Temptation's Kiss Ch. 03

Adrian’s beauty in moonlight was rare porcelain perfection. He stood in the shaft of moonlight in the window, framed perfectly between the open curtains, looking down at the lovers on his bed with an inscrutable look in his jewel-like eyes. Michael, who was never asleep to begin with, his spirit state precluding any need for such rest, watched him cautiously, one large hand over the sleeping woman protectively.

“That was brazen even for you, Mick,” Adrian said quietly.

“You have to know, I have never attempted to seduce any of your consorts. I have been nothing but polite to them.”

Adrian’s finely arched eyebrow lifted, “This was not a seduction?”

Michael grinned a little, charming, “You had already said she could have me. I came to her when she was in need of comfort. I would say it was pretty mutual.”

The vampire narrowed his eyes, baring his teeth in a slight snarl. Michael, abashed, averted his amber eyes and bit his lip.

“You can’t keep her, you know,” Adrian hissed, leaning forward. “She’s already gone one day without feeding, how many more can she tolerate? She will weaken, the hunger will take her eventually, and your pretty little maiden will become the beast. Then, she will be mine, and this little…” he waved his long fingered hand at the scene on the bed, “… whatever it is will be over.”

“You can’t make her love you, Adrian,” Michael said quietly, “And you, of all people, should know that physical boundaries cannot come between those that truly love…”

Adrian snarled, and whirled to leave, when Michael did something he hadn’t thought to do in over two centuries. Perhaps it was the emotion, perhaps it was the proximity, but he reached out impetuously and grabbed Adrian’s wrist, and held it. The vampire turned slowly, his red eyes mad and wide, and looked down at the violinist’s fingers wrapped around his slender wrist in complete amazement. His sensitive skin could feel every callus on the shade’s fingertips, the impossible warmth, the slight tremble. He saw that Michael was still in contact with Branwen, and made the connections. For just a moment, it looked as though he might smile and come to his lover, after so much time… instead, the raven-haired vampire curled his lip, ripped his hand out of the shade’s grip, and flew from the room, hissing like a bee stung cat.

Michael hung his head, running his fingers disconsolately over the palm of the hand that had held Adrian’s, even just briefly. He stroked Branwen’s cheek one more time, then got up, dressed, and disappeared.

The screaming woke Branwen from a dead sleep, a high, piercing wail of terror and pain that caused every hair on her body to rise and her eyes to open wide. A woman somewhere on the castle grounds was in terrible peril. It didn’t sound near, but then, she wasn’t sure where it might have been, her hearing was so good. Something about the sound drew her, calling her in a way that not mere curiosity would have, pulling her by instinct. She leapt out of bed, and fairly swooned from the dizziness that hit her. She had not eaten, and it was taking its toll on her. The realization was a chill in her stomach, a pain in her heart; she would miss Michael’s gentle loving, his reverent kisses… Another scream rent the quiet, and she staggered toward the vanity and found that Bernard had already been there, leaving out another beautiful set of clothes for her. She dressed without looking, though she was certain the lace and silk she shrugged into was as stunning as the last, and dashed out toward the source of the screaming, her head spinning.

It was still dark out, the dawn still some hours away, and the grounds were chilly. The cries seemed to be coming from outside, in the garden, and Branwen followed her ears to a courtyard near the terrace of the old ballroom, and as a wave of white dizziness washed over her, she braced herself against the side of the stone wall. Down in the garden, Adrian stood, holding a young woman roughly by the shoulders, snarling up at the balcony where Michael stood, his hands braced against the railing, a lit oil lamp beside him, his knuckles as white as his face. The woman looked no older than Branwen, herself, and was thin in the way that homeless heroin addicts are, desperately so. Her hair was an indiscriminate mousy brown, her eyes muddy gray, and her clothes were tattered. Adrian closed her screaming mouth with his hand, placing his claws against her cheek to remind her to keep quiet, and growled up at the shade on the balcony, his voice rough with anger and the beast within. He lisped through his fangs.

“Think you can save them all, Michael? Would you deny me life and sustenance for your fine sensibilities? Would you deny her?” he jerked his head toward Branwen where she stood against the building. “See how she comes? As someone once put it, ‘the fox comes a-runnin’ when the rabbit screams… but not to help.’” (Mason Verger-Hannibal)

Branwen found she could not take her eyes off the woman in Adrian’s arms, though not out of jealousy, as she would have expected. The way her thin neck flashed in the dim lamplight she could almost see the vein standing out, and it entranced her. Adrian turned his burning gaze to her, and instead of the rage-fueled madness she had expected, his expression was forgiving, cajoling, almost sweet. His smoky voice was now soothing, loving as he called to her across the courtyard. “Come now, tesoro mio. I can see that this pains you. You know you want this: the very substance of life at your command. I know the hunger that drives you here. You have tasted mine, now set yourself free.”

