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Back arched, neck angled gracefully, eyes shadowed by thick lashes so blonde they were nearly transparent. He was one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen. And he couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Desire and foreboding curled together in my stomach.
Oof. Gets worse and worse.
I craved you like maidens crave the grave, the way death burns for human touch: inconsolably, unrelentingly, aching for the annihilation in your kiss. I had no practice saying no to you.
Maidens don't crave the grave. What? Death burns for human touch? This is nonsensical.
I watched him juggle wax apples as Magdalena cheered, the lines of his ribs showing through his thin skin, and I wanted very much to run my fingers through his hair as I held a cup of broth to his lips. I wanted to lay out a feast for him, let him recline on my lap and tell him to eat as much as he wanted. I had a weakness for weakness, just like you.
My heart battered wildly in my chest. Part of me wanted to throw myself between you and Alexi and tell the boy to go home, to forget all he had seen and heard. But another part of me wanted to welcome him into our warm carriage and hand-feed him berries until he was sated.
They have berries in their carriage?
I needed fresh air, but the coach was hot and close, and we were already trundling down the road. There was nowhere for me to go. There had never been anywhere for me to go.
I had just watched a young boy sign away his life to a pack of demons he barely knew. And now, I believed deeply in my soul, he was my responsibility. I had to protect him from the cruelties of the world, the ravages of immortality. Even from you, my lord.
I keep seeing authors narratives describe people who are legal adults as "young girl" and now we have "young boy". Those are descriptions for children, though. Here it actually makes sense for the protagonist to describe the young man this way; she's a vampire and he's basically a child in her eyes.
“Where would you like to go?” “Go?” Alexi asked, a little delirious. It takes a lot out of you, dying and coming back, and I knew the way your blood burned through the system like a wildfire. He was probably so disoriented he was tasting color. “It’s a honeymoon!” Magdalena exclaimed, unable to contain her excitement. I hadn’t seen her so effervescent in what felt like years, but this still didn’t feel right. Alexi was a boy, not a wind-up doll to cheer up a sullen little girl.
Alexi didn’t have my knack for making himself invisible when you were in one of your moods, or Magdalena’s fawning skill for soothing your temper. He challenged you outright, talking back from the moment he was bitten. He was democratically minded, and he wanted a say in everything, from where we moved to how we spent our days.
I didn’t realize how resigned Magdalena and I had become to our roles as dutiful wives until Alexi came onto the scene, and his argumentative spirit frightened me. For his sake, mostly.
This doesn't make sense. She knew her and Magdalena were subdued, emptily resigned to being trapped.
“Can I help you find something, young man?” “We’re just taking it all in,” Alexi said pleasantly. “Good. If you or your mother need any help, just ring the bell and I’ll be right with you.” He disappeared into the back room, leaving Alexi snickering. I scowled, crossing my arms tight across my chest. Coming out with Alexi suddenly seemed foolish. That was all anyone ever saw when they looked at us together, a mother and son, or a governess and her overgrown ward. I had a face built for a chaperone, not for making beautiful young men fall in love with me. “Come now, Constance,” Alexi purred
...more
A mother is not a spinster. Words have meaning. 😬
“You haven’t seen anything. After that whole debacle with the Harkers he was sullen for months.” “Who are the Harkers?” “Before your time, dear; just some dreadful Victorians.”
Just going to gloss over that, and not say what happened with them in this universe? 😑
You strictly forbade me from any of my avenging tendencies and did all the hunting for us, leaving us alone in the house for long stretches of time. I wondered if withholding yourself for those hours was another kind of punishment. You would think we would be happy to be rid of you, but we had been weaned on you like children on mother’s milk, and we were always just as relieved to see you come home as we were to see you ride off. You had debased us all over time, as slow as dripping water wearing a hole in stone. We couldn’t abide you, but we couldn’t live without you.
“Then we’d better get going. He could be back any minute.” I seized Alexi’s hand and we started to bustle out of the room, but Magdalena’s voice stopped me at the door. “Constanta?” “Yes?” I asked, turning back around. Her eyes were as dark as a night without stars. “Find out how to make him hurt.”
Here. We. Go~
Alexi swallowed hard, shaking his head. “He loves us. I know it.” This snapped Magdalena out of her reverie. She clasped Alexi by the shoulders and fixed him with a hard, knowing look that I have never forgotten, not even after all these years. “It would be easier if he hated us,” she said. “But he loves us all terribly. And if we go on letting him love us, that love is going to kill us. That’s what makes him so dangerous.”
I was tired of faithfulness. I made you into my private Christ, supplicated with my own dark devotions. Nothing existed beyond the range of your exacting gaze, not even me. I was simply a non-entity when you weren’t looking at me, an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the sweet water of your attention. A woman can’t live like that, my lord. No one can.
I could have turned them away and afforded you some final dignity, but I wanted to hold your power in my mouth, as carefully as a mother cat holds her young, and then swallow until there was nothing of you left.
This mother-cat-and-her-young simile doesn't work. It just doesn't fit the tone or situation.
As far as I knew, I might have been the oldest vampire in all of Europe, now that you were really and truly dead.
Why would she be, though? It's a whole continent.
ometimes, when I walk through the city, I get a crawling feeling on the back of my neck that compels me to turn around. Sometimes, I think I see your face in the crowd, only for an instant, before you’re swept away by the masses again.
I have one final promise to make to you, one I hope I will never break. I promise to live, richly and shamelessly, and with my arms wide open to the world. If there was any part left of you at the end that wished for our great happiness, that truly wanted what was best for us, I think it would be pleased to hear me say it. I do not know if I have justified my choice to you, but I think I have justified it to myself, and that has brought me peace enough.
The first kiss from Magdalena always felt like nicking your finger on the edge of a knife: a sharp shock, and then throbbing warmth. Constanta, on the other hand, was like slipping into a warm bath after a day of hard labor. All relief and unwinding muscles.
Constanta was still wearing her hair long, swirled up on top of her head in a messy twist. Tendrils of red fell down around her face and I touched them, delighted by this tiny, imperfect detail. She hadn’t aged a moment since I had last seen her, and the creases around her eyes only showed when she smiled intensely, as she was doing now.
What—of course she hasn't *aged*. What is this line?
America suited me, despite her puritanical mores and gross institutional mismanagement. She was brazen and loud and in love with herself, just like me.
Oh, how I loved this game. The game of hurt and denial that always ended in ecstasy. Magdalena was the finest player I had ever met on the board, and this was her opening gambit.
Constanta was beautiful enough to make an apostle out of an apostate, and I was no exception. I wanted to worship at the cathedral of her body until she cried out like ringing Sunday mass bells.
