Читать книгу Devour Me - Lydia Parks - Страница 9

Benjamin took one last look out the window at storm clouds blowing past, then rose from his chair and ambled down the stairs. In his study, he drew the screen across the fireplace, turned out the reading light, and stopped a moment to listen. Rafters creaked under the wind’s wrath and windows rattled, but all else was quiet.

With practiced ease, he drew out the top book in the corner of his bookshelf, pressed the button under the chair rail, and stepped through the hidden doorway when it swung open. It creaked shut behind him.

Although shrouded in darkness, he didn’t slow. He knew exactly where every item in the room waited, could see the colors and textures in his mind, had long ago memorized the smells. This had been his sanctuary longer than he cared to consider.

Drawing a match across the striker, he raised the glass chimney and savored the tang of sulfur as he held the match to the lamp wick. His room took on a yellow-orange glow, and he unbuttoned his shirt as he watched the flame sway.

Cassandra gave him grief about his affinity for lamp and candlelight, pointing out that fire was one thing he wouldn’t survive. But he was willing to take the risk to enjoy flames that sometimes gave his quarters a dreamy quality, and other times cast a light of clarity into the darkest corners of his thoughts.

His mind turned to those darkest corners as he shed his clothing, stretched out on his bed, and folded his arms behind his head. Somewhere back there was the memory of sunshine and life, and of his last day pacing the shoreline, futilely searching for signs of his men. He remembered sitting on a boulder, shivering, watching the reflection of a red sun setting behind him until the sky grew too dark to see the divide between water and clouds. Thundering surf drowned out all but the inner voice that cursed his fate. How could he have survived when all others perished? It shouldn’t have happened that way. He should have gone down with his ship.

“They’re gone, Benjamin,” Cassandra said. “Face the truth and release your sorrow.” She slid her hands gently across the back of his shoulders as if smoothing creases from his coat.

“How can I? If not for me, they’d still be alive. Collingswood, Fox, Ashby, all of them. Young Jeffery Veech had barely reached his fifteenth year. How am I to tell his mother that her boy won’t return?”

“You need not tell anyone anything. Stay here with me.”

“I can’t abandon my duty.” He rose to face her. “I have responsibilities.”

She tilted her head teasingly. “Such as?”

“I’m to lead an expedition against the French in a month. The Spencer is to be the flagship.” He cut his gaze to the rocks barely visible in the evening light. “Or was to be.”

Cassandra stepped toward him, her bare feet soundless on the sandy beach. “The Spencer is no more, and they wouldn’t have you lead a prayer now. Why would you go back to a place where people will revile your name? They will blame you for the loss of your men, just as you blame yourself.”

Her hand felt soothing and kind on his arm, and she slid it down to his hand. He closed his fingers around hers.

“Stay with me, Benjamin. I’ll make you happy again.”

They had never spoken specifics, but he knew that staying with her meant giving up hope of ever returning to the world. She wasn’t mortal. He knew that. Exactly what she was he didn’t know.

“Come,” she said, her voice now low and seductive. “Give yourself to me, and I will make you a gift of eternal life.”

“How can life be eternal?” He followed her up the slope and into the woods where she led him effortlessly through the shadows.

“It is eternal through death,” she said.

A shiver ran through him. “You wish to kill me, then?”

“Am I dead?”

He shook his head and then realized she couldn’t see him in the darkness. “No.”

“You’ll be like me. You are nearly that now.”

“What do you mean?”

She opened the cabin door. “How is it you healed so quickly?”

In less than a week, she’d nursed him from the brink of death. He’d wondered about the thick, cold broth she forced him to drink, but it had performed miracles on his tattered body. He believed it to contain animal blood. She wouldn’t tell him what kind.

“By your hand,” he answered.

She led the way into the cabin where she drew a spill from the hearth and held it to a candle.

Even dim light always seemed to leave her radiant like a lone cloud above the setting sun. Her eyes were an impossible metallic color, shiny and silver. At times, they appeared almost gold, usually when she tended to him and touched him in intimate ways.

She moved to stand before the fireplace and held out her hand to him. “Will you stay?”

