NIGHT 7
You fear the dark, Mr Blickle, yet do you not also fear the flames?
The thing about me, sweetheart? I’ll never tire of staring into the glorious heart of the fire. The heat. The dancing, surging, freedom of those flames.
I don’t fear death, only slavery.
In First Life you were a bright up-and-coming barrister: how was Captain saving you? From what was he freeing you?
I didn’t need saving; I was happy.
I once knew a Blood Lifer, who believed in electing only the best, as if he was picking from a sweet shop. Advancement of the evolutionary superior. Aralt wanted to take over the world.
Most Plantagenets author differently; we burrow underneath to the enslaved: by families, societies or themselves.
Blood Life? Turns out it’s freedom. It’s not a loss.
Is that how you authored Sun?
Sun was different. Not electing her? That would’ve been the loss.
Pain. But that was nothing new. I groaned.
The sudden memory of having my nut smashed in by Plantagenet.
My peepers snapped open, and I sat bolt upright in…bed?
Bollocks.
I gripped the white silk sheets higher up my chest, like a starkers bird in some romcom after a one-night stand.
Not that I had any modesty left to preserve.
I carefully glanced around the cavernous bedroom. There was the cloying scent of cherry blossoms and no windows: that was novel.
Blood Lifer adaptations 101.
The dark grey walls were in that rich pigment, which bounces back until your temples ache. Biscuit carpets and pristine white ceilings.
Yet there was something off. Organic. As if the building was breathing, growing – evolving.
A spiderwebbed moon light cast me in twilight. The bedside tables had stainless steel bases but curled with fragile spirals of petals. Two oversized vases stood like sentinels either side of the – thank Christ – open door. One was black and painted with skeletal flowers. The other? A forest of green. They both had an unnerving beauty. The lilies inserted into their branches transformed the vases into blossoming trees.
I took a shufti at the threads on the bottom of the bed.
Blacks jeans and t-shirt? At least the wanker knew what I liked.
My blood screamed, punishing me for fighting the pull to Plantagenet.
Plantagenet would be one hell of a cult leader, except I reckoned it was more than that. He was a Magnificoe, a Long-lived like Hartford; I’d felt the power in Hartford too, but he hadn’t been my blood.
And it always comes back to blood.
Plantagenet, however, hadn’t even allowed me to speak. He’d silenced me instead.
I wasn’t exchanging one gag for another.
I’d burned Aralt in the sun, when he’d been head of my family – rebel here, yeah?
If Plantagenet hadn’t also saved Sun..?
He was going to wish I’d burned him like Aralt.
Resolved, I dragged on my jeans, before gently easing the t-shirt over my nut. Someone had washed the blood out of my hair; in fact, had cleaned every inch of me.
Considerate of them.
No socks or motorcycle boots. You forget how reduced you are in bare feet. Still, it was blinding for sneaking, and I was on a sneak mission.
I edged to the door, peeking out.
Long silent corridor. Same biscuit floors and grey walls. In hunt mode, I made no sound on the thick carpets. I slipped out into the corridor. It stretched like some wealthy bloke’s idea of the walk to heaven.
Nothing.
Then Ronson’s distorted Les Paul guitar riffs…drums…and that voice. “Ziggy Starburst” exploded in joyous eccentricity: a glam space fantasy.
I blinked. All right then, not what I was expecting.
I felt as far from home as Ziggy.
A splash of light – enchanted pale green – from an open door.
I glanced over my shoulder, before stalking shadow to shadow to the fairy light.
Peeper to the gap, I let my fangs descend, as I raised my fists.
Now I was bloody ready.
Forest baroque, like a world had sprung alive amidst twenty-first century tech. Steel, iron and titanium, but swarming with butterflies, moths and flowers. A breathing animal, which could swallow you. Screens of ivy in waves, and in the very middle? A humungous bed – big enough for…
Sun: she was dressed at least but back in Alex Highbury-Lord pencil skirt and ivory cashmere top. Plantagenet: at least I guessed it was him by the flicker of gold peepers; black curls cascaded to his waist. And some tosser I didn’t know (twice my size), in poncey Savile Row purple suit, his haircut so precise it could’ve been scientific – the billionaire to match the pad – like a First Lifer god in the centre.
The First Lifer’s jacket was thrown over a Louis XIV upholstered chair; his crisp white sleeves were rolled back, and his arms held out Christ-like (if Christ had been in ecstasy, rather than agony).
Sun and Plantagenet were on either side of the First Lifer, licking and nuzzling at shallow cuts along his arms: blood sharing. Their peepers were rolled to white, as they juddered.
Lost.
Me? I was the poor git peeping in at the door.
This? Meant the loss of my elected because I’d seen this before.
Blood sharing was sacrosanct. Yet Sun had broken it with one of our own. Worse? She was awake: but she hadn’t been there when I’d awoken.
Had she even seen me since the rescue?
