone with a total stranger. The slight strains from the orchestra carry along the breeze until it seems we’re miles away from the ball. Shadows fall longer, the wood around the path grows denser.
“Are you afraid?” he asks. We stop. He rounds on me, facing me.
“Of what?” I return.
His hands ease to my hips, skim my bare back, and pull me close. I feel weird, as if I can’t really help my reaction to him. Even when his head lowers, I’m unable to pull away.
“Of loving me more than you love him,” he answers, his lips brushing close to mine, yet not touching them. “I think you are.”
Of him? Who? I can’t seem to help myself. I turn my mouth to his, and immediately he groans and covers my lips with his. The kiss is slow, erotic, and he takes his time to explore my mouth thoroughly, as if this is the only chance he’ll have. It feels like he’s waited for this moment a long, long time. I find myself kissing him back, and my hands thread around his neck and hold him tightly. Again he groans, and his kiss heightens. His hands slide down my bare back, over my ass, until he finds the slit in the dress and grazes the exposed skin of my thigh.
Then, he stills. For a moment, we’re both suspended there, in the dense wood, on a stone path. His hand leaves my thigh and cups my face. With a gentleness that surprises me, he strokes my lips with his thumb, then brushes a kiss there.
“You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he says, his accent thicker. He kisses me again, then moves his mouth to my ear. He says something in a language I don’t understand. “Forever,” he whispers. “And it’s exactly how I imagined.”
I’m looking at him, his face half cast in shadow, and I can’t remember who he is. Familiar? Yes. Attractive? Totally. But there’s something missing here. Something absolutely not right…
“Riley, didn’t you hear what I said?”
I jerk, and again, my vision is blurry. Slowly, I focus. I’m confused. I’m pissed. And I don’t like either.
Woman staring at me. Auburn hair pulled into high pigtails. Bright red lipstick. Who the hell is she? Her eyes are wide and frightened as she stares hard at me. Her lips are moving but I don’t know what the hell she’s saying. There is no sound coming out.
All I can hear is her heart beating. Fast. Maybe I feel it more than hear it.
I turn to leave, to escape, and I then feel a hand close around my arm. I react. I turn and jack the woman up against the wall, holding her there by her throat. Although I’m staring dead at her face, I don’t really see her. Her features are a fuzzy blur. Her body begins to jerk, and she’s gasping for air, clawing at my hand with pale white fingers. Long legs clad in ridiculous-looking striped stockings kick the wall. I smile at her.
All at once I’m tackled and I hit the floor. Frantic voices, swearing, shouting surround me, and I start to struggle. A weight, almost unbearable, pins me down. Not for long, though, because I find my strength.
“Goddamn, Riley, hold still!” the voice warns, and straddles me in a way that I can’t move my arms or legs. I don’t recognize the voice, but it’s deep, accented, and threatening. All I want to do is escape. Get away. But I can barely breathe, much less run away. Whoever is on top of me is one strong fuck.
“Nyx, call Mrs. Dupré,” the same voice yells. “Now! And get Ms. Estelle over here, too.”
I thrash some more. “Get the fuck off me!” I growl. I buck, begin to pull one of my knees up under me. The body atop me grunts, mutters something in a foreign language, and holds me tighter.
“Hold her, Zetty,” a female voice warns. “You’ve got to get a better grip on her legs or she’ll kick right out from under you. I’ve seen her do it.”
More weight, distributed over my legs and arms, and no matter how hard I pitch, I’m stuck. My face is pushed into the floor. I don’t know who Zetty is, or Nyx, but they’re both dead when I get free.
“Call, Nyx,” the Zetty person says. “I can’t hold her forever.”
I hear the Nyx person speaking in an excited voice to someone, then she moves into my line of sight. Same stupid stockings. Must be the heartbeat I had by the throat. She comes closer, bends down, and looks at me. I’m so filled with rage I want to gnash out with my teeth and grab her.
