Merrick (7 page)

“William.”

When I opened my
eyes, things looked rather strange. The trinkets above me seemed out of
perspective, their edges very clear, and when I looked at one, the others
seemed to shift as though they were breathing.

Merrick’s hand
covered my forehead. “You are ill,” he said, a mixture of surprise and concern
in his voice. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m not ill,” I
rasped. My throat was very dry. I tried to lick my lips, and found my tongue
dry as well. My heart was fluttering. There was a faint green tint to the
ceiling.

“Look at me.”

I turned my eyes
to Merrick and cringed. His golden eyes seemed too large for his face, and his
mouth was pulsing strangely. “Oh, sir, you look very strange,” I moaned, trying
to cover my eyes and finding it very difficult to lift my hand. I took a sharp
breath, feeling smothered.

Merrick pressed
his fingers to my throat, my heart, and my stomach. “Are you in pain?”

“No.”

He squeezed my fingers.
“Can you feel this?”

“Yes, sir, but I
cannot quite move.”

He slipped his
arms beneath my knees and shoulders and lifted from the bed, which made me feel
as though my brain was spilling out of the top of my head. I moaned fearfully
as my vision rolled into gray and came back again.

He stiffened,
stopping in the doorway. “What is that on your breath?”

I was too
nauseated to speak, but my eyes flew open when he pressed his lips to mine and
slipped his tongue along the inner edge of my mouth.

His grip tightened
where he held me, and he carried me swiftly to the main room where he deposited
me on the chair.

“What did you
ingest?” he demanded.

“Only a bit of
tea, sir,” I croaked, the whole room breathing around me now. “I must say, I
feel very wrong…”

The kettle, in
particular, was looking at me with in a very sinister manner, and the pot
seemed to be on his side. I narrowed my eyes at them, trying to figure out what
they were up to.

“What did you
use?”

What was it again?
“Er…thyme. I know that much…” How could I be bothered with such questions? I
had to keep my eye on that kettle and his lackey. To make matters worse, I
could not decide whether the stones of the chimney were with me or against me.

He growled
something under his breath and turned away. A moment later, it seemed, he held
a cup to my lips. “Drink this. Quickly.”

I obeyed, but
gagged as it hit my throat. The drink spilled out of my mouth and I coughed
violently, doubling over.

He hissed
something I did not understand – it sounded like a curse – and went back to the
kitchen. I heard a commotion of jars clinking and hitting the table. “Is this
what you used?” he asked, suddenly before me again.

I managed to focus
on the jar of thyme leaves, swaying in my chair to keep up with the undulating
floor and the spinning walls, and nodded as well as I could.

Merrick slammed
the jar onto the table, muttering in a language I’d never heard before. A
moment later I felt myself carried in his arms again.

“You have poisoned
yourself,” Merrick said gruffly. “And I must bleed you.”

“How stupid of
me,” I remarked, seeing some very interesting patterns now and beginning,
absurdly, to laugh. “Sir, that kettle is no threat at all.”

“Forgive me for
what I am about to do.”

That was truly
funny, wasn’t it? “I forgive you, sir,” I giggled as strange, ticklish twitches
went through my limbs.

Lord, I had done
it this time.
This time
, I had done it!

“I have become an
idiot, Master Merrick!” I declared, quite happy to have reached a conclusion.

Things were dark
now, and the air had cooled. It felt good against my feverish skin. Was I lying
down now? Where? It was not a bed. I decided to investigate at some point in
the future, when it wasn’t so hard to be conscious.

I barely noticed
as Merrick lifted my uncooperative hand to his mouth, but it drew my attention
when he sealed his lips to my wrist.

There was a flash
of pain, and then a thundering in my ears.

It wasn’t clear
how long had passed before clarity returned in a snap and I saw what he was
doing.

Frozen on my back,
I watched the gory spectacle, and as my mind became clearer I felt sure I was
having a fever dream.

For there was no
conceivable way that Merrick was really be kneeling at my side in the candlelit
cave, holding my wrist to his lips over a wooden pail, sucking and spitting
such an alarming quantity of blood that I…

“Merrick,” I
whispered, terrified.

His free hand
spread over my stomach and stroked me there, reassuring. His eyes were closed.

My vision began to
blacken at the edges, and I thought of my previous speculations regarding my
gentle master’s nature, or at least the one I had dismissed on account of
logistics. For, I had been sure, Merrick was not a vampire. I had been sure
there could not be enough blood for a vampire to drink in these sparsely
populated parts.

