by Michele Hauf
The smiling face in the mirror suddenly quirked an eyebrow. Why did he have a mirror in here? “Must have been here when he moved in.”
She wondered if it made him sad not to see his reflection. And then she couldn’t help wondering how the female vampires managed makeup and hairstyles.
As she shook her head at such silly thoughts, something startled her to quiet. Far off, not in the bedroom, she heard the deep bellow of an instrument. Had he put on some music—no.
“He’s playing?” Her reflection beamed.
Rushing out of the bathroom and down the hallway, she followed the luscious cello notes, which started slowly, testing, pausing after a few notes. Reluctant, or rather reticent? A few plucked notes. Testing the tuning of each string. Adjusting the tone by ear.
She proceeded slowly, one palm tracing the dark wall, her bare feet making no sound on the hardwood floor. Buttoning a center button on the shirt, she tossed her wet hair over a shoulder. Arriving at the open doorway to the vast, unfurnished living room, she waited outside, not wanting to barge in and scare the man from what she suspected must be the first time he had picked up an instrument in possibly years.
There were no chairs in the room, so he must be standing with the cello. Lark loved the deep, resonant tones of the instrument. She’d taken up the violin because at the time, in school, the orchestra had needed more violins, and the cello quota had been filled. Good ole public school system, assigning the creative what they need instead of what they desire. Despite being fitted with her number two choice of instrument, she had excelled and had made first violin chair halfway through the school year, and hadn’t been knocked out of that seat for her entire high school career.
Now, music was a hobby. She had almost lost touch with it while married to Todd. Almost. On weekends when he’d been gone the most, out slaying, she’d sneak her violin out of the closet and play. He hadn’t liked her music. That was something she’d tried to overlook. Lisa had shoved that annoyance aside rather neatly, ignoring her husband’s disinterest to her detriment.
The music inside the room stopped.
Lark’s heartbeats filled in for the missing notes. She closed her eyes, willing the gorgeous sound to resume, wanting Domingos to alchemize the precious pieces of his soul together through music.
“Come in,” he called to her.
She turned around the corner, shyly drawing a foot up the back of her opposite leg. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. You’re playing? It must make you so happy.”
He shrugged, dropping his bow hand at his side. Indeed, he’d lengthened the tail spike at the base of the cello so he could play while standing. Just when he made to set the wood instrument down on its side, Lark rushed to him.
“No! I want to hear more!”
He cringed from her sudden outburst, and dropped the instrument with a dull echo, moving away from them both, the bow still clutched, his head shaking miserably. Smacks of his palm against his skull clued her she’d done more than just startle him.
She’d done what she hadn’t wanted to do—frighten up the voices.
With a glance to the instrument to ensure that it was safe, no cracks or apparent damage from the drop, she stepped around it, approaching her cringing lover.
He sank into the shadows near the curtained window, drawing up his bow hand before him protectively, head bowed against his wrist as he shook it and shouted for her to get out. Or was he pleading for the voices to get out of his head?
The cello had seduced him toward touching his past normal. And she had stopped it. Hell, he’d been so relaxed around her lately, the voices had been distant, infrequent. Must have been why he’d dared to take out the cello.
Well, she was not going to let the madness win. Not this time.
“I’m not leaving until you play me something,” Lark said evenly.
She wouldn’t step closer. His reaction to her could turn volatile, and he would hate himself for his inability to control it.
Domingos banged the side of his head against the wall and hit his fist, clenched about the bow, in time to the beats knocking inside his skull. It hurt Lark to watch the pain he self-inflicted, but it wasn’t because he wanted to.
“It’s not right,” he managed through clenched teeth.
“Your playing? It was beautiful. Just give it some time, Domingos.”
“Out of my head!” He sneered at her, revealing the fangs she had grown to crave at her throat, yet now they presented a violent facade that nudged at the hunter inside her. “Destroy them all!”
He swiped the bow before him, but Lark dodged it deftly. Without second-guessing the move, she lunged for him, gripping his wrist to direct the bow downward, safely out of range from poking her—or him. He was strong, but she was determined.
“Don’t let this become the enemy, too,” she said, still holding him, but moving her other hand to stroke across his forehead. He tried to bang his head backward against the wall, and she held firm, keeping his inner demons from harming him.
She remembered he’d told her he’d stopped playing after he’d been transformed, not after his captivity with the pack. So long he had denied himself. Music was a piece of a musician’s soul. It wasn’t meant to be ignored or closeted away.
“Take back the music this creature stole from you,” she said. “You may not have asked for vampirism, but don’t punish your soul for it. You deserve some beauty in your life.”
Gently, he clutched the hand she held about his wrist, and she felt the tension at his head release and knew he would not resist her touch any longer.
“You are my beauty,” he declared on a whisper.
“This.” She drew the bow from his hand and held it properly in her right fingers as if posed to stroke across the strings. “This is true beauty.”
“It is just music.”
“Just music? Domingos, this is your soul! And I want you to share that part of you with me. I think your music can defeat this—” She pressed her palm against his forehead, signaling the madness within. “You know it can.”