I craved to rent the world…that First Lifer…all three of them…in two. Donovan, however, was still kidnapped, and I’d made a promise.
So instead, I slowly pushed open the door. ‘Alright?’
The three glanced up like they were doing no more than sipping tea together.
The First Lifer smiled. ‘Our sleepy head awakes. You’re too late to join the party.’
‘Pity that,’ I took a step forward, before realising my fangs were still out; I battled to force them back in. ‘Sun, luv, you mind telling me, whether you’re all in one piece after our adventure?’
At last Sun drew back from the human’s – muscled – arm. Crimson dribbled down her chin; she licked it off luxuriously. I suddenly realised she’d never drunk directly from a human before.
Bloody hell, what were they thinking?
She was flying.
How was I ever going to… I flinched when I imagined the word leash. But Sun unleashed? She’d be a wild Blood Lifer as fierce as Ruby.
I’d never wanted that for Grayse…bugger it…Sun.
‘Wanna try?’ Sun gestured at the bloke’s arm, as if it was ice cream. ‘It makes you, like, see the stars.’
The businessman let out a bark of laughter.
‘Blinding, sweetheart, but I’ve seen the stars: the real ones. And right now? I want a quiet word with Plantagenet.’
Plantagenet looked up from his licking, those lips curving into a smile. His peepers, however, were steel; he kissed the businessman teasingly, then – sodding hell – Sun too.
I bounced up and down on my toes, struggling to control the fighting instinct.
Plantagenet swung himself onto the edge of the bed.
Only then did it register that he was starkers: his slight form a piss annoyingly perfect warm Mediterranean olive. He raised an eyebrow.
Blushing, I turned around.
Still, that meant Plantagenet had been starkers in front of Sun.
I cut my tongue when my fang partially shot out. I whimpered, trying to hide it with a cough, as I sucked at the hole.
‘I’m Jamie Blake by the way,’ came a lazy drawl, ‘but most people call me Blake.’
I already had some other names for him… For once I kept my gob shut.
A hand on my shoulder, and I was yanked round, so fast I stumbled. Oranges and cypress wove their spell. Then Plantagenet’s neat hands were on my waist, steadying me.
A flash of silver: a ring on Plantagenet’s left hand. A slave ring?
Plantagenet was a slave? So Blake was..?
I hadn’t realised I was snarling, until Plantagenet took my chin hard between his fingers. ‘My dear child, calm yourself. What is done, is done. We must reshape the future, not bewail the past.’
‘You’re a sodding slave?’
I didn’t miss Plantagenet’s glance back at Blake – or Blake’s returning nod, before he answered, ‘Was, well-beloved. But I did not suffer at Master’s hand, as you and so many others did.’
I took in Plantagenet’s threads: the bloke was barely dressed. A silk white catsuit, slashed to the navel. Nothing but smooth golden skin and black curls. Two guesses who’d chosen it for him.
He had bare feet too, like me.
Yet those two lounging on the bed..? Sun was wearing embossed leather platforms. Blake: black Oxfords.
I could’ve bleeding wept.
‘I wished to train Plantagenet myself,’ Blake chipped in.
‘Not helping your case, mate.’
‘Indeed Jamie did take me in hand. But believe me, he discovered it not as easy as he'd bethought.’
Sun snorted. ‘Frickin’ join the club.’
Blake wrapped his tree trunk arm around Sun, as she burrowed down onto his laundered shoulder, like master and mistress chinwagging over the daftness of slaves.
I bristled, until Plantagenet shook my chin, and I was lost in his gold gaze again. ‘Yet love? We’re all her slaves, are we not? Master and slave alike? God’s heart, I never bethought to follow Cupid’s path to a First Lifer. Never that. For Jamie this was…it was new as well. Do not blame him: he’s the reason for your freedom.’
‘That right, is it?’
‘He saw those most despicable pictures of you and the others. The ones you uploaded, whereby none may pretend ignorance of the infamy, and it changed him.’
I wrenched away from Plantagenet.
He’d seen. Blake too. Ironic: because that was what we’d planned, when we’d hollered the truth of the slavery empire onto the Tor Network.
Yet to finally meet the mythologised Plantagenet, only for him to have witnessed my greatest humiliation, degradation and abuse?
I twisted away, stumbling out of the green, green, green, sinking in the spidery strains of David Bowie and my own hot shame.
‘Stay, my well-beloved. What ails you? You flame bright, not break at words.’
‘You don’t know me. Where have you been? 150 years is a long time to be missing.’
I sensed the sudden tension behind me. Note to brain: Magnificoe here – he could snap me in half with one of those small hands.
Instead, Plantagenet bounced around in front of me, his curls flying. To my shock, he was grinning. When he grabbed my hands, I fought not to flinch back. ‘Then we must make up, must we not? You are the true rebel in this war with the evil doers; we have merely taken up your standard.’
You know when suddenly the penny drops? And you sodding wish it hadn’t?
