Seer: Thrall (8 page)

I sat there in the chair, panting at her, then slowly levered myself up. She heard me and turned around.

"What are you doing? Get back in that chair!"

"This is my last opportunity to defy you, so I think I'll make the most of it," I said. I took two steps towards her, then a third, and I was nearly pressed against her. I tilted my head back, exposing my neck. "In the movies, the vampires bind their victims by drinking their blood. Is that what you do? Do you drink now? Go ahead. Let's get this over with. But be quick. I'm not sure how long I can stand here."

She stood there, not moving, but her fangs were out, and she was eyeing my neck.

"Do it!" I screamed. "Just get it over with!"

"Stop it!" she hissed at me. I took an involuntary step away from her and began to fall from my own clumsiness, but she reached out and scooped me up in her arms. I threw my arms around her neck, and a moment later, she was setting me back into the chair. "Just shut up, Sidney."

"Make me."

"Damn it! You're making me angry."

"Do I look like I care? What are you going to do? Shove me back into your plastic baggie instead? Hey, at least I'll only live another year or two, unless you decide to keep me alive just to treat me like you do that one man. This will all be over for me, and you can forget about me. You can forget about what, in your selfish choices, you have done to me."

"Shut up, Sidney!" she screamed. "The nature of the bond is tied to our emotional state when we do it!"

I shut up for about five seconds. "Fuck," I said.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Fuck."

She turned her back on me. We stayed like that for several minutes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"I brought us out here to talk to you about it," she said. "It's a lovely night. I thought that might be a good setting. The bond wouldn't be very intense. We'd come out of it as friends."

"What if we did it now?"

"We'd hate each other, and I'd spend forever tormenting you. I wouldn't be able to help it. You'd spend the time doing everything you could to make me miserable, even knowing how poorly I'd treat you for it."

"I'm sorry," I said again. "Have you ever bound someone while making love?"

"That's what Aubree and I did. We became horny little weasels. The bond broke when..."

"When she became a vampire."

"Right. Or we'd still be all over each other. Now she has the bond a vampire has to her maker."

"Is that what you want? For us to come out of this as friends?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she turned around. Her fangs were still out.

"Nothing matters beyond stopping the war," I said. "I'm sorry I was an ass. Do what you need to do. If you need to wait a day or two, then wait a day or two. I'll keep the rest of my thoughts to myself, and in a few days, they won't matter."

"You weren't an ass," she said. "You were expressing justified frustration, and I don't blame you for it."

I took several deep breaths. "Solange, I forgive you for what you need to do. If it's necessary to stop the war, then we need to do it. But before you do it, I want to tell you something."

I paused. "Solange, I bought us rings."

"What?" She knelt down in front of me, our eyes on the same level. "Rings?"

"Wedding rings. I probably shouldn't have. You're picky about your jewelry. I was going to ask you on New Year's Eve, right at midnight, if you didn't ask me first. I hoped you would ask, but I wasn't going to wait forever."

She made a strangled sound while standing up, and then she turned away again.

"I guess that was silly. You wouldn't have married me."

"I knew you were hinting."

"I know. You told Aubree."

"And you know that how?"

"Oh, pah-lease," I said. "Stupid question."

"Oh. Right."

"But when I bought the rings, I didn't know that you had recognized my hints." I sighed. "What a mess. I guess none of it matters."

"It matters," Solange said. She turned around then stepped behind me. A moment later, she was wheeling me deeper into the garden.

"Where are we going?"

"The fountain. I want us to sit on the bench together."

I didn't say anything. It was a short walk, and once we arrived, she helped me stand. I moved to the bench, and she wrapped the blanket tightly around me, tucking it in carefully.

"Is this too cold?"

"Can't you tell?"

"No, not really."

"This is fine, Solange," I said. "Where ever you want to do it. This is as lovely a spot as any. I wish the fountain were running, but there's nothing we can do about that." It was still too early in the spring.

She moved my wheelchair away then came and sat down next to me. "May I hold your hand?" she asked.

I slipped a hand out from the covers, and she took it with both of hers. "I want you to make a wish, something within my power to grant."

"If you were a genie, I'd get three wishes."

She smiled the ghost of a smile and said, "Let's hear the first one."

"All right," I said. I thought about it. "Promise to remember me the way I used to be."

Her mouth tightened for a moment the way it did whenever she was trying to control her emotions.

"That's one. Another."

"As much as you can, don't let me pine away in loneliness. I've never been good at loneliness. That's part of the reason I entertain so much. I don't think that's going to change. I don't imagine I'll be very entertaining, and cats don't seem to like you, but maybe you could get me a dog. I don't know."

She nodded. "One more."

I looked down at our clasped hands. "I don't know," I said eventually. "Tell my friends I died heroically or something. Let them be proud of me." I paused. "That's probably a bad wish."

"Maybe you'll let me make the wish for you."

I thought she was going somewhere. "All right."

"You suck at this game," she said. "And so for your third wish, I wish to throw away all your wishes and start over."

I looked up. "Those first two wishes did not suck." I eyed her fangs. "I think you're the one who sucks."

"Oh, that's a new one," she said. "I've never heard that one before."

"Well, excuse me," I said. "I'm scared out of my mind, and it was the best I could come up with on short notice." I smiled to let her know I was teasing her. Or laughing at death.

