RemissionChapter One
Learn to live with these, Rama, learn to love how they feel on your hands. I’m never taking them off of you.
Angelus had sealed that bargain with the softest of kisses. And he’d kept the promise well enough. Ramadevi stared down at her gloved hands folded in her lap. She almost could not remember what it had been like not to wear them. She was allowed to take them off to have them cleaned, re-fitted, to get the settings checked.
They were fairly heavy, made of solid gold. Ramadevi wondered where Angelus had gotten them. They would have been an unusually rich gift for a slave. Some of the rubies were as large as her thumbnail, startlingly clear and perfect. Perhaps an infatuated Pasha’s son had commanded them made for a favoured slave. A married man would have risked infuriating his wives if he gave such a rich present to a slave.
Ramadevi liked to think they had once been a gift of love, or at least esteem, before they ended up on her hands.
In India, it was customary for a nobleman to present gifts of jewelry to his wives and concubines. An anklet for a night’s pleasure. A rich necklace for the birth of a healthy son. Gifts given simply for affection’s sake–for love.
Ramadevi did not know what Angelus’s bracelets were for.
Indulge a man’s pleasure, Egypt, wear them for me. I’d hate to have to make you.
Liar! You beautiful, evil–dead thing!
The barouche wove smoothly through the Paris streets. Ramadevi smiled at the hubbub in the Boulevard. She had come to like some things about Paris: the people here were not her people, but there was goodness among them.
It had been over three years since Angelus had dragged her, kicking and screaming, into his dark world. He had legally adopted her, kept her as some sort of pet. He drank from her, used her blood as food.
And, recently, he had begun to wake her passions...A shiver ran through her. He was savage, relentless, cruel, evil, dead. Ramadevi knew he knew she wanted him. They had shared terribly vivid erotic dreams. The memories of the dreams made her breathing quicken and her skin flush.
Even his thirst did not repulse her. Rather it excited her desire until Ramadevi could no longer tell where Angelus’s hungers left off and hers began.
He’s a monster, an animated corpse...Devi do not couple with the dead, it is blasphemy...
Ramadevi sensed Angelus was still not at home as she entered the opulent townhouse where they lived. Her body was somehow changing, bonding to him. Angelus had become part of something inside her, she could feel him when he was close...A wave of sad longing engulfed her.
She had not seen him since the night before last. He had claimed her body in a wild, passionate dream. Angelus’s hands on her body. His hard mouth. His dark silky hair on her skin. His fangs at her throat...Pain was not her choice of the many paths to fulfillment in lovemaking, but indulging Angelus’s darker desires gave her a curious pleasure.
One night, at an evening party, Angelus had cornered her in his study, stripped her, roused her body and spanked her on his desk, forced her to say things...Ramadevi shuddered at the excitement the memory sparked in her. I am--Angelus’s... Her skin tightened up and her blood burned beneath it.
But I only said it to make him stop. I didn’t really mean it... The thoughts rang so falsely even to her. She could have withstood much harder blows and still been too stubborn to say it.
Everything you are is mine, Egypt.
Ramadevi strolled idly into the daytime parlor at the front of the house. Angelus had permitted her to decorate it to her taste. It was elegant, light, and spacious, but colourful, less drab than the other rooms in the house. Angelus had surprised her with his generosity, never questioned a single extravagant purchase, even added things to what she bought.
Ramadevi ran her fingertips lightly over the cool smooth surface of the darkly veined white marble table next to her chair. Each gilded wooden leg was carved at the top with a sphinx’s grim visage, then ended in lions’ claws on the floor.
Alain served her tea there every afternoon. Sometimes Angelus joined her and the smirking satisfaction in his intense dark eyes, his crooked smile, made her want to scream.
Just as if Angelus knew he had picked the item that was her favourite piece in the entire room.
He had also bought the opulently framed Italian wall mirror that hung behind the empire bed opposite the table. Ramadevi thought that his strangest gift. A mirror from a vampire.
Angelus, come home, I want you. Ramadevi felt needy tears sting her eyes. I am only a weak woman, not a Deva at all.
She left the parlor and went upstairs to change her dress. (European dress customs were ridiculous! Daytime dresses, afternoon dresses, tea dresses, evening dresses, traveling dresses, even dresses to go shopping!)
As her booted feet tapped over the hardwood floors in the gallery, it occurred to Ramadevi that the house seemed oddly quiet and empty. Were the servants avoiding her? She wondered if something was wrong.
