Awakening Rielle (3 page)
Authors: Crystal Cierlak
She felt the warmth of his skin again as he took her hand, and a moment later he was pulling her feet into a quick stride. The changes in ambient temperature were the only indication that they were moving from her room into the hallway, followed a moment later by the descending of not one but two sets of long stairways. She couldn’t tell how long they'd walked before coming to a stop in a room that smelled of petrichor. She couldn’t tell if they were still inside or if he'd led her outside. She could neither hear nor feel any rain, and the space was only slightly less warm than her room with the blazing fireplace.
"Wait here," he commanded brusquely before retreating, his footsteps fading into silence. The steady sound of her breathing was the only thing she could hear, even as her ears became highly attuned to her quiet surroundings.
Why was she being forced to wear the blindfold? Did The Immortal want to keep his identity secret for his own sake, or was it just part and parcel of the theatrics of
The Immortal: ageless man who lives in the castle in the sky?
She shouldn't care. She
didn't
care. It wouldn't be much longer until she could leave his home and Raving Thistle forever, never again forced to sleep under the stars unless it was her choice rather than her lot in life.
Three minutes of silence passed before even the air itself stood still, the quiet coming to such a deafening loudness it suffocated her ears. The crescendo of her beating heart mixed with the building pressure of silence came to a head with a subtle
pop!
before the room went back to normal, her chest heaving rapidly with the intake of oxygen.
Rielle sensed she was no longer alone. There was a distinct displacement of atmosphere directly in front of her, as though the air were passing around a warm body of mass to her front, emanating heat in her direction. "Hello?" she whispered. The sound didn't make it far before reaching the unknown figure. She had no doubt it was
him
: The Immortal. Where the hell had he come from?
Only the black fabric of the blindfold she wore across her face hid his true identity. If it slipped off just an inch she would have a glimpse of him, could unravel some of the mystery of the man who allegedly survived off the purity of virgins.
Her
purity soon enough.
A solitary finger picked up a corner of the hem of her shirt and slid beneath the fabric, moving across her torso from hip to hip, the faintest touch of his skin brushing against her own. When his finger disappeared the wall of bodily warmth moved closer. She could reach out and touch him easily; it wouldn't even require moving too far.
"Undress." The Immortal's voice was a whisper, too low to detect any definite tone.
Rielle doubted there was any other sound in the world other than her own frantic heart, pumping away as though in a race to expiration. A dozen questions about why she had to undress at all were proliferating in her mind, trying to make sense of the purpose it served. She could only conclude it was somehow ritualistic. The quicker she got on with it, the sooner she would be back in the world and on a path to a better life.
She lifted her shirt up and shimmied out of it, exposed dermis cooling to the atmosphere without the cover of fabric. Her bare breasts were pert with fullness, the ends taut and receptive. He made no move whatsoever, not even to touch her. The rhythmic sound of deep breathing was all that kept her mind focused on the moment. She continued to disrobe, unbuttoning her tattered pants and letting them fall to the ground in a pool of fabric at her feet.
His palm grazed against her naked hip and she gasped, uncertainty yielding her lungs. The rhythmic breathing remained, however, and her covered eyes widened in astonishment as she realized it was
he
who was breathing so deeply, and not her.
He grabbed for her hands and dragged them up above her head before securing them into something thick and metallic. It happened too quickly for Rielle to protest. Her body was open and vulnerable, her perceptions tainted by virtue of the eye mask. She was wont to fight for autonomy, but acquiesced to submission instead.
Something grazed against her jawline, followed by the unmistakable sound of inhaling. What was it with people in The Immortal's home smelling her? There was something animalistic about it, something her body responded to in a way she was unfamiliar with. A tightening kneaded between her thighs, acute and incendiary, as though she needed only the faintest suggestion to combust.
"Purity emanates from your body like ripples on the surface of water." His hand cupped beneath her left breast, plump skin spilling in between his fingers. "With only the slightest persuasion..." She gasped as his fingers tightened around the mound of flesh, sending a direct line of current down to the apex of her thighs. "You feel it, don't you?"
There wasn't a word she could think of to describe what she was feeling. His hand relaxed and swept generously down to her backside where it was quickly joined by a second hand, the wall of warmth so close to tangibility it made her skin prickle. If only she could see him...
The air around her ear crackled with electricity, and she soon realized he was less than a breath away from it, his lips grazing so slightly against the delicate flesh as to not be there at all.
"Let us see what power you truly possess," he whispered.
