Selene

She raided his closet again, finding a black button-down linen shirt and another pair of sweatpants. Ducking into the bathroom, she eyed the toilet for a moment before turning the shower on. Three days ago the porcelain god would have been the first thing on my mind. She shivered, gooseflesh spilling down her back and up her arms. He Turned me, and I’m a sucktooth now. And I just. . .what the fuck did I just do?

Testing the water gingerly with one hand, she finally stepped into the shower, sighing with relief. The medallion bounced against her chest, skin-warm. The remainder of Nikolai’s blood tingled in her fingers and toes, her heart still pounding too hard. Her stomach bulged out fractionally just under where her ribs met her breastbone.

Jesu, I’m bloated with blood. She rested her forehead against the slick cold tiles. Oh, God. Nichtvren can’t throw up. Was she sweating? The warm water beat against her shoulder, ran down her hip. Chills slid down her skin.

The feeling—was it a memory?—of a rough wooden post and the crack of a whip rose again. Selene shut her eyes. Was that where the scars had come from? Was she going to drown in Nikolai’s memories now?

A thin squealing sound rasped against her ears under the roar of the water.

Shut up, Danny’s voice barked in the middle of her skull again. He sounded, of all things, alarmed. Get out of the fucking shower. Stop moaning. Keep it together, Lena. Come on.

She nodded, her forehead squeaking against the tiles. A swelling, hitching laugh bounced out of her, echoed against the tiles, was followed by the collapse of a slow moan.

Keep it together, Lena. Come on. Get out of the shower. Now Danny’s voice was cajoling, wheedling. Just like when they were kids and he was trying to cheer her up, or talk her into taking part in some game or another—

“Shut up,” Selene heard herself say, over the rush of water. She reached out blindly and turned the shower off. Slowing water plinked down onto the glossy dark-blue tiles. “If I’m going to live forever, do I want you whining at me all the time?”

You’re the one who’s talking to a ghost, he came back smartly. It was just the sort of thing Danny would say. The loneliness rose to choke her. Get dressed, Selene. Come on.

“Okay,” she whispered. Her lips slid over her teeth. “Goddamn you getting yourself killed.”

They were after you, Lena. I was only an afterthought. Bait. Stupid bait, at that.

“Stop that. Jesu, I’m even insulting my dead brother now.” She dried off with angry swipes, her skin shrinking from the rasp of terrycloth. Finally, she stalked out into the sanctum, the towel balled up in her fist.

Her charred clothes lay on the floor by the wrinkled bed, sending up a powerful stink of Nichtvren and fear. The faint but thunderously lingering odor of werecain filled her nose briefly.

She balled the pitiful remainders up with the towel, wrinkling her nose, and shoved them through the door into the bathroom. Her black bag was scorched at the edges. It had been under her in the wreck of the car. The Seal glittered on the floor, its emeralds sending up thin needles of light.

Selene shivered, copper filling her mouth. I could have died.

It was too much. Too many shocks, too close together. And the All-Dead Hit Parade inside her head didn’t help either.

She took a deep breath, plopped down on the bed with the bag cradled in her arms.

After a few seconds of sitting, staring fixedly at nothing, Selene fell back onto the bed, curling on her side and hugging the bag to her chest. A few sharp edges—file folder, her athame, her wallet—poked into her chest, but she wriggled a bit until the softnesses were in the right place. Carson the teddy and the flannel shirt—had Danny worn the shirt the day he died? It had been tossed on the bed.

Selene squeezed her eyes shut and hugged the bag. The pressure behind her eyes was familiar, natural, normal, human. She wanted to cry.

I wonder—will they be blood tears?

Oddly enough, that was the last straw.

The low keening sound of grief began somewhere in her belly and rose up through her spine, dragging broken glass with it. Selene felt her throat swell. She buried her face in the rough canvas of the bag, curling her knees up and coughing out an endless scream.

How strange. So I do have to breathe after all.

“Selene?” Nikolai’s voice.

I didn’t hear the door open, she thought dimly.

The bed creaked as he lowered himself down behind her. “Selene?” He cleared his throat and touched her shoulder. His fingers burned through the linen. Then he touched her hair, running his fingers through the charred bits.