‘You’re the Renegades?’
‘Guilty as charged,’ Blake smirked.
‘And…’ I squeezed Plantagenet’s hand, ‘you’re the leader?’
Please…no…don’t let him say it…
Plantagenet dragged me close, his arms around my neck, caressing the strands at the base of my neck, as he swayed to the beat, beat, beat of the drums and blast of guitars, his snake-hips tight to mine, and - sod it - was it hard to remember I don’t dance. ‘In the country of the blind,’ he whispered hot into my ear, ‘the one-eyed man is king.’ Then he chuckled, low and sensuous.
‘Good on you,’ bugger, bugger, bugger, ‘but let’s just slow things down and rewind.’ I reluctantly pushed Plantagenet back, and he let me. I could never move him if he didn’t. He looked shocked, however, and hurt. I wondered how often his spell was fought. ‘The other night at that lab, there was a kid. At least…’ I tried not to think about the black body bag. ‘I would’ve told you, if you hadn’t gone all caveman. We need to go back and--’
‘Family?’ Plantagenet was frowning.
‘Bloody well he is.’
‘Then I have offended, and as high heaven is my witness--’
‘Na-ah, no way you’re going back there on account of some First Lifer. Either of you. You’re soft if you reckon I’ll let that happen.’ Sun shook her hand in the air imperiously. ‘The boy’s not family.’
I stared at Sun. Every moment I’d suffered in that lab thinking of her – loving her – taking it for her, so she didn’t have to.
I wish love wasn’t so bleeding blind.
‘A First Lifer?’ Plantagenet’s frown deepened.
‘What’s Blake then? An ape in a suit? Hang on a tick, yeah – he is.’
Plantagenet’s backhand slammed me so far across the room, I smashed through the ivy screen. I sprawled on the floor; the scent of cherry blossoms coppery now. I licked at the blood on my lips, as I hauled myself round.
Plantagenet was fidgeting on the spot, eyeing Blake worriedly.
Interesting.
‘Well, help him up then.’
Plantagenet rushed to lift me to my feet: Christ he was strong. He gave an apologetic shrug.
Blake stroked Sun’s hair slowly. ‘Plantagenet isn’t so keen on people insulting me. He’s a good guard dog.’
‘And me?’ I turned my gaze on Blake. ‘Not so keen on folks calling Blood Lifers mutts.’
A warm wetness on my lips… Plantagenet was licking the blood from my lips kittenish.
I guess I did always say waste not, want not.
‘Your boy? My apologies, but he is not of need to our mission. It’s a piteous look you bestow upon me, but a leader must make sacrifices. Make no bones about it – I shall.’
‘Not your sacrifices though, are they?’
I wondered then, when I’d be of no more need, and it’d be my turn to be sacrificed.
‘It’s my responsibility,’ solemnly Plantagenet studied the ring on his finger, ‘to free all slaves. To work until this unfair world has equal rights for Blood and First alike.’
‘Equal…what now?’ I spluttered.
‘Light…’ I heard Sun’s warning from the bed.
All right then, so my zealot of a touched ancestor was all for thrusting his hand into the fire too, but something had been niggling at me from the moment I woke up. ‘What I can’t figure? How you found Sun and me at that sick research lab?’
That quick glance by Plantagenet back to Blake; I wondered if he even knew he did it, or whether he was so conditioned, it was now automatic.
Blake stretched, before casually swiping the last oozing crimson off his arms to Sun, who sucked it with orgasmic fervour, and then turned his sleeves back down. He leapt up from the bed, sauntering over to Plantagenet: a giant and his captured fairy folk. ‘Hartford,’ Blake’s expression was hard and blank, transformed to all business. ‘This Blood Lifer shows up at the door. He knows about the Blood Club and about Plantagenet; he spins a tale about having discovered us via hacked names. Then an even more unlikely one about both you and some elected having disappeared. He thinks we’ll help find you.’
‘And you jump to help, just like that?’
Plantagenet was staring at the biscuit carpet, refusing to look up.
Blake swung his jacket off the armchair, sliding his arms into it, like cutting through water, in the way only the super-rich ever manage. ‘We take precautions. To some? We’re not freedom fighters: we’re terrorists. Our identities are secret for a reason. It could be a trick. A trap. To lure us--’
‘Where’s Hartford?’
Silence.
I took a shufti at Sun, who was avoiding my eye, with her knees drawn up to her chest. ‘You knew about this? You seen him then?’
Sun shrugged.
‘Not really an answer there, princess. Just take me to him.’
Plantagenet nodded.
‘I don’t give a rat’s arse if you’re my grandfather…whatever…Long-lived…Magnificoe. If Hartford’s not bloody alright? We’re going to have a barney.’
The first clue? Plantagenet hadn’t come into the room with me. The second? It was a bleeding BDSM dungeon: chains, paddles, and spanking benches. All present and correct. Unlike Master’s training room, however, it had the pristine feel of folks who played at this bollocks: rather than the cold hard cruelty of a slave trafficker who knew how to break a man.