Her remaining senses heightened, she heard him bend to her neck and felt the warmth of his parted lips as they met the crook of her neck. Her eyes rolled back into her head as his teeth scraped against skin, biting down without puncturing. His hands grasped at her backside as they had at her breasts, pillowing flesh between his outspread fingers.
The exploration of her body quickened, hands and lips moving independently until she was awash in sensation, head tilted back and breath escaping from her parted lips as she succumbed to awareness. Around her the air buzzed with the low rumbling of electric current, an occasional arc snapping and fizzling above and around her. He bit down into her flesh again, this time at the pinch of extra flesh just beneath her navel. The delicate muscles of her pelvis contracted and she cried out, the sound so unnatural to her ears. A second followed, and before she could cry out for a third time he gripped his hands at her head and pulled it forward until their mouths were joined, the third expulsion of sound lost between their lips.
She had never truly been kissed before. Never once tasted another's tongue with her own. Her instinct as the kiss slowed and deepened was to wrap her arms around him, to encase his body with her own so they were no further apart than a breath. Instead he was close enough to feel but not to touch, her body ripened and eager to feel more of him.
In her mind's eye she saw herself: naked and exposed, arms trussed up above her head, a faceless, shapeless man who was nothing more than whispers and legend kissing her with such aching familiarity that she didn't mind all the rest.
Realization dawned like the first rays of sunlight cresting above the mountains of Raving Thistle: she might enjoy having her virginity taken, even by the stranger known only to her as The Immortal.
As she had the thought his intimate touch receded, his mouth as suddenly gone from hers as it had appeared. The snapping of electricity dissipated to a low rumbling before receding as though through the cracks of the room, leaving them in nothing but silence. Her arms were immediately released from their confinement, dropping with heaviness to her sides as blood trickled its way back into the dormant limbs.
Rielle felt bereft of the absence of sensation that had nearly consumed her not a moment prior. Fueled by a reckless sense of anger she reached for the ribbons tied at the back of her head and yanked the blindfold off, her eyes immediately adjusting to the dim candlelight that cast soft shadows into the sharp features of The Immortal's face.
"
You
?" she breathed, momentarily distracted from her physical ache at the sight of the man from the library. His lips were still swollen from their embrace, and his eyes were so heavily lidded she could barely make out the molten brown. His chest inflated and deflated at the rapid succession of breaths as he panted before her, like an animal in heat or on the hunt.
There was a desire in her that could not be so easily forgotten, even at the revelation that The Immortal and the man from the library were one and the same. Her instincts were divided, one longing to reach for him and feel the closeness of his body to hers, and the other to cover her exposed flesh before the not-so-anonymous immortal man before her. She chose modesty.
"You may have what you came here for," he began, his eyes searching hers rather than her body. "You will have the resources you need to live well, to never again feel hungry or find yourself in need of shelter. In exchange for your virginity I will give you a taste of immortality. Do you agree?"
"Yes," she answered quickly, breathlessly, and without any hesitation. The promise of never returning to her life in Raving Thistle was enough for her to say yes to anything, but the anticipation of enjoying the exchange made it all the sweeter. "Yes, I agree."
It was then that she noticed they were in a bedroom similar to the one she'd slept in for three days, only far grander and larger in scale. Behind him was an immaculate bed so tall she'd need a ladder just to climb into it. It was wide enough to sleep half a dozen people. When her eyes returned to his face she was surprised to find him looking out past her shoulder. When she turned to follow his gaze she saw the old man in his equally old suit, nodding wordlessly, obediently.
"He will escort you back to your room," The Immortal spoke quietly, the depth of his voice betraying his cool demeanor.
"My room?" she echoed uncertainly. "But I thought-"
"When I want you," he whispered forcefully, his eyes ablaze even in the dim room, "I'll come for you."
Frustrated confusion simmered beneath the surface of her own incomprehension. "We made a deal!" she protested.
"And that arrangement will be honored to the letter, Rielle." The Immortal took a step forward, the warmth of his body hitting her once more like a wall. "You will have everything you desire, but the guarantee of a life lived long and well does not extend beyond the barriers of this place."
Everything inside her dropped, tumbling from their place of security into the unknown, her tears included. She resisted the urge to wipe away the moist droplets from her cheeks. "I can never leave?"
