“You must promise me you’ll be careful tonight,” he whispered, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand.
“At the dance?”
“Yes, of course, at the dance. Be aware of everything. I don’t know these people.”
“But I do. Some of them are my turned cousins.”
“All the more reason to be careful. No messages, Phoebe. We cannot take any chances we could be overheard.”
“I’ll try.”
He gripped her arm and pulled it harshly to his side. “No. You won’t try. You will behave.”
“I promise I won’t make a fool out of either one of us. I’ll be your most compliant future wife. I’ll do anything you ask me to do, Lionel. Anything.”
IT WAS DELICIOUS being next to him in the back seat as Samuel drove her mother’s car to the dance hall. She matched the rhythm of his breathing until he whispered, “Stop it.”
Dancers had already taken their spots on the floor while several young women set out cookies and a Sangria-like punch based on an old, mulled wine recipe. She presented a cup to Lionel, and he declined.
She finished the warm liquid just in time for a young man to ask her to dance. He was new to the group, an American university student, he said. He held her loosely, not forcing himself at her while they waltzed. Every time he turned her, she saw Lionel’s measured stare, noticing everything around her.
Samuel cut in, and they danced their West Coast Swing routine. One time during the dance, she swung close, barely grazing against Lionel’s chest, and heard Lionel growl again. She tossed her head from side to side, rocked her hips to the rhythm of the lively music, and spun beneath Samuel’s guidance.
They both clapped, and she scanned the room. Lionel had retreated to a dark corner until a woman dressed in a red poodle skirt pulled up a chair, and sat too close. He backed up discretely, but the woman leaned toward him, talking to him with her chin placed into the palm of her hand, her elbow on the table.
Phoebe decided to join the pair until a firm arm grabbed her around the waist and spun her tight against his muscled frame. Next to her cousin Daniel stood another newcomer. She smelled the distinctive vape of a dark vamp. She shot a worried look at Daniel as the dark vamp spoke.
“My lucky day. The legendary virgin Golden daughter without her protectors.” His smile was disingenuous. Phoebe didn’t trust him.
Daniel was trying to separate the two of them, but the vamp was much stronger.
“Get off me, boy. When you turn, you will become a man. This beauty desires a real man, don’t you, dear Phoebe?”
She was shocked he knew her name, which again indicated Daniel had not been discrete with their family information. The newcomer squeezed her waist between his thumb and fingers, as if he was going to crush her ribs.
In a flutter of wind and dark cloth, Lionel was there. He’d inserted himself hard against the dark vamp, towering above him by several inches as he stepped on the man’s foot. Phoebe could hear the crunch of bone and noted the slight sweat forming at the forehead of the newcomer, but he did not scream.
“You have an impending appointment with a physician and a cast maker, my young traveler. You are not welcome here.” Lionel took back his foot and scanned the crowd.
“He came with me. We came alone,” stuttered Daniel.
“He’s my cousin. Daniel,” Phoebe hurried.
“You make unwise choices, young Daniel.”
“Who—?” Her cousin pointed to Lionel as a crowd began to form around the little circle.
Phoebe inhaled and took Lionel’s hand. “He is my husband-to-be, Daniel. This was to be the night I was going to introduce you all to him.”
Frowns turned into smiles as the room erupted in spontaneous clapping. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the dark guest limp toward the doorway and slither away into the night. She looked up at Lionel, who was following the same line of sight.
Lionel was asked to dance, and he declined repeatedly. Instead, he stood in the middle of the floor, watching Phoebe take partner after partner. He was never more than a handful of feet from her side, which became quite the topic of whispers and tittering laughter. But he remained motionless except for the small steps he needed to take to get closer to her. Occasionally, he glanced out the windows and doorway, but for most of the remaining minutes, he was transfixed watching her and every movement she made.
The trip home was silent. Samuel gave up making small talk and resigned himself to being just the driver.
Inside the kitchen, she gave the young protector a hug and then watched him retire to his room, closing the door behind.
Lionel had checked the doors and windows. She knew they were now alone. What she’d been dreaming of all day was suddenly here.
“Lionel, thank you. I—”
But his lips covered her mouth, then hoisted her in his arms and traced upstairs to his bedroom. The strong scent of his sleep still drifted past her, making her ears buzz and her heart pound. At his back she saw the dark carved four-poster bed that had been in her family for generations.
“Your parents will return soon,” he whispered to her. His fingers slipped her blouse over her shoulder, and he kissed her there. Her lips grazed past his rough cheek. She pressed her forehead to the side of his face.
“What are we to do? This is driving me mad.”
“I can relieve the pressure, give us both a temporary reprieve until we are assured of being alone again, but there is a limit to my will power, and if I should fail—”
She sucked his lower lip, pressing her mound to his groin. “Then you will take me with you to Hell and back. I want an unbridled kiss with your full heart.”
He looked upon her in the firelight. “I promised your mother. I will not break that vow, but understand if I could, I’d fill you with my seed, and I’d demand every ounce of your soul.”
“When? Lionel, when? Will it ever happen?”
“On my life, I will find a way to love you to eternity.”
“And if I remain human?”
