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“I know it, ma serpente, with a surety. The taste of your blood and its copious amounts leaves no doubt as to what you are.”
The mention of my “copious amounts” of blood is weird, but hardly the weirdest thing he’s said in the past five minutes.
I try a different tack. “Okay . . . even if I am Other, didn’t you say that there are lots of Others of all kinds? What is wrong with being a siren?”
“It’s wrong to be a siren,” he says, conversationally, not like we are in a cell, “Because sirens are dangerous madwomen. With their voices and their blood, they can lay waste to entire countries, enslave entire populations. They say that Helen of Troy was a siren gone mad with power, the deaths of hundreds of thousands at her feet.”
Helen of Troy? I was never the best in school, but I kind of remember the Trojan War. Said to have started because some Trojan prince stole the most beautiful woman in the world from another guy. The woman being Helen. But the Trojan War was supposed to be mostly a myth, and Helen certainly wasn't supposed to be the mastermind.
“How did she do that, if she was just one siren?” I question, a little scared of the answer.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” Julian says infuriatingly, still sounding conversational. “If you truly don’t know the extent of your power, I’d be a fool to tell you. It’d be like giving a marksman a loaded gun.”
“Please,” I beg. “I don’t understand anything that’s going on. Why am I in this cell? Why are you acting like I’m a bomb about to go off? I’m still just the same old Andi I was yesterday. I have no special power. I’m no threat to anyone!”
My voice echoes a little in the small space as I finish my tirade. Julian’s eyes dilate curiously, then he shakes his head as if to clear away some haze.
“How did I not notice sooner? Your voice, your eyes, the way it makes me feel, the persuasion, your singing, it all points to it. The way you resisted my compulsion. Even now, when you ask for things that I should not give, I want to obey you. Especially now that I’ve fed from your blood.”
“What does that mean?” I ask desperately, “What does my blood have to do with anything?”
“A taste of your blood binds creatures to your will, enthralls them to you. I feel the pull now that I have supped from you. The need to serve and please you. To be with you. It’s driving me mad.”
I feel cold at his words, colder even than the room. He sounds . . . obsessed. To say the least. And I am already dealing with one obsessed man; I don’t need another. Especially one with the power to throw me in deep, dark cells.
“If you’re enthralled by me, can't I just ask you to let me go?” I ask, before biting my lip. I don’t really expect that to work.
He chuckles darkly. “I’m not some weak-willed vampireling that you are dealing with, ma serpente. I am ancient, one of the oldest of my kind. I can survive telling you no.”
Something about his words rings false to my ears. Like bravado, or like he’s trying to convince himself of their truth. Is he really affected that strongly by my voice? By my blood? Can I really ask him to let me go?
“Please,” I beg, trying to make my voice soft and sweet, meeting his eyes with my pleading ones. “Let me go. I won’t hurt you or anyone else. I just want to go.”
His pupils dilate again, barely visible in the dim light, but still noticeably. They are blown wide like someone hopped up on pills.
“Ohh . . .” he grits out, “ma serpente. You are making this hard on me. It is difficult to fight you. I should go, leave you here, yet I cannot.”
So it’s working? Really? Am I really some sort of powerful creature as he claims? I remember that he said he wants to please me, that my blood makes it so. Keeping the same sweet voice, but more forcefully, I say, ‘If you keep me in here, Julian, I will never forgive you. Let me go.” The last two words ring out, echoing slightly.
Julian closes his eyes like he is in pain. He shakes his head violently. When he opens them again, his eyes are back to normal. Damn.
Then he surprises me and says, “Fine, ma serpente. I don’t think that I could leave you in here, after all, for my own sanity. I will let you go.”
“You will?” I ask incredulously, dropping my fake sweet tone.
“But we will sign another magical contract, you and I,” he says, his eyes intense. “If you are to own me, I will own you right back.”
Apprehension fills me. “What does that mean?”
“That means, ma serpente,” he says, his tone a little cruel. “You will be mine.”
Chapter 16
Julian
Andi doesn't seem impressed with the magnanimity of my offer. “Yours?” she spits the word out with incredulous fear. “What does that even mean? I’ll be your slave?”
Her voice is like a gentle finger along my scalp, soothing me by being in her presence, even though the contents of her words are filled with horror. I need to be with her. I could try to wait out the blood in my system, but something tells me it will not be so easy. Who knows if her blood will ever leave? It hasn’t after a full day, and my tongue already thirsts for more. So I need reassurances.