The keening sound coming from her stomach wouldn’t stop. Selene squeezed her eyelids even tighter, bringing her knees up, something wet and warm trickling from her eyes. Her nose was full.

“No.” Nikolai’s voice made the entire room go cold. “Selene? Selene!”

Leave me alone. You’ve ruined everything. Go away.

“You can grieve all you like later.” His hand clamped around her shoulder. “Not now. Not like this. It’s dangerous, shock can kill a fledgling. Selene, for the love of God, don’t cry.”

I’m not crying. I’m screaming, can’t you hear it? A kind of wonder filled her at the thought. I should have let you die. I wish I’d let you die.

Why didn’t I? Oh, right. I need you to kill Grigori, and I need Grigori to kill you, and then. . .

The future was a blank empty wasteland stretching in front of her.

“Do not waste your tears on a pillow when I am here. Would it make you feel better if I let you try to harm me again?” He squeezed her shoulder even more tightly. Muscle ground against bone, pain slicing down her chest. But the pain melted, changed into liquid heat, pooled in her lower belly.

The scream broke, jagged into a hoarse sob. “Fuck you,” she managed around the dry heaving sounds. “Leave me alone.”

“No.” His fingers ground in even further. Her breath caught halfway, she sobbed again. Would she bruise? Did Nichtvren bruise? “There is no comfort in alone, Selene, no matter how much you may wish for it. Cease this. You will damage yourself, and that I will not allow.”

Selene pulled away, trying to wrench her shoulder from Nikolai’s grasp. He didn’t let go, but his fingers eased up a little. Then he leaned down, his breath brushing her ear. “If you do not fight now,” he whispered, intimately, “I will break you, dear one. It takes very little effort—a few days without feeding, some pain. How would you like to be a mindless thrall to my will? A submissive Consort?”

She tore away from him, pushing up on her hands, and scooted across the bed. The bag came with her, clinking. She faced his back across the expanse of wrinkled red velvet. He didn’t move, his spine perfectly straight, sitting on the edge of the bed, one pale hand dropping to his side. His hair was still damp, slicked down with rain. Selene flipped her bag open with trembling hands, and her fingers curled around the wooden hilt of her athame.

“Try it,” she whispered. Cool air touched her wet cheeks. Her heart triphammered, pulse pounding in her ears, the medallion burned against her chest. Her bones crawled with Power, shifting inside her skin. “You’re such a fucking bastard.”

He was utterly still, unbreathing.

“I wish I’d killed you when I shot you,” she said. She took a deep shaking breath. “How can you be such a. . .such a. . .”

“Think of some more creative epithets, Selene.” He did not turn. The air shimmered around him like the haze on pavement on a summer day. “You are beginning to bore me.”

Bore you? What the fuck? Her hand shook inside the bag.

If I stabbed him, it wouldn’t matter. He’d shake it off. The knife won’t cause enough damage. I shot him, and it didn’t even make a dent. Determination caught fire inside her chest. Her breathing evened out. I’ll give it the old college try, though. Let’s see if that bores him.

New life flooded her arms and legs. “Like I ever wanted you to be interested in me.” She slipped off the bed and rocketed to her feet. “I don’t know why I even came here.”

“Because you have nowhere else to go.” Pitilessly, no quarter given. “Grigori will hunt you down and use you before he makes you beg for death. I simply require your presence. I am by far the lesser of two evils.”

“Evil’s a good word for you,” she flung at him. And manipulative, ugly, arrogant, delusional, chauvinistic, sex-crazed fucking little freak—”

“There,” he interrupted. “That, at least, is something new even from you.” He rose from the bed slowly, still not bothering to look at her. “Now you should feed, and rest. Dawn approaches.”

“Hour and a half,” she said, automatically. Pointlessly. “I wish you’d just leave me the fuck alone.”

He shrugged. “You keep saying that. What would you be without me? Still combing the streets to find the men to feed your precious curse? I have given you shelter, and yet you curse me. If I were crueler to you, would you be kinder to me?” He took two steps away from the bed, tipped his head back. She could see a pale slice of his forehead, the coal-black wave of his hair falling back.