Branwen looked up at Michael who regarded her with frightened, pleading, deeply saddened amber eyes. It seemed he could not speak, and she knew he could not come down to where they were. She was torn, her gaze switching from one to the other rapidly; her ebon Prince of the Night, and her sad-eyed shade. A tightness started in her chest, somewhere between a sob and a scream, and she dropped to her knees. Michael ran to the balcony edge closest to her, though he could not reach her, calling for her. Adrian knocked his victim unconscious with a swift blow to her head, dropping her like a forgotten doll there in the garden, and stalked toward Branwen where she knelt in the gravel. He cast a withering glare at Michael, who retreated back out of sight. The vampire knelt beside Branwen and caught her gaze, holding his fingers stained dark with the blood of the girl in the garden within sight of her bleary eyes. She could smell it, like copper and fire on the night breeze, the promise of life, and the end of her suffering at his fingertips. Perhaps, but at what cost?

“I just can’t…” she whispered.

Adrian ran his bloody fingertips along her lips, and she shied away, licking her lips furiously. With a superior grin, he stood, striding back to the girl he had left in the garden, picked her up, sank his teeth into her throat, and drank her dry before Branwen could avert her gaze. She could just hear Michael’s gasp from the balcony, though she could not see him. Then, Adrian strolled back to Branwen, picked her up, steadied her on her feet, and kissed her deeply and passionately. The blood on his tongue and lips was enough to drive her mad with lust, but not near enough to sate her, and she returned his kiss with nearly the brutality he had come to her the night before with. She could just hear his soft, low chuckle as she fought to lap up every last drop of blood, ending with his clawed fingers in her mouth.

“You want more, don’t you?” he purred.

She pulled away from him, galled, and fled into the castle, unsure of where she would go, but followed by the laughter of the vampire all the way.

Hours later, in his study, Adrian sat in his favorite chair, his feet up on the desk, idly poring through a very old volume of Edgar Allen Poe, feeling angsty, when Michael strode through the heavy oaken door. Literally, without opening it.

“What brings you here, Mick?” Adrian drawled complacently.

“You know very well what brings me here, Adrian,” the shade replied quietly.

The vampire lifted an eyebrow, and closed his book, intrigued, “Indeed?”

“Why must you torture her so?”

Adrian turned in his chair to face his old friend, and rested his chin on his steepled fingers, his elbows on the arms of the chair. “It is in my nature to do so. I would think of anybody you would know that.”

“Is it necessary?”

“If she does not feed soon, she may die. She refuses to do so because of you. I don’t want her to die any more than you do. But, if she does not learn to hunt, she will weaken… then you-know-who will get to her. I cannot allow that.”

Michael snorted in distaste, “I still do not understand why on earth you keep that thing caged up in the basement, Adrian.”

The vampire leapt from his chair, “Shut up! If he should hear you speak so…”

“Oh come off it! He hasn’t been capable of lifting so much as a finger in centuries! Why haven’t you killed him? Put him out of his misery? How hard could it be?”

Adrian buried his face in his hands, his hair falling forward to veil his face. “I don’t know if he can be killed anymore, Mick. I have no idea what would happen if it were possible. What would happen to…” he trailed off, running a clawed hand through his hair anxiously and staring off.

Michael stood by the window, looking down at his hands for a long minute, then spoke again quietly. “Adrian, what happened back there?”

“What?”

“You know what I am talking about; back in the bedroom. How was that possible?”

Adrian regarded him sideways, looking tired, too tired to fight. “Hell if I know, but it won’t last long. I wouldn’t keep my hopes up. Where is she anyway?”

“I thought you knew.”

“I don’t keep tabs on her. You’re the one that seems to be able to find her no matter where she has gone off to.”

“I can’t find her either, I thought you would know.”

Adrian paled, “You don’t suppose…”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Porca miseria!!” Adrian spat and ran from the study, Michael hot on his heels.

Branwen sat huddled in a deep downstairs corner near the basement, in the dark, as far from any signs of life from that cursed castle she could find. It was very near too dark to see, pitch black in the unlit staircase, though there was not much to see except stairs, cobwebs, and the heavy oaken door at the foot of the staircase. She pressed her back against it, but there was something about it that was prickly, beyond splintery and on to really malevolent that made her sit back up again. Very faintly she could hear a sound that was like distant whispering, sobbing, rhythmic as poetry behind the door.

