Slaughtaverty 1745

With nervous breath struggling through her anxiety-narrowed windpipe, Mairead Doyle takes one tentative step after another, entering the cold cell where the boy she'd met in the graveyard is lying writhing in pain against the farthest wall.

He is covered with a thin blanket, barely keeping the cold from his shivering body. His hair, so full and beautiful and shining the last time she saw him, is lifeless and dull, merging with the straw he is lying on.

This boy showed Merry things she'd never known lived in her heart. Dreams, ideals, and a future... hope...

He showed her secrets she never dreamt of knowing. He wrapped her in the loving embrace of warm memories, washing away a lifetime of anguish and loneliness.

Every fibre of her being is longing for more of that warmth, more of that joy, even though she knows with a knowledge far beyond her years that it could lead to her death. Hearing him groan in agony, his pain - not only physical but emotional as well - swelling inside her tears her apart from within, and she yearns to end his suffering. She craves for him in ways that are beyond her understanding.

"Noooooooooo!" he cries in a voice hoarse from screaming when she reaches him. He turns his head to face her, arching his body away from her approach. "No! Please," he sobs, sounding defeated. His eyes are grey and wet with tears. They're the only part of him that is still filled with emotion and life. His face is gaunt, gradually turning into a skull covered in parchmentlike skin, stretched taut and cracking. The knowledge that he will dry up completely and turn to dust pierces Merry's heart, calling tears to her eyes.

She drops to her knees beside him, the scattered stalks of straw scraping and stabbing at her soft skin through the thin material of the delicate night dress she's wearing. Clothes that aren't hers, made from soft cloth as fine as cobwebs. She can feel the cold stone floor through the patches of straw, and her body steadily increases in its shivering now that she can feel her surroundings once more.

"Please take me blood, me lord," she whispers, instinctively bringing a wrist to his lips. She is too shy to offer him her neck again, though she longs for the touch of his lips on the sensitive skin there. She doesn't quite understand the source of her desires. Though life had treated her harshly, and she'd seen and heard things no 13-year-old should have to see and hear, Merry managed to retain most of her innocence.

Since she woke up screaming in that soft bed, her mind has gradually been filling up with knowledge she has no life experience or maturity to understand. Still, kneeling beside the emaciated, dying boy, she knows that she does not want to continue living in a world where he does not exist. She doesn't know why she feels like that, but it is overwhelming and frightening, and she doesn't dare question it.

"No," he croaks, averting his face, too weak to shove her hand away from him. "And I am not your lord."

His voice is barely audible, husky and filled with pain, his breathing scraping rawly between each word. He is battling for every breath, the hunger for her blood crippling him almost as much as the pain ripping through his dying body.

"Aye, but ye are, me lord," Merry assures him. "Ye saved me."

"I did not save you, you fool," he growls with a sudden, desperate burst of ferocity, turning his head to face her, his eyes burning into hers with a frightening intensity. Merry is not afraid, but she can feel the push. He is trying to reject her, trying to force her to leave, but though his effort is impressive, he is simply too far gone. Too weak. "I tried to kill you," he chokes. "I didn't even care how beautiful your soul is."

"Naw, me lord," Merry whispers, tears streaming down her smooth, healthy cheeks. His rejection hurts her in a way she cannot put into words. It is more than emotional or physical; it reaches her very core, the pain excruciating, amplified in his own. "All I know is that me body was a wreck of scars and pain for most of me life, and now I can finally move without any effort or burden. I feel no pain of me own, and all me scars are gone too."

"Did you not see what I did to your friend?" he frowns, his breath catching. "I turned her into a baby-murdering succubus... and not just her..." His voice breaks, and he shuts his eyes for a second to regain his composure before glaring at her again. "I would've done the same to you."

Merry closes her eyes to escape from his, swallowing against the bile rising in her throat. She doesn't need more words or evidence. She knew what he meant. She can see it all clearly in that place where she knows all that he knows.

On the day of Madrigal's wedding, he'd seen Merry run off to the chapel and, moving around the house, found Maddy standing in her bedroom, staring at herself in the full-length mirror. She was a beautiful young woman with a face filled with sorrow and dread.

