The Swan & the Jackal

  But the old Fredrik is gone and the longer I subject myself to this ‘problem’, the more the even older Fredrik I feel I’m starting to become. The person I was before I met Seraphina, when I tortured and killed recklessly because I couldn’t help myself. I’ve clung to my more disciplined self, the man that Seraphina helped me to be, all these years because I had hope I’d find her and she’d be in my life again someday. But now that I know it’s not possible, I feel myself slipping back into the life of pure, unadulterated darkness that I led since I was a child and escaped my captors.

  If I become him again, he will destroy me.

  I won’t be suitable as part of Victor Faust’s new Order.

  I will have to leave this place and the life I’ve built with those I've grown to care for, and continue on the lonely, self-destructive path of the Jackal.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fredrik

  Greta has been spying on me from different windows in the house since I pulled into the driveway a half hour ago. I couldn’t go inside. I still can’t. Right now I prefer the quiet solitude of the car with the metal walls so close on all sides of me that it feels like my thoughts are better contained by them. They’re all I can hear. Even though I don’t like anything they’re saying.

  Aside from my conversation with Izabel and all the things I don’t want to think about anymore, I also think about the women. Gwen from the bar. The waitress from the diner earlier this evening. I think about the last woman I had sex with. And the one before her. It never dawned on me until the woman from the diner that I’m less like myself even more than I thought. And I have been since shortly after I took ‘Cassia’ from the street that night in New York.

  I can’t enjoy other women anymore. Not without passionate guilt and regret that sits heavily in my chest for days after.

  In the year that I’ve kept Cassia in the basement, Gwen was the first woman I ever brought home. I had intended to bring others before her, to do the things to them that I did to the women Seraphina and I shared, so that maybe it would draw out Seraphina’s memories while she watched on the television screen. It’s why I put a video feed in my bedroom to begin with. But until Gwen, I never could go through with it.

  With Seraphina, it was normal.

  With Cassia, I can’t fucking do it.

  A small sliver of light from the kitchen window blinks out as Greta drops the curtain back into place.

  “I have to face this,” I say quietly to myself.

  After a long pause, I kill the engine and head into the house.

  “She’s asleep,” Greta says when I walk into the kitchen.

  I drop my keys on the counter.

  “How is she?” I ask, removing my coat.

  “She’s good,” Greta says with a warm smile around her eyes. “I think she’s better since she’s remembered who she is. More at peace maybe.”

  “She told you then.”

  Greta nods her graying head as her face falls.

  “It’s awful what she went through, Mr. Gustavsson. And while although I still don’t like it that you keep her locked up like that—nor do I understand it—it may be for the best. Seraphina is dangerous. She needs help, yes, but she’s dangerous.”

  I say nothing.

  Greta walks around the counter and takes her long, wool coat up from the back of a kitchen chair, slipping her arms into the thick sleeves.

  “Why don’t you take the day off tomorrow,” I say. “I have no plans and I’ll be with Cassia all day.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks warily.

  I raise a brow. “That I have no plans?” I say with offense, “Or that I’m capable of taking care of her for twenty-four hours by myself?”

  “I-I didn’t mean that, sir.” She folds her hands together down in front of her.

  Sighing, I say, “I apologize,” making note of my misplaced irritation towards her. “Just take the day off. I’ll call you when I need you to come back.”

  I reach into my wallet and finger five one hundred dollar bills and place the money into her hand.

  “This is just a little extra aside from what I pay you.” She looks down at it faintly surprised, but mostly thankful. “I do appreciate your help with Cassia.”

  She says nothing, but words aren’t needed to express the thanks in her eyes.

  After Greta leaves, I lock the front door behind her and stand at the entrance of the hallway for a long time before willing my legs to carry me toward the basement door. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to because of what she’s doing to me.

  I make my way down the concrete stairs lit only by a vague swath of light coming from her bathroom. I took my shoes off upstairs so they wouldn’t wake her and the concrete is cold underneath my feet. But the air is warm; heat blasts from the vents in the ceiling making the basement feel somewhat toasty. But Cassia appears comfortable lying there with the blanket only covering her lower back and her bottom and the top half of her thighs. She lies on her stomach facing me with her small, delicate arms crushed beneath her. Her long, flowing blonde hair lays disheveled against the pillow. The chain locked to her ankle dangles off the side of the bed and extends far out across the floor.

  I want to touch her, but I’m afraid. Afraid to wake her. To face her. To look into her consuming brown eyes and risk falling deeper into them than I already have.

  But I can’t help myself.

  Sitting down carefully beside her on the bed, I reach out my hand and move her hair away from her face with my fingers. She stirs. And then her eyelids break apart and slowly she looks up at me.

  “Fredrik”—my name on her lips always crushes me, makes me feel conflicted inside—“I missed you.” She smiles and I feel her hand touching mine.

  I look down at her fingers, intrigued by how easily her touch makes me emotionally submissive to her without her ever trying. After a moment, her slender hand blurs out of focus the heavier my thoughts become.

  What is happening to me?

  “What’s wrong?” she asks so softly, so compassionately that I feel a weight in my chest.

