Cara Mia - Book One of the Immortyl Revolution (20 page)

“We took the unconscious victim back to the house and climbed the steps to Brovik’s aerie. Ethan placed the man on the low bed and then turned toward Brovik who dimmed the lights, so that the stars were visible through the glass. He doffed his clothes, and stood quietly off to the side observing as Ethan and I feverishly tore at ours.

The aurora danced overhead, bathing the three of us in its glow. Ethan led me, naked, to Brovik, “What’s mine is yours,” he whispered.

Brovik reached out, caressing Ethan’s face. “How could you deny me what is mine for so long?”

Then their mouths met in a long, deep kiss… ”

Joe stood up, “Whoa Mia! Do we need to go here?”

“It’s pretty important!”

“Go easy on me,” he pleaded.

She smirked. “Ethan led me to the bed where the victim lay sprawled. Brovik glided over, beautiful body shining in the moonlight. The semi-conscious victim, probably thinking he dreamt this, showed no alarm as the three of us surrounded him nude on the bed. Brovik took the victim up in his arms and drank from the throat while Ethan took one arm and bit into the wrist. I nestled into the chest.

After we’d drunk our fill, Brovik carried the body to a small door in the wall and dropped it into a chute. He’d apparently thought of everything when he built the place. He returned to us with his benevolent smile.

They reclined on either side of me, nuzzling at my throat, two mouths on my flesh, two sets of razor sharp points burrowing into me, two pairs of hands caressing my body. They clasped hands above my mouth. I knew what to do. Pulling them to my lips, I tore a gash in both wrists and let the drops intermingle in my mouth.

It defies description, but I’ll take a stab at it. First, a veil of black, fluttering, lifting, and then light and color within my very being, like the aurora that flared overhead, flowing in our veins. Two figures emerged from the darkness— one dark, dressed like Hamlet, all in black— the other fair, clad in skins and furs. I’d seen them both before. The dark one spoke honeyed words and called me princess, but the fair one said I belonged to no man. I was like him, a
journeyer
. I was drawn to his enigmatic silence and the eyes full of secrets yet to uncover. I opened to him. Light blazed through me. I plunged headlong into the white-hotness at his core, scorched with exquisite fire.

Now we three were one, burning with the fire of countless suns and distant stars, atoms fusing and dividing, a supernova exploding consumed energy out into space!

We collapsed exhausted, in a tangle of hair and limbs against the sheets. The aurora still floated in eerie red-green silence around us, as their hands moved over me soothing and calming, their lips murmuring words of love. I’ll try to put it as delicately, Joe, and not upset your heterosexual sensibilities, but what happened next between the three of us, also opened new horizons. Three bodies make for more variety of combinations, more orifices and delicious hard things to put in them, more hands, more tongues, and under Brovik’s exacting demands, I took my knowledge to another level.

Now, I understood Ethan’s dilemma. He found it difficult to relinquish control, and in Brovik’s hands he was totally disarmed.

During one of these divine combinations, I hovered over Brovik, taking him deep within, as Ethan prepared to penetrate my aft portion. I went over the edge, screaming enthusiasm for Brovik deliriously, as I slid down him.

“Damn you both!” Ethan pulled abruptly away from my body. “Keep her! I tire of the slut!”

Brovik sat up, pale hair falling into his eyes. “Ethan, she’s overcome by the bonding.”

Ethan towered over us his expression closed and dark. “I should never have brought her to you.”

Brovik collapsed back against the mattress laughing, while Ethan pulled on his clothes, and strode from the room. Minutes later, one of the cars screeched out of the tunnel to the ferry slip.

Brovik shrugged as if he were used to it. “He’ll get over it— in two or three decades perhaps.”

“But… ”

“No questions.” He slid into me again. “Conversation isn’t required.”

Brovik wasn’t like any man I’d ever encountered. I had a weakness for danger, and he was pure devastation. Ethan could only aspire to his heights.

He insisted I share with him alone, and when I did, a terrifying vision assaulted my psyche. Mist gathered then parted, and in a dawn-red haze, a woman appeared, dressed in flowing gossamer silk, black hair floating about her, as if she was under water. Brovik was there now, bearded, hair long and flowing, dressed in clothes of a long gone age. She slowly raised a knife high above her head, striking a tremor of deep, dark, primal fear. Then, just as suddenly as the vision appeared, it exploded into a mass of colored dots and was blown away.

