The Craving sd-3 Page 9

  I glared at Damon.

  He shrugged. ‘I got a little peckish waiting around.’

  In truth, I was a little relieved – it meant he wasn’t starving himself in anticipation of something later.

  Finally came Winfield, proudly striding down the aisle with a daughter on each arm. Lydia walked regally and easily. She wore a simple white gown of heavy material whose folds rustled with her movements. It went to the top of her neck and the bottom of her wrists, and its only ornamentation was a line of pearl buttons down the front. A net veil hung behind her, floating down her back. She looked like a fairy-tale queen, and smiled with a secretive look that only added to her beauty.

  On Winfield’s left arm was Bridget, wearing her brocade and satin. She actually looked quite beautiful, if a bit overdone. An enormous lace veil perched on top of her head like a crown. It was hard to imagine, now, that I’d ever seen anything of Callie in her. Where Bridget was frilly and immature, Callie had been independent and practical.

  Thinking of Callie now was a bad idea.

  Time slowed down. Bridget’s foot rose and fell, bringing her a few inches closer to me. Her skirts drew forward, as if of their own accord. Her mouth opened and closed in a giggle that sounded far-off and distorted. And then came the distinctive scent of lemon and ginger.

  Everything blurred –

  Katherine?

  Suddenly, instead of Bridget coming towards me dressed as a bride it was the woman who had brought me to this place. Her thick black hair was caught up in a lace veil, revealing her perfect shoulders and neck. The blue cameo gleamed on her neck. She lowered her head demurely, but beneath her long lashes her eyes danced mischievously in my direction. She pursed her lips and I felt my knees weaken.

  Did Damon see her, too? I looked askance at my brother, to see if he was thinking or seeing the same thing I was. Whatever compelled me to feel the way I did about Katherine, true love or a vampire’s Power, I was still under her spell, haunted by her. But Damon’s face was a perfect mask of happiness and love.

  Time started back up again. Bridget resumed her place in my sight, smiling excitedly up at me.

  And then the girls were before us, and the priest was there, and rings were in our hands.

  It was, thankfully, a fairly short ceremony. The priest gave a speech about love and read several nice passages from the Bible that I would have liked in any other circumstance. I wasn’t sure whether to pray that the priest go on, and on, and on, and give me as much time as possible before the inevitable, or if he should just hurry up and get it over with.

  ‘If anyone here knows of any impediment why these two couples may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, you do now confess it.’

  I looked around the room, hoping someone would stand up and object. Maybe Margaret would speak out, with some sort of proof that Damon DeSangue wasn’t who he said he was, or that I was some sort of Confederate spy, or…The eldest sister shook her head and gritted her teeth, but kept silent. I may have imagined it, but I think her mother’s hand had an iron grip on her knee.

  Damon went first, marrying the elder bride. I wasn’t listening; there seemed to be a dull roar in my ears that was so loud I was surprised no one else could hear it.

  What was going to happen when it was over? Would the Sutherlands make it through this night? Would I be forced, on my wedding day, to fight my own brother to the death?

  ‘Repeat after me,’ the priest finally said. I did as I was told.

  ‘I, Stefan Salvatore, take thee, Bridget Lynn Cupbert Sutherland, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till…death us do part.’

  I almost choked, and could only hope that the audience thought I was overwhelmed with emotion.

  ‘I, Bridget Lynn Cupbert Sutherland, take thee, Stefan, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.’ She forgot my surname, and from the look in her eyes it was because she was thinking about the night before.

  And then there was a ring in my hand. A simple gold band with my and Bridget’s initials inscribed on the inside. Precious metal binding me to my fate.

  I took Bridget’s hand. My voice came out surprisingly clear and calm. ‘With this ring, I thee wed, and with my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ I slipped it on her finger. She squealed in joy.

  I kissed her. It was hard and quick, hopefully long enough for the audience to appreciate. Bridget clung to me, trying to make the moment last. She tasted of mint. I felt terrible.

  And just like that, I was a married vampire.

