The Vampire's Pet

The Vampire's Pet Chapter 5

5.

Ruby could tell he was agitated as they walked--more like stalked--back to the apartment. Movement boiled out of him like the clouds bore storms. He said nothing, and while he remained close, he made no move to touch or lead her.

She trailed after him, struggling like a puppy and hating herself for it.

When the apartment door slammed behind them he finally collapsed onto the couch so bonelessly it was like something inside him had deflated. "I despise this place with every cell in my being."

Ruby wasn't sure what to say. Her emotions spun around like a roulette wheel and landed on anger. "You promised me honesty. Who are you really? Why do you sit at the head table of the court?"

Jackson laughed. "Ah, my pet. I will give you honesty, but how can I be expected to explain to you every dark secret spun around me in the breadth of time we've had together?"

He looked at her with a wry smile and a gleam of boyish charm in his eyes. She wanted to growl at him. As if he sensed it, he laughed. "You are so refreshingly honest. Thank you, my pet, for trusting me with your true emotions. You are allowed to have opinions and I am very curious to hear what they are."

"You're playing some kind of game here. I don't know if I'm a piece on the board or just..." she waved her hands angrily, "...some obstacle on the players' path."

"I couldn't have said it better myself. Most days I'm not sure if I'm an actual player either." He sighed and all the fight went out of him.

"You're right to notice the place I'm assigned. The head table is reserved for the Ettington line. The king is my grandfather, vampirically speaking. Adrian is like my cousin." He waved his hand, like a falling bird, as he explained.

"We're told to attend a formal dinner, our presence is mandatory. And in the end it doesn't matter if the bastard himself even shows, as long as we attend like good little dogs.

"Do you know what happened the last time I didn't show up for a required formal dinner?"

She didn't, of course, but the question was rhetorical.

"The High Lord Ettington had me dragged out of my apartment, stripped, flogged until my back was bloody ribbons, then he forced me to attend the banquet as I was, with the added threat of having an extremity removed for every drop of blood I left on his precious furniture."

Ruby recoiled. Her tiny meal tried to climb back up her throat.

"The only thing the monsters enjoy more than tearing apart humans," he said softly, "is destroying each other."

They were mad, all of them. And he'd dragged her into it. She'd be better off dead.

"I hate you," she whispered. Tears burned in her eyes.

Jackson accepted her words with a nod. "Nearly as much as I hate myself, pet."

The tears broke free. Jackson stood and reached toward her. Ruby snarled and jumped back. Blindly she reached around for anything that she could use as a weapon. The only thing her hands found was a heavy glass pot frothing with a healthy pothos.

Jackson paused, watching her curiously. "Would it help you feel better to damage me, love? If it would soothe your rage to spill my blood I could be persuaded to give you that gift. One of us should feel solace at least.

"I'm nothing, if not a survivor. Pain would be what I deserve."

Ruby abandoned the pot. "Why do you keep making me pity you?"

He was a blur of movement, laying on the leather, looking defeated and resigned to his fate, then he was against her, his embrace iron and electricity. He ran a warm finger down her bare shoulder and his other arm sneaked around her waist. "You are free to feel many things about me, pet. Hate me, want me, fear me. But never, ever pity me," he whispered into her cheek.