‘I reckoned Blake fancied himself a Christian Grey,’ I muttered, as I edged passed a rack of red ball gags under the ambient lighting: I bet he had handpicked soundtracks to go with his sessions too.
But then..?
In the dark shadows at the back, I discovered the only honest – true – item in that dungeon, which was devised to break a man - or Blood Lifer.
A medieval rack.
Hartford was chained, stretched by hands and feet across it, pulled so impossibly tight his ribs stood out sharply; his pale belly was hollowed to a cavern. His limbs were strained and dislocated. His skin gleamed with sweat.
Shocked, I couldn’t make myself move any closer: this was because of me.
Hartford had come to this sodding place to get help but instead…he’d taken it for me, as he always did.
What could I ever say? Do?
Then I swallowed my bloody pride, kicked my arse and rushed to him: my family. I was here now and I’d never allow Hartford to sacrifice himself for me again.
Then I remembered Sun’s shrug.
She’d known.
Up there blood sharing on those silk sheets, amongst the wool butterflies and steel trees, Sun had known Hartford was down here on the rack.
Hartford’s peepers were closed; his nut was turned away. He was whispering something, over and over, ‘Let my people go, let my people…’
At once I was tearing off the padlocks around the freezing chains, choking on the dust, as they snaked to the concrete floor in angry coils. First one hand and then the other.
Hartford groaned, before his peepers snapped open.
‘Little bunny,’ to my shock, Hartford smiled, even though I saw the pain it caused him, ‘you sure are swell; I knew you’d come for me.’
‘Let’s save the love-in and get you free.’ I winced at Hartford’s whimper, when I eased the chains off his ankles. I knew the level of agony he could take in silence: I’d witnessed it. So when he screamed as I lowered his arms?
Someone was going to pay.
I scooped Hartford off that wankering rack; his legs were knackered. No way was he strolling out. He was giving these small gasps of pain like he was trying to hide them.
I wasn’t bleeding having that.
I cradled Hartford down to the floor. I knew starvation, and if they’d been feeding Hartford, I’d be a Dutchman.
I pressed Hartford’s lips to my neck in invitation. He glanced up – just once – questioningly. Then his fangs sank in deep, and those stars Sun had seen? I saw in singing technicolour, backed by Les Pauls carrying me away on electric waves, as spiders danced. Blinding, pure communion. I vibrated with it, died and lived in the moment…
There was a hand pressing into mine. Hartford had stopped feeding and was resting our foreheads together.
‘I’m going to bloody kill them, you know.’
Hartford pulled back, his expression serious. ‘Don’t get in a lather; they found you and Sun, didn’t they? We can use them again: this time to free Donovan.’
I shifted, unable to meet his eye.
‘What is it, mac?’
‘We’ll talk later. Let’s get you--’
‘Just don’t take any wooden nickels. Promise me? They’re not family, not like we are.’
I read the desperate question in Hartford’s gaze. It broke my bleeding heart.
I clutched his fingers hard between mine. He flinched but for once, some things were more important. ‘Family.’
The bath was like hollowed out soap, in glowing green porcelain. A swirling stainless steel mirror hung frameless above a double basin, which hovered ghost-like. The radiators were concrete scrolling flames.
Hartford sprawled luxurious amongst the green, soaking up the warmth into his torn muscles on the outside, as my blood healed him on the inside.
Blinding bit of evolution that.
I circled my fingers into the steaming water. Resting on my knees beside the bath, I’d washed the grime and blood out of Hartford’s golden hair. I’d had to change the water twice already.
Sod it; Blake could afford the water bill.
Sun hovered in the doorway, biting at her nails; Hartford hadn’t spoken to her since I’d carried him up. ‘Plantagenet’s put out a wicked cream wool suit for you.’
I didn’t miss how Hartford’s shoulder’s tensed, when Sun said Plantagenet’s name.
‘Some poncey threads make up for it all?’
Sun booted the doorframe. ‘You need to understand how frickin’ difficult the decision was on account of they didn’t know Hartford; he was a stranger and a Long-lived. Why should they trust him?’
‘And don’t you, Sun? Trust me?’ Hartford didn’t look round at her or raise his voice, but yet his words filled that small space until we were suffocating.
‘Whoa, you don’t put this one on me. I didn’t choose any of this.’
I ducked my nut.
Sun was right. But wanker here?
How I sodding wish she had.
I snatched up a peach blossom scented bottle of some bubbly bollocks, dashing a dollop into Hartford’s bath.
Atishoo…
When we both sneezed at the same time, we laughed. Then Hartford clutched at his ribs. Finally, he sobered. ‘I’ll level with you: I never expected…Plantagenet,’ that flinch again at the name, ‘to be…Donovan never let on he’d be...’
‘Always idolise your Author. I should know.’