She was right. The whole town would hate him for losing the Spencer with all souls but his own. He’d never be allowed to lead the forces to Acadia now. In fact, he’d surely be unable to raise another crew, if he even had hope of a ship. No one back in Boston would care that he and his men had caught the pirate ship and recovered the gold, now that both lay somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

His life was over.

Resigned to his fate, he stepped forward and took her hand. Raising it to his lips, he pressed a kiss into her cool skin.

Cassandra smiled as she drew him to her. When they stood together, the top of her head barely touched his chin.

Glancing up at him demurely, she untied his kerchief and drew it slowly from around his neck. Her fingers grazed his chest as she worked, and he felt the magic of her womanly charms. In their short time together, he’d found himself dreaming of holding her nearly every time he closed his eyes. At the moment, he wanted much more.

She unbuttoned his coat, pushed it over his shoulders and tossed it to the closest chair without care. Cold air chilled his exposed neck and seeped across his chest and back, but he didn’t mind. He’d strip bare to touch her, to kiss her tempting lips.

Holding his gaze, she raised her head to look at him openly, and the gold tint returned to her eyes. Her hands gripped his shoulders with a strength he hadn’t guessed she had.

No longer caring how improper his desires were, he touched her waist and found firm flesh under flimsy cloth. Vaguely, he wondered how she handled the cold, but the question floated away as she closed the small distance between them.

She drew his face down to hers and offered her mouth, which he gladly took. Her lips parted under his willingly and without hesitation, and she drew his tongue into her mouth.

Until that moment, he had not realized just how much he needed her.

He’d found pleasure between the thighs of more women than was likely his share, but he’d never felt the burn of desire sizzle through his loins as it did now. And she did nothing but fan the flame.

Her arm slid around his neck as he embraced her, pulling her up against him, suddenly desperate. His cock swelled between them.

Gripping a handful of his hair, she pulled his mouth away from hers and stared at him with blood-red eyes glittering gold.

“Tell me you want me, Benjamin.” When she spoke he saw fangs where her teeth should be, and knew he should fear her, but he couldn’t.

“I want you,” he croaked, his voice barely rising through his choking need.

His senses began to scramble, and he wasn’t sure of his sight or hearing. She seemed to growl low and deep, and she slowly drew his head back, baring his throat to her. Was he a sheep walking willingly to the slaughter?

He didn’t care. All he cared about was holding her, taking her, giving himself to her. He tried to whisper her name, but nothing came out.

“You will be mine,” she said in a voice altered to something unmistakably evil. “Forever.”

He closed his eyes, surrendering.

The pain ripped through him as she sank her fangs into his neck. Having forsaken self-preservation, he held her tighter instead of pushing her away.

She fed off him, sucking the blood from his body. Pain transformed into something else—pleasure, laced with desire.

He fell to his knees.

The pleasure chilled as his strength began to fade. Still, he could do nothing but accept her actions. Whatever she demanded, he would give.

Anything.

Everything.

His vision crackled with strange lights and then lightened until he seemed to be caught in a midday snowstorm. Disoriented, he felt damp ground beneath his hands, and then his face. And then the ground disappeared.

Lost in a blizzard of loneliness, he saw and felt nothing, but he heard her voice. “Drink.”

When he did as commanded, the snowstorm exploded, sending him hurtling through the heavens and falling to earth at terrifying speeds. He would shatter like a glass bowl when he hit the ground.

If he hit the ground.

And then he slowed and began to float, and he felt her hands stroking the side of his face and his neck.

When he opened his eyes, he looked up into Cassandra’s face, as perfect as porcelain. He saw her differently than he ever had before. He saw every smooth line, every eyelash clearly. Her eyes had lightened to silver with flecks of gold and blue, glistening fangs dented her bottom lip, and a smear of blood marred her chin.

Every thought focused on wanting her, but not in the way he had before. He craved her—ached for her.

“Welcome back to the world,” she said. She ran her fingers across his forehead and he saw a gash in her wrist.

When he inhaled, the scent of blood in the air did strange and horrifying things to him. He began to shake all over, and a deep, terrifying hunger surged in his soul. He grabbed her arm and drew the wound to his mouth.

