Come to Me (14 page)

"My lord?"

Nicolae panted to a stop behind Constantin, and Samira saw Petru peeping sheepishly out from behind his master's shoulder. She stuck her tongue out at him, and waggled her fingers as if casting a spell.

"My lord!" Petru squeaked, and ducked down out of sight behind Nicolae.

"Stop that!" Nicolae ordered.

Samira made a snarly face as Petru's eyes again peeped over Nicolae's shoulder. His eyes went big as eggs.

"
You
! Stop it!"

She sucked in a breath. "Me?! I thought you were talking to your cowardly henchman."

Nicolae scowled. "The torch, Constantin," he said, holding out his hand for it. Constantin gave him the light, and Nicolae moved it toward Samira's face. His own expression was a study of intense concentration, a fine striation of lines creasing his brow.

"You don't know her, do you, my lord?" Petru asked.

"I don't…"

"Nicolae, it's
me
," she said. "Samira. Don't you recognize me?"

"What is happening?" he asked under his breath. The look he gave her was that of a man fearing he was losing his mind.

"Her back, my lord. Look at her back," Constantin said, and nudged Samira's shoulder with the flat of his blade.

Samira gave the older man a dirty look, but turned, trying at the same time to see over her shoulder at what they were talking about. She reached awkwardly up behind her, trying to feel for mud or bugs or some hideous disfigurement.

Nicolae drew his dagger from his hip and reached toward her. She flinched away, drawing a censorious look from him. She gritted her teeth and held still.

The cold metal of the blade barely touched her skin, as he used it to lift away the wet hank of hair that trailed down her back. He flipped it forward over her shoulder and then drew back, staring at what he had uncovered.

"A creature from Hell, come to lead us by our cocks down to the fiery pits!" Petru wailed. "Come to eat our souls and rip out our innards! Come to—"

"Quiet." Nicolae shushed him with the single soft word.

Petru whimpered and moaned from behind tightly shut lips. Constantin clouted him on the side of the head, and the noise stopped.

"What is it?" Samira asked Nicolae.

"Wings," he said softly.

Hope leapt inside her. "They're still there? Truly? I thought they were gone!" She felt again on her back, seeking the familiar feel of her leathery wings.

Nicolae shook his head. "They're drawn on you. Look at the back of your legs; your arms."

She contorted, seeing only smudges of mud. She wiped at them, and as the dirt came away she saw the lines upon her body, as if her wings had been sketched there with a quill and black ink. Disappointment settled heavily on her, the weight of her body heavy in her limbs. She truly was wingless. Stuck on the ground. Doomed to trudge amid the muck, like a beast in the field; doomed to see this world from the eye level of a cow, doomed—

"Is it truly you?" Nicolae asked softly.

Samira turned slowly around and met his dark brown gaze, and for a moment everything else disappeared—Constantin, Petru, the lake, the walkway, her miserable wingless state. Nicolae was seeing her, looking at her as he had that first night, as if amazed that she was real.

And she, too, had her first chance to study him with mortal eyes. He looked both different and the same as he had when she last saw him. Her human eyes saw less in the torchlight, his features half in and half out of illumination. He looked a stranger, almost frightening with his black hair and severe expression. His eyes, though—those were the same, and if anything they looked deeper and more full of emotion than when she had seen them last.

Something inside her reacted to the touch of his gaze: Her body shifted, some muscles relaxing, others tensing, and a strange warmth rushed through her. She became aware of the rapid thumping of her heart in her chest.

She gasped, and lay her hand against her breastbone. She looked at Nicolae in wonder. "
I feel
it. A heart. I have a heart!"

"Ehh…" Constantin muttered suspiciously. "What's she talking about, my lord?"

Nicolae tilted his head, still staring at her. "I'm not sure."

"Feel it!" Samira said, and reached forward to grab Nicolae's hand. He jerked back, out of her reach, and suddenly Constantin's sword was back up, between them.

"Keep your distance, demon," Constantin warned.

Samira turned her hand, palm up, and held it there, beside the sword. She looked imploringly at Nicolae. "Feel it."

He hesitated, then lifted his hand to hers.

"My lord!" Constantin barked.

Nicolae ignored him, and let Samira take his hand. As her fingers closed around his, she drew in a breath. He didn't feel at all as she'd expected. His hand was solid and heavy in her grasp, and yet she could feel the strength and pull of muscles and tendons, and the underlying structure of bone. His skin was so warm she suddenly felt her own body chilled in comparison. Her hand was small against his: fragile, even. He would have but to squeeze her fingers together, and she was certain they would be crushed.

As she held Nicolae's hand, her own body became more real to her, as if the contact with him proved her own solid existence. So this was mortal flesh.

She pulled his hand to her chest, and lay his large palm against the side of her breast, where she could feel the beating of her heart most strongly. "Do you feel it?" she whispered, half afraid he would say he did not.