‘Do you?’ Sun’s steely stare was dissecting me in a way, which made me feel like I was back on that examining table.
‘Not as an Author, mac. As a lover.’ Hartford had murmured the words, but I’d still caught them.
What was the bloke protocol here? Thump Hartford on the back in commiseration or swear blood pack revenge on Plantagenet?
I settled for growling, ‘Wanker.’
The thing was, however, Plantagenet might’ve been a wanker. Scrub that, I knew he was in his own special way: hurting Hartford and blood sharing with my elected.
Yet the secret? The one I’d never tell?
Plantagenet was also Ruby’s Author, who I’d heard stories, whispers and myths about for decades, and yeah, when did I believe in bollocks myths? But now the myth was flesh and bone in front of me? The pull was…excruciatingly beautiful…like rainbow numbers cascading in orgiastic waterfalls, and I wanted it.
Not him.
It.
The blood. Connection. Family.
If Donovan had experienced even a small part of that? He hadn’t stood a chance.
Poor Hartford.
Still, I couldn’t help remembering the aching loneliness, which I’d sensed in Donovan back in his wacky backy psychotic ‘60s days, as if there’d been a cog missing in his mechanical heart.
I’d figured it’d been love, when I’d seen him with Hartford at Abona, but now I reckoned it was loss. The loss of his Author – Plantagenet.
Donovan was going to have one hell of a choice if we got him back.
When…when we got him back.
I realised there’d been an uncomfortably long silence. I massaged Hartford’s shoulders, pushing my thumbs deep into the torn muscles. He let out a sigh halfway between heaven and hell.
‘What about Ruby?’ Sun had wandered further into the bathroom and was leaning against the sink.
I stiffened. ‘Don’t bloody know, do I?’
But I did…because a kiss doesn’t lie.
‘Donovan’s twin..?’
‘Was too busy shagging Ruby; I saw the highlights.’
I shuffled uneasily on my knees, as Hartford eased his hands to cover his goolies.
Sun has that effect on you.
Then Hartford’s hands clasped hard onto the edges of the mutant porcelain. ‘Jeepers creepers, mac, Plantagenet and his sugar daddy didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms, and I’m only the sheik of Plantagenet’s ex-lover. But you, poor little bunny? Bumped off two of his elected. What do you reckon he’ll do to you?’
I was so buggered.
When Hartford’s slender fingers massaged my shoulders, I also felt the steel of his grip. He grinned around his bruises. ‘Only reason I’m all balled up?’ When he pressed his swollen cheek, it was me who cringed, not him. ‘For crying out loud, don’t you know me by now? I chose to take it. I was over a decade suffering every torture a twisted First Lifer’s mind could conceive: to hurt and heal for more. And I took it. I survived. To start with it was for myself. It’s no line that it became…more. For every Blood Lifer trapped there; of course then there was Donovan. Say, mac, after all that you reckon I’m no stronger than a pampered high-hat?’ Hartford pulled himself up in the water, shaking the droplets in wild sprays across the luminous tiles from his blond hair. ‘I’ll do anything to get my lover back, and they’re screwy if they reckon I’ll let them harm my family.’ Hartford brushed my cheek lightly. ‘You’re my family, just so Mr Low Self-esteem is clear.’
I let out a shaky breath.
‘Why the frig aren’t we like that?’ Sun blinked, as if surfacing from considering a deep problem. ‘Plantagenet, his Author, Ruby, Donovan and Aralt: they all loved each other. Why isn’t our family like that?’
I pushed myself up. ‘We do love each other.’
‘Naw,’ Sun drawled, as if explaining to the dim kid in class, ‘lovers.’
Hartford and I exchanged a glance.
I took a cautious step towards Sun. ‘I don’t… I love you. Only you. I want--’
‘I want, I want, I want… Who elected you boss anyway?’
Stunned, I gawped at the fuming bird.
‘Give Light a break. All families are different, and folks change. A fella don’t stay the same, does he? Donovan’s my sheik now. He’s with me and--’
‘You hope,’ Sun’s peepers were frosty, yet so fragile, ‘but what the frig do either of you really know?’
Then Sun swept out the bathroom, leaving us two blokes silenced.
We perched awkwardly on the edge of a vast sofa of moulded soft toys, which squeaked – eek – each time I shifted my arse.
It was like the maddest Hatter’s tea-party ever.
Well, maybe not ever…
Blake’s lounge looked as if a creative mind had exploded its raw emotion across a billionaire’s unrestrained canvas. Chairs of timber offcuts or rubber: the poor exploited for the rich. The coffee table was untreated birch logs, held together by a steel band, like it was about to be hauled away by a lorry. The room was scented with – sniff – eau de blood: interesting choice.
Blake had certainly gone all out on his Blood Lifer adaptations.
