Fallen, page 2
Maybe he kept himself safe that night the same way he did every other night: with guards. They weren’t visible now, but she’d seen them driving in. Sutton Hall, as it was properly known, only gave the appearance of being a relaxed country manor.
Ani was, she realized with a shiver, in a prison.
Soon, she found herself in what she could only assume was some sort of drawing room. It had been decorated primarily in shades of red. There were drapes on the windows, this time, cut from a heavy and expensive feeling velvet. Cost mattered little to Ani; so long as she had something to eat, something to wear, and something to sketch, she was happy. But, like all artists and would be artists, she was observant. Once again, no fire had been lit. She felt a little ache of loss; it would’ve been nice. Of course, no modern house needed fires. Or fireplaces, for that matter. But they were charming. A fire might have made the atmosphere of this place a little more bearable.
Selecting a chair that turned out not to be comfortable, she settled herself in and began to sketch.
She wasn’t drawing her surroundings; she was working on a series of caricatures of people she knew.
Ani had been born Antoinette Rose Rice, during a surprise springtime blizzard. Her parents had been killed that fall, in the Purge. The Purge, by then, had been an institution for a hundred years. Her teachers had taught her, later on, that what it had replaced had been worse. The confusing mix of needs that turned men into monsters had once shaped their society every day. It still did, Ani had argued back; she’d grown up knowing who’d killed her parents and knowing, too, that they’d never faced any sort of condemnation. Even from their friends. Only one thing had changed since the institution of formal murdering hours: the coffee shops were open again.
You agreed to the idea that anyone you loved or, indeed, you, yourself might be tortured into oblivion in your own bed in exchange for the freedom to stand in line for a cappuccino every morning.
Freedom, if you could call it that.
Ani, thankfully, had never been called on to interact with her parents’ killers in any kind of social context. Her aunt and uncle might be useless but they weren’t evil, and even if her uncle had been friends with her father’s former business partner, which he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been afterward. Unlike some people. William and Grace had taken her in and raised her as their own.
If William still mourned his brother, he never said.
He never mentioned John at all.
Ani frowned, concentrating on her sketch. She loved her tablet; it had been a birthday present a few months before, replacing the one she’d gotten the year before that. It wasn’t bigger, but the screen was more responsive. She liked to draw on paper, too, but paper wasn’t as easy to hide in her bag. Her aunt and uncle, as disinterested as they were, didn’t really approve of her art leaving her bedroom. It was a nice hobby, her aunt was fond of pointing out, but she really needed to find a husband. She’d given Ani the hobby versus husband lecture again that morning. Ani had bit back on yelling that art wasn’t a hobby and instead had just nodded.
There was no point in upsetting her aunt by explaining that she was never going to get married.
Actually…upset? Grace would probably die of shock. And besides, what else was there to do in New Victoria? Especially for a woman of even middle class?
Grace was a great believer in the rules. She, herself, had certainly done everything right. At least by society’s standards. But was she happy? Ani’s mother, too, had done everything right. And look what had happened to her. Ani had never told anyone this, but she was glad she couldn’t remember her mother. Or her father. The pain, agonizing enough already, would’ve been too much to bear.
Would things have been different, if there’d been a trial? Would she have felt some sense of closure? She didn’t know. Someone, anyone agreeing that her parents hadn’t deserved to die would’ve felt good. But it wouldn’t have brought them back.
She found herself staring, not at her tablet but at the drapes. It was easy to picture some couple hiding behind them, giggling at their private assignation, back when houses like this were still being built.
Ani felt, for a split second, like some unseen hand was squeezing her heart.
She was lonely. She hated being this lonely. But she wouldn’t compromise.
William and Grace had given her, if not the most warmth, then the most expensive education. Hoping, Ani supposed, to broaden her social horizons—and thus theirs. She’d always had the right clothes, the right everything. Maybe not to quite the same extent as the other girls, but she hadn’t minded. She’d never felt competitive with them, and still didn’t.
People were making matches at this party, she was sure. She wondered how Lisa was getting on. Lisa, who inexplicably had a crush on their host. If crush was even the right word. Jasper was old and the rumors about him were not pleasant. The sex parties, which in Ani’s opinion were bad enough, were only the beginning. It wasn’t just sex, it was the kind of sex. Jasper had, supposedly, singular tastes. He also favored both women and men, because when one was inflicting pain what was the difference? Unwilling flesh was unwilling flesh.
Ani shuddered.
He was charming, though. Ani had seen him from a distance, laughing easily. But Lucifer had been charming, too.
She was once again uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was trapped here.
Her uncle undoubtedly approved of Sutton Hall’s prison-like feel. He’d started out selling simple security systems and, over time, carved quite a little niche for himself. They were advertised as for the Purge, of course, but they were necessary the rest of the year as well. In the world at large but in New Victoria, especially, only the strong survived.
Which meant, Ani mused, that she and everyone like her should be dead.
