Dominic (33 page)

saw that her punisher had placed a round, golden disk there.

“I love you,” he whispered, rubbing it in circles over her skin.

She wasn’t certain for a moment if he was speaking to the coin or to her.

But shameful words forced their way into her mind and instantly trembled on her lips before falling from them to ride on the air.

“I love you,” she echoed.

“Soon you’ll be mine,” he told her. “I’ll take you from him.”

And then she knew why she had been brought here.

This man hated Vincent and planned to hurt him. Somehow. Through her.

Lips kissed her neck. Ugh. Bristle. His upper lip was furred. Like his crotch.

“Soon,” he whispered.

She nodded. Died a little inside as she did.

His cock slithered from her, soggy and deflated. Taking his coin, he placed it in the small pocket of his vest, stepped back, and let her go.

She straightened. Felt his cum dribble from her slit onto her inner thigh.

The olive-skinned male on the couch before her spoke again at last.

“Have you remembered your purpose?” he demanded.

She looked down at him. “What?” she whispered.

“Cara!” A masculine voice cal ed to her, offering protection from those that would harm her. Vincent.

She reached out to touch him but felt only the smoothness of the fork on the table at her place setting.

Hands shook her, desperate to wake her. “Cara!”

“Your purpose. You will return to us again and again until you remember it,” she was told. A clawed fingertip poked her midriff, drawing a line

downward toward her…

She stepped back. “And if I remember?”

Ruby flashed silver. “Then all will be well.”

“I’ll no longer have to come?” she asked desperately.

“Come where? Cara?”

Flickers of light blinded her. Dozens of golden candles danced before her now, blazing merrily.

She was back. For this was the ornate candelabrum on Marco’s table, not the silver-candled one in that other, strange place. She sat very stil ,

barely daring to breathe, afraid she might be snatched away again.

Vincent was next to her, his hand clasping hers.

Without conscious wil , she began to speak. “The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained ful appreciation; but just

as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magical y, from before me; the tal candles sank into

nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness supervened; al sensations appeared swal owed up in a mad rushing descent as of

the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stil ness, and night were the universe.”

The scrape of a chair. A gasp. Low conversation.

“Her verbal skil s have certainly improved,” someone muttered. Landon.

She turned her head, gazing into his solemn gray eyes. His was a deep sadness he sought to hide. Her heart wanted to reach out to him, to tel

him she, too, had been wounded and understood. But she couldn’t seem to gather the wherewithal to stir.

“She’s quoting a passage from Edgar Al an Poe’s tale,
The Pit and the Pendulum
.” This from Marco.

Mil icent shuddered. “A frightening story.”

“But where would she have come across it?” asked Anthony.

“Perhaps she and the author have just met in the ether,” Mil icent proposed with a shiver.

Marco slipped a comforting arm around her. “More likely in the
Broadway Journal
. There’s a copy of it in my library.”

“How the hel would she have committed such an excerpt to memory in one day when she can barely speak ful sentences?” asked Vincent.

Marco raised and lowered his shoulders, appearing equal y baffled.

Vincent clapped his hands before Cara’s eyes, and she jerked, instantly and ful y aware. Shoving back her chair in a burst of energy, she leaped

to her feet. Locating him among the others, she flung her arms around him and curled herself onto his lap.

“Thank Gods!” he whispered into her hair, folding her in his embrace.

His entire family was staring at her, their expressions fil ed with varying degrees of suspicion, dismay, and sympathy. The scent of incense was

gone. As were those horrible men and that room.

What would these kind people think of her if they knew what had just occurred? Perhaps her kidnappers hoped she would tel . Hoped she would

help them to hurt Vincent in the tel ing. No, she wouldn’t speak of it. She didn’t want to. She wanted to forget.

She snuggled into Vincent’s shirtfront. He smel ed of masculine goodness, of safety.

“What happened?” she mumbled.

Vincent’s head whipped back in surprise.