  Her fingers stroke the tops of mine.

  I look at her eyes again.

  “Nothing.” I move my hand from underneath hers and place it on top of hers instead.

  “Are you going to stay with me tonight?” she asks in a soft voice.

  “Yes.”

  A small smile warms her face.

  She moves her hand away and grasps the blanket, pulling it aside to make room for me.

  I just look at her for a moment and then finally let go of the conflict that’s been raging inside of me since I brought her here.

  “No,” I say evenly and I move the blanket away. Then I reach into my jeans pocket to retrieve the key. “Give me your leg, love.” I take her leg into my hand and carefully unlock her ankle from the shackle.

  Dropping the chain on the floor and the key carelessly beside it, I rise to my feet and then lean over, taking her into my arms.

  “Where are we going?” she asks, draping her arms around my neck, her legs resting over my right arm.

  “To my room.”

  Cassia lays her head on my chest as I carry her up the stairs and into the house, a place she’s only ever seen on the television screen in her room since the night I first brought her here.

  Carrying her through the dark hall and into my bedroom, I lay her down on my bed amid the dark sheets and thick comforter. The sensation of her fingers leaving mine when I step away from her does something to me that I don’t fully understand. And against my strong need to let her hold onto me, I pull my sweater off and drop it on the floor. Afterwards the T-shirt I wore underneath it. She watches me with soft innocence as I step out of the rest of my clothes and stand naked in front of her before crawling into the bed next to her. I always sleep naked. She knows this. I know she expects nothing by the gesture.

  I just want her near me.

  Cassia curls up next to me, resting her head on my bare ches
t. I pull her closer as if she wasn’t already as close as she can be.

  “Why did you bring me here?” She kisses my chest.

  Tightening my arm around her I say, “Because I’m coming to my senses.” I kiss the top of her hair.

  “Fredrik?”

  “Yeah?” I stare up at the ceiling.

  “I’m sorry for what Seraphina did to you.”

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Her small breaths warm my skin as she exhales.

  “It doesn’t have to be my fault for me to be sorry for what she did.” Heartbreak lays in her voice.

  My head falls to the side so that I can see her and even in the dark bluish hue of the room I can see the tears glistening plainly in her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” I ask, wiping them away with my thumb.

  Her gaze falls away from mine. She doesn’t want to answer, but then she says, “Because I’m afraid that when you find her, you’ll forget all about me.”

  I breathe in deeply through my nose, instinctively trying to force away the itching sensation building behind my eyes.

  I roll over carefully on top of her, pinning her beneath me and gaze down into her softly pained face. My lips meet hers once. My hands cup the sides of her head, my fingers brush the soft, perfect contours of her cheeks. I’m intoxicated by her warm flesh against my own, the scent of her womanly skin, the heat of her sweet breath, the feeling of her rapid heartbeat thrumming down into my stomach and farther.

  “Don’t think about any of that,” I whisper onto her mouth. “Because you have nothing to worry about.” My lips cover hers.

  I slip her panties off and put myself inside of her to a sweet gasp that expels uncontrollably from her lips. She tenses at first, but then surrenders and melts into me. I’m instantly delirious to the sensation of her small, warm body wrapped tightly around mine in every way. She moans against my mouth the deeper I go, whimpers into the side of my neck the more forcefully I thrust my hips against hers. The pit of my stomach aches with ecstasy—I’ve never felt this before. Never. Not like this.

  My mouth devours her lips, kissing her hungrily, stealing her breath away. The wet warmth of her tongue tangled around mine alone threatens to send me into sexual bliss. And when my mouth falls away from hers it searches her neck and the little hollow at the bottom, and then her breasts, where I kiss them and lick them and bite them gently so that I don’t hurt her.

  “Please don’t ever leave me again,” she shudders against my ear, pressing her hips toward me to take me deeper.

  The sensation of her mouth makes me thrust harder. But I stop and hold myself deep inside of her and say, “I won’t leave you,” and then push my hips forward again to the sounds of her soft, pleading moans.

  Cassia’s fingers wind within the top of my hair. Her thighs crush around my sides. Her head falls back against the pillow and I drag my tongue across the gentle slope of her throat exposed to me, until my mouth finds her lips again. I kiss her passionately, possessively. Because she is mine. She belongs to me just as she always has, and I don’t give a fuck who she thinks she is. She is mine and she’ll be mine until the day she dies.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cassia

  I don’t know what’s happening to me.

  But I don’t like it.

  Fredrik gets out of the bed so late in the morning that I expect to smell chicken pot pie baking in the oven for lunch. Greta always makes it for me on Thursdays. The sun beams brightly through the bedroom window, nearly blinding me, not because I just woke up but because I haven’t seen the sun in a year. I’m quietly mesmerized by it as I lay on my side amid Fredrik’s sheets letting the light bring a flurry of black and yellow spots before my eyes.

  Just as Fredrik is about to leave the room with a clean pair of boxers and a T-shirt crushed in his large fist, he realizes I’m awake and stops suddenly in the doorway. He turns to look back at me as if he’d forgotten something and I melt into his blue-eyed gaze.

