Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery) (8 page)

“Pardon me, but we were in the middle of—” Byron called.

“And now it is concluded,” my rescuer called back in French.

The rogue led me out into the hallway where a man and woman were having sex on an end table, which garnered a disgusted scowl from my companion. I just blushed. “Where is your coat?”

“I don’t know. I gave it to the valet. Why?” I responded in French.

The man headed toward the stairs, past the rutting couple, dragging me beside him. He opened a closet. “Which is yours?”

“Why?” I asked, yanking my arm from his grasp.

“Because it is past time for you to leave.
He
should never have brought you in the first place.”

“Look … thank you for stepping in back there, but I really had it under control—”

“If you truly believe that, Anna Asher, then your head is not simply underwater, you have already drowned.” He shook his head. “Asher has either grown crueler or stupider with old age.”

“He has not. And who are you to say such nasty things about him?”

“A cautionary tale. One of the countless victims affected by his selfishness and spite.”

“Alain?” I asked, finally able to recall the name.

“He has spoken of me?” Alain asked, surprised.

“Just to tell me I should avoid you. Excuse me.” I attempted to step past him, but he moved to block me. “Please let me pass, or I’ll scream.”

“Scream all you desire. None here will come to your rescue. If anything, they will join in the torment.”

“Asher will—”

“Asher is far too distracted by our host and hostess to give you a momentary thought. But I have no intention of harming you. Quite the opposite. Now retrieve your coat, and I shall escort you to a cab.”

“I am not going anywhere with you. I do not need your help, and I am
not
leaving. Not without Asher.”

The vampire glared, nostrils flaring. “Foolish girl. He has you mesmerized. You see an angel where only a devil lurks. Did he save you? Pluck you from a life of misery? From some deep loneliness only he can fill? Made you his whole world as you did him?” I was about to ask how he knew but stopped myself. Alain read my face like a book though. A cruel smile crossed his face. “I have known him for seven centuries, ever since he forced this life upon me. And do you know why he did? Why he damned my eternal soul to hell against my very will? Because I bested him on the battlefield. I did naught but wound his pride, and he made me pay the ultimate price. You believe you are special. That he loves you above all others, and at present perhaps he does. But love wanes. Time is a cruel mistress, eroding the luster and excitement of new love and revealing what lies under the surface. It shall reveal who he truly is. Who
you
truly are. You are young. Your desires will change.
He
will not. And should you cross him, or betray him, or even wound his pride as I did, he will make you rue the day you ever set eyes on him. I have witnessed it before, Anna Asher, many a time. I would not wish their fates on anyone. So go home. Go anywhere, but get away from him. Before it is too late.”

I stared at the crazed vampire, attempting to find some artifice but only saw belief. Pure, total belief in every word he uttered. This stranger was genuinely frightened for me but
I
refused to believe. He hated Asher. Alain would say anything to harm him, would even make
himself
believe to sell the lies. And whatever Asher did in the past, no matter how horrendous, he would never hurt me. Not a hair on my head. And regardless I would never give him a reason to.

“You don’t know me,” I said in a low voice, “and you certainly don’t know
us
. Now, please excuse me.”

That time he let me pass. Eyes downcast, I hurried past the still wildly shagging couple toward the parlor. He wasn’t there. I checked the sitting room and still no sign. Where was he? Did he leave? There was one room remaining on the first floor where the music, Elton John, played. My own yellow brick road ended in the library, but I couldn’t enter. When I saw him and …
them
on the sofa, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t turn away from the horror show.

Minnie straddled and writhed on my Asher’s lap, his hands kneading her exposed breasts as their lips embraced with abandon all while Lord Richard suckled her neck in a now familiar way. They broke apart and Minnie’s lips found Richard’s, tasting her own blood in his mouth just as Asher sank his fangs into the pristine side of her neck while his hand roamed under her skirt.
My own tender wound pulsed in time to his suckling. I was so
angered, so embarrassed, so wounded it proved difficult to breathe. I fled before the tears began.

