The next day Kristina brings the food.
As Merle is eating she says, 'OK, Darius has dealt with Oberon and he says he'll come and see you himself later. How about that?'
'Um, OK.' And suddenly Merle doesn't know what to think. Maybe she'd resigned herself to the idea that she wasn't ever going to meet Cole face to face. That maybe that was part of the game he was playing. But maybe this is still part of the game. He's making the rules after all.
'He says he is sorry, too,' Kristina says, pouring out a cup of coffee. 'He made it pretty clear I was to tell you that.' Kristina gives Merle the coffee and takes her empty plate away. 'You're getting another meal later, by the way.'
'Wow, it's getting like a five star hotel around here.'
Kristina gives Merle a sour look. 'Well, as you mention it Darius did also say I should ask if there was anything you wanted.'
'The antidote to what Cole gave my father.'
'Yeah, yeah, let's take it as read that you asked for that and I told you no, shall we? Anything else. Something within reason perhaps?'
'Something to read?'
'Now that I can do,' Kristina says, her ever-changing mood flipping over back into perky. She picks up the tray of empty dishes and starts for the door.
'And some light to read by,' Merle shouts as the cell door slams shut.
Kristina doesn't return that day. But the promised second meal is slid through the hatch at the bottom of the door.
And later, as she's drifting off to sleep, Merle thinks of Darius Cole. Of how it must have been for him locked up here all alone.
Did you think he meant to desecrate you?
'And you said "yes".'
Merle sits up, startled. There's someone standing in the darkness of the furthest corner. A tall lean figure – achingly still.
'Darius Cole?'
'You know who I am, Merle,' he says. His voice has a soft mesmeric quality. It almost sounds like it's coming from somewhere else.
'You can read my mind.'
'I'm in your mind, Merle. You're dreaming.' And he steps out of the shadows. Darius Cole. Her nightmare. Her forbidden. Her taboo. He's standing right in front of her. And it's so strange to think that she never knew what he looked like until now. Stranger still that somehow she sort of recognises him.
As he emerges into the dim light, a long forgotten memory flares. He's so familiar.
He has thick dark hair that hangs just lower than his collar. He's wearing dark colours, black and grey, soft fabrics. His style is informal, like an off-duty vampire. Sort of vampy-lite. He's tall and lean. Hard. Holding himself in a way that makes her sure that he is muscular and taut under his clothes with more strength than his tight physique would suggest. He has a long thin nose and a mouth that has a mean little suggestion of a top lip paired with a bottom lip that is almost obscenely sensual and full.
He moves towards her and there's nowhere to go but harder against the wall 'What are you doing here, Cole? In my head. What do you want?'
'Didn't Kristina tell you I'd come. Here I am.'
'She didn't say you'd come in a dream.'
'She didn't know. She's a dreadful eavesdropper. But she can't listen to us this way, can she?'
'She can't listen to us? Listen to us doing what?'
'Oh, Merle, is your mind still on your desecration?' Cole says, laughing a little, 'You are so very endearing. You don't know whether to be scared of me or excited by me, do you?' He takes another few steps forward and drops into a crouch in front of her. She can see his face very clearly now. Dark eyes, stubbled skin, shaded brows – the sharp, bright flash of his teeth: his fangs.
'That's not true. I'm not scared of you, and I'm not turned on either, all I am feeling right now is how much I want to go home to my family.'
'Don't tell me lies, Merle. You know I can read these things in you as easily as you can read a newspaper.
'Well, your reading's off. Go and read something else.'
'Oh, I'll go. Very shortly. I will leave you alone, I promise. And you will ache with disappointment when I do. But first I want to tell you something. I want you to be assured that nothing bad is going to happen to you while you're here under my charge. At the end of your twenty-five days you will be free to walk out of here with an antidote that will restore your father to exactly as he was. Neither I nor any member of my household will touch you or violate you in any way. Unless you request it.'
'Unless I request it? I'm not going to request ...' She trails off and screws up her face. 'And anyway, it's a bit late for that, isn't it?'
'I know.' Cole glances down. 'I know I shouldn't have left you with Oberon. I just wanted you to know how it felt. To be scared and alone. Abandoned. I'm sorry. I should be the last person to wish that on anyone.'
'They really kept you down here, alone in the dark like this, for twenty-five years?'
There's no reply ...
Merle opens her eyes. She's alone in the cell.
She gets up from the bench and checks every corner as far as the limits of her chains will allow. But nothing. Not even a rat.
When she finally lies back down it takes her forever to get back to sleep. She half hopes that Cole will still be there in her dreams.
He isn't.