“How could you be any worse?” she yelled. The sound bounced off the paneled walls, made the entire room shake. Will you look at that? I’m doing his trick, the I-can-shake-the-walls trick. Holy shit. But no, there’s nothing holy about it.

He rounded on her, his eyes full of black fire, his face a twisted mask. “I could be Grigori!” he yelled back. Selene’s shoulders hit the wall. The echoes boomed. Glass shattered in the bathroom, tinkling.

In one graceful, inhuman movement he was over the bed, his entire body pressing hers against the wall. Well, isn’t this familiar, a snide little voice caroled inside her head and was quickly strangled.

“I could be Grigori,” he repeated, venomously, his cheek laid against hers and his breath hot in her ear. “I could take you, break you, and keep you; I could become what I fear most. I could lose you to my own hunger and smash your spirit, trying to chain what I cannot live without. What I cannot buy or steal or win, what you will not give me even though I do not take, I only ask.” His voice rose harshly, spilling out as if he could not help himself. “I am trying to be better than Grigori was to me, and you make me wonder if perhaps I should follow in his footsteps and simply take what I must have, what you deny me—”

“You are like him! You’ve tried to break me all this time!” Selene lunged away and actually succeeded in throwing him off-balance. It was a small victory, but she immediately froze, terror and fresh arousal flooding her.

What did I just do?

“I could be much worse,” His lips moved against her cheek, teeth gently scraping her skin. The ragged tone was gone, he had mastered himself. “I could have taken you and Turned you the first night I found you. I could have stretched out my hand and taken you at any time after that, but I refrained. I played your games and took what crumbs you gave me, and in return I gave you time. I was far more patient with you than you deserve, you ungrateful little beggar of a tantraiiken.”

The fact that he was kind of right, that he could have forced her and hadn’t—much—didn’t help. “You manipulated me. You never took no for an answer.”

“I kept you safe. I allow you far more than a Master has ever allowed a tantraiiken. There is no freedom to be had in this world, Selene.” He kissed her cheek, a strangely gentle movement.

Selene shoved him again. The possibility of being stronger—almost as strong as him, strong enough to stop him from overrunning her—dangled in front of her.

This time he didn’t even move. “Next time,” he said quietly, his dark head dipping down, lips trailing over her jaw, “hit me with Power as well as physical force, Selene. Anything else is useless.”

“Get away from me,” she gasped.

“There is an hour and a half until dawn.” His lips moved against her jawline. Selene’s cheeks flamed. Her knees threatened to buckle. “I suggest we spend the time doing something pleasant. I have waited, and I have made you immortal, Selene. I risked losing you far too many times. I will not lose you now to a fledgling’s bloodsick despair.”

“Doesn’t anything ever stop you?” She sagged against the wall. And could I have, if I didn’t stop? Why did I stop? “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

“There is no comfort in alone,” he repeated, and peeled her away from the wall. She let him, then erupted into wild motion, kicking, screaming, her teeth clicking together as she tried to bite him. He backhanded her, his hand blurring, her head snapping to the side. Blood flew—her lip was cut. “Stop, Selene. Now.”

She found herself crumpled on the floor, shaking her head to clear it. A gigantic shivering sound like the inside of a huge brass bell filled her head and receded, leaving a disorienting weakness in its wake.

Nikolai squatted down, his hands hanging loosely. “That is a Master’s command over a fledgling. Disobey me again, I will use it again. Stand up.”

The bell rang again, her entire body shaking with the inaudible, world-cracking sound. Selene found herself swaying on her bare feet. Nikolai caught her, his arms closing like a steel trap. “Shhh,” he crooned, “it isn’t so hard, is it, to cry on me instead of a pillow? Trust me a little, a very little. Please, Selene. Help me.”

Me? Help him? Is he crazy? Selene crumpled, folding into him. He moved back a little, as if surprised, and his arms tightened. The stone egg of grief in her chest cracked completely open. “Danny—” she heard herself sob. It was a long, drawn-out moan.

Nikolai held her, stroking her hair. He moved slightly, rocking from side to side, making a low thrumming noise that shook her bones into jelly. She sobbed into his shirt, messily and completely, while he crooned to her, occasionally stopping to kiss the top of her head and whisper soothing nonsense in whatever harshly musical native tongue he used just for her.