by Lana Sky
The sound of his returning footsteps made me tremble with relief. When I looked up, I found that he held more food. This time, a platter of apple slices, cheese, and fresh fruit.
“Eat,” he commanded, stopping short just beyond my reach.
I squeezed my eyes shut. In vain, beads of moisture escaped, clawing down my cheek. “I can’t…”
“Look at me.”
The gritted cadence of his tone held sway. I obeyed just in time to find him brandishing a knife in his other hand. Naked, his skin gleamed like marble, and it seemed laughable that anything could hurt him. Even the blade he dragged across his collar bone.
Crimson bubbled up in a single line, painting him in gore like a true predator. After stalking closer to the bed, he set the tray at one end of the mattress and then lifted an apple slice.
He brought the red end of the fruit to his wound, letting his blood taint the apple’s ivory flesh. Then he lowered the offering to my lips, ignoring how they twitched in defiance. “Open.”
It wasn’t fair. My body craved pleasure—distraction—but my mind only wanted an escape. Oblivion. A drop of his blood could serve both purposes.
Aware of that power, he taunted me, pressing the fruit more firmly against my mouth. “Eat.”
A drop of moisture grazed my lip. Burning. Tempting. Sweet.
My tongue darted for it, rebelling against my pride. When he threatened to draw the apple away, I finally pried my jaws apart.
“Good,” he murmured as one reluctant bite became two.
I licked my lips, ready for more. Even the hint of his blood was…
Explosive.
Warmth blossomed in my veins, battling the chill persisting in my heavy bones. With a burst of renewed energy, I drew my knees up to my chest and sat upright as my thoughts clouded, deliciously dizzy. But nowhere near high enough.
Thankfully, he already had another apple slice in hand. Fresh blood painted its milky interior, and I didn’t require coaxing this time.
“Good.”
The guttural praise resonated in my skin as his free hand cradled my cheek. He used the contact to tilt my head back and fed me another slice. Then another. With every tentative swallow, his thumb stroked my jaw in a rewarding caress.
I wasn’t sure how much I ate before I finally refused the next morsel, legitimately full. In silence, Dublin removed the platter from the bed and set it down in some distant corner of the room.
I watched him, uneasy again. I should have been high on cloud nine, giddy and detached from the world. But I wasn’t. Reality remained way too close. Even his blood couldn’t push it away for very long.
“Lie back,” he commanded as if reading my mind. “Trust me.”
Confused, I fell against a pillow, eyeing the ceiling. The slow thud of his footsteps matched my pulse, quickened by the second. Only it ceased amid a growl as his hand caught my thigh so he could drag me to the edge of the bed with no warning.
Panicked, I grabbed at the sheets, nails drawn. “W-What are you doing?” I tried to sit up, only to be rewarded with a sharp pain that flared along my knee. His fingers, pinching ruthlessly in warning.
“Lie back.”
In my weakened state, I had no hope of denying him again. My spine went limp, forcing me to crane my neck down just to see him. Like a true predator, he crouched at the end of the mattress, his head lowered as his hands pinned me in place, pressing down on either thigh. Aware of me watching, he hovered there as if tracking my pulse through feel alone.
A jealous creature, he hoarded my every reaction to him—every breath to scrape from my throat. The twitch of anticipation racking my spine, impossible to suppress.
The soft moan that escaped as his fingers bit down, melding his touch with the slightest hint of pain.
His eyes flicked up to mine once, conveying a silent warning: Surrender. Then he lunged so quickly that I could only feel him driving between my legs. My eyelids fluttered at the alarming mixture of sensations—not his hands. Not the part of him I’d barely grown accustomed to feeling inside me, either.
This newer, deadly heat came like a lightning strike. So sharp. So potent. My brain struggled to match sight with feel… Only as I saw his head rock in time with the relentless pressure could I finally give his weapon of choice a name.
His tongue.