The taste, both foreign and wonderful, made him whimper, and he sucked to draw more.

“Enough,” she said, jerking her arm away.

He tried to snatch it back, but she held him off with ease.

“Not like that.” She helped him to his feet.

In spite of the shaking, he felt strength unlike anything he’d known running through his arms and legs. He could have lifted the Spencer off the rocks with one hand if he’d had this strength during the storm.

Yet, Cassandra guided him with ease. He knew, somehow, that her strength was greater than his. He felt the power in her slender fingers as she unbuttoned his breeches and drew them down, kneeling before him to help him out of his boots and clothing. She raised his shirt off over his head. Cold air drifted past his bare skin, but he felt no sensation of discomfort.

She led him to the bed he’d occupied for the past week, a small bunk against the wall. As he sat watching, she drew her shift over her head and discarded it.

Her body was womanly, smooth, and pale—as perfect as her face. His fingers itched for the feel of her flesh.

Teasing him by running her hands over her breasts and down to her hips, she crept silently forward, her steps fluid and graceful. By the time she stood within arm’s reach, his cock had hardened to its full size. He gripped the blanket beneath him in his fists.

Cassandra cooed as she straddled his legs and positioned herself in his lap facing him, combing his hair back and then feathering her fingers across his shoulders. She reached between them to aim his swollen cock into her. He barely bit back a groan.

As her cunt worked its way possessively down his shaft, he touched her thighs, and then her hips, thrilling to the feel of her soft skin. He caressed her breasts and watched her face for approval. Her luscious lips curved into a smile.

A throb in his gums accompanied his growing desire. His probing tongue found fangs to match hers with points as sharp as needles.

When his cock was sheathed, ready to erupt inside her, she held his gaze with her own and his thoughts suddenly scrambled into an incoherent mass. He felt, and sensed, and knew, but couldn’t think. Urges tugged at his gut, primal and base. He didn’t understand, and didn’t want to.

Giving permission, she raised her chin, baring her throat.

He wrapped his arms around her, cocked his head, and, with a beastly growl, buried his fangs in her neck.

He didn’t actually taste her blood, but experienced it as if drawing in her soul and heart and making them his own. He felt her fondness for him, her arousal at their joining, and her satisfaction from drinking her fill of him. He knew the darkness of her beast, part of which he now carried. He sensed eternity.

She drew him away by a handful of hair.

He licked the last precious drops of her blood from his lips.

“Now you belong to me,” she said.

He understood without explanation. Whatever she asked of him, he would do, no matter what the cost. If she left, he would wait like an obedient servant for her return.

She kissed his mouth as she rose and slid back down his cock, moving in time with the ancient rhythm of mating, drawing him to the brink of release. He held her tighter and savored her mouth under his.

Her rhythm increased and she rode him mercilessly, her hips moving forward and back. She ran her tongue up one of his fangs and down the other, and he shuddered at the pleasure.

His need to release his seed grew painful. She used him as she wanted; her cunt swelled and tightened around him.

In one swift movement, she drew his head to one side and bit his shoulder.

He cried out, but not in pain.

Her spasms of release pushed him past what reason remained, and he sank his fangs into her neck again.

This time, he drew out her orgasm, tasting it as his own, and his seed finally erupted, sending him to dizzying heights of bliss.

He clung to her and drew harder as his cock pumped.

When she pulled his mouth from her flesh the second time, they looked at each other and smiled. Blood dripped from her canines and satisfaction glowed in her eyes, surely matching his own.

His animal nature retreated, allowing back in basic thoughts and the prickling of concern over what had just passed between them.

“What are we?” he asked.

“Creatures of darkness,” she said, stroking his hair back from his face, “as eternal as the stars.”

She ran her index finger across his bottom lip, removing the last drops of blood, and sucked it from her fingertip.

By the time Star woke, it was well into the day and she was alone in bed. She stretched, sat up, and looked around.

The fireplace stood cold and dark, and Wendy’s bag lay open next to her own backpack. Judging by the lack of clothing draped over the furniture, the others were dressed and out.

