I'm devastatingly embarrassed that it's taken me so long to update…But I really was super busy with all sorts of college app junk. Thanks so much to all for reading and for the delicious reviews last time around…Do read on…
Chapter 9: Marquéd
Myr.
Ruan couldn't remember a more magnificent creature…Tall, slim, sandy-haired and utterly perfect. Full, flawless lips that, when pulled back in a smile, curled so delicately at the corners. So very *sweet*.
Ruan leaned against a shadowed wall, long arms folded in front of him, at once oblivious and exquisitely aware of the dancers whirling, jerking before him. Deep, thunderous music pounded and shook the floor, the walls, the people, while Ruan instinctively observed the roiling crowd, locking vampires, shapeshifters, witches and even an occasional werewolf into permanent memory.
His mind was somewhere else, though, far away and dancing in decayed memories…
He recalled the day they met; wet, cold, dreary violet-grey. After a particularly intense psychological battle with his father over his prospects for the future, Ruan had quietly and deliberately left the townhouse, feeling colder inside than the raindrops hurtling down from above.
Julius Ferrin had wanted and planned for his son to join an elite Nightworld assassins' agency called Morteflame. Julius Ferrin did not approve of his son's obvious interest in literature—it would not, he declared, be congruous with Ruan's future career, and so, he reasoned, must be forgotten entirely.
The Ferrin family had always—for the past four hundred years—given one son or one daughter to Morteflame, a tradition honored not only by the Ferrins, but by virtually all high-ranking lamia families. Morteflame, Julius said, was central to the Nightworld—was a sort of an ivory tower amongst assassins' agencies. Morteflame ensured the safety of top tier shapeshifter, witch and especially lamia families. It was not simply custom; it was a deep obligation to the future of the Nightworld. So Julius said.
Ruan remembered the icy droplets of rainwater dripping from his hair and down his neck, through the collar of his dark, wool pea coat and down his spine as he walked swiftly down strange dark streets. Great, gnarled trees huddled, thick masses of foliage, on each side of every street amongst the swanky brownstones. He had walked with eyes keen and still unseeing, face carven in ice, mind blank, until he reached the huge city library.
He had dropped down into a plush sofa chair, seeking what—what? He had not been about to peruse the stacks, or study Dante's *Inferno*. So he supposed he had been seeking comfort; the solace Julius Ferrin had so systematically denied him all his nineteen years.
Thinking back, Ruan wondered what he had been *feeling*. He couldn't quite recall…it was like some kind of dream; like trying to recall a childhood reverie after the golden bloom of youth was faded and dry. Ruan knew he hadn't really *felt* anything quite so intense as that *feeling* he had experienced so long ago. Even as a disillusioned, pitiless, and thoroughly mercenary young man, he hadn't yet lost that emotional lodestone so intrinsic in youth. It was still buried, hovering spectre-like under the surface, making his nineteen-year-old self *feel* something concentrated and deep, however vague and distorted that something actually was.
Was it fury he had felt so intensely? Better yet, was it rage? Confusion or perhaps sadness? Maybe self-pity? Ruan thought maybe it was all of these things, to varying degrees.
And it was that dense, emotionally-packed moment as he sat slumped that proved to be the turning point of Ruan's life.
Because it was at that instant that a tall, glossy-haired, purple-eyed girl had brushed past him, causing him, in his unguarded state, to glance reflexively up and meet her cool, sparkling gaze. And it was in that instant that he had realized that he had found an equal.
Her name was Myr, she smelled like ginger and dried roses, and she was so, so *perfect*.
From then on, he had felt almost content, and certainly confident enough to refuse to go to Morteflame. When he again confronted Julius two days later, he refused to go to Morteflame, declaring also that he would soon marry Myr. Julius had been absolutely enraged. His father had disowned him utterly, even threatening to have him killed.
Ruan had smiled at this, even chuckled; could his father have possibly thought Ruan would care about the family fortune? That he would care about being disowned from a family—a father—who had rejected him since birth? Thinking back on this, Ruan could feel his lips quirk up in a smile.
