Immortal Dissent Page 6

  “Good evening, Vanessa.”

  “Good evening, Victor.” She forced a smile to return to her mouth, though it felt false even to her, and she couldn’t imagine what it looked like to him.

  “May I have this dance?”

  “Most certainly.”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder as he took her waist, and she forced her body to conform to the rigid dancing frame she’d been taught at a very young age as he led her across the floor in time with the music from the small orchestra of flutes and strings playing in the corner.

  “You look lovely,” he said when their eyes met.

  Though the words would have been an innocuous compliment from the mouth of anyone else, the sneer Victor’s lips were set in and the stare he fixed on her gave them the effect of belonging to a particularly hungry wolf observing a deer.

  “Thank you.”

  They continued to move along the floor in silence for several long moments, during which Victor’s strong grip on Vanessa and the stiff movements of his feet made it clear that he was in control. At length, he spoke again.

  “I’d hoped you would learn to be more civil. I know several girls here who would gladly trade you places, and I may have to let them.”

  Vanessa bit the inside of her cheek. She had a mind to tell him how very willing she would be to trade him away to any of them in an instant, but she didn’t think making a scene in front of so many people was practical.

  “Pardon me, Victor; would you mind terribly if I cut in?”

  With an excuse to completely remove her focus from Victor at last, Vanessa looked up with wide eyes to meet the pale grey gaze of Julian Bellamy. She smiled at the sight of him and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Julian was blond and roughly six feet tall, pale and well-dressed with a confidence in his posture suggesting that he wasn’t the least bit frightened of Victor.

  “Master Bellamy.” Victor inclined his head to Julian, the shadow of a sneer set on his lips. He brought Vanessa’s hand to his mouth to kiss it before stepping back from her and slipping off into the crowd.

  Julian took Vanessa’s hand and her waist. His touch was vastly softer than that of Victor. Julian smiled at her, and the warmth in the expression was infectious.

  “I thought you might need to be rescued,” he said, giving her hand a small squeeze.

  “Definitely. Thank you.” Vanessa smiled. “I can only endure so much of him.”

  Victor was a cold man. He’d shown often that he cared little more for Vanessa than he would for an expensive coat to be draped over his arm to earn the envy of polite company and thrown aside at the first opportunity. Still, Vanessa’s mother was far more concerned with deciding exactly how their bloodline would continue than how much Vanessa hated the man she was supposed to marry.

  “Well, you don’t necessarily have to,” said Julian, squeezing Vanessa’s hand playfully. As one of her closest friends, he was acutely aware of how opposed she was to being forced into a loveless relationship by her parents for “the preservation of their bloodline’s purity,” and he’d told her many times that he was equally opposed to watching her suffer through it.

  “I’m waiting for a way out, Julian. This won’t last forever.” Vanessa attempted to smile, though she knew he would see straight through her attempt. Just as she’d expected, he nodded sagely as he lifted his arm to spin her under it.

  “I agree, it won’t. You don’t think I’d let you suffer like that, do you?”

  As the music lilted to a close, Julian lifted Vanessa’s hand to his lips, and though it was mere custom, her cheeks burned at the kiss.

  “Go find him. Tell him not to wait up. We’ll find somewhere more fun to be.”

  *

  “I’m very disappointed in you.”

  “I know, Mother.” Vanessa focused on a particularly engrossing golden thread in her comforter and picked at it.

  “You abandoned a party that I took the care to set up specifically for you to run about with your friends to the-gods-know-where. Have you any idea how poorly that reflects on your father and me? Listen to me, young lady.” Honoria had reached the foot of Vanessa’s bed, and she gripped the footboard so tightly that Vanessa examined it to make sure it wasn’t breaking. “You still haven’t learnt, have you? You are the daughter of one of the most prestigious vampiric lines, and our society has rules. You can accept them or you can continue to behave like this, but if you choose the second option, I guarantee you won’t like what we’ll be forced to do. I’m already planning to speak with your father about setting a date for your wedding.”