“Riley, it’s going to be okay,” she says. Her eyes are wide and fearful, but there’s pity in her voice. “I promise, it will be. And I’m so sorry.”
I do nothing but stare at her and growl.
Her hand goes to her throat and she quickly backs away.
“Yeah, stay back, Nyx,” the male says. “She’s strong.”
In the next instant, a small dark woman is suddenly there. She bends over at the waist and looks at me, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes deeply engrained into her skin. I try to lunge, but I’m trapped beneath the human. Her ebony face frowns at me, unafraid.
“Girl, we gonna git you right,” she says, shakes a bony finger at me, then looks at the male. “You stay put on her dere, boy. She git loose an’ we’ll be in trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the male says. He holds me tighter still.
I gather all of my strength, buck hard and scream.
The male, Zetty, has a tight enough hold that I barely move an inch.
The dark woman smiles and nods. “Good. I’ll be back.”
“Riley!” another male yells. “Zetty, what’s happening?”
“No, Seth,” another says, this time a small, petite woman. No, not a woman. She’s pulseless. There are two without pulses in this room. With my vision cloudy, I seek them out. Short, compact, eyes aglow.
“Get away from me,” I growl, squinting to make my vision clear. The younger male, human, edges closer.
“Riley, no,” he says quietly. His face is pinched in pain, and I can’t understand why.
“She doesn’t recognize you, Seth,” the young pulseless female says. “You’d better step back.”
“No,” he says, unbending. “She’s my sister.” This he says so soft only I can hear.
Not that I understand it.
The dark woman returns, and everything spins out of control at that point. I’m lost, suffocating, drowning, fighting. I feel like I’m dying, like I’m more thirsty than I’ve ever been in my entire life. No, not thirsty. It’s hunger. Hunger and thirst combined. I need…something. A light-headed feeling comes over me, and now I’m dizzy. Something is forced down my throat, and although I thrash back and forth, I’m overpowered. Someone with very small but strong hands holds my head, and something disgusting is jammed past my lips. I cough, spit, but those same steely hands now grip my jaw closed. I have to swallow. I hear yells, cries, and what I can only assume is my own voice moaning in agony. My body goes limp. Feet shuffle around me. I hear the sounds, and the whispers, but nothing more. I can’t understand any words. I can’t see faces. I see only darkness, hear only whispers. They’re frightening me now, the whispers, and I try to hide but my body won’t move. They’re after me. They want to kill me.
They want to eat me.
Soon, though, the voices, whispers, shuffling feet, all become muffled. Then, they disappear.
I am now in total silent darkness.
Part Five
CARPATHIANS
I’ve never seen Riley like this. I was so little when she was messed up before, I remember almost nothing. I do remember my mom crying a lot, and Riley stumbling in at four in the morning, high as a kite. What I recall most is how she changed her life. Now? To see her like this again? It makes my stomach hurt to watch her. She’s like a wild animal, and she recognizes none of us. And to know it’s nothing as simple as crack or cocaine scares the hell out of me. She’s turning. My big sister, who’s always taken care of me, is in the throes of a dual-venomed quickening. I might not be so worried if Preacher and Mr. Dupré weren’t so worried. But they are. So, I am. I can only pray what we’re doing to her works. It’s tortuous to watch—way worse than Da Is
le and Gullah cleansing. I feel helpless. I…love my sister more than anything. I want her back. And I’ll do anything to get that.
—Seth Poe
The voices. They’re back. So I’m not dead after all. Or, maybe I am and this is what Hell is like at first. A load of weird scary shit to make you really think hard about what you did to land yourself a place here. That’s the thing. I don’t know.
I try to move; my arms and legs are tethered. I try to crack open my eyes, but still I see nothing but darkness. Yet…I feel movement. Hear whispers. Air brushes my cheek and I feel a presence close.
“Riley,” a deep, slightly accented voice says in my ear. “Can you hear me?”
I’m not sure if I’m who they think I am, but I try to respond. My mouth is frozen, lips won’t move. I try to scream. Nothing comes out.