Star hopped up, ran to her backpack, and dug through it until she located the portable USB drive. Reassured, she sighed. What the hell was she going to do with the thing? Jones wouldn’t look for her so far from home, not for a simple list of weekend wagers. He’d piss and moan about the fact that his flash drive was stolen, pay off his dozen customers, then start over. No big deal.

Still, she didn’t want to carry the thing around. It was a part of the life she’d left behind and wanted long gone. She’d only taken it to piss him off.

Tucking it into a side pocket of her backpack, she dug out clean clothes, dressed, and checked the kitchen for coffee. Finding none, she stepped out the front door into midday sunshine. Nothing was left of the storm except small branches in the road and yard. Birds chirped from every tree.

Once through the gate, Star turned back to study the house in the light and sucked in a breath of surprise. She thought they’d stumbled onto a mansion, but it looked more like a freakin’ castle. The walls, built of dark brown and gray stone and partially covered with vines, rose at least three stories and stretched for twice the length she’d guessed. Above the third floor were towers: a large one at the back and small one at the front, both with windows all the way around. The view must be fantastic from up there.

Huge trees hid a lot of the building from the road, but standing among the trees, the place felt majestic, and a little intimidating. Like its owner.

Who the hell lived in a castle in the United States? Benjamin Bartlett must be filthy rich.

“’Bout time you got up.” Wendy bounded across the empty street. “Isn’t this day amazing?”

With her attention pulled from the building, Star realized the temperature was perfect and the sky above held no hint of clouds. “Not bad.” She glanced to where Jack and Kyle stood half hidden under the van’s hood. “What’s up?”

Wendy shrugged. “They’re still trying to figure out what’s wrong.”

“Great.”

“Hey, we could be stuck in a worse place.”

Star pictured Benjamin’s face when he returned home to discover them still there. Something about the way he carried himself suggested he might not be much fun to be around if he were truly angry.

“Come on,” Wendy said, “help me fix something to eat.”

After one more appreciative look around, Star followed her friend back inside. They dug through the pantry and found three cans of chicken soup, a box of crackers, instant coffee, and several tins of sardines. Star leaned against a counter and peeled back the top of a sardine tin. She’d certainly lived on less.

Wendy stirred the soup. “Where do you think he went?”

“Who?”

“The guy who owns this place.”

Star shrugged. “Who knows?”

She thought back to the night before. After Benjamin ran up the stairs and disappeared, she hadn’t seen any sign of him again. He must have left; the house was too quiet. She hadn’t heard a car drive off, but engine noise could have been drowned out by the storm. As nice as the weather was now, they should hear him return.

The guys came in covered with grease and grime, and made no effort to keep from leaving it behind them.

“Watch it!” Star wiped off a dark smear Kyle left on a cabinet.

“Fuck you,” Kyle said. “What do you care? This isn’t your place.”

No, her place had been a pigsty. This place was a palace.

Why did a grease mark on someone else’s cabinet bother her?

Because Benjamin’s castle demanded respect, that’s why.

Weird thought. Shaking her head to clear it, Star dropped the sponge in the sink on her way to the pot of soup.

She carried her bowl to the kitchen table where the others joined her. They slurped up the soup without speaking, and then lounged over the sardines and crackers.

“You find the problem?” she asked Jack.

He nodded. “Leaky fuel line.”

“I thought I smelled gas,” Wendy said.

Star shot her a glare. “Why didn’t you say something?”

The woman loaded a cracker with a sardine, and shoved the whole thing into her mouth without further comment.

“We’ll go down to the highway and look for a gas station,” Jack said, motioning with his head to include Kyle.

“We could all go,” Wendy said.

Jack shrugged. “What if the old man comes back and decides to lock us out? We might not get our stuff back.”

“We could put everything in the van,” Wendy said, her voice betraying her rising level of concern. “I’m not staying here without you guys.”

“The inside of the van’s all wet. And what if he decides to tow it? Then—”

“I’ll stay,” Star said.

They all looked at her as she ate another bite of sardine-covered cracker.

