Medley of Souls

by Renee Peters

  Joanna arched beneath him, crying out as his darkness resonated through her mind and soul as he drank her in.

  The first waves of pleasure he gifted her with his kiss crashed into her soul like a storm wind that bent the trees before it. His music was the passion of violins, joined by the lift of her flutes to greet it. Her notes were swept up into his storm like a thousand birds beating their wings into the wind, swirling through the tempest.

  She felt his lightning twist through her at the place of their joining, between her thighs and deep within her belly, and her back arched as its currents flew down her spine. Gasping, her fingers lifted to curl into his hair for an anchor as his song and storm carried her higher on his thrusts. She could feel the precipice nearing and the wave that threatened to plunge her over, but as suddenly as it reared in a flash of light, she found herself plunged into the darkness of the storm again.

  He had denied her flight.

  Dorian lifted his head to meet her gaze with the heat of challenge. “It is not a dance, Cherie, if only one partner moves his feet.” His voice was husky with desire.

  Warm blood seeped from the punctures in her throat, and for a just a heartbeat, Joanna held still as she tried to recover from the swirl of instruments and song that had battered her heart and soul.

  Then she realized what he was offering her in that moment.

  He was offering his blood — his bond. The knowledge of it almost gave her wings again.

  A moment later, without warning, the Conde had his answer. Joanna twisted under him, using her knees for leverage on his hips as she rolled him onto his back. His surprise flickered on a running scale over her flutes before settling in to a low, humming vibrato of anticipation.

  The French queen raised up from his lap, leaning forward to crush her lips against his in a kiss that was forceful enough to break his skin with her fangs. It lasted only heartbeats before Dorian anchored his grip around her to draw her down again into a harder fit on his lap. His length pierced her anew, and she threw her head back on a shudder that traveled her entire body.

  “Now, Joanna.” Her husband’s words were hot and urgent. He was fast losing the ability to control the darkness within him.

  “Mon Dieu….”

  Dorian’s song surged against her with a torrent, and she suffered through another crack of lightning in his storm. It made her heart beat an allegro tempo, one only slightly quicker than the pulse that quivered lower, and her blood swirled with a whirlwind chorus of woodwinds and strings in answer.

  Joanna’s hands curled tighter into his shoulders, and she began to move on him — setting an erratic, quickening pace that grew her pleasure again. The press of her breasts against the heat of his palms only added to her ecstasy — his caresses urging her on.

  “Joanna —” The gravel of his voice was an almost desperate demand, now, and she thrilled for the power of the control that he had ceded to her.

  “Mon amour —” she gasped. “Now you are mine.”

  Her song danced like a ripple of violins and flutes across the weave of the coven’s bond and latched her heart onto the rhythm and demand that was only him — the thread he had forged between them. Then, the queen’s song began a crescendo across their souls, accented by breathless moans as she drew closer to her climax.

  Joanna lowered across his chest and turned her head, suckling a kiss to his throat. It tore a groan from him.

  “Take, Cherie… I am yours.”

  Her hands journeyed higher into his hair, threading into a hold that was not at all gentle, and the scrape of her fangs against his jaw was the promise of a bite that did not make claim, yet. From somewhere deep within her throat came a growl. Then she moved over him again, a bow over the strings of his violin, rocking out the rhythm that would take them over the edge.

  “Joanna!”

  Her bite pierced the skin above his pulse and drew his symphony into her soul, returning the gift of his pleasure with a peal of her flutes that danced alongside his strings. They swept across a range of highs and lows as the queen found the secret parts of her Conde’s soul. Sorrow and happiness, guilt and regret, pain — memories that churned through her soul like a waterfall amidst his storm. She did not relent, and her husband bucked under her with a hoarse cry he plunged over the edge into his release.

  Joanna followed him over the edge — the moans of her shuddering climax swallowed by his skin as a surge of aged blood ran hot down her throat. The near deafening rock of his music and the music of the coven amplified, pummeling her own. The gate of his heart opened, and like lighting, the thread of her own music whipped out, reaching relentlessly into his darkest places — finding and fusing with the thread already between them in a light that outshone the sun.

  For the first time, she could feel and hear the full power and passion of his music over the power of the coven’s collective; over Lian’s song.

  Joanna’s fingers dug into his shoulders. Somehow in that haze of songs, and the sheer volume and intensity of his own, she heard him. She realized then, that he was her instrument as much as she was his. She could feel it in the way her flutes curled around his violins, and in the testing crescendos and staccato jolts that she could weave through their souls.

  Breathing hard, the queen lifted her head to seal the wound she had caused with her tongue. The racing of his heart had not slowed beneath her when she lowered to his chest again. Long, breathless moments passed in the immediate aftermath of their tempest, and the French queen did not release him.

  “The Bond Eternal.” Dorian breathed the words as if he did not believe they might be true. But there would be no denying the symphony that was the earthquake of their union.

  “Oui, mon Coeur….” Her face pressed against his sweat-slick torso, and she kissed him against his heartbeat. “Je savais que j'étais à toi. J'étais fait pour toi.” She had known she was his and made for him — and he was born for her.