But the smile froze suddenly and faded, leaving his face in its usual, impossibly cold impassivity. I didn't care at all, he thought. He knew that a "normal" young man would have felt some flash of anger, spark of confusion, some dull, aching hurt at his father's final rejection. It wasn't strange though, to Ruan, to have felt nothing bar mirth; Ruan had known he was…different…even as a child. The other lamia children had always stayed far away from him, sensing with childish intuition an emptiness in Ruan—that Ruan lacked some intangible element necessary not for physical life, but certainly for emotional and psychological normalcy. They also sensed that it was that emptiness that made him more dangerous.
Though he recognized that he was strange in the world's eyes, Ruan of course never felt odd, or alien. The emptiness people consciously and unconsciously saw in him and subsequently shied away from was invisible to Ruan; but he wasn't blind to it. It was there and he knew it. And he sincerely didn't give much of a fuck about it.
Or rather, he didn't care about what others thought about it, but he was still vaguely intrigued in how it affected people.
Early on in his childhood, he began to see and understand the hidden wall between him and the rest of the world (Nightworld included), and how it worked. And after a year or so of yearning to belong and consequent rejection, boy-Ruan began to utilize his singularity; his foreignness became his greatest weapon.
For the next ninety-odd years that followed, Ruan honed his weapon, using his strangeness to intimidate, confuse, blind, and ultimately conquer those around him. Especially during his years with the Marquéd he became quite the virtuoso at psychological torture.
Even when Myr came along, Ruan hardly paused in his development of his "weapon"—though he rarely used it on Myr. For all her impetuosity Myr was far too keen to be manipulated by a nineteen-year-old, however intelligent and coldblooded he might have been. On the contrary, if there was manipulation present in their relationship, it was on Myr's part entirely. Ruan vividly recalled the rare flashes of insight he had had into Myr's true character—a character that had proved to be even more calculating, cruel, and cold than Ruan's own. She had concealed herself so well that only someone as sharply aware of others as Ruan could have possibly glimpsed inside her elaborately crafted façade of a rash, emotionally naïve young woman.
And even Ruan never knew how old she was.
She had claimed to be newly-made, and nineteen years old, but Ruan was beyond positive she was much, much older. How old he could never quite say.
After being officially disowned by Julius Ferrin, Ruan moved in with Myr into a tiny garret-type tenement in the East Village as he continued his studies in literature at University. He planned to marry Myr in a couple months, simply to get it over with since he was sure he would find no one better than she. It was not love that prompted him to plan for marriage so soon, of course. He couldn't love. Not quite, at least. He could pretend very well, if he so chose—he usually didn't—but he could never quite feel the real thing.
He never got the chance.
Ruan never knew just why Myr left him so suddenly four months after being rejected by his father. One day she was there, and the next she was gone with no warning, threat or farewell. All Ruan knew was that a strange, perfect, utterly mysterious young woman who had seemed to like him enough to marry him had ruined his plans for the future in a single, well-aimed swoop.
Ruan shut his eyes, lips slightly curved. Even to the last, she had still managed to fool him.
* * *
"Jasper, you are a god amongst men!" Sri cried, as the object of her adoration settled into the sofa beside her.
"I thought you'd like it," he answered, clearly pleased with himself.
Perched on a gold-gleaming sofa chair across from them, Winn gazed furtively at the two from beneath her hair.
Sri glanced up and smiled. "As much as I abhor admitting it, Jasper is most certainly a thing of the gods today. Remember when I was telling you and Ruan about how I study—"
"Obsess," Jasper broke in flatly.
"Whatever. How I was telling you about my interest in powers? You know the kind…ranging from your standard Nightworld powers of old, both obscure and well-known, as well as the individual powers of werewolves, shifties, and especially vampirae—both lamia and made." Sri's cheeks were flushed with excitement, her dark eyes shining.
Winn nodded tentatively.
"Well, Jasper here went and found me a copy of an old manuscript about some long-forgotten lady-vamp who lived in Ireland centuries ago." She sighed. "Romantic, isn't it?"
Lady-vamp…Ireland…Winn automatically kept her face clear of recognition and upset, at the same time clenching her fingers into fists in her lap, the knuckles blanched a sickly white. She glanced over at Jasper and found him staring back at her, eyes glimmering and hooded. What does he know? she wondered, slightly panicked.
"Winn?"
Winn snapped her attention back to Sri.
"Are you all right, then, Winn?" Sri asked in a slightly worried tone.
