Rattis’ face turned as red as his tharp and he scrabbled at Merrick’s hand frantically. “True,” he wheezed. “Not lying. Ask…anyone.”
“Let him down!” Nadire shouted. “He is telling the truth—we all are.” He looked at the other pure blooded males. “Aren’t we?” They nodded their heads and murmured ascent.
The rage inside Merrick died down a little, giving way to confusion and disbelief. It couldn’t be, could it? Surely they were just trying to hurt him—saying the worst possible thing to wound him to the core. Then he remembered the strange males he’d sometimes seen leaving the domicile as he came in from his hours at the learning house. He’d assumed they were friends of Jonquil’s. Jonquil, who never did any work but somehow always managed to have plenty of money to spare. Jonquil, who looked at his mother with those pale, predatory eyes, as though he was calculating how much she was worth…
Stunned, he dropped Rattis to the ground. The other male lay there, choking and rubbing his bruised neck.
“You’re a liar,” Merrick told him but he wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Rattis or himself.
“Am not.” Rattis scrambled to his feet, his face still purple with strain. “Why do you think Jonquil took the two of you in, in the first place? It wasn’t from the goodness of his heart—that’s for damn sure.”
Rage rose in Merrick again and he started forward. But something stopped him—the need to know. The need to refute this ugly, hateful rumor once and for all.
Rattis and the others took advantage of his indecision and scrambled away to what they obviously considered a safe distance. They put the body of the large, silvery lake between themselves and Merrick, but Rattis, as always, had to have the last word.
“Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me,” he shouted, his words echoing across the lake. “I heard the Bloodstart brothers talking about going to see her together this afternoon. She takes them two at a time—did you know that, you hybrid freak?”
“You fucking bastard,” Merrick growled. “You’ll pay for those lies, I promise.”
“You won’t be able to touch me once I show the house master these.” Rattis pointed to the collar of purple bruises, which were beginning to rise on his neck where Merrick had choked him. “You’ll be dismissed and kicked out of learning house and probably the entire grotto.”
“You—” Merrick started around the lake but the bully and his gang fled, laughing as they ran.
“Run along, half-breed,” Rattis called over his shoulder. “Run along and find out the truth about your whore of a mother.”
They fled into the snowdrop trees and disappeared from view, but Merrick wasn’t following them, anyway. He had to know now—had to know the truth, no matter how much it stung.
Turning, he set out at a run for his domicile.
* * * * *
Elise watched, her heart breaking, as a much younger and more innocent Merrick ran toward home. He looked so different here, in his vision of the past. His hair was longer, a glossy blue-black color she thought was beautiful. He was tall and big for his age, but it was clear he hadn’t nearly reached his full growth yet. How old was he, here in the past? Twelve? Thirteen? Elise couldn’t tell, but she thought he was somewhere in that age range. His eyes were the same—the lovely, mismatched blue and gold—but there were no scars on his face or body. Strange to see, since the older version of Merrick—the one she knew—had scars everywhere, both inside and out.
Her heart ached for this younger, more naive Merrick. He’d been hurt by the death of his father ,and by the cruel taunts of the other boys, but his innocence hadn’t been stripped from him—not yet. Yet Elise was terribly afraid that was about to happen. She hoped with all her might that the other boys had just been teasing him and telling lies about his mother—a woman the young Merrick obviously worshiped and adored, if Elise’s glimpse into his thoughts was accurate. Was she about to be knocked off her pedestal?
Elise didn’t have long to wonder. The young Merrick ran through the high, arching cavern of rainbow-colored rock and down a complex series of tunnels that got progressively smaller and narrower. At last, just when Elise was beginning to feel claustrophobic, even though she knew she wasn’t really there, he came to a simple stone door set in a brown stone wall. He produced some kind of key-like device from the folds of the black wrap he wore around his waist, and hastily opened the door.
