Extol of Agnatic Dreams (The Extol Series Book 1) (29 page)

Glais nodded, understanding her concerns. He had asked the same thing himself once “Enough people know of it for the pickings to be slim but acceptable. There is no coercion. Usually, they come to us and we then decide if they are acceptable.”

“Are all of your victims female?”

“Yes.”

“By design?”

“Yes.”

“You do not like men?”

“I prefer women.” There had been one man but Glais did not mention him to Evangeline. “In a dangerous situation, I could take either but I prefer women.”

Evangeline paused slightly as she came to one of the most important matters concerning Glais and his partners. “Is that because you sleep with them?”

Glais paused. No one had asked him before, but he supposed indeed that was the simple answer. “Yes.”

Evangeline bit her cheek to keep herself from showing any other outward expression. She didn’t bite hard enough to taste blood but she it did the desired effect on her face. “Do you sleep with all the women who you attack?” She did not feel sorry for using the word attack to describe the action of taking blood from someone else this time.

“I do.” Glais nodded.

“Except me?” she asked. Evangeline tried to remember the sensations when she woke up alone but it was so broken that often all he got was a headache whenever she considered the night.

Glais leant forward and meant to take her hand. When she refused, he merely pressed his fingertips together. Being constantly rejected was hard for him since he rarely experienced it. “Except you. You were unconscious and after checking the strength of your heartbeat, I left you in bed.”

Evangeline nodded, and Glais thought she would leave but she was adjusting her position on the seat. “Do you have to?”

“Sleep with them?” he asked just for clarification and Evangeline nodded. “I suppose not.” Glais shrugged. “But biting them, the moment can be quite intimate as you rightly remember.”

Evangeline’s face went red but not from embarrassment. Anger fuelled her reaction. “I assure you Glais there was no pleasure from me regarding your attack.”

“But there was.” He countered. “I held you in my arms, Evangeline. I could taste your blood and feel your heart beat struggle in anticipation. You raced to climax and the intensity was unlike anything I had ever seen. Had you kept consciousness, I am quite sure more would have come to pass between us.” Glais was not boasting. His voice was very even, his fingertips pressed together still to keep from touching her as he sat in his chair. It had excited him at the time and he felt that excitement return as he remembered the exact way she felt in his embrace. Never would he admit this to Evangeline since she refused to admit the attraction was between them at all.

Evangeline’s mouth opened and shut twice before she seemed to decide to keep it shut. There was nothing polite she could say. “I am not telling you this to embarrass you, Evangeline.” Glais said. “I get no pleasure from making you feel discomfort, but it is as it is and there is nothing I can do to control how one will react to my bite.”

As he described it to her, she remembered it. The pleasure of the weight of Glais against her body. The intensity of the moment when she was expecting a kiss still struck her heart and forced it to skip a beat. But waking in the morning, cold, alone, and in her own blood tainted anything that could have been confuse with preference. “There was no pleasure in that. “After we are married Glais, will you continue as you are now?” Evangeline asked, refusing to comment on his observations.

“I suppose I shall be forced to.” Glais sighed gently.

“Can you…” Evangeline paused as her words failed her once more. Blushing she moved on. “Without sleeping with them?” she asked. Glais paused and Evangeline knew that was reason enough to suspect that even if he could, then Glais might not do as she asked.

“The attraction works both ways. The high of the victim is mirrored in me.” A small smile dared to skim across his lips as she hid her face in her heads, evidently imagining just as he said and then hating herself for thinking such things about him. “I am but a man still Evangeline. I have urges and demands that need to be met.”

“Did you sleep with Wick?” she suddenly asked

Any smile he might have had was gone at just Wick’s name. She was a sore subject for Glais and one that Evangeline didn’t seem to respect. She saw this all as him being a monster and the other innocents. He wished it was so easy to define the two groups. No one would ever consider Luella an innocent. “I did.”

“Why?” Evangeline demanded, never imagining that Wick could deserve such treatment.

Glais looked around the room for inspiration that would not come. He was alone in trying to explain this to Evangeline and he felt the walls closing in, the fire splattered but offer no support. “Only near the end of her time with me as a donation. Not in the beginning. I was too young to understand it. She initiated it.” He tried to save himself in Evangeline’s eyes although he believed there was no salvation.

Her breath had stuttered before she spoke. “Did she initiate the bite as well?”

Glais sighed. “Evangeline, do not ask me questions if you do not want the answers. I will not lie to you but that means admitting that perhaps I am not the monster you think I am.”

Evangeline considered leaving then. He was telling her the truth and Glais was right. She had come to him to find out more, and when he gave the answers she didn’t like, or when he started to lose that monster edge she had placed against him, Evangeline would get defensive. She was clearly struggling and yet she continued to try. “Please, tell me.” She may not want to know, but she needed to know.

Glais was sure that she did not want to know but since she asked, he would be powerless except to comply. “When I bite, the excitement and the rush turns sexual. In the beginning, I was with Wick only for the bite. She was my friend and I could not perform anything like that with her.” Glais paused, giving Evangeline an opportunity to stop him but she seemed okay with this so far. “I believe we were thirteen or so, and after my feeding, she grabbed me through my pants. I was too shocked to stop her. That first contact ended with masturbation.” Glais hoped staying clinical would help Evangeline but the rainbow of expressions on her face made it seem that there was no easy way for him to explain this and spare her feelings. “The next time, it was more.”

Evangeline was glad for the lacking details however she was struggling with her own reactions only knowing the bare basics. She didn’t need details. Evangeline felt sickened by Glais taking advantage of Wick in any way. He claimed innocence that she had started this but Glais had said so himself that this effect was interchangeable due to the bite. Wick only initiated sex because of Glais’ bite. It seemed Glais was not willing to accept this. Evangeline did not feel it was up to her to argue the point. “How often?”

