“Do you get extra powers, like turning into a bat, by being older?”
“Speed, strength all increase. Dematerializing is something that only comes with age. But most things are myth. Even capturing someone with a gaze is atypical. It is a neat trick, but very rare.
“But you can do it.” She’d experienced it. The memory came to her of when she’d met him in the woods, looking almost the same as he did now, and how he’d offered to take her fear from her so she could kill the vampire who was attacking her. She’d gone willingly, let down every shield she had, giving herself to him.
“Yes, I can do it.”
He stood and walked away from her, going towards her bedroom and disappearing as he reached the short hallway.
She hadn't told him anything about the wolves. Although a revolution probably trumped that anyway.
A modiste, huh? She didn't know anyone said the word modiste outside of a regency romance novel. Maybe they didn't and he was two centuries behind.
That fit.
Chapter 10
London, England
At ten a.m. sharp she heard a sharp knock on the front door. A French woman bustled in with two harried looking assistants pushing a rack behind them. The assistants wouldn’t make eye contact which made Val think that the woman either ran a very tight ship or had a lot of vampire customers.
Closing the door, she walked back into her living room watching as the assistants unzipped garment bags and shook dresses free from their plastic covers. Dresses were draped haphazardly around her living room and a large mirror with three panels was set up, so she could really know which dress made her ass look fat.
The woman knew fashion but as to why Val needed the gown, she either wouldn't say or didn’t know. The modiste called the event a ball and all the gowns seemed to support that statement. Huge princess dresses that required corsets were brought out.
Honestly, if Spanx wasn't enough, she wasn't sure she should go. She wouldn't eat anything else for the rest of the day. The dresses were suited for the Academy Awards or the Golden Globes, not for someone like her.
There it was again— the unreality of her situation. She was a normal girl and he was…well, dead.
The modiste studied Val critically and decided against several dresses instantly. The woman said the color clashed with her hair and skin tone but Val wondered if the dresses clashed with her personality instead. They were soft dresses that required a dainty woman to wear them. Val didn't do dainty. She did hysterical, angry, lusty, afraid and irritated to perfection.
Eventually, all the clothes and accessories were decided upon. The gowns were rezipped and packed away, the modiste bustled back out again, taking her assistants with her and Valerie was alone. Waiting for Lucas and wearing a deep blue gown the color of the ocean.
Her breasts were high and mounded, her waist nipped in thanks to the corset. She really didn’t need to look this desirable.
An extra accessory had been given to Valerie which made her realize this was not going to be a normal party. It was a little purse that dangled from her wrist. It was black velvet and had a gold L embossed on the front with a fleur de lis pattern woven through the material. The modiste said it was so everyone would know who she belonged to.
With almost no time to spare Val put on her lipstick and was ready to go. Her hair was pinned up into a mass on top of her head that exposed her neck. Something she thought might be fantastically stupid, but that the modiste’s assistant insisted was a requirement.
Val thought taking her hair down, but she wasn't sure if she needed to be that petty. She suspected there would be bigger compromises asked for before the night was through, so she left her hair alone and waited.
When the clock struck six she was looking out the window and watching people walk by, hurrying through the eternal rain to go home, probably to a family and hot dinner. A small rush of power wafted over her like pinpricks against her skin. She turned and saw Lucas come out of her bedroom, one big hand fixing the cuff of his crisp white shirt. Good Lord, he could be in a magazine modeling anything from $50,000 watches to expensive cologne.
He wore a black tuxedo minus the bow tie. Again the collar was open and she could see the hollow of his throat, her eyes drawn there despite herself. His deep blue eyes lifted and took in her appearance, starting from her voluminous skirts, to her corseted waist, passing quickly to her face. The gown matched his eyes, she realized, wondering if it was on purpose. He looked at her lips and she had the urge to lick thm but frantically tried to hold still.
A velvet cloak rested over one arm, which he opened and held for her to put on. Smiling slightly, he watched her come towards him and Valerie blushed, looking away. He fastened the collar around her neck, red rubies glinting on the clasp.
He flipped it around her shoulders, like a matador baiting a bull. I don’t want to be the animal.
The cloak was lined with fur and her hands stroked the softness rhythmically, in an attempt to calm her nerves. She could smell his cologne and felt like it was just as heavy and enveloping as the cloak upon her. It was him, this masculine smell that made her relax and feel almost drugged.