Inside, the living area was depressingly dim and shabby. A thin channel of steaming purple water ran through the center of the room, which was lit only by some faint light fixtures attached to the low ceiling. It was clear someone had tried to pretty it up—there was a vase filled with fresh blossoms, like those from the grove of trees Merrick had been standing in when the vision began. But the furniture was threadbare and scuffed, and the floors had dirt grimed into them that no mop, however industrious, could ever completely eradicate.
Lounging in one of the broken-down chairs was a man who looked to Elise to be in his mid-forties. He had the lean, hungry look of a greyhound that has never caught a rabbit and the light blond hair and pale blue eyes that seemed to be the norm for people here.
“Merrick!” He sat up frowning when Merrick rushed through the door. “What in the seven hells are you doing home this time of day? Why aren’t you at learning house?”
“Let out early,” Merrick growled. “Where’s my mother?”
The older man shifted uncomfortably. “Why…at the market. She decided to do a little shopping—make something special for our last meal tonight.”
Merrick’s mismatched eyes narrowed. “Liar.” Turning, he ran through the living area and into a smaller kitchen and dining room area, which looked clean and neat but was every bit as shabby as the living room.
“Wait!” the older man shouted, leaping to his feet. He ran after Merrick and put a hand on his shoulder. Now that they were standing together, Elise could see that the older man was taller, but not by much.
“What?” Merrick glared at him. “Get your hand off me, Jonquil.”
The man’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “She’s taking a nap,” he snapped. “Let her be.”
“I thought she was at the market. Is she buying special ingredients for last meal or sleeping—which is it, Jonquil? Either way, I’m going in.” Merrick shrugged the man’s hand off his shoulder and turned to a small doorway that led off the kitchen area.
“No!’ Jonquil shouted but it was too late, Merrick had already swung the door wide and seen what was going on, on the other side.
From where she stood, silent and invisible, Elise could see it all. There was a bed—a thin mattress set on a stone platform—and on it a lovely, disheveled woman with blonde hair and green eyes. On the bed with her were two men whose nearly identical faces proclaimed them to be related—probably brothers. Both of them had their pants around their ankles and one was in the act of mounting the woman—the woman who had to be Merrick’s mother, Elise realized with a sinking heart.
The two men looked up at the interruption, the looks of surprise and fear on their faces almost comical. But there was nothing funny about the look on Merrick’s face. As Elise watched, his expression went from disbelief to horror to black rage.
“Merrick,” his mother cried, her pale skin flushing red. She scrambled to cover herself with the rumpled sheets. “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, Mother.” He looked at her coldly. “Are these two males attacking you?”
“Of course we’re not,” blustered one of the men.
“We paid our money fair and square,” the other one protested.
“Is that so? You paid for my mother?” Merrick spoke quietly, but the look on his face was hatred so pure and cold it was frightening to see, especially on one so young. Something in that look seemed to scare the two men.
“I…we…” began one, backing away as he reached for his pants.
“She…Jonquil said we could…” The other man was also
fumbling for his trousers.
“Jonquil said that, did he?” Merrick’s voice was a soft, threatening growl and Elise could feel his rage rising through their bond. She could feel the cold bloodlust Merrick called “the killing frost” overtaking him and this time he wasn’t trying to push it away. This time he embraced it.
“Yes, I said it.” Merrik’s stepfather, in some ways as loathsome as Elise’s own, was suddenly standing in the narrow doorway. “So get out now, Merrick and let them finish their business.”
“Let them finish? Let them finish?” Merrick took a step toward his stepfather, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his eyes blazing. Elise wasn’t sure but it looked to her as though his fangs had grown much longer and sharper than they had been at first.
“You heard me.” Jonquil frowned at Merrick. “Go on now, boy, before I take my fist to you.”
“Jonquil, no!” Merrick’s mother pleaded, her voice soft. “It’s natural for him to be upset. He didn’t know.”