In response, she reached up a hand and caressed my cheek once, then clasped my hand in both of hers again. "Start over. Do better."

"Tell me what was wrong with those wishes."

"No. Start over."

"So you're not going to give me even those?"

"I didn't say that. Maybe I'm really giving you ten wishes, or a hundred." She paused. "Maybe I'm fishing for something."

"Oh. Should I have figured that out?"

"I don't know. Maybe not in your emotional state."

"Better wishes?"

She nodded.

"Things in your power to give. No changing history."

"Right."

I looked down again. She wanted something. I didn't know what. "I'm not going to be very good at this game," I said quietly.

"Just make a wish, Sidney. Tell me, what do you want most from me?"

"I want you to forgive me. I want you to trust me." I thought about it. "I don't have a third."

"Don't you?"

I looked up. She was watching me avidly. "If you can't do those, then absolutely nothing else matters."

"Nothing else?"

"Maybe help me stop feeling bitter, but I think this bond you're going to do will fix that. Or not, I don't know." I shrugged from under the blanket. "Maybe if you forgave me, if we really forgave each other, and you began trusting me, then other things would begin to matter."

It was her turn to look down.

"I'm sorry. You wanted something."

"I have never allowed an unbound human to know my secrets," she said.

"I understand, Solange." I paused. "May I see them?"

She nodded, knowing what I meant. She lifted her head, and I moved a little closer, looking at the fangs.

"Open."

She opened her mouth, and I got a good look. They were long, slender, and very sharp. I reached up and grazed one with a finger. "Do they hurt?"

She shook her head slightly.

"The movies get everything wrong."

She chuckled and closed her mouth. "What do they get wrong?"

"When they show someone with a bite, it's narrow." I held my fingers apart. "Like this. But your fangs are further apart than that. And they're very slender. In the movies, they might be sharp, but they're not like this. Open again."

She did, and I ran a finger on it, then tapped the end. It pricked my finger, and I started to lightly bleed.

"Oops."

She pulled away. "You did that on purpose!"

"Heal it," I said, holding it out in front of her.

"Stop that."

"Come on. Heal it. You can get a little taste while you're at it."

"Knock it off."

I pushed my finger out at her, aiming for her mouth. She caught me by the wrist. "Sidney..."

"What? Heal it."

"Stop teasing."

"I'm not trying to tease."

She got up from the bench, moving away from me, and walked to the wheelchair. There was a bag of small supplies, including tissues. I was still prone to crying jags at a moment's notice, so Thomas had stocked up. She gave me one of the tissues, and I wrapped my finger in it.

"You could have healed it," I muttered.

"I don't want blood from your finger," she said.

I looked up at her. "What do you want, Solange?"

She turned away, and I thought she was going to lie to me. "Trust me."

"Excuse me?"

"I want you to trust me."

"I don't understand."

"You said you were a fool to trust me. I want you to trust me anyway."

"Why? It doesn't matter. You can do anything you want, whether I trust you or not. Asking me to trust you is like asking me to trust gravity. Gravity is going to suck whether I tell it I trust it or not."

"You didn't just say that!" she said.

"Old one?" I asked.

"I'm trying to be serious, and you make a 'suck' joke?"

"Actually, I think it's an apt analogy. My trust is meaningless in what is going to happen. Perhaps you are less predictable than gravity, but my trust or lack thereof doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

I stared at her back for a while. "Solange, I'm in the garden at midnight, alone with a vampire. I'm not trying to get away. I'm not looking for a stake. I'm not screaming for help. I told her to do what she needs to do so we can prevent a war. Maybe none of this is through trust, but if not, I don't know what it is."

"You've surrendered to what you think is inevitable. The only time you don't feel you have completely lost is when you're screaming at me."

"I'm sorry, Solange. I don't understand. Trust you to do what? Trust you to take care of me after you bind me? I guess I do, although you're going to be bored with me, and I'll become a chore. I guess I trust you'll do the best you are able for me. I don't know what that is. If I have enough brain power to think, I suspect I'll be deeply miserable." I shook my head. "I don't know what you want."

She turned around. "Sidney, I need a display of trust."

I closed my eyes. I still didn't understand. Finally I lifted my neck. "Bite me, Solange. Here." I caressed my neck. "Take as much as you want."

She didn't say anything, but several heartbeats later, I felt her move closer. She climbed onto the bench, straddling me, and I bent backwards further. She lowered her head to my throat, but she didn't bite.

"Will it hurt?"

"For a few seconds. Then it's going to feel amazing." I could feel her breath against my neck.

I nodded imperceptibly. A moment later, I felt her slide her fangs against my neck, not biting, just scratching lightly. I gasped in surprised anyway.

"What are you doing?"

"Foreplay," she said. Then she did it again. The third time, I knew she drew a trickle of blood, and she began licking. It stung a little at first, but then it began to feel good. I think I squirmed.

"My emotions are a little wild," she said between licks. "I might go overboard."

"I trust you," I said.

She scratched me again and went back to licking. I squirmed some more.

"What are you doing, Solange?"

"Getting us both worked up."

Then she scratched me again. "Are you sure?" She asked. "Feel how sharp they are. Think about how long they are. Think about how deeply I'll embed them in you. I will have my entire mouth wrapped around your neck, right here, Sidney. And then I will begin feeding from you."