Gemma Pettinato Writes

“Why do you hate me?” The question comes slowly, as though even my lips are loath to form it.

The room is not the sort to lend itself to such questions of introspection. It’s lavishly furnished, draped in velvet, edged in gold and drenched in decadence. Jewels glimmer in the ceiling and the embroidered canopy as the fabric sways slightly in the draft; the rubies catch and shine like blood in the dark—just like his eyes.

It’s hopeless for anyone to avoid looking at him. Death and vampirism have changed him little; he’s still as pale, perfect, and silver as moonlight. Vrythien is Inara come again in a way that is eerie now. It’s the stillness. He doesn’t even pretend with me. As he sits there with his head tilted to the side to catch the moonlight like I taught him in the pleasure house, he does not breathe. It’s as though, with his very presence, he is declaring I-am-not-the-man-you-loved.

He doesn’t answer me, but he stares for the longest time, those ruby eyes taking me apart, before, between us, she makes a noise in her sleep. A quiet little mewling murmur that tugs at my heart. I pull the edge of the blanket nearest me over that bare golden shoulder, and Vrythien pulls his side up, closer to under her chin. Her body moves toward his, wriggling nearer until she’s pressing her cheek to his still chest.

My goddess of Lazthien consumes me utterly. I forget that I even asked a question as I watch her fret in her sleep as she does so often, delicate brows furrowed as her heart races, breathing comes in desperate pants as she murmurs under her breath things incoherently. Now and again it comes clear: “No! Don’t! Please!”

Those full lips twist with each word and I move nearer, desperate to comfort her and take that dream away. Vrythien traces his thumb over her brow and draws her closer—as though pulling her from me.

“Hate is far too strong a word for what I feel, darling,” he murmurs, slicing through my helplessness over Azara’s bad dream. He keeps his voice so very low as she whines further. Even those little noises of fright are appealing in a strange way. I’ve never been one to want to cause my lovers discomfort or fear, but everything about her is appealing… though she is not my lover.

“If I’m wholly and completely honest? I hardly think of you at all.” I can hear the smile in his voice; I don’t even have to raise my gaze to know his lips are pulled into that charming, practiced smirk. So I don’t look. It guts me all the same, but he need not see it. Instead I move closer to Azara so the front of my body is flush with her back. At my warmth, she relaxes, the whimpering ceasing as I play my role as comfort. I keep my hips from her, the warmth of her body and the scent of her alone are enough to make my sex harden and ache. Gone is the lash of Vrythien’s words, leaving behind only the balm of Azara.

Gods, how I crave her.

Yet even though this role I play for her as comfort is utter torture, more so is the idea of being parted from her.

“Though I do thank you for all you said at my graveside, of course. In some way it is nice to know that someone cared,” he whispers as he curls protectively around her—drawing her closer.

“How could you think I wouldn’t care?” I inquire, raising my gaze to his. He’s not looking at me, no, those rubies are fixed on her and there’s the softest smile on his lips. “I—”

“Loved me?” he finishes for me. “Are bound things capable of love? You were the one in charge of me. Responsible for my torments, and teaching me to look pretty while you carried them out. I crawled into your bed like a stray dog seeking scraps. But we were whores, or have you forgotten? Sex is a trade, and I traded my body to you for small comforts. I was so broken when Mistress gave me to you to train and you were the first and only person until my death to show me anything akin to kindness. You taught me to let myself go and not in the way you meant it. I learned to drift away from myself under your skillful hands, mouth, and cock. I should hate you. I should loathe your fucking existence because of what you helped ruin for me. I still struggle with it after all this time. Even with her. I cannot take her gently and remain present. Every time I try all that slips into place and no matter how hard I try to stay in the moment with her…” He clenches his jaw and shakes his head slowly, silver curls bouncing softly. “Is that something you do to someone you love, my dear? Ruin pleasure for them entirely.”

“I had to do as Mistress ordered.” The words come hollow, and with them an ache in my chest because I know what I did, that in my own twisted way I too am one more in the long line of Vrythien’s tormentors. “But I…” Words fail me and I’m left shaking my head. Perhaps I deserve this purgatory of my own choosing. Maybe that’s the reason no matter how many times she offers I cannot bring myself to sleep elsewhere—to leave her side or service. Smelling him on her skin, washing his seed from her, and knowing he has her in every way is my penance.

