I must have dozed off because the next thing I was aware of, Toven was standing by the open passenger door, whispering my name. My heart lurched at the sight of his beautiful face filling my field of vision.
My lips tipped up in a lazy smile. “Sorry, I must have dozed off. We danced until I dropped.”
He laughed and helped me from the car.
“Want something to drink?” he asked as we walked through the foyer.
“Sure, I’d love some water please.”
He ushered me to the couch and gently pushed me down. “Wait here. I’ll bring it to you.”
I unfastened the straps on my shoes and slid my tired feet out of them. Moaning in relief, I propped my feet up onto the couch. I was so comfortable I could’ve just slept right there all night long.
In a few minutes, a cold glass of water was placed in my hands. I gulped the refreshing water in a very unladylike manner, but I was too tired to be embarrassed.
Sighing, I snuggled deeper into the corner of the couch. “You can just leave me here tonight. This couch is so comfy, and I don’t think my feet will cooperate enough to get me up the stairs.”
Toven lifted my legs and sat on the middle couch cushion. He settled my legs across his lap. “How about I show your tired feet how much I appreciate all their dance moves?”
Without waiting for my answer, he began rubbing my aching feet. My body melted even further into the soft material.
“God, that feels amazing. Maybe you missed your calling. You should’ve been a foot massager.” My eyes drifted closed as I enjoyed his touch.
“I don’t think I would have the same passion rubbing just anybody’s feet.” His thumbs ran along one tired arch, pressing against a particularly sore part.
“You can rub mine anytime. It’s been a long time since I’ve danced so much. And never in heels like those.” I pointed at the offensive, yet beautiful footwear.
“They may not have been conducive to a night of dancing, but they made your legs look amazing.” He stopped kneading my arch and lightly trailed his fingers up my calf.
My breath whooshed out. Though I was certain he noticed my change in breathing and heart rate, he didn’t acknowledge it. His hands shifted to my other foot, and he continued the massage.
While we sat there alone and completely relaxed, I figured I’d try to learn more about this man who consumed all my thoughts. I wanted to know everything about him. Maybe then I could understand why I felt so drawn to him.
“So, when did you start playing music?”
“I climbed up on the bench of my mother’s piano when I was three years old. No one was watching, and I’d wandered into the music room. I began pressing on the keys. Music had always floated in my head. And I delighted, as only a child can, at the ability to try to get out what I heard inside. My mother heard and came looking for me. She was amazed by the semblance of a melody I produced with no effort. She bent down and whispered in my ear, ‘Music is in your blood, my sweet boy. You have your father’s talent. One day you’ll be even greater than he is.’ I didn’t understand what she was saying at the time, but I heard that same sentiment so many times as I grew up that I began to figure it out. My mother arranged for lessons before my fourth birthday, which I took for less than a year. Music came so naturally that I soon outplayed my instructors. From the time I was about five until about fifty years after I was turned, not a day went by that I didn’t sit down at a piano.” His fingers continued to work their magic on my aching feet the entire time he spoke.
He paused in his recounting, seeming to be lost in thought. So many questions swirled in my mind. I grabbed onto one and asked, “So, your dad played music? I thought I read somewhere your dad was a count. I didn’t realize he was also a musician.”
A humorless laugh tumbled from his lips. “You’re the only person outside my mother and father who will ever be privy to this piece of information . . ..”
Leaning forward, I angled my head to look in his eyes. “You can trust me. Toven, I’d never betray you.”
“I know. I don’t know why I haven’t ever told anyone about this before . . .. I just never wanted to speak the words aloud, and I never had anyone who mattered enough to know my origins,” he said with a rueful smile.
I laid a comforting hand on his bicep, silently encouraging him to proceed at his own pace. He drew a deep breath and gripped my leg just above my knee as he traveled through time in his mind.
His eyes took on a faraway look as he continued, “The count isn’t my real father. My mother had been betrothed to him for a while. Her mother, my grandmother, insisted my mother take music lessons because it was appealing for women to be able to play music to entertain their husbands. My grandparents hired an up-and-coming musician—who was twenty-five—to teach her piano when she was sixteen. To hear my mother tell it, he was phenomenal and a wonderful teacher. Over the course of a year, my mother fell in love with him. Ultimately, they began an affair. I don’t know if he loved her or not. The time finally came for my mother to get married. Her parents would’ve never allowed her to be with her music teacher since he was beneath her station in life. It turned out the joke would be on them. In the meantime, the music teacher had moved on to another family, and when my mother got married, she was one month pregnant with me. She suspected she was pregnant but never told a soul. When I was born, she named me Thoven Alexander Attems, after my real father as well as the man who would be a father to me.”
Thoughts of sleep had evaporated as Toven began sharing his tale with me. My mind quickly worked, trying to process what he was revealing.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped away. Soon he held it out to me. As my eyes took in the old black and white depiction on the screen, he said, “I think I favor him a little.”
He dropped the smile from his lips, then I could totally see the resemblance. But I still needed to hear the words out loud.
