Elisa Farraday. Daughter of an Irish prostitute who died with her throat cut in an alley. A street child picked up by fate to be trained as a maidservant. Used like a whore by her employers until Lady Constance. It made his jaw tighten. Yes, human servants were required to submit to the sexual demands of their vampires, but as he’d made clear to Elisa, human servants submitted willingly, if the vampire followed the generally accepted guidelines for taking a full servant. A vampire, deep in his servant’s mind, knew that willingness was true.
Her inability to say no to a man’s desire had been the practical reality of her life, enough that the violence of Victor’s attack lingered more with her than the violation, the only real blessing of that wretched affair. But it bothered Mal that she’d never had the right to choose, not until the brief taste of it with Willis.
Yet he also saw a strong core of faith, built on a kernel of innocence she refused to relinquish. When she’d so simply forgiven him for such a heinous barb, it touched things inside of him he couldn’t explain, couldn’t shake. It made him uncomfortably aware that he was starting to entertain the idea of letting her stay here longer.
Maybe Kohana and Danny were right. Maybe he really needed to get off this island more often, particularly if one guileless Irish house servant could tie up his mind like this. He scowled, hoping the expression was lost in the darkness and the fledglings’ absorption with her.
He hadn’t said how long they could visit, though of course she was sure they would need to go by dawn, unless she wanted to see him fried like an egg on the hood of the Jeep. Because Miah opened the door of her small cabin wide enough so she could see from the proper distance, Elisa saw they had a bed and other comforts. A floor trap led down into a concrete reinforced subterranean space. Mal perfunctorily explained in her mind they could choose to go down there for coolness and complete protection from the island sun during the height of the day. There was a cot there as well.
Other than that explanation, however, he remained silent, and his closed expression from where he sat didn’t encourage further conversation.
Fine, he could be surly. She was too pleased with seeing the fledglings to let him irritate her. When Jeremiah took one of the books and slid it to her, making sure it had the momentum to go beyond those four feet, she knew he wanted her to read to them. The others immediately settled down, anticipating. As always, she noticed how Nerida and Miah stayed at the adjacent corners of their cells, as close as they could get to each other. They even put their hands through the bars, flattening the palms on the grass, fingers pointing toward each other like arrows. Though they were separated by a good six feet, it was as if their palms were connecting through the earth’s energy.
“What story would you like?” she asked Jeremiah.
When he held up three fingers, she went to the third story in the book, an excerpt from Treasure Island. “A boy’s story for sure.” She sent him a teasing look. “We’ll have to let Miah and Nerida choose next. A story of princesses, maybe. Or one day they’ll tell us their stories.”
From Dev and the blackfellas on the station, she knew their race had a rich history of storytelling, reciting them to their young ones practically from the time they came out of the womb, and probably within it. She wondered what amazing tales of their world still drifted through Miah and Nerida’s heads, or had Ruskin driven them out entirely?
Nerida made a chirp like a bird and then she was flapping around her cell in a graceful emulation of flight. Elisa paused, watching with the others as the girl came to rest on her haunches. She cocked her head just like a bird might, studying the world out of the wide-set eyes.
It was the most outgoing she’d ever been, though Elisa managed to keep from leaping to her feet and cheering. Instead she settled for a broad smile and a nod. “Bird stories. I’d like to hear some of them. Would you like to tell me one?”
Nerida shook her head, glancing at Miah, then up the hill at the Jeep and the figure slouched lazily on it, though Elisa had no doubt he was as attentive as a hungry lion.
“He won’t harm you. He’s here to help you, help all of you. I can tell this is a better place for you all, and he’s responsible for that. Plus, he comes from a people that did a lot of storytelling as well. I read a book about it on the way here, on the plane. I bet he knows a lot of stories and would share some as well.” Then, remembering Kohana’s warning, she bit her lip, cursing her overeagerness. “Well, not today, but perhaps another time.”
Why not today?
Glancing up, she saw him straighten from the Jeep and slide off it in that ripple of smooth muscle and deadly vampire grace. As he came down the hill, though, his attitude and body language altered. Surliness gone, now he reminded her of Dev, the way he moved around the animals at the station, sending out a signal that not only calmed them, but told them he was completely in charge. Dev had told her animals liked knowing the pecking order, because it was reassuring, cut down on a lot of uncertainty. She couldn’t deny it reassured her.
