The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 19

That night, Jac fell asleep easily, cosseted by the down pillows and comforter. Her dreams were full of the perfumer who had lived here so many centuries ago. In his secret laboratory, she saw him mixing up potions and recipes, stirring, shaking and sniffing. At one point he picked up his head and looked right at her, as if she were in the room with him, as if he could actually see her. And then he spoke to her.

All this I do for you. To see you again. To be with you again. Please God, it will work. Because without you I am lost to the world.

In her sleep, Jac felt the power of his words like a perfumed wind, blowing around her, embracing her. The most profound sense of longing overwhelmed her. Jac tried to go to him. Tried to move toward him. Wanted him to take her in his arms. Wanted to bury her face in his chest and have him stroke her hair. Wanted to feel his rough lips bruising hers. Oh, how she wanted him. But she was half a millennium away. And they were forever separated by time.

She woke up suddenly. Soaked with sweat.

The perfumer had seemed so familiar to her. Her feelings for him were the same as her feelings for Griffin. Was it possible that- No. She would not entertain the thought.

But she couldn’t escape it, could she? Jac could almost hear Malachai asking her how she could even question what the dream revealed: that in a previous incarnation Griffin had most likely lived a life as the perfumer. Time was coming full circle again.

Suddenly, the still vivid images from the dream were replaced by images from past memory lurches. Her lover on the floor, dark ruby blood pooling beneath his body, his life force seeping out of him. He was dying because of her. Because he had loved her and not been able to let her go.

She had to stop the pictures bombarding her. There was no way out of the vortex of guilt and grief that would envelop her if she gave in to the memories.

Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she glanced at the digital bedside clock. In this medieval castle it was incongruous, but so was so much about this journey. It was only 2:35. Whenever she woke up in the middle of the night, she had trouble falling back asleep and was usually up for hours. Because of the dream and the panic that had ensued, she knew tonight would be worse.

Jac pulled on her robe and headed for the kitchen. A hot cup of tea laced with brandy was always a perfect antidote for late-night unease.

As she made her way down the hall toward the staircase, she heard the wind howling outside. A few more steps and she realized it wasn’t the wind at all. It was a human cry. Alerted, worried, she moved in the direction of the sound. Someone was in pain.

She passed the staircase and continued on past one door… and then the next. The cries were more distinct now.

“You have me… you have all of me…” A man’s muffled voice.

“I want more,” the woman insisted.

“You have all of me.”

“I need more.”

Another cry. Then silence. Jac knew she should walk away.

“Make me feel more…” The woman was demanding, but it sounded as if she was also crying.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I need to feel more.” The woman emitted a cry of pain. Then: “Yes, please. More. I want more.”

There was the sound of a slap. Flesh against flesh.

“Don’t make me do this to you.”

“Again, please again.”

Flesh against flesh.

Another cry. “Yes, more.”

“No more, Melinoe.”

Her voice became strident, no longer a needy child but a demanding woman. “You want it too. You need it. More. Now. More.”

Was that his hand slapping her skin? Or was he using an instrument? Where on her body was he hitting her? How hard?

“I can’t do it anymore.” Now he sounded tortured.

The moans were making the words hard to understand.

“You have to… Look how hard you are… how wet I am.”

Smack. Smack.

“Yes, hurt me.”

“I can’t.”

Jac had never eavesdropped on anyone having sex before. And as much as she knew she shouldn’t be listening, she was riveted. These two souls were caught up in some elemental dance of psychological angst and desire. A ritualistic, fetishized version of lovemaking.

It sounded like they were whipped up in some kind of religious fervor. Like pagans worshipping at an altar. It sounded like torture. Like ancient passions bubbling up from deep in the earth, rising to the surface, exploding through these two damaged creatures. It sounded like a hell on earth and heaven at the same time. It sounded like exquisite pain and horrible beauty.

Jac knew she should leave, walk away and mind her own business. Serge and Melinoe were not related by blood. They had met when she was sixteen and he was seventeen. There wasn’t anything wrong with them being lovers. But this way? Jac thought about the dark woman whose eyes always looked haunted, who moved with the grace of an angel across a room, whose haughty bearing spoke of a burden carried forever with determination. For noble Serge to be in her thrall like this, tied to her in some deep-blooded way, obeying her despite how strong he was, Melinoe must not be all human but part witch, part vampire, part Rasputin.

There was regret in the sounds coming from inside that bedroom now. And longing. Desperation, guilt and defiance. Did they enact this ritual over and over? How could they endure it?

She rested her head on the doorjamb. Felt literally weak with her own arousal. Confused by her own body betraying her, refusing to obey her determination to leave, to walk away. She was certain she would never forget these sounds; the sadness, the power, the ecstasy, it was like a perfume of awful desire, of illicit passion. An impossible possibility.

There was quiet now on the other side of the door. None of the rough ragged sounds of their lovemaking were audible. They’d finished. For a crazy second Jac even wondered if they had died. She wouldn’t have been surprised to open the door and find them naked in each other’s arms, expired. It was a strange thought-one she didn’t understand-but she was obsessed suddenly with the idea that they were dead, had died in that last moment, that they would be happier freed from their terrible attraction, the unhealthy needs that bound them to each other.

She sighed without meaning to. Then, worried they might hear her and find her standing by the door, she hurried away, running back to her room. The tea forgotten.