The wine helped. After chugging one goblet, the embarrassment waned. After two, the fire inside came not from fury but the alcohol working its magic. I still have no tolerance for alcohol but that night with little food in my belly and the blood loss, I was three sheets before that second glass lost its last drop. That still wasn’t good e
nough. The world was hazy, but the wound still gaped and bled, and every second he continued to spend with them was like a shard of glass reopening it. Why wasn’t he checking on me? Didn’t he care? Had he already gone upstairs with
them
?

I wanted the thoughts to stop. A few hits on a joint I found helped too. I’d smoked marijuana before. More than twice Sven and his friends insisted I do it just so they could all laugh their stoned asses off as I hacked and gagged. Such was the price of being able to go to bed in the Olmstead household.

It was as if I were floating above myself, watching as this pretty girl stared into space for a full minute before taking another hit. Had I really been astral projecting, I would have noticed my shadow stalking me. When I left the loo, he was leaning against the wall with a sly grin across that cherubic face. The scourge of Regency London. The man who, without his existence, there would be no Heathcliff. No Rhett Butler. No Sam Spade. And the notorious lover was waiting for little old rejected, vulnerable me.

“Well, hello, pet. You—”

I silenced him with a kiss. A rough, savage kiss so hard our teeth collided. I’d only been kissed once by Ralph, which only lasted a few seconds and where I received more saliva than pleasure, so I had no idea what I was doing. Of course, who better than one of the most renowned playboys in history to teach me? At least that’s what I kept telling myself while we continued the lesson. And he did help. Within twenty seconds I’d gotten the hang of it, even learned what to do with my tongue. I might have derived some pleasure in this act save for the fact I was so damn numb and out of it. I could barely physically feel his lips let alone forge a spiritual connection. Any connection. Not even imagining they were Asher’s lips, Asher’s tongue massaging mine helped. Whenever I tried all I could do was call up the image of him and Minnie. When my head started spinning, I broke away first.

“My, my, my, you are full of surprises, my little Lolita,” Byron said before kissing me again. He went a step farther this round, hands moving under my dress. Asher did this to
her
too. Did she enjoy it? All I felt were hands squeezing me. Not painful like with Sven’s friends, just nothing. The groping went on for about ten seconds before Byron decided to double down. Without a word, he ceased fondling, took my hand, and led me upstairs. If I were in my right mind, I might have understood what this meant, or done more than glance at the pensive Alain as we passed him, but I was too busy concentrating on not toppling in my platforms. It wasn’t until I saw the already rumpled bed I realized his intentions.

Not that I had much time to react before he flung me onto that bed. The weight of him against me a moment later brought back enough sense that I grew frightened. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go all the way. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Byron was handsome, but I didn’t love him. I didn’t even
like
him. But rage brushed aside common sense. Anything he could do, I could do better. So I said nothing, did nothing, as he kissed me and began taking off my shoes. My tights. I floated up again, watching as he pawed me, as my body did its best to mimic the love scenes I’d seen on film. That’s all it was to me, something happening to another person. I didn’t want to watch anymore. I shut my eyes.

He had his finger on the waistband of my panties, about to pull my last line of defense away, when I heard the creak of the door opening. Before I could connect cause and effect, or even open my eyes, the weight and hands vanished. My eyes opened just in time to watch Asher slam my would-be lover into the far wall hard enough to dent it and him. Even in an unaltered state I wouldn’t have kept track of Asher. One moment he was by the bed, and the next he had traveled five feet to lift Byron from the floor to punch him repeatedly in the face, Asher’s hand coming back bloodier by the second. I was too shocked to call out. Five punches that matched the savage expression on my Asher’s face since he entered this room. Rage satiated, that snarl gravitated my way, along with the rest of its owner. Like a panther, he stalked toward me, grabbed my wrist with his bloody mangled hand, yanked me off the bed, and dragged me from the room without giving me a chance to even put on my shoes. The only time he spoke until we reached home was as we passed Alain, who earned a begrudging, “Thank you,” from Asher before we continued my march of shame.