Brovik lay on his back panting as I snuggled up to him.

“Who was she? The dark woman?”

He rose up, clutching me by the shoulders. “You saw a woman? What else did you see?”

I evaded his question. “Just a woman.”

“Does Ethan know you can see in the blood?”

“Can’t everyone— every
Immortyl
that is?”

“It’s a rare gift. I’ve known only one other who possessed it.”

“Ethan says they’re hallucinations.”

His eyes veiled. “Have you discussed this with any other
Immortyl
?”

“No, it seems rather, well, personal.”

“Keep this secret. It is best others don’t know.”

“Why?”

“It could bring you harm.”

I remembered the terror gripping Brovik because of this woman, and sensed wheels turning in his ancient brain. He abruptly rose, pulling on his clothing as I retrieved my own from the floor. His room was a surprisingly spare and tidy place. The furnishings were sparse, the large low bed covered in plain white quilts and sheets, a small chest for clothes, two chairs and a small radio. A telescope and some instruments of navigation sat on a small plain table. Books were arranged on a low shelf, mostly about birds, animals and the sea. No poets for Brovik. No starry-eyed dreamers to borrow from. Brovik
was
poetry.

He stood by the window, holding his hand out to me. “Come, let me show you something.” I joined him and he put his arm around my shoulders, gesturing out to the beautiful night. The tower was glass on all sides so that the sky was visible for three hundred and sixty degrees. The strange light of the aurora played over his features. His eyes looked far beyond and into the past.

His head tilted slightly back, the straight fair hair falling back from his brow as he spoke, “Our Ethan has reached a crucial time in his existence. After a hundred years all ties to the mortal past have died away. The survivors gone, the times change; nothing looks or sounds or feels the same. He mourns the children he left behind, the infant sons he hardly knew. They grew into men, grew old, and are now dead and gone. He clings to what has slipped beyond his grasp.” He turned to face me. “It’s all dust you see, and gone, poof, into thin air.” He gestured again to the snow-covered pines, the
fiord
and sea beyond. “This is eternity, Mia. It will continue when even we are dust. Ethan cannot love this earth as we do. He’s doomed to seek the unattainable. He blames me for his sorrows, although when I encountered him he was desperate to leave his world behind. I tried to persuade him not to buy the house, too many ghosts there, but you know how stubborn he is.”

“I live with a shadow.” I lifted his hand to my lips. “Let me stay here.”

“Kurt would enjoy company his own age.”

“What was that comment about following someone to a funeral pyre?”

He smiled, drawing his hand away. “I was trying to get his goat as you say. An Old Norse burial rite— when one of our important people died, his slaves were gathered together. It was asked of them, ‘Who will go with him?’ Usually a slave girl agreed to go. She was sacrificed and buried with him.”

Why was I shocked? “She volunteered? Why?”

“Who can say, perhaps she loved her master so much that she could not bear to be parted from him?”

“Maybe they drugged her?”

He chuckled, picking up a small, carved wooden box from which he removed a golden ring. “Come. See what I have for you.”

He dropped a ring engraved with a pattern of interlocking circles into my open palm. “It’s a symbol of my people, meaning unity,” he said, slipping it onto my finger. It fit perfectly. “All members of my house have them.”

I thought of the sewer rats on the beach, and the markings on them, suddenly the ring’s weight felt oppressive. He shut the box and stood, unreadable, mysterious, and serene, reaching out to take my head between his hands. Terrified, I looked up into his eyes. My breath came harder. How many times had I been told to beware him? Yet, I found myself falling under his spell.

His fingers brushed over my face. “Don’t be frightened,
Bird of Prey
. Tell me how this game evolved?”

“Ethan got the idea from the Ibsen play he saw me in. It became his life’s work.”

“We needn’t be rivals, Mia.”

He massaged my temples with his fingertips. My eyes closed for a half-second, then opened full on his calm blue gaze. I stared at him, open-mouthed, forgetting all the careful training of my senses, completely captivated. The sight, sound, taste, and smell of him, drew me. Wasn’t this what Ethan cautioned against? His lips parted, tongue lightly moistening them. His breath warmed my skin. I longed for that mouth all over my body.

