“Acari Drew, you are like that palimpsest. Scraped clean of who you were. Altered, yes?”
I’ll say. But was that a bad thing? I couldn’t figure out where he was going, so I just nodded warily.
“We are reinventing you. Writing over the former you, as it were.” He touched me then. It was the merest contact, outlining my shoulder, down my arm, but I felt the impact like a cannon shot.
I clenched my teeth, my knees, my elbows at my sides. Anything to keep my mind in control of my body. Because I made no mistake—Alcántara was trying hard to seize that control.
“Yet you still bear traces of your former self. All the best Watchers do.”
He told me these things, and I was baffled, unsure whether there was a compliment or a reprimand in his words. But then his eyes raked my body, and again that naked feeling seized me, and I thought there might be something else in his words, too.
“Your body is the same—stronger, yes, but the same height.” He brought his hand to rest heavily on my shoulder, his other hand on my head.
I had the absurd—and frightening—urge to cry.
“You, like those old sheets of parchment, are still recognizable. Your hair is shorter perhaps—a regrettable consequence of the Challenge.” He sounded disappointed as he stroked his hand along my head. But rather than comfort me, the gesture made me feel like a pet whose pedigree he was considering. “And yet your hair still holds the same texture, the same brightness.”
Moving from my hair, he extended a finger and touched it over my heart, pressing gently into the soft flesh above my left breast. I held my breath, my world reduced only to his touch and the shrilling alarm bells in my head.
“The essence of your heart remains unchanged.…I hear it speak when you are with your peers, and yet its beat is steadier since the Eyja næturinnar. You have killed, and it has made you stronger.” He pressed more firmly, dragging his finger the barest fraction down my breast.
As if he might really touch me.
“Your father could not batter your heart from you. Nor could the other girls.” He retracted his hand, and though his eyes were narrowed, the slightest smile curved his lips. “Nor perhaps any vampire.”
The words sank into me, and I inhaled sharply, breathing again.
“Not just your heart remains unchanged,” he said, continuing his litany as though he hadn’t just been about to fondle me. “Your eyes are the same. The nose and brow. Your mouth…” He tsked, and leaning in for a closer look, said, “But I see we haven’t finished tending your wounds.”
“We haven’t?” My voice crackled high and tight.
He raised his hand to hover just over my split lip, then paused, asking, “May I?”
He wanted to touch me again. And I was supposed to stop him?
“Yes.” I cleared my throat of its warble. “You may.”
His thumb was cold as it swept beneath my lower lip. “Open your mouth, please.”
In my panic, I opened wide like at the dentist.
He chuckled, and the sound was pretty much the most terrifying thing ever. “Not that wide, querida. Simply part your lips.”
I did as I was told. And somehow, sitting before him with softly parted lips horrified me more than my jaw-crackingly wide-open mouth had. I’d wanted someone to kiss me, but not now, not like this. Not with Alcántara.
“It is simply on the lip, and lips heal.” His voice pitched low and husky, that chuckle long gone. “You see, I have much experience with broken skin.” He parted his own lips, gently baring his fangs.
I got a good look this time, utterly mesmerized. They were long and sharp—far sharper than any canines I’d ever seen. They were sharper than a wolf’s fangs, or even sharks’ teeth. I thought of Yasuo’s wiggly teeth, and how long he’d have to wait for beauties like these—Alcántara had been working on them for generations.
And, of course, he probably accidentally nicked himself all the time. My mind went to a really disturbing place, wondering what it would be like to kiss a vampire. Because surely a girl would get nicked then, too.
Why did I keep thinking about kissing? Alcántara was sitting so close, saying such strangely flattering things. My eyes returned to his mouth. It was full, with two sexy little indents below the bottom lip. I looked up and met his eyes. He was smiling. Damn. Had he put these thoughts in my head? I’d imagined myself immune to mind control. But surely I didn’t deep down want to kiss Alcántara. Did I?
“The skin is pierced,” he said, “but it always heals.”
To prove his point, he bit lightly on his bottom lip, and a tiny pinprick of blood appeared almost instantly. But then he licked it, and almost as quickly the pinprick disappeared. He gave me a slow, dirty smile, letting me see the end of his tongue. Red blood tinged the tip.
No. Definitely no kissing for me today.
“Would you like my assistance, Acari?”
