by V M Black
“Enjoying your party?” she said, clasping our hands in turn, her smile edged and her eyes bright.
She was feeding off the tension in the room. She could sense the danger, too—and unlike me, she loved it.
It was a measure of my state of mind that I found Clarissa’s presence almost reassuring. She, at least, was something like a friend.
“I think I’ll survive,” I replied.
She let out a musical peal of laughter. “You’re just infuriating them. It’s fabulous!” she crowed, and just as quickly as she’d appeared, she ducked back into the crowd and was gone.
Reassuring. Right.
A man in a stiff silk robe popped in front of us before I could say anything, bowing with exaggerated courtesy over my hand.
“Ah, the famous new cognate,” he said, every word edged. “What a pretty story you spin about her, Thorne.”
“It’s no story, and you know it, Timur,” Dorian countered.
“Perhaps. You take too many gambles. Throw the dice once too often, and they’ll come up snake eyes, and then where will you and your precious Adelphoi be?” With another contemptuous bow, he faded back into the crowd.
I was still reeling when an agnatic woman approached wearing three dead parrots arranged in a macabre tableau on her head. I stared at the budgies as she talked to Dorian, unable to focus on her words, not even to process whether there was bile behind her smile before she left.
“Dorian! And Cora!” A woman came up on the arm of a bored-looking man, her wild blond curls scarcely confined by a silk band.
I blinked because even though it was the woman who spoke, it was the man who had the air of an agnate about him. He wore an expression of bored indulgence.
“Good evening, Dorian,” he said.
“Jean, Hattie,” Dorian returned. “Allow me to present to you my cognate, Cora Shaw.”
I could feel a slight change in his body through my hand on his arm—the tiniest relaxation, and only then did I realize how tense he’d been before.
“A pleasure,” Jean intoned, pressing my hand briefly.
“It’s excellent to see you up and about,” the cognate said briskly as she squeezed my hand in turn. “I wanted to call on you before, but Dorian banished me to the labs as soon as you were awake.”
There was something familiar about her, the pretty round face and the mass of curls....
“You were there,” I blurted. “When I—I changed. You were there, and you took me away.”
Hattie’s smile broadened, and her agnate patted her arm with the kind of affection one would show to an excited pet. “You remembered,” she said. “I hope Perry Connor didn’t frighten you too much.”
I shook my head. There had been too much pain for there to be any room for fear.
“Well, enjoy your introduction.” She gazed adoringly up into Jean’s face. “I certainly loved mine.”
“I expect cocktails and baccarat at your New Year’s party,” Jean said to Dorian over her head. “You know what I think about parties with neither gambling nor mixed drinks.” He frowned at a tray of champagne as a waiter passed by.
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Dorian said.
They turned and left, the parade of greetings continued, each accompanied by varying degrees of enthusiasm or hostility. At times, I couldn’t even tell whether their congratulations were meant with sarcasm or sincerity.
Nearly a quarter of the agnates had a cognate in tow. Some of these had the vacant look of Isabella. Others were silent but looked on with intelligent eyes. A few—a very few—spoke to one or both of us, but they all seemed uniformly, almost disturbingly content. I couldn’t help but wonder how old they all were—and whether that contentment came of themselves or was a happiness imposed by their agnates.
It was like a bizarre kind of slideshow, a presentation of all my possible futures. My head swam, my stomach roiling. My hand on Dorian’s arm began to cramp with the force that I was clinging to him, and my other hand shook when I extended it to be briefly pressed by yet another dazzling agnate. The night had hardly begun, but all I could do was to look forward desperately to the end.
But even when it did, I would be no less trapped, because I feared the futures themselves, not just the presentations of them, because one of them would be mine....
Servants circulated with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. I took a flute of wine and drank it too quickly, snatching up a second when a waiter came near again and downing it just as fast. Under the sound of the orchestra, the drone of hundreds of conversations echoed through the room.
As Dorian exchanged earnest observations with an older agnatic woman, two children came tumbling up the carpet between the adults, a serious-looking boy with a much younger girl. They stopped short as they realized that I stood in their way.
I stared, my attention pulled from Dorian’s conversation. I hadn’t noticed any children in the crowd before, the press of adult bodies too great to see smaller ones between them. Somehow, their presence made the gathering more real—and yet more fantastically bizarre.
Both children were astonishingly beautiful. The boy noticed my attention and smirked ingratiatingly under a shock of brown hair, his smile perfectly tuned with complete self-awareness as to its effect. He had his own tail suit, down to the white tie and the wingtip shoes, and he already carried traces of the shadowy authority of the adults and turned its full force on me.
The little girl’s velvet skirt stood out like a perfect bell around her, so stiff with petticoats that it rustled with every motion. Her black hair hung in perfect ringlets under a bright purple tiara. Staring at me suspiciously, she rattled the dozen or so plastic beaded necklaces that she wore around her neck, but even that childlike motion was peculiarly, inappropriately elegant.
“We’re going to climb that statue,” she announced, her tone edged with the contemptuous certainty that I would not dare to cross her.
“Come on,” the boy muttered to her, keeping the smile plastered on his face as he stared me down. “She’s not human. Let’s go around.”
“I want to climb up at the end of the carpet,” the girl said, digging in her heels as he tugged at her hand, little tendrils of will, sensed but not seen, emanating from her. But the older boy overpowered her and dragged her back into the crowd.
Children. Vampire children. The too-perfect facsimiles of humanity in the adult agnates were disconcerting enough, but the children seemed almost like actors, poured into small bodies and playing a role, skillfully hitting all the right notes with the jaded eye of a master manipulator. I was immune, but any true human not under another agnate’s thrall would have had her mind turned into mush by one look at those pretty faces.
I shuddered.
“Dorian, darling!”
My attention was jolted to an agnatic woman who came sailing up to us, her dark hair clasped in golden bands. Her goddess-style dress was all white draperies and crisscrossed gold cords that served to emphasize her breasts and the swelling of her pregnant belly.
She was flanked by two muscular, bare-chested men—both non-agnates, I realized—an absurdity even among the varied attire of the other guests. As she advanced, other agnates muttered or stared, and she preened under their disapproval. The men each had an oval mark over their right hip. Both cognates, then? The woman must have a matching mark, invisible beneath her dress.
“I am so glad you finally found someone. Two hundred years of abstinence cannot be healthy.” She smiled toothily, thrusting her hand at him.
Dorian bowed over it, wearing a chilly smile. “As delightful as always, Veronica.”
“You’re such a clever boy,” she said. “Now all you need is a second little plaything.”
She patted the nearest man proprietarily on the shoulder with one long-nailed hand. With a chuckle, he caught her hand and kissed it, and her expression turned blatantly carnal.
“One is fun, but two are better,” she purred.
“You can
stop terrorizing my cognate now,” Dorian said through his teeth, his smile unwavering. “It isn’t gracious to bully your hostess.”
“Why, heavens forfend!” She put her hand to her heart and took a deep breath as she turned to me, not coincidentally drawing attention to her generous breasts. “Oh, my dear, are you still such a prude? Don’t worry. It never lasts long.”
I jerked back automatically as she reached out to touch my shoulder.