“He should have guessed.” Jonquil spat at the floor. “Did he think I’d take in a cast-off Kindred bitch and her half-breed whelp out of the goodness of my heart?” He looked at Merrick. “Nothing’s for free, boy—your mamam has to earn your keep. Now get out, so she can finish earning it.”
“I know something you’ve earned, Jonquil. You fucking earned it the first minute you forced my mother to do…to do this.” Merrick’s voice had grown deeper—a man’s voice. And the look in his eyes was so cold Elise wondered that his stepfather didn’t freeze on the spot.
“Going to dish me out a punishment, are you brat?” Jonquil gave an ugly laugh. “You’re not even a man yet. You haven’t spilled first blood.”
“No,” Merrick growled softly. “But I’m about to.”
“You dare to threaten me?” A knife suddenly appeared in Jonquil’s hand. “Come at me, boy. Do your worst.”
“Merrick, no!” his mother shouted but her words were lost in the full-throated roar coming from Merrick’s lips. He launched himself at his hated stepfather, armed with nothing but his bare hands and his fangs. Jonquil shouted and raised his knife, and then all hell broke loose.
Elise winced, wishing she could close her eyes. But Merrick had watched her ordeal, feeling the terror and pain right along with her—she owed it to him to watch until the end. So she wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to gasp and cry out as Merrick’s stepfather cut him, his long cruel knife biting into Merrick’s bare chest again and again in long slashes and stabs.
Merrick fought back, of course—giving as good as he was getting, though he was essentially unarmed. He was trying to go for Jonquil’s throat and several times he nearly succeeded, only to be held off by the older man’s longer reach. His mouth and his stepfather’s neck were both bloody but he hadn’t yet managed to nick any of the large arteries that pulsed under Jonquil’s pale skin.
Merrick’s mother was screaming on the bed and her two clients had finally gotten their pants up and beat a hasty retreat, sliding carefully around the man and boy fighting in the middle of the room.
Neither Merrick nor his stepfather could get the upper hand. Merrick was big for his age, but still just a boy and Jonquil was making good use of his knife. Too good, in fact—as Elise watched, Merrick threw himself forward and Jonquil dodged left and gave a vicious downward slice. The point of the knife started at Merrick’s scalp and bisected his eyebrow, causing blood to pour into his eye. He jerked to one side just in time to save his eyeball, but the blade continued down. It flayed open his cheek like raw meat so that Elise could see his teeth and gums where the knife had sliced into his face.
Merrick’s mother’s eyes widened as she saw the ugly wound as well. “Stop it, Jonquil—you’re hurting him! Stop now, both of you!” she screamed. Jumping off the bed, she threw herself between them.
Elise saw it all as if in slow motion. First, Merrick finally managed to get his fangs locked on the side of Jonquil’s throat. But at the same time, his stepfather raised the knife again, clearly intending to bury it in Merrick’s chest.
His mother got in the way.
Elise gasped in horror as she saw the silver blade pierce the slender, white throat and then slide outward, severing precious arteries in its random, hateful path. With a gurgle of pain, Merrick’s mother sank to her knees just as Merrick ripped out Jonquil’s throat.
Blood spurted everywhere, covering the three of them like scarlet paint. It was obvious to Elise that Merrick didn’t understand what had happened. He shook his stepfather like a dog shakes a rat, his fangs still buried in the other man’s throat. Only when Jonquil was limp in his arms did he happen to glance down…down at his mother, who was writhing weakly at his feet with blood still leaking from her neck.
With a gasp, he dropped Jonquil’s lifeless form and scrambled to take his mother in his arms.
“Mother! Mamam,” he cried. Frantically he tried to cover the wound in her neck, but it was clearly too late. The blood was no longer jetting from the severed artery—it was a sluggish flow now that would soon stop. Under its spattering of red droplets, Merrick’s mother’s face was as pale as paper. As white as death.
“Merrick,” she whispered, reaching for him with one hand. Somehow she managed to cup his unwounded cheek. “Sorry…so sorry.”
