Page 44 of Don't Bite the Boy Next Door
“Couldn’t you escape?” he interrupts.
“We tried,” I sigh. “We all tried at some time or other, but Solomon had eyes and ears everywhere, and he used our weaknesses against us. My weakness, of course, was my love for my sisters, and that was their weakness too. When Charlotte was captured after an attempt to flee, Solomon flayed her. It took days. He would slice and peel the skin off every part of her body, then allow it to regrow, and do it all over again. And he had me tied to a chair to watch. Poor Charlotte. Others came to watch, to rape her as she lay red, raw, bleeding and weeping, that is the kind of men they were, you see. I could go on, tell you worse, but I think you get the idea.”
“And you,” he swallows hard.
“Oh, I tried to run,” I whisper, as I near the part of the story that most shames me. “I had been secretly in correspondence with a man, a poet who lived in the French court. He had seen a miniature of me through one of Solomon’s followers, and sent me, by secret letter, one of him. We wrote to each other for three long years; he urged me to escape.” I quickly wipe the tears beginning to well at the memory of Jacques and swallow hard.
“Tess, if it’s too difficult…”
“No. You need to hear this.” I turn to face him. “Finally, I found the courage to run, to meet him. He said we would run away together to the new world. He had safe passage on a ship for us, if I could just meet him. So, I ran. It was a long journey overland by horse, but I only had my feet. It took so long, weeks running only at night, hiding during the day. But finally, I made it, and he was there waiting with open arms. He was every bit as beautiful as his miniature had shown, every bit as lovely as his letters had shown him to be, only,” I whisper, “I killed him.”
Ryan chokes on his drink and sets it aside on the small, timber table near the couch.
“What?”
“I found him irresistible, you see,” I moan, crying in earnest now. “Sometimes, in very rare cases, a vampire finds someone whose blood smells so good to them, so delicious, that we crave their body and their blood utterly. And they are in turn drawn to us, like moths to a flame. It is virtually impossible not to bite them. Jacques turned out to be one of those. I was only a hundred or so years old, a new vampire really, and I couldn’t resist – I bit him, drained him dry. But Ryan, my remorse was so great, my guilt so terrible, I did the only thing I knew that would punish me properly for my sin.”
“You didn’t!” His eyes show how appalled he is.
“I did. I returned to Solomon,” I spin back to the window. “And to punish me he said that for every day I had been gone, he would torture and kill one hundred little girls, and make me watch as they screamed for their mothers, for mercy, for death - to teach me a lesson never, ever to run again.”
“How many?” Ryan asks, his voice flat.
“Thousands.”
“Is that all?” he says, finally, after a long silence, as my sobs turn to hiccups and I turn back to the room to face him once more, face his reaction.
“No,” I shake my head. “You asked me once why I wanted to kill you. The answer is simple; I found you irresistible too. Only this time I knew the pain, the horror that killing you would bring me. Also, my sisters had also met Irresistibles, and they had not killed them, they had married them, and in doing so, gained strength and power beyond imagining. I knew that I had to resist my urges, my desire for your body, my thirst for your blood. I needed to never allow myself within striking distance of you, in case you fell victim to my foul needs, as Jacques had, and all those little girls’ deaths would have been for nothing.”
“So, you avoided me,” he nods, thinking through my answer.
“I watched you,” I shake my head, determined to keep no secrets, “every night.”
He frowns.
“And when I saved you from the well, I promise you, Ryan, I didn’t bite you. I didn’t have any intention of harming you – all I cared about was saving your life. I had no idea my blood entered your mouth, or your wounds, no idea you would turn. I only thought to save you. And later, as we got to know each other while you were in hospital, when I could resist the lure of your blood and be myself, I grew to like you more, but at the same time,” I pause, whisper my final thoughts, “I could see you liked me less. I realised that when you pushed me away, only to ask me to come back, that it was the magic of what Iamforcing you to be near me, not any true desire on your part. I determined to stop throwing myself at you, to leave you be, to just be neighbours as you wanted – but Lars ruined everything.”
Rising, he walks towards me, his eyes on mine. Stopping an arms distance from where I stand, he leans forward, wiping a stray tear from my cheek.
“Thank you for telling me,” he says, his voice solemn. “but Lars or no Lars, sooner or later things would have come to a head, since I was no longer human. And I found myself drawn to you too, despite my misgivings – although you say that is because of what you are.”
“Yes,” I sigh.
“Tristan told me about this too,” he shrugs. “I’ve been considering it, but I don’t think that is totally true, Tess,” he says gently, looking into my eyes and running the back of his hand very gently down the side of my cheek, “I liked you from the moment I met you, magic or no magic, even though I don’twantto like you.”
I’m silent for a full minute.
‘Is he finally going to open up to me? Can I hope that by sharing my story, he will feel able to share his?’
“Why?” I whisper, leaning my face into his hand, wishing he would touch me more, everywhere, take me into his arms, love me as I know I have grown to love him.
“Because I can’t be the man you need me to be, I can’t protect you.”
I frown, about to remind him that he was doing exactly that by sheltering me in his home when I am being hunted by dangerous enemies, when Toto raises his head and barks, just as we hear a tap on the door.
Ryan pulls away from me sharply.
“Stay here,” he murmurs, as he walks to the coat rack and takes down his gun holster, strapping it on carefully before tiptoeing in his socks down the new plush silk hall runner towards the back door.
