And on himself.
The scars on his body burned, throbbing deeply, and he stepped backwards on instinct. Sera faltered, the confidence draining from her eyes. She thought he was distancing himself from her, that he was going to deny what she had said. He knew that he should.
He rubbed the scars on his chest through his shirt.
He couldn’t bring himself to do it though.
Sera had offered him comfort and he was too weak to deny his need for it, and for her.
“What dark secrets do you have in your heart?” Sera slipped her hand over his and curled her fingers around so they pressed into his palm, stopping him from rubbing his chest. She drew their joined hands away and frowned. He did too. He had been smearing his own blood across his shirt and he had been so lost in his pain and the dark secrets she spoke of that he hadn’t noticed. Sera sighed and pressed a kiss to the cuts on his palm. “You don’t have to tell me. Not if you don’t want to.”
“I loved her for a century.”
Sera went rigid, her lips frozen against his palm. It probably wasn’t something a woman wanted to hear about but she had to suspect that another had hurt him, so it couldn’t be unexpected. She should have been prepared to hear it. Maybe she had been, but she hadn’t anticipated the length of the relationship he’d had with the woman who had broken his heart.
“She was an aristocrat,” he said and Sera released his hand and turned her back on him.
“Oh.” It was a small sound, one laced with defeat.
Antoine couldn’t quite believe what he was going to say.
“I do not care that you are an elite, Sera.”
Her shoulders tensed beneath her blue t-shirt. If she didn’t believe him, she didn’t say it. She turned towards him and blinked very slowly, her gaze assessing him. Searching for the truth.
“I mean it. Javier and Callum, even my brother, would probably pass out if they heard me say it... but I mean it. I thought it mattered. My family had always lectured me about the elite and our bloodline, and how we had to maintain the purity of it. I believed them once. But what good did it do us?”
His voice cracked on that last handful of words. What good had it done them indeed?
If they had bred with humans and muddied their blood, they probably wouldn’t have awoken the dark hunger that lay dormant in all members of their species. Years of selective breeding, of mating with only other aristocrat families, had kept their blood pure but the price for such purity had been a weakness none of them could have predicted.
His and Snow’s generation were the first to experience bloodlust.
His family had paid dearly for their pride.
Very dearly.
Antoine slumped onto the bed and collapsed backwards onto the mattress, splaying his arms out across the cool crimson covers. He stared at the black canopy.
The bed depressed to his left and Sera’s hand slipped under his. She was gentle as she inspected it and it touched him that she was still concerned about cuts that were nothing more than grazes compared with the open wounds on his heart.
“Anya was her name. We met and fell in love at a ball. One night of madness followed by a century of...”
“You don’t have to go into details.” Sera’s grip on his hand tightened. He flinched as his cuts reopened. Evidently, it wasn’t wise to anger her by speaking of other women. She had asked to know his secrets. She would have to live with the truth of them.
“I loved her for a century and then three more.”
“You love her even though she left you?” She dropped his hand.
He had deserved that. It had sounded as though he had just confessed his undying love for another woman.
“She left me without a word. I spent years, one hundred of them, looking for her at every ball and social gathering. I haunted the places we had stayed or visited frequently.”
“Why did you stop searching for her if you love her so much?”
Antoine sighed and placed his hand on his chest. “Something happened that demanded my attention and deserved it more than a woman who had walked out on me.”
“Your brother’s bloodlust.”
If only it were that simple.
“Snow had been suffering on and off with his bloodlust for many centuries. The symptoms had been minimal, inconsequential, so we thought it would remain that way. Doctors said that with regular, higher, intake of blood he would be fine.” Antoine closed his eyes and cursed the name of those doctors for what felt like the millionth time. “I was so caught up in Anya that I just presumed Snow was doing well. I stopped checking on him and let him get on with his life. He never told me that the symptoms were getting worse and the attacks more frequent. I probably wouldn’t have listened even if he had.”
“You would have. It isn’t your fault that he kept it secret from you.”
“It is, Sera. I should have been there for him.” He was sure that if he had been there for Snow, had continued to speak to him about his bloodlust and ensure that he was doing well that he could have averted the disaster that had befallen them. He should have been there for his beloved brother and it haunted him, filled his mind with images of how different things might have been.
“You can’t spend your whole life focused on your brother’s needs and his needs alone. He has a sickness, a disease, and that isn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
“I didn’t blame myself. I blamed my parents. I cursed my family for breeding this illness into us both. I knew that eventually I would walk the same dark path as my brother trod, and that, like him, I would be too proud to admit that the demon was seizing more and more control over me each night.” Antoine sat up and dug his fingers through his brown hair. He stared into Sera’s green eyes, the deep colour of them soothing away his agitation and coaxing him into continuing. Speaking to her felt so easy, as though she had come into this world for the sole purpose of hearing his woes and easing his pain. “When Anya left me, Snow found me drinking half the blood in the cold store and stopped me. He confessed that by drinking more blood, he had only quickened the awakening of his bloodlust and strengthened the hold it had on him.”