“Assistance?” I could barely speak.
He stared only at my mouth now.
I was intensely aware of my body. How my skin had grown hot. How my split lip was a little swollen. It’d stopped bleeding, but the cut was open and raw. Did he mean assist, as in heal my lip? I didn’t think I was nearly ready for anything of the sort.
I must’ve had a nutty, panicked look on my face, because he laughed outright. “My dear innocent, I think I’ve frightened you. I mean simply this: Your next mealtime, when you take the blood, you must rub it into your cuts, and they will heal quickly. Run your tongue, like so, along the wound.” He licked his lower lip in a way that made me feel intensely uncomfortable.
He gave me a wicked smile. “Shall I ensure you’re doing it correctly? Perhaps I will come to the dining hall to watch.”
“I…” He’d made it sound so…naughty, and I definitely did not want Alcántara to show up at the dining hall to watch me do naughty-sounding things with my tongue.
So how did one answer such a question? I figured guys were guys, no matter the century, and it never hurt to be coy. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” I said hesitantly. “I think I understand. Thank you, though. Very much.”
I held my breath, waiting to make sure I’d given the correct sort of reply. His answer was an amused grin, and relief washed through me. I automatically returned the smile, and our eyes locked for a strange, frozen moment.
“Now.” All business again, Alcántara pulled away, sitting in that graceful, erect posture that vampires seem to have perfected. “We must administer your punishment.”
“My…oh.” That hadn’t been my punishment? I felt the blood leach from my head.
He laughed. “How you pale. You perhaps expect to be given some menial task? A beating maybe?” His eyes lasered into me, reading my reaction, which of course was pure fear.
Tasks and beatings. Yup, that about summed it up. “A little more ‘wisdom hammering’?” I tried to look blasé, but I feared my expression faltered.
He relaxed into the couch, smiling broadly. “I fear your headmaster expects something of the sort, yes. Claude is so very old-fashioned in some ways; yet he strives to be so modern in others. He thinks my habits are very medieval.”
“Well, you are actually medieval.” I bit my lip, making it sting. The thought had spilled from me before I considered it, and I hoped he wouldn’t take offense.
But Alcántara laughed, delighted. “Indeed,” he said, nodding and considering, “I am the Dark Ages become flesh.” He grew serious. “Call it what you like, but my philosophy is that a warrior should be rewarded for his—or her—blood thirst. And so brava, Acari, for almost getting the better of Guidon Masha. I assure you, it is she who will face the severest of my punishments.”
I was baffled. Then relieved.
“So…I did well? And it’s Masha…I mean, Guidon Masha who’s in trouble?”
“That is one way to express it.”
“Can the same go for Emma?” I’d been so desperately afraid of losing my friend, her situation was the first thing to pop into my head. But I regretted the words the moment they’d passed my lips.
His features hardened. “Do not try my patience. I have told you before, there is no such thing as a friend on this island. You are your only friend. And Acari Emma needs to learn to fight her own battles.”
That silenced me. I didn’t want to bring any unwanted attention on anyone—especially on Emma; more scrutiny was the last thing she needed.
I dipped my chin, discovering it wasn’t difficult to speak with deference when I was scared out of my wits. “Yes, Master Alcántara.”
He crossed an ankle onto his knee, casual once more. “Although I do have something I think might be some punishment for you. Or you will perceive it as such.”
I stiffened. Here it comes. The other shoe, dropping.
“You will be tutored. In German.”
But I was fluent. I’d read Faust and the complete works of Kafka in their original German. “You mean I’ll have to tutor it.” I’d put it as a statement, not a question.
“No,” he said with exaggerated patience. “We have an important task ahead of us, and your current knowledge will do you no good where we are going.”
That gave me pause. He was referring to our mission, off the island. I was dying to know about it.
“I need you to become conversant in modern business German and etiquette. When to say Du, to say Sie. How to bid farewell, or to moderate conflict. These are the things that will preserve you from the dangers of our mission.”
“I understand.” And I guess I did. I mean, danger was involved, and that was kind of exciting.
But then dread churned my belly. Because I knew who on this island spoke perfect German: Tracer Otto. “Who will tutor me?” I asked, while in my head I was devising ways I might respectfully protest the answer.
Only he didn’t say Tracer Otto. It was worse.