  Dorian’s arms closed around her where they lay and drew her possessively closer. He closed his eyes and Joanna felt him listening to his own heartbeat gradually slow — its bass beat a percussion under the drifting duet that was peculiarly their own, now, across those bonds the family shared.

  “Rest now, Cherie,” her husband murmured beneath her — though he made no effort to disengage from her body. His arms only wrapped around her back where she lay possessing him, his shoulder offered for a pillow.

  Joanna spared a moment to reach for covers to shelter them both before settling into the warmth of his body to do just that. Then, with his heartbeat for a lullaby, she let the darkness claim her.

  Chapter 45

  Day slipped into twilight and the scent of blood and parchment had settled on the air of the room as if it had always been a part of it. Joanna still laid in Dorian’s hold, feeling the beat of his heart against her and the sound his music threading through her own in a perfect harmony.

  He was awake, but she did not know if he could release her; not for the possessive undernotes that sang through his violins. She knew she did not wish to be, and dipping her head, the queen left a kiss on his chest bone that lingered.

  “Je t’aime,” she whispered, because she could, and relished the freedom to let the words slide over her tongue where she could still taste her bond’s blood. “Mon ciel nocturne.”

  His fingers slipped higher into her hair, drawing her into a cradling hold against his chest.

  “Not nearly as much as I love you, my Lady wife,” he said quietly, and for a moment the shadow of his regrets threatened to rise between them again.

  She would not permit it.

  “I want to take you somewhere,” she continued on a quiet breath. “I have a gift.”

  He did not seem willing to be convinced, but she nipped him and kissed him until, grumbling, he rolled over onto his back to release her.

  Pointedly ignoring his efforts to secure some clue of her intent, she moved toward the room’s wash basin to begin her toilette.


  It took time for them to clean up and dress, and Dorian caught one of her boots before she had the chance to slip it on. It still bore the grime of her run, and holes worn through the leather that betrayed her. Something not at all amused passed through his song.

  “We run quickly, did you know?” she offered, reaching a hand out for the boot. “Faster than the horses can.”

  Her husband grunted. “I cannot like that you took the chance. We have more than the sun to fear, away from the protections of the House. And you cannot run if you lose the use of your legs,” he added dryly.

  The ghouls. Of course, Joanna had not forgotten. She cupped her hands beneath Dorian’s, claiming the boot in one palm and lifting his fingers to her lips in the other. Immortals were fortunate for the rarity of their mortal predators.

  Beyond the ghouls, there was always the threat of Hunters.

  Still, the Freeborn survived — survived without the protections that she had been privileged to enjoy in Anowen.

  Her eyes lifted to meet his, and the queen shook her head. “Desoleé, mon amour. I met Freeborn on the path.” She released him to turn her attention to drawing her boots on her feet. “They did not speak kindly of Anowen or Lian.”

  Dorian’s brow furrowed slightly, but his music did not seem overly concerned.

  “I would have thought Lian’s support of their cause might have earned him more good will,” he said distractedly.

  “They spoke of Raven Manor. The rumors that have grown from Philippe Denard’s exile do not favor Anowen. But then, they made the Manor a paradise.”

  Dorian made a final adjustment of his cravat. “With reason, I suppose. The streets are not kind to the Free, and Denard profited off the fact in offering them shelter.”

  He turned toward her and offered his hand. “Anowen has survived worse than rumors,” he said grimly, and his music turned darker for a moment. “This time, we will have the power of the Crown in hand. You did not tell them you were Housed…”

  “Non,” she said quietly, squeezing his fingers. “They were only children, in age and the curse both. The oldest of them could not have been more than ten and eight years. I paid for their room in Barham.” Her lips quirked into a smirk. “I might have brought them home if I had thought there was any wisdom in confessing my station. Or that you or Lian might appreciate an impromptu adoption.”

  Dorian breathed a laugh, and some of the darkness melted out of his music. “I have but newly learned to love my wife. A family for the raising might have been more than I could manage,” he murmured, and brushed a kiss over her knuckles.

  “I would not be so certain… they were sweet children.”

  “And no doubt children who would be better off for yet being mortal,” he said flatly. “I have never understood the inclination of the Free elders to sire infants. The transition is hard enough with the mortal wisdom of age to lend a foundation.”

  Dorian’s lips twitched wryly. “But come, distract me with your gift before your mind turns again and we find ourselves instead en route to Barham.”

  They gathered what remained of her belongings and spoke no more of the Freeborn children. Joanna accompanied Dorian to speak with the innkeeper, and then they exited the inn together. She led him away from the bustle of the city streets, toward its gates and into the depths of the forest.

  The walk was two hours on a trail that had overgrown and changed over the years, but by now, Joanna knew the signs by heart.

  The hill, the rubble that jutted between the new growth of trees, and a rusted, iron bell between the rocks that she had once used to call her wayward Marjolaine in for dinner. Then, beyond it all, far from where the smoke could reach, the cairns.

  She wound her arm around Dorian’s leaning into his side as they approached the graves.

  “My Marjolaine and my Jakob,” she murmured, introducing them with a nod of her head toward each cairn. “And Dorian, mes amours.”