But here he was,
extracting my blood with his mouth, having opened my vein with his sharp teeth
in his candlelit cave, and it seemed clear that…

“It’s so much,
sir…” I whimpered as I myself falling backwards. My fingers flexed and found
his cheek, trying and failing to push him away. I was growing weaker, tumbling
faster and faster into darkness, and he looked farther and farther away. My
eyelids fluttered as I sank down through the earth and into oblivion.

I awoke to the
sound of crows.

My eyelids felt
like they were sewn together. It took enormous effort open them just a small
amount.

“What were you
thinking?” Merrick asked beside me in a voice as black and heavy as iron.

“I’ve lived,” I
whispered, surprised.

“You are alive,
yes. After steeping over a tablespoon of wolf’s foot in an act of idiocy I
cannot begin to comprehend.”

He was beside the
bed. I turned my head with difficulty and found him seated on the wooden stool
and looming over me. A pungent resin was burning and the smoke rose behind him
like dark halo. He looked furious, and also entirely aghast.

“Were you trying
to kill yourself, William?”

“No, sir,” I
replied, surprised. “What is…what is wolf’s foot?”

“It is a poison.
You claim to have mistaken it for
thyme
.” He spat the name of the herb
as though he could not believe the stupidity of it. “What would compel you to
such carelessness when I have warned you repeatedly of the potency of natural—”

“I’m sorry, Master
Merrick,” I interrupted.

“Explain
yourself,” he snapped.

My mouth felt dry
again, but this time I knew it was not from poison. “Am I recovering, sir?”

“Yes. I have
drained you of the poison. You will be all right by tomorrow.”

“I beg your
pardon, sir. I was simply trying to make tea.”

“Out of
thyme
?”
he demanded sharply. “What was your motive, William? Do not lie to me.”

My throat was
tight. My eyes felt funny. I closed them. “Master Merrick,” I whispered. “May I
rest? I will explain…”

He was silent. At
last he muttered his assent, and a cool cloth was laid on my forehead.

I was too tired to
think, and sleep was pulling at me impatiently. There was that blessing.

The trinkets above
me greeted me familiarly.

I gazed at them
for awhile. The room was dimly lit by a flickering candle, which meant Merrick
was awake. And hearing no birds, I supposed it was night.

What I recalled in
the next several minutes should have alarmed me, but it seemed I was out of
alarm to spare.

Would Merrick tell
me all that had transpired?

My throat
tightened at another, more pressing thought:

Would he forgive
me for this?

I lay for a long
while before I slowly climbed out of bed. My body felt clammy and smothered in
my nightshirt, and I wondered how long I’d been asleep. Cautiously, I ventured
into the main room. Merrick was nowhere to be seen.

I supposed he was
in the cave. It seemed to me I might have been in the cave, as well. From what
I remembered, it seemed Merrick had taken me there and…

I lifted my hand
to look at my wrist. There were no marks there.

Had it been a
fever dream?

Or had he really
bitten me, and healed the marks afterward?

I felt such
dismay. There were so many puzzles to untangle, and I was so tired.

Perhaps a bath, to
start. I headed outside, unsteady on my feet.

The soap and water
were a relief, and I allowed myself not to think as I bathed my tired skin. I
wearied sooner than I had expected, however, and had to brace my elbows on the
tub and lean heavily upon it for a moment.

My heart sank when
I heard Merrick enter the lean-to. I could not bring myself to open my eyes.

“You will weaken
yourself,” he said gruffly. A rustling sound indicated that he was shedding his
robe.

I had not the
voice to speak, nor the heart to face him. When his arm encircled my waist and
pulled me back against him, I let out a breath in surprise. He wore only
breeches, his chest bare.

Supporting me with
his muscular arms, he started where I’d left off washing my chest and continued
to bathe me silently, his head next to mine.

I could not
protest. In fact, though my mind was quite awake, I was so weak in body that I
couldn’t stop my head from falling back to rest on Merrick’s shoulder. Nor
could I feel anything beyond a relatively mundane trace of embarrassment when
Merrick washed below my waist.

“Can you lean
forward?” he asked quietly, and when I nodded, he gently urged me forward in
order to wash my back and my legs. After he rinsed me, he laid his own robe
about my shoulders and guided me to sit upon a wooden stool.

I pulled the soft
material around myself as he turned away. His bare torso was impressive, smooth
and strong, with elegant muscles that rippled as he moved. As I watched, he
shed his breeches.

Well, there, at
least one question was settled. There was nothing about Merrick that failed to
impress.

And I had nearly
killed myself for nothing, it seemed. The potion I’d hoped would cure my desire
had not. Even in this weakened state, I yearned to reach out and trace the hard
lines of his thighs, to test my grip on his muscular back.

Tears pricked my
eyes and I looked away, unable to bear the sight of his Olympian body,
especially the parts that…

I rose unsteadily,
wanting to go inside.