I am living in a house with a demonic killer! Of course something is wrong!
Sighing, Ramadevi opened her bedroom door, stepped over the threshold–and stopped abruptly.
All of her things were gone. The room was as empty and devoid of personality as when it had been a spare guest room. The dressing-table was cleared of her combs and brushes, her powder and perfumes. Her night-dress no longer hung on the little hook on the side of the armoire nearest the washstand. Her little bookcase was gone.
Ramadevi crossed the room to the walnut armoire and opened it. All her clothes–dresses, hats, capes, cloaks, shawls, shoes–gone. Her breath caught in her throat. Was Angelus dismissing her? Would he kill her?
“Monsieur ordered all Mademoiselle’s things moved.”
Ramadevi whirled to face Alain, Angelus’s steward. Of all the servants she liked him least. He reeked of treachery and a malevolent air hung over him. Ramadevi had little to do with him if she could help it.
“Where?” she asked curtly.
A hard smile touched the old man’s lips.
Ramadevi knew she wouldn’t like his answer.
It had been a fine clear day until about two o’clock in the afternoon. Then all hell broke loose from the sky. Angelus normally did not care much about the weather, but tonight it bothered him as he headed homeward.Angelus had spent two nights at Jeromette Monbarron’s lounge, one of his favoured playgrounds in the human world. The wine was very good, the spirits were even better, and the whores were the best of all. It was one of the finest brothels in Paris and Angelus often went there after a good kill to work off the lust that inflamed him after taking lives. The girls were young, beautiful, and dutiful to their clients. Often they feared him, but they always obeyed him.
He had left his own house in a flurry two nights ago, desperate for a woman and not daring to turn to Ramadevi, fearing he would rip into her tender body and do her real harm. She had brought him to a fever pitch of lust without even touching him, except in his dreams! Smokey, heated dreams of her flesh, her satiny smooth skin, the silk of her hair, her plump mouth, the precious wet sweetness of her most secret place...Angelus even dreamed the taste of her!
It occurred to him, more than once over the last forty-eight hours, that he should kill Ramadevi. It was not good for him to be so–involved with a human. The idea of her death filled Angelus with an unspeakable rage and he had ridden the whore beneath him hard, mercilessly, well past her pleasure, until she screamed and wept and fought to get away from him. Angelus had only pinned her down by her shoulders and thrust even harder, fucking her until she bled on the sheets. Angry–he still had not experienced his own release–he finally tossed her more than twice her normal fee and sent her away.
He bathed at Jeromette’s, washing his body carefully. He didn’t want to go home to Rama stinking of whores.
Tonight, he would hold Ramadevi in his arms while she slept beside him in his own bed. He would never sleep apart from her again. He would learn her body intimately and all this asinine heat and craving he had for her would end.
Or, he reflected, walking up a small avenue that led to his house, it would just get worse.
Lightning crackled ominously in the deep charcoal sky above him and Angelus grinned.
Angelus let himself into the house. Instantly, he felt a delicious wave of comfort reverberate through his body. Rama was close by. He had never known a peaceful moment in his existence before he met Ramadevi. At first there had only been the need, crazed and chaotic, to taste her blood. There had been the need to hurt her, make her subservient, if for no other reason than to secure his hold on her and make her afraid to leave him.
It was as easy to control Ramadevi as it was safe to play with live explosives. He had killed people to bully her, threatened the lives of other people she cared about. She began surrendering her blood to him when he agreed to spare the lives of some old friends of hers. The heat and the need inside his body had only grown worse with every swallow.
Angelus had never needed anybody–even when he had been human. The burning hunger he felt overwhelmed him at times. He wanted all of her. Every delicious bit. Flesh and blood.
He would make her love him. He would utterly consume her. She would belong to him–completely.
And he would feed until he was good and sated. Until she no longer excited him.
Then he would finish her.
It will never happen that way.
Angelus shrugged off his doubts. No woman was unconquerable, no woman was irresistible for ever. Not even Ramadevi, his little goddess, the rich sweet rare water in the deep deserts.
Angelus shrugged out of his soaked jacket and hung it on the coat rack in the foyer, then sat down on the bench to take off his boots and wet socks. He hated the dampness of stormy days in springtime, the sodden squelching in his shoes, the moist unruliness of his hair.
