Eyes of Ice (Eyes of Ice Erotica Series) (17 page)

“Once more, you’re not wrong,” Devon observed, lowering the heat experimentally. When he spoke again, it was in cool, relatively emotionless tones: “You appear to have all the girlish interest in Andrew, yet none of the foundational information as to his past. You callously assume that his experience is therefore not as critical as your fairy tale – and to this end, you damage both him and others with your purposeful ignorance.”

“That’s not true!” Cecelia protested automatically, her cheeks flushing with anger.
How dare he!
Furious thoughts spun through her mind before she realized that she had directly challenged a monster who had two weeks ago been strongly considering her murder, with as much care as one might consider whether or not to bring an umbrella to the park. “It’s not true,” she repeated, this time her voice as controlled and calm as she could make it. Despite her efforts, it still shook with restrained frustration.

“No? Tell me, then. What do you know – substantively – about Andrew? Oh, I have little doubt you
know
him in the biblical sense, and if I had to hazard a reasoned guess, I’d suppose that’s why he’s avoiding you,” he cast a glance at Cecelia. “I thought so. Well, go on, then.”

Cecelia had nothing. She could have listed some minor facts, but they were matters that Devon could easily dismiss as observable through clues from Andrew’s apartment, or subjects discussed at the lunch last week.

Devon laughed softly as he extinguished the burner’s blue flame and continued with his stirring as the caramel cooled. “I thought not.” 

“So then, you tell me,” Cecelia said.

“Why do you suppose I would do that?” Devon asked.

“Come on,” Cecelia persisted. “You’ve always wanted to. Hence the painting thing last time, your constant commentary about how you know Andrew so much better than I do. You want to scare me away by telling me things about him. This is your chance.”

As she watched, Devon inserted a finger into the thick caramel and withdrew it, a ribbon of sugary sweetness dripping from his skin. He raised his eyes to her as, expressionless, he sucked his finger clean. Cecelia shivered – from revulsion, she told herself, though she had just remembered the feel of Andrew’s fingers inside her.

“When I found Andrew, he was starving. He had been infected and self-exiled to the desert, somewhere near New Mexico. Which explains why he prefers the colder climate of Chicago, now, doesn’t it? Before that, he lived a somewhat …
harsh lifestyle,” Devon’s eyes were dull as he dried his hands on a dishtowel. “He had been in a boy’s home, which I gather was rather more like a detention facility. It’s been shut down, so I don’t have too many details about that. I do know that he suffered many abuses there – but I’ll spare your pure mind those disgusting details. This is what has resulted in his constant vigilance. Having spent the nights with him, you will have assumed that he does not sleep,” he paused, looking to Cecelia’s face for affirmation. “This is not the case. We do, some spare amounts. But, you see, when Andrew sleeps, he is plagued by consistent and horrific nightmares which result in self-destruction and destruction of property.

“I do not mean to exaggerate. Yet when I met him, I spent each night protecting him from himself and reassuring him that his fears would not crawl out of some shadows
. Eventually his solution was to resist most sleep. I have no reason to believe that his situation in that regard has improved. What led to his self-exile? He was chosen from the boy’s home by a vampire who wished to make him a slave, of a very specific variety. Well, Andrew lived under his thrall for a time – chained in the basement, then brought up from time to time to see the sunlight, to be bathed and to wear fine clothes and be viewed by his new master.

“
While he was still human, Andrew was forced to witness his master feeding upon others with no idea as to the reason for such brutality and violence. It is no wonder he possesses that strong opinion that we are monsters – he has experienced that which very few humans have, which is to witness a true vampire feeding – to the point of death, to the point of bloodlust – and survive with only mental scars.

“
Perhaps not only mental scars. Because this man had taken Andrew from the boy’s home for several specific reasons. One of the least savory was to make Andrew his particular, unshared blood donor, to drain him when he felt the whim and to restore life with a blood supply when Andrew began to fade. Then, it was back to the basement and the chains for Andrew. Eventually, however, the man so liked the look of his slave, emaciated and drawn as he was, that he wished to keep him for eternity, and thus preformed the ritual to transmit the virus to Andrew. It is likely that he recognized his frequent feedings and drainings of Andrew would ultimately lead to his pet’s death, so performed the ritual out of a partial necessity.

“However, once
the virus ran its course in his own blood, Andrew came to realize his power. The next time he was released from his chains and brought sacrificially to his master, Andrew killed him. He separated the man’s head from his body and fed on his blood, which is the most taboo of actions a vampire can complete – drinking from one who is already infected. Blood is already like a drug; vampire blood, particularly blood from an older vampire, is more intoxicating than anything you can imagine. Thus, Andrew, already driven to near insanity by the trauma of his captivity, killed all those in the owner’s household.

“
Many of these individuals – the vast majority – were not vampires, but humans, tragically breakable and hardly a match for a new vampire’s strength. Did these humans know of Andrew’s plight? It is likely, for no vampire would keep such secrets about a fellow vampire as humans would be willing  to keep about Andrew’s master; there are significant laws surrounding this within the clan. Whether these humans deserved their deaths is a matter of debate – did they indeed deserve a punishment of watching their blood ooze from them, their throats ripped out to prevent screams? It was long ago forgiven by the clan, which recognizes that the tensions of a new vampire run high.

“Andrew was
barely nineteen years old. You thought he was older, did you not? In his mid-twenties? Most do, he never has trouble entering bars or buying alcohol. But in actuality, he was aged by what he had witnessed before his infection. That is the only answer that I have. Terrified by what he had done and the traumas he himself had suffered, he fled from his master’s compound – as I said – to the desert. He lived there for nearly a year, surviving off God knows what – perhaps small animals, a wolf or two. I believe he wished to die by mere exposure to the elements, but, you see, this dark part of us … it is strong once we are infected. It refuses to go easily. And it provides the instinct, the will to live, and to kill for sustenance, when we may most wish to deny it.

