Small steps came from the opposite side of the bedroom, making him spin on his boots.
“Master Lobo!” the lady’s maid cried, her face a mask of fear.
“Where’s the Blessed Bride?” His question might’ve come out more like a roar because the girl recoiled as her eyes filled with tears. Valentine had no patience for hysterics, but tried to soften his voice to a less frightening tone. “Where is she?” He walked toward the maid, who stepped back.
“She received a note—”
“She received a note? From whom?” Blood roared against his eardrums as red filled his vision. His wolf ran circles in his head, growling and snarling.
“I don’t know—” The maid sobbed, pointing at a folded mail that had been left open on Mirella’s pillow. “But she left soon after she read it.”
Anger mounting inside him like a malevolent tide, Valentine snatched the piece of paper from atop the bed. He scanned its content with eyes that could barely see beyond the wall of red.
I’d like to hold you in my arms one more time before I leave.
Yours,
DS
Chapter Thirty
The room was dark and cold. Laura had not come back to restock the fire. The girl must have been even more tired than Mirella had thought.
Valentine had changed his mind though, because at some point during the night he had come back. After wishing for it to happen for so long, Mirella was finally in her husband’s strong arms.
Yet, it didn’t feel good. Valentine’s scent was too sweet. The way he cradled her lacked that comforting quality that made her relax.
His hand fell heavily on her chest. She wanted to scream, but when her mouth opened, she didn’t make a sound. Trying to move, she only managed to move him along with her. His huge body was molded against her back, spooning her as he breathed heavily. A sense of oppression squeezed her chest tight. She couldn’t escape his oppressive embrace and panic took hold of her senses.
It was a nightmare, but she wasn’t dreaming. She was awake, and yet she wasn’t completely in control of herself.
A distant echo of running steps reached her ears. The pattern of the thumps stomping the marble floors of the hallway was somewhat familiar. Dread fastened her heartbeat, spreading cold throughout her naked body. The realization that she wasn’t wearing anything added to her apprehension. She shouldn’t have been worried. Valentine was her husband after all.
Loud shouting accompanied the incoming footsteps getting closer to her bedroom. The voice uttering obscenities was as familiar as the steps. Dread morphed into terror in the blink of an eye.
Mirella pushed the heavy arm away, but it was back on her breast a moment later, pulling her closer against a hard body that was stirring awake.
“Where is she?” Valentine snarled.
His voice had come from outside.
Crying, Mirella realized that the man behind her wasn’t her husband and tried to free herself from the body holding her down.
The door exploded inward and a menacing figure stormed inside the room.
The light coming from outside momentarily blinded Mirella, nonetheless she could sense the rage emanating from her husband in waves. Strangled pleas filled her throat, but she still couldn’t talk.
“Dragon!” Valentine shouted the name as if it were a curse. “I’ll kill you—”
A moment later, the arm grabbing her breast was jerked away. Next, the heavy body was heaved out of the bed.
“Valentine—” she called, but her whisper was too low.
“I’ll tear you apart piece by piece and feed your Solarian cock to the beeds—” The sound of fists connecting with flesh followed soon after the threat. “You piece of shit—”
Unable to command her body, Mirella was terrified. Heavy kicks now accompanied the fists. Valentine alternated obscenities in between the beating, but he frightened her even more when he was silent. Gurgling sounds coming from Dragon could be heard then.
“Please stop,” she cried. “Valentine, stop—”
Someone screamed from outside.
“Master Lobo!” A heartbeat later, Aldo appeared in Mirella’s line of sight. “Blessed Bride—” Horrified, he averted his eyes from her nakedness, then hastily covered her with a gray sheet she recognized as not hers.
“Valentine!” The handsome voice of Valentine’s vampire friend resonated from the other side of the bed. “You’re going to kill him—”
A low growl was Valentine’s only response.
More steps and shouts reached the room.
“High Lord!”
“What is happening here?”
“Remove yourself at once from the High Lord.”
“Valentine, please—”
“Master Lobo—”
“Valentine, you have the right to call out Dragon Sol,” Gabriel intoned. “You’ll name your seconds and decide the weapon for the duel.”
“I’ll kill him now,” Valentine said.
A spur of activities ensued. Among snarling and crude swearing, Valentine was dragged away by Gabriel. When they walked before Mirella, her husband’s eyes connected with hers.
Deep hatred was mirrored in his gaze as he spat, “Whore—” and turned his face away from her.
A wound opened in her heart and pain tore her apart. She started hyperventilating, but still tried to talk to him. “Valentine, I beg you—”
“Don’t you dare call my name ever again,” Valentine said without turning. After so much shouting, his voice was low and cold, and it thrust a dagger right in the middle of Mirella’s bleeding heart.
“Take her to her apartments,” Gabriel said to Aldo, who nodded.
Helpless, Mirella watched the vampire lead Valentine away, then she couldn’t take it anymore and darkness mercifully embraced her.
Chapter Thirty-One
Outside, a storm was hitting the Great Plains with renewed vigor. Lupine’s weather had taken a turn for the worse a few hours prior, and Coral’s pink dawn had never appeared in the sky. Instead, a wall of purple-black clouds darkened the morning, hiding the sunlight and painting the new day in a funereal light. In the distance, the desert was already crisscrossed by rivers swelling with fallen water. Thunder and lightning added mayhem to the raging inferno.