Mal came into the main enclosure and matter-of-factly took a seat on the stump she had her back against now, so his calf was pressed against her side. They were all gazing at him with varying levels of wariness and distrust, but none of them moved from their positions at the fronts of their cells, an encouraging sign. As he sat down, she had a thought, looked up at him. “Will you tell us how the Milky Way came to be?”
His lips curved slightly. “That old bastard,” he muttered, but he gave her a slight nod before he turned his attention to the fledglings. “Most Cherokee stories are simple and straightforward. It’s the way they’re told that are entertaining. This is one my mother told me. Do you know what the Milky Way is?” At their lack of response, he tilted his head back, lifted an arm to point. Enchanted, she saw the fledglings tilt their heads back with him. “That crescent of stars there, like a faint brush of white paint across the sky. That’s part of it.
“Tonight you look up and see thousands upon thousands of stars. But at one time, there were not very many at all. Probably because the Creator hadn’t had time to attend to it, the world still being young and all. At that time, the People depended a lot on corn for their food. They made it into cornmeal and stored it during wintertime to carry them through the Windy Moon, a time when winter stores are almost depleted. But one morning, an older couple found that something had been in their meal. They found dog prints, but it was no ordinary dog. These prints were the largest they’d ever seen, and it appeared as if feathers had swept the ground around it, leaving large swirling patterns in the meal the beast had wasted, gobbling out of the sacks.”
Mal made a face then, stretching his mouth wide, and sweeping his arms around him the way a dog with wings might. Elisa saw Miah’s eyes widen. Matthew was studying him like he was an entirely new animal. Elisa wasn’t sure if she wasn’t doing the same.
“The people of the village knew this had to be a spirit dog, and they had to keep it from coming to their village. So that next night they gathered together drums, turtle-shell rattles, and whatever noisemakers they had. They lay in hiding around the storehouse. It got very late, and some of the young ones had fallen asleep against their mothers, but they were all awoken by the flap of mighty wings. Out of that darkness, that middle time of night, came a tremendous dog. The spread of his wings was so large they weren’t sure how he’d fit in the storeroom, but since he was a spirit dog he could go where he wished, couldn’t he? As they watched, he landed among the cornmeal and began to gobble it down.”
He made the motion with both hands, a gulping noise, his eyes darting about like a wild animal’s might, conveying both danger and hunger at once. Elisa felt a shiver go over her skin.
“They were afraid, but that was all the food they had to survive the winter. So they leaped up and began to make a tremendous noise. Rattles, drums, shouting, like a mighty thunderstorm. That dog bolted out of there like there were cans tied to his tail, which of course would have been a funny sight, such a large dog with cans tied to his tail. But the people chased him, all the way to the top of a hill. Then he leaped into the sky, the cornmeal spilling out of his mouth. Since he ran across the sky to get away, the cornmeal trail he left became a series of stars, so thickly laid together they’re what white people call the Milky Way. The Tsalagi call it ‘the place where the dog ran.’”
“How do you say it, in Cherokee?” Elisa asked softly, looking up at his face.
That shadow appeared across his face. But then his eyes met hers and he spoke, the syllables like a warm stroke across her skin. “Gi li’ ut sun stan un’ yi.”
14
WHEN they got back, just after two in the morning, her mind was churning with all of it. The children had listened to his story, even Leonidas. For that moment, leaning against his leg and a bit amazed at how comfortable she was doing that, Elisa had felt settled, balanced. She treasured those moments, because they didn’t happen often, but this time it had happened because of him. One moment she doubted his commitment and had no idea if she could trust him. The next, he did something like that. It was getting hard to believe she’d been here only two days and her world was already so off-kilter.
While he told the story, his hand had fallen on her shoulder, his thumb sliding back and forth over her collarbone, bared by the neckline of her blouse. As she got ready for bed, putting on her thin white nightgown, she stopped in front of the mirror, put her hand there and felt that compression, the heat, bring back the memory of his touch.
Though she should be going over everything that had happened with the fledglings, and how she could help him see them the way she did, she kept coming back to that touch. The earlier kiss. His words. Your chance to take, too . . . be a wild animal . . .
It went against everything she had been taught. Submitting, surrendering had always been about sacrifice. Yet she recalled that moment in Mr. Pearlmutton’s dining room, seeing what she’d done to give him and his guests pleasure. She’d been serving, but such service had given her something. Peace, fulfillment. Like when the priest said to surrender oneself to God and let that peace fill your heart. Though to think of that in this context seemed more than a trifle sinful.