Lust Bites (16 page)

'Hungry enough to kiss me now?'

He's back, holding a tray just like the one from yesterday.

Merle stares at him at him. She still doesn't know for sure if he's Cole or not. Which is weird because if someone is your own personal bogeyman they might at least be kind enough to introduce that fact properly.

'Or thirsty? Let's see.' He sets the tray down on the floor like before, but this time walks over to Merle holding the glass of water.

Merle looks at it longingly. She'd actually managed to scrape up some of the water from the floor after he'd left yesterday, but it hadn't been enough and she's still horribly thirsty.

He's very close to her now, but holding the glass carefully out of easy reach. 'Just a kiss.'

She has to drink. She doesn't have a choice. She has to kiss him. But now he's this close the fact he might be Darius Cole isn't half so appalling as the smell of him. Like blocked drains on a summer's day. Merle holds her breath, screws up her face and pecks him on the cheek.

When she opens her eyes he hands her the glass and she drains it.

'Oh,' the man says, 'you
were
thirsty. I'll bring a bigger glass tomorrow. I am sorry. We really have no idea how much humans need to drink.'

'Eight glasses a day,' Merle says tautly. Like he didn't know that.

'As much as that.' He pauses and looks as if he is making some kind of mental calculation. 'I'll have Kris-tina bring a pitcher down.' He turns and walks back across the cell to collect the toast. As he picks it up he says, 'We gave him no blood for a month. Nothing. We didn't know what it would do. He started to hallucinate. We kept him naked and he knew we were watching him lose his mind. Do you see those marks there on the bench?'

Merle looks down next to where she's sitting. There are a number of deep gouges in the wood. 'Yes.'

'He bit right into it.'

Merle's brain seems a little clearer now she's had some water. 'You said "we", "we gave him no blood for a month". You're one of the Black Emerald Clan.'

The man nods at her as he carries over the plate of toast.

'I thought Cole had killed you all.'

'Not quite all,' says the man. Now Merle isn't so thirsty she can feel her hunger gnawing and burrowing inside her. The toast isn't particularly nice. Limp plas-ticky white bread, barely browned, but the sight of it is making her feel light-headed. The man reaches out and runs a finger down the front of her T-shirt. 'I won't bite you,' he says, clearly amused by this not-very-hilarious statement, 'then he'd kill me for sure. But now, your food, I'm afraid the price is another kiss for the old man. On the lips this time. Your food for my food.'

The man is gross, but, Merle knows, she can't go 25 days without food. So she just sits quite still and lets him move in and kiss her on her firmly closed mouth. His lips are inhumanly cold and the smell is nauseating.

'Ah, the warmth of it after so long on plasma packs. Too rich for an old man,' he says as he pulls back. Then he sets down the plate of toast before turning away, almost sulkily, and stalking out of the cell.

No longer close to delirium from hunger and thirst, Merle starts to actually get bored.

So bored that she's almost pleased when the repulsive male vampire arrives. He's carrying a tray that holds a jug of water, a bowl of soup, an apple and a bar of chocolate. Merle's heart twists. Food that isn't toast! Instantly she feels almost desperate for the food on that tray, but at the same time slightly sick with the idea of what she might have to do to get it.

The vampire smiles. 'Cole has been a little more specific about what you are to receive for nutrition.'

Merle nods. Darius Cole. Here she is in Darius Cole's castle and after four days she still doesn't even know what he looks like. 'So he isn't ever going to come and see me himself? Not at all.'

'Darius Cole saw no one for months at a time. He didn't need food or water. When they did give him blood they just pushed it through that hatch there.' He points to the door where a much smaller hatch is set into the bottom. Merle had thoroughly examined it a couple of days ago while searching for any weaknesses her prison might have. She'd found none. 'They were scared of him. His powers to manipulate were legendary.'

'Is that how he finally escaped? How he took over this castle?'

'You ask such strange questions. What you should be doing is asking me what you have to do to earn this food.'

Merle swallows, looking back at the food. Her salvia glands tingle. 'What do I have to do?'

'You have to answer
my
questions.' The vampire smiles unpleasantly and comes and sits down on the bench next to her. Merle moves away from him a little, her chains clanking and clattering. They're making her wrists sore and achy. The vampire leans still closer – making her attempts to move away from him futile. He whispers, 'Does the idea of Darius Cole keeping you a prisoner here excite you?'

