“Trust you? It’s you who doesn’t trust me. If you did, there wouldn’t be any secrets between us.”
He was right, of course. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust anyone, but maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to find out if he truly loved her, or if they were only empty words.
“Fine.” She rose to her feet. “You want the truth? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” And so saying, she unleashed her power and let him see her for what she was. Lips drawn back, fangs extended, her eyes blazing red, she towered over him.
It was a mistake, just as she had known it would be.
He had jumped off the loveseat and practically flown across the room in his haste to put some distance between them. “Get away from me, you bloodsucking fiend!”
His words had shocked her, her insides going cold as the love in his eyes swiftly turned to revulsion. She could have mesmerized him, made him forget what he had seen, but she had been too proud. He couldn’t accept her for what she was, and she couldn’t accept that . . .
She shook the unpleasant memory from her mind. She loved being a vampire, loved everything about it. She wouldn’t have gone back to being mortal again even if it was possible. Not for Kyle. Not for anyone, or anything, else. She had seen the world change and grow through the centuries, witnessed the rise and fall of kings and queens, of kingdoms and nations, observed the Dark Ages and the Industrial Revolution, seen the birth of innumerable inventions that the people of her day would have hailed as miracles—things like space travel and the automobile, iPads and Kindles, satellite television, wireless computers, Twitter and Facebook, and cell phones that did everything but cook and clean house. She grinned wryly. In her day, a roll of toilet paper would have been acclaimed as a miracle.
For the first time in her long existence, she felt the weight of past centuries sitting heavily on her shoulders. These days, there was little in life that surprised her; few things that she hadn’t seen or done a hundred times. Twining a lock of hair around her finger, she wondered if perhaps it was time to end her existence, to find out what, if anything, waited on the other side.
It would be a new adventure, she mused, a place she had never been before. Was there another life, another existence, after this one? She had seen no physical evidence of an afterlife. If one did exist, would her soul find rest in some heavenly paradise? That seemed doubtful. It was far more likely that she would be tossed into a sea of endless damnation, forced to spend eternity in the deepest pit of a cruel and unforgiving Hell.
With a sigh of resignation, she closed her eyes as thoughts of her past washed over her.
She had been raised a slave in the house of Chuma, one of Pharaoh’s trusted advisors. She had been a month shy of her fifteenth birthday when Chuma presented her to Shakir, a wealthy ally, as a reward for a service well done. Perhaps that had been hell enough. Mara had not taken kindly to being a slave in Pharaoh’s household, but she had been treated well enough. Captivity in Shakir’s household was another thing entirely. He had been a cold and cruel man, one who demanded instant obedience, one who did not hesitate to wield the lash at the slightest provocation, real or imagined. Shakir had allowed only female slaves under his roof. Many in Chuma’s household had mocked Shakir behind his back, saying it was unseemly for a man of Shakir’s position to have women working in his stables, caring for his armor, preparing his meals, acting as his butler, driving his chariot, but Shakir had ignored their taunts. He refused to share his quarters with male servants. There were no eunuchs in his household staff, no stallions in his stable.
Shakir claimed to love women. Old and young and in between, he professed to love all the female slaves in his household. And he bedded them all, from the oldest to the youngest, whether they were willing or not, eager to prove his manhood by the number of children he sired. His touch had made Mara’s flesh crawl. For some reason she never understood, her blatant distaste for Shakir’s touch soon made her his favorite. At first, he had found her loathing amusing, her temper tantrums entertaining.
Desperate to escape both his bed and his whip, she had run off many times in the ensuing five years until, finally wearying of her constant attempts to leave him, Shakir had put her in chains.
Mara had thought her life a hell before, but now it was much, much worse. Shakir kept her chained in a small cell in the bowels of his residence. Food was delivered once each day, unless the wrinkled old slave, Kesi, forgot. Shakir refused Mara the ease of a pallet, the warmth of a blanket, the comfort of a light. He even denied her the opportunity to bathe except on those nights when she was brought, still in chains, to his bedchamber. Once she was bathed and powdered and perfumed, he chained her to his bed and used her as he saw fit. She would never forget his cruelty or the humiliation of being bound and helpless, forced to submit to whatever he demanded of her.
She had begged Kesi to kill her, or to bring her a knife so that she might take her own life, but the old woman had feared Shakir’s wrath too much to help her.
And then, late one night, when she was huddled in a corner of her cell, her back raw from the lash, the candle outside her cell sprang to life and a shadowed figure appeared beside her. One minute she had been alone in the dark, the next he was there, a dusky-skinned man of medium height. A long black cloak fell from a pair of broad shoulders, the hood pulled low over his face, shadowing his features, save for his eyes, which seemed to glow with some dark inner fire.
“Who are you?” She had scrambled as far away from him as her chains would allow, the pain in her back forgotten. “How did you get in here?”
“I go where I wish,” he had replied. “No one can keep me in. Or lock me out.” He took a step toward her. “Tell me, my raven-haired beauty, are you happy here?”
“Of course not.” She recoiled when his hand snaked out from under his heavy black cloak to brush her cheek. “Leave me alone!”
“And if I refuse, what will you do? Cry for help? Who is going to hear you down here, I wonder?”
“Who are you?”
“I am Dendar, master of the night.”
He moved closer. She could see little of his face or form in the near darkness of her cell. But she could see his eyes, red and glowing now, like Hell’s own light.
When he put his arms around her, she struggled for a moment, and then went still. She had prayed for death, and now Death stood before her.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and waited. Soon, her misery would be over. Soon, she would discover the Great Mystery that awaited everyone.