“All the doors and windows are locked,” you said, a fact we all knew intimately well. You stood in the window, filling the frame with your glowering presence as you watched them approach the front gate. “The house is a labyrinth, with no electric light. If they’re stupid enough to wander in we’ll pick them off one by one.”
Magdalena made a concerned noise but said nothing.
“I’ll go push some furniture in front of the door,” I said warily, rising from my seat. I cast a surreptitious glance to Alexi and Magdalena, who scurried out behind me. Perhaps, on any other day, you would have detected the hint of a coup in the air. But that day, you were too wrapped up in your own arrogance and you own anger to realize something was amiss inside the house, and that was to be your undoing.
“We should do it now,” I whispered, tugging my two loves down the corridor with me. “We’re running out of time,”
Magdalena’s eyes were clouded over with thought. This was not like her, to strike in the spur of the moment. She favored careful, quiet planning, like a spider who spun a web for days on end to attract the perfect fly.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” I pled. “He’s distracted. We may never get this chance again.”
Alexi looked between the two of us, chewing on his lip. He always did that when he was nervous.
“But Constance… he does love us, in his way. It seems wrong to…” Alexi swallowed hard, shaking his head. “He loves us. I know it.”
This snapped Magdalena out of her reverie. She clasped Alexi by the shoulders and fixed him with a hard, knowing look that I have never forgotten, not even after all these years.
“It would be easier if he hated us,” she said. “But he loves us all terribly. And if we go on letting him love us, that love is going to kill us. That’s what makes him so dangerous.”
Every word felt like a stone pressing down on my chest, heavier and heavier, but I knew she was right. I had known for a very long time, but I had been too willingly led around by the nose like a lamb to do anything about it, and now we were all reaping the consequences.
Alexi nodded, tears gleaming in his eyes. I swept a golden curl away from his forehead and kissed him on the temple.
“I’ll prepare the bedchamber,” I said, anticipation coiling in my stomach like a snake. “Can you two tempt him inside?”
Magdalena chuckled. There was no mirth in her voice.
“That part’s always been easy.”
I don’t know how Alexi and Magdalena enticed you away from your work, but they’d always been very good at commanding your attention. It was a foolish thing, to make love while the townspeople shook their weapons outside our gates, but arrogance and lust made you reckless. I do not think you truly believed harm would come to any of us. You were too convinced of your own imperviousness. I wonder how many mob uprisings you had seen in your day, how many times you had crushed the peasantry underfoot when they dared take issue with your wanton killing.
I waited for you in white, ever your willing bride. It was an old nightgown in the Victorian style, with pale pink ribbon threaded through the cuffs and a high lace collar. The material skimmed the curves of my body and was nearly transparent in the low light of the wall sconces. I draped myself across the bed, my hair undone and falling to my waist in a waterfall of red.
You had Magdalena pressed against you and Alexi nipping at your ear when you opened the door, but you stopped short when you saw me. The breath caught in your chest and your pupils went wide with desire. Even after hundreds of years and countless other lovers, I could still arrest you, in the right lighting and with the right pliant expression on my face.
“My wife,” you said, taking my face between your hands and tipping my chin up just so, into the angle that you so enjoyed. You liked me best when I was like an oil painting; perfectly arranged and silent.
“Yours,” I repeated dutifully, my breath hot on your lips. I wondered if you could feel how fast my heart was beating under my skin, smell the fear coming off me like an animal scenting the hunt. I had never felt so terrified in my life, or so exhilarated.
It took me too long to come to my senses and fight back, but now that I was caught in this moment with you, I intended to make up for lost time.
We pulled you onto the bed, Magdalena mewling prettily while Alexi suckled on your little finger. I kissed you and kissed you, driving you back against the pillows with a force that surprised even me. I kissed you the way you had bitten me all those years ago; mercilessly, until you were panting. I pinned you between my thighs and kissed you like I was trying to get back at you for something, like I would never kiss you again. I fit all the love and hate my soul had endured for so many years into that kiss.