Alain had left several neatly folded towels on the sideboard, as was his custom when Angelus was out and it rained. Angelus peeled off all his wet clothes, dumping them in a sodden pile on the floor. He rubbed himself vigorously all over with a thick velvet towel, then wrapped another dry towel round his waist, tucking the edge into the wrap, like a kilt.
As he padded down the hall, he glimpsed briefly into Rama’s pretty parlor, all done up in gold damask and black-and-white. The room wasn’t to his taste–Angelus preferred dark rich colours–but he thought it charming all the same. The delicate voile liners beneath the heavy brocade drapes filtered the sunlight during the day. The wall mirror he’d given her enhanced the light and brightened the room even more. As per Angelus’s instructions, Alain kept the vases in the room filled with fresh flowers. Pink carnations with their spicy fragrance, violets and pansies, and white roses. Angelus inhaled deeply.
Ah, Rama. Deva. The Divine.
Heading down the main hall to his suite of rooms in the back of the house, Angelus discovered Alain fussing with a messy dinner tray. Angelus glided down the dark burgundy runner and raised his eyebrows at the broken china and upset teacup. Alain looked harried, annoyed, and his suit jacket was mauled.
“Monsieur.” There was a definite edge to his placidity. “Welcome home. Mademoiselle is not–in appetite tonight,” he added in response to Angelus’s lifted brows.
“How long,” Angelus drawled quietly, “since she has eaten?”
“Since breakfast.” Alain was briefly silent. “Mademoiselle is–unhappy with her new rooms, Monsieur. Should I fetch you some clothing?”
“No. I’m sure I can reason with her.”
Alain shrugged, wincing at the rheumatism in his left shoulder.
“Bring her more supper. Whatever she likes best.”
Alain controlled the shudder within him. He knew Angelus well, had served him for over a decade. Angelus was never more angry than when he spoke softly and pleasantly during a crisis.
“Oui, M’sieur.” Alain retreated back towards the kitchen without another word.
Angelus shook his head as he strode down the hall to the rear western portion of the house. He sensed Ramadevi, very much awake, pacing about, restless. Indignant. He suppressed a vexed sigh. What he didn’t go through for this woman!
He wasn’t surprised that the door was locked from the outside–Alain must have been hard-pressed serving her meals with her bursting to get out of there. Angelus turned the key in the lock, twisted the doorknob to let himself in.
Ramadevi stopped pacing, standing nearly in the middle of the floor, her head snapping to his direction. Wide lustrous eyes, like precious black opals, burned with anger. She was dressed in a lovely cherry-burgundy gown with delicate ruffling on the puffed sleeves and a white lace scarf at her throat. The rich colour of the dress accented the flush in her cheek.
“You!” she raged.
Angelus opened his mouth to say something.
Quick as thought, Ramadevi threw the first object she saw at him, a solid marble bookend sculpted into a gargoyle.
Angelus ducked the bookend and it smashed into the doorframe hard enough to break the elegant moulding.
“How dare you?” A fine crystal paperweight followed the bookend and ended in glittering shards and pieces on the floor.
What the Hell?
“Don’t throw that! You’ll make a mess!” he told her. Angelus swore as a heavy bronze inkstand sailed through the air and crashed into a low table, spattering black ink everywhere.
Angelus snarled at her, his dark eyes glowing golden. In a blurred motion, he cleared the doorway and yanked Ramadevi violently into his arms, pulling her closely against his body.
To his delight, Ramadevi snarled right back at him.
“I–am–not–your–WHORE!!!” she roared.
Angelus grinned. No, you’re not. I would have killed you a long time ago if that was all you were...
“Rama,” he began. He meant to scold her soundly, tell her she would be anything he wanted her to be . Even a whore. He meant to shake her. Hard. Within an inch of her life. She would stop this behaviour and do what she was told! “I’m so hungry, Rama.”
Ramadevi went stock-still and so did Angelus. Of all the things he could have said to disturb her or frighten her, he spoke like a plaintive child whose supper ran late! Angelus felt disgusted with himself, and resentful with Ramadevi for being part of it.
Ramadevi felt scalding heat inside her, and her breasts ached horribly. Why Angelus? Why do I want this? I don’t want this, she corrected herself, I need it. Her nipples throbbed, hard and painful, chafing on the edge of her corset.
Was this how a nursing mother felt when her hungry infant cried?
She heard herself coo softly as Angelus lightly kissed the point where her jaw met her neck.
Involuntarily, she stiffened, waited for him to bite.