Jaded Touch (Vesper) Read online

  I flinched as Sychar put words to the feelings I didn’t want to admit, didn’t know how to process. God, he was good. Just inside and out good.

  “So... if a human male touches me, do you think he can tame me?”

  Sychar chewed on his lip. “I don’t know. We don’t discuss it, remember? But if you bit him...” he trailed off, shaking his head. The topic was as forbidden as running away.

  “If he was a Vesper, he would tame me,” I said. The thought was inspiring and lit a fire between my thighs, but also frightening in a peculiar way. Of all the ownership I’d endured in my life, it was never by a man for reason of sex. Never by someone who wanted to make me feel good.

  “Tricky question,” Sychar said, frowning. “Because if you bit him, you would be his female creator. Who would tame who?”

  I didn’t know. But I couldn’t imagine anyone dominating Jack, least of all me. He was too controlling, too in-charge. And I wanted him to drive. I liked how controlling he was – the way the questions, worries, and structure fluttered out of my brain like bats from hell when he touched me. If his soul was born domineering, mine was born submissive. Or perhaps we became that way: addicted to a feeling of surrender or control.

  “How do I show him I love him?”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to show him you. I’m sure that’s all he wants.”

  I grumbled. “I don’t want him to see that part of me.”

  “See?” Sychar laughed. “Stubborn.” He rose and flashed to my side, knelt on the vibrating floor of the train by my cot. He took my hand in his and slid the other around my back, and I held my breath.

  Sychar smelled like a Vesper, his breath like the sighs of ancient metal, and not at all like Jack. He was cool, hard, and solid steel wrapped in silk. He ran his fingertips up and down my lower spine, and stared straight into my eyes as he moved his hand higher and rested his palm on my shirt over the bottom of my three scars.

  I stiffened, but didn’t pull away, because he felt strangely therapeutic there, as though lancing open infected wounds. The pain released some of the tension in my heart, rather than amplifying the agony like Rachel’s hateful flicks. He raised his eyebrows to ask permission, and I closed my eyes. Sychar’s hand slid up to the next scar, and then the top one beneath the base of my neck. It was just touch. Not torture, not exposure – just a touch, from one person to another. And then he pulled his hand away and I blinked.

  “Was that so awful?”

  My heart beat a steady rhythm in my chest: no panic or rage overtook my vision with clouds of red at the edges. I smiled at him and resisted the urge to kiss his cheek with thanks. “No. That wasn’t so bad.”

  “Do you trust Jack?”

  “I do.” The answer came without a beat of hesitation, firm and certain like Sychar’s touch of my back.

  Sychar pressed his lips together in a tight line, and then licked them before he spoke. “Then we’d better be smart enough to realize what we have with them. How precious they are: the humans who thaw our frozen hearts.”

  Precious. Yes, Jack was precious to me. I hummed. “It’s strange, isn’t it? For both of us, it took almost losing one specific human to remind us how important they are.”

  Sychar shrugged. “I guess it’s strange for you. I’m an eternally teenaged boy. I’m biologically authorized to be stupid and think with my dick.”

  I shoved him back and he hit the floor laughing. I laughed, too, and then he zipped his hood back over his head and I knew it was time for him to go home. And time for me to find Jack, and apologize for being so selfish.

  “Thank you, Sychar.”

  “You can call me Carlo, if you want,” he said. “That was my human name.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t suit you at all.”

  “It did then, when I was human. What’s yours?”

  I tongued my fangs, uncertain. Trust. Trust him, trust Jack, trust myself to judge how trustworthy they were. “Penelope.”

  Sychar snorted. “Ew. Let’s stick with Sychar and Three, huh?”

  I laughed my relief. “Yes, let’s.” I waved at him as he disappeared into the night.

  And then I rose to my feet and felt a little bit stronger thanks to my friend and his bold contact with my scars. I’d spent far too long in darkness and solitude. Maybe by trusting Jack, I could let in some light.