Thoughts scattered. Fears vanished. As if injected with a lifespan’s worth of his blood, I transformed, a greedy, broken creature. Senseless, I could only watch. Gape. From a handful of romance novels, I knew what he was doing. Something every bit as vulgar as the act I’d performed on his plane.
But he didn’t lick, too coy to avoid naming the act in his head. His tongue battered me open, sowing friction with every taste. Fire. Lying still was impossible—I writhed as if my spine were a string.
And he ruthlessly tugged with every stroke. Nothing was sacred to him, no place beyond his reach. My Devil dove into my soul, taking whatever he could claim and sowing discord in his wake.
He was sin.
And I was a corrupt, lost soul desperate for damnation.
My fingers curled, clutching the sheets to their breaking point, until the sensation changed. Deepening. Thickening. His finger? His thumb. Pressing, pushing, swirling.
A slave to every motion, my back bowed urging him closer. Closer. Closer. Too senseless to beg, I tried to demand more, lurching forward to grasp at his hair. Impervious to pain, he shrugged my attempts off and continued his exploration at his own leisurely pace.
My pleasure was at his discretion—not mine. As if to prove as much, he captured an aching bit of flesh between his teeth, threatening to bite. I jerked, my back bowed so violently that the top of my head was all that remained on the mattress.
Lost in his hell, he refused to allow me to come down, pushing me higher and higher with every sharp, pinching nip—but I wasn’t the only one lost in the onslaught. His savoring groan reverberated through my flesh, and I shattered.
Stars prickled behind my eyes, punctuating explosions of pleasure as they ripped through every muscle and nerve.
Drugged with the million different reactions, I faintly heard him mutter, “Refuse to eat again and I’ll never…”
He didn’t say what. Nonetheless, the threat resonated, paired with the violent, dangerous note in his voice. So I ignored it all and focused on feeling. On breaking. On flying.
He coaxed me so, so, so high.
Then let me fall and watched my descent with glowing eyes.
Even panting and breathless, I knew when he pulled back from me. My body ached, desperate for more. I needed more.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight before I could mourn his absence in full. One of his hands cupped my waist, drawing me into him, as the other caught my skull. While he pinned me in place, he made me suffer a different form of contact. Another first.
Intimacy.
But sex I could stomach. I could pretend, once I woke up, that none of it had meant a damn thing.
Not this. Nestling my face into his chest, still panting, felt ten times more addicting. More dangerous.
Not even the headiest drug could compare to the haven of his embrace. He could desolate me with this.
But I was too weak to resist the destruction.
And he was cruel enough to know as much.
Cold. That was how I awoke. Cold and sore. Hungry and lonely. It was like being transported to only a few days ago and nothing in the world terrified me more than having to relive that reality. Solitude. There was only one cure and my fingers scoured the sheets in search of it.
Dublin.
I found nothing, not even when I peeled my eyes open to an empty room bathed in the gray glow of dawn.
Fear unlike anything else shredded me to my core. A sick part of me welcomed it. Misery was what I really craved. What I needed to feel. I could chase a reprieve all I wanted, but this…this was my fate.
Abandoned once again.
Perhaps this time he’d le
ft a note behind? I scanned the room, finding only a gray robe slung over the end of the bed. When I climbed off the mattress and pulled it on, I realized the door to my room was ajar as well. Once in the hallway, I made out the faintest notes of music and hope guided my motions, a pathetic lifeline.
I followed the sound, creeping down the stairs and through a maze of rooms until I reached one at the very back of the house. Contained within was a lone piano placed before a row of bay windows. Devoid of curtains, they displayed an unobstructed view of a small garden overrun with sprouting roses.
Hunched on the bench was a figure wearing only a pair of wrinkled black pants. I’d never seen him so disheveled. So…tired. His bare torso caught the light, displaying the numerous silvery lines speckling his skin. Scars was too ugly a word to call them. Merely…decoration, deliberately chiseled there by whatever artist crafted this stunning creature.
The moment I stepped foot within his domain, the music ceased on a single plaintive note.