It was as if the whole of Lupine mirrored Valentine’s wrath.
Like a caged beast, he paced the entire length of his apartments that he had thoroughly vandalized. In a frenzy, he had kicked, punched, and smashed everything in sight. Antique furniture and priceless collectibles lay broken on the mosaic floors. In a matter of minutes, he had destroyed a heritage that had taken centuries to put together, and it had been for nothing. The constriction of his heart had not been lifted.
For once, he truly understood how his wolf felt trapped inside him. In his long life, Valentine had never experienced fury so raw or pain so deep. Every few seconds, sharp needles pierced the back of his eyes, and a migraine pulsed at his temples, forcing him to throw up several times.
“Try to sit and calm yourself,” Gabriel said, for maybe the tenth time.
He hadn’t answered the first nine times and he didn’t answer now, but changed his course and headed toward his studio, where he went straight to the liquor cabinet, one of the few pieces of furniture he had left intact.
“You shouldn’t be drinking before a duel.” Gabriel took the bottle of Laurum away from Valentine’s hand, which earned him a low, blasphemous curse.
“Have you thought of the consequences of killing the Solarian High Lord?” Gabriel steered him outside the studio and toward the French doors opening into the Observation Deck. “And what if he kills you? Have you thought of that?”
Valentine shrugged and walked to the opposite direction, resuming his mindless wandering through the ruins of his quarters. He didn’t care about anything any longer.
After reading Dragon’s note to Mirella, his wolf had taken control of his body and he had let the beast command him without a struggle.
He had hoped not to find Mirella in Dragon’s room, but even from outside he could smell her scent and hear her soft moans.
The sight of her, naked, in Dragon’s bed would’ve been enough to push him into raving madness, but the Solarian was fondling her, pressing his filthy body against her back, making her cry in pleasure, and fury blinded Valentine. Grabbing Dragon by his neck, he hurled the mighty High Lord against the wall as if he weighed nothing.
With every punch and kick he discharged against the huge body, Valentine felt his sanity slip away, until only the dark desire to make the man suffer remained.
Following Valentine in his meandering, Gabriel said, “You should talk to your bride—”
But Valentine didn’t let him finish his thought. With his hand around his friend’s throat, he said, “That whore is dead to me.” He could barely breathe. “Don’t you ever mention her again.”
“Valentine, there’s something completely wrong about all this—”
“What? That my bride fucked my esteemed guest?” Lacerating pain behind his right eye made him gasp.
Images of Mirella in Dragon’s arms kept playing for him. Valentine’s treacherous mind showed him how the Solarian had used his massive body to please her and how much she liked being taken by him. How she had accepted him inside her sacred vessel.
Another man had known his bride intimately.
Valentine heaved, and Gabriel promptly reached for the bucket he was carrying from room to room.
“I saw how she looked at you tonight. The light in her eyes—” Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t know—”
Aldo appeared at the door, saving Gabriel from Valentine’s ire.
“The Solarians have accepted your terms, Master Lobo,” the majordomo said with a somber look.
Valentine nodded, then when Aldo didn’t leave, snarled, “What?”
Aldo lowered his eyes. “The Blessed Bride has asked to see you. She says—”
Touching Valentine’s arm, Gabriel stopped Valentine when he motioned toward the majordomo.
Valentine slapped the vampire’s hand away, then addressed Aldo. “As soon as the tempest stops, I want her shipped back to the Vestal House.” He maintained his voice low, lest present company hear the pain tearing him apart.
“Master Lobo, the Blessed Bride seems genuinely—”
With his hand pointing at the door, Valentine shouted, “Out!”
Aldo bowed and left, closing the door behind.
Valentine’s wolf cried then, triggering another bout of migraine that left him breathless.
“You can’t fight in these conditions.” Gabriel grabbed the bucket he had emptied only a moment ago. “What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?”
In between throwing up and massaging his temple, Valentine couldn’t help but emit a cynical laugh that came out more like a choked sob.
“Is it that?” Gabriel asked, raising his brow. “You want to die.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Valentine raised his voice, and his head throbbed in time with his blood pulsing against his temples.
It felt as if his wolf was trying to escape its prison, clawing its way out through Valentine’s body.
The pendulum clock in the hallway chimed the hour.
Taking a long blade from the back of his belt, Gabriel sighed. “It’s time I prepare you.”
Without a word, Valentine followed his friend into the Observation Deck.
Gabriel led him to the center of the room, where Aldo had previously arranged the wooden stool with the shaving kit on top, and the hot brazier with the ceremonial iron brand. “As your second, I must ask if you, Valentine Lobo, Eleventh Master of House Lobo, are sound of mind and body,” the vampire recited, taking his place at Valentine’s back.
Valentine raised his chin up and opened his arms wide. Looking at the glass ceiling of the Observation Deck, he answered, “I, Valentine Lobo, Eleventh Master of House Lobo, declare to be in possession of all my senses.”
“Have you entered the duel knowing that you might lose your life?”