“She’s asking
us
that?” someone marveled. Anthony.

“You faded,” said Landon from somewhere behind her.

She straightened at that. “I disappeared? As I used to before?”

“Not exactly,” said Vincent. “Your body was stil a warm and solid presence, but it became translucent, and you appeared to be in some sort of

trance that lasted…?”

“Eight minutes,” Landon supplied.

“Where did you go?” Vincent asked.

“To nothing. To nowhere,” she murmured. The same words she’d given him in response to a similar question the previous night.

“Did you see anything during that time? Hear anything?”

“No! Stop!” she railed. “I don’t remember. Nothing happened. One moment I was eating, and then the next, you were al staring at me. As you are

now.”

Uncomfortable at being the center of so much attention, she shifted on his lap, feeling the bulge at his groin. High between her thighs, she was wet

with the leavings of another man’s defiling.

She wriggled from him and stood, announcing, “I have need of the chamber pot.”

Without a word, Mil icent took her hand and accompanied her to a room, where she found basins, fresh toweling, and a brass chamber pot. The

latter was an item that had fascinated her since this morning when she’d first seen one. Her need of it now seemed reassuring. A symbol that she was

Human, though this was a notion Mil icent had earlier advised her was best kept to herself.

As she thoroughly washed herself, questions swirled in her mind. If the man in her vision had given her seed that was real, it fol owed that he must

be real as wel . Which meant that her visit to him hadn’t been a dream.

She trembled, terrified anew.

When she left the room, her privates were once again pristine and parched of semen. Stil she couldn’t seem to erase the sensation of

powerlessness and debasement. Or the fear that what had occurred might happen again.

“Shal we put this unpleasantness behind us and continue with our meal?” Mil icent suggested when she eventual y exited the room.

Put it behind her? Impossible! She’d been damaged. Abused.

“Of course. Thank you,” she told the other woman, linking arms with her and unconsciously mimicking her cultured voice.

Back in the dining room, Cara parted from her. Going to sit in her former chair, she smiled at the others. They’d stopped talking when she’d

entered, and she was certain they’d been discussing her. Wondering what to do with her, their problem.

“Shal we put this unpleasantness behind us and continue with our meal?” she said, parroting Marco’s wife. With that, she lifted the golden fork,

speared a strawberry, and placed it in her mouth.

Eating. It was what Humans did. Therefore it was what she wanted to do. Become truly and thoroughly Human. Real. Safe.

Now that she’d tasted “real”—smel ed it, lived it—she couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the nothingness of before.

“I think this meal is over,” said Vincent, pul ing out her chair and helping her to stand.

Stealthily she slid the fork she held into her sleeve, not knowing why she did it. But when he took her forearm, he felt its slender, lethal presence

within the fabric and took it from her, holding it high between them.

“What did you intend this for?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know,” she whispered in bemusement. Her eyes turned up to his, a desperate plea in them. “I don’t know.”

His gaze met Landon’s over her head as he took the fork, slapping it in Marco’s palm. “I believe this is yours.”

With that, he and Landon each grasped one of her elbows. Like two giant oaks towering over her wil owy frame, they ushered her toward the door.

8

“T
ake my carriage,” Marco offered as he and his wife trailed the three of them to the
portico
. “I ordered it made ready for you earlier.”

“Shouldn’t Cara stay here with us?” Mil icent protested but less forceful y than before, Vincent noted. Cara’s bizarre stunt had made her as wary as

Marco.

“This is a thornier circumstance than we at first surmised,” Marco answered. “Let her go with Vincent and Landon for now.”

“Yes, Mil icent,” said Cara, touching the other woman’s hand. “Let her go. Thank you for the lovely dinner. And for this.” She lifted the smal tapestry-

covered traveling case containing a donation of garments, which Mil icent had left for her by the door.

Without further farewel , Cara slipped ahead of the men and down the steps. A light fog had gathered, and her mildly luminescent figure cut an

eerie swath through it, appearing almost to float along the ground like an ethereal wraith.