Then, oddly, she was back to thinking about love again. Love, and the marriage that would never take place. Her aunt and uncle had saved up for it; well, maybe they’d get to go on vacation. Once they finally accepted the inevitable. Love itself sounded wonderful. More than wonderful. The ache she felt, where love should be, sometimes grew so overpowering that she swore she could taste it.
But if there was one silver lining to growing up without anyone being overly interested in what she did, it was that she’d turned out independent. Very independent. Too independent, according to almost everybody except, maybe, one or two teachers and Lisa. After graduating from Chatham, she’d wanted to pursue further education in the arts. Her aunt and uncle, though, afraid that such a course of action would make her even less likely to want a husband, had refused. Which had left Ani with a sour taste in her mouth and a firm conviction that a husband meant the loss of her dreams. She wanted love, but first she had to be able to love herself.
And did marriage even equate to love? From what she’d seen, no. It seemed, more, to be a business transaction.
Growing up, she’d loved fairy tales. Then, as she’d grown older, she’d begun to wonder about the things they avoided mentioning. Like what happened after happily ever after. What must it have been like for the princess to marry Prince Charming, only to discover that he expected her to bow and scrape and never speak out of turn?
She’d been taught, from birth, that nothing was as fulfilling to a woman as being taken in hand by a powerful man and dominated. That her rightful place was kneeling at her husband’s feet, gazing adoringly up at him. Which…soiling her mind with this kind of drivel was probably the only thing that had ever made her even remotely consider arming herself and joining the melee on the streets for the Purge.
She could just picture the looks on some of these so called men’s faces as they were told to kneel.
Just then, she heard something. Snapping back to reality, she felt her heart begin to race. It had been a footfall. A footfall she’d been meant to hear, to let her know that she wasn’t alone.
And probably hadn’t been, for some time.
Then came the low, cultured voice. “A guilder for your thoughts?”
CHAPTER THREE
Lucifer
She froze, hating her response but unable to stop it. She felt weak, and stupid, like a rabbit seeing the shadow of the hawk pass overhead. Her heart thudded in her chest as she fought back a rising sense of panic. She’d been discovered, and by the one person she’d been most hoping to avoid.
He came around to the front of her chair, his expression cool and appraising.
She swallowed. Yes, he was handsome. But Lucifer, charming Lucifer, had also been the handsomest of all the angels. And Dane, like his uncle, was dangerous. No, more than dangerous. He was a devil. He was pale, with dark hair. So dark as to be almost black. His eyebrows, like every other part of his face, were perfectly shaped. And beneath them, eyes as almost as dark as his hair bored into hers. The expression in them was arresting, overwhelming, containing something she didn’t understand. She found it impossible though, however much she wanted to, to look away.
He moved silently, circling her. He broke eye contact with her briefly, and for that she was grateful. Her respite didn’t last long, though, because soon he was back. He was the consummate predator; others, including Ani, only heard him when he wanted them to. Lisa might be fooled by his veneer, the same veneer that his uncle had, but Ani wasn’t. She wondered, had Lucifer used his on God? He’d certainly managed to fool the other angels, with his honeyed words.
And now there were no more angels.
Only devils.
His presence was overwhelming. Ani could see why so many women thought themselves in love with him. Including, at times, various of her own friends. Girls who should, in her opinion at least, know better. There was something about his assurance, his arrogance, his calm. You wanted to give yourself to him, even against your better judgment. All of yourself.
He stopped.
She waited. Part of her wanted to run, and part of her knew that running would do no good. He was fast, and he was strong.
“If you were mine,” he said, “you’d have a studio as fancy as your heart desired.”
“But I’d still have to attend parties like this,” she found herself replying.
His lips quirked into a small, unpleasant smile. The ghost of one, really. “Not necessarily. Not if you displeased me. Then I’d have to chain you up, I suppose, in some basement. Hm. That sounds quite lurid, doesn’t it. A bound, beautiful woman. Helpless.” He sat down on the ottoman in front of her, resting his weight on one hand. The pose was studiedly casual, like everything else about him.
Ani saw the truth of his tense, coiled energy in his eyes.
“Truly, though, I’d have to keep you with me. I wouldn’t want to be apart from you.”
“You seem to get along just fine.”
“Oh, but I don’t.”
Ani wondered why he was doing this. Had he found her simply by happenstance? Or had he followed her, into this deserted wing, relishing the opportunity to toy with her? And why—why her? Lisa had called him obsessed, but he wasn’t. Not, at least, more than he was with every other woman.
There might be only one hawk but there were many, many rabbits.
“There are things,” Dane continued, “that a woman like you should have.”
“Like manacles.”
“Like tablets, and indeed canvases and brushes and paints, and the thousand other things that make up an artist’s working environment, gifted by a patron who understands that this is more than just some hobby.” He spoke in the same languid tone, but somehow still managed to convey feeling.
His words were so similar to Ani’s own thoughts of a few minutes before that she almost gasped.
Luckily, though, she managed to retain her composure.