“Don’t go.” There were tears in Merrick’s mismatched eyes. “Don’t leave me. I don’t care what you were doing—I don’t care about anything, Mamam. Just don’t go.”
“Have to.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now and Elise wondered how she could talk at all with such a horrible wound in her throat. “You…go too,” she told Merrick. “Go back…Rageron. Stay with…father’s brothers. Keep you…safe. Love…you.” The last words were so soft Elise could barely hear them.
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Merrick told her but he was talking to a corpse. Somehow the life had leaked out of his mother’s eyes, leaving them as cold and empty as green glass marbles.
She was gone.
Merrick sobbed convulsively and crushed her to his chest. “Mamam…Mamam…no.”
It was a cry from his heart, a plea that fell on deaf ears. Elise, watching him, found that she was crying too. Sobbing right along with Merrick as her heart broke for the boy he had been and the man he had become. Kneeling there in that blood-soaked room she watched him lose his innocence as surely as she had lost hers when her stepfather had ripped it from her. They had both lost something irretrievable at a young age. They had both been stained and wounded by a cruel fate.
“Enough,” she whispered. And then, louder, “Enough. Please, make it stop. I…I can’t take anymore.”
Slowly, the scene faded and she found she was back on the leaf-covered bed in the dim hut on Rageron. Merrick was sitting beside her, his hands clasped in his lap, staring straight ahead. He said nothing and made no sound, but tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the shadowy floor.
“Merrick,” she whispered, taking one of his hands between her own. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry you had to go through that again.”
He shook his head. “Had to be done. You had to see…had to know.” He looked at her, his eyes still wet. “I was so eager to come of age, but the first blood I ever spilled was my own mother’s.”
“It wasn’t you,” Elise protested. “It was your stepfather—that Jonquil bastard. He stabbed her with the knife!”
“That stroke was meant for me.” Merrick looked away. “I should have died that day—not her. Never her.”
“She wouldn’t have wanted that. I’m sure she wouldn’t.” Leaning forward, Elise cupped his scarred cheek in her hand and turned his face toward hers. “She loved you, Merrick. I could see it, even in that short amount of time. You meant everything to her.”
“I know. She wouldn’t have whored herself out, otherwise.” He swiped at his eyes. “She was supporting me the only way she could, but I didn’t see it until too late.”
“How could yo
u?” Elise demanded indignantly. “You were so young.”
“You were too, baby.” Merrick took the hand that was cupping his cheek and kissed it gently. “I’ve never really been able to forget what happened that night,” he told her in a low voice. “I mean, I pushed it to the back of my mind, but I never really blocked it all the way out. But you…”
“I had everything tucked away.” Elise sighed. “Buried. Out of sight, out of mind. Now, well, I guess I’ll have to deal with it.”
“We can deal with it together,” Merrick said softly. “We’re both broken, baby…both fucking damaged beyond repair. But maybe between the two of us, we can make a whole. You think?”
Elise thought of what she’d been through that night—reliving the rape all over again, losing her only means of dealing with the past when the vault was smashed to smithereens. Then she thought of what she’d just witnessed—Merrick ripping out his stepfather’s throat and holding his dying mother in his arms.
Between the two of them, they had enough emotional baggage to start their own luggage store.
But he understands, she thought, looking at the tear tracks on his scarred cheeks. He knows what it’s like to hurt so badly you want to die. To have no one to understand you.
No one until now, she heard a soft, gruff voice in her head.
Her eyes widened and she looked up at Merrick. “Did you just…”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Guess our bond has deepened again. Not only can we feel each other’s emotions, now we can hear each other’s thoughts.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Elise said tentatively. “But I think…I think I like it.”
“I do too.” Merrick sighed. “Too bad we’ll lose it when we dissolve the bond.” He looked at Elise. “But we won’t lose everything—it’s important you know that, baby. Important you believe it.”