He twisted into her, tucking his head against her shoulder and drawing her into a clinging embrace. A child’s desperate clutch. Wrap him up tightly and rock him, keep him safe.
“I’ll never let you go,” she cooed.
“Never?”
“Promise. But neither will I ever stop wanting you to have your music back. You need it, Domingos.”
A different tack was required to coax out the musician trapped within the vampire’s chains.
“Will you allow me to play?” she asked. “I saw you have a violin in the cabinet, as well. You must play all stringed instruments.”
He lifted his head, and though the room was dark, in that moment Lark saw into his soul. She didn’t need light, she could feel the lightness of Domingos LaRoque rise to the surface and brush her softly. The musician. The man who once was. He wanted. He needed.
With but a nod, he granted her permission.
Lark took his hand and placed the cello bow in it, then tiptoed to the cabinet to take out the violin case. Gorgeous inlaid arabesques danced about the body of the pale wood instrument. Reminded her of the henna designs Indian women wore on their hands and feet. She almost dared not touch it. It was glossy and well cared for. A jewel nestled within soft black velvet.
Kneeling before the case, she put her hands on her knees, now unsure she could do this. After a two-year hiatus from daily practice, she was no professional. Yet she could play a few pieces well enough.
“Play,” he whispered softly from the darkness by the curtains. “Play louder than the demons rapping against my skull.”
Swallowing back a gasp, Lark wiped away a raindrop that had fallen from her hair to her cheek. She could not cure his madness, but perhaps, stroke it softly to submission?
; With a decisive nod, she lifted the instrument and unhooked the bow from its soft, clasping hooks. Experimentally, she tested each string, not surprised to find that each one sounded in tune, crisp, vibrant. The instrument had a voice that wanted free.
As did its owner.
With a glance over her shoulder—Domingos’s legs, clothed in tattered leather, were visible, yet shadows concealed his upper body—she began a simple piece. The one she had played most often when she had been alone and wanted to soften the space around her, an allegro in A minor. It was a sad yet buoyant piece, and she played it slowly, walking across the room toward the curtains where a slim stitch of lightning intermittently flashed. The piece was designed for two violins, and she had once been able to play the majority of both parts at the same time, but having not practiced in a long time, she stuck to the melody.
“L’Estro Armonico,” Domingos stated from his dark corner.
“Yes.” She paused, seeking the voice. In the darkness, she’d lost track of his position.
“Continue,” the ghostly voice said.
“If you’ll join me? It’s for two. The cello would be a lovely—”
He suddenly scrambled to his feet and strode out of the dark and toward the doorway.
Lark rushed after him, beating him there and blocking his exit. The hunter wasn’t about to let the vampire sneak away this time.
He still held the bow, and she rapped it gently with her bow. “Play with me. You know the piece.”
“Lark, you press me.”
“Yes.”
Jaw tense, he looked down his nose at her. Fangs were revealed as he opened his mouth. Ready to lunge? A scare tactic? Nothing about him scared her anymore. Except the idea of him forever trapped within the madness.
“I’m not moving,” she said, and held the violin beside her as a defiant shield should he think to lunge at her.
He straightened and looked aside, avoiding her eyes.
“Domingos,” she whispered. “The music wants you. It lured you here today. You’re stronger than you think you are. Will you let those crazy cats in your head win?”
She caught his smirk, and figured that was a good sign if he could find the humor in her question.
The man pointed the tip of the bow onto the floor and stood there, hand at his hip as if contemplating the deep question. And she saw the minute change in his body, the relaxing of his neck muscles, a subtle shift of his shoulders.
With a sigh, he wandered over to the cello. Standing over it, he waited so long she wondered if he’d retreated into the madness again, but he was too still.
Please, she thought, give me this part of you. And win it back for yourself.
“Something quieter,” he finally said. “A funeral march. Adagio molto.”
He hadn’t named a piece, but rather the slow tempo with which it should be played. Not knowing what he would play, Lark could not accompany him. But it didn’t matter.
He was going to play.
Domingos lifted the cello and carefully, his back to her, placed his fingers and the bow on the strings. Pensive in his stature, he began to bow a few notes. After a few bars, Lark recognized the piece, which could be echoed by violin, but she felt no desire to intrude on his rendition.
And as the notes grew fluid and more emotive, she closed her eyes to the exquisite sound this tormented soul produced. The empty room grasped the notes and amplified them, spreading them out and swelling the gorgeous tones beautifully. No wonder there was no furniture in here; he must have once used this room for practice because of the acoustics.
And now as the lightning flashes ceased and the rain pummeling the roof quieted, a master commanded her sensory world, bringing Lark down, sliding along the wall to crouch there. Her lover’s soft shirt spilled over her bare legs, and her still-moist hair soaked the shoulders of the fabric. She set the violin bow on the floor, dropped her arms to her sides and tilted her head back against the wall.
Drowning in his music, and so happy for that death.
Suddenly silence.
