Page 58 of Before We Burn

A servant came in, her eyes darting to me. I wasn’t physically in pain, but mentally I was destroyed. I wanted to cry—to scream—but I knew the council would have none of that if I abandoned my duties.

“What is it?” The man was frustrated. I couldn’t help but jump.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you, Mr. Hill, but there is someone downstairs screaming at the front door for any Saxon Hill. He says it's urgent.” She lowered her gaze but briefly glanced at me. She desired to kill him. So did I.

That’s when it hits me. I stand urgently, my chest rising and falling at a rapid pace. My hands shake as I bring them to my mouth, holding in the scream threatening to slip out. I pace back and forth, my mind going down the deep dark holes of seduction and lust. Non-consensual touches and the faint whimpers for help that escaped me. Pain is still pain, even when you’re a vampire. I tried to comfort myself, tried to tell myself it was just a memory, that it was no longer my life. But I couldn’t.

I’ve lived my life in enough ignorance to learn there truly is bliss in it.

Benny stands, rushing over to me to pull me into a tight hug. His chin rests on my head, my face pressed into his chest. Thick arms envelop me in a cage of comfort, and my eyes slowly drift closed. He caresses the back of my head tenderly, his voice low as he says, “You’re fine. You’re alright. I’m here.”

I could’ve stayed in his embrace forever and then some. But there won’t be a happy ending for me. I’m broken, the pieces of myself having been lost through the years, scattered across the north Pacific Ocean and all the lands in between.

After a few more selfish moments of comfort, I pull away from Benny and look at him. I don’t know what I expected to find, but I’m shocked to see a look of understanding on his face.

“Are you alright?” The question hits me like a ton of bricks. No one—besides Marz—has ever taken the time to ask me.

I take a step back and steel my resolve. I force all emotion from my voice as I prepare to tell Benny the most humiliating thing about me. I know he’ll look at me differently after this, but I need to tell someone. I want someone to understand why I’m so cold, so void of emotion.

“When I was young, over a thousand years ago, the Council of Five saw potential in me—in my abilities, I should say.”

I take another step backward, desperate for more distance. I’m so close to just running back into his arms for another moment of comfort.

“They had someone examine me—take me on a test run.” I pause, and his body stills at the insinuation. His lips part like he’s about to ask what the test run was for, but he quickly closes his mouth and his eyes turn dark, fully understanding what I mean.

“We were at it for hours,” I continue. “One man turned into four, then five—it became a blur. Once I was proven to be satisfactory, they sent me out. I brought out the best desires in people, until I decided to bring out their worst. That started with Saxon Hill—a family name passed down from generation to generation.”

Benny is quiet, his eyebrows pulled together in thought. He shakes his head. “That makes no sense. Why would vampires send you to some human's house? Especially the council?”

I smile. Benny was smart, but he was still oblivious. “Saxon was not an ordinary human. He was the next generation of Saxon Hill. The only reason you don’t see the connection is because you don’t know the names of the council. The oldest one—the one said to be soul-tied to the first vampire—is Saxon Hill. The boy they sent me to was his kin.”

Benny shakes his head in disbelief. “Vampires don’t keep their human memories. How would the Saxon-elder guy know that's his family?”

I shrug. “I was never able to figure it out until Nadiya was created. The witches granted her memories. I think vampires kept their human memories in the beginning, but the witches realized it was too dangerous and created a spell to remove them. I was able to figure out the men they were sending me to were their families because they were dumb enough to allow me to call them by their names. It drove me mad knowing that I was essentially a Council of Five prostitute to their human families to give them some sense of power. So, I decided I’d had enough.”

I was reliving the memory as I told it, a small smile beginning to grow on my face as the admission poured out of me.

“When Elder-Saxon allowed his human relative to own me, I decided I couldn’t allow it to go any further. The 1600’s was a different time, a different place. Women had to hold on to so much rage that their desires were never sexual, they were always so violent. I used that to my advantage. My torturer entered my bed chambers that night, ready to commit another heinous act to my body, when his wife stormed in. She begged him to stop it, begged him to think about her and their newborn son—who was named Saxon as well. He didn’t want to hear it, though, so he called the servant and demanded she be removed.

“She never left, though. I used her rage—her desire—to rid herself of her husband, and gave her the power through her desire to do just that. I stood there and watched as the wife mutilated her husband with a small statue I kept in my room. It was ironic, because the statue was a naked woman made of marble, weeping over the loss of her husband.” My smile widens as the massacre replays in my mind.

Blood traveled across the room, spraying me and the walls. The servant watched in horror, but her desire to do harm overcame her as well and she eventually joined in. You couldn’t even recognize Saxon’s face anymore—it looked more like squished raspberries than anything.

Once the wife finally finished, I remember releasing her from my hold and waiting for her to realize what she had done. She was covered in his blood from head to toe, her dress dragging heavily with each movement she made, and I waited for the madness to take her.

It never did, though. She looked at me with such fire I knew she was a monster. Just. Like. Me. I smiled at her before she left with the knowledge that she would always remember who I was.

Sometimes I wonder if she thought about me, if she ever killed anyone else. Her child obviously survived if Everett is a Hill. The thought of someone else taking my place to pleasure the kin of the council brought a knot of guilt. But I can’t think about that—can’t think about the people I couldn’t save because no one came to save me. I had to save myself.

“I went to the council after,” I say, as I snap out of the memory. “I looked them in the eyes and told them to free me or they would never be safe. Desires are fickle things, just enough distaste and a human could have enough power to kill a vampire with their own hands.” I raise my brow with a wink.

The council only saw my gifts for something surface level. They deemed since their desires were sexual, everyone else’s were, too. They labeled my power as Seduction, limiting me to only things of sexual nature. At least in their minds.

But my gifts are more. I feel their desires, their wants. I can morph them into actions. Controlling someone's body like Marz can do with their minds, but leaving them completely aware. They don’t even know it’s me.

Benny’s expression never changes, nor does his desire. It dwindled at certain times, but right now it’s screaming for me. I shift, uncomfortable in my own arousal as he takes a step toward me. There is something sexy about an understanding person. It’s intoxicating, really.

“So what does that mean?” he asks with a questioning tone. His eyes narrow in on me, and the pulse between my legs flutters.