“Shhh, chère,” the voice says, and I feel a lukewarm hand brush my forehead. “Be still. It won’t be long. I’m right here and I’m not leaving.”
The surrounding noises infiltrate my brain, and I detect a low, constant humming. Almost a whistle at times. I stop fighting, stop trying to see, and just fall back into the shadows.
I awaken to a jerking motion. This time, even for only a few seconds, I can see. I’m riding in something. A car? A train? Feels more like a train, and I can hear that constant clack-clack of the tracks. Where the hell am I? I stretch my eyes open farther, and I can barely see out of the window next to me. It’s light outside. Foggy. And just as I look, we disappear into a tunnel bored straight into the mountain. Then, it’s dark again, exhaustion overwhelms me, and I drift back to sleep with the clack-clack of the train as a lullaby.
* * *
When next I awaken, I know nothing except pain. Pain and starvation. Why won’t someone feed me? I want to cry, and no tears will come. Fury overcomes me, and I gather what little energy I have to thrash against bonds still holding me prisoner. I don’t know how long I fight, but it feels like a long damn time. Hands hold me down. Then, a scent washes over me. Exotic. Sensual. Seductive. I feel the fight leave me in hopes of replacing it with whatever accompanies the intoxicating scent. Eventually, though, I tire. I give up. The scent disappears as fast as it came upon me.
More whispers. One voice in particular whispers close to my ear in a language I don’t understand. This one, whoever he is, is pulseless. And he never leaves my side. Always there, always touching. Then, as suddenly as I had awakened, I fall back into a deep, deep sleep.
“Jake, hold her steady,” the accented voice commands.
“Damn me, but I am,” someone responds. “She’s like a rabid fecking dog.”
“Eli, move over,” another male voice says. “I got this.”
“Hell no, Miles,” the accented voice says. “You keep that shit to yourself.”
Male laughter. “It’s either me or Victorian. Which do you prefer, Eli?”
“Neither,” he responds.
More male laughter.
“You boys mustn’t horse around so,” an elderly voice, also accented, commands. “That’s the only bit of Preacher’s herbs we have left.”
“Well, she needed more than I thought she would, Papa,” another replies.
“My father has called,” yet another voice offers. “He wishes us to gather in the library.”
“You don’t have a padded room or something?” another adds. “She’s going to go buck-fuck wild when we turn her loose.”
“We’ll see about that,” another says. “She can’t be all that strong.”
More male laughter.
Energy courses through me now, and I’m angry. Pissed. Three males, all pulseless, surround me in some room I don’t recognize. I’ve got to get out. Get away.
I lunge at the one closest to me and wrap my legs around his neck. We fall to the floor.
“Goddamn!” he mutters, and I twist around his body. In a half second I have him pinned, and just as I’m ready to strike, I’m knocked backward. I land on my feet, dazed for only a second. I lower, crouch, and eye my next target. He’s closest to the window.
I’ll go out of it if I have to.
“Eli, she’s going for the window,” one wisely notices.
I’m already moving. I fake left, bound off first a wooden bench, then the wall, use one male’s chest as leverage and I push off, landing square on the sill in a crouch. I turn, glaring at my captors, daring them to come near me. The one I just pushed off of is just now picking himself up off the floor. I’m barely out of breath. One is moving toward me slowly.
“Noah,” one says. “Watch your back. She’s ready to pounce.”
I seek him out. He grins. “I’m ready for it,” he says. Cocky bastard.
Oh, hell no, he isn’t. In one jerky motion I’m at him, legs wrapped around his waist, his neck in a choke hold.
“Fuck!” he yells, and tries to shake me off. I hold tighter. His arm reaches up to grab me, and I land two punches on his jaw. One more in his eye. All under three seconds. So fast he doesn’t have time to react until I’m already finished. I pull my strength and use his body to push off of. I’m back on the window sill, glaring. Daring.
“Look at her eyes,” another says. “Almost white.”
