Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

35

35

When Eleanor sees my ashen face she stands up and walks towards me, arms open, and for the first time, I walk into them.

“What is it?” She whispers as she draws me to her sumptuous sofa before the fire.

I don’t know where to start. Should I tell her that I’ve been to the kitchens and met Asumpta? Or that I begin to fear Falcon is going to do something awful to any future child of ours, after he just intimated it won’t be raised under his roof?

And then there’s the issue of the templates.

Either way, boy or girl, any child of mine is going to end badly.

Unless I get out of here.

I brush the hair from my eyes and think about where to begin as she pours us both a cup of tea.

As usual, she looks immaculate and I look like something Giselle would say the dog had dragged in.

“This is starting to become a habit,” I sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You know I love our little drinks and conversations.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” she smiles gently. “Angie, I’ve been right where you are. I know it’s none of my business, your marriage…”

“Yes it is,” I shake my head. “I want to talk about it with you, but I thought you didn’t want to know. You seem so, so…”

“So...? Am I unapproachable? I pray I’m not.”

“No, I meant you’re so together. And royal,” I add in a small voice.

“I wasn’t always,” she shakes her head. “But Angelina, whatever the issue is there’s still hope for you, for Falcon.”

‘No, there fucking isn’t.’

I sip my tea and wait until my tremoring subsides before broaching the subject of Falcon’s sister and her ‘template’ information.

“I’ve been talking to someone,” I start, nodding as she hands me a biscuit. Uncharacteristically, I set it aside on my saucer, too nervous to contemplate sweets.

“Oh? Who have you met?”

“Asumpta.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me, Eleanor, why did Falcon’s father allow you to save her and her sister? Falcon told me all vampire bastards are killed at birth.”

“It was an aberration,” she shrugs, her eyes not meeting mine.

“An aberration?”

She clears her throat and puts on an innocent expression, but tonight I have no patience for niceties, manners, or skirting around important words with innuendo and artifice. Tonight, I don’t give a damn.

“Eleanor, was Falcon your first child?”

Her teacup rattles against the plate like an earthquake has just hit, and she carefully places it down on the coffee table in front of us before looking up at me, her eyes full of pain.

“What do you really want to know, Angelina?”

“I want to know if Falcon had an older sister.”

“He had an older sister, yes,” she sighs, closing her eyes momentarily before opening them again and meeting mine. I get the sense she wants to tell me, but she needs me to ask. That whatever secret she holds is too old, too hard to give up without a fight.

“Was she taken for use as a template?”

“She was,” she whispers. “Asumpta should never have discussed this with you.”

I stare at her. I’d guessed as much, but hoped I was wrong. To have this woman, the only friendly face in this vast, stark castle full of ruthless vampires and indifferent staff admit such a thing is almost more than I can bear.

“And is she…?”

“She’s lost to us,” she murmurs. “And, no, the boys don’t know. The secret of the templates is kept by the mothers and fathers; although the pain is only borne by one of us. A secret and a pain you don’t need to know if you never birth a girl.”

“I trusted you,” I whisper. “How could you?”

“How could I?” she moans. “What choice did I have, Angelina? I bore the bite. I was held in thrall by the most vile, evil creature you can imagine. No words or actions were my own, only my thoughts — and oh, how those thoughts tortured me. Thoughts of escape, of hiding, of murder, of destruction. But that’s all they could ever be, just thoughts. You don’t understand because Falcon hasn’t bitten you.”

I gasp.

“You knew that?”

She avoids my eyes.

“Was there nothing you could do for your child?” I whisper. “At all?”

“Oh, there was something,” she laughs harshly, rising and walking to the window to stare out as she speaks. “I could ensure I never bore another.”

I wait interminable minutes for her to go on.

“You see, the only time we’re free from hupotasso is during our pregnancy. The ONLY time. After my daughter was taken from me I vowed I would never bear another child for the bastard who held me here. But in order to fulfil that oath I needed to get pregnant one more time…”

“I don’t understand…”

“I didn’t know about the templates when I gave birth to my beautiful girl,” she goes on as though she hadn’t heard me. “She was three when my husband ripped her from my arms. It was much, much later, when I learned why. But in between time, I lost my mind. I screamed and ranted and pulled my hair out and attacked anyone who crossed my path. When that didn’t work, I tried to kill myself. My husband, in his infinite wisdom, decided the only thing to do was render me catatonic. Over the following year I only saw him on the evenings he came to rape me.”

I gasp, but she goes on.

“Naturally, I became pregnant, and his grip upon my mind was gone once more. He kept me prisoner still, but I was smarter then. I played sane. I played nice. When I heard that one of his mistresses had birthed twin daughters I begged him to let me keep them to assuage the pain of losing my own daughter. I told him I’d stop being crazy if I could keep them. That I’d happily bear him his heir, and more. He agreed. I don’t know why — it was the only kind thing he’d ever done for me. He let me keep them, although he insisted they stay in the kitchens and be treated as staff.”

“So…” I frown.

Once more she goes on before I can formulate my question.

“On the surface I pretended to be content. But underneath I planned, and I schemed,” she whispers. “And on the night Falcon was due to be born, just as he began to exit the birth canal, I used a knife I had concealed under my pillow to stab myself multiple times in the stomach, chest and heart. Stab, stab, stab,” she murmurs.