A black rug puddled like tar; it reminded me of the rug in Grayse’s Primrose Hill apartment. I tensed when I thought how easily Sun fitted in here, as she sprawled on the toy sofa. Hartford was balanced like me on the edge, holding himself still; it hurt me to see how hard he was working to hide his pain.
When we’d first prowled into the lounge at Blake’s bidding, I’d noticed the wallpaper. There were still no windows, so the rich Victorian steeples, spires and cupolas had spun me back like I was truly there – home. For one disorientating moment, I’d been in another time and place, smelling the smog of London, the mists of London Bridge and tasting humanity. Then I’d shaken myself and snorted. I’d started to turn away when…
‘Bugger me.’
The man under the tree? He had his todger out and was pissing against a grand old English oak. The bloke kipping in the leafy park? He was bloody bladdered.
I’d had a shufti at Blake, who’d been holding court on a chair made of hosepipe.
Plantagenet had been kneeling at his feet.
Yet this wallpaper subversion was genius.
Maybe there was more to Blake then the type of tosser who couldn’t date a real bloke and instead bought a Magnificoe toy.
Unless Plantagenet had chosen the wallpaper...?
Suddenly Hartford had given a yell of delight and a clap of his hands. He hadn’t been quite up for dancing but he’d rushed – and I’d hated the awkward way he’d held himself, gasping on each step – to a gleaming white grand Steinway, which huddled in the corner like a captive unicorn.
With a smile, Hartford had caressed the keys. He’d scrubbed up well in the glad rags Plantagenet had sneaked onto the bed as a peace offering: prisoner to guest. ‘Do you play?’
‘Don’t touch; I don’t want you breaking it.’
At Blake’s sharp command, Hartford had withdrawn his pale fingers with a shudder, as if from blood.
I’d seen it, however, the flash of humiliation.
Now we sat on this sofa, self-consciously playing at afternoon tea, as if torture, secrets and murder didn’t lie between us.
That’s the English for you.
Sod this silly buggers.
‘You’re these Renegades then?’
Hartford slipped so far forward on the sofa in surprise, his arse practically tumbled off the edge. ‘I’m sure one goof; I should’ve been the one asking the questions when I was on the rack, huh?’
‘My dear child,’ Plantagenet leant towards Hartford, his waterfall curls sweeping the deep carpet, ‘you must understand how heartfelt my regret for the needfulness--’
‘Hooey. And I ain’t no child, fella.’
Plantagenet knelt back. ‘I am aware. In trust, however, we must now work together.’
‘You want us to,’…eek…sodding soft toys… ‘Join you?’
Plantagenet’s smile was infectious; I had to battle it. Hearing how hard Hartford was still struggling to breath around his fractured ribs helped. ‘Imagine the glory; you are a miracle!’ I jumped. Plantagenet didn’t mean..? ‘Sun has made intimation of your wondrous memory and play with numbers.’
Private, private, private… I was flayed bloody. Sun had stripped me bare for these…I didn’t even know what they were yet. I couldn’t look at her and that bleeding hurt.
‘Sun’s already working on our financial side,’ Blake chuckled. ‘She’s making millions, whilst we sit here. Now that’s what I call a miracle. I’m sure Hartford will be useful for something.’
I didn’t miss Plantagenet’s remorseful glance at Hartford, who was as still as a statue, which for Hartford was simply wrong.
‘May I?’ Plantagenet’s fluid rise (just as Hartford had mastered as a slave), a nod from Blake, and Plantagenet was diving behind the sofa. He reappeared with a bag like you’d get from one of those poncey City department stores. Grinning, he swooped to sit on the coffee table, as if about to hand out pressies at a kid’s birthday. He sinuously slid out a purple box, which was strung with so many ribbons, I could’ve hung myself with them. Then he pushed the box onto my lap. His hands were trembling: I hadn’t expected that. ‘I’ve been a saddle-goose.’ That quick shufti at Hartford again. ‘I wish us to be one. Sun made suggestions this would be of worth to you.’
I yanked off the lid.
Bottle of gin? E-cig? Fernando’s nut served on a silver platter?
My leather jacket.
I wrenched it out of the tissue paper, wrestling my arms into the cool leather.
I was me again.
I lobbed that poncey box back at Plantagenet. I didn’t want his – Blake’s – bollocks touching me.
I remembered how Will had mended my jacket, passing it back to me in his grubby hands, in the needle-junked shadowed world underneath London Bridge. Even though he hadn’t had a coat himself on the freeze of the streets.
I knew which gesture meant more to me.
Plantagenet was fiddling with the ribbons. ‘Did I not get it right?’
‘Cheers,’ I said quietly, ‘but what would be of most worth to me? Donovan.’
A flash of pain across Plantagenet’s mush, which was hurriedly smothered. ‘I as well, yet I spoke to you of sacrifices? They are mine too, alas. Jamie has a business empire, and we have a war to wage. Donovan will be saved: by this hand, I swear it. But for now--’
‘Donovan ain’t no sacrifice: he’s the fella I love. Just so you’re clear on that, mac.’