He could feel how miserable she was. She did not want to marry Donald Murphy but knew that it was an honour to be chosen by the richest man in the community, aside from the Duke of Ulaidh, of course. The boy does not like Donald. He thinks the man is useful but not worthy of any respect.

He was conflicted and hesitated. One part of him, the part where his soul resides, felt compassion for the stunning girl in the flowing wedding dress. The other part, the poisoned part suppressing the boy's true nature, spitefully lusted after Maddy, longing to corrupt her and drag her into hell with him.

That part was stronger and won the internal conflict.

He'd lured Madrigal to the window and through it, and she'd willingly gone to him, unable to resist the pull. She did not rebel when he pulled her into his arms, sank his teeth into her neck, and almost completely drained her of her blood. When she was on the verge of dying, he'd made her drink his poisoned blood, and it turned her into the soulless husk Merry had seen in the graveyard, craving the blood of innocents.

The knowledge shreds Merry's heart. Along with his memories, she can feel the boy's regret and anguish. His self-hatred.

She brushes a hand over her eyes, wiping away the spilling tears and pushing against the vile visions the boy is forcing into her brain. She knew that it was a true account of what happened, but she also knew that what he was showing her was simplistic. There was so much more going on.

The duke's son was at the age when the family curse would be at its worst. Where other Slatherty children his age would only have had to fight the curse and all its horrors, trying to change their minds and bodies to function in ways no human being's mind and body should function, this boy had to fight a strong and vile poison maliciously administered to him by his family's enemies.

A weaker person in his situation would've almost certainly died due to the effects of the poison, even if they survived the curse and all it brought. This boy did not die, but he was losing his mind, turning into a bloodthirsty, spiteful monster with the face and body of an angel. He would've become too strong to oppose, virtually impossible to put down. The future he would've brought terrifies Merry.

His family was devastated by what was happening to him. He'd been the light in their lives since he survived his birth and grew into a healthy child. He was their ray of hope. It is rare for Slatherty children to live this long. When it happens, they are valued and treasured above everything else. They are priceless.

The attack on his life and his mind was aimed at breaking the Duke of Ulaidh and his allies, and it was succeeding... until he drank Merry's blood.

At 13, Merry is the perfect age for her special blood to come into potency. For months, its pull had been growing gradually stronger, but the Slatherties all fought the urge to find the source of the delectable fragrance luring them. Her blood was a temptation and a promise they'd been wise to circumvent. Then, in his bloodthirsty stupor, the poisoned heir stumbled upon her in the woods.

At that time, he'd been too far gone to realise what he'd found, and once he'd tasted her exceptional blood, he craved more and more of it. Merry would definitely have died if he had not been so entranced by her blood that he did not see or hear the duke and his men finally catching up with him. He'd been dodging them for days, his delirium growing progressively stronger. Instead of dying, he was becoming more powerful, viler in thought and manner.

Merry's blood neutralized the poison, driving it out of his system. She saved him. The blood he'd given her before he let her go was just enough to bring her strength and healing, calling her back from the brink of death. The poison still left in the blood she drank had no effect on her; she only reaped the benefits of its healing properties and other blessings.

The combination of his blood rushing through her system and the herb infusions she was fed caused Merry to live, heal and become a much stronger version of herself.

The Slatherty heir, cleared of the poison and strengthened by Merry's blood, surrendered himself to his family. He managed to push through and win his fight against the curse, which by itself was a tremendous feat. He turned into an enhanced version of himself, needing human blood to sustain him, but he retained his heart, his mind and naturally kind soul. It is the most highly sought-after but scarcely achieved outcome.

It is that heart and soul that is proving to be his undoing.

The boy can remember every horrible thing he'd done in the finest detail. He knows every fragment of the lives of the girls he'd destroyed. He feels the pain of their families and of the parents who lost their infants to these warped young women who are cursed to crave motherhood but will never have it and are ruled by a bloodlust too intense to fight.

