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Chapter 60: Sarah
This is the National Gallery, I think. I can’t remember why we decided to come. Aiden’s hand is warm in mine as we wander through the corridors. Brian never did hold hands in public. Cartoon sketches fill every ornate and gilded frame, splashy and incomplete. Around the next corner should be the portrait gallery. When we turn to look, every painting is Cavendish, spray-painted onto the walls.
“It’s okay,” Aiden says. “He knows you’re mine now. You’ll be safe. Look, do you like them? I painted them myself.”
Cavendish’s eyes are everywhere, staring at me. I remember those eyes, looking through me, snaring my mind and my heart with their gaze. I wait for them to draw my soul out and bind me to him, to entice me to dance willingly to his whims and into his arms. I hate myself for the longing I feel, for wanting the freedom of giving myself up completely into the will of another.
It feels as if I have walked through a cold shower when nothing happens. The eyes are
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Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 61: Aiden
Frost is running through the forest, running through the fall leaves that tumble down around us. Wolves should run together. He is alone, because his Mate cannot keep up. He stops, and howls, because he is alone. “Don’t worry. I can ride,” Sarah says, and her horse rushes past, chasing the wind. Frost joins the race, leaping after her laughter. The ground flashes past beneath us. This is right. This is what wolves should do. Sarah is our Mate, and we should run together. I catch her in my arms, breathless and laughing as we tumble to the ground and I land on my back. She sits astride me, her thighs around my hips, smiling at me from the cloud of her hair. Her breasts sway slightly as she leans forward. I buck up into her and she laughs again, drawing patterns with her nails across my bare chest. “Do you like what you see?” she asks, reaching down with her other hand to stroke me into hardness. I’m half way there already. “Mmmm, you do, don’t you?” “Sa
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 62: Sarah
We’ve already played each piece at some point this season, but it’s been a while since we did this one. It’s a fairly tricky one, and I have to play solo. My mind is already on what is to come as I walk into the hall. It is only later that I realise the lack of greetings. I find my seat and flip through the music on the stand, scanning the pencil notes that scatter the margins. It’s Roberto’s own arrangement of the Sonata, and he’s given us a lot of input that goes beyond what’s printed on the pages. Charlotte gives me a sideways look as she sits next to me at our stand, then turns her head away quickly and starts tuning her violin.We’re still working on the first movement, coming up to the first of my solos, when I’m struck by a moment of light-headedness. The concert hall spins about me. I feel as if I am falling off my chair. My playing falters, and I completely miss my cue.Roberto signals the orchestra to sile
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 63: Aiden
My eyes are open, but I can’t move them. I’m looking through a tunnel with walls of shadow. I can’t feel the ground under my cheek. I can’t feel my own body. Everything sounds different, as if I’m in a cave. My nose still works. The dusty scent of vampires is suddenly tickling my nose and making me want to sneeze, and if I could feel my stomach it would be sinking. I can see along the path, everything sideways, the paved surface a wall and trees at my feet and my head. My friends had walked on before I fell. They’re turning to look at me now. “Run,” I try to tell them, but nothing comes out of my mouth. “Aiden?” Jade starts towards me. I try to shake my head, but nothing is working. I will her with my eyes to stay away, to get away. “Get back, run!” I think at her. “What happened?” Tala asks, following Jade, and I would scream, if I could. “Wait!” Reese calls after the girls. “Wait, come back.” “There’s something wrong, he’s hurt.” Jad
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 64: Sarah
I cried myself to sleep. I haven’t done that since I was a kid in the children’s home. I wake on the sofa, still in last night’s clothes. My mouth is stale and sticky and my face a mess of makeup and dried tears. Everything aches. I can barely move. I wince as I drag myself stiffly to my feet and totter to the bathroom for the hottest shower I can stand, wincing at every movement I make. I feel cleaner, after the shower, but it does nothing for the pain that permeates every muscle. Even my nose hurts. I always feel horrible after a good cry, but not usually this bad. I hope I’m not coming down with something. I’m probably transmitting all this to Aiden. Good, a little, selfish voice in my head says. He’s not here to comfort me, he’s off somewhere else. I know we didn’t say anything, but he must know I’m feeling awful, through our Bond. He must have felt how upset I was last night. Why isn’t he here? It’s not asking for much, is it, just wan
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 65: Aiden
They never speak, never laugh, never even make a sound of effort, but I remember how they smell. Every kick, every punch, every chunk of hair ripped from my scalp, every broken tooth and rib and collarbone and finger, each one I match to a smell, and remember. They will pay. After a few minutes of the fledgelings’ assault, I stop feeling the injuries. I am a single ball of pain being flung about the vampires’ playing-field. Frost claws me from within, frothing mad and desperate to deal his own punishment here and now, but they mustn’t know. They can’t know my strengths, not until it’s too late for them. I’m finally left lying on the floor, a broken toy in a puddle of my own blood. The fledgelings file out silently, the single observer following them out. I remember his smell too. He’s just as guilty as they are, and he will face justice. I relax as best I can, letting them think I am helpless, until the door closes. I don’t even move then, listening for the footstep
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 66: Sarah
Four against one is long odds, and, knowing what I do these days, I cannot even be sure that they are all human. I try to bluff, smiling at them brightly, already aware that it’s a wasted effort. They know who I am, and they probably know why I’m here, and if they know that then that’s not good news for Aiden. “I’ve come the wrong way. I’m just out for a run. I’ll go now, and get out of your hair.”One of the men veers sideways in his approach, not flanking me yet, but he will be if he closes the distance much more. I step away, but they move forward faster than I move back. As though anticipating my next move, which would be to turn and run, one is moving faster than the others, barely a handful of steps away from me now.“If we can reach the water, we’ll be safe,” I remember, but the water is at least three hundred metres away, if not more- the Isle of Dogs is surrounded on three sides by the
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 67: Aiden
“That pathetic mess is the dreaded Aiden Cooper?” The words sound strange when given in the expressionless voice of Sutcliffe’s human speaker. “Why on Earth should we believe that?”“How dare you question your superior?” Whitfield demands, then glances at the screen and collects himself. “It’s easy enough to prove. Fletcher? Have the Seer brought in.” The observer from my earlier beating- Fletcher- opens the door and gives orders to someone outside.“Ah. The Seer I’ve heard so much about,” Ewing says, via his Voice. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s pleased, or excited, or sarcastic. It must get frustrating communicating this way. “She’ll be able to tell whether this is the Aiden Cooper she spoke about?”This Seer is how they knew about me? That’s how they discovered I was to blame for Laurence Taylor? I’m suddenly
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 68: Sarah
Aiden’s alive, He’s seven feet tall, covered in fur and blood and rags, but he’s alive and he’s hugging me as if he’s never going to let go. I hug him back just as fiercely. The ghostly warriors have vanished back through the walls, and from the sounds in the distance they are finishing what they started. I should feel horrified at what I have done here, but from the moment I stepped through the door from the yard outside, and saw the eyes of the figures waiting for me, I have felt no regrets, These are not living, breathing beings. These are undead monsters.Aiden is speaking, but it’s hard to understand. His head is all wolf-y, so his mouth is the wrong shape. He huffs, and I get to watch him shrink back to a human. The process sounds painful but his face shows no sign of that when he’s himself again. His lip is scabbed and his nose is puffy. There’s blood all over his chin, which is probably his, and if his face looks that ba
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