  Hell

  I couldn’t run fast enough to get to Jack’s house. My feet pounded the wet pavement, happy the rain had finally stopped in Vancouver after what I heard was a borderline flood. I didn’t care that my pants were soaked from the splash of my shoes in puddles, or that my hair frizzed out in the humidity and I probably looked like Frankenstein’s bride. I had to get to Jack. I had to tell him I trusted him… I had to let him see my scars.

  The closer I got, the more my excitement bubbled in my core, mixing with heat, and I knew I’d combust the moment I touched him. I was going to show him every part of my being. My words to Sychar were more accurate than I’d realized: I loved Jack. And I couldn’t wait to tell him.

  Jack’s street was quiet and lit by the lamps edging the curb. I stepped up his front stairs and no nerves froze me this time as I knocked on the door. His house was quiet, and I hoped he was home, sleeping or something.

  “Jack, it’s me,” I said as I heard the soft pad of footsteps. My heart fluttered with excitement, and though I was afraid he wouldn’t forgive me, no ice could stop the flood of lava in my system. I wanted him. I needed him.

  He opened the door and stepped back into the shadows of the foyer, and I pushed my way inside. He stepped back from me, and didn’t embrace me like I’d hoped he would. He wore a heavy bathrobe with a hood tugged up over the back of his head. Was he sick?

  Crap, he hasn’t forgiven me.

  “Jack,” I whispered, and I could make out his face in the dark, but I wished the night wasn’t so clouded over so I could see the beautiful moonlight reflecting off those jade irises I adored. His chin was dark, and I realized he must have let his beard grow out a bit. I smiled and reached up to stroke his chin, craving the tickle of his stubble along my palm.

  “Don’t.” His voice was hard, harder even than when I’d left him in the street. How long had it been? A week? Surely human hearts didn’t move on so quickly.

  Or did they? Had Jack already moved on from me? Panic spun through my head and I stiffened.

  “Are you alone?” I asked, withdrawing my hand in the hollow wake of his refusal to my touch. My voice was barely the squeak of a frightened mouse. What power he held over my heart, this sexy, foul-mouthed mortal.

  “Of course I’m alone,” Jack snapped. “I don’t make a habit of putting free human beings in danger by association with Vesper servants.”

  I frowned at the anger in his voice. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “For everything. I need to tell you something.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.” Where was the curiosity, the adoration that I loved in his voice? This wasn’t the carefree Jack I knew, who swore at me and demanded answers when I was too stubborn to open up to him. This was iceberg-Jack, and though I had gotten over my insecurities enough to be here, perhaps he had yet to recover from my harsh words. Would he ever recover?

  Had I broken his heart that thoroughly? I remembered the ripping pain in my chest, like a ball of solidified magma dragging me down into hell, and closed my eyes. The deepest, most calming breath I could draw still didn’t soothe the remorse I felt for hurting him. How dare I play with a human being’s fragile heart, like that? And with the heart of a human being I loved?

  I didn’t know what words could make this better, what could heal us from our fight and the words that should have never been said. So I held my breath, turned around and peeled my shirt off over my head.

  Jack sucked in a gasp at the motion and stepped toward me, his breath hot on my neck, washing down my scars. But I didn’t stiffen at the sensation. No pain burned along my skin as the heat of his body radiated
through the air, into my frozen memories.

  “A branding iron,” I whispered. “I was human. Almost twenty, and a slave in Europe since childhood. My father was a criminal, a thief, and we were lucky to be sold off together onto a ship headed for the New World.”

  Jack’s fingers touched my side, and I nodded. He trailed his fingers across to my spine and traced the lowest scar. His touch was like cool aloe on the burn I’d felt for so long. I shook, but not from fear or pain.

  “I ran away when we settled in the New World. And I got caught. It really stood more chance of failure than success, but I hated my life and I wanted more. And my father…” my voice hitched in my throat and I cleared it to continue. “My father valued our lives, but only to the point of survival. He saw my master take me and tear off my shirt. And then, my father walked away, leaving my master to punish me however he saw fit.”

