Page 28 of These Eternal Bones
My back meets the glass wall of the sunroom, my hair falling into my face. I had been in such a hurry this morning that I hadn’t bothered to tie it up. Quite unlike me, but then again, I often find myself forgetting who I am at all, that is, until she is involved. “I was not aware I had a day.” I deadpan.
The woman rolls her eyes so hard I fear she’ll faint. “Not you,God.”
“Syringa, you will have to be far more specific than that.” I purr, kicking off the wall to stalk toward her, allowing my fingertips to brush the fabric of her dress, pretending it is the warm, intoxicatingflesh underneath. “Say yes, Molly. There is much I could teach you. Many stories to tell. This place is no doubt more comfortable than the cottage.”
“As if I have a choice.”
“You always have a choice. Should you wish, you may banish me from your sight. You need only say the word and I will–”
“Wait in the shadows of the woods,” she interrupts, gazing over her shoulder at me.
I shrug. “If the weather is fair.”
Again, she surprises me as she bursts out laughing. Big laughs, ones that come from deep inside her. Again, for a moment, I can feel the ghostly fluttering of my heart. She attempts to stifle her humor, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “You are odd, Elric, but I imagine anyone as old as you would be.”
As she turns to face me, I wipe away my smile, feigning offense. “Old? Perhaps Idon’tdesire your company.”
“Ah, but then you would not get what you are owed,” she retorts, stepping closer to me. Closer than anyone else would dare, and yet she does it innately, like the cord that binds us has given this headstrong woman a tug.
“Fate has a way of forcing such matters.”
She tilts her head. “You believe in fate.”
I offer her my arm, this time pleased when she takes it as I lead her from the room. “I didn’t, not until around six hundred years ago.”
She doesn’t respond at first, her eyes widening, not in horror, but curiosity at the creatures who flood in to pick up her plates. “What happened then?”
Something worms into my gut, a familiar pang that never truly fades, only ebbs and flows like the tide. “A woman.”
“Oh.” I nearly pull us to a stop to study her face, to try to make sense of what I see in her expression. She has hardened. I don’t have time to interpret before she speaks again. “You fell in love.”
I nearly laugh, but I don’t want to spoil the moment with such a miserable, bitter sound. Not when she is so warm in my grasp, so close after so long. “Love is such a frivolous word, Molly. It cannot begin to encompass the way I wasconsumed.”
“But you are alone,” she offers, her voice gentle. It’s her who stops walking, her arm still wrapped in mine. Her warm fingertips pressing into my shirt.
“Fate can be both achingly beautiful and hellish, often in the same sweep of her hand.”
“She died?”
Those words set off a maelstrom of pain, memories as everlasting as I. Even the beautiful ones, the ones I cling to are stained with blood, tears, and longing.So much longing. I grip her tighter, my mind falling toward the upper floors, knowing what waits there. It would be so easy, syringa. So terribly easy. “Come, I’ll show you my home.”
She swallows hard, her jaw setting as she nods.
I am trying to do this right, my love.
14
Unicorn Fevers
Molly
My fingers skim over the endless rows of books, towering stacks that reach the ceiling of one of the many columned towers of the estate. Their leather bound spines beckoning me to crack them open and delve into their long hidden stories, but they beckon to the wrong woman. I wonder for a moment if it would be incredibly selfish to hold him to his promise of teaching me to read, if he would even have the time. I had wrongly assumed that the Vampire of Port Clyde’s days would be filled with leisure and decadence. Where there is no shortage of the latter, Elric is a busy man. My working day has been filled with long stretches of mulling about in the same room or just down the hall, to rushing behind him as he went about his tasks. Not only does his lighthouse command the small port town, but he owns it…all of it. He also maintains order and “culling” of the estate and the supernatural’s who reside here. Such is to be expected of an obscenely wealthy man living in the same place for hundreds of years.
My long hair hides most of my face as I peek over my shoulder at him, where he sits writing a letter. A letter that no doubt holds reasonable importance, but still, his eyes flash to me more often than not. I fear I am no good for his concentration, but he wants me here, and I owe him so, here I stand. He has only stopped his endless tasks long enough to sit with me while I have a meal or to answer my questions. Each time I’m met with his full attention, rapt and unyielding, like what I say truly matters, like my inquisitive mind isn’t a burden on him. It wasn’t that way in New Eden; questions were met with suspicion, and idle hands were at risk for perversion. With so many wives, even the strict schedule of when he would share a bed with one or another had hardly been enough. I was meant to be number seventeen.
Even in an icy place like this, I cannot escape the oppressive heat from that day. The way the sun beat down on me in my slip dress. One, I was told never to wear outside. But I was outside then, with the others, my intimate parts all but bared long before they had started to mature. Tears had gathered in my eyes as he made his rounds, waiting for his scathing words, for atonement, but what he gave me was so… so much worse. His eyes skimmed me slowly, taking in everything I had been taught to hide. When his hands ran gently through my copper hair, this sickening feeling welled in my gut. Even then, at the age of nine, I knew I was on the precipice of something terrible. Something wrong.
He chose me that day.