Plantagenet glared at Hartford.
They both radiated power; ancient, dark and dangerous.
‘I am indeed clear. As long as you are clear that Donovan was the Blood Lifer I loved – and bedded – so very long before you.’
I gripped onto Hartford’s knee to try (what would’ve been bleeding ineffectually), to stop his lunge forward, at the very moment Blake called out grimly, ‘Blood time, Plantagenet. Where are your manners?’
I saw Plantagenet’s shoulders tense at the rebuke.
I smirked. ‘Earned a spanking, has he?’
‘Why?’ Blake clasped his big hands together: I noticed for the first time that he was also wearing a silver ring on his left hand. ‘Want to watch?’
I flushed.
Why the buggering hell was Blake wearing a slave ring too?
Then all thoughts, however, were driven out of my blood craving brain.
Plantagenet was passing out packets of human blood from his expensive pressie bag: they looked like haggis. That explained the eau de blood.
When Plantagenet pressed a packet into my hand, I almost dropped it.
‘Simulated skin,’ Blake smiled at Plantagenet and it was the first – genuine – emotion I’d seen in him. ‘I developed it for Plantagenet. There’s only so much blood in my own veins, yet I wanted him to feed as he would in his natural habitat, as if he was in the wild.’
‘This isn’t a zoo.’
Blake’s shrug was one of repressed rage.
Ever heard of too many alphas in a room?
‘I have pigs’ blood as well, just in case. I’m sure I can find a baby bottle for you..?’
I paled.
When I twisted to Sun, she had the good grace to look ashamed.
‘Drink,’ Plantagenet’s soft fingers played down my neck, ‘please drink, well-beloved.’
And in my fury? Shame? Hunger?
I sank my fangs into that blood bag and…
Christ in heaven, it was glorious.
I was transported in dark wonder to the beauteous violation of skin: that moment when your fangs slice through – deep, deeper – you hit the blood, and then the taste explodes. The drag, as you fight for each pull: the predator’s conquest.
Then the savage climax: the purity of Blood Life.
When I dropped the empty packet on the coffee table and fell back amongst the toys – eek, eek, eek – still shaking, I saw both Sun and Hartford had experienced the same revelation. Except for Hartford? The blow seemed more powerful. After all, he was a Long-lived, who’d suffered a decade without feasting on live humans.
I experienced a sudden stab of worry. If Blake let Plantagenet feed from him and held these skin blood bags as doggy treats? He hadn’t needed to break Plantagenet: rewards were as powerful as punishment.
Money? Status? Pride? Families, companies and societies are all based on punishment and reward. Be a good little boy and Father Christmas will leave pressies under the tree. Don’t? A lump of coal or a switch to beat you with. Keep in line if you want your bonus. Speak out about the fraud? Instead there’s the boot.
And you know what?
It’s all bollocks.
Conditioned cradle to the grave, however, First Lifers follow it like sheep. I’d never figured Plantagenet for sheep.
Yet I knew what slavery did to a bloke, and there was more than one type. Didn’t I sodding know that?
Plantagenet was watching us, with a wide grin. He hadn’t drunk, and I blinked when I saw the array of sundries: Victoria sponge cake, cucumber sandwiches, and scones – arranged on the coffee table.
So Plantagenet was playing houseboy too?
‘Cake?’
Nonplussed, I had a gander at the Magnificoe on his knees in silk catsuit, who was offering me a buttercream slice for afternoon tea; still, it was chocolate… ‘I’d bite your arm off.’ I snatched the white plate, gulping the cake in two gooey bites; he might be into a touch of torture but at least Plantagenet knew how to cater. ‘I could be barmy, but is there sperm on this plate?’
Sun spat out her cream puff. I sniggered.
I flashed her the white plate: it was decorated with a giant-sized sperm, which was frantically swimming. Maybe it had places to be.
‘You…’
‘Chowderhead?’
I took a butchers at the cake stand: it was giving me the two-finger salute. I raised an eyebrow. ‘Approve of your ceramics choice.’
Blake glowered. ‘That’s Plantagenet.’
The wallpaper? Yeah, Plantagenet.
‘Bit of a rebel, are you?’
Plantagenet wiped his finger through the chocolate cake’s thick cream, before sucking it slowly. ‘Thou gained it some place.’
‘Oi, I’m the original.’
Plantagenet laughed. ‘Even I am not the original. Freedom is in our bloodline. In trust, it is in our blood. If that makes us rebels, then every Blood Lifer here is a rebel. We are family now.’
Hartford hunched in on himself. ‘Even me?’
Plantagenet’s voice was tenderer than I’d expected. ‘Yet thou as well, if you so choose. We are all of us Renegades.’
‘So where are they? The others?’ Blake asked softly.
‘Lost you there, mate.’