  Jack exhaled and I pulled my hair over my shoulder so all three scars were clearly visible. His hand slid up to the second one and he traced the shape: a circle with an arc like a rainbow in the middle. All three were the same. I shook harder and swallowed my fear.

  “The rape would have been bad enough.” My voice was older, someone else’s, as it had sounded when I told Sychar the tale years ago. “But then he ordered his other slaves to drag me to the forge. I screamed all the way. I kicked. I wasn’t about to go out without a fight. But in the end, my fate was the same, and the branding iron seared into my flesh three times. My master paused between each to re-heat the iron, which gave my nerves a chance to recover from the shock so the pain was worse.” I paused and peered at him over my shoulder, and this close in the dark night, I could make out the glint of moisture on his cheek. I smiled. “Sychar taught me that. I didn’t know why it hurt so much worse the second and third times, but Sychar was a blacksmith in his human life and knows how burns affect the nerves.”

  “Sychar?” Was that fear, or envy in Jack’s voice?

  “My friend. My only friend, but only a friend.”

  Jack nodded. “I know Sychar. I didn’t know that you know Sychar. Sorry. Continue.”

  There was that authority I missed so much, and I warmed somewhere deep inside. I obeyed his command, continuing, as I knew I’d obey any command he gave me. “I screamed until I had no voice left, and then when nightfall came, they left me in the forge near the blistering fire. I didn’t even bother to get dressed before I wandered away.”

  A muted groan rumbled through Jack’s chest as he stepped closer and slipped his hand up to the final scar between my shoulder blades. He stroked it with his thumb and I rolled my head to the side with pleasure at the heightened sensitivity of his touch - hot, but like harmless sunlight, not a burn.

  “Somebody found me like that. A Vesper. I don’t remember anything else until he was gone, and my Lady owned my soul. I imagine it was all very traumatic – being caught with him, being separated from him, and the end of his life. Levitiqas is so much harsher than our Lady is.” My voice hollowed as I thought of it, and I tried to ignore that nagging question in my mind about his demise.

  It didn’t matter, though. Even if he was alive, I loved Jack. “I was so broken. Seventy years, I’ve been broken. But Jack… I don’t know how to explain the way you’ve fixed me, inside. Given me something to look for in the future, instead of waiting for the past to disappear. I love you.”

  Jack’s hand wrapped around the side of my neck and he bent to kiss the bite scar my creator gave me. “What future can we have, though?” New curiosity rang in his voice, along with a hopeless echo I hated.

  “We can run away,” I whispered, pressing back so my skin was upon him, my scars against the soft terry cloth of his robe, and he wrapped one arm around my waist, caressing my stomach. “We can be Jack and Three, no longer slaves to anyone, anymore. Except me to you, because I want you to dominate me.”

  “You’ll outlive me in no time,” Jack said. “And the Vespers…”

  I shook my head, letting down all my defenses and fears. “Fuck the rules, Jack, and fuck the Vespers. If you want me to, I can bite you and make you one of us.”

  He flinched, but didn’t say anything else. Had I repulsed him with the suggestion? “And then we can run away, and we’ll spend eternity running, if we have to.” I reached back and stroked up Jack’s thigh, and found the edge of his waistband. I tugged downward on it, and he sucked in a breath.

  “Three,” he said. God, how I loved when his voice got that growl in it, that low, almost-angry sound that told me he wanted me. I knew he had questions, but I didn’t care. I was scared, too.

  “Jack.” I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling up. He grunted and I stilled for a moment, remembering my strength, and the danger I posed to him if I wasn’t careful. I took a slow breath and then kissed him, just a touch of my lips on his.

  Then, I froze. Something was stuck to his lip, and it was hard like frozen grass. As I inhaled through my nose, I tasted the telltale scent of blood.

  Jack turned his head away and I felt him move to grab something, and then with the click of a remote button the lights flashed on in the house.

  I jumped back into a crouch, prepared to attack if I needed to, prepared to defend Jack.

  “Who did this to you?!” My voice ripped from my mouth like a feral snarl, and every muscle in my body came to life. What the hell!