The five-minute cab ride home was excruciating. The anger radiating from him and my adrenaline shock finally got to be too much for me. I ordered the driver to pull over before vomiting all over Dorchester Avenue. “Sorry.” I muttered as he began driving again. My pathetic state lessened Asher’s rage. Unfortunately it was replaced with something worse. Apathy. His face was just blank. He wouldn’t touch me, wouldn’t even look at me, not even as we walked up to our flat.

“Hello,” Clifton said as we stepped in. “How was—”

“Clifton, please bring Anna a ginger ale. She is feeling ill.”

My governess glanced from my grimy, shoeless feet up to my greenish face to Asher’s bloody hand and knew not to ask further questions. “Of course,” Clifton said, before departing with our coats.

For once I dreaded being alone with Asher. I was afraid to glance at him, let alone speak. I bowed my head, waiting for the barrage of recriminations. None came. “Take a bath. You shall feel better afterward.”

When I found the courage to raise my head, he was gone. I was alone. He’d given up on me. And it was all my fault.

_____

The bath helped, at least with the physical consciousness. But when I noticed the red welts on my outer thighs that Byron’s fingernails had left in their wake, I grew nauseous all over again. What I’d almost let him do … to this day it still makes me grimace. I was ashamed, so ashamed I hugged my knees to my chest and silently wept against them. I’d never be able to forgive myself, and neither would Asher. I felt it. The shift. Things had irrevocably changed between us. A boulder dropped into our tranquil pond, rippling through every facet of our lives, enough to drain the whole thing, leaving nothing but an empty hole. And it was all my fault.

After changing into my flannel pajamas, I slid into my bed with the covers over my head. I attempted to sleep, but though I was exhausted my mind wouldn’t let oblivion take me. There was something that needed doing first. I found Asher out on the balcony peering into space with his back to me.

“I’m sorry.”

The man I adored was so deep inside himself, he didn’t hear me approach. Startled, he spun around and stared at me as if I were a stranger. Another knife to the belly. “I’m sorry,” I said again, chin trembling. “I’m so sorry. I was so stupid. I just saw you with them, and I drank too much, and he was there and … I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. Please.”

“Oh, Anna,” he began, face falling with sadness to match mine. “Oh,
mo chuisle
. There is not a thing, not an act, not a word you could utter that could ever make me hate you, have you not learned that after all these years? Tonight was my fault and mine alone.
I
beg
your
forgiveness. I sometimes forget how young you truly are.”

“I am not that young,” I argued.

“But you are,
mo chuisle
,” he said desperately, stepping toward me. “You
are
still a child with stardust clouding your eyes, an innocent in so many respects. And that is not something to rally against. It is a gift.
What occurred tonight should never have even crossed your mind,
let alone been put into practice. That was
my
failing, not yours. You should never have been put into that position. I swore, I
swore
,” he said, forcefully, “to myself all those years ago, I would provide you the best life possible. That I would guide you, teach you, set you on the right path. And for my own selfish, pitiable reasons, I have been failing.”

“No, you haven’t,” I insisted just as forcefully as I stepped onto the freezing balcony.

“I have. I have compelled you to grow up far too fast. I have coddled you, praised you when I should have punished because I
was afraid …
you
would hate
me
and abandon me once more to my
loneliness,” he said, voice cracking. He took a second to compose himself. “What happened tonight was not acceptable. How you have been behaving toward me since Paris is not acceptable. I am beginning to believe …
I
and my world are not acceptable. Your youth is so special, so precious, and you only ever get the one. Yet most of yours has been tarnished by the selfishness of others. I have been no better than the man I stole you from. I may want you forever and always by my side, I truly, madly, deeply do, but that place is in the darkness. You need light to blossom into the beautiful, intelligent, astonishing woman I know you can be.”

My knees were about to give out. “What?” I whispered. “What do you mean?”