He blames himself for the death of every boy the pig farmer stole and bled for his daughter, even though he was not the one who turned the abused girl. He still felt responsible as the blood of the one who caused it, courses through his veins too. He has taken the sins of every Slatherty ever born onto himself and cannot carry the weight alone.

All he wants to do is die.

"If ye die, they win, me lord," Merry tells him, running her thin fingers over his dry cheek. "If ye die, yer family will finally give up, and the people filled with darkness, craving the destruction of all that is good, will win. They will destroy this island and then set out and destroy the world, turning humans into their cattle. Only ye and yer family can stand in their way. Ye have to live, me lord."

Merry has no idea what she's saying. She has no idea whom she's speaking about. She is repeating thoughts that are not her own. All she knows is that the words bubbling from her heart are true, and they frighten her.

"Will ye slip peacefully into death, making me dearest friend and the other lassies nothing more than victims in yer death? Ye owe it to them, me lord. If ye want to atone fer what ye did to Maddy and the others, ye need to live and suffer the memories and do better for them and fer me. Ye canno' just leave like this."

She knows that her words are cruel; they're cutting into her heart as much as they are cutting into his, but Merry can see that he is finally listening to her. She is speaking directly into his incomprehensible moral code. She can feel his breathing even out, his body still as he stops fighting the pull he feels towards her.

"Ye owe it to me, me lord," she says, lifting her chin in a haughty way she never knew she'd be capable of. "Ye took me from me family. Will ye just cast me out now? The girls ye turned will all become dust, blown away in the wind when ye die. Nothing more than a fading memory. I'll not be as fortunate. I dinna understand it well, me lord, but I know that me blood is special and others want it. I will be but a blood cow fer the milking by yer enemies. Me blood will make them unstoppable. I will be part of their guilt in enslaving humanity. I dinna want that, me lord. Please don't make me a monster.

"Won't it be better if me blood made ye unstoppable instead? Yer enemies will not be able to stand against ye. The people of Peace Haven need ye, me lord."

"Don't call me your lord. I'm not," he grunts, but he is no longer fighting her; his bony fingers are cold and dry, bristle, like sticks against the skin of her forearm when she holds her wrist to his lips again. She knows the idea of atoning for his sins and punishing himself for the rest of his life appeals to him, and the thought of Merry falling into the hands of his enemies is enough to cause him to lose the sanity he'd been clinging onto so tenaciously.

"Aye, but ye are me lord. I am the daughter of the town drunk, and yer, the duke's son, that is what I am to call ye and all in yer family," Merry frowns, sure now that his aversion to the title isn't just because of his self-loathing.

"The duke is not my father," the boy says casually. The dark parts of his eyes are gradually eating the silver, the dancing flames of the torches flickering impishly over their gleaming surfaces. "He's my uncle."

Merry does not have a chance to digest that piece of information. Nobody in her community is aware of this. She wants to ask him how that came about, but his tongue traces a cool path over the pulsing veins in her inner wrist, distracting her. She sucks in a sharp breath when she feels a sudden piercing pain, short-lived and much less harsh than what she'd felt in the graveyard.

He has better control now and does not want to hurt her. Somehow, she knew that with time, she would feel no pain at all, only the warmth and the joy. The word euphoria floats around in her mind. She doesn't know what it means, but she loves the flow of its sound in her head.

Sighing in contentment, she lies down beside the duke's nephew, resting her head on his chest, listening to his weak heartbeat gradually gain strength as he gently sucks the cure he needs from the small pulsing wound in her wrist. She can feel his lips grow softer, plump with fresh life. The skin of the fingers holding onto her arm becomes smooth as they flesh out, losing their skeletal appearance.

Merry closes her eyes, surrendering to the warm, happy memories rising to meet her, taking her far away from all her pain and suffering.

Feeling the boy's fingers tenderly playing with the hair near her scalp brings a contented smile to her lips while she drifts off into an exhausted sleep after too many days of suffering the torment he'd put them both through because of his over-developed sense of valour.

For the first time in her miserable life, Merry feels useful. Her life might have meaning after all.

~~~