Evangeline tilted her head and Glais knew the look by now. She did not believe him. “Not every time. She was my friend Evangeline. It isn’t how you imagine it.” Glais rested his ankle on his knee and tried to work out why Evangeline was asking about this after reading his letter. He had hoped the story of the lace would woo her. Instead it had brought her to his chambers on a mission to destroy him further. “My relationship with Wick is complicated Evangeline. I do not think it is a conversation you want at this hour.”

Evangeline ignored his protests. She was here now and she needed closure on this before she could rest. Wick being so close all of the time, it was a constant reminder of the danger that Glais posed to her. “The first time you attacked her.”

He hated the word and Glais winced slightly as she used it but managed to keep eye contact. Glais nodded. “Yes?”

“Why did it affect Wick like it does?” Evangeline knew this was a sore topic. Wick had a theory but she wasn’t sure on it. Glais didn’t seem to know much more about his condition than Wick did but Evangeline was desperate to know.

“Evangeline, I do not know what kind of education you are looking for but some answers simply will not satisfy you, or fit the mould you have decided to place on me.” Glais rose from the seat, but Evangeline stayed sitting, watching him as he approached the fireplace. He simply needed space and yet he couldn’t bring himself to remove her from his room.

“Glais, how can I trust you not to do the same thing to me?” Evangeline asked his back, watching those firm muscles tense at the question.

Glais was concentrating on not exploding as the frustration built. Glais simultaneously needed to yell and beg her in the same breath. Evangeline was slowly sending him mad with her questions, and yet he knew none of this was her fault. Much like he had been, Evangeline did not have time to learn this curse slowly but rather was being forced to learn it all in a matter of a few conversations.

“I am not the same person I was then.” Glais had been impulsive and uneducated about his own cursed bloodline. He frowned trying to reign in his emotions because she could not know how painful this was to speak of. “I was ill-prepared for the force of the feeding. I did not know any better. Instinct made me move against my friend.”

Evangeline watched him struggle, and while it hurt her, somehow seeing him like this made her more willing to sit and listen. This was raw and real, and she could trust every word he said. Since finding out that his actions since her arrival had been some kind of backwards plan to save her, Evangeline wasn’t sure if anything Glais did was honest or further attempts to control her. “Tell me about it.”

Glais’ shoulders slumped in defeat. He grabbed at the metal poker that sat against the wall of the fireplace. Touching the logs, Glais said nothing as the sparks erupted from the log. “There are reasons Wick and I barely speak now Evangeline. I suggest you learn to respect our history.” He knew that she had not moved. She sat still in her chair watching him with cold eyes. Her stillness seemed eternal, and already the castle spoke of her ability to wait until you gave up the information that she so desired. Evangeline’s patience seemed to know no limits, and she would wait until there was no option but to speak.

It worked like a charm on Glais. “I was aware of my father’s condition. Not quite understanding how it all worked or why it was placed upon us, but I was aware. My mother thought I should wait until I was older and since I was still a child she believed they had time to speak to me at length. The desire was sudden. There was no warning.” Glais paused, feeling uncomfortable. “I know you find this difficult to believe Evangeline but I was only a child and yes Wick was a victim. We both were.”

He turned to face her. Illuminated by the fireplace, he seemed otherworldly and her silence came from a place of fear and not strength as she was powerless against him. “She was my first victim and I do not understand why it affected her body so much. There is nothing I can do for her but to allow her a comfortable life here in the castle.”

Evangeline rose her eyebrow, almost taken by his emotional output until the very last moment where she came to her senses. “A comfortable life? She is a servant.” She was quick to point out the flaw in Glais’ supposed good intentions.

“She asked for that position,” Glais growled out the words in her direction and Evangeline pressed back into her chair at the sudden look on Glais’ face. “Do you see why these questions are slowly sending me mad Evangeline? You know nothing, and what you think you know, it is undoubtedly influenced by fairy tales. I am not a prince you can save. This is not that clear cut. Wick could have any life she so desired and yet this is the one she wanted. I gave her what she asked for and still you hate me. I am at a loss with you Evangeline.”

Evangeline nodded, agreeing with him because she dared not fight him. “I am struggling to understand you, I know.” She tried to bring him back from that emotional place. He felt wild to her and she could never tell if his actions would prompt an attack. “Like you said, Glais, I am fighting to catch up on something thrust against me. No one will speak of this curse and you give me riddles.”

Glais laughed. Short and barking in nature before he shook his head at her. “No, I do not speak in riddles. You just believe every word I say means something else. My condition came out at a young age, unheard of before. Wick was the unfortunate victim. I mourn the life she might have had every day and yet there is nothing more I can do for her. I feed on many women, and yes that includes sex, but Evangeline it is not what you think it is. I feel no tenderness or protection towards these women.”

He threw the poker down, and as the metal scraped along the smooth stones, Glais crossed the room. Leaning over her, his hands trapping her wrists against the arm of the chair he continued. “You have taught me above all things Evangeline to fear the woman you love. I made a mistake and I can apologise but you do not want to hear it. I can offer you nothing but to apologise until the end of days. Even those you use against me. Do you want a monster? Should I be the man you have painted in your mind?” He asked her.

“Glais, you're hurting me.” She struggled against him but he had Evangeline well and truly trapped under his weight.

“This is what you want, correct? A monster? A beast? A horrific frame of a man who desires nothing but your blood and your pain?” She cried out gently as Glais pinned her tighter and leant closer so his breath was hot on Evangeline’s face. Instinctively she turned her head to the side, exposing her throat. He pulled himself off her before they went further. “Leave.”