Page 82 of Eternal Obsession

“How long have you waited for this? For me?”

“Catherine, where is she?” he pressed.

“Catherine lives with me, and she came willingly. She wanted to leave that dark, dreary convent that your brother chased her into. She is happy and just wants to be left alone. Now, take off your clothes. This conversation is getting tedious.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What? That you get to experience me?”

“I need to see her,” Alex said.

His shirt completely open, I reached for his zipper. Alex pushed my hand away.

“I have told you where she is. Now you are mine,” I said.

“Not so fast.”

“You dare to defy⁠—”

“Yes, I love you. But I love my brother more. Please go.”

I leaned against him again. “I like it that you have grown strong. You are like a fine wine, like the wine we used to drink together on those long cold nights. Remember?”

“You mean the wine you weren’t really drinking?” Alex turned his head.

“Okay, I’ll go.” I stepped back. “I think I owe you⁠—”

“An apology?”

“I wish to share with you my artful method of feeding. You see Catherine, when she first joined me, refused to drink from living creatures. Always has. From the moment I conceived her, she would only ever drink from me. After a couple of centuries, as you can imagine, it was becoming rather a drag. There is a solution. Now listen carefully. There is a place where blood is stored and tested. It is of the highest quality, refrigerated within laboratories in hospitals. Humans donate their blood willingly for other weak mortals. It is transfused into their body to prolong life. They actually call them blood banks, and I’m giving you the credit card, as it were. There are no guards. And they would never miss the occasional unit or so. Just think, Alex, you need never kill again. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look into it. Alex, over the next few weeks you’ll think of me. You will find you will be unable to resist coming to me, and you will seek me out. I will be in your every waking thought. You will become obsessed with seeing me. I’ll await you in my club in Belgravia called Belshazzar’s.

“Goodbye, don’t come here again.”

“Join us and enjoy the company of others like you. Then you shall know what true pleasure really is. Or perhaps you would rather spend another two hundred years alone in this dreary castle?”

“You knew I was alone. Knew I was suffering?”

“I made a promise to Sunaria, you know this.”

“I had no hand in her death.” He shook his head violently, as if trying to fling the thought from his mind. “You knew I was abandoned, enduring loneliness for centuries.”

“Your brother . . .”

“He was trying to save Catherine, from you.”

“All of that is over, Alex. The sweetness of revenge has been savored and its value diminished.”

“What, you think after all that you and I can be . . . friends?” He bit out.

“Would you prefer lovers?”

“Fuck off.”

“You know where I am. Come to me.”