Vampire - Child of Destiny (Vampire Series Book 2) (6 page)

"Are you ill, ma petite?"  Louis asked, bending over me.

"No... No I am fine," I said, waving away his face, which was very close to my own, but the truth was I did not feel fine, I felt ill.  My body felt limp and lifeless, my head was pounding and spinning and my hands shook.

Louis walked over to the small fire that provided the room with warmth, his back to me.

"What is wrong with me?" I whispered and took another few mouthfuls of wine, hoping it would stop my shaking.  It was only then that I realised that it tasted strange and was bitter with the undertone of metallic but foul-tasting blood.  No sooner had I drunk the wine than I felt worse, and found it difficult to stay seated.  My body felt weaker and could feel my strength ebbing away.

"Oh dear, ma petite, it looks like you have been poisoned!"  I turned my head, with difficulty, towards him.  He had moved away from the fire, and was once more standing beside me.  I opened my mouth to question him, but was unable to speak, my mouth and body felt rigid and I had lost control of my limbs.  I slid down on to the cold dirt floor, my body crumpled and useless.

Louis knelt down beside me with his face close to mine, a manic smile on his lips, and his eyes shining with malice.

"Ah, mon amie...mon amie...you should be careful who you trust.  It was me, ma petite, I sent message to Robert that you were going to snatch the garçon."

I wanted to scream at him, to claw his eyes out, and thrust a stake through his heart!  He had betrayed me, but above this, he had lost me my son.  A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest.

"Ah, my sweet, your eyes are shining...you wish to kill me, oui?  I love you, man petite...but it is in vain, is it not?"  He laughed, but it sounded like a crazy manic scream.

"You see, I could not take your garçon, ma petite, Robert would have tracked us down, he would have killed us...but I wanted you, mon amie...and so I have you!"

He ran his finger down my cheek.  Disgust raged through my body, but I could not voice it or act upon it, and so I was helpless and trapped with a cruel and crazy abductor.

"You will come to love me, ma petite...but it will take time, my sweet... and luckily we have all the time in the world."

Louis rose from the floor and walked towards the table, but I was unable to see what he was doing because paralysis had taken over my body.  When he returned and once more knelt down beside me, he held the goblet of wine to my mouth, lifted my head, and poured the foul-tasting liquid down my throat.

"You did not know of this weakness, did you, mon amie?  Ah, no matter, I will explain, you see...we cannot drink blood from a dead body.  It renders us helpless, as you now know, it poisons us...you will sleep, ma petite...but never die...sometimes wake, but be hardly able to move...and you will be mine, always."

My mind grew fuzzy and my eyes grew dim. I heard Louis chuckle, and I knew that I was trapped in a hell of his making.  The last thing I felt as I drifted into sleep was a single tear make its way slowly down my frozen cheek.

Chapter Eleven

I awoke feeling disorientated, my mouth was dry, and I could barely swallow.  It took a moment for me to recall what had happened. A queasy feeling attacked me, I rolled from side to side, and I quickly realised that we were traveling across the English Channel on our way to France.  This realization brought vomit to my throat, and it tasted of the stale blood and wine Louis had forced me to drink. 

I tried to move, but I was unable to, due to the effects of the blood, and even if this was not the case, I was confined, crushed into a wooden chest.  Suddenly, the lid of the chest opened, and Louis' face danced in front of me.

"You must drink, ma petite," he said, holding the stale wine to my lips.  I moved my head from side to side in an attempt to evade the foul invasion that he was once again going to force my body to accept, but it was to no avail, and I heard him giggle as the wine filled my mouth and flowed down my throat.  The sound of which echoed in my dazed mind as I once again fell into a tortuous coma.

Many times I awoke to the feel of rocking, and the sound of crashing waves, but every time Louis swooped down upon me, ready and waiting to fill my body with the stale blood that would keep me his prisoner.  At times, just before Louis arrived, I would feel rats scurrying over my body. I even felt their teeth sink into my flesh, their squeals of angered possession pounding my crazed mind.

Sometimes I thought I heard a baby cry, and sometimes I thought I heard Robert's voice.  My spirits at these times rose high, for I believed in my hallucinated state that he had arrived to rescue me from Louis, my son with him, and we would live happily together forever.  I would then see Louis' face floating above me, my dream would turn into a nightmare, my laughter into screams, and once again, I would fall into the dark abyss that was Louis' prison.

After a while, I awoke to the sound of horses’ hooves pounding against dry earth and the shuddering feeling of a rickety carriage.  Complete darkness surrounded me, I tried to bang on the lid of the chest, even dreamed of escape, but I was still incapacitated, still barely able to move.  Instead, I let my mind wander, I remembered the farm where I grew up, and my mother’s soft face offering me a tankard of sweet warm milk.  In my confused state, I reached out to her, and although her fingers reached for me, we never quite joined hands.  Bittersweet tears of sorrow engulfed me, and silent cries of grief, caused by my loss, echoed deep within my soul. .

My memories swamped me.  Sometimes, I would find myself making love to Tom in a sweet meadow, his face so loving and beautiful, but then his features would be replaced by Robert’s, and excitement would send my body into a passionate frenzy.  In the deepest throes of my lust, I would look up, and glimpse Tom hanging from a tree, his entrails ripped from his body, and I would pray, half crazed, for forgiveness, to a God that would no longer welcome me into His fold.