  Vanessa’s throat went dry. “What?”

  “Perhaps,” said Honoria with a shrug, “we’ll be able to convince the rest of the Born that your odd behavior was related to happy nerves about marrying Victor.”

  “Oh, of course,” Vanessa snapped.

  “Don’t you understand?” Honoria pressed. “Victor’s family is respected, like ours. You would be provided for and never want for anything. Your future would be secure, which is a lot more than most girls your age have going for them. Especially with the war that’s building—don’t you understand, Vanessa? I want to make sure you’re protected. You’ll already be building a life by the time most of these idiots decide which side they’re on.”

  Vanessa stared at her mother, open-mouthed. She didn’t know which repulsed her more: Honoria’s ideas or the fact that she seemed to genuinely believe they were the best option.

  “You think I’ll be protected?” asked Vanessa quietly. “Have you met Victor, Mother? He doesn’t even respect me, let alone want to protect me. I’m sure he’d rather just let me die, if it would advance his standing with Lysander in the resistance.”

  Honoria shook her head sadly. “You’re being too harsh.”

  “I’m being too harsh?”

  “You’re making unfounded judgments,” said Honoria, her voice growing in volume as Vanessa opened her mouth to protest. “He is from a good family, and he won’t waste the chance to marry someone with your breeding by letting anything happen to you.”

  Tears biting at the backs of her eyes, Vanessa looked away, unable to stomach paying attention to her mother any longer. If that’s all I’m worth, she thought bitterly, I don’t know why you’re even bothering to send me to school.

  “Don’t mess this up,” said Honoria, releasing the footboard to walk back toward the door. “It’s what’s best for you.” Vanessa heard the door opening, but she stared pointedly at her pillows. “I love you,” said her mother, but the words sounded wrong. Vanessa wasn’t sure Honoria knew what they really meant. Or maybe she herself had been wrong about what love was, when she imagined it.

  Lying down again across the foot of her bed, Vanessa stared at the canopy and ceiling above her as a small series of knocking noises drifted in from outside. She slid off her bed, pulling her robe off the back of her desk chair on her way to the sliding glass doors set into the east wall. She slipped the robe on quickly and opened the door to step out onto the balcony.

  “Julian!”

  He stood on the ground a floor below her, a handful of rocks dropping to the ground when he released them. Julian smiled, and despite her mood, Vanessa couldn’t help returning the expression.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed down to him, trying to avoid speaking loudly enough to attract the attention of her mother.

  Julian stepped closer across the grass, moving in until he was almost directly beneath the balcony. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He lifted a hand to run through his blond hair, and for a moment, it looked as though he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t.

  “I want to go back to school,” said Vanessa, resting her elbows on the railing and looking down at him as her smile grew a bit sad.

  “You do?” Julian laughed quietly. “What’s she threatening to do, sell you off?”

  For a moment, they only looked at one another in silence, and then Julian scowled
.

  “She isn’t.”

  “No, but close. She wants to marry me off to Victor so I’ll have a ‘secure future’ and be ‘provided for,’ and of course it doesn’t matter what I want. It was all I could do not to vomit.”

  Julian shook his head stiffly. “That’s not going to happen.”

  Vanessa wanted deeply to believe him. She hoped Honoria wouldn’t be able to enforce this, but she wasn’t entirely sure she knew how to get out of it.

  “I hope not,” she said with a small shrug.

  “Trust me. It won’t. For now, you don’t need to think about it. Until we go back, I’m making it my mission to keep your focus on other things.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Like what?”

  “I’ll think of something. Just stay positive, if possible, and I’ll come back for you.”

  Vanessa nodded, smiling down at him. “Okay. Thank you, Julian.”

  “Now, I’m going to get out of here before your mother murders me.” He grinned. “I’ll see you soon.” He backed into the shadow of the trees.