“I have.”
“Have you taken into consideration that, if not killed, you will take a life today?”
“I have.”
“Can you, Valentine Lobo, live with the consequences of a kill?”
“I can.”
“Kneel then.”
Valentine gave the roaring tempest a last look, then lowered himself to the floor, and tied his long hair in a high ponytail. He felt Gabriel hesitating behind him and nodded his final consent.
The blade fell down with a whoosh, and Valentine’s ponytail was chopped in one single motion. Gabriel then continued cutting Gabriel’s mane with the razor from the kit. His dark-brown hair fell all over his shoulders and to the floor.
“You may cleanse your body now,” Gabriel said once Valentine’s head was completely shorn of his locks and his face was shaved clean as well.
Valentine removed his clothes, his formal attire he had worn at the party. It seemed so long ago. “Burn these clothes,” he said because it was part of the ritual, but he could’ve never worn that kilt suit again.
Gabriel pushed the heap of clothes over the cut hair, then led Valentine to his en-suite bathroom for the cleansing shower.
Cold water hit Valentine’s bald head, intensifying his headache. The renewed pain fueled his hatred for Dragon and Mirella. When he had endured the prescribed fifteen minutes under the freezing jets, Gabriel opened the stall and presented him with a towel, a white, sleeveless kimono, and a pair of white pants.
Detached from reality, Valentine let the vampire dry his skin, then entered his arms in the ritual dress Gabriel was holding for him.
Finally, he said the ancient Terran words to finalize his commitment to the impending duel. “Morituri te salutant.”
Those who are about to die salute you.
Then Gabriel led Valentine back to the Observation Deck, where he took the iron brand from the brazier.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“You must listen to me—” Mirella pleaded with Aldo.
Locked in her sleeping quarters, she had been begging since she regained the complete use of her voice.
Besides Laura, who couldn’t stop crying, and Aldo who had come back three times to check on Mirella, nobody else had shown up. Terrified, but also hopeful, she had expected Valentine to burst through her bedroom’s door, demanding an explanation. Her husband had not come, and she was left to run scenarios in her mind.
“Blessed Bride, there is nothing I can do.” The majordomo still couldn’t look at her, and kept his eyes low, but not out of deference.
“You must tell Master Lobo I don’t know what happened, but I fell asleep in my bed and woke in Dragon’s.” She was still queasy, but her memories were slowly getting back into focus.
At her words, Laura wailed anew.
“Please, Laura, stop,” Mirella said, massaging her temples. “Go to your room. Take a moment to compose yourself.” She worried the hem of the long sleeved dress Laura had chosen for her, the only useful service the girl had been able to see to without making a mess of it.
Thankfully, her lady’s maid obeyed without objections as she was used to doing and left Mirella alone with the majordomo.
“I would’ve never disrespected my husband in such a crass way,” she said.
She didn’t tell Aldo that the mere idea of being touched by another man made her sick. Or that what she felt for Valentine had already grown into a sentiment she couldn’t understand. Or that she couldn’t bear the thought he would never want her anymore.
With a sigh, Aldo finally dared a glance at her. “It’s done, Blessed Bride. I’m here to supervise your packing—”
“I don’t want to leave—” Him. She clutched her chest with shaky hands. The pain radiating from her heart was such, she wouldn’t be surprised if a blood stain appeared on her white dress. “Let me talk to Master Lobo first.” Dropping to her knees, she let her tears fall. “Please.”
“Why?” she cried, uncaring to break all rules of decorum.
Aldo took pity on her then. “Nobody can reach Master Lobo for another hour at least. Then it will be too late.”
“Why?” she repeated, a cold hand squeezing her chest.
“Master Lobo has entered the Chapel and is communicating with the gods.” Aldo’s eyes filled with moisture.
Mirella couldn’t breathe any longer and her head felt light. She closed her hand around the platinum band of her wedding bracelet, seeking comfort, but the metal was cold to the touch.
“He has challenged the High Lord. They will be facing each other at the stroke of the hour.” Aldo paused, cleared his voice, then added, “Electric Sabers. To the death.”
The room spun around Mirella and she found herself on the floor.
“Blessed Bride!” Aldo pulled her up, then led her to the sofa before the fireplace. “Laura!” he called.
The girl ran into the room as if she had been waiting at the doorway.
“Prepare some restorative tea for the Blessed Bride,” Aldo ordered.
All the blood drained from Laura’s face, and, pale as a sheet, she looked at the majordomo first then at Mirella. After a strained silence, she bobbed and said, “Of course,” walking toward the breakfast nook.
As her lady’s maid tinkered with the porcelain set on the table, something clicked in Mirella’s mind. But they were only a few confused thoughts at first.
With the jittery nervousness that was her trademark, Laura disappeared into the adjacent kitchen to heat the water for the tea.
“Don’t make it too sweet this time,” Mirella said a moment later, raising her voice to be heard.
Laura popped over from the archway, teapot in hand. “I’ll make sure of that, Blessed Bride.” She walked back to the breakfast table and filled a teacup with the fuming beverage.
The Fifth Moon's Wolf (The Fifth Moon's Tales) Page 17