Page 4 of Kept 3
“I don’t think you really understand what I’m offering. You will want for nothing,” he says quietly, “every desire shall be satiated, every whim catered to.”
“As long as I’m alive,” I snort.
“Yes.
“No way.”
“I like you, Josephine. I enjoyed talking to you each night at the restaurant. I looked forward to our discussions. Didn’t you?”
I bite my tongue. I had looked forward to them. I liked him too – but that was when I thought he was someone else, a playwright, not a bloodsucking maniac.
“No.”
“I don’t think you are telling me the truth. You will want me, as I want you,” he says with finality, standing and walking towards the door, “we two have something. I don’t know what it is yet, it warrants exploration, but there is something.”
“Did you poison my wine at the restaurant? Did you poison me already with your blood the same way Elsbeth made you her Kept? Is that how you tracked me to Sicily?”
I’d been thinking this ever since I’d run from Paris, a fear in the back of my mind that I had not even wanted to admit to myself, or voice, lest it should be true.
“Do not mention that creature’s name,” he growls, “and no,” he turns back to stare down at me, darkly, “I would never do that.”
“What? The man who kills for kicks has some scruples when it comes to coercing women to become his playthings? Surely not!”
“I have never, in 500 years, had to coerce a woman into my bed, Josephine,” he says quietly, steadily, “and I do not intend to start now. You will want me. You will beg me to take you, they all do, eventually.”
“I’ve got news for you,” I gasp, the exertion causing the pain in my head and shoulder to escalate off the Richter scale, “and it’s all bad.”
“We will talk later. Rest, recover. You have had an ordeal.”
“You caused that ordeal!” I shout at his retreating back, “I want to leave. I will never be your Kept. Let me go.”
He says nothing, just closes the door quietly behind him, and I hear the heavy lock make a dull clunk, as he turns the key.
3
My road to recovery, and consequently any chance of escape, is slower than anticipated. Thankfully, Nicholas has not bothered coming to terrify me for about a week, which has reduced my headaches immensely.
My arm still hurts, a dull ache mostly at night; during the day ice and medication keep the inflammation and much of the pain at bay.
But it is not my arm that is bothering me today; it is my summons.
“You lucky girl,” Nurse Orion says, opening the large ‘lion, witch and wardrobe’ doors fronting the walk-in robe at the end of the room and surveying the rows of gowns within, “getting up and about, dinner with the handsome Lord, you must be excited.”
I watch her flick through the clothes hangers bearing I don’t know how many dozens of gowns, and wish this wardrobe led to another world, I’d jump straight through if it did.
“Which do you want to wear, lassie? Red, green, black, white – my goodness your clothes are beautiful. Once upon a time, I had a figure that could have worn something like this,” she says wistfully, pulling out a green, floor-length Grecian-cut number out and holding it up to the light.
What I’d really like is a set of camouflage pants, a hoodie and an Uzi containing silver bullets – but I’m unlikely to find that inside the cavernous wardrobe which seems to only hold haute couture.
“Black,” I pout, “I’ll wear nothing else while I’m in this prison.”
“Dear me,” she spins, frowning, “I know you have had a terrible time of it, what with the fire and losing your friends, but it is time to snap out of it now and get back into the world. Now c’mon dear, let’s get you dressed.”
I reluctantly crawl out of the blankets and ease down onto the small timber steps that allow entry and egress from the monstrosity that is a State bed. Padding across to the wardrobe, I pull out one of several long, black dresses.
‘Christ, I will look like Morticia Addams in this’I think, holding one up against me and looking at my reflection in the nearby Chevelle mirror.‘Fitting.’
“That will set off your colouring beautifully,” the nurse sighs, “ooh, and I almost forgot, the Lord sent you a present.”