  *

  Vanessa knew something was severely wrong.

  Victor had sworn they would find humans here, but the farther he led her into the forest and away from the paths, the more certain she became that her suspicions had been correct from the start. Victor had never actually intended to hunt, or if he had, it had been a secondary goal.

  He’d dropped all pretenses of politeness the instant they’d left her parents’ line of sight, and they’d made the trip in silence while Vanessa had pictured Julian standing beneath her balcony and wishing she could be beside him instead.

  Her fists clenched, Vanessa contemplated her options. If she decided to leave, to make her way home alone, what repercussions would she face? At this point, being forbidden from leaving the house would almost be a blessing. Then, at least, she could avoid situations like this.

  “Where are we going?” she asked flatly.

  Victor watched her closely, his hazel eyes clouded with an emotion she couldn’t identify. Dusk cast heavy shadows across his face.

  He reached toward her as though he meant to grab her hand, but his own continued past it to loop around her body and rest on her waist, pulling her toward him. Her heart pounded aggressively in her ears, and she kept her feet planted, refusing to be moved. She attempted to take a step away, but his grip tightened on her waist. His other hand reached for her wrist and gripped it tightly, and he leaned down, his face moving toward hers.

  Several courses of action charged through Vanessa’s mind at once, and she had no time to decide which to take before Victor’s lips met her own. His kiss was forceful—too hard and insistent—and his hands held her in place. She lifted her free hand to grip his shirt and attempt to push him backward. A twig snapped nearby, and at that moment, a scent hit her nose.

  Blood. Not vampire.

  She pulled her mouth back, gasping for breath.

  “Victor, listen! Someone’s—someone’s here!”

  “How very convenient,” he said flatly, the hand at her waist pulling her against him. His other hand gripped the back of her head and pulled her mouth to his again. She struggled against his grip and pushed hard at his chest. An irritated noise rumbling in his throat, Victor drove her backward until she felt the rough trunk of a tree pressed to her back. The rip of material sliced through the air, and she knew her dress had snagged on the tree. Victor’s hand squeezed Vanessa’s waist and began to run slowly up her side and back down. She shuddered as his hand came to rest on her hip and gripped it tightly.

  Her thoughts blurred with conflicted escape ideas and the need to get out of here now, get away from him, Vanessa raked the nails of her free hand across Victor’s stomach. He let out a hiss of pain against her lips, but he did not release her. Instead, he slammed the hand he held against the bark of the tree as he pinned it next to her head. She closed her eyes, refusing to acknowledge the pain of her skin tearing.

  She bit down hard on his lip, tasting blood as he pulled his mouth back at last. He released her hip to wipe the blood away, and she spat what had remained on her tongue onto his face, thanking the gods that the Born weren’t drawn to one another’s blood. Before she could move, Victor struck her hard across the face. The impact slammed the back of Vanessa’s head into the tree, and she doubled over, her vision swimming with white spots.

  “Don’t you get it?” Victor demanded, his grip tightening on Vanessa’s wrist as he twisted her arm. “You’re mine!”

  “Like hell!” Vanessa tasted blood again, and she was fairly certain that at least some of it was her own. Victor and the forest still hadn’t settled into coherent shapes after the blow to her head, and she believed she’d bitten the inside of her mouth at the impact from his hand.

  Rustling in the trees behind Victor reached Vanessa’s ears, and she looked past him, searching despite her unstable vision. Whatever was approaching didn’t smell human.

  “Victor—”

  “Shut up!” He dragged her to her feet with his hold on her wrist, and he’d opened his mouth to shout again when a sharp thud coincided with what sounded like the piercing of flesh. It was difficult for her to tell, but Vanessa believed she saw Victor’s face contort in pain.

  “Vampires! Here!”

  If Vanessa feared one thing more than she feared Victor at that moment, it was hunters.

  Victor released his hold on her and turned toward the voices. As her vision began to settle back into its normal state, Vanessa watched him reach around to pull a knife from his back and fling it at someone she couldn’t see clearly from her position.