With a supreme act of will.
“You deserve a patron, Antoinette.”
She thought she should probably hit him with her tablet and damn it if it broke, but instead she found herself responding. “You could be my patron, without demanding other things.”
That not-smile again. “Ah, but historically that wasn’t how patronage worked.” A slightly teasing tone had entered his words. “Look at Pope Leo X and his little pet, Michelangelo.”
Dane was referencing ancient history. Ani knew all about the relationship between the two men, though. Pope Leo X had, indeed, been Michelangelo’s patron. He’d also been his lover. “I’m fairly certain,” she replied, with some asperity, “that that was consensual. And besides, the whole idea of patronage died a hard death a long time ago. According to you, and New Victoria’s other leading luminaries, if I can’t make millions of dollars as an artist, then I don’t deserve to be one.”
There. That would stump him. Maybe he’d realize this was pointless and leave.
Instead, his expression changed. It was still difficult to interpret. But when he spoke, his tone was uncharacteristically serious. “If there were no strings attached, would you accept me as a patron?”
“No.”
“Then it seems we’re at an impasse.”
“Giovanni,” Ani explained, somewhat against her better judgment, “supported Michelangelo because he loved him.” Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici had been Pope Leo X’s real name. “He didn’t dangle patronage in front of him like a treat in front of a dog, in order to coerce some approximation of love.” The very idea of what Dane had suggested was repugnant; it was prostitution.
No strings wasn’t part of his vocabulary.
“But,” Dane countered, “where does one end and the other begin?” He sounded genuinely interested. “How does one encourage the object of their devotion to love them in return, if not by treating them well?”
Instead of Dane, Ani found herself disconcerted.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she blurted, rather bluntly.
Dane considered her observation. “I might no longer live here, full time, at my advanced age of twenty-seven, but this is my childhood home.” Although he hadn’t been a minute ago, he was mocking her again. “As such, I like to think of my periodic visits not as impositions but as delightful surprises.”
“On who, the housekeeper?” Jasper, it was well known, lived alone.
“Why yes, as a matter of fact.”
“I meant,” Ani clarified, feeling discomfited and more than a little annoyed, “that you’re supposed to be doing your duties as a host.”
“But I am.” Dane, even more frustratingly, didn’t seem fazed by her at all. In fact, quite the opposite. He was—he was actually enjoying himself. “You’re a guest, my darling Antoinette, and I’m with you.”
“Please, don’t call me that.”
“Antoinette?”
That, too. “Everyone calls me Ani.” She sounded lame, even in her own ears.
“Ah. But I don’t.”
There. That hard edge. It crept into every conversation, eventually.
She shivered, even though the air was warm.
“So where, for a delightful change of subject, are you spending the Purge?”
At first, Ani was too surprised by the question to answer him. First her art, and now—this? Before, he’d always been mocking. And, she was sure he thought at least, charming after his own fashion. But he’d never been this personal. Probably because they hadn’t been alone, not truly, and so she’d been able to escape when he’d tried. “I, ah…at home, I guess. Just like everyone else.”
“You could spend it here. This place has incredible defenses.”
Ani gestured at the windows.
“At the push of a button, they’re covered in steel. Along with every other window in this house. I could give you a demonstration of how the system works, sometime. It’s the finest system of its kind, produced entirely in house in our own factories and distributed solely through us. My own design,” he added.
“Cladding is hardly new.”
“Mine is.”
“Come into my parlor,” Ani recited, “said the spider to the fly.”
“Your uncle has enemies.”
What was that, a threat? “Your uncle has enemies! And ten times as many, I’m sure.” Or a hundred. Or a thousand. Men, even decent men, didn’t get to be as rich as Jasper was without garnering their fair share of people who hated them. Justly or unjustly. And in the end, what did it matter? Justice existed purely in the eye of the beholder.
“Come with me,” Dane said suddenly, “for a walk.”
“What? No!”
“If you’re concerned about your virtue, we can enlist a chaperone.”
“I….” Once again, and completely uncharacteristically, Ani was at a loss for words. Really, a chaperone? Who was this person and what had he done with Dane? Or, more properly, what game was he playing at? He hadn’t, she knew, suddenly metamorphosed into a gentleman.
“The weather’s beautiful. Not a storm cloud in sight. We should enjoy it while we can.”
He sounded solicitous, almost…normal. And he was right that the weather wouldn’t last. Good weather never did. Things had happened, to the planet…before, and New Victoria in particular was constantly plagued with storms. Some of them were really violent, blazing paths of destruction through towns and even fortified cities, but most of them just involved rain.
“You’ll be cooped up, too” he reminded her, “soon enough.”
He meant, because the Purge was coming.
“It’s only one night.” Ani hoped her voice didn’t betray her feelings.
“Ah.” There was that flash, again, deep in her companion’s eyes. The look he’d fixed her with was one that said he saw everything. “A great deal can happen, though, in one night.”
CHAPTER FOUR