His fingers traced the line of my brow bone, down over my nose. “Understand, I’m the moon and you’re the tide, without my favor you cease to be, but if you do as you’re told, go smoothly, and don’t make waves, my love and favor are yours. There’s work for you. After the council forbid us to pursue science, Gaius swore he’d work together with me for this cause, but I suspect greed recently got the better of him. Through Kurt’s contacts with the little rats, we’ve learned that Gaius has abducted many of their number, and many shipments of an unknown nature have been made to the Palazzo. It could be nothing, Gaius is a great collector of art as well as flesh, but if he’s my competitor I must know. He’s recently made another offer for you. Dirk is coming into his portion, and Gaius wishes to bestow on him the gift he most covets. Your power to see in the blood is an asset to this house. Go with Ethan, as if he intended to negotiate a settlement with them, and then contrive to be alone with Dirk. Use your gift to uncover information. In the end, Ethan will refuse Gaius’s offer… ”

“Dirk will hurt me. Nothing gets him off like my pain.”

“Don’t fear.” I fell under the spell of maddening stroking of my temples, struggling to retain my will. “Nothing will harm you. You have my promise. I know your deepest desire.” He slashed his wrist, pressing it to my lips. His consciousness poured out, filling me along with his blood. I reached out to catch the rays shining from his face. “See what I will give you… ”

Kurt, as I first saw him, in the moonlight on the terrace, the god of love, surrounded in cascades of roses. His hand stretched out and I went to him. He was too real to be mere fantasy. I smelled his blood and heard his heartbeat. I was no longer in the tower room but somewhere on a beach with him, waves rushing as a brilliant, blood-red sun rose before us.

Brovik’s voice insinuated itself around my brain. “My boy is beautiful. Feel him inside you.” Kurt’s smooth fingers and mouth caressed my skin. His hands cupped my breasts. I bore his light weight, his teeth and tongue on my throat as he moved inside me. “Imagine a world, where the two of you would be free.”

I shook and shuddered with pleasure. “Yes-s-s!”

“Do as I say and it will be so. Mia!”

I blinked my eyes. Kurt was gone. I met Brovik’s steady gaze, fully aware of what had just transpired, but not quite sure if it was just my imagination.

He nodded to me. “It’s nearly morning. Ethan will be back soon.”

“I’m afraid… ”

“I’ll protect you. Go, do as I say.”

Later, I lay awake as Ethan opened the door to our room. “Still awake? Have you finally learned all you desired, Pandora?”

“I
understand
your need for him, Ethan. Nothing in the world is as powerful as the hold he has over you.”

“And now he has that hold over you.”

“I’m part of you, just like we’re both part of him.”

“Whore! Nothing can ever be the same!”

I dropped my voice to a whisper, “Is that what you really think?”

“Don’t play games. What does he want from us?”

“Nothing… ”

He grasped my shoulders. “Liar!” He slammed me against the wall, smacking my head. A jolt of pain traveled from the back of my skull down my spine. Tears came, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I rose and squared off, slugging him back. He hissed and knocked me to the ground, placing his foot over my throat. I didn’t dare move. For once I really believed he might kill me, but he lifted his foot away. “I warned you but you fell for him anyway!” He dragged me by the hair to throw me face down onto the bed, forcing my hands behind my back. This couldn’t be happening. I was numbed, not believing he was doing this to me, oddly detached from it all, as if I watched the proceedings from afar. He threw his body over me. I attempted to drag myself forward only to find myself pinned by his greater strength. He laughed. I never hated anyone as much as I hated Ethan at that moment.

He whispered in my ear, “Rape is child’s play compared to what I have in mind for you.”

His mouth closed on my throat and punctured the carotid. I tried to wriggle away, as his arm closed tighter around me. I burned all over. Veins alternately exploded and collapsed as my head threatened to crack open. My thirst grew as my body rushed to stave off death, saliva flowing freely down my chin. Throbbing pain pulsated through my flesh. I begged for mercy as so many of my victims had. My fingernails raked his skin, but he didn’t budge. The mouth that had given pleasure in the past brought only pain.

Consciousness grew misty as I slipped into a shadow realm. His face swam around me in a circle as he crouched beside me, studying. The look of contempt was gone, now he simply observed my ordeal, detached until he dissolved into millions of black specks. “Tell me what he asked of you!”