“But you what?” he drawls, slipping his tongue over his teeth, as his finger slowly strokes through her long dark tresses. “Is this where you claim you loved me again? I really am simply dying to know, my dear, are you lying to yourself or me?” He sucks his teeth but keeps his voice so very soft.

I shake my head. “No, I know what I felt—what I still feel when I think about you. I loved you, Vrythien. I broke when I discovered what Mistress had done. I missed you. I still miss you.”

“Miss me or what you used to do to me? What I used to do to you?” He scoffs, keeping his tone so very quiet as he leans over her protectively as she sleeps on, his nose trailing through her dark locks. “There was something, I’ll admit only that much. Something half-formed and ill-defined. I wasn’t capable of love. And I’ll never forgive you for that night in Mistress’s chambers when you held me in your arms and stroked my cock until I came while begging you to stop. But Mistress’s orders, of course. You never smiled and whispered how perfect I looked with your cock pressing against my ass.” He glares daggers at me and I recoil from the truth of it. “You never asked why I was that way. Why I cried when touched or fear-begged not to spend myself. You never seemed to fucking care at all.” He’s breathing now, seething as he holds Azara as though she’s the only thing holding him together.

“Andrath Lazthien had a very special dagger adorned with a heart-blood gem. He liked to threaten to unman me with it. To flay parts of me with it if he caught me aroused. Then he’d make me climb astride him and promise to be good while I rode him and he whispered in my ear he’d cut it off if I spent myself. He never made good on the promise, fortunately, but he’d cut me open and apart enough if I did.” He exhales slow and long. “She asked. She listened through it all. She knows. Have you ever bothered to ask why she wakes up screaming some nights? Why she cannot bear to sleep alone? Or is she too just another pretty broken thing for you to desire? You’re no better than those twisted men who paid sacks of gold to play with me while bound and crying those first nights at the brothel. You only like to pretend you are.”

My chest aches with each word that falls from his lips and perhaps he’s right. Like she can feel his pain, Azara groans, moving half astride him, willowy arms wrapping about him as she places a kiss against his chest. That kiss bleeds so much tension from him, even his face softens as his lips curl into the faintest of smiles.

“I read Andrath’s journals,” I confess through the brutal ache inside me. “All of them. I now know what I didn’t ask because, like yourself, I was little more than a boy at the time. And yes, I, like more than half the realms, took pleasure in the mere form of your body alone. Apologies for being someone whose entire life was the brothel? You were the first lover I took who wasn’t someone Mistress ordered me to play lover to, the first person to make me understand half of what even I was taught to say to the patrons. Azara made me understand the other. So it is I love you both. And yes, I’ve made mistakes, grave mistakes, but that doesn’t lessen what I feel now or felt then.”

He glares over the top of her head to me then, that scathing glance enough to flay as sure as the old Lazthien’s knives.

“I’m sorry, Vrythien, I truly am,” I say more for me than for him. Nothing will soften the liquid hate in those eyes as he glares at me, nor the ache in my chest that is desperate to pull them both close.

“Sorry? You’re sorry?” He clicks his teeth, and I can hear the eye roll in his tone alone. “In some ways I forgive you. We were of roughly the same age, both owned by another our entire lives. But forgiving you is… in truth, I am not certain I have it in me. Not when I know that in the end you and Azara will come together and leave me forgotten.”

“I want you both,” I confess, and it feels so good to say it aloud. The truth is a sweet balm I didn’t know I needed, but it’s meant with that glower that could make a flower in full bloom shed its petals. There’s suspicion there too, as though he doesn’t think such a thing possible of being true no matter how much I feel it in my heart.

“Both?” he scoffs, lips pursing for a moment. “Even with all you know I’m not capable of?”

“I’ve helped you endure; let me help you heal,” At my words, he makes a small noise, soft and vulnerable, before swallowing.

He sits in silence a moment, then his final words come like a lash delivered in that silken way of his that seems to slash like a blade. “Darling, she’s helping me heal. You just want to fuck us.”