“Toven, are you telling me that Ludwig von Beethoven is your biological father?” I whispered the question.
“Yes. I’m the illegitimate son of one of the greatest composers of all time. If my grandparents had known who he’d become, they probably would’ve encouraged my mother’s feelings for him. But Alexander treated my mother and me well, better than many men in that day and age. So, though my mother wasn’t in love with Alexander, things turned out well for her.”
My eyes scrutinized him, cataloging the features I could tell he obviously inherited from his father—the set of his eyes, the shape of his nose, the arch of his brow.
“How is it that no one ever noticed the resemblance between you?” My fingers reached up to trace his brow. He leaned into my touch.
He shrugged. “If anyone ever did, they never mentioned it. He recognized I was his, though.”
“Oh, you met him?” Featherlight, I ran my hand through his hair before I settled back against the arm of the couch.
“One time. When I was six years old, Mother took me to one of his performances. We waited to speak with him after it was over. He recognized my mother right away. I remember hearing him say, ‘He looks just like me.’ And my mother told him she named me after him, then bragged that I’d inherited his musical talents in addition to his looks. Then she had me play for him. He was stunned by my talent at such a young age. He sat with me on the bench, and we played for a few minutes together. A game of follow the leader, if you will. It was thrilling to play with someone who could play as well as I did. I loved it. When we were done, my mother had tears in her eyes. I didn’t understand why until I was much older. He told her she was doing a fine job and there was nothing he could really do for me or her. She assured him she didn’t bring me because she wanted something from him; she only wanted him to see his son and know I existed,” he said, his voice was so soft, adrift in the past.
I scooted my body closer to him, sliding my legs further across his lap so I could press my torso against his side and wrap my arms around him in comfort. In those mome
nts, he seemed so vulnerable, almost like a lost little boy.
“When we left, Mother told me not to ever tell anyone about meeting Mr. Beethoven or the things I’d heard. And I never did. Until now.” He cradled me closer to him with one arm and anchored me in place with the other locked down over my thighs.
“Wow, Toven, I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. From that point on, I wanted to play music in front of people. And as I got older, it became my ambition to be better than he ever was,” he spoke the words as a vow.
“If the composition books in your music room are any indication, I’d say you surpassed him in the number of songs you wrote. And you get to hear the music you created,” I offered.
He rested his chin on the top of my head. “I know. I feel kind of bad for him that he was unable to fully appreciate the music he created because of his hearing loss. But as a composer and his son, I know he heard the music in his mind just as loudly as if he’d heard it in his ears.” I hugged him closer to me.
We sat in contemplative silence for a long while. The sexual charge which had hovered around us all night had dissipated with him sharing his past with me.
Knowing who his father was certainly explained where Toven got his exceptional ability. And it explained his massive ambition and motivation to create a musical legacy to rival anyone ever before.
After long moments, he patted my leg. “Enough heaviness for one night. I’m sure I’ll spill more of my dark secrets to you in the coming days. Something about you makes me want to lay everything out there and cast it out of the dark recesses of my heart into your light.”
Confession time was over. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to be done for now. Taking mercy on him, I said, “I’m tired. I should really get some sleep, so I’m well rested for a day at the office.”
He repositioned his hands under my thighs and around my waist. Before I could wonder what he was doing, he stood with me cradled in his arms. Quickly, he carried me up the stairs. By the time my mind wrapped around the fact that Toven was carrying me bridal style, we arrived at my bedroom door. Once he crossed the threshold into my room, he lowered my bare feet to the floor, keeping his other arm around my waist.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead and breathed deeply.
I gripped a handful of shirt fabric to steady myself. “Thank you for sharing yourself with me tonight, Toven.”
“No, thank you for accepting where I come from and keeping my secret.”
He stared deeply in my eyes with his forehead pressed against mine. If I moved my mouth just a few inches, I’d be able to taste his lips again. But with all the sensual tension arcing between the sliver of space between our bodies, I knew a kiss wouldn’t be the end of it. And though I desperately longed for more, I knew I wasn’t ready for more.
His hands slipped to my zipper on the back of my dress. I held my breath as the metal teeth opened with the downward motion of his nimble, pianist fingers. When the metal tab stopped at the bottom, the only thing holding my dress up was the press of my body against his.
He stroked my cheek with one finger. “Celesta,” he breathed against my skin.
“Yes?” My lashes fluttered as I peered into his eyes, seeing so much in them.
“Hold your dress up. When I step back in five seconds, I don’t want it to fall. Because if it does, I won’t be able to walk away from you like a gentleman . . . I’ll devour you like an animal. And you deserve a gentleman. That isn’t me, especially not tonight,” his tone was gruff and filled with need.
I swallowed hard. “OK. But then why did you unzip my dress?”
“Because I didn’t want a repeat of a few nights ago with you getting the zipper stuck and needing rescuing from your clothes. I thought I’d be a hero before you needed one.”
I giggled. “Thank you.” I clutched the front of my dress and pressed a kiss to his cheek before he stepped back and walked to the door.
