Dominion (Book 1 of The Dominion Series) (34 page)

"All I can do is try to ensure it doesn't happen."

"There is no
try
," I say, repeating what he said earlier. "Promise me you just won't do it. I'd rather die."

"I would have preferred death, Eve. We don't always get to choose. Sometimes God chooses for us."

I just turn over onto my back and shake my head.

"That's awfully arrogant of you," I say. "Thinking that if a God did exist, he'd be spending all his time ordering the details of your life."

He runs his fingers along my arm.

"God's omnipotent and can do more than one thing at a time, Eve…"

I turn my head and look at him and he's serious.
Hell
. I pull away so he isn't touching me – so I can think my own thoughts without him knowing it.

How can an intelligent man with so much experience be so trapped by this religious dogma? Of course, he's not just a man. He's a priest. In his heart, if not in reality.

And that really sums it all up. He's a former priest, still a priest at heart, who does penance for his more human nature. He'll fuck me and love it but feel intense guilt about it. He'll fuck me and love it but he'll beg for forgiveness afterwards.

He'll make me his blood slave, and hate himself for it, kneel before an image of the Virgin until his knees bleed in penance. But he'll love having me entirely his own, his possession, psychically tied to him by blood. I clench my fists, angry and sad at the truth of it.

He leans over and kisses my shoulder, holding his mouth there.

"Eve?" he says, and moves closer, taking my face in his hands. I dig my nails into my palms harder to try to keep tears at bay. "
Eve
," he says, a touch of panic in his voice. "I can't read you."

I shake my head, but I'm glad he isn't able to read me, because I'm very upset at these thoughts going through my head.

"You're
blocking
me," he says, and it's more an accusation than a statement of fact.

"If I am, I don't know how."

He pulls me closer. I don't feel him in my mind. I just feel this pain and it brings tears to my eyes rather than stopping them.

He looks down and sees my fists and takes one hand, opens it. I've been digging my nails into my palms so hard, the corner of one nail has broken the skin.

"You're bleeding."

He looks in my eyes. Then he leans down and licks my palm, licks the blood and the touch of his tongue on the wound takes the pain away. Then he comes flooding in, all concern and panic and fear and I know that I've found one of my blocks.

"Oh, God
no
," he says, closing his eyes. "Not pain."

That confirms it. I can use pain to block him from reading my mind just as I've used pain to block things from entering my mind for so many years.

"Don't do this. Don't block me, Eve.
Don't
…"

"You said I'd find my blocks eventually."

"But not so soon. Not until we're ready. Until
I'm
ready." He hangs his head, running his hands through his hair. When he looks up at me again, his eyes are filled with pain. "I need access to you, Eve. Can't you understand that? I need to know how you are, to know when you're ready and when you're not."

"Ready for what? Sex?" I say, angered. "There are other ways to tell that…"

"
No
," he says, grimacing. "Not sex. To be my Adept."

"I think you
want
access to me. Maybe you'll have to trust me to tell you how I am."

"You won't. I already know that. You lie all the time, Eve. You lie to yourself. You lie to me. If you block me, I can only guess what you're really feeling and thinking."

His words hurt me. I do lie a lot. I lie to myself, just like he says. I have to in order to get through my day.

"You said something about genies and bottles that applies here."

"And you said
all in
, Eve. This
isn't
all in. It's only partial if you block me."

I just look at him, and I do feel sorry for his anguish, but what can I say?

"I can't say I won't block you at times. It would be a lie and I don't want to lie to you. I'll try to only block things you don't need to know, like when I have menstrual cramps or something embarrassing, like if the broccoli didn't agree with me and I have gas. You don't need to know those kinds of things."

I smile, flashing him some dimple in the hopes it brings him out of this darkness, but I'm lying even now because I know I'll block him when I don't want him to know how I am. My smile doesn't lighten his mood. He wants free access, he wants to reach out any time and read me, know my emotions and thoughts. Now he won't be able to and it scares him. He doesn't smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"We have
to distrust
each other
. It is
our only defense against betrayal."