“Sit down,
William,” Merrick said sharply.

I could only obey,
hanging my head. He had never sounded so unhappy with me.

Oh, I was a wreck.

Wearing his
breeches again, he came to me and pulled me up. “Come.”

Supported on his
arm, I walked into the cottage again. He deposited me on the edge of the bed
and then stepped back, crossing his arms and staring at me for a long, terrible
while.

“Do you need to
sleep?” he asked at last.

“No, sir,” I
mumbled. He was quite frightening looming over me like that, the not-human
creature that, in my memory, had recently sucked my blood straight from my
veins.

And yet it was not
his bite I feared. No. I was terrified of his disappointment.

“You were putting
on airs,” he accused at last, “When you said my nature did not offend you.”

“No!” I blurted.
Desperate to forestall the interrogation, I abruptly asked. “Did you drink my
blood, sir?”

“No,” he said.
After a pause he added, “It was too full of poison.”

I couldn’t help
looking up at him then, and cringed inwardly and looked away from his glowering
face. Still, even as I stared at the floor, I pressed on. “But you would have,
if not?”

“If you were not
in my care, I would have.”

“Then you are a
vampire.”

“Yes.”

The admission was
surprisingly anticlimactic. I’d had a long time to get ready for such a
revelation, after all. “Whose blood do you drink? And do you kill them?”

“Travelers, people
who won’t be missed. The occasional animal, if absolutely necessary.” He
paused. “Yes, I kill them. It is difficult to be satisfied if I do not.”

I thought about
that for a moment, found I could not quite process it, and put it away for
later. “You must travel far to find them?”

“I ride at night.”

“And what do you
have in the cave?”

“Records and
artifacts from other lives, and supplies for the natural magic I have practiced
of late.”

“So you are a
witch as well.”

“Occasionally.”

I was silent.

“Are you finally
disturbed, William?” He sounded a mite bitter.

“What?” I looked
up at him, blinking. “No...”

“You ought to be,”
he muttered.

“You intend to
harm me, sir?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to
be disturbed?” I asked, a little lost. “You’ve been nothing but kind to me,
Master Merrick. I’m sorry if my reaction seems odd, but I’ve never met a
vampire before…and you haven’t given me cause for fear.”

He studied me
closely. His face was stone, his bright golden eyes fierce and calculating, and
for the first time I found it rather easy to believe that he was two hundred
and eighty-two years old.

“You know very
well how to prepare tea,” he said at last, accusing.

I kept my eyes on
the floor, at a loss.

“What were you
trying to concoct?”

As he waited for
me to answer, I found that I could not.

“William, did you
mean to harm yourself?”

“No, sir.”

He paused, and
when I reluctantly met his eyes, I found them hard and resolute. “You will tell
me the truth or I will get it from you.”

“Then you will
have to get it from me, sir,” I whispered miserably. “For I cannot speak it.”

“For God’s sake,
William,” Merrick muttered, frustrated.

“I beg you, sir,”
I said unsteadily without lifting my head. “Don’t send me back.”

“There is no
chance of that,” he said. “But you will tell me why you mixed those herbs.”

I swallowed. It
took me a moment to speak, and when I did my own voice sounded torn and
desperate. “Please, Master Merrick, I’ll do anything you ask of me if you will
let me stay. I cannot be sent back to the courts and—”

“I said you will
not go back to those godforsaken courts!” he snapped. “Is your estimation of me
so low? Do you think I would have you back in shackles and your mother on the
street?”

I bit my lips,
shaking my hanging head. At last I began to confess.

“I don’t know
what’s come over me, sir.” I could not meet his eyes, and my voice was
half-choked. “Since I came here, I feel things I’ve never felt before – on my
mother’s name, I swear,
never
before.” I paused to collect myself,
feeling my shoulders tremble. “And I can’t bear the thought of…when you’ve been
so kind, to have you think ill of me, think me perverse, I…”

Merrick spoke
softly. “What has this got to do with the wolf’s foot?”

“I heard you
giving that girl a tea to ease her through her own…unwanted…desire, and I
thought I might well try and get some of the desired effects. It was stupid,
sir, I know that. But I didn’t mean to use the wolf’s foot…”

“What did you think
would improve if you drank that tea?” Now he sounded truly baffled.

“I thought at
least it might not get any worse,” I said, my voice retreating to a whisper. “I
might prevent myself from exhausting your patience with…”

There was a
terrible silence. It felt like a century before he spoke.

“You desire me,
William?”

I could not force
myself to speak or move in reply.

“You’re
trembling,” he murmured.

“Can you help me,
as you helped that girl?”

“You don’t need
help.”