Cramps attacked my gut and I returned to the day I gave birth to Henry.  I held my stomach, I felt the huge swelling of my pregnancy, and I cried with joy.  I would be able to save my son; I would not give him to Robert.  I laughed hysterically!  Suddenly Matilda's face hovered above me, but she held something in her hand, as I looked closer I realised it was a knife, and I knew she was going to cut my son from me again.  I started to plead with her in high-pitched screams, but her voice squealed much higher than mine as she yelled, "Ma petite...Ma petite!"  Then her face changed, and the features in front of me changed into those of Louis, and the knife turned into a goblet of wine.  I choke and cough in protest as the wine floods my throat and pours over my face, I smell the stench of stale blood, and then I feel my body once more descend into a floating numbness.  Louis' fingers caress my face with soft strokes, his voice uttering loving words of endearment, and I am sinking into the depths of insanity.  The approaching darkness becomes a blessed relief, and I sink gratefully into its arms, hoping to escape Louis and the torture of my mind.

My reality is now a perpetual nightmare, sometimes I see Louis' face, and at others, different faces from my past.  They terrified me by their lust for revenge and their frenzied cries.  I felt their hands claw at my face, their teeth ravage me in searing rage, and I prayed for help that I knew would never come.  I wanted to escape the evil terror I was experiencing, but my mind held me prisoner, and deep down I knew I was encased, for all time, in the world of horror that Louis had created for me.

Before long I noticed that my circumstances had changed.  I no longer swayed with the rocking of waves, or heard the pounding of horses’ hooves, and through my muddled mind, I started to realise that I had finally arrived at my destination.

"Ma petite...It is time for you to wake, mon amie."

Louis' voice penetrated my muddled thoughts, and although my eyelids were heavy, I managed to force them open so that I could survey my surroundings.

"Where...where am I?" I asked, my voice no more than a raspy whisper.

"We are home, mon amie...look around you, ma petite."

I raised my aching head with difficulty to look around the room.  The first thing I noticed was that my arms and legs were bound to the four corners of a bed.  I still could not feel my limbs, they were numb, and unless I had looked, I would not have known that I was shackled like an animal to the bed. 

The bed was unlike any I had seen and was huge.  Elegant curtains of beautiful deep red blood-colored silks and satins, draped all around me in a haze of adornment.  It was a bed fit for a queen in its elegance and grandiose style.  I surveyed the rest of the room, and like the bed, the decoration, of red, gold, beautiful furniture and rich fabrics, were more befitting a person of high status - it was very French-looking, and extremely breathtaking to survey.

I noticed my luggage stacked against the wall, and was relieved that at least my personal possessions and my coffers had followed me untouched.  Louis followed my gaze and his voice floated towards me.

"Ma petite...your possessions are all there, I am not unreasonable, and wish for you to feel...what is the word…oui…comfortable."

A raspy laugh escaped my throat, but I felt no joy, and it was a sarcastic laugh of contempt. "Why, Louis...why should I be comfortable when you keep me bound and poisoned, a prisoner...
A
PRISONER, LOUIS
?"

Louis started to pace in front of me, irritation causing his movements to look jerky and awkward.

"I have no choice, mon amie, you will be my prisoner until you decide not to be...and then you will be my love, my sweet...but until then...I am sorry, ma petite, but you will be...as you say, my prisoner and my lover!”

His words confused me, I could not be his lover, I was his prisoner; how then, could I be his lover?  Then his meaning vibrated inside my head with resounding clarification.

“You intend to rape me, Louis?" my voice escaped my throat in a croaky whisper, sounding weak and defeated, even to my own ears.

"Non! Non, my love...you wish this, tell me you wish this!"

He moved to my side, his face soft and loving, waiting for my consent.

"No, Louis," I whispered, "Never,
NEVER!
"

His face contorted with anger, and his hands reached out to the bodice of my gown.  The sound of the material ripping filled the room.  My body was numb, but I imagined the rush of cold sweeping my uncovered skin.  I tried to lift my head to look at my now exposed and vulnerable body, but I no longer had the strength of will to witness his pillage of me.  I closed my eyes as Louis climbed on top of me.

Louis' sighs filled the room.  Hour after hour, I heard him take pleasure from my vulnerability.  When the numbness of the poisoned wine wore off, I felt his grasping fingers delve into the soft and once yielding parts of me.  Parts that should have felt pleasure from a man's touch, and not petrified disgust at an animal’s betrayal.  I was bound by pain, as he bit into that softness, but he sucked none of the tainted blood from me, and so I remained motionless and weak.  I felt his manhood, hard and stabbing, enter me, but there was no joy, and I felt his lust tear my skin in its relentless pursuit of pleasure.

When my body started to jerk and move angrily from the horror of his rape.  Louis calmly slid off me.

"I think that is enough for today," he said, his voice breathless and triumphant.

He moved away from me, but I did not watch him leave.  My eyes shut tightly, and my shame curdled like rotten milk inside of me.  Louis once more returned to my side, lifted my head, and poured the tainted wine into my mouth, but this time he didn't have need to force me.  I drank willingly, knowing that it would help me escape the hell of Louis's torture, and when the now familiar feeling of the poison overtook my body, I embraced it like an old friend.

Chapter Twelve

Day and night Louis subjected me to his lust and anger.  Time had no meaning for me, and I lived in a perpetual loop that consisted of torture, horror, and strangely enough - love.  I escaped into a world of fantasy, joined by the people that I had loved and lost.  Sometimes the world I entered would turn ugly, and I would face the horror of watching Tom hang, or his mother Martha's body, grotesquely laid out on her kitchen table.  Although mostly, my dreams, embraced me with love and hope, and my former loved ones held me gently in the aftermath of Loui
s
’ frequent battering of my body and soul.

Every time Louis would ask me if I would come to him willingly, and many times I was tempted to submit to his will, but I could not, as long as I had my protectors in my dreams, I knew I would survive.