Chapter 37: Danny POV
My left hand itched as I walked down the hall with the young Master. He was talking about the Holiday and how he wanted to go to the coast with his father the next week.
"It was so beautiful, wasn't it Mister Hyde?"
"Yes, very," I replied. I brushed my hand against my pant leg and frowned as it did not satisfy.
"Father said I could come to look over the new factory," he continued. "He said he is bringing back an old toy that they used to make when he was younger." He wrinkled his nose, creasing his face, making it unattractive.
"Don't do that," I scolded. He turned and looked up at me, smoothing his face again.
"Sorry, sir," he said, and we continued to walk toward the stairs. He fell silent as we walked down the stairs, meeting the Earl and Sebastian at the landing. "Father," the young Master said, smiling. "What was the toy you were making again?"
The Earl placed a hand on his son's shoulder and looked at him, making me feel agitated in the intimacy that the two shared. "The Rabbit - the Phantom Rabbit," he said. "A lovely stuffed animal that your mother may have still."
I felt Sebastian's hand grip my right arm and pull. I didn't even realize I was baring my teeth at the Earl as he spoke until he pushed me to stand in front of him and he licked his lips, making me do the same. I quickly closed my mouth and looked back at the father and son, continuing to talk.
"Why are you looking eager to Feed?" Sebastian asked in a mere whisper only for me to hear. "Shall I cook you a feast tonight?" he added with a small laugh.
"Sebastian, I'm going to show Vincent something in the Gallery," the Earl said. I glanced over and saw there was a touch of mistrust as he looked pointedly at me. "Please, deal with the… incident?"
Sebastian, ever smooth and elegant, turned and bowed. "Certainly, my Lord. I shall find you when I am finished?"
The Earl looked at Sebastian and nodded. "Yes, that will be fine. Don't forget we have to be in town by 7 for the meeting."
"It's on my schedule, my Lord. I will hold that in mind as I deal with the incident."
The Earl placed a hand on the young Master's back and guided him down the stairs. I winced and rubbed my hand against my side, trying to subdue the pain.
"Let me see," Sebastian said softly, grabbing my arm and gently grasping my wrist. He turned my hand so the back was facing him. "Oh, well I had not expected this," he muttered. He looked from the rash that was burning from my arm down to the back of my hand, and met my eyes. "You truly do have the powers of a Made Demon."
"It itches," I said, moving my right hand towards it. Sebastian gently pushed the hand away and covered the rash with his gloved hand instead.
"My room is safest for this," he said, and he moved me to the second floor, and we walked to a matching hidden door as below, and walked up the servant's stairs.
"Honestly I am fine, it's just something that bit me," I said. He held my arm firmly and walked up the stairs, not looking back. I tugged and he tugged harder, almost dragging me now as we reached the top and walked down the hall to his bedroom. "Unhand me! I just need to bandage it!"
"If you do nothing, Daniella, you will find your skin gone, burned away, painfully, by the very same power you are holding inside you. How long has it been like this," he asked sitting me on his bed and removed his gloves.
I looked at him and then at my hand. "A few hours?"
"And how long has it been since you could look at the young Master and not Hunger for his Soul?"
I got up and spun around as he tried to reach for me. "How dare you try to make it about the young Master! How dare you look at him! You have his father - is that not enough?!"
Sebastian pinned me to the bed, and I bucked under him, trying to plant my knees into him. He moved his legs to hold me still and snarled into my face. I hissed back, my hand itching more, and I looked at it; I had heated blisters slowly rising on the back of it. I looked back at Sebastian and gasped in pain.
"How long?"
"Since we came back from Holiday," I gasped as the itching became seering pain. "Oh! It hurts! It's painful to look at him… he smells so wonderful. Sunshine! He smells like sunshine to me," I growled. I licked my lips and breathed into his face, panting to sink my teeth into the flesh that was presented to me, the delicious flesh of the Demon who I had vowed to take as mine. Delicious, dripping, saturating my lips.