Val watched him placidly as he adjusted the drape of her hood. She took in his long lashes and harsh cheekbones, admired the full plumpness of his lips and his near human heat. Lucas reached behind her and pulled the hood of the cape over her face, shifting it so she would be shadowed to anyone that looked.
He'd just fed, she wasn't quite sure how she knew but she did and the sudden image of another woman in his arms, her neck bared for him to penetrate her skin as she gave herself to him had her clenching her hands in dark agitation.
Had he slept with her too?
As though he sensed her change in mood, he finished adjusting her cape to his liking and stepped away from her.
Who was it? Who had he fed from? She knew whoever it was had been willing. How could they not be? Who would, even could, tell him no, he was so beautiful? In her mind she could see it, his hand on some woman’s neck as he tilted her just how he wanted her. The power of his body as he stepped in close to her, and even worse, the utter focus he’d have for her. This faceless bitch gave him something he needed.
Something she didn’t.
Her lips pressed together in a hard line to stop her accusations. She took a deep breath, aware that she was being irrational.
Lucas waited, saying nothing while she composed herself but watching her with a look of mild curiosity. She was so contradictory in her feelings towards him. She hated him and lusted after him, feared him and wished to never see him again. Yet the idea that another held his interest made her jealous and angry. It all added up to a death wish, she just knew it.
His hair was straight and thick, hanging heavily down his back, waiting for her to sink her hands into it, pull him towards her and kiss him. She'd show him how angry she was, make him take only her.
In a red haze, she imagined what it would be like to bite him and claim him, make him hers. Her knees weakened, the idea of marking him so powerful and heady that she feared she might collapse. She looked down and saw his hands, one open but tense, like he might have to push her away, while the other one was fisted and she wondered if he somehow knew the insanity whirling through her mind.
She took a deep breath to clear her mind but the jealousy grew. He is mine, her mind seethed. The dark rightness of them finding a home deep in her body.
Fixated on his neck, she thought about breaking his skin, the blood of another woman pouring out of his neck so she could replace it with her own. She made a noise in her throat. A feral sound of anguish and anger.
“Do not Valerie.” His voice was quiet and commanding.
She closed her eyes against him, against the overpowering desire to hurt and mark him. Her breath hissed out from her and she dragged in another equally ragged breath of air.
Air that was filled with the scent of him. She was overwhelmed by him, her senses heightened, making her
hands tingle with the desire to touch him. Her body opened, ached and she felt herself becoming wet and urgent. She needed to be with him.
He’ll let me. He wants me just as much as I want him.
Val leaned in towards him, taking a step closer, but he backed up from her, maintaining distance.
He did it humanly slow and she wondered if he was trying to play hard to get or trying not to startle her with a sudden move. Smart man, she decided, feeling like a wild animal, provoked by him.
She was hungry for him, all of him, blood, flesh, anything she could steal from him, she would. Part of her mind was screaming at her, telling her the desire wasn’t right, but reason meant nothing to her.
Quickly, she darted forward, trying to hurtle herself into his arms, no intent beyond getting to him when he stopped her easily. “Valerie, Valerie, this is my fault. My mistake. Sit for a moment and let me fix this.”
Lucas began to set her away from him gently, trying to extricate himself from her hold without hurting her, but that was the last thing she wanted and it made her aggressive, harder to get a hold of while staying gentle. With one hand she tried to grab onto him. His shoulder, his hair, his flesh— she didn't know what she was reaching for. But she came into contact with his neck and felt her nails rake down his skin.
He froze, his lips becoming a taut line and she was arrested by the beauty of him, a beauty that had been momentarily humanized and therefore magnified. Blood welled in fine lines where she had scraped him. Her gaze fastened there and she wanted to lick those wounds, taste him and then bite him. She imagined her whole mouth filling with his blood and feared she would have an orgasm right there.
Val tore her gaze away, examined her beige carpet, the feeling of wrongness increasing and she tried to shake herself free from what was surely some sort of madness.
Lucas was speaking but she was concentrating so hard on trying to control herself that she didn't hear his words. She felt his cool fingers lifting her chin and then she was looking into his eyes. She heard his voice commanding her, low and urgent. Open to me, he said and she wanted to tell him that she didn't understand and she didn't know how when his eyes became a swirl of blue and silver.
She fell forward into the depths of his eyes until the apartment was gone, she was gone and all that was left was blue.