Vincent and Landon made to fol ow, but Marco caught Vincent’s arm, stal ing him. “Tonight has done nothing to diminish my misgivings regarding

the wisdom of keeping her here. She’s unstable. And a thief,” he said, exhibiting the golden fork she’d tried to steal.

“Your concerns are duly noted. And appreciated.”

“And ignored?”

Landon had paused on the steps just beyond them, looking impatient as he watched the driver assist Cara into the carriage.

“Keep an eye on her,” Vincent told him, knowing he could trust Landon to make sure she didn’t disappear.

“Marco’s right,” said Anthony, joining them. “I cannot help but find it strange that she would achieve sentience in your bed on the very eve of your

negotiations in Else World. And then to have your efforts thwarted on the first day in such a suspicious manner?”

“You think her some sort of Trojan horse, purposely sent to infiltrate us and derail the treaty?” Vincent asked.

“In light of everything, is it so ridiculous?” said Marco. “Al that aside, as a practical matter, I agree with Mil icent that the two of you simply cannot

keep an unattached female under your roof for any length of time.”

Vincent glanced at Landon and fol owed his gaze over the lawn. Saw Cara sitting in the carriage. Her head whipped away. She’d been watching

them. He shifted slightly, turning his back to her, suddenly wondering if she might be gifted with the ability to read the speech on his lips from a distance.

“We’l take what you’ve said into consideration,” he said, and then he turned down the stairs. Landon joined in step with him, and together they

made for the carriage.

Marco’s voice floated after them. “See that you do.”

“I’l drive,” Landon cal ed out when they reached the conveyance. The driver looked somewhat taken aback but readily relinquished the reins and

jumped down as Landon swung up.

Vincent left them to it and joined Cara inside. As they embarked on the journey to his estate, he settled back against the plush squabs,

contemplating her.

She slipped something from the tapestry bag. Another golden fork. She turned it in her fingers, holding it between them, openly and wordlessly

admitting her guilt in taking it.

Vincent’s eyes flicked to it and back to her face. “Thievery is a lamentable and unnecessary pastime of which I hope to cure you. I assure you I’m

wealthy enough to purchase however many forks you require and whatever else you desire. And you may avail yourself of anything I own as wel .”

“Own. Yes. It’s the moving of objects to locations I prefer that affords me ownership. As you did when you brought me here. Moving me from

Nothing to Real. Own.”

He frowned. “Sentient beings don’t own one another. They choose to remain in one another’s company, as I choose be in yours.”

She shrugged, not debating him on the issue of whether or not she was sentient as he’d expected, but instead saying, “Your brother thinks more of

ownership than of choosing.”

“Marco? He’s in banking. In charge of the family coffers, so I suppose matters of ownership and belongings are an important part of his

professional purpose.”

“What is
my
purpose?” she asked quickly, pondering the utensil she held as if expecting it to reply rather than him.

His gaze brushed over her figure.

She stil ed under the visual caress. Understanding slowly colored the eyes that darted to his. Lifting the front of her skirts high, she half stood and

came over him. Sliding her knees onto the seat on either side of his hips, she settled herself on his lap facing him. He slumped lower, grasping the bones

of her hips and adjusting their fit so her unguarded slit aligned itself perfectly with his wool-encased shaft.

Her body undulated sensuously, riding him. “This?” she whispered close to his ear. “Is this my purpose?”

Though his mind worked on her question, his hands caught her motion and gladly assisted her in it.

“Only this?” she insisted. She combed the tines of the fork down the side of his neck, sending a chil over him. His rocking of her slowed, and his

hand caught her wrist, drawing it careful y away.

“No. Of course not.” But he heard the ambivalence in his voice. Knew she would hear it.

“Then fuck me,” she murmured. The fork hit the seat cushion beside them with a barely discernable thud and then bounced from it and clattered to