"Until you are relieved of your virginity - which I now own - you will remain here. With me." His eyes swept down, taking in the sight of her naked body from breast to thigh. He leaned in and brushed his lips gently across her ear, as he had done before, and she closed her eyes at the sensation of her skin awakening once more. " It was you who said that if I could give you what you wanted then I could do whatever
I
wanted with your virginity. We never agreed as to
when
." He quickly kissed at her ear, his tongue caressing over the folded ridge of skin before retreating. "The world is a far better place in here with me than it is out there. Trust me."
When she opened her eyes she was back in her own room, the crackling fireplace occasionally interrupting the silence. She was alone.
"
Shit
! Doctor Lewis!" There were several grunts of,
'Hey!'
,
'Watch it!'
and
'Be careful, Amanda!'
as she rushed out into the hallway in search of the attending physician. "Has anyone seen Doctor Lewis?"
"I think he's in his office!" someone called out. Without acknowledging the owner of the voice Amanda sprinted around a corner and down another two corridors before sliding to a stop in front of the doctor's office door. She knocked vigorously before bursting in through the door, startling the man sitting behind the desk, his eyes squinting as he read something on a computer screen.
"She's gone!" Amanda managed to breathe, her heart pumping furiously in her chest from the full speed sprinting.
Doctor Lewis' eyes drooped in incomprehension, a scowl twitching at his mouth. "What?" he asked dumbly.
"The young psych patient lying comatose in room 329? She's gone!"
Doctor Lewis moved as though a fire had been lit under his feet. He stalked down the corridors to the patient's room, Amanda following him like a frenzied shadow. Several nurses looked up at the commotion, whispering amongst themselves. He stopped at the threshold of the empty room 329, his face agog with shock.
"Call security and tell them we have a Code Yellow!" he shouted towards the gathering at the nurse's station. "Get me the name of every person on staff for the last twelve hours, and find out who this patient's emergency contact is."
"What's the patient's name?" A nurse called out, hovering above a computer keyboard.
"Nullus. Rielle Nullus."
* * * * *
To be continued…
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The allure of virgin blood was Death's most captivating song, and like a siren she sang to The Immortal, the melodious tang of coppery sweetness igniting a desire within him to drink. Two floors and thirty feet above him Rielle's beating heart reverberated like the breath of a wanting lover, enticing him. Only when she slept did the resounding summons quiet to a placid beating, and in those long stretches of time The Immortal could concentrate and consider the scant options before him.
His greatest fears had come to pass when he touched Rielle and her body responded. The test was the same as it had been with every other woman who arrived in supplication, their virginity a gift they were willing to sacrifice. It began with a touch of his palm near her center, calling the blood to flow towards him until he could feel the heat beneath the surface of her skin. If she were not as pure as she claimed the blood thinned, its tainted nature flowing like a lazy river. On these women he could sustain himself. It was the purer ones whose blood thickened at his touch, in his mouth. Their taste was honeyed by their purity, and he drained them with one drink, taking their life force into his own until Death claimed them into the beyond.
Occasionally a woman's reaction to this test was beyond qualification and she would ripen at his touch, her body blooming with a need his own desires reciprocated. But with the consummation of those desires came the primal need to feed, and it was always in his arms that she would expire, the last drop of ecstasy on his tongue in the moment after rapturous zenith. Hundreds of years had been required for him to discipline his hunger to consume only after his lust had been satisfied, no matter how a woman's blood called for him. It was far easier to keep the less pure ones alive and feed from them longer, but with the plague of Liberation claiming more of the pure with every passing generation his offerings were less and less frequent.
Replenishment was key. At one point he'd taken to collecting his sacrifices and providing them with anything their hearts desired. Food and drink, entertainment, the finest jewels and trinkets, anything they wished for. The pull of Liberation, however, would seep in through the roots at the base of the mountain where Raving Thistle thrived and climb its way up into his harem, infecting his food source with the lust and desire that tainted them beyond repair. When the women realized that their blood could no longer nourish him, they begged for forgiveness. Not a single one of them could resign themselves to a fate without his generous resources, and more often than not would offer their bodies instead.
"Why would I want what another has taken?" he'd ask before dismissing them back to the lives they came from before their offering, never once caring for their fate once they left the safety and protection of his home.
Only when the numbers in his charge dwindled did he take to hunting for fresh purity. Liberation had only grown more potent when it left its infancy, and not even he was immune to the pull of lust - lust that led to a great hunger only few could satisfy. A trail of bodies lay in his wake during the last hunt, his hunger barely fed, and it was in that moment he knew that only the purest - those untouched by Liberation - could sustain him. If only they could be sustained.