Tennessee Williams

"It wasn't my fault," I say. "I wasn't trying to block you. I was just upset and it happened without me trying. Don't be mad at me."

"I'm not
mad
at you, Eve," he says softly and moves closer to me. He leans down and nuzzles my neck. "I'm
afraid
for you."

"What are you so afraid of?" I squeeze his hand.

"That you won't obey me, that you'll make some foolish and reckless and brave plan and block me from knowing it, that you'll get yourself into trouble, and that you'll get killed," he says with an exaggerated shrug, his voice emotional. "That's all. Nothing really."

"I'm not going to plot and plan. I don't know enough, Michel, to plot and plan."

"Ah, but it's precisely those who don't know how to plot and plan who try it and get into trouble."

"I promise I'll follow your rules to the best of my ability." I pull him down and kiss him and my kiss makes us both all squishy feeling inside.

"Get dressed," he says. "I'll show you the house."

I do, putting on my clothes once more, and Michel takes my hand, leading me through the house to show me every room, stopping first in the library where we gave him the news about Julien.

"That's such a beautiful old Steinway," I say and go to it, touching the keys. "I never asked you but do you play?"

"Yes."

"Play something for me." I take his hand and lead him there.

"You haven't played for me yet, and I asked first," he says, pointing a finger at me.

I smile and sit on the bench. "Any request?" While I play a scale, he sits beside me.

"Play the piece that breaks your heart."

I hesitate at the strange request. The piece that breaks my heart?

"That would have to be
Ballade No.1
by Chopin," I say. "I don't play it perfectly. I was learning it when my mother died. It brings back painful memories."

"Play it."

I play the first section, the
moderato
, well enough, and beside me, Michel sighs.

"Lovely" he says and when I look at him, his eyes are closed and a soft smile is on his lips. "Why does it break your heart? Is it just because of her death?"

"No," I say. "It's just so beautiful and so powerful and so haunting. My psychiatrist made me try to finish learning it as therapy, and it was just so lovely and passionate that I think learning it did heal me but I haven't mastered the end."

I play the middle section, which is the most beautiful and then back to the main theme again but when I get to the coda, I can't continue. It's far too hard without much more practice. I rest my hands on my lap.

"That's as far as I can get."

"You should continue practicing until you master it," Michel says.

"I've been so busy with school, I've let other things slide."

"School is a means to an end," he says. "Music is an end in itself."

Hearing it, playing it, has made my heart ache, but it's a good ache. One that reminds me that I loved my mother and she loved me.

"Your turn," I say and move over a bit so he can play. "Play the piece that breaks
your
heart."

"Very well." He takes in a deep breath and starts, and I don't recognize it.

"Also Chopin," he says. "We have similar tastes."

"What is it?" I say, feeling the emotion in the piece tug at my heart.

"
Nocturne in E Minor
. His first, written when he was just seventeen."

"It's so beautiful and so sad."

He nods, and he was right when he said music was one of his passions, because he's playing the piece with such a beautiful and expert touch that I know it is his passion.

"Why does this break your heart?"

"I remember when I was seventeen and my heart was broken."

"Danielle?' I say. "But you chose the priesthood over her. You probably broke her heart."

"I know," he says. "But mine was broken as well."

I listen while he plays, the piece beautiful, his touch so deft.

"You play very well."

"I've had several centuries to learn. You, in contrast, are truly gifted."

The melancholy melody makes my throat close up and tears bite at the corners of my eyes. I watch him play and he's so beautiful, my fallen priest vampire-hunting vampire. When he finishes he turns to me and sees my tears, which I try to blink away, but can't.

"Oh, Eve," he whispers and pulls me into his arms. "What will I do without you?" He lifts my face up, kissing my tears, and I slip my arms around his neck.

"You won't be gone too long, will you?"

"I don't know how long," he says, kissing my neck. "Any time is too long."