  CHAPTER 17

  The reception was held in a different grand hall. My brother, Lydia, Bridget and I formed a receiving line by the entrance to thank and greet our guests. Damon put it on a bit, bowing and pretending to know people he didn’t. Compelling them into thinking he was an old friend, no doubt. While Bridget showed off her ring, Lydia gave everyone warm kisses or handshakes or smiles, whatever their relationship dictated. She even laughed when Bram tried to snatch a ‘farewell’ kiss. Bridget stood by her side, beaming with what looked like genuine joy.

  ‘Thank you for coming today,’ I said time and time again, the words tasting like chalk on my tongue. ‘We’re so glad you could come celebrate with us. My thanks for being here today. Pleased to meet you, thank you so much for being here.’

  ‘Stefan Salvatore?’ demanded a matron in an almost unmoving thick grey silk dress and pearls, holding onto my hand for longer than was strictly necessary. She pronounced the e at the end of my last name and fixed me with an eye as stony as her skirts.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, giving her as warm a smile as I could.

  ‘Of the Florentine Salvatores? Prince Alessandro?’

  ‘I’m not rightly sure, ma’am,’ I answered, trying to keep my smile. ‘When my father came to this country he declared himself an American. He didn’t keep up with our old relations.’

  Her eyes widened and her grip on my hand became loose. ‘An immigrant. How charming.’ She didn’t smile and pulled her hand out of my grasp, moving on.

  Several hundred people later we finally got to sit down. The bride and groom’s table was festooned with palm fronds and garlands of huge flowers and covered with every expensive delicacy you could want to eat – or show off that you could afford. There was a seafood appetiser of oysters and other delicacies including Scottish smoked salmon and Russian caviar. Then came a main course that consisted of an absolutely staggering number of dead animals: roast beef, quail, venison, pheasant, woodcock, duck, lamb, roast pork, hot and cold, braised and grilled, minced and sautéed, sliced and in pies.

  It was all crowned off by a wedding cake, five tiers of the finest fruitcake covered in fondant and decorated with scrolls, swoops, columns and sugar birds. The black-jacketed waiters poured glass after glass of champagne, and everyone chatted gaily. But my muscles were tied in knots. The ‘wedding’ was officially over. Damon and I were legally married into the Sutherland family. It was only a matter of time before he began the next phase of his plan – whatever that ended up being.

  ‘Darling, get me a glass of water, would you?’ Lydia was asking my brother, touching him tenderly on the cheek.

  ‘In some ceremonies, it’s the lady’s place to love, honour and obey. Shouldn’t you be getting one for me, little wife?’ he smiled, but in a way I didn’t like.

  ‘Of course! Anything for you, dear,’ Lydia said. ‘Water, wine…’

  ‘Blood?’ Damon prompted.

  Lydia laughed. ‘If you wish, it’s my command.’

  Bridget didn’t eat any of the expensive repast, leaping up from the table constantly to talk to her friends, holding out her hand and showing off her ring. I spent most of dinner nervously pushing very
expensive food around a very expensive plate with a very expensive, very heavy silver fork, never taking my eyes off Damon.

  As dessert came out, Bram took pity on me and sat down in Bridget’s place for a moment.

  ‘Congrats, old chap,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘You and Damon snagged two of the best New York has to offer.’

  I nodded miserably.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Sutherland are just terrific. And Margaret…well, she’s a spitfire, but I trust you’ll be able to win her over eventually.’

  My head snapped up. ‘Have you noticed anything, er, odd about Margaret?’ Bram had known the Sutherlands since he was born. Perhaps he had some insight into what made Margaret able to withstand Damon’s charms.

  Bram scratched his floppy black curls. ‘Odd?’

  ‘Yes, she’s different from the others. Stronger,’ I said leadingly.

  Bram let out a rueful laugh. ‘That’s for sure. One time when we were younger, I stole her favourite doll to use it as a nurse in a war game with my brother. I swear, the look she gave me! She didn’t even have to touch me to send a painful shock through my entire body. Needless to say, I never played with her toys again.’