Blake leant forward on his throne. He knew…bollocks, bollocks, bollocks…the bastard knew. But if he did? Then how could he let Plantagenet discover it this way? ‘Ruby? Aralt? Are they slaves? Were they abducted too?’
The silence in the room could’ve made my ears bleed, and that hopeful, desperate expression on Plantagenet’s mush..?
When had I become the villain?
‘Look, the thing you’ve got to understand is this was way back in the ‘60s. Aralt was set on murdering the world. He’d already done in his own elected. He was working with this scientist bloke –Silverman – to split our venom. We need to have a quiet word about that because those scientist wankers back at the lab--’
‘It’s all in hand.’ I stared at Blake, who was twisting his matching silver ring, like we weren’t talking about genocide and global apocalypse.
‘If the pure death gets into the water supply..?’
‘I appreciate you’re new here,’ Plantagenet flinched at Blake’s stern tone, even though it was directed at me, ‘but when I say something’s in hand, there are no more questions.’
‘And I appreciate you’re a smug superior human playing at being master,’ I launched up, dragging my jacket closer around me, ‘but no one’s managed to stop me asking questions yet, and it sodding well isn’t going to be some baby Dom.’
Plantagenet’s tackle knocked me over the skeleton-white cake stand, crashing my hip against the rough birch coffee table, as we tumbled to the carpet.
Blindfolded by black curls, I breathed harshly through the pain, as Plantagenet’s hands pinned me like steel bands to the ground.
I heard Blake’s smooth laugh. ‘Plantagenet truly doesn’t like people insulting me.’
It wasn’t that, however, because when Plantagenet tossed his nut, and I was suddenly veiled and hidden from the rest of the world (alone with Plantagenet), behind his curls..? Those cat peepers of his were unnervingly close to mine, and I saw something in them. The question. Just as he read the answer in mine without needing to say a word.
Plantagenet’s heartbreak felt like my own.
The narrowing of his amber peepers, however, was deadly.
‘I had no choice,’ I whispered, ‘they were going to destroy everything. Everyone. I had to free myself.’ A single tear rolled down Plantagenet’s cheek; he didn’t move, simply holding me still. ‘And Ruby? I didn’t want--’
Plantagenet let out a howl of grief, as if he was on the rack now, rather than Hartford.
Crack – he slapped me across the cheek. I gasped, as my lip split. My peeper swelled and bruised.
I knew what this was: I’d endured it before. It was the head of my dysfunctional family giving me a thrashing; it wasn’t like I didn’t deserve it. Yet this time it was a Magnificoe, and I didn’t know if I’d survive.
Plantagenet backhanded me and – snap – there went my nose. I spluttered: I’ll never get used to the warm gush of my own blood and the deep migraine ache spider-shooting out of my neb: because it’s always a bloke’s sodding nose.
Yet what I didn’t understand? Plantagenet was holding back – even now. This was punishing the kid, not true revenge.
So I lay there, waiting to take my punishment.
A blur of cream on white – and Plantagenet was lifted off me in a wild flurry of limbs.
Confused, I agonisingly pushed myself onto my elbows, as I wiped a stream of blood from my nose.
Hartford had Plantagenet by the curls and was swinging him – dash – into the Victorian wallpaper: a lot of pent-up rage there.
Bloody blinding.
Finally, Plantagenet scrabbled away with an audible tearing of hair. Then it was like the dance of two powerful stags.
Long-liveds unleashed.
I wanted to stop it but…Hartford was battling for me.
The last time this had played out my Author had watched, as if it was a free show; Ruby hadn’t protected me.
The two Long-liveds circled each other. Plantagenet wasn’t holding back anymore: he bleeding couldn’t. He grabbed Hartford around the neck, lobbing him across the timber chair – smash – and transforming it into real timber. Hartford dived back at Plantagenet – jab, jab, jab – and now Plantagenet knew what a broken nose felt like.
Plantagenet was getting the better of it – just - but only because Hartford was clutching at his ribs.
They rampaged through the cavernous lounge, rolling across the floor and smashing through furniture, whilst Blake leaned casually against the wall, flicking through his iPhone.
Blake only called time when Plantagenet tossed Hartford dangerously close to the grand Steinway. ‘Plantagenet, stop.’
And just like that? He did.
It was eerie. I half-expected Plantagenet to drop into slave position. My gaze met Hartford’s; I knew he was thinking it too.
‘We all have choices,’ Plantagenet wiped the blood from his nose, just as I had.
He was right, and I have to live with mine every day. I couldn’t figure out, however, if Sun had made her choice. Because throughout everything..? She’d watched, just like Ruby in the ‘60s had watched Aralt duff me up, like a cold jewel between two gangs.
She hadn’t even said a word.
When Plantagenet and Hartford warily limped back to us?
It was Plantagenet Sun cradled, fussing over his bruises and stroking his long hair.
Me and Hartford?
We didn’t get a look-in.
Ghosted, I already felt Sun’s loss; there was no longer anything to hold onto but ashes.