“You were sleeping,” he said without turning around. The emphasis he placed on that word betrayed another meaning—sleeping free from nightmares, for once.
A part of me recognized the words as his reason for leaving. Which felt…odd. Even odder was that some of the irrational fear eating through my chest abated.
There was a word for women like the one I was becoming. Clingy. Needy. My mother used to gossip about a socialite she’d known once, who’d actually had the gall to take offense when her husband’s work hours grew from days into weeks. She has his estate. Why should she care?
Perhaps because poor Mrs. Perriweather suffered from the same irrational darkness that plagued me? The fears lurking within the shadows of her psyche, threatening to swallow her whole if someone—anyone—wasn’t there to keep them at bay. All they had to do was stay, just long enough for her to find herself again.
However long that might take.
This feeling was temporary, I was sure of it. So why couldn’t I cross the threshold until he beckoned me closer?
My hesitant footsteps were quickly swallowed by the notes of music that rose to a crescendo as he continued to play. I’d misjudged his skills as simply good before. Talented. Only now could I appreciate the full wealth of emotion he layered into every single note. He didn’t look down at the keys once as he sat with his posture erect and his eyes on the window. He didn’t merely play. He bled.
He never stopped, even as I perched myself on the end of the bench. I wasn’t sure who closed the distance first. Which body shifted to bridge the gap. All that mattered was that my head was on his shoulder and I huddled into the contact while his fingers still flexed to stroke the keys.
“What song?” I asked as softly as I dared.
“Something Puccini,” he explained. “Vissi d’arte, I believe. A bit dramatic for my tastes, but it gets the point across.”
“The point?”
“Here.” He grabbed my hand, manipulating my fingers where he wanted. With quiet motions, he guided me to strike the keys in tandem, and the melody continued.
I suspected that a million answers to my question lurked within the tune spilling out around us. Including what Dmitri himself had hinted: Music is the only damn thing humanity possesses worth saving.
Closing my eyes, I tried to listen—but nothing rivaled his voice and I was too greedy to deny myself it. “What does the title mean?”
He hesitated, the music faltering slightly. “‘I lived for art.’”
“What is it about?” The mixture of sharp and low notes conveyed longing. Pain.
“In short?” He inclined his head and ceased playing altogether. “Nell’ora del dolore.” His mouth grazed my throat, allowing his voice to enter my ear, lowered for me alone. “Signore, perché me ne rimuneri così?”
He sat back, continuing the melody unassisted. Something warned me against pressing him for clarity. Not yet. I listened instead, somehow sensing the meaning in every strained tone before he translated, his gruff baritone melding with the music.
“In this hour of grief… Lord, why do you reward me thus?”
His tone barely wavered, yet he conveyed the passionate plea effortlessly. The pain. The desperation. Did he truly feel that way? Or was he merely interpreting the agony written into the music?
I watched his fingers fly across the keys. My teeth tore at my bottom lip, but I barely felt the pain. Sighing, I leaned against him, sensing him shift to support me.
“I’m afraid.” My voice fell to a whisper, nearly swallowed as the music swelled. “I’m so afraid. I don’t want to die.”
He had been wrong about my supposed death wish.
I wasn’t ready.
The music slowed, becoming an array of scattered notes, seconds apart.
“You will.”
I flinched at his tone, but his fingers drifted through my hair before I could interpret it as an insult.
“Sadly, I’ll be there to witness it, I suppose. When the time eventually comes. In fact, I imagine it to be a rather boring affair, given your track record.” He cocked his head as if picturing the moment and sighed in disappointment. “Oh yes. You shriveled in old age, laid out in your precious little manor, irritating me until your last breath. Predictable until the very end.”
My lips twitched into a painful expression. A smile? “Who said I’d even let you in through the front door?” I croaked. “I do have standards, you know. I’d prefer my mourners sniffling and tearful if you please. Not smug and irritating.”
“Tearful?” He nudged my jaw with the pad of his thumb, eyeing me with an eyebrow raised. “Hopefully not from boredom. Did you not hear my first request?”