  Jack scoffed and tossed the remote for the lights back on his counter. He peeled back his hood, untied his bathrobe and let it slide to the floor, revealing a bare chest, a bandaged arm, and bruises everywhere. He ran his hand – his only unbandaged hand – through his short hair and half-smirked at me, but the smile didn’t touch his eyes.

  “You look fucking amazing with your shirt off,” he said.

  I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him, this man I loved, my heart struggling to pound through the panic in my chest.

  His right arm was bandaged from top to bottom in a hard, plaster cast. He must have been careful to keep his arm turned away when I pressed against him – or I was too self-absorbed to notice it, I couldn’t be sure which. The fingers poking out from beneath the cast were so purple they were almost black, and bruising crept across his chest all the way to this other shoulder, where my fingernail marks on his arm looked worse. Infected? Or abused?

  Jack let me stare without speaking. I didn’t want him to try to speak! His lips were stitched on top and bottom, and the left half of his face was black. Not purple, the bruising dark enough I was sure his skull was broken in a few places. The swelling was so severe he couldn’t open his eye.

  I swallowed a mouthful of venom that surged from my fangs with that cross between hunger and fury as I stepped toward him, still disbelieving. He hadn’t been anywhere near this messed up from the train crash.

  Jack sighed and wouldn’t meet my gaze. “The company is writing it off as a work accident. Don’t worry, I went to the hospital. They put my arm back together. I even have pins in the joints, so I’m more metal than I was before. Closer to a Vesper, now.” Jack smirked at me, and I couldn’t even process his humor.

  “And I still get paid.” He shrugged as best he could.

  I touched the center of his chest, stroking the bruises there, my cold hand feather-light on his hot skin.

  “Dislocated in three places, broken in two places,” Jack said, glancing at his casted arm. “Lost three of my back teeth and broke my cheekbone. But I’m gonna be okay.” He let out a disdainful laugh. “Well, according to the hospital, anyway. The guys at the train station said goodbye to me like it was the last time, so I kind of suspect it was the last time.”

  “Who did this to you?” I rasped, hatred fueling the frozen anger in my veins. Sychar’s territorial reaction to learning of Jack – the instantaneous way he vanished from my side when I spoke of him trying to take off my shirt – flashed into my mind. Please don’t say Sychar. Oh, God, please don’t say Sychar!

  Jack swallowed and I heard his heartbeat sprint at a
manic pace. “Festus. Levi was with him, but Festus was in that mood of his, ya know. Hungry or something. And Three… they’re coming for us. Both of us. I squealed like a fucking little baby piggy when he started beating my face.” He looked away with shame.

  I found my voice, mortified that he dared to feel sorry for this. “Of course you did! What else could you do? He would have killed you if you hadn’t.” As I said the soothing words, the gravity of our situation sank in: the Gents knew I was having sex with a train engineer. I hadn’t even done that with him yet! I wanted to! Would I get the chance, now?

  Jack took my fingers in his. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” I whispered. “What did he say after you told?”

  Jack closed his eyes. “That Levi was coming for you.”

  Of course he is. “It’s not Levi’s fault, you know. He wouldn’t want to kill me if I wasn’t a female. And that’s Levitiqas’ fault.”

  “Yeah, Festus seemed pretty cheerful about provoking him. Bastard.”

  “Total bastard.” I squeezed his hand. “So running away now seems better than ever before.”

  “What would be the point?” Jack asked. “They have Sychar. He can catch us so quickly we wouldn’t even feel them creeping up behind us.”

  “Sychar won’t do that.” That fear in my chest fell colder, weighing me down. He was so fast. He wouldn’t do it, would he?

  “Will he have a choice?”

  Sychar’s youthful black eyes lingered in my memory and I grimaced, remembering his cool touch on my back. The memory seemed colder all of a sudden, as though his touch was more aged and serpentine than mine. If Sychar defended us, he risked his life and Samantha’s. If Sychar didn’t defend us, my best friend might be the one who delivered me to my doom.