I looked up at
him, distraught. “Don’t need help, sir? I’ve tried, each day I’ve tried to
purge this…this…” I put my face in my hands again.

Merrick was
looking at me with an expression somewhere between disbelief and exasperation.
Slowly, he uncrossed his arms and closed the distance between us. Sinking
to one knee, he put his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me, William.”

I reluctantly
lowered my hands and looked into his amber eyes, finding there the tender
patience I’d come to count on. A funny feeling touched my heart, perhaps a
flicker of hope that he would not cast me aside, would not turn away out of
disgust for my unseemly thoughts.

“I am a vampire,”
Merrick said softly.

I stared at him.
What did that have to do with anything?

“I ride out at
night to find travelers, bite their necks, drink their blood and leave them
dead.”

“Yes, I
understand.”

“Had you suspected
this?”

“It had entered my
mind as a possibility, sir.”

“And you are
afraid that you offend my morals by…” He paused and raised his eyebrows,
speaking the next words slowly. “Finding me desirable?”

I parted my lips
to speak, but found nothing suitable to say for a moment. It did sound much
more ridiculous than it felt, when he said it aloud like that. But… “I am a
man, sir,” I said at last, hesitantly. “It struck me that you would find my
untoward behavior...disgusting.”

“Would I have
touched you that night if I found you disgusting?”

My eyes widened a
notch.

“I would have
thought,” he murmured, as his hands moved slowly down my arms. “That would have
put you at ease somewhat.”

“I thought it was
a dream,” I whispered.

The look of
disbelief on his face would surely have amused me at any other time.

“I hoped it was a
dream,” I added in a smaller voice.

“Then it was you
who found
my
behavior disgusting?” His hands met my knees now, squeezed
them through my night shirt, and moved up my thighs. The linen dragged a bit
beneath them.

I shook my head,
thoroughly disoriented. My heart was thumping in my chest.

“Suppose I enjoyed
it, William?” Merrick’s hands were near my hips now, his thumbs stroking my
inner thighs, and his face was closer to mine.

“Enj…” I
swallowed, trying to find my voice again and failing. “Enjoyed, sir?”

He replied in a
whisper. “I enjoyed it very much.”

I closed my eyes
and took a breath as his fingers crept up my hips, dancing over the ridges of
my stomach and spreading over my ribs. “
Enjoyed
it…”

I could not quite
get the words to sink into my mind. I was reeling. Enjoyed it? What…the notion
was so absurd it made my head swim a little, which was the last thing I needed.

“Do you find me
disgusting, then?” He was so close that his breath touched my lips.

I exhaled sharply
as his fingertips found my nipples. “No, s…” Drawing a shaky breath, afraid to
move lest I – what? Encourage him? Discourage him? – It was hard to keep my
wits about me as he teased those inexplicably sensitive little peaks until they
were stiff and aching for something more.

“No?” His lips
touched my cheek then, moving there with the softest touch, less a kiss than
the suggestion of one. One of his hands moved from my chest to my neck,
slipping around to the back of my head and gently twining his fingers in my
hair. His mouth moved closer to mine then, moving softly against the corner of
my lips as he breathed his next words. “Do you desire me still, William?”

I suddenly
realized that my breath had deepened, my chest rising and falling in slow
heaves, and my heart was pounding beneath the fingers that continued to tease
and stroke me there. My head would have fallen back if not for the hand that
cradled it, so stunned I was by this turn of events, so dizzy I was from the
hunger that he stoked with his caresses.

I could not answer
him. I could not…

“Or are you still
intent on purging this desire?” His lips brushed over mine, tantalizingly
close.

I felt a rush of
breath leave my own lips, and it might have been either of us who sealed up the
space between us.

I devoured his
kiss as hungrily as he crushed his lips to mine, and when I heard his soft
groan of pleasure I could not stop myself from reaching up and plunging my
fingers into his hair.

It was as soft and
silky as I had imagined, just like his lips; and the clean taste of him was
more thrilling than I could have conceived. His hands moved restlessly over me,
lighting my nerves up wherever they touched.

Nothing could have
prepared me for how it felt to melt against him like this. It was as though my
body had found its true purpose, and that was to be caught in Merrick’s arms
and consumed.

I gasped when the
kiss was broken, opening my eyes to find his perfect face still close to mine,
his golden eyes turned fiery with lust and moving appreciatively over me. He
was kneeling between my legs, and I had slipped to the very edge of the bed to
get closer to him. My nightshirt was rumpled about my lap, nearly exposing me.

Merrick’s eyes met
mine and locked me in their gaze. “Have I put your mind at ease?” He ran his
thumb gently over my lips and then kissed me again, firmly and briefly this
time.