“How did you become a vampire?” she blurted out. She was pretty sure that wasn’t what she’d been meaning to ask, but it was the first thing that came to her mind.
Aden put the iPad aside and studied her in puzzled amusement.
“I mean, I’ve always wondered,” Sid continued. “Most of you, the few I’ve met anyway, seem”—she frowned, as if looking for the right word—“happy,” she said, surprised at her own choice of words. “I’ve read lots of books, and they always talk about how the vamp was turned against his will, and he’s a monster and he hates it. But every vampire I’ve ever met seems really happy to be one. Is that because you’ve just accepted it? Did you have a choice about the whole thing?”
ADEN EYED SIDONIE curiously. She was the most inquisitive woman he’d ever met. Or maybe it was simply that she was the only woman whose questions he’d ever been inclined to answer.
“Every vampire has his own story,” he said, knowing that such a trite response would never satisfy her.
“But what’s your story?” she persisted, right on cue.
He considered blowing her off, distracting her with more sex, which they’d both enjoy. But if he wanted to spend some time with Sidonie—and he did, a very long time—then he was going to have to answer her questions. Because she’d only keep asking.
“My Mistress,” he told her, “that is, the vampire who made me, did offer me a choice. But it was one she knew I would accept. I was in a dire situation, albeit of my own making, and she gave me an out. A way to escape into what she said would be a better life.”
“And was it?”
“Oh, yes.”
Morocco, 1778
ADEN ROSE LATE in the day. It was the first week of the holy month, and business was light. Not even the wealthy would dare the wrath of their god during this time. He thought of it as their god because he no longer believed in god, not theirs or anyone else’s. Certainly not the god of his father, who’d sold him like an animal, or even the god of his mother, who discarded him to secure her own comfort. No god had ever done Aden any favors.
But he was grateful for this one time of the year when he wasn’t forced to play the prostitute, or, even worse, the whipping boy of that fat turd who continued to beat him bloody whenever the mood struck him, and all with his mistress’s blessing. How could he ever have thought she cared for him? She’d replaced him in her bed long ago, buying a new young slave to train just as she had him. But he’d thought some affection still lingered between them. Her willingness to sell him so cruelly had killed any such illusions, her betrayal far greater than the simple brutality of the fat man.
He rolled off the bed slowly, feeling twice his age as every inch of scar tissue, every fresh wound made itself known. He had scars on top of scars. And when he wasn’t being whipped, he was expected to service the women who continued to ask for him, though he derived only the most perverse pleasure from fucking them. He’d fooled himself in the past into thinking they desired him, even cared for him. But no longer. He was a whore, and they used him like one.
“Aden?” It was young Sana, tapping lightly on the frame of his doorway. “Can I oil your back for you?”
The child felt responsible, as if she’d somehow asked to be whipped bloody that day he’d gone to her rescue.
“Not today, asal.”
“Are you sure? Because we’re not busy.”
“Not today,” he repeated.
“Very well, but if you change your mind . . .”
Aden remained silent until he heard the sound of her bare feet padding softly away. Sometimes he let her rub the oils in, because it did help, softening the scar tissue and keeping it as flexible as it was ever going to be.
But he didn’t trust himself tonight. He was filled with such rage. It was a hot coal in his belly, burning him from the inside out. Was this to be the rest of his life? What would happen when he grew too old to service the women, too old for even the fat man to enjoy beating? Would his mistress turn him out on the streets to beg?
He began to pace, his long legs needing no more than three strides to travel the length of the room. With every step he took, his anger grew. What purpose was there in continuing this farce? Why not end it? He knew the herbs, a simple cup of tea, sweetened with honey to blunt the taste. One of his ladies had brought him a gift of tiny date cakes, baked with cinnamon and sesame, prepared by her cook who was a slave like him. But they would taste all the better for that, and he could eat them all with his final cup of tea. There would be no point in saving them any longer, no point in hoarding them like the only treasures of his miserable life.
He paced some more, back and forth, nursing his rage, his feelings of betrayal, until an idea began to take shape. Yes, he would end this wretched existence, but he wouldn’t go alone.
Crossing to the cheap wooden box where he stored his few possessions, he dug down until he unearthed yet another gift from a customer, this one far more useful than a few date cakes. It was a blade, forbidden for one such as he to possess. But the lady had given it to him not because it was a weapon, but because it was beautiful. It was meant to be a woman’s table knife, small and adorned with jewels. When she’d given it to him, it had been as dull as a child’s toy, but no longer. He’d sharpened it over time, hiding it by day and working late at night, until the edge now gleamed in the low light. He pressed it gently against his fingertip and watched a line of blood well up.
He smiled. It would do.
He didn’t bother dressing for the occasion. None of his clothes were any better than the loose trousers he was wearing. And it didn’t matter anyway.
Palming the blade, he pulled open the flimsy door which was for his clients’ privacy, not his own, and strode down the short hallway to the stairs, ascending swiftly to the third floor, with its cool, tiled hallway, where his mistress lived in far greater splendor that any of the slaves who made such opulence possible. He glanced through the small window near her door and saw that night had descended. He could hear the crowds outside, the devout whose fast ended with the setting sun, and who would now gorge themselves in anticipation of doing it all over again tomorrow.
He didn’t bother knocking on his mistress’s door. He knew she’d be breaking her own fast, sitting down to a finer meal than anyone else in the house would enjoy. Once upon a time, he’d have been dining with her, but she no longer invited him.
It didn’t matter. Tonight, he was inviting himself.
He shoved the door open, ignoring her squawk of surprise. “How dare—” Her outraged protest was cut off, quite literally, by his blade against her throat.
She stared up at him in shock, her dark gaze wet with fear. “Aden,” she gasped. “Please.”
Aden watched her with hooded eyes, feeling nothing but grim satisfaction as she begged for her life.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Disgust turned to rage, a cold fury that drew the gleaming edge of the sharp knife across her throat, slicing through skin and tendons, releasing a fountain of blood as she went to her death staring up at him in disbelief.
He twisted his fingers in her long hair, watching the hot blood pump out of her neck, disappointed that she hadn’t lingered, that her death had been far too swift.
“You made it too easy.”
Aden spun at the sound of a woman’s low, sensuous voice behind him. He stared at the newcomer, the bloody blade still gripped in one hand, his other hand opening to let his dead mistress’s body fall to the floor, forgotten.