"Oh—yes. Of course. I'm fine…but I was wondering something, Sri…" she murmured softly.
"Yes?"
"What is her name?"
"You mean the lady-vamp?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Wait—I know it…I think it's Emer—no. Elwyn? No…Oh. Of course. The name's 'Elmyr.' "
* * *
Winn hurried out of the club and into cool twilight. The sky was still flushed a deep, dusky rose, dark, rain-heavy clouds plashed across the crimson expanse. She slipped around the corner of the building, and, folding her arms tightly around herself, slumped against the rough, stuccoed wall.
Elmyr. Mara had told her that she was Elmyr…that Elmyr was she. Or more precisely, not that either of them quite embodied the other, but rather that they were both *marked*. Marked *how*? Winn wondered, frustrated. And why is this Elmyr so important all of a sudden? All my life I hear nary a whisper about anything like the woman and now I'm suddenly her—her whatever. She's been dead two thousand years!
She dug her short, ragged nails into the thick wool of her coat. And Jasper knows something…he must know something. I *know* he does. Or…is it paranoia? No, no, no. He was looking at me far too strangely—I didn't imagine it, I'm sure. What can he know about me and Elmyr? What connection does he see? His powers…his powers were of telepathy, influence, telekinesis…But perhaps he has another? That he doesn't wish to share with strangers? Maybe. She hugged herself tighter and braced herself more firmly against the wall. He gave the manuscript to Sri, so he must want her to figure something out, something he hasn't. Something to do with me? She sighed. All this wondering and I suppose I'll not know for sure until it hits me in the face.
One question lingered in her mind, separate from all the desperate conjectures; it dangled, shockingly clear and pristine, in her mind: Should I tell Ruan?
She didn't know, wasn't sure. Couldn't he help her, he with all his years and cold intelligence? Mightn't the pallid monster help her?
~~ He wants to mold you, chicklet, into something so soft and empty you'd be *gone* and he wouldn't have to worry about his connection to you—he wouldn't have to *see* you.~~
She shook her head slowly, the echo of Mara's quavering, weary voice throbbing unavoidably in her mind. He wouldn't help her. With a sudden flash of insight, she corrected herself, Or…he *can't* help me. He doesn't know how to *feel* as other people feel! He isn't—normal…
She shivered. How had she known that? Where had that come from?
I wish the world would just stop changing…
She licked her dry, cracked lips and drew in a shallow breath. I won't tell him. He'll just use it against me, I think. Right, Mara? He'll *mold* me, won't he? It's all he wants out of me.
With a toss of the head, Winn pushed away from the wall, feeling the coarse grain of the stucco bite into her palms, and walked slowly, aimlessly down the sidewalk. She wasn't quite sure where she was headed. All she knew was that her body needed to *move* and her mind needed to think.
Blind to the now-pitch-dark sky and deaf to the rumbling of the ponderous clouds above, Winn suddenly fell into a deep void rife with the half-remembered dreams and memories of her childhood.
She was born on December 21st, the winter equinox, in New York City, in a tiny flat in Brooklyn. She didn't remember much about the neighborhood, only that it was dark and dirty and frightening, or much about her high school, only that it was cold and sterile and unfriendly. She did remember her father, however, and her mother.
It was all so ugly she wished she could at least half-forget them, as she had near everything else. But she couldn't…not when her dreams were hot with the distinct tang of singed flesh and hair, and acrid with the intriguing, intermingled aromas of vomit and blood.
She remembered the cigarette butts pressed, sizzling, against the delicate skin bordering her hairline; she recalled, all too vividly, the hot, exquisite slice of cold knives against the skin, and the warm drip of tear-diluted blood on her sallow, hollowed cheeks.
Winn snapped back to the present, shuddering violently. This is why you don't think about it! This is why you hush the past, Winn, you stupid girl! Now hush, will you?
Winn stopped walking and sucked in a deep breath. She let it out slowly and began walking again, inching down the sidewalk. A fat drop of cold rain slapped against her forehead, but she ignored it and continued slowly down the rain-dotted cement. She heard a deafening clap of thunder and felt a sudden rush of rainwater come hurtling down from the sleeping heavens.