Merle swallows hard. She's been thinking about Darius Cole all her life. Thinking about scenarios exactly like this. Thinking about him. Obsessing. Wondering if he ever, even once, thought about her. But this imprisonment, the reality of this, well she can safely say this isn't exciting at all. 'I can't imagine anything less exciting. Being here on my own, hungry, thirsty, in the dark ...'

The vampire smiles and everything horrible about him seems to increase several times over. 'Not the reality of it, the
idea
of it. Why do you think he wanted you?'

'To hurt my parents.'

'He could have imprisoned them?'

'This is worse for them, much worse.'

The vampire cocks his head at her. 'OK, let me put things another way, Miss Cobalt, did the idea of Darius Cole, a notorious dangerous vampire, your parent's nemesis, wanting you to come and spend time with him in his castle excite you? Did it
arouse
you?' He raises his eyebrows like he's her co-conspirator. 'Did you think he planned to desecrate you?'

And, oh, God, that's the question. The one she's been torturing herself with since they got the letter. Was part of her thrilled by the idea of this? Not the reality. The idea. Her nightmare wanting her. She knew she couldn't hide feelings this strong. Not from a vampire. The blood rises to her face. She tries again to move away but there's nowhere to go except off the bench onto the floor. There's only one escape route.

Merle turns to look the vampire right in the eye, holds his gaze while the blood rushes in her ears and her cheeks grow hotter and hotter and she swallows hard and says, 'Yes.'

The vampire stands up. 'And now you are disappointed that he hasn't.'

Merle gets up too. 'No, I ...'

'That wasn't a question.'

When the vampire appears the next day he seems rather more vigorous. He carries a similar tray to yesterday's and sets it down before he approaches.

'Yesterday, the questioning, that was Cole's orders. He wanted to know about that stuff. And he was watching me with his telepathy so you got an easy ride. Today is different. If you want
this
food remove your clothes.'

'What?'

'You heard me.'

'But when you kissed me, you said it was too much.'

'Yes, well, perhaps I was wrong about that. Perhaps it was too little.'

Merle shakes her head, mostly in disbelief – some horror, but she's not actually that scared because she knows she'd rather starve. 'I'm not going to take my clothes off. There's no way.'

'Fine, I'll do it for you.' The vampire rushes across the cell at her, his dark coat billowing out behind him. Merle is sitting on the bench and he knocks her back, hard against the wall. Before she even realises it, he yanks at her T-shirt so hard that the fabric starts to tear. She's screaming.

With a grunt of effort, he pulls her down onto the floor. She's kicking and scratching at him. He's so strong.

Then a familiar breathy voice above them says, 'Oh for goodness sake, use your weapon. Hit him like this.' Merle looks over the vampire's shoulder and sees Kris-tina standing over them, looking almost bored. She bends down and picks up some of the slack from Merle's chains and uses the doubled length to strike the vampire's skull. He collapses onto Merle's chest.

'See. Easy,' says Kristina. 'You know that might be why Darius wanted you to wear the chains. He used them as weapons every chance he got.'

Merle's pushes the unconscious vampire onto the floor and gets up shakily. 'Well, I guess I'm not an expert in these things. Dungeon self-defence.'

Kristina gives a snorting laugh. She picks up the tray of food and brings it over. 'God,' she says, putting it down on the bench, 'is that all he brought you? I made much more. He was probably trying to make sure you were always hungry, the dirty sod.' She pauses a moment then looks at Merle with one hand on a curving hip. 'He was only doing it for the kick of playing with you, you know. He wasn't actually attracted to you.'

'Oh,' Merle says, not really sure what to think about that. 'Right.'

'I'm just saying that because I hate the stereotype that vampires are always trying to get it on with humans. It's the biggest lie out there. We're not interested in you like that.'

'Right,' Merle says again.

Kristina claps her hands together. 'Now eat up and I'll try and find the rest of your food. That old corpse Oberon will probably try and claim that he doesn't remember how much humans eat. But I do.'

As she leaves, Kristina takes hold of Oberon's body by the legs and drags him out of the cell.

The next day Kristina brings the food.

As Merle is eating she says, 'OK, Darius has dealt with Oberon and he says he'll come and see you himself later. How about that?'