“He wanted to save you from going through it too.”
Antoine nodded. “So I owe him, not just for the warning that has helped me keep the bloodlust at bay for far longer than he was able... but because of what came after.”
His throat closed, emotions squeezing it as memories bombarded him. He shut his eyes and frowned, struggling against them as they swept over him, crashing through his mind. Pain tore at his heart, until it felt as though it was going to kill him. He gritted his teeth and curled over. He couldn’t do this. He had been wrong. He still couldn’t talk about what had happened.
Sera frowned and cupped his cheek, her palm warm against his face. Her steady heart sounded in his ears, soothing and calming him, giving him something to focus on as he battled his pain. She stroked his face, fingers soft against him, tender, conveying her concern. Her other arm settled across his back, hand curling around his shoulder. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to the shoulder closest to her and he wished he could feel her lips on his flesh, not his shirt.
“What happened?” Her hand fell from his face to his chest. He slowly opened his eyes and looked across at her. She stared down at her hand on his chest, her heart beating wildly now, as though she could see through his bloodstained shirt to his scarred flesh and was piecing things together for herself. “Did it have something to do with what happened to you? Did someone hurt you and make Snow lose control?”
Antoine laughed scornfully. “No.”
He stood and paced across the room, needing the space.
“I was so busy looking for Anya that I didn’t see the warning signs. Snow had confessed the depth of what he was going through. He had confided in me and I should have dropped everything so I could help him. Instead I was chasing after a ghost.”
He reached out with his senses, across th
e corridor and into Snow’s room. His brother was peaceful, at rest, and the depth of it surprised him. There was something in Lilah’s lullabies after all.
“Snow had a bad night.”
“How bad?” That question was cautious, wary, and conveyed that Sera knew just how badly he meant but she needed to hear him say it.
There was no way she could imagine the carnage he had witnessed.
Antoine turned towards her, weak from the grip that memories of that night had on his heart and his mind.
“A waking nightmare.” Those two words fit the scenes playing out in his head so perfectly.
Sera reached out to him and he went to her, slipping his hand into hers and allowing her to lure him down to sit on the edge of the bed. She placed her arms around him and he didn’t shirk her, just soaked up the comfort she offered and wondered what heavenly being had placed her on this Earth and brought her into his life. It felt as though she had been made for him.
“I have never told anyone this. Not even Snow knows the full story... although I suspect he remembers more than he admits.”
She didn’t tense. She started a slow motion of her hand over his back, stroking and soothing, calming his pain so he could speak.
Why did it feel so right to confide all of this in her? He had held it inside him for so long now. Everyone knew he and Snow had no other family but no one had ever questioned why. No one but he and his brother knew what had happened that night at their family mansion.
“What you saw tonight... that is Snow on a good day.” He rested his head on her slender shoulder, seeking more comfort and warmth from her. He felt cold. He could still feel the icy blast of snow that had cut him to the bone that wintry night. He could still see the freshly fallen powder stained dark with blood. The place that had been such a core part of his life, full of happiness and security, love and warmth, had become a terrible vision of horror that had tainted his memories of his time there. Both his future and his past had been destroyed that night. “I came home late. It was barely a few hours before dawn. It was snowing heavily and the grounds seemed strangely quiet... the sort of quiet that sends the hairs on the back of your neck standing on their ends and triggers your senses to high alert.”
“God, Antoine... Snow didn’t—” She cut herself off, as though voicing her conclusion was too horrific, let alone hearing him confirm that it was right.
“There was no sign of the carnage from the front of the house but on entering it I found a bloodbath. My family, from my cousins’ children to my aunts and uncles, all savaged to the point where I could no longer recognise any of them. I had thought it was hunters, but the attack was too brutal. Werewolves crossed my mind next. I heard a noise outside, coming from the back of the house. Every room I passed through to reach it was... I do not think I need to say.” Antoine closed his eyes against the pain and focused on the soothing motion of Sera’s hand across his back. She was so warm and compassionate, taking away his hurt with her touch as though she was absorbing it into herself so he didn’t have to suffer. What strange magic had she worked on him to bring him to his knees so quickly? It was too late now to turn back. He would confess all, would confide these terrible things in her so she could witness the full brutality of his past and would know of what he too was capable. “I found Snow trampling through the roses, drenched in blood, dragging our mother’s corpse behind him. He was looking for something. I wasn’t sure what it was until he turned and spotted me. Then I knew with chilling certainty that he was seeking more blood.”
Sera stopped breathing, the motion of her hand against his back ceasing too.
She was still for too long. He needed to hear her speak, needed the reassurance that came with her steady caress.
He jumped and his heart lodged in his throat when she flung her arms around his shoulders and squeezed him tightly, her face buried in the crook of his neck. “My God, Antoine... your brother did those things to you.”