“Is this the door to the basement Adrian warned me about, I wonder?” she mused.

A soft whine reached her ears from the top of the stair. Not human, it sounded like … a dog? What dog in it’s right mind would allow itself within a mile of this place? She stood and slowly climbed the stairs to see what was up there, and came face to face with a massive black wolf sitting at the top step. It has been a long time since humans have felt a need to fear the wolf, and Branwen’s generation had never need fear them at all, nonetheless, she was cautious in her approach of the huge animal as though it might pounce at any second. It just sat there, it’s ears up, it’s shaggy head cocked and whined again.

“What is it, boy?” she called softly, holding her hand out for it to sniff, “What on earth are you doing here?”

The wolf stood, and turned as if to go, but looked over its shoulder at her, whining a third time. She took the hint. “Well, boy, if you’re telling me that this place just don’t smell right, I’m inclined to agree with you. Come on, let’s get out of here. If a 500-year-old vampire doesn’t like this place, I should think it’s no vacation spot.”

She followed the wolf as it padded silently through the castle halls, one hand on its warm flank, feeling rather like a child in a really weird fairy tale. It led her to the garden as the sun began to peek over the horizon, sitting on a stone bench as though to watch the dawn. Branwen sat beside it, putting her arms around its great shaggy neck and burying her face in its fur with a sigh.

“What am I gonna do?” she sighed, “I’m surrounded by weirdness. So much so that the arrival of a wolf the size of a fucking Buick isn’t tipping me off to run screaming. Oh dammit. You make about as much sense as anything else in this madhouse. Of course, you might just be Adrian trying to trick me. He did say something about being able to shapeshift, and harnessing the power of the wolf, whatever the hell that means. He’s pretty melodramatic in his own way, isn’t he? Tres Bela Lugosi. This is all too much. You aren’t Adrian, are you, boy?”

The wolf licked her cheek and grinned at her with his round yellow eyes.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

She sat for a long while, watching the sunrise, stroking the warm, thick fur of the wolf when she realized she was feeling even more drained than before. By the time the sun was fully up she could barely sit upright, and the light was so bright to her eyes that she curled up into a miserable ball on the stone bench, shaded by the bulk of her companion. “Oh no,” she breathed, unable to speak above a whisper, “I thought he said that sunlight could not kill me?”

“I did,” Adrian’s voice said from behind her, “I also said that you would not be nearly as capable of doing anything in the sun as you are at night, if you were listening. Are you ready to come inside now, and talk rationally?”

She lifted her head to see the vampire standing there, looking oddly muted in the soft dawn light. He wore his tinted glasses, hat and duster, and his skin had not the luster it did in moonlight, looking simply pale now. He held out a hand to her, and the wolf nudged her hand with its muzzle to encourage her to take it. “Oh hell, yer all against me, now…” she sighed.

“Abbi fede, gattina mio, have faith in me. I am not against you. I certainly don’t think dear Michael is against you. Even a wise man knows when to come in out of the rain.”

Resigned, she took his hand, and allowed herself to be led into the castle up to the bedroom. Adrian closed the curtains over the window, the lack of sunlight a cool blessing on her burning eyes, and she curled into a miserable ball on the bed.

“Are you going to listen to reason, now?” the vampire queried, standing over her, his arms crossed.

“What?”

“You’re being unreasonable, Branwen. You are not human any longer. Though you are not quite vampire, either. You know nothing of what you are capable of, or what you will be when you stop being a stupid girl and do as I say. I am your Master for a reason. I brought you that girl last night so you would not have to hunt the city for your sustenance, and you could not bear to do what comes naturally to you. You are going to die, and it won’t be pleasant. A human will die after only a few days without food or water, but you… you may take weeks, months, of starvation and pain until you finally succumb to it. I will not stand by and watch this happen. You think this is bad after only a couple days? Watch, girl. If you wait much longer you won’t be able to leave the room, then the bed. I would sooner kill you myself than watch you go through this. It’s undignified.”

“What is in the basement, Adrian?” she asked quietly. “What the hell are you so afraid of?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, cruelly. “You think I am afraid of what is down there?”

She met his gaze levelly, “Everybody is afraid of something. Everything in the world has its limitations…”

“I fear nothing!” he screamed, his control slipping.