  ‘She was able to hurt you without touching you?’ I pressed, trying to put the pieces together.

  But just then, Winfield tapped me on the shoulder and nodded towards a back room. Damon came with us, a mock-serious look on his face. As we quietly filed past the guests and down a side corridor, I strained to look out of the windows. Through trees and towers I could see the mighty Hudson and the Palisades, a golden sun shining down on the sparkling river, the green forests, boats and barges parading slowly up and down the water. I almost did feel like a king surveying his countryside, since marrying into this family set me into the top of New York’s highest society.

  We entered a dark-panelled smoking room, and Winfield immediately set about pouring some ruby-red sherry. Damon pulled out a silver flask and right there in front of Winfield spiked his drink with blood. Human blood.

  ‘To marriage eternal,’ Damon said, raising his glass.

  Winfield agreed energetically. ‘To marriage.’

  I just nodded and tossed back the drink, hoping the cool liquid would sate my thirst.

  ‘There’s a serious matter I need to talk to you lads about.’ Winfield settled his frame into a large desk chair. Damon leaned forward expectantly. I tensed in my seat, ready for whatever would come next.

  ‘The matter of a dowry.’

  I squeezed my hands together. Damon grinned, exposing his gleaming canines. He threw himself onto a velvet couch. ‘Just what I was going to ask you about, Father. You don’t mind me calling you that, do you?’

  ‘Not at all, my boy,’ Winfield said, offering him a cigar.

  My brother took it, carefully trimming and lighting the end in a manner so professional I wondered where he picked up the habit.

  The two sat puffing for a moment, releasing large clouds of smoke into the tiny room. I coughed. Damon, enjoying my discomfort, took the effort to blow a smoke ring my way.

  ‘Now here’s the thing. I want you two boys to be able to stand on your own two feet. My girls deserve real men, and if anything should happen to me, I want to make sure they’re taken care of.’

  ‘Of course,’ Damon said, out of the corner of his mouth, around the cigar.

  ‘I have several mines in Virginia; one is gold. They could use some managing. And then there are the railway shares I’ve bought into…’

  My brother widened his eyes. I looked away, unable to bear watching him compel this poor man. ‘I would prefer cash,’ he said.

  ‘All right, that seems reasonable,’ Winfield said without pause or even blinking. ‘An annuity, then? A living salary?’

  ‘Up front. All of it,’ Damon said pleasantly.

  ‘One twentieth of my estate, capital and holdings, then?’ Winfield asked politely.

  ‘More like a quarter.’

  An automaton, Winfield mindlessly agreed to everything Damon suggested.

  But I couldn’t figure it out – would this keep Winfield safe? Would Damon just keep him around, ordering whatever he pleased out of him?

  ‘I’m glad you’re so concerned about taking care of my girls in the manner to which they have been accustomed,’ Winfield said, but his voice sounded hollow, as if somewhere some tiny part of his mind knew something was terribly wrong.

  The poor man drew out some cheques and a pen. In a moment it was done, and Winfield presented me with a cheque with so many zeroes on it, it was barely readable.

  Damon bared his teeth in something that was less a grin than a rictus of victory. He stood up, holding his glass of blood-laced sherry next to me. The smell was intoxicating. It took every ounce of my strength not to leap up and drain the cup.

  And then Winfield said the most amazing, banal thing in the world.

  ‘Those cheques will take a while to clear,’ he apologised, unaware of how those eight words might have just saved his life.

  Damon glowered, thunderheads in his eyes. It was a look of angry frustration that was famous in Mystic Falls, and something no one wanted to be responsible for causing. It was a dangerous thing to disappoint my brother. He crumpled the cheque in his hands.

  ‘You didn’t mention that before,’ he growled, waving the sherry under my nose. I stiffened, my thirst making my fangs burn.

  ‘I’m going to have to sell a great deal of my estate, capital and holdings to get the cash to back this,’ Winfield answered so plaintively it made me sick.