Then he sighs and takes my hand, pulling me away from the piano. "I have to get ready. My plane leaves soon."

He takes me on a quick tour of the rest of the house, but now I'm in no mood for it, and take a perfunctory look in each room, the main living room, a smaller sitting room, and he opens a door and lets me peer into an industrial kitchen.

He motions to the dark haired vampire, who follows us back upstairs.

"Sleep now," he says, patting the bed. "I'll think of you lying in my bed all nice and warm and sleepy and I'll be able to relax. I'll let Raymond take you to your flat later this evening and you can gather up your things. Put them in the bathroom. I don't have any female servants, so you'll have to put up with Raymond," he says and points to the servant. "Do what he says because he's very exacting about things and keeps me in line. I'm taking Vasily with me."

"How many servants do you have?"

Michel turns to Raymond. "How many on staff, Raymond?"

"Fifteen, my Lord."

"You make your staff call you my
Lord
?" I turn to Michel and then look back at Raymond, who clears his throat.
Oh, oh
, Michel mouths, all wide-eyed faux-panic, his back to Raymond.

"My Lord de Cernay is a Vicomte from a very old and noble family and he was once the Bishop of Carcassonne."

"Yes," I say, "but there are no titles in France any longer. You know, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?"

Raymond makes a sound in his throat and turns away, pulling back the covers to the bed, which I see have a wet spot on them. Michel finally smiles at me, shaking his head slowly.

"You'll have my staff up in arms if you talk like that while I'm gone."

"You afraid I'll foment rebellion?" I smile, but it's forced because I know the moment we have to separate is coming quickly and I'm getting all teary again.

"Are you sure Lilith isn't your middle name?" he says, taking me in his arms and pulling me against him, kissing me. Raymond makes a face and leaves the room.

"He doesn't like me being here," I say to Michel.

"To him, I'm a priest and so he's scandalized that I have a woman staying in my bed. Since he's been with me, I've been celibate and very priest-like. Give him time."

I pull him against me more tightly. "You said you were celibate earlier. For how long?"

"When I killed my last human, I fucked my last human."

Holy
hell
. Over a century without sex? No wonder he was more than ready that first night.

"I feel terribly guilty that I made you break your vows," I say but I'm lying.

"You made me do nothing." He kisses me and I feel his amusement at this line of discussion. "I was the one who came into your apartment. I was the one who took
you
."

"Why me?" I say, genuinely curious. "Is it only because I look like her? Like Danielle?"

He sits on his bed and pulls me between his legs.

"You do look like her in a way, with that black hair and hazel eyes. But you're also different. Your freckles. Your dimples. They're your own and they're what I love about you. And your mind, of course. You have a mind that keeps me shaking my head."

What he loves about me
…

He's used love twice in reference to me, saying earlier that he loved my mind while we were in the park. He said it to Soren in Montana. I reach to him, touching his cheek and when I do I feel a deep sense of warmth from him, and it envelops me like a wave and my own emotions swell in response.

"I have to
go
," he says and pulls me against his body, his face nuzzling in the crook of my neck, his mouth opening, his tongue over my jugular. He's feeling my pulse, enjoying the sensation of it against his tongue. He loves how close he is to my vein, how easy it would be to just bite, and his teeth do elongate and his blood lust increases, but he bears it, loving the sacrifice he makes to keep me pure. He wants to keep me pure, unbroken, untainted. If I had been a virgin, he would have let me go that day and left me intact. We would never have had sex, but I wasn't and so he feels only a normal level of Catholic guilt at fucking me.

And then the thought of fucking him again makes me all warm and wet once more and I imagine sitting on his lovely thick cock, my arms around his neck, kissing him while I fuck him and he responds immediately and our passion increases, making us both breathless.

"I have to
leave
," he protests, his voice husky. "I don't have time…" He kisses me. "But when I come back, you'll fuck me, Eve," he says, staring in my eyes. "You'll sit on my cock and ride me like you want."