“Of course you fear something,” she replied quietly, “I think I know exactly what it is, too. You’re afraid to be alone. Michael was sick when you tried to change him, wasn’t he? You were afraid he would leave you, one way or another, and now he is here with you for eternity, and you can’t deal with it. You fear having no more physical contact, so you brought me here, a healthy young thing, so you could change me and have a companion. Perhaps even so you might leave this place, though I do not think you will. What were the other girls like, I wonder? Simpering, sweet things that followed you like desperate puppies? That you could protect and shelter in your greatness? There is something out there that can kill you; you are immortal, but not indestructible.”

The vampire lifted his hand as though to backhand strike her, his eyes dangerous, his delicate lips snarling, then paused. She had hunched her shoulders and was glowering right back, baring her fangs and pulling herself up slowly, looking very much like a wounded panther whose fight was not all the way beaten from her. She hissed, digging newfound claws into the bedspread, and looked just about to pounce.

“You think you can beat obedience into me like some kind of animal, Adrian?” she growled, “Is this how you draw your lovers to you? Is this how you kept Michael with you when he was alive? Intimidation? Did you beat him, too? I was right; you are afraid! I got news for you, baby; I am not afraid!!! If my first kill has to be you, so be it!!”

Adrian dropped his hand and stared at her. Anger turned to shock, then melted into an evil, complacent grin that was reminiscent of the expression on a mother cat’s face when she sees her kitten take her first swipe at a bird. “Ohhh, gattina moi, you cannot kill me,” he purred, his expression softening to loving pride, “You must turn your anger to more productive pursuits. Let us speak no more of fear. Let us speak of survival and immortality. Of eternal life, and eternal love…”

“Love? The word sticks in your throat, you selfish beast!”

His smile dropped, and he regarded her for a long moment. “You think I cannot love? You think I have not? You think that I embraced Michael out of fear? That I have no heart?”

“I know you have no heart. You said so yourself. You said ‘With no living heart to beat for you?’ when I asked you to love me the first night I was here. I had only meant for you to love me in the physical sense. Even you had to think about that one. No, I don’t think you are capable of love, of any selfless act.”

“You don’t think that perhaps it might be love that draws us together?”

Branwen was tiring, but she would not back down. His arguments were tearing at her heart; she wanted, desperately, for Adrian to love her, more than anything. If she was to be bound to this creature for an eternity, she did not want it to be an act of desperation, or fear, or selfishness that kept her there. She would rather die than be bound in a loveless eternity, as his pet. “No,” she said quietly, drooping to the bed, “It is your fear of eternal loneliness that draws us together. You don’t want me. You don’t love me. You need me.”

He stepped back a pace, looking down at her, his expression inscrutable. “Perhaps,” he said softly, “but together we are, and together we stay, till death do us part.” His thin, graceful form diffused to black mist, curled against her cheek in the softest of caresses, and disappeared into the shadows.

She missed him, instantly, and she wondered blearily if it was the blood bond between them that made his parting so hard to bear, or if, indeed, it was something else?

She sat on the bed for long hours, just staring off at the tapestries on Adrian’s bedroom walls, not really seeing them. The grounds were virtually silent. She could hear the faint call of birds in the garden, but could not bear to look outside at what she knew was a beautiful day. She could hear the scuttling of the rats in the halls. She listened for the padding of the wolf’s paws, the click of its claws somewhere in the castle, but it seemed to have gone. Pity. She strained to hear Adrian’s boot heels, and for the sound of the violin, but all was quiet. She dragged herself to her feet and looked at herself in the mirror with a flinch. She looked ghastly; her skin was sheet white. Large dark, smudged circles hung beneath her red, bloodshot eyes, and her hair was a tangled mess. She cast about for a brush, and thankfully found one to tame her unruly red curls. She sat in the chair, and brushed her hair, trying to soothe herself with some vestige of normal life, but it did little good. Before she knew it, she had begun to weep bloody tears into her lap. Even this development was too much for her, causing her to sob all the harder. There was no going back. This limbo she was in now could not be sustained, even for the sake of one lonely prisoner who needed her so desperately. She searched the drawers of the vanity for a handkerchief, thinking ‘this old-fashioned kind of guy would have such a thing, don’t you think?’ and found several, lace-edged, delicately embroidered, covering a necklace of fine silver filigree around a large blood red stone. She dabbed at her eyes with a kerchief and lifted the necklace on its delicate chain to look at it. On the back, etched in impossibly perfect script were the words “Forever is a long time, Siate felici.” She wondered whom it had belonged to, and what had happened to her. Perhaps it was some of the source of his anger?