Funny, the idea of staying at Benjamin’s alone didn’t bother her at all, and she knew it probably should. She’d grown up on the same horror movies as everyone else. She even knew a few real horror stories her traveling companions most likely didn’t. Yet, she was quite happy with the prospect of spending time looking around. And if Benjamin came home before the others got back, well, she’d stand up to him like she had the night before.

Her stomach quivered at the prospect.

With the place to herself, Star studied the painting a while longer. It really was spectacular, not that she was much of an art critic. The thing just sucked her in and she was there. She wondered what life had been like back on that ship. Somehow, she was sure it had really existed, and not been the result of an artist’s imagination. No one could be that good.

After getting her fill for the moment, she checked out the rest of the room. A bookshelf covered a whole wall to the left of the fireplace. The books looked old and interesting, but pulling out one created a dust storm. She scanned those with titles she could see, and found books by authors whose names she recognized, like Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, and Mark Twain, and a lot more by authors she’d never heard of. She followed one row, just trying to pronounce the names. She could spend years in here reading without finishing all these books. The thought made her giddy, and she laughed.

All her life, she’d loved to read, but her chances had been limited by circumstances. At the Home, there hadn’t been many choices, and she’d been pretty young. Her first foster mother had said reading anything but the Bible was a sin, so she’d discovered the public library and sinned as often as she could sneak away. After that, it was hit or miss, until she’d had to put aside reading for two full-time jobs. Then she’d started hanging with Jones. He got annoyed if she read, said she was ignoring him. Over the last three months, she’d watched a dozen movies a week. How long had it been since she’d read a whole book through? Five years?

She abandoned the bookshelf to explore, wondering what other treasures the place held. Benjamin had said he’d be back this evening, and it wasn’t quite evening yet.

She stopped at the bottom of the long staircase, one hand on the rail, and listened.

Benjamin had also said they were to stay on the first floor, but she heard no hint of anyone on the floors above. What would it hurt if she just looked around? Hell, he wouldn’t even know. She didn’t want to take anything. Just look.

Sucking in a deep breath and blowing it out, she started up the marble stairs, tiptoeing. She couldn’t hear anything over the sound of blood rushing through her ears.

The second floor was darker than the first and had several rooms with locked doors. On each end of the floor, she found a bedroom open with the bed made, fireplace filled with logs ready to be lit, bathroom clean, but dust everywhere.

The third floor at first proved just as uninteresting, until she stepped into a room that was different from all the others. It had no windows, a low ceiling, and walls of solid wood. Although the room held a fireplace at one end and a narrow staircase at the other, it had the feel of the inside of a ship. Maps covered a table in the middle, and a desk had been placed across the back corner to take advantage of light from the fire and provide a view of the room. Behind the desk was another floor to ceiling bookshelf, but this one held books that looked much older than those downstairs. The covers appeared to be homemade, some out of leather even, and must be absolutely ancient. Another difference between this bookshelf and the one downstairs was the lack of dust.

The room smelled of rich pipe tobacco and cold fireplace ashes. It must be Benjamin’s hangout. It fit him, somehow.

She walked behind the desk, which held an old oil lamp, one of those quill pen gadgets you can get at a hobby store, and several stacks of yellowing paper. A large book lay open in the middle of the desk, filled with lines of ornate and flowing handwriting, nearly impossible to read. Most of it was smeared and stained, too, which didn’t help.

Star leaned forward and raised the edge of the book toward the light from across the room. She could just make out something at the top of the page that looked a little like a date. March something, 1891. Damn. The book was old.

Wait. She leaned closer. Not 1891, but 1691. Holy shit. This thing was historic. It should be in a museum somewhere.

She studied the feel of the paper under her thumb and realized it wasn’t paper but material of some kind. Very carefully, she turned to the first page and worked to read as much as she could. “Log book…something…Spencer.” She gave up on a whole smeared paragraph and moved on. “Captain Benjamin Bartlett, Bofton. Bofton?” Scanning down the page, she realized the s’s looked like f’s. “Oh. I get it. Captain Benjamin Bartlett, Boston.”

A shiver ran through her. Another Benjamin Bartlett, and a captain, too, but this one had lived centuries ago.