Lark glanced up from where she crouched. The vampire held her gaze. He stood in a beam of illumination cast by the moon, newly revealed by parted clouds. Not knowing what to say, she simply looked at him. There was nothing she could say because she was out of her ken and didn’t want to risk touching the darkness that loitered along his edges, waiting for the chance to envelop and pull him down.
With a tilt of his head, he nodded and placed the bow on the strings, turning completely to face her. “My own composition,” he said, and began a different tune, more modern, like none of the classical pieces Lark could recognize.
A deep mournful tone was lulled by a higher melody that was not too quick or fluttery. A dark winged insect soaring through a mist in search of brightness. Lark closed her eyes and allowed Domingos’s song to soar into her, permeating her skin, her muscles that had been used to slay creatures, the blood she had given to a hungry vampire and the bones that held her together after so much struggle and pain.
And there, deep in her core, the music opened her wide and up spilled tears that glistened silently over her cheeks and down her jaw. She’d not cried in so long. It felt...renewing.
Bending forward, she went onto her hands and crawled forward, seeking the lure of her savior, wanting to touch the sound and embed it into her heart. She touched the masculine curve of the cello body, feeling the vibrations of Domingos’s song against her palm. And when the melody slowly landed with a final beat of wings, she pressed her face to the body of the instrument, reverent and lost.
His fingers stroked through her moist hair, tickling sensation down her neck and spine and finding her humming core to clasp it gently yet firmly. Holding the cello aside, he opened himself to her.
Lark knelt up and reached for him, resting her hand on his bare chest. “I love you,” she whispered.
He bent to draw her up into a kiss, one hand wrapped about the back of her head, the other holding the cello. His fangs grazed her lips, and his tongue softened the minute sting of his teeth. Breaths shared, and heartbeats mingling, her lover gasped out a sigh as he moved high to kiss her nose, her brows, her eyelids; then finally, he knelt before her.
“You are mine,” he said, “and so is this.” He clasped the neck of the cello firmly.
“You’ve taken your music back. That was the most beautiful song I’ve heard. I felt it here.” She pressed a palm over her stomach.
“I’ve never played it for anyone, had only composed it in my mind.”
“Really?” That was an amazing feat, for any musician.
He nodded. “It just came out. I think I made it for you before I knew you would need it. We both needed it. I really have taken my music back.”
“You have, lover, you have.”
Heads bowed to each other, they knelt there in the bright darkness. Lark ran her fingers along the body of the instrument, dipping down into the sexy C-shaped curves and tracing the F-holes that arabesqued nearby.
“Make love to me as if you were playing this,” she whispered. “I want to be your instrument.”
He dipped her backward across the floor, cradling her with one arm while he stroked her hair aside with the other hand. Fixed to his shadowed gaze, she gasped as the bow moved across her stomach, ever so lightly, and only the edge of the strings where the rosin was not so thick, and did not catch against her skin. The elegant wood bow tilted against her body, and he lifted the shirt with the tip of it. Domingos bit open the single button placed between her breasts, and then laid the shirt aside with deft strokes of the bow.
The narrow wood glanced along the undercurve of both her breasts. Lark inhaled as anticipation giddied her to instant desire. When the fine bowstrings tickled across her areolae, she gasped.
Domingos pressed a kiss to her open
mouth, tonguing her teeth, and then he retreated. Back to exploratory strokes across her nipples with the bow. He touched her lightly, carefully, because to draw out a long note would probably irritate more than excite her, and he seemed to be aware of that.
Spreading her legs, she wrapped them up and around his hips. On all fours above her, her vampire lover composed a symphony of silence punctuated by her wanting moans. She drew her fingertips carefully along his torso, ever cautious of his tormented skin, but wanting to touch him, to play harmony to his melody.
Dipping his head to her nipple, he swept his tongue over her slowly as he moved the bow aside. Heat and fire at his mouth. Lark arched up her back, taking it all, pleading for more, more and more.
“Thank you,” he murmured at her breast. “For trying to slay me.”
“No problem, lover. But you actually have the wolves to thank for that.”
He hissed and bit playfully on the mound of her breast.
“It’s true,” she said.
“No talk of puppies. I’m going to make more music.” He slid his fingers down between her legs. “You will sing the solo, yes?”
“Oh yes.”
Chapter 17
Lark took a phone call in the bedroom while Domingos lingered in the kitchen. He should see to stocking some food in here if she was going to stay over more often. Which he hoped would happen.
They could create music together, both in and out of bed.
He’d been compelled to pick up the cello earlier, to play a few notes. Testing. To see if it irritated him. It had not, until he’d realized Lark was listening. Then the forces inside him, that angry phoenix, had protested and had wanted to smash the instrument, not allowing him to share that part of him with anyone.
But she had been insistent and firm with him, and while he had relented the moment she’d walked into his life, only when she’d held his bow hand down, away from slashing out at her, had the noise inside him coalesced and taken pause.
Someone who cares, he’d thought. All of him had come together in that moment and had only wanted to please her.