  “Come shower with me,” he says and then walks back over to the bed, reaching out his hand; a close-lipped smile plays softly on his handsome, stubbly face.

  It makes me happy that he wants me to be with him for such a seemingly insignificant thing, but I can’t help but wonder how much of it is because he doesn’t trust me alone in the house unless I’m locked away downstairs. But I don’t care about that and I try not to think about it. I’m with him now in ways I’ve only dreamed of since he brought me here.

  But why this ominous feeling of sadness in my heart all of a sudden? How can I be so happy because Fredrik seems to have given in to my feelings for him, yet I feel such a strange and looming sadness growing inside?

  I take his hand and he helps me out of the bed. I stumble at first, so used to the chain always dragging behind me, but I quickly get the hang of it being gone. I just wonder how long that will last, but I try not to think about that, either.

  Walking me down the short hallway with my hand clasped in his, I’m in awe of such small things. The beautiful dark hardwood floor under my bare feet, the cream-white paint on the walls and ceiling that make the dark crown moulding bordering the ceiling stand out. The rich marble accent table sitting at the end of the hall with a small Greek statue displayed in its center. Even the light fixture in the ceiling above me, dome-shaped with beautiful crystal carvings, holds my attention longer than something as simple and boring as a light fixture normally would.

  When I glimpse the door to the basement, remembering him walking with me through it last night, my breath hitches and my throat dries out instantly.

  I stop in the hallway with my hand still clasped in his. I don’t want to go any farther.

  “It’s OK,” Fredrik says gently, tugging on my hand. “I’m not taking you down there.”

  Urging me to continue, we walk only as far as the bathroom door and I find myself breathing again once we step inside.

  Fredrik opens the glass shower door and turns on the water. I feel strange standing here. Waiting. Wanting to look at the bathroom in awe the same way I did the hallway, but I want to look at Fredrik more. His hard, tanned body, the strength of his solid, bulging calf muscles, the perfect curvature of his oblique muscles and how they dip down into his pelvis in a strong, masculine pattern. His six-pack abs that I still can’t get out of my head from last night as I grazed them under my fingertips when he was on top of me. When he was inside of me. Just thinking about last night makes me ache with need and tingle with warmth beneath my belly. Not just because of the sex, but because of how different Fredrik was from every other time before. He didn’t just take me, he cherished me.

  A blush warms my face when he turns from the glass door and looks at me with those magnetic deep blue eyes.

  He guides me with him into the shower.

  The steaming water streams down on me, and it’s heavenly, but nothing is more heavenly than the feeling of his hands gently massaging the shampoo into my hair, or his lips on my wet shoulders, or the sides of my neck.

  “Where would you like to go today?” he whispers against my ear.

  A shiver runs up my spine.

  Surprised by the question, I turn my head at an angle to get a glimpse of him behind me. His large hands steadily massage my hair.

  “What do you mean?” I know what he means, but I can hardly believe he’s even considering taking me out of the house.

  His lips fall on the corner of my mouth.

  “Wherever you want to go,” he says. “You name it and I’ll take you there.”

  Turning me around, he guides my head back under the steady stream of water. I close my eyes as he rinses the shampoo from my hair.

  “I-I don’t know,” I say when he finally pulls me away from the stream and I can open my eyes again.

  He smiles and looks a little surprised himself.

  “You can’t think of anywhere?” he asks. “Not one place?”

  I look up, pressing my lips together in a hard
line on one side of my mouth, pondering the possibilities.

  “Manhattan. Greenwich Village,” I say brokenly as I slowly recall the place. “I haven’t had a good hot dog in a really long time.”

  Fredrik smiles and it makes me blush.

  He does everything for me, washing me from head to toe, carefully cleaning around the healing, yet still very tender wounds around my ankle. And he kisses me under the constant stream of water. On the shoulders. The sides and center of my throat. The corners of my mouth. My forehead. My lips. And as much as I’d love to let him take me right here in the shower, I’m equally content that he doesn’t touch me in that way, and is very self-controlled.

  When we’re done, Fredrik stands me in front of the steam-laden mirror, his chest and pelvic area touching me lightly from behind. He’s hard, but still he doesn’t lose self-control and it only makes me want him more.

  I feel the tip of his finger tracing the scars on my back. Then he dips his head and his lips fall on them, one by one.

  “Can you tell me where you got these scars?” he asks, kissing another one.

  The question throws me off. Not because he asked, but because…I can’t remember.

  “I…I don’t really know.”

  It frustrates me wholly. I thought I had remembered everything about my past. How could I not remember something as unforgettable as the scars on my back? Fredrik always touches them. Since the first night he brought me here, he’s always had an interest in them. He would lie me on my stomach across my bed downstairs and gently pull my nightgown up to my shoulders. He would trace his fingers across the scars—just as he’s doing now. And then the tip of his tongue as if he were tasting and savoring a memory. I never knew the scars were there until I asked him what it was about my back that he seemed to treasure so much.

  “It’s all right,” he says raising his head. “You don’t have to remember everything.”