Upstairs, Downstairs - Ch. 38b

Naiastra dressed Silvertip carefully, and in a weirdly modest fashion; normally she would have taken full advantage of this opportunity, but now she just felt awful.  He was literally grey, and so cold.  She was almost convinced Eva had been lying to her until he shivered and twitched a little, and then she was so shocked she nearly jumped.
Calm down, she thought.  He's alive.  Everything will be fine.
Eva returned from the street.  "Coast's clear," she said.  "Come on, let's go before someone decides it's time for a late-night smoke."
Together the women carried him out the front door and across the lawn to Nai's Mercedes.  Eva laid down towels in the back seat, and they put him in the car, held awkwardly in place with both seatbelts.  Nai felt slightly heartened; she could see he was breathing now.  Eva put a blanket over him and said, "I'm sorry, Nai.  This was my fault."  She closed the car door and faced her friend.  "I went about it all wrong.  It's my fault you got so flustered; I should've been less pushy.  I should've let you go your own speed."
"It might have happened either way."
"But I still made it worse."
"Well, it was a nice surprise all the same," Naiastra sighed, giving her friend a hug.  "Don't worry; I promise I'll be careful."
Eva bid her farewell, Nai waved as she climbed into the driver's seat, and the Mercedes sped off down the street.  As she drove, Nai glanced back frequently.  She saw Erythor's eyelids flutter while she was stopped at a red light, and felt a brief twinge of hope.  During that first... ordeal... the avre's captors had bled him frequently, with little regard for his health, and he had seemed able to stand it better than another might have.  Perhaps now, too, he would prove resilient?  Presuming that the earlier strains on his heart had not weakened it...
She neared their destination and heard him mumble something.  She slowed and pulled over.  "Erythor?  Did you speak?"
"Where'm... where..."
"You're in my car.  I'm taking you home."
"V?"  He sounded drunk, and though he seemed to be trying to open his eyes, he was failing.
"No, Erythor.  Naiastra.  Don't you remember?"
"Nnnai..."
"Mm-hm.  Lie still.  We're almost there."
"Wha' happ'm...  Nai..."
"Shhhhh.  Just lie still."  She pulled out, and obediently he fell silent.  When at last the vhel parked on the curb and cut the engine, she turned in her seat and said gently, "Okay, we're here."  
He made a noble but pathetic effort to sit up and fell back with a stilted gasp of pain.  In concern Nai hurried to the back door of the car and caught his head in her hands.  "Careful, careful.  You're going to hurt yourself."
"Where're we?"  His eyes flickered again, rolling up to look at her under quaking, drooping eyelids.
"We're somewhere safe."
He exhaled and closed his eyes.  Nai sighed.  How could she leave him now?  She would wait.  Just a little bit, just a short while more.  This would probably be the last time she would ever see him.  She wasn't eager for the moment to end.  Half-conscious, he was peaceful, content to rest in her presence.  He wasn't fighting her, and he knew it was her.  That comforted her somehow.  She stroked back his hair and he stirred a little.  There was the question of how she was going to get him out of the car alone...  Well, he can't be that heavy, she thought.  I can manage.  Still she stalled.
"Nai..."
"Mm-hm?"
"Why?"  His eyes were still closed, the words a soft whisper.
"Why what?"
"Why ev... evrithing?"
She knew what he was asking but didn't want to respond.  He grew slightly more agitated and tried to sit up again, with even less success than before.  "Las' year... year before... an' now..."
"Because I don't want to see you be taken advantage of."  He made a feeble show of shaking his head.  "Stop," said Nai.  "You're too weak."
"I hafta know... why..."
"Why?  How will it make any difference to you?"
"Haf- hafta know.  Know 'at y'r a good pers'n..."  She frowned, slightly startled, but she couldn't tell if he meant that he knew she was a good person or that he needed to know whether she was or not.  "Doesn' make sense.  One momen' you help... help 'm... hurt me.. an' then y'... change'r mind... 'n help me.  Why?  's gotta be a reas'n."
Without warning Nai felt a blush rise in her cheeks.  There was a reason, all right - plenty of reasons... but how could she explain them?  ...Least of all to him?  But she could see he wasn't going to let it drop.  It was taking considerable effort for him to get the words out, and she feared he would push himself too far.
"Well..." she said hesitantly, "part of it is... I don't trust others not to hurt you... to go too far, I mean.  If I'm a participant, I have some measure of control."  She sighed, thinking just how much control she'd had today.  Can't even trust myself not to go too far, she thought guiltily.