'Um, OK.' And suddenly Merle doesn't know what to think. Maybe she'd resigned herself to the idea that she wasn't ever going to meet Cole face to face. That maybe that was part of the game he was playing. But maybe this is still part of the game. He's making the rules after all.

'He says he is sorry, too,' Kristina says, pouring out a cup of coffee. 'He made it pretty clear I was to tell you that.' Kristina gives Merle the coffee and takes her empty plate away. 'You're getting another meal later, by the way.'

'Wow, it's getting like a five star hotel around here.'

Kristina gives Merle a sour look. 'Well, as you mention it Darius did also say I should ask if there was anything you wanted.'

'The antidote to what Cole gave my father.'

'Yeah, yeah, let's take it as read that you asked for that and I told you no, shall we? Anything else. Something within reason perhaps?'

'Something to read?'

'Now that I can do,' Kristina says, her ever-changing mood flipping over back into perky. She picks up the tray of empty dishes and starts for the door.

'And some light to read by,' Merle shouts as the cell door slams shut.

Kristina doesn't return that day. But the promised second meal is slid through the hatch at the bottom of the door.

And later, as she's drifting off to sleep, Merle thinks of Darius Cole. Of how it must have been for him locked up here all alone.

Did you think he meant to desecrate you?

'And you said "yes".'

Merle sits up, startled. There's someone standing in the darkness of the furthest corner. A tall lean figure – achingly still.

'Darius Cole?'

'You know who I am, Merle,' he says. His voice has a soft mesmeric quality. It almost sounds like it's coming from somewhere else.

'You can read my mind.'

'I'm in your mind, Merle. You're dreaming.' And he steps out of the shadows. Darius Cole. Her nightmare. Her forbidden. Her taboo. He's standing right in front of her. And it's so strange to think that she never knew what he looked like until now. Stranger still that somehow she sort of recognises him.

As he emerges into the dim light, a long forgotten memory flares. He's so familiar.

He has thick dark hair that hangs just lower than his collar. He's wearing dark colours, black and grey, soft fabrics. His style is informal, like an off-duty vampire. Sort of vampy-lite. He's tall and lean. Hard. Holding himself in a way that makes her sure that he is muscular and taut under his clothes with more strength than his tight physique would suggest. He has a long thin nose and a mouth that has a mean little suggestion of a top lip paired with a bottom lip that is almost obscenely sensual and full.

He moves towards her and there's nowhere to go but harder against the wall 'What are you doing here, Cole? In my head. What do you want?'

'Didn't Kristina tell you I'd come. Here I am.'

'She didn't say you'd come in a dream.'

'She didn't know. She's a dreadful eavesdropper. But she can't listen to us this way, can she?'

'She can't listen to us? Listen to us doing what?'

'Oh, Merle, is your mind still on your desecration?' Cole says, laughing a little, 'You are so very endearing. You don't know whether to be scared of me or excited by me, do you?' He takes another few steps forward and drops into a crouch in front of her. She can see his face very clearly now. Dark eyes, stubbled skin, shaded brows – the sharp, bright flash of his teeth: his fangs.

'That's not true. I'm not scared of you, and I'm not turned on either, all I am feeling right now is how much I want to go home to my family.'

'Don't tell me lies, Merle. You know I can read these things in you as easily as you can read a newspaper.

'Well, your reading's off. Go and read something else.'

'Oh, I'll go. Very shortly. I will leave you alone, I promise. And you will ache with disappointment when I do. But first I want to tell you something. I want you to be assured that nothing bad is going to happen to you while you're here under my charge. At the end of your twenty-five days you will be free to walk out of here with an antidote that will restore your father to exactly as he was. Neither I nor any member of my household will touch you or violate you in any way. Unless you request it.'

'Unless I request it? I'm not going to request ...' She trails off and screws up her face. 'And anyway, it's a bit late for that, isn't it?'

'I know.' Cole glances down. 'I know I shouldn't have left you with Oberon. I just wanted you to know how it felt. To be scared and alone. Abandoned. I'm sorry. I should be the last person to wish that on anyone.'

'They really kept you down here, alone in the dark like this, for twenty-five years?'

There's no reply ...

Merle opens her eyes. She's alone in the cell.

She gets up from the bench and checks every corner as far as the limits of her chains will allow. But nothing. Not even a rat.

When she finally lies back down it takes her forever to get back to sleep. She half hopes that Cole will still be there in her dreams.

He isn't.