“Sleep well, my shining star.”
“You too, Toven.”
“Oh, I will. You’ll be waltzing through my dreams.” He thrust his hands deeply into his pockets.
“Make sure you rub my feet when I finish dancing in your dreams.”
“Of course.” One hand came out and saluted me. Then he walked away, closing the door as he left.
Thankfully, once I was in my pajamas, I was able to shut off my mind and fall into a dreamless sleep.
19
Toven
Quickly, I went to put on something more comfortable and practically ran downstairs to my sanctuary, essentially placing layers of wood, sheetrock and insulation between me and the temptation I was finding harder and harder to resist.
What the hell got into me that I’d spill one of my most closely held secrets to her? And not just told her, but I happily shared it and longed to tell her more?
My mind wandered unchecked over all Celesta was awakening in me and all the fear I’d never vocally own up to which accompanied this awakening. As my mind meandered, my fingers settled on the keys and began to play. My eyes drifted closed as my digits coaxed a musical story from the smooth keys.
♪ Bring Me to Life by Evanescence
Tension inside of me wound tighter than the wires within my piano that were responsible for the sounds emitted from the instrument. The tautness flowed into the song. Sharp, loud notes full of angst and worry translated from my mind to the ethers as my fingers banged on the keys.
I thought of all the reasons I was bad for Celesta, all the ways I could hurt her. Then my mind shifted to all the beautiful things about her that went beyond her physical beauty. My fingers flowed fluidly across the keyboard, cajoling a graceful melody from the grand instrument before me. My thoughts shifted again, and the sound reflected the change. The tempo became light and freeing with some pep. I pictured all the ways she was changing me in the short time she’d been in my life. She was showing me a freedom I wasn’t aware I’d been missing.
I’d been captive in a dark prison, partly of my own creation. Celesta was throwing open the barred doors. But it was up to me to follow her into the light. The lighthearted notes began to subtly shift into a more somber sound. Within moments, the music surrounding me was a deep melancholy because I knew the prison doors would only be open for a short time. The days of freedom were rapidly slipping away from me. And while I’d come to terms with the inevitable, with Celesta in the picture I longed to fight the inevitable. I didn’t want to willingly go back into my prison.
Once I played my mind empty, my body was exhausted. I stopped the recording and went up to my room where I promptly fell into bed and into the darkness of sleep.
“Toven,” a voice called to me from the gloom. My blood ran cold at the sound it. I didn’t know a single word could hold so much menace. My pace quickened as I tried to flee from the one person I’d been evading for nearly one hundred years.
“You can run, Toven, but you can’t hide forever. Eventually, you’ll get tired. And when that happens, I’ll be there to welcome your weary body back home where you belong.”
“Nooooooooo!”
I sat up covered in a cold sweat. Gray light filtered in through the curtains, indicating sunrise would soon be upon me. My fingers closed over the pendant hanging around my neck, drawing comfort from its rough surface.
The dreams had become more frequent over the past few months. When I first left all those years ago, I had nightmares every night for months. Finally, I realized the protection pendant was working. I started breathing more easily, and the nightmares stopped, only recurring every ten years or so. But this past year, I had them once a month until a couple of months ago. Now, they were occurring every week.
I opened my fingers and examined the handmade amulet, noting the changes in the crystals’ coloring that had occurred over time. When I’d first slipped it over my head nearly a century before, the clear crystal shards were completely transparent, the pink pieces were the palest blush of pink and th
e rocks composed of a medley of purples, blues and greens were vibrant. Over time, as the talisman did its job, the colors changed. The clear parts were now gray with veins of black coursing through them as the crystal pieces worked to ward off negativity. That shift had been gradual over time. The bright blues, purples and greens had faded through the years as their energies had been drawn upon. The pale pink had been virtually unchanged over time. But an examination of it now revealed the pink was darkening and becoming more defined. I had no idea why. Perhaps it was meant to remind me that my time of protection was almost up.
No matter, I had no time for those thoughts this morning. I dressed and went down to the kitchen. I wanted to drink my morning bottle of blood before Celesta came down for breakfast.
Mrs. Burkett cooked as I drank.
“How was the party last night?” she asked.
“It was actually a lot of fun.” The warm liquid coated my throat when I took another sip.
“Why do you sound so surprised? Aren’t parties supposed to be fun?” The spatula scraped the pan as she continued to stir the omelet mixture.
“Yes, they are supposed to be fun. But you know me. I don’t do parties. I don’t do socializing. Hell, I don’t do people.” I finished my bottle and disposed of it.
She laughed and agreed with me.
“But somehow being there with Celesta made it not only bearable but enjoyable. We danced all night.” I couldn’t stop the grin from splitting my lips as I recalled holding her in my arms.
“Sounds like a night worth repeating.” She began to plate breakfast.
“It probably will be.” I poured two cups of coffee and prepared to go wake Celesta.
“Morning,” an angelic voice said from behind me.
Blood Song: Prelude (Blood Song Series Book 1) Page 24