Reopening the book to its original place, she tried to make out the flowing words, but only got something about “returning to Boston,” and “heavily laden,” and “impending storm.” The next page was empty.

“Wow.”

Straightening, she circled the room, admiring paintings adorning the walls. Most were of sailing ships, amazingly realistic and detailed like the huge painting downstairs. Benjamin must know the painter. Star stood before each and studied it as well as she could in the dim light.

The last painting she found, in a small round frame about a foot high and two-thirds as wide, was a portrait. The subject, a man, wore a dark coat with a tall, stiff collar and a white shirt with something frilly at his throat, and he looked directly ahead, which gave the illusion of his eyes following Star as she moved closer. She read the inscription at the base of the painting: Captain Benjamin J. Bartlett. So was this the man whose log book lay open on the desk? He had wild black hair that brushed his shoulders, black eyes, and dark, heavy eyebrows. The only thing delicate about his face was his mouth. He looked so much like the current owner of the house that he had to be an ancestor. Obviously Benjamin had even been named for him. Both Benjamins looked like someone you wouldn’t want to piss off. Or, if you did, you wouldn’t want to turn your back on either of them.

A small flame of jealousy flared in Star’s chest. What could it possibly be like to know exactly where you came from? And not just who your parents were, but your family back dozens of generations. It must be wonderfully stabilizing and comforting.

If the log book date really was 1691, the two Benjamins had been born about three hundred years apart. Was this house that old? She glanced around for some clue, but found nothing obvious.

The only light in the room came from above the narrow staircase. Star climbed it and found that it opened into one of the towers she’d seen from outside.

The tower room, about ten feet wide and round, had windows on three sides facing the inland forest. Trees displayed spectacular fall colors that danced in a breeze, and she saw no signs of another house anywhere. Far below to her left, she spotted the van, barely visible between tree branches.

The back of the room held a small, wooden door that opened to the roof of the house. A narrow walkway with a handrail on one side connected this tower to the one in front.

After testing the doorknob to be sure she could get back in, she started down the walkway. Although the roof was fairly wide at this point, the height still made her heart race and tightened her grip on the railing.

As soon as she made it to the front tower and stepped inside, she relaxed and enjoyed the unbelievable view. The smaller tower room had thick glass all the way around that reached almost from ceiling to floor, reminding her of a lighthouse without the light. She pulled one of two wooden chairs from the edge to the middle of the space, sat, and soaked it all in.

In front of her was the ocean. Waves crested in whitecaps and surfed into the shore. The sky, perfectly blue, stretched forever, drawing her imagination toward it. She pictured windswept islands and European castles defending the far shore.

Closer in, she could see a hint of the bar they’d driven past the night before, and the road appeared as dark spots among the trees. Birds flew past, some even below her, and a few chirped at the unfamiliar observer.

She’d never been in such a perfect spot, and found herself relishing the beauty and peace. All memories of Atlanta, her asshole boyfriend, Jones, and long hours at the Kitty Klub mixing drinks for horny old men slipped away. For the first time, she truly felt as if she were starting over. This was it, day one.

Smiling, she watched a large wave make its way inland, crashing against the shore somewhere out of her vision.

She should be able to see or hear Wendy and the guys coming back up the street, or any sign of Benjamin returning. Stretching her legs and crossing her feet, she leaned back and folded her arms across her chest.

As she watched, clouds grew on the horizon, broke loose, and blew by. The sky brightened to spectacular shades of orange, red, and yellow, and then darkened as the sun set behind her.

With a start, she realized she must have been sitting in the tower for hours.

Moving the chair back to the edge of the room, she turned and hurried along the walkway in the dusky light to the back tower, and eased the door shut behind her.

Wendy and the guys must have gotten past her. They had to be back by now. They could have gone halfway to Boston and still had time to return. Hopefully, they’d fixed the van and were waiting on her.

She descended the narrow staircase and started toward the door to the hallway when movement caught her eye.

Benjamin rose in front of the fireplace and spun to face her. The fire he’d just lit sparkled and spattered behind him. He looked ferocious with his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“What the hell are you doing here?”