“Oh god, Eleanor.”

I walk to the window to stand beside her, my eyes flicking down to my wrist. Hadn’t I’d briefly considered exactly the same escape route?

“The bite offers immortality, immunity to disease and ageing, but we human wives can still die through accident or misadventure. As you can see,” she goes on, her voice flat. “I didn’t die, unfortunately. But all was not lost, for what I did do was ensure I could never carry another child.”

“But…Viper?”

“Is the son of my former husband’s mistress, who also happened to be my daytime companion,” she shrugs. “I didn’t care that they slept together. I loathed her, of course, just as you’d loathed Caroline. But every night he spent with her was one less I had to be with him. I never told anyone about Viper while my husband was alive because my tongue was tied. I never knew why he kept this bastard and dispensed with all the rest. He didn’t say. And after his death I decided it didn’t matter. Falcon was the heir and the most perfect little boy anyone could wish for. He loves Viper for some reason. I never told him they were only half-brothers. It makes no difference. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She turns to me and meets my eye.

“You know what I think about Viper,” I scowl, “but you have my word. I won’t reveal what you’ve told me.”

“Thank you, I knew I could rely on you, Angie.”

“No,” I shake my head. “You can’t. Not if this future awaits me and any daughter I might have. Why do you even bother telling me to have patience, to let your vampire son grow to love me? Why convince me that deep down he does love me when everything he says and does shows the opposite? Why promote any of this? Love or no love, why the fuck would I want to stay married to someone who’s going to take my daughter and allow her to be used as nothing more than a flesh coat?

“Why? Because I love my son. I want what’s best for him. I want him to reach his potential to be a good man. With a good woman by his side, a kind woman, one with values who could show him how to love I knew he’d eventually have a reason to stop all these terrible rituals. That’s why I went to all this trouble to find you .”

She stops suddenly and clamps her lips shut.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just meant why he went through all the trials of The Games, why you both did.”

“No,” I shake my head. “That’s not what you meant at all.”

I say nothing as she closes her eyes and buries her face in her hands.

My knees feel weak.

“Eleanor? Tell me you weren’t the one who rigged The Games and got me in? Please. Tell me you’re not the reason he hates me?”

“Oh, Angelina.”

“No! You knew! You knew all along why my marriage wasn’t working. You didn’t need to ask me because you knew. All this time.”

“My dear, I’m so sorry. It wasn’t meant to turn out this way. He was never meant to find out. You know what he’s like. So hard-headed, so independent. He had to think his choice was his alone. And I had to hope he’d make the right one — which he did. You were going to win, just as you did, by winning his heart. But that Spider…. I don’t know how it happened; suddenly there were questions being raised, suspicions being acted upon. It all began to spiral out of control. All I could do was hold fast to the knowledge that if he followed his heart, he would follow you.”

“Yes, like a fucking murderous beast follows its prey!” I shout. “Your son thinks he was betrayed by me! He HATES ME. And he’s going to KILL ME!”

I pull her hands from her face and shake her roughly by the shoulders as she moans. But even this act of violence, despite her betrayal, seems wrong against a woman who’s suffered so much at the hands of Dragonspurs already.

I’m better than that. Better than all of them.

I walk to the window and press my forehead to the glass as I groan aloud my thoughts.

“Before this, before all the violence and abuse and threats, I could see there was goodness in him. I had hope he would learn to love, to trust. I could see what you say is inside him. But not now. Instead of securing his happiness you’ve made him believe all human women are duplicitous monsters. Instead of having him stop your arcane bloodthirsty rituals, he’ll be the first to champion them.”

I turn back to face her.

“Can’t you see you brOKE him!”

“No, no, no,” she whispers, her words coming out in a rush. “He’s not broken. He’s hurting. When he realises the truth, that Spider has no hold on you, he’ll return your love. But he can’t know it was me who found you. You’re right, he’ll never trust another human woman again if he finds out it was me. Please, give me some time to make it right, have patience.”

“I’m done,” I shake my head. “I’m done with him, I’m done with you. I’m done with all of this. I came here today because Falcon intimated that if I got pregnant he was going to kill the baby. Do you realise that? Is that something you knew too?”

“Of course not!”

She grasps my hands and I feel her whole body trembling through her fingers.

“Angelina, please, you can’t tell him about The Games. If he found out that I’d put you in there… he’s all I have, and he’s the future of our race. I know it, He’s the answer. Please, just give me a little more time. I promise you I’ll mend it all.”

I pull my hands roughly from hers.

It’s been months now. Months of abuse and confinement and feeling like I was the only one in the world who knew the truth. Yet all along, she’d known. She’d known, but let me suffer alone.

‘She’s as bad as him.’

“I won’t tell him. I have to believe you know how to fix what you’ve done, to fix him. You’re the only human woman left in the world whom he trusts. I’d never take that from him.”

My words hit home and she collapses onto the floor, whimpering: “What have I done? What have I done?”

I turn and leave.

I won’t reveal her secret, but she and I both know that unless she fixes things soon, keeping it will likely cost me my life.