When she came back to herself she was on the couch. Lucas sat in a chair across from her, watching her with a closed expression. She felt fine, rested actually, but then the memory of how she'd acted and what she had wanted to do came back to her.
“What was it?” She knew that wasn't her, the sick desire to have his blood, to tear him apart, aching with hunger and jealousy for this man who was a monster.
“A miscalculation on my part. My apologies.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” She sat up and her hand went to her neck, checking to make sure he hadn't bitten her while she was unconscious.
He sighed as though it irritated him to have to explain. “When the Fey were part of this world they had great magic which was often traded or given as part of a good faith bargain or a gift. I wore a ring that I was given a very long time ago which I had hoped would reveal those who were plotting against me.”
“You wore a ring that would make people want to sleep with you and tear your throat out?”
He looked to her, away, and then down, finally hiding his expression altogether and he could have been laughing or maybe, even slightly bashful? Seemed unlikely. When he looked at her again his expression was inscrutable.
“The ring erases caution and prompts one to act. It's almost a compulsion to follow their...impulses. Their dark desires. In this case I had expected that it would make those vampires who were not in support of me speak out.”
She had lots of questions but most of them she wasn't sure she wanted answers to. “What kind of party is this where you want a big formal-wearing brawl?”
He inclined his head slightly which she took as a ‘touche’ sort of response. “It’s never prompted a brawl before. Again you prove to be unique. Tonight is the ball for those that are claimed, human companions that share blood with only one vampire. They are chosen by that vampire and marked as exclusive. To touch a vampire's companion is an insult, answerable with a duel to the death. I don't want my enemies to be prepared and choose their moment well. If I can have them act rashly and individually, there is no question of my victory.”
“Don't you have quite the ego?” she said waspishly.
“My dear, I am 1600 years old. It is not ego, but fact.”
“How old are the other vampires?”
He shrugged negligently, “No one is over a thousand.”
The time periods he discussed so casually were mind-boggling. She returned to the earlier subject, “Doesn't it seem slightly unwise to go wandering into a ballroom with a magical ring that's going to make everyone give in to their darkest impulses?”
Lucas gave another fleeting frown. “It is supposed to be more controlled than that. Parameters were put on to limit the effects of the magic. I cannot explain how it went awry.”
Val gritted her teeth in frustration, wondering why it was so difficult to get information out of him. “What was the ring supposed to do?”
“The effects should have been limited to those that I have a blood bond with. That would exclude all the humans. Additionally, it only works when someone is within contact distance and the focus of my attention. Not everyone would act out at once.”
This scared the crap out of her. “We don't have a blood bond! Do we? I don't remember that!”
“No. We do not have a blood bond.” He said in a placating tone of voice.
But she was still unconvinced and the look on her face must have let him know.
He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair for a moment before saying, “If it puts your mind at ease, I have no desire to take your blood.” He sounded snooty, almost English.
For a moment she wondered if she should be offended, what was wrong with her blood? Surely she was snackable, like desert even, or a fine wine perhaps. Then sanity returned, and she didn't care what his reason was for rejecting her blood, it was a good thing and she'd go with it.
“Why is that exactly?” she asked impatiently.
“That is not something we need to discuss now. Come, we must leave.”
He held out one pale hand towards her but Val didn't take it, still stuck on why he wouldn't drink her blood. “Am I sick or something?”
“I am a very old vampire Valerie, certain types of blood are not compatible with my...physiology.”
“What, like I'd give you heartburn or something?”
He inclined his head regally, “If it gives you pleasure to put it in those terms you may, but I shall not drink your blood.”
Valerie had an image of him drinking from her, cradling her close and piercing her neck with his sharp fangs. There were people who became vampire junkies, their bite could be so pleasurable. But it was only pleasurable if the vampire chose to make it so.
It could also be an experience filled with terror and pain, like living a nightmare or whatever the vampire cared to show you.
Neither held any appeal.
Why would someone be that vulnerable, put themselves in a vampire's possession and hope they wouldn't get carried away and kill them? Wasn't it akin to an attempted suicide or Russian roulette? People could be so stupid. Then she thought of herself here with Lucas, how she was being dragged into his world and was even attracted to him. I’m stupid too.
“How did it go so wrong with the ring?”
He dropped his hand back to his side. “I do not know. But I have returned the ring to its case. The silver contains its power, silver has an effect on most mystical things.”
Love is Darkness (A Valerie Dearborn Novel) Page 17