Page 7 of Reflections of Silence

“My lord. You requested me upon your return.”

I stared across the small room I didn’t recall entering at the slip of a girl who stood before me, her hands clasped at waist height. “How old are you?”

“Six and ten. My lord,” she added. Her voice wobbled, though she made a valiant effort to keep it firm.

I swatted a hand at her. “I don’t remember you. Send me Elvira, or one of the girls I often use, please.”

I turned away, not watching her leave, and focused on the extra presence upstairs, near my rooms.Sixteen. For fuck’s sake. Charlton knew better. She might be considered an adult of serviceable age here or in France, but I refused to destroy an innocent girl on a whim because I couldn’t touch my wife.

My wife.

A depraved smile curled my lips. The girl squeaked, but my efforts weren’t for her. Gisella was the only innocent I wanted to ruin.

Going up her rooms tonight was the worst of plans. My hunger bore a hole in my gut that was never satisfied no matter how much I drank, like an addict with too many empty bottles seeking that next, and least effective, hit.

Perhaps that’s what Gisella would be for me. My newest addiction to cover the yawning void inside me where a soul once resided. Before a sorceress decided to experiment on a man who found beauty and worshipped that instead of understanding the creature it hid within.

That catastrophe was so long ago I barely remembered my humanity, and the ending of it the birthing into my monstrous side I’d use to rip every fraction of her innocence away.

Whether she wanted it or not.

“Sebastian.”

This time the voice was older, stained with a suggestive lilt. Any other night I would have welcomed the distraction, but tonight was a marking point for change.

I waved a hand without looking at her. “Elvira. Thank you for coming.” I kept my voice formal, my stance stiff. “I am hungry. Push your hair back.”

She didn’t step forward as I expected. “And my clothes?”

Still the lilt remained despite the disassociation in my stance.These humans never learn.

I’d been one, once, and look how that pitiful existence ended. Or rather, how it didn’t end. Never would. The irony tore a ruined laugh from my throat, and she took a step back, her seductive expression turning wary.

“Your clothes may stay where they are, on your form. I married tonight. I need to eat, and that is all.” I beckoned her, staring at a point above her head.

I didn’t need to persuade her to do what I wanted, or I’d risk warping her mind.

But I did take the time to brush my thoughts against Gisella’s and found her wandering the halls where she shouldn’t be. I smiled at the thought of discovering her in the darkest corners, wrapping my hands around her slim waist and pulling her into the shadows to play. My cock hardened, and Elvira perked up.

“So I am food?”

I didn’t need to look at her to see the pout of her generous lips reflected in her eyes, the way her lips curved up in temptation.

Fucking insatiable mortals don’t understand hunger.

However, it wasn’t the pretty serving girl that roiled my blood with need but the image of my wife in my arms, her head tipped back, soft, wine-stained lips pulsing with life that left me hard and straining against the fabric of my breeches.

“You are nothing more than a meal. Tonight is your last shift. After this you are free.” My command whiplashed through the silent lower floor so close to the servant’s quarters. I was certain they would hear our tiff, less of a lover’s quarrel than a master and employee’s impersonal dispute over time and pay, though I doubted she saw it that way. A job, and service rendered.

Good.Then they’ll understand my needs.

“My lord.” Elvira dropped to her knees at my feet, fretting like a mouse without a house.

My lips curled cruelly. “Head back. Like a good girl.”

Her whimper at my instruction, usually said in private when we were both divested of clothing, and me buried to the hilt inside her, was meaningless, and cold.

Heartless, like me.

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