"And part of it," she pressed on, "is that I don't want to see you hurt, and I do."  She sighed, looking away even though his eyes were closed.  "I... I think it's more than that.  I want you - I want you desperately.  And I want power over you.  I know it may be impossible for you to understand, but your fear feeds me.  But at the same time... I can't stand to see you in pain.  I crave your happiness, and I want you to want me as much as I want you.  Oh, what's wrong with me?"  By now she had almost forgotten she was speaking to Silvertip and not just to herself.  She was still gently stroking his head, like a cat; he might have slipped into unconsciousness again.  He was still breathing.  "Don't you see, Erythor?" she whispered.  "I fell in love with my prey.  I developed feelings for an object of lust.  You made me care - because you cared, because- just because- of who you are.  There's just something about you that invites love.  How could I have helped but fall for you?"  She was quiet a moment, thinking of Damien, who would be heartbroken if he knew what she was saying - if he admitted to himself that he knew how she felt.  "You're very much like Damien, you know.  But Damien lacks vulnerability.  He doesn't listen.  He has one way, and that's the right way... whereas you... you're open to new possibilities.  Why else would you smile at me?  I a vhel and you an avre?  Why else would you even dream of asking my aid?  It's because you're not stuck, set in a single unswerving track like Damien is.  Oh, I love him.  I do.  But it's a mundane, frustrating sort of love.  If only you were vhul, we could...  We could've had something.  ...But you have your 'Vidamins' and I have my Evarra, and every time I breathe your scent I have to remind myself that I could kill you if I let my inhibitions fade for even a second.  Like today..."  She felt heavy and miserable.  "How can you understand?  For you love is giving - giving everything, and gladly.  You have no concept of lust and cruelty as symptoms of each other.  Desire for you is simple - you love a woman, you court her, you marry her, you make love and father children in her.  For me, lust is like hunger, and the object of desire just that - an object.  Only I came to see you as a person.  You made me see that - see clearly.  Now I'm trapped between two needs, two desires - and worse, two men.  How could you have changed me so much?  It's too much, Erythor.  I can't touch you and I can't stay away."  
She smiled wryly and sadly to herself.  "So that's why," she finished softly.  "Why everything."
"Nai."
She glanced down in mild shock.  He'd been so still she was sure he'd passed out.  He was looking at her, his eyes still half-closed but no longer flickering.
"Did- did you hear all that?" she asked, suddenly embarrassed.
He nodded, just slightly.  Nai blushed and started to stammer an excuse, but he stopped her.  "'s okay."  Silvertip looked at her seriously and said, "Y'r a 'markable woman... not like other vhel.  I coulda- coulda fall'n f'r you myself.  If weren' for Vida."  He cracked a half-smile.
Nai was astonished.  She felt a flare of jealousy, but it was small and insignificant in the whirlwind of emotions already coursing over her.  His eyelids were drooping again; he tried a third time to sit up and Nai murmured for him to rest for now, not to waste his strength.
"'n lean a lil' closer," he said.  She did, thinking he was losing strength to talk, but he only said, "Clos'r."  Slurred, weak, but alert.  This was no delirious request.  
Her face was inches from his.  Less.  She was sitting awkwardly bent, but she hardly noticed.  He smiled a little at her, blinked slowly, and then brought a hand haltingly to her cheek, his fingers in her hair... pulled her face a little nearer (with the aid of gravity)... and kissed her.
Nai stifled a tiny gasp.  His skin was still clammy, but his lips were warm and soft, and, more so, the very fact of what he was doing was unthinkable.  She melted into him, and when tentatively she nudged her tongue forward, he didn't resist.  For the first time, ever, he didn't resist at all - didn't tense, didn't flinch, didn't make a sound.  And they kissed - oh they kissed.  Naiastra felt as if the earth had vanished beneath her - as if she were floating and twisting in a tingling cloud.  Eons passed - minutes - a half-millisecond - and she pulled back gently and stared.  He was a little paler than before, breathing a little faster, cheeks a tiny bit flushed, but there was no fear, and no pain, and no reluctance, and he was smiling at her, though crookedly.  She still could not believe what had just happened.  She could taste the blood from his split lip, the lingering hint of quibe.  Her nerves danced with butterflies.  "Erythor..." she whispered, and he murmured, "Thanks, Nai... f' evrything..."
She smiled back.  And then his eyes slipped shut and he passed out again.  
With a burst of panic the vhel checked his stitches - they were holding, with no sign of blood leakage - and felt his carotid for a pulse.  There was one, detectible if not strong.  She couldn't wait any longer.  Gingerly - and awkwardly - she hoisted him and climbed out of the car.  He was heavy for her, but not unmanageable.  Leaving the car door open she carried him up the walk to the door.  She gave him one last, gentle kiss on the forehead and lowered him to the stoop.  "Goodbye, Erythor."
Then she rang the buzzer and hurried back to her car, closed the back door and got inside.  She waited, watching the door.  After a few minutes it opened and a woman emerged: a pretty young lady with dark hair in a worn bathrobe.  She saw the man on the porch and her hands flew to her face; she gave a cry so loud the whole neighborhood must have heard, and fell to her knees next to him.  She hugged him to her breast and rocked, sobbing and screaming.  She must think he's dead, Nai thought, numb.
The vhel remained there, unnoticed in the night, and watched as neighbors came running, as an ambulance arrived, as Vida and her fiancee were sped off to the hospital with flashing lights and sirens.  Then the neighborhood returned to shadow, everyone went inside, and Nai started her car and drove away.