Minutes later, her hair was soaked and dripping, water-slick curls clinging to her throat and cheeks. Winn stopped walking, and glanced around at her surroundings—nothing was familiar. Where was she? Tall, unlit residential buildings towered over her on either side of the street, and ancient, gnarled oak trees raked the rain-soaked night sky. Winn widened her eyes, and felt her pupils dilate until her eyes felt like great, gaping black holes, sucking in as much light as she possibly could in order to see clearly.
She frowned. Even with her sharp night vision, everything remained unfamiliar, alien. She had officially mislaid her way. Grimacing, she took a step in the direction she had come.
*Crunch.*
Winn froze. That was a footstep. And it had come from behind her.
*Crunch.* And obviously the owner of the foot didn't care whether or not she knew he/she/it was there. Which meant it was dangerous.
*Crunch.*
Whirling sharply around, Winn bit deeply into her bottom lip, drawing blood. In response to the prospect of danger, her fangs had instinctively grown, along with her usually short nails, which were now long, pointed claws. "Who is it?" she asked loudly. "Who's there?" Her gaze could somehow not penetrate the deep, rain-slashed shadows ahead.
"Where are you?" she cried.
"Right here, partridge."
Stifling a gasp, Winn twisted around and gaped at Ruan's sardonically curved lips, wickedly glimmering eyes, only a couple feet away. She noticed his hair was sopping and almost black, his smooth, pale skin glistening in the faded moonlight. Facing him fully, she narrowed her eyes and asked in an audibly shaken voice, "Do you practice scaring people in the mirror too? Or was this some freakish reflection of your natural derangement?"
Ruan smiled wider at the tremble beneath the words. "I prefer the term 'misunderstood.' It's much more politically correct, don't you agree, partridge?"
"Certainly. But not so exact, I don't think."
"You really don't think much, do you? But never mind about that, partridge; I have a question for you: What are you doing out here at two o'clock in the morning?"
Blinking water out of her eyes, Winn stared back up at him, into his deep, indigo-colored eyes, trying not to appear afraid. "It's none of your business, Ruan."
Ruan's eyes iced over, and as his tight smile faded, he gazed at a point somewhere near her ear. "That's not for you to decide, Winnen-little. Remember that." He shifted his cold, almost weary gaze back to her eyes. "So, partridge, why are you out here so late?"
Winn understood the sudden chill that seemed to have engulfed him; he had tired of banter and if she didn't concede to his demand, he would be angry. Winn didn't want to give in to him, but she also didn't want to see him angry. Last time she had, she'd received a broken wrist for her pains. Winn directed her gaze away from his eyes and answered tersely, "I was out for a walk."
"Were you. How nice, partridge. Why were you out for a walk?"
"I needed to think."
"Don't we all? What about?"
She paused for an instant before answering; she could feel Ruan notice her hesitation and store it for further contemplation. "I needed to think about the past—my past." It wasn't exactly a lie...she had sort of fallen into a reverie on the subject.
She was startled by a sharp chuckle. Winn didn't think she had ever heard Ruan laugh and she wasn't sure she liked it; the sound was so metallic, and cold…how she imagined a dragon's laugh might sound. "Your past, Winnen Fallou? And what kind of past could a youngling like you have?"
Winn felt angry. Her cheeks flushed and a caustic heat began burning in her chest in spite of the icy water falling all around; the hotness in her eyes and heart and body loosened her tongue. "A newborn kitten has a past! Who are you, Ruan, with merely a hundred years, to mock what Fate has left burning in its wake?"
Ruan hand snapped out and his long fingers grasped her chin. She gasped softly at the skin-to-skin contact, the sudden flare of electricity, and was momentarily lost in sensation of having all her nerve endings go wild as he drew her face close, only inches away from his. She couldn't move her face at all; eyes wide, she stared at his gleaming, vividly cobalt irises. They glinted with something dark, something verging on chaos. "I wouldn't speak so rashly, were I you, Winnen-little."
But Winn wasn't finished; the hot anger still smoldered inside of her. Speaking behind clenched teeth, struggling to move her jaw in his unyielding grip, she replied angrily, "Wouldn't you, though? Were I *you* Ruan Ferrin, I wouldn't speak of things I know nothing about!"
Ruan dug his fingers deeper into the skin of her jaw, making shallow, crescent-shaped cuts with his elegant fingernails. His eyes flashed and he whispered, "And what do I know nothing about, Winn?"