“Eternity for me is the same whether you are turned or human, sweet Phoebe. I’ve done it once. But this will be the last time.”
“Take my wrist and give me yours.”
He sliced a thin line of red across his left wrist and placed it to her lips. She drew hard, attempting to increase the size of the wound.
“No. There is much to teach you first. Just enough to start the burn in your belly. Do you feel it? If we are fated, you will burn. And you will bleed.”
“I already have, Lionel.” She lapped the remaining lifeblood from her lips. “Now, take from me.”
She held out her wrist, but he fell to his knees, smoothing both hands up her leg beneath her skirts, and discovered she’d worn no panties. He spread her thighs, then dipped his head beneath the layers of petticoat fabric, laving her swollen bud and drawing her lips under the tip of his canine. He nipped her, which made her shiver from the surprise and the pleasure of it. His thick tongue pressed against the little bumps where he’d wounded her last night. He inhaled and breached her flesh again.
She knew the more their blood mixed, the more she’d demand from him. She hoped they’d create a solution to their mating issue before it was too late.
Minutes later, he was carrying her to her own bed.
This will have to be enough for tonight, my bride.
It will never be enough for me, she told him just before she fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 15
MARCUS WELCOMED LIONEL to the library for the requested audience.
“What brings you to my home, Lionel? Everything progressing with your plans for the wedding? Any second thoughts or regrets?”
“No, sir. I am good with my decision.”
“And my cousin Phoebe, is she doing any better with the manners?”
Lionel smiled to the floor. “That’s going to always be a problem.”
Marcus laughed. He handed Lionel a tumbler containing legend
ary whiskey from his extensive collection. The drink was smooth and helped to settle his nerves.
“Then is that why you’ve come?”
“I fear I need marital advice,” Lionel blurted out before he lost his courage altogether.
Marcus uncrossed his legs, set his drink down, and leaned forward in his leather rocker. “You surprise me. Isn’t this soon to have marital discord? The wedding is tomorrow.”
“She desires that I—do things to her of a sexual nature. I am her husband, but in name only. I understand this. But she is bending the boundaries—and I don’t mean to blame her for this, as I feel a strong attraction myself. But I wouldn’t be the man you can count on if I didn’t inform you of this.”
There. It was said. He’d tossed all day and most of his waking time the night before rehearsing over and over what he wanted to tell Marcus.
“I see.”
Lionel finished his drink but was not offered another. He didn’t want to impose so set the empty goblet down. He’d made another miscalculation. Perhaps this wasn’t news Marcus could receive.
“Is it like a fating, then?”
“Well, it couldn’t be, could it? I mean, all my life I’ve been told that’s impossible between the species.”
“But you feel something? The same as she?”
“I don’t think so, no. Could it be that she has what mortals call love? Could it be a real love and not an animalistic fating? Perhaps something purer?”
Marcus paced across the heavily carpeted floor.
“I’m looking first for an explanation before I can decide what to do,” Lionel admitted.
“You aren’t considering calling everything off, are you?”
“Should I? Tell me honestly, Marcus.”
“You would have shamed her. Does her family know of this?”
“We’ve not violated anything for which we should feel guilty for. Perhaps stretched the boundaries a bit. I call it healthy experimentation.”
“With a Golden female.”
Lionel was disappointed to discover now he was feeling shame for his lack of restraint. “I have not penetrated her. She is and will always be virgin while I’m alive to protect her. No worries there. I haven’t broken my vow to her family or to her.”
“Who is responsible for instigating the advances?”
Lionel didn’t want to answer, so he lied. “I guess that would be me.”
Marcus began to laugh again. “Lionel, you are the last of the honest men on this planet. Are you sure a Golden is not in your bloodline?”
“I’m not understanding, sir.”
“You just lied to me. I don’t believe for a minute you forced her or glammed her or, in any wa, began this relationship.” He grabbed Lionel’s goblet and headed for the minibar. “She’s done to you what my mother couldn’t bring herself to do.”
He didn’t think he’d heard Marcus correctly. Did Marcus know of his love for his mother?
“I’ve never spoken of my feelings for your mother. I assure you, Marcus, nothing inappropriate happened there. I knew my place then, and I know my place now.”
“I’ve not told you everything I know, Lionel. I think both Paolo and I have noticed the chemistry between the two of you. I was not aware of the fondness you and my mother had for each other until I was told at a much older age. When I first saw the now-grown Phoebe, the first person I thought of was you and how it would affect you to meet her.”
“Of course. I understand all this.”
“But the distance between our species is of great interest to me. And I’ve done some research.”
“I knew you’d found the book!” he said as he stood.
“Sit.” Marcus handed him the goblet. “You and Paolo are the only people who know, other than Ann and Paolo’s wife, Carabella, who led us to the book.”
“The Book of Spawn.”
“The very one.”
He pressed a panel of walnut on the wall, revealing a safe. Marcus dialed the combination and unlocked the dark compartment. He removed a large, ragged book several inches thick and laid it on the table next to Lionel.