His eyes widened in a flicker of surprise, and his gaze met hers for an instant before returning to his hand upon her chest.

"You do, don't you?" Samira asked eagerly. "You feel it! I have a heart, just like you."

He pulled his hand away and ran his fingers through his loose hair, saying nothing, looking as if he expected to wake at any moment and discover that this was all a dream.

"I've come to help you," Samira explained. "I promised I would help you, and
here I am. Human. Ready to serve you." She smiled, hoping it didn't look as fake
as it felt. She wouldn't tell him that her present form was a punishment from Nyx, or why she was being punished. She might be a former demon, but she wasn't stupid.

"
Help
me? How are you going to help me like
that
?" he asked, gesturing at her body. "You are only of any use to me as a succubus."

Her smile faltered.

He flicked his fingertips at her. "Go on, change back."

She tried to lever up one side of her mouth in a lopsided smile. "I can't. I'll be human for thirty days."

He pulled his chin back, a look coming over his face as if she'd just told him she was carrying his half-human baby. He shook his head and began to turn away. "Come back in thirty days, then, when you're of some use. Constantin, show her—excuse me, show
it
—to shore, and take up the planks so it can't come back."

Samira's jaw dropped open. "I have a
heart
! You felt it! I am not an
it
!"

"I know what you are," he said, and started walking back toward the island. Constantin held up his sword, to keep her from pursuing.

"I have never been an
it
, you night-blind, food-obsessed, sex-starved—" She struggled to find the right word. "—
human
! And I'm as human right now as you are!" She stopped, realizing she'd just insulted herself.

"Er… my lord," Constantin said, speaking over his shoulder to Nicolae's retreating back.

Nicolae turned. Samira could barely make out his features in the darkness. "Yes?"

"Your pardon, my lord, but she won't last long among the villagers. They'll make short work of her, what with no clothes and that drawing on her back, and her telling them all she's a demon."

Nicolae sighed. "Petru, fetch her some clothes to cover herself."

Petru jogged off to do his bidding.

"Did you hear Constantin's warning?" Nicolae asked Samira. "Stay clear of the village. And if you do meet people, for God's sake don't tell them you're a demon."

Constantin cleared his throat.

Nicolae frowned at him. "What now?"

Constantin looked like he was struggling with a moral dilemma almost too big for his comprehension. "It's just…
if she
truly
is
a human woman, for however short a time, and even if she
is
damned and soulless, is it the honorable thing to send her out on her own, with no food or shelter, nor any way to get it? Would it not be a sin to do so? I should like to think we had more charity than that. If she is human at this moment, then perhaps there is a hope for redemption for her."

"Don't let her body and pretty face fool you, Constantin," Nicolae said harshly. "She's a soulless demon still, and not a creature we can trust within our walls. Her type knows how to get what they need."

"And don't let a pretty face blind
you
to what is right. My lord."

Samira waited, her breath caught in her throat, for Nicolae's response. The moment stretched, the tension building as they all stood motionless on the walkway, waiting for his aye or nay.

Petru jogged back up the walkway and tossed something white to Nicolae. Nicolae handed it to her without so much as a glance. She took the wad of soft whiteness and wondered what she was supposed to do with it.

"The last time I saw her, she lied to me," Nicolae said to Constantin at last, his voice low. "She looks pitiful and helpless, but I assure you, she is not. I don't know what manner of evil she is intent upon, but I will not be drawn in by it. Nor should you be. Don't fear for her well-being—see how quickly she has turned you yourself to her cause?"

"I—" Constantin started.

Nicolae held up his hand, stopping him. "She's a sex demon, and uses her wiles to get what she wants. She lies and she manipulates. We do not want her within our walls."

Samira looked at Nicolae's cold face and felt a terrible squeezing where her new heart was beating in her chest. Her lower lip began to tremble, and a strange tingle was stinging the end of her nose and her eyes. Her face felt like it was swelling, her throat tightening. "D-don't send me away. P-please, Nicolae."

He handed the torch to Constantin, turned his back, and started walking off.

"N-nicolae!" She felt a trickling under her nose and wiped it away with the back of her hand. Now she was
leaking
! She felt the cold of the air upon her skin once more, and her leg suddenly throbbed with pain, reminding her of her wound. The night, once her home, was chill and dark and empty around her. She began to shiver, quaking through every muscle of her body.

"Go on, then," Constantin said, nudging her with the flat of his blade. "Don't make this difficult."

"N-nicolae!" she cried once more, piteously.

But there was no sign that he even heard.

Nicolae heard her call his name yet again, in that sad, forlorn, beaten-puppy cry. He clenched his jaw against the pity that was blooming within him and kept walking.

She was a demon; a liar; a danger to him and to his men. And he was only half certain he wasn't dreaming or insane. The entire drama was taking on a decidedly unreal quality, and he felt dazed and disoriented.