Brides of the Kindred Read online

  Not after what I said. God, why did he have to bring it up? Why couldn’t he just let things be? We were doing so well and he seems like such a nice guy—when he’s not going all freaky-scary, that is. Now everything is weird between us and it’s going to stay weird because I am so not going there. I mean, why should I even talk about it? It was years and years ago…

  Her mind ran on in an endless loop of regret and self-recrimination until she heard the water shut off. A few minutes later Sylvan came out. Water droplets sparkled on his shoulders in the weak light of the dying fire. He was wearing his black pants and carrying his boots in one hand while toweling his hair with the other.

  Sophie closed her eyes at once and pretended to be asleep. She had decided that it would be better not to talk to him for the rest of the night. Maybe when they woke up in the morning he would be ready to start fresh without any embarrassing or hurtful talk about the past.

  She watched through half-slitted eyes as he walked toward the bed. Every muscle in her body tensed as she waited for him to climb in beside her. Would he get under the covers with her? Or sleep on top of them to give her more space? Did she want him to give her more space? Would he—

  Her thoughts were cut off abruptly as he bypassed the bed and lay down on the rug in front of the fire.

  What the hell? Why did he do that? Is he that mad at me?

  “Sylvan?” she said before she thought about it.

  “Yes?” He didn’t sound at all surprised to hear her awake and alert.

  “You…I…” She wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Are you laying down there because you’re mad at me?”

  “No, I’m not mad.” He sighed and shifted. She could hear the whispering sound of the rug under his large body.

  “Well, then why…?”

  “It’s a better position to watch the door from. And…”

  “And?” she prompted.

  “And if I get into bed with you, I’ll want to hold you. Touch you.” His voice was deep and soft. “But I don’t think you want to be touched right now.”

  “Oh.” Sophie nibbled her lower lip and then had to muffle a squeak of pain. It made her realize Sylvan still hadn’t gotten around to healing her lip where he’d bitten her, which seemed like a lifetime ago. And he never will now, she realized sadly. I’ve ruined everything…everything.

  “Goodnight,” he said softly and she heard him shift again, as if trying to get more comfortable.

  “Goodnight,” she echoed. Turning on her side, she buried her face in a pillow and tried to get to sleep. But as exhausting as the night had been, she still couldn’t relax. The misunderstanding between herself and Sylvan was pressing on her like a lead weight, making any kind of rest impossible. She turned over and then flipped her pillow to the cool side, hoping it would feel better against her hot cheek. She tried counting backwards from a hundred and then from a thousand but she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t relax and she was just getting more and more tense and restless and—

  “Sophia? Are you all right?” His voice in the darkness sounded concerned. “You’re tossing and turning all over the place.”

  “No, I’m not all right.” She sat up in bed and glared down at him. The fire had died to red coals by now and he was barely visible—a large dark shape on the floor at the foot of the bed. “It happened a long time ago,” she said, running a hand though her hair which was getting tangled from all her restless maneuvering. “And it’s not really something I like to talk about…or even think about, really.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She sighed again, supremely irritated. “Fine, you want me to tell you? I’ll tell you. It was at my senior prom. Or after it, anyway.”

  “Prom?” he asked.

  “A dance.” Sophie made a vague gesture with one hand. “A…a coming of age ritual. Everyone gets dressed up and goes to a big party and dances and drinks way too much and has fun.”

  “If that’s your idea of fun,” he said neutrally.

  “Well it is if you’re a senior in high school and you’re about to graduate,” Sophie told him. “Anyway, it was only a few months after…after my parents were killed.” She choked a little on the words. Even though it had been over six years since that fateful night the highway patrolman had knocked on the front door, she still missed her mom and dad fiercely.

  “I’m very sorry.” Sylvan’s voice was soft with concern.

  “No, it’s…that’s not the point of the story.” She took a deep breath. “What I was going to say was that Liv and I were going to stay home. I mean, who wants to go to prom after something like that? But Kat convinced us that it was a once in a lifetime deal and our parents would want us to have some fun. So we were all three going to go together—just us girls, you know?”

  He made a slight noise of understanding.

  “So we were going to go together—none of us had dates anyway—but then Burke Simpson asked me to go with him. He was the captain of the football team—really, really popular. Our team went to state, so he wasn’t just a big fish in a little pond—he already had a scholarship to FSU and everything. Honestly, I was really surprised that he asked me.”

  “Why should that surprise you?” Sylvan sounded like he was frowning.

  “Because. He was the big man on campus—the alpha male. And I was just this shy little nobody. I wasn’t a cheerleader or in the student council or anything like that. I thought he was probably being nice to me because of what happened to my parents.”

  “Did you go with him?”

  Sophie nodded and then realized he probably couldn’t see her in the dark. “Yes. Uh, he picked me up in a limo—a big long car with a driver. Then he took me out to a really nice restaurant—I remember being afraid to order anything but a salad because everything was so expensive. And besides, I was too nervous to eat around him.

  “We got to the dance and everything was beautiful and romantic. The only thing was, Burke kept trying to grope me. He acted like he was playing around but I had to kind of keep fending him off. I…I should have known better than to stay with him, but I hadn’t really been out with a lot of guys so I didn’t know quite how to handle him. I…” She shook her head.

  “Sophia?” Sylvan sounded worried again and she realized she’d stopped talking for a long moment.

  “Sorry.” Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to go on. “Anyway, when the dance was winding up, Burke wanted us to get a room and stay for the night. The prom was held in this big hotel and a lot of the other seniors were staying.”

  “Did you stay with him?”

  “I…I didn’t want to.” Sophie pulled her knees up to her chin. “I wanted to go home with Kat and Liv. They were going to go watch old movies and make popcorn. But Burke convinced me to walk with him up to the room. He said he just…just wanted a good night kiss. And he’d been so nice to me, paying for everything, I didn’t see how I could say no to that. I mean, just one little kiss, right?”

  “And was it just ‘one kiss?’” Sylvan’s voice was neutral.

  “N-no.” Sophie wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed tight, trying to get the words out. “I mean it started that way but then he…he pushed me down on the bed. I…I asked him to stop but he wouldn’t. He kept saying did I know how much the night had cost him and what kind of girl would I be if I didn’t, uh, put out after all that.”

  “Did he take you?” Sylvan’s voice was icy.

  “I fought him.” Her voice trembled and everything inside her felt tight as she relived that horrible night. “I kicked and screamed but it didn’t…didn’t do any good. He got on top of me anyway. Then he ripped my dress and tore off my panties.”

  She took a deep breath. God, how she hated remembering this! But as much as she wanted to push it back down, the memory had fully surfaced now—like a bloated corpse rising from a shallow grave. She couldn’t do anything but go on and try to get through it.

  “He was so heavy on top of me,” she whispered brokenly. �€