Antoine tamped down the sharp wave of pain that threatened to tear through every scar on his body, unwilling to surrender to the past and afraid that the intensity of it would wake Snow. His brother needed his rest. He had vowed that night that he would do all in his power to ensure that Snow never suffered like that again, a slave to his bloodlust, mindlessly killing and unaware of what he was doing as he gorged himself.
“He did not mean to. It wasn’t him who attacked me that night. It was the sickness that festers within him.”
Sera tightened her hold on him. “He said something like that to you earlier. I heard him.”
“He means it,” Antoine said on a sigh. “I fought my brother and although he almost bested me, the familiar scent of the blood he was spilling and the sound of my voice eventually reached him. I brought him back but I didn’t have the heart to do the right thing, not even when he begged.”
“He wanted you to kill him.” There was sorrow in her voice. He felt it in his blood too, but it was his sadness not hers.
“Was it cruel of me to refuse such a request? I forced him to promise me that he would never take his own life in payment for what he had done to me, and to our family. He was all that I had, and I love him. It was not Snow who wrought such horrific destruction that night. It was his bloodlust. I told him that, countless times. I promised him that together we would master it and he would be free again. I mean to keep that promise.”
“You didn’t want to be alone.” Those words were whispered but each screamed in his ears as though she had shouted them.
There was a time once when he had convinced himself that he had refused Snow because he had wanted to help his brother and save his life. That honourable intention had faded and worn over the years to reveal the uglier truth beneath.
He hadn’t wanted to continue in this world alone, bearing the horror of what he had witnessed and what he had done. He hadn’t wanted to kill his own flesh and blood, the brother who was everything to him, who he had looked up to all his life and loved more than anything in the world.
“I did not want to be alone,” Antoine echoed, empty inside as the truth of it sank in. “So I made Snow suffer. I cannot lose him, Sera.”
“I know.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead and he sat back, wanting to look into her soothing forest green eyes and see in them that she didn’t think he was despicable for the things he had done and she didn’t fear the darkest part of him that would inevitably surface one day. He needed to see that she knew what she was getting in to by choosing to be with him, before this went any further.
Sera smiled softly, her eyes full of understanding, overflowing with compassion and concern.
“You need to save him, not only because he is your brother and you love him, but because you need to know that you too can be saved.”
Wise woman. She had seen through the mask of one intention to the others that lay hidden beneath.
“You are not your brother, Antoine.” She stroked his cheek and then leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He wanted to drown in her then. Wanted to kiss her and make love with her in an attempt to lose himself and leave reality behind, forget everything they had talked about and the uncertainty of it all. Sera was good, and beautiful, and pure. Perhaps as Lilah could sway Snow from the darkest moments of his bloodlust, Sera could protect him from the demon completely and help him hold it at bay so he never suffered as his brother had.
Perhaps.
“Are you part fae?” He searched her eyes, looking for something magical in them, a spark of fae power. It was possible for a fae to mate with a human. Her ancestors might have passed it through her bloodline to her.
She laughed. “I don’t think so, why?”
Antoine brushed his fingers through the silken threads of her wavy ash blonde hair. “Whenever I look at you... whenever you touch me... I feel bewitched.”
Sera smiled. “I think that’s just plain old lust.”
He shook his head. “No... it is deeper than that.”
Her eyes widene
d. His did too. What he had said could be considered a sort of declaration, the kind that he had promised he would never make again. It was the closest he could ever come to saying the words all women liked to hear, and it was far too early for those sorts of feelings between them.
“Maybe you’ve just been alone too long.” Her smile became a wicked grin. “You need a woman’s touch and some company, and that’s all this has to be, Antoine, if that’s all you can give me.”
Antoine raked his gaze over her. She had to be part fae. A wicked sort of one. It would explain that aura of innocence she wore to mask her naughty side.
A side he wanted to become more acquainted with.
A side that was addictive.
She was willing to let this end.
He wasn’t.
Now that he’d had a taste of her, not just her body but her warmth and the beauty of her nature, he wasn’t willing to let her go.
Antoine placed his hands flat on the bed and kissed her, leaning forwards at the same time, driving her backwards until her head hit a deep red pillow.
She had sealed her fate by seducing him and there was no turning back, no matter what happened.
She was his now.
CHAPTER 9
Sera lay on the bed beside Antoine, watching him sleep. The crimson silk bedclothes rode low on his hips, revealing a delicious muscular ridge that ran over his hip and downwards under the covers. Her gaze followed the deep brown curls back up to the sensual dip of his navel. She wanted to lick that hollow. Had a few times already. Antoine laughed and told her to stop whenever she dipped her tongue into it.
It was hard to believe that the man lying next to her was the same one she had watched interacting coldly with others, keeping his distance. He had changed so much since three nights ago when Snow had lost himself to a fit of bloodlust and Antoine had told her things that had left her feeling honoured, touched, and a little bit in love with him. That he had never told anyone else the story of his past and what Snow had done, and had chosen to confide it all in her, still had her reeling to a degree. He had lived through so much darkness and terror. It made her want to give him light and love.
Seduce (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series #3) Page 9