“Bad juju right there,” the grinning one says. “I mean bad. She’s strong as shit.” He’s rubbing his jaw, smiling at me.
“She needs to be fed,” one replies, and his gaze hasn’t left mine the whole time. “Arcos? You taking care of that?”
“Already done,” he answers. “Hurry.”
I wait no longer. In the next breath I leap upward with all my strength, grasping one long rafter with my fingertips. It’s enough. I pull myself up, then crouch and ease to the far corner of the room, high above all the others.
“Oh, shit,” one says. “I told you this was a bad idea.”
“How the hell are we going to get her down?” another asks.
“We wait,” the one who constantly stares says. “She’ll tire. She’ll get hungry. She’ll come down.”
I peer at all of them from my corner rafter, high above the floor. I’m in the dark, swamped by shadows, but they all can see me perfectly clear. I grasp my beam and hold tight. I sit. I stare. I wait.
“Here. Sit up and drink this. You’ll feel better.”
My eyes crack open, and light pours in. Someone must have pulled me off the rafters. My body aches, and I feel beaten. I squint, blink rapidly, and allow the pulseless male to cradle my head. Something firm nudges my lips, the scent of nutrients stings my nostrils and I open my mouth like a baby bird awaiting a worm. Warm liquid drizzles down my throat. In seconds, I do feel better. No energy, but at least that roaring, fiery pain has disappeared. I drink for a while. Minutes. Finally finished, I drift. Again, I sleep.
“Wake her, Noah,” an elderly accented voice commands.
“All right,” he drawls. “Someone hold this for me.”
“I hate this,” a now familiar voice mutters.
I am awake. I’m just so drowsy I keep my eyes closed. I hear the voices around me. Suddenly, though, I get a whiff of…something. Then, it disappears. Then…an erotic feeling crashes over me and my eyes pop wide open. I stare into the painfully beautiful face of the same man whose ass I whipped the last time. Now, though, I don’t want to fight. I grasp him around the neck, pull his mouth to mine, and kiss him. Hard. He kisses me back, but I barely notice because my fingers are searching for an edge of cloth—his clothes—to yank off. I can’t get enough of him. I find skin. Stomach. Rigid muscles. I grope. He moans. I moan—
“Noah!” the familiar voice warns. I barely hear him, so engaged in disrobing whoever was driving me sexually insane. Just the feel of his tongue against mine nearly makes me orgasm.
“Bind her now,” an elderly voice says. “Bring her to me.”
With my mouth still latched on to my new obsession, my hands are pulled behind me and tethered. My feet are bound. I don’t care. Only when the male I’m sucking on is pulled from me do I become
alert. I blink several times, shake my head, and look around. I am put in a straight-backed chair. I watch closely.
I’m in a room. A strange, large, empty room. Windowless. And in it are six males. All pulseless. There’s only one heartbeat within, and it’s mine. So sluggish, it barely thumps five times per minute.
Two elderly males stand close, facing one another.
“Gilles Dupré,” one says. “We’ve but one choice to right this matter.”
The one called Gilles nods. “Oui, Julian. You are unfortunately correct.” He glances at me. “There is no other way?”
The one called Julian shakes his head. He has long, straight silver hair pulled into a silver clip. “No. A force stronger than Valerian’s must enter her, and the only force stronger than his venom is mine.” His gaze passes over me, then over the others before returning to the one called Gilles. “In return for my aid, I require the return of my eldest son, Valerian.” He looks at one of the males in particular. “Unharmed and intact.”
“He needs to be punished for his actions,” that one called Eli demands vehemently. “He cannot simply go free.”
Julian nods. “Of course. And we shall see justice served. Through our counsel, punishment will occur.” He again looks at Gilles. “Agreed?”
Gilles glances at the others, then back to Julian. “No harm will come to this girl?”
Julian gives a slight nod. “I vow it.”
Gilles nods. “Very well, then.”
Julian meets the gaze of one of the males—dark, tall, young. “Victorian?”