"Daniella!" Sebastian spat as he shook me. "Let me take you to a place where we can slate that fire in your eyes."
"Please," I hissed. "Just a nip? Just a lick?"
He put his hands on my wrists and held me still. He inched closer and my darting tongue licked at his lips. They parted and I breathed deeper, ready to take anything I could get. I arched my back as he lowered himself still more.
"No."
Fire in my throat burned as he raced me across the sky, much as he had done when we were on Holiday, to our secret cove we had dined on the cravings of the flesh in a different way. He landed in the nearby village and we stole into a house. I heard an old man shuffling beyond the room we stood in. His breathing was labored and he bumped into something, sending him to tip forward, and catch himself before he too was on the floor beside his smashed item.
Sebastian put me down and placed a finger over my lips as I began to speak.
"You are once more changing into the most exquisite Demon even I have never seen in all my years. Born once more into a new aspect of your new life - a Mark," he whispered into my ear, as he turned me and now I was facing the slightly opened door. "You hunger for a Soul. You can Mark the Human, make a Contract with them, as my Master and I have, or you can simply satisfy that Hunger." He swept his hand into my hair and pulled at my tie, letting it drop. "You don't need to change into anything special to take a Soul that has not long to continue. Listen, he is laboring with each breath. Taking his Soul is a mercy, snatching it up from even the Reaper's grasp is preferable than to let it linger in that Shell."
His voice was like dripping honey, and my lips were parting as he spoke, ready to receive the Soul I was now smelling. Intoxicating, and dragging me closer to it, even as Sebastian whispered, and we moved closer. We stood in the crack of the door and the old man's eyes opened in long blinks, his Soul shining as they opened. So bright. So inviting. I was walking across the room before I knew it. I was leaning down into the man's face in an instant. I grasped his face and drowned in the shock that zipped through his last look. There was a moment as I pulled back, my teeth ready, I felt the Hunger heighten and ebb, but the moment passed and I sank my teeth, my claws, into the tender flesh of his neck and ripped into his chest, scratching as the blood flowed, covering my arms, seeping into my white shirt, soaking down into my skin.
I stumbled back as the power of the Soul shook me to my knees and I licked my lips, brought my hands to my face, and, like a hungry dog, I licked them. Clean and without thought. I sat back and found myself leaning into a hard body that kneeled behind me.
"Your Mark, my Lady, watch as it rises," Sebastian whispered as he grasped my left hand and swept his bare hands over my once boiling skin. "My, my, it is lovely."
I looked down and there was a circle forming, from the bottom, slicing through my flesh, leaving blacked lines as it finished. A slow form of a star, like Sebastian's own, inside the thick circle, was hollow, more delicately lined, came from under my skin and vines began to weave in and out, these lines were light and also delicate, and ended in a small knot in the center.
I turned my eyes back up to Sebastian and he brought my now cooled hand up and kissed the newly blackened imprint sliding his bright eyes towards me and smiling wickedly.
"The beautiful Mark for a beautiful woman. Are you still dripping with Hunger?"
I gave the barest of nods and he grabbed my hand, and we flew to the next house, and the next house, and the next, stopping as I fell into the chair beside my last Soul, my Hunger satisfied for the moment. Sebastian's feathery kisses brought me back to my senses slowly. I looked up at him and he smiled, his own desire sated.
"I have to get back to the Manor," he whispered."Are you quite ready to return, Tutor?"
Sliding my arms up his I stood and looked down at him as he stayed on his knees. "Are you quite ready to bring me back and tell your Master that he has a Demon who craves his son's Soul?"
He rose and cupped my face and smiled. Bringing my left hand to his mouth again he kissed my hand, delicately as if I were a Queen. "I think we should stop by and get some lovely gloves now that you are Marked. Although lovely, I do believe it would be distracting to all."
"Mmm, so practical," I sighed and placed my head on his shoulder. "It's almost 6:15, and the Earl said you had to be in town by 7."
"Now who is so practical?" And he picked me up in his arms, and we were back in the Manor as the clock was striking 6:17.