“It’s an odd book. It doesn’t read from front to back, but from the middle to the front, with another story from the middle to the back. It’s written in multiple languages, and the passages contain riddles and clues to other passages so that it’s nearly impossible to follow sequentially. I’ve merely scratched the surface, and it reveals more questions than it does answers.”
“May I?”
Marcus nodded, allowing Lionel to pick up the book and examine the front and back covers. The canvas was worn along the spine; gold lettering was partially rubbed off. As Lionel held it, he felt a faint heartbeat coming from the pages inside. He looked up at his employer.
“You feel it too?”
Lionel nodded.
“Then this confirms what I’d suspected all along. There is a connection between our families. Your story, our story, stories that are not yet lived are written in this book, I think.”
“Why would the evil ones want such a storybook? If it isn’t written for them, why value it so highly, or is it just because it’s of value to you that they want to possess it?”
“It explains the origins of our species. Ours, yours, and human mortals.”
Lionel was confused.
“We share a common bloodline, Lionel. We are branches of the same tree. The tree of life.”
Lionel handed the book back to Marcus. “Put it away. I am not to be trusted with this relic. You must never let it leave your side.”
Marcus placed the tome back in the safe, turned the knob, then closed the secret door. He dragged a chair so that he could sit knee-to-knee with his employee. Or was he now considered family?
“When I told you at the conclave that you were family, I’d gained this knowledge from the book. I don’t know who I can trust. I may not be able to trust members of my own Golden clan. I may need someone who is seemingly on the outside, like you.”
“I sensed the pirate had knowledge of our meeting already, Marcus. I told you so when I returned.”
“Indeed. But I don’t know who. One thing is certain. It isn’t you, or Paolo.”
“And I don’t think it could be Hugh, or Jeb. Jeb was gone when the meeting took place, already the man’s prisoner.”
“Yes. But for the time being, only the three of us will know a very important secret. If I didn’t trust you with the lives of my children, nieces, nephews, my wife, my siblings, and their wives and children, I would keep this from you.”
“Keep what?”
“It tells of a people who lived for centuries, and as their culture evolved, they created rules and mores. Subsets of people. Some were satisfied, and some were bored with their lineage. Many no longer thought it was a higher form to live immortally.”
“They had perfection, and they rejected it?” Lionel found this hard to believe.
“No, they didn’t reject it. They altered it.”
Lionel sat up straight and finished his drink. He examined the colorful chards cut into the crystal, sending tiny pieces of a rainbow onto the wall and ceiling above. “They created the separation of the species?”
“Yes.”
“So who came first?”
“Think about it. They lived forever but wanted to make a finite choice, so they created the dark creatures of your line. To control the new breed, they imposed limitations, so they would be easier to track and to regulate.”
“Go on.”
“And then they created a species that would never be immortal. Fearing these would take over the earth, they built into their DNA a failsafe date. They would die. They were stripped of their ability to choose between a mortal life and that of our lineage. The Goldens were the ones who messed it all up for everyone.”
“They messed with the creation of the perfect being.” The logic was undeniable and explained so many things which Lionel had pondered for years.
Marcus scooted his chair
closer and grabbed Lionel’s hand. “We are distant cousins. All of us. And what that means is there could be intermingling of the species. And perhaps what was done could be undone.”
“What do we do with this information, Marcus?”
“For now, we keep it from everyone, especially the evil ones. They must never learn what we three now know. Until we are armed with some kind of way we can find a solution. For everyone.”
Chapter 16
PHOEBE’S WEDDING DAY was beginning. Unlike most blushing brides, she could not see her husband until he emerged from his locked room. There would be no wedding in the sunshine with flower petals falling from baskets held by little angels.
But for a man who loved simple things, Lionel’s request to be married in the chapel was an odd one. It was the chapel where Marcus had wed Anne, where he had first met his fated female in her mortal form, and first began his long journey to follow her, protect her, and eventually claim her for his own.
She was aware he’d spent some time in the chapel in quiet reflection last night, that he’d started to become interested in her stories about the family she was raised in.
Over the years, it had been said that the dark vamps had no soul, or were prone to evil, yet she had found in Lionel one of the most tender men she’d ever met. His depth of understanding of her kind wasn’t as matched to her understanding of him. He dismissed his history as unimportant, and that surprised her.
So the evening wedding was to be a church service, with children’s choirs and a chorus of nuns from the local school. There was to be a processional of accolades swinging incense like was done centuries ago. It was an ornate service, with lots of detail. Far from being simple, he had embraced this wedding as if a miracle were to be performed before their eyes.
He’d talked her into traveling back to California soon, so they could live on the Healdsburg Monteleone estate with Marcus and Ann. Phoebe was anxious to live where things were new and not centuries old. And although Lionel would never be able to enjoy it, she looked forward to the California sun.
For now, her mother and father were told none of their plans. The antique vestments were brought out, linens hundreds of years old and only worn on high holy days. Her dress was once worn by Marcus’ mother. Her necklace complimented the intricate lace at her bodice. Lionel had insisted he place the heart-shaped earrings on her ears himself and told her he was ready to trace them some place private, so he could have her all to himself. He didn’t believe in the superstition about seeing the bride before the wedding.
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