  His arm came around her to hold her closer, and she felt his shifting emotions as if they were her own heart now — as he did her own. She knew his sorrow, and gratitude and his quiet, unspoken promise.

  “I am honored,” he said quietly, and it was not immediately clear if he was speaking to her or to the cairns. He turned his head to brush a kiss into her temple. “We should have brought you sooner.”

  It was the nature of their existence to leave the past behind.

  “They stay near enough in my heart,” Joanna answered, before her next words found a quieter admission. “I did miss them.”

  For a few moments longer, they stood in silence, with little more than their music sounding between their hearts. There, for the first time in centuries, she felt peaceful, and just as when she had laid between the cairns, she felt her family. Then, like a whisper of breath, she released them to their rest, finally, and the winter chill of the forest fell in around them again.

  Joanna turned her face into Dorian’s shoulder, burrowing there for a moment before she straightened to draw her valise to her front so that she could dig into its contents.

  Past her dress and the papers and letters, to the bottom of the bag where a cloth-bound book waited.

  She drew it free, carefully so, and turned it so he might see the embossed cover, where the ink had blurred somewhat on the edges of the type.

  The Moon and the Night Sky by one J.L. Holt.

  Joanna smiled up at him, almost sheepishly. “Did you find my poem?”

  A slow smile spread across his features, though whether for the sight of the book or for her words she could not be certain.

  “Minx.” It was all she had for a reprimand for her sneakiness. His voice gentled and he reached out to take the book from her hands. “I read it every day,” he admitted quietly. “It was a beacon to your heart.”

  He turned the book over, carefully, and she saw the shadows of regret briefly touch his expression. “I am sorry you were unable to publish it in your own name, but I am proud of you for facing your giant.”

  She shook her head. “Non. The last page.”

  Pulling the book closer, Dorian flipped it open to the last page, where her biography waited.

  Lady Joanna Vaughn the Condesa of Castile has published successfully under the nom de plume of J.L. Holt for ten years….

  “I used the name you gave me,” Joanna said. “My name.”

  She saw and felt the brief tremble that shook his fingers where they held the page, across his strings.

  “Cherie… Before I came.”

  Before he had remembered his promises, she had chosen him.

  “I am your wife, and you are my husband.” Her hand slipped over his and she drew it to her lips to leave a kiss on his fingers. “I am yours. There was no other it would be.”

  And no other there would ever be.

  Without a word, her husband drew her closer to leave a lingering kiss upon her fingers first, before claiming her lips for long enough to warm them. Their breath when they parted created a cloud of fog that gradually disappeared around his words.

  “Then let us go home, my Lady wife,” he murmured.

  And she knew she would never call another place home again.

  Epilogue

  The Easthaven Library, Summer 1811

  July swept in, bringing a warmth and dampness to the air that coaxed a vibrancy into the flowers of Easthaven.

  The meeting was not to begin until after sunset, but even before the Condesa had stepped down the stairwell of Easthaven’s circulating library into its lower level, a crowd had gathered. Both of her publishers had been wrong in their suspicions that her newest book would not sell well for the controversy.

  That she was a woman had not been nearly the deterrent that it might have been had she not also been a Condesa. The rumor mill had run its course, suspecting hidden lines of poetry regarding an affair and lilies, and her other books had experienced a small burst of sales as the gossips began to decode her verses anew.

  There was no mention of lil
ies in her art.

  Even so, the small run she had funded had sold out, and a second edition of The Moon and the Night Sky was already on order to meet the demand.

  Though the library was too small to host the gathering that had flocked to meet the author, Joanna made sure to greet those admirers who had been forced to settle for the street. It was fortunate, she thought, that she’d had practice among the ton for as much as she had to drift between bodies letting her fingers be kissed and laughing politely.

  Particularly with those who insisted they had always known J.L. Holt was a woman.

  As the hour passed and the gathering began to dissipate to their spring parties, Joanna’s siblings began to approach with their own congratulations.

  Raewyn had been expected, presenting Joanna with a leather covered copy of The Moon and the Night Sky that the French queen had commissioned for her own keeping. It had the proper name embossed in gold stamp on the cover.

  Lady Joanna Vaughn.

  Noelle, Garrett, and Eden had arrived as well, along with Ayla, Mathias, Celia and Lian; though the Elders had been more reserved in their praise.

  Delilah had been less so, catching Joanna in an embrace that was made more difficult for the growing bump of the Fae-blooded girl’s belly.

  The sound of drums and a fiddle in her blood betrayed the presence of Anowen’s newest members who arrived in the care of one of the elder Queens. Two new brothers who had spent their transition into their second life living with the Vaughns.

  It had not been as strange as it might have been to no longer be the youngest in their family — she had hardly felt as such since Dorian had claimed her for his own. And for all that her bond had professed that a family to raise might be more than he could manage, Joanna did not think they had done so poorly with the two.

  Alexander was the smaller and younger of the new brothers, with a tall, lanky figure and a mop of dark curls, and enough experience in society that he left a polite kiss on Joanna’s knuckles and offered his commendations with a grin.