“He remembers it well; no heatstroke has marred any of his memory. He still looks at the snow and sees desert hills, he still blinks at the sun as if he believes it will burn him alive.
Sometimes, you can watch his eyes track objects – a bird, a car – like a hunter tracks prey. This is natural to our species, but became overt when he was so in the wild. He finds it difficult to hide, now.”

Here Devon
paused, staring off into space, but Cecelia was dumbstruck and completely lost for words, feeling as if a great weight was pressing hard against her chest.

“Now, perhaps you wonder where I enter the picture?
I’m sure Andrew’s told you nothing of me except the bare necessities required for social nicety. I, myself, am a relatively new vampire. I was infected at twenty-three, five years ago. The details of that story, however, are well beside the point. What is relevant is that, I, like many new vampires, found it to my advantage to spend a time working for the clan, policing reported violations of clan rules – many young vampires like myself are rewarded with districts and blood, if their discipline is observed by the clan to be … fitting of continued existence. This is the employment that I had found, and I admit I was eager to prove myself.

“I was the one sent, with ten others, to investigate the man who was Andrew’s master.
We were meant to look into the reports that this man had been living out his life in an … obvious … manner, and to reprimand him. When we arrived, we were some of the first to witness the carnage. Of course, the other clan members completed their duty, glamored those relevant human individuals who found the incident suspicious –  you’d be surprised how easy it is, it doesn’t require mesmerizing an entire police force, but rather a few key individuals in law enforcement and public office. With that done, the rest of my team left to receive other orders or payment. They recognized the action for what it was, and had no interest or inclination to pursue the matter. They’d done their duty.

“
So it was I who found the chains in the basement, caked with Andrew’s blood, read the name
Anders
scratched into the wall. And it was I who remained behind, determined to track Andrew and – so great was my desire to prove myself to the clan – execute him myself. I imagined the clan would reward me with a large district and a king’s blood supply if I returned with Andrew’s head.

“I tracked him for only a few days, combing the desert first by car and then on foot.
It wasn’t difficult. As I said, he was starving and careless. He barely had the strength to try and kill me, he was so feeble with exhaustion. His captor’s blood had long since worn off, it had been days since he had last slept, and he was laying on the lip of a canyon watching the moon and the sun alternately pass overhead and waiting for death, perhaps confused as to why death was so hard to come by.

“
I knelt over him, meaning to snap his neck. It was then that I made the mistake of looking into his eyes and seeing the pain and distrust shading them. I could not kill him. I could not. I quietly chartered a plane, brought him to New York, and cared for him day and night for weeks. For the first few weeks, he barely spoke a single word. Well, I already told you about the night terrors. It took three weeks for his eyes to unshade. But they did. He flinched whenever I called him Anders, so I renamed him Andrew, which appeared less painful. He managed to regain some of his strength. Twice, he tried to kill himself, but of course he failed. The third time, I myself stopped him. He refused to speak, so I offered him my pen; there his drawing and painting ventures began.

“When he could lose himself in his artwork, he could return to normalcy. It was his outlet, his release, and I would sit and watch him for hour after hour. This beauty blossomed from this darkness. Know that I had doubts that he would survive; I feared that eventually he would succeed in his attempts or would prove too weak still to last out his first year of infection.
Seeing this metamorphosis, the result of literally unspeakable pain – it is like nothing I have ever seen.

“
One night in December – I found him in August – he awoke from a nightmare. He slept in the bed next to me, of course. I had found it easier than constantly worrying about his state or dashing to his room in the early hours of the morning. And when he cried out this time, he formed words. “
Brother,
” and my name. That is where our relationship shifted: he was a brother to me, as I was to him. Bonds like this are uncommon among our kind. As rare as love.

“From there, speaking became easier for him. Restraining himself became easier. I had fewer worries as to his safety. It was as if he truly was awakening from a nightmare. Thus, I could apply for my PhD program, relocate from New York to Chicago. It’s been three years since I first
laid eyes on him in the desert. Clearly, neither of us are the same. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

The kitchen
was spinning into a disorienting blur of marble and stainless steel, and the scent of the caramel was suddenly sickening. Cecelia dashed to the sink and dry heaved agonizingly for what felt like years, the violence of her exertion wracking her body and tearing her throat. Behind her, Devon remained calm. As she tried to regain control, Devon was tranquilly moving about the kitchen once more. Silently, he removed a tray of ramekins from the oven, and began to drizzle the caramel over their golden custard filling.

When she could finally step away from the sink, Cecelia’s insides felt raw and exposed, and her voice was jagged when she spoke: “
Is that all the truth?”

Devon nodded curtly. “What motivation do I have to lie? Now you and I, apart from Andrew, are the only two to know the entire situation. Alexandra doesn’t have much of an idea. Can you imagine,” he grinned, “How differently she would look at Andrew if she knew? Like he was an injured puppy.”

“I can’t believe you told me all of that,” Cecelia said dully, her mind filled with manufactured scenarios, of a dank basement dungeon, a house coated with the blood of humans and vampires, and an arid desert landscape.

To her continued surprise, Devon shrugged. “You wanted to know. Andrew would have never told you. I’ve cut out the middle man and saved Andrew the trouble of actually breaking things off with you, which seems it’s the only thing to get you out of our lives for good.”

In spite of the cruelty of his statement and the deadpan manner in which he had recounted his tale of Andrew’s past, Cecelia was struggling to reconcile her image of Devon. How had Devon been so
good
to track Andrew through the desert, to expend so much of his time saving someone, with no reward? Unless….