A sound ripped from my chest that I recognized only as he started to play again. A laugh, hollow and broken. But real nonetheless.
And it chilled me to the bone that he had the power to conjure such a reaction from me at all.
A Small Favor
I startled awake at the exact moment the melody died in a jarring array of clashing notes. Beside me, Dublin lurched to his feet as footsteps raced in our direction.
“What is it?” he demanded.
I turned, following his gaze. An unfamiliar man stood in the doorway. Dressed in nondescript black, he conveyed the readiness of a soldier.
“There’s someone at the…” A thick accent made it impossible for me to discern the rest of what he said, but Dublin hissed through his teeth.
Before my eyes, he transformed—a monster again. “Are you sure?”
The man nodded.
“Eleanor.” Dublin didn’t even look in my direction. “Get upstairs. Now.”
Standing, I drew my robe around me with one hand. Dublin headed through the doorway and I followed in his wake, moving straight for the staircase.
I nearly missed the figure strolling boldly across the foyer to meet us. Blood-red hair would have rendered him striking—even without the vibrant emerald-green suit complementing the color of his eyes.
The vampire from the opera house. Dmitri.
“I suggest you let her stay, Dublin,” he said, his upper lip quirked. “Considering that what I have to say concerns her more than it does you.”
“Move.” Dublin lunged, all but dragging me up the remaining few steps. “Get to your room—”
“I know it was rude to intrude,” Dmitri continued, unaffected by our retreat. “Especially considering how much effort you put into your protection. It might amuse you to know that you weren’t quite as discreet as you thought. As always, the rumors precede you.”
Icy hands met my shoulders, pushing me down the hall. He didn’t even waste energy on words this time. The command was clear. Go!
“But never in a million years—and I think you’ll appreciate the joke—would I have expected this. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” Dmitri wondered, sounding legitimately amused. “That thing growing in her stomach?”
The world shifted underneath me, and I staggered to a stop, clinging to the wal
l for balance. Behind me, Dublin went rigid, his grip a vise on my forearm.
“I’m surprised you risked bringing her to me directly,” the man below added, raising his voice for our benefit. “Then again, I do remember your rather possessive nature. Regardless, I knew the moment I saw her just why you’d sought me out after all this time. It certainly wasn’t to humor her with trivial stories.”
“Get out.”
I risked looking over my shoulder again as Dublin released me and advanced toward the mouth of the staircase. I only caught a glimpse of his expression from my position, but I recoiled at the sight. His eyes practically glowed, a chilling shade of silver.
Soulless.
“I could hear its heartbeat, Dublin,” Dmitri crooned, his voice trembling. “A marvelous sound if you know what to look for. Steady. Strong. This is all so very interesting that I couldn’t resist flaunting your rather elaborate security.”
My thoughts swam aimlessly, desperate to process two words. Steady. Strong?
“What do you want?” Dublin demanded, snapping me from the confusing turmoil.
“I want…merely to satisfy my own curiosity,” Dmitri said. Excitement bubbled from him. He sounded on the verge of laughter. “It’s not every day that such a rare case study lands upon one’s lap. And it isn’t every day that a man who once proclaimed a lack of a soul goes through so much trouble to protect a mortal woman—”
“I would assume that you more than satisfied your curiosity already,” Dublin interjected. “You chose your words carefully, didn’t you? Knowing just which wounds to prod. Did you want to shatter her mind the way you break the rest of your toys?”
Dmitri’s reply took seconds to reach me, deceptively demure. “All right, I admit it. Perhaps I was exaggerating.”
“Exaggerating?” My voice broke as something snapped inside me. Something raw and violent that made even someone like Dublin Helos an insignificant obstacle in my path. “Why do you care?” I was halfway down the staircase before I knew it, stopped only by a single icy grip on my arm. “Why? You said that…that...”
“That you were carrying a deformed, doomed, worthless creature?” He blinked his multicolored eyes just once. “Well, it’s simple, my dear. I lied.”