Lightning-quick, Winn shoved her damp hair away from her forehead and cried, "This!" Feeling his hold on her loosen slightly, she jerked her head savagely out of his grasp. She knew what he saw: an almost artistic arrangement of burn and cut scars dotted along her hairline. The scars had faded when she was Born, but they were still very visible to vampire eyes. Without looking for a reaction, she yanked her coat sleeves up to her elbows and, holding out her arms so he could see the swirling pattern of burn scars dancing along the skin where the underside of the arm met the skin on top, cried, "And this!"
She bent down and pulled her pant-leg up to her knee and showed him the curving ring carved into the flesh just above her ankle by a ragged-edged knife. "Look at this, Ruan! And this! And th—"
Ruan clamped a long-fingered hand over her mouth. Winn met his gaze; his eyes were no more concerned than they had been moment before. They were a brilliant, gleaming azure, even in the murky, drenched night, and utterly cold. "You were mistaken, partridge. I know enough about such things." Winn's eyes widened—what was he talking about? "Did you expect sympathy, Winnen Fallou? Compassion? A pat on the back and an ice cream cone to make it all better?"
She pulled her face away from his hand, and, still staring up at his beautifully inhuman face, whispered almost to herself, "I don't think you're capable of compassion, Ruan Ferrin."
Ruan reached out and traced a forefinger along her hairline, across her scars. Winn shivered at the electricity-laced, whisper-light touch. Without looking away from his finger, Ruan murmured, "I think you're right, Winnen Fallou. Lately I've been wondering what it is that makes me—different…" He paused, watching his fingertip trail across the skin between her ear and cheekbone. "And I think you've summed it up very nicely…compassion…No, I suppose I'm not capable of it." His finger wandered across the pale skin of her cheekbone, down to where her jaw and earlobe met.
Winn held herself completely still, and whispered, "Why are you different, Ruan Ferrin?"
He watched his finger trace the line of her jaw, the curve of her chin, and the shape of her lips, then answered, "It remains…a mystery…even to me."
"Wh—"
He pressed his fingers over her mouth and said in a final tone, "No, Winn."
Winn felt him slide his thumb across her bottom lip and heard him say, "Why, Winn, it appears you're bleeding..." She saw him study his bloodied thumb and very deliberately wipe it clean on his sodden jeans.
She shrugged out of his grasp and turned away; she didn't catch the faint, almost triumphant smile that curved his lips.
Ruan stepped ahead of her and began walking away. He half-glanced over his shoulder, but not at Winn, and said, "Come, partridge."
After a second's hesitation, Winn hugged her drenched self tightly and followed.
* * *
The club was packed with glistening, writhing bodies. Ruan strode easily through the crowd, knowing Winn could hardly shove her way through. Without a look back, Ruan arrived at the circular niche rebel members had claimed as their own and leaned, arms crossed, against the brick wall on the far end. From there he could observe the roiling mass of people without being noticed.
"Hello, Ruan," the white-haired woman called Sri called to him.
Except, of course, by Sri and Jasper. He glanced over at her and Jasper and nodded.
Jasper smiled slightly and said, "Did you hear, Ruan, that Red's just recruited a new member?"
Sri nodded brightly, her cheeks flushed and eyes gleaming as though she'd just visited a library devoted to Nightworld manuscripts and added, "Actually, this one isn't just a member, and she wasn't exactly recruited. We've been expecting her—or at least Red has—for quite some time. Allegedly, she's some kind of vamp prodigy—though it's strange no one around here had even heard of her before today…Anyway, Red got her to agree to lead us…appears she's got something against those Marquéd bastards too. The tide'll soon be turning, I believe. Don't you agree, Jasper?"
Jasper nodded lazily, though Ruan thought he glimpsed something strangely bright in those turquoise eyes. "Sure. Why not?"
"Indeed," someone murmured from behind the sofa where Sri and Jasper sat.
Ruan's head jerked up, and his eyes widened—he knew that voice. How could he not? That voice—it belonged to—it was—
"There she is," Sri said, and smiled up at the figure.
"Hello, Ruan," the figure murmured.
Ruan stared, and murmured back, "Hello, Myr."
Thanks for reading, lovelies! Please review…I adore reviews even more than scary bunnies!
: ) Mogget