  She glanced from Victor—whose attention was diverted from her, for now—to the dark shapes hiding in the trees beyond him. As horrible as it was, she didn’t care who won this fight.

  Glancing down at her skirt as she grabbed it, Vanessa realized that it was torn in several places from snagging on the bark. She refused to look back as she ran as quickly as she could from Victor and from the hunters. Her head ached and her vision was still unsteady, but she reminded herself that her people healed quickly.

  Flying through the trees at a speed only one of her kind could attain, Vanessa shut out the cries from behind her. Her muscles screamed as she broke through the trees and caught sight of the highway. The aching in her head threatened to consume her, and her body trembled from head to foot.

  Breathe. Everything is fine. You’re going to be fine.

  She fought to keep her mind blank, but every few seconds, she found her thoughts returning to Victor. The cold, abrasive way he’d kissed her. The tightness of his grip on her wrist. The sickened feeling that still filled her when she felt the ghost of his hand on her hip.

  “Don’t you understand? You’re mine!”

  As his words rang through her mind, she realized she hated them more than what he’d done to her.

  *

  The sound of a knock on the door arrested Vanessa’s attention, but she didn’t bother to look toward it. She was certain it was her cousin returning to try to berate her into discussing what had happened in the forest, and she was in no mood to hear a lecture on how she should’ve known better than to be alone with Victor.

  “Go away, Liz. Not now.”

  When she heard the doorknob turn, she looked up at last, and her heart leapt into her throat.

  “I’m not Liz.”

  On the threshold, just visible past the crack in the door, stood Julian.

  Vanessa sat up, lifting her head from her pillow and pulling strands of hair free from where her tears glued them to her cheeks.

  Julian pushed open the door slowly, his expression hesitant. “Can I come in? I had to sneak past your mother, and I doubt she’d approve.”

  “Of course,” said Vanessa quickly. She pushed herself to the edge of her bed and watched him as he entered, and she saw the instant he registered what had happened to her. His face fell, and worry filled his eyes.

  I should’ve changed clothes.


  Trying to ignore the rips in her skirt and the ache of the bruise dominating most of her right cheek, she drew herself upward a bit taller.

  “Vanessa…”

  Julian’s breath hitched on her name, and he shook his head as he closed the door behind him. He moved quickly to her side, crouching in front of her and inspecting her injuries.

  She followed his gaze over the bruises forming the outline of fingers on her wrist and the scrape on the back of her hand, the blood she hadn’t entirely managed to wash away from her skin.

  “Who did this to you?” asked Julian carefully as he met her eyes, his concern close to masking the deadliness directed at the person responsible.

  “Julian.” Vanessa shook her head, reaching out to take his hand in both of her own. “It doesn’t matter. It just matters that you’re here, now. Come here?” She pulled back one of her hands and patted the spot next to her, and he rose to take it, squeezing her uninjured hand gently.

  “Nessa, it’s important. Someone needs to pay for this.”

  He reached for her hair, which she knew must be bloody from the moment her head had hit the tree. She kept her eyes on his, and when she saw his hand pause on its path just beside her ear, she gave him the smallest of encouraging smiles. He slipped his fingers into her hair and trailed them through it gently before leaning closer and examining her head. After a moment, he skimmed his fingers through the remaining length of her hair and retracted his hand.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  “No,” said Vanessa, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine you hurting me.” She frowned. “You aren’t like… well. It doesn’t matter. I guess I should probably change out of this ruined thing, shouldn’t I?” She nodded toward her legs and the ripped skirt that scarcely covered them.

  “Probably,” Julian conceded with a small sigh. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No.” Vanessa’s cheeks burned. She squeezed his hand. “I mean, I’ll change in the bathroom, and you can stay here. Please, don’t go.”

  “Of course not. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” Julian kissed her hand softly, and she smiled.