  ‘So do it!’ Damon ordered. But I was no longer paying attention. I had to get out of the room. My Power reacted to my hunger – to my anger – and I felt the beginnings of a change.

  ‘I have to…’ I didn’t even bother making up an excuse.

  I pushed my way out of the room, past my evil brother and our sad father-in-law, out of the castle and into the black night where I belonged.

  CHAPTER 18

  There were two hundred blocks between the Richards’ mansion and downtown New York City. Just under ten miles. But moving like a vampire isn’t like running in a normal sense, especially as I had just drained one of the Richards’ goats. If I was a blur to the world, so was the world to me. My head was down as I spent my entire focus on avoiding the obstacles right before me and trying to exhaust myself. Down from the rocky cliffs and heights of Fort Tryon with its cool trees, and through the valley that separated it from the rest of the city. Back into civilisation, the unpaved dirt roads that smelled of dust and plants, particularly the tobacco I recognised from my native Virginia.

  After enduring a week of waiting and watching and trying to outthink my brother, I just wanted it to all be over.

  And now it wasn’t.

  Damon couldn’t kill Winfield until the cash was available, and who knew how long that was going to be. In the meantime I had to stay with Bridget, keep tabs on the Sutherlands, pretend to be happily married and continue to try and figure out Damon’s endgame.

  I was caught in a web of guilt; every move of mine stuck another limb deeper. I just wanted to break free.

  I wish I could live in solitude. If I had to live out eternity as a vampire, at the very least I could leave no evidence of it. No deaths, no injury, no hurt, no evidence of my unnatural existence at all. I was running from myself, my new self, and could never escape, just as I ran from Damon, my shadow in this endless afterlife.

  The scent of nature soon gave way to the reek of sewage and rot that clung to even rich neighbourhoods. In the alleyways behind the giant houses, servants dumped slop out into back streets and milk carts left fresh dairy products on backsteps. All they would notice was a strange rush of wind, a vacuum that had been created in my passing, a momentary darkening against a brick wall like a cloud had passed over the sun.

  In the Garment District my nose was assailed by the harsh tang of chemicals and the singeing of fibres as young women cut, sewed and dyed cloth in the factories that were
beginning to replace the farms in New York City. Leaning against the fire escape with their sleeves pushed up, small clusters of these young women smoked cigarettes on their precious breaks.

  As I tore by one girl, cutting it very close, my tail wind snuffed out her match. I looked back to see her staring, confused, at the feather of smoke.

  Soon I was overcome by the smell of human flesh and waste. Of horse manure and flickering gas lamps. Of industry, print and ink and black smog, of the river, briny fish, and finally a fresh breeze. These were the only details of the city I took in, all sounds and sights muted to a roaring black and white. Expensive perfume and flowers. Butchered meat and smoky bacon. Lemon and ginger…

  I stopped suddenly, in the middle of Washington Square. That was Katherine’s perfume.

  A hand clasped my shoulder, and I spun around expectantly.

  But instead of seeing the dark curls of the woman who had made me, I found myself face-to-face with Damon, who stood there, one eyebrow raised in condescending amusement.

  My face fell and I slumped, exhaustion and despair overtaking me. I didn’t even bother shaking off his hand. Where was I going to go, really? My brother had followed me all the way up the East Coast. So long as I refused to drink human blood, he would always be stronger, faster than I was. I was only delaying the inevitable by trying to escape whatever he had planned next.

  ‘It’s our wedding night, brother. Where are you off to?’ Damon’s voice was sharp.

  Exhausted from my marathon of pain and escape, I just stood there. ‘I was going to come back.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll get us a cab,’ he said, snapping his fingers. One came over immediately.

  ‘Seventy-third and Fifth,’ he ordered through the trap door.

  ‘We’re going to the Sutherlands’?’ I asked, confused. ‘Not the Richards’?’

  ‘We’re going home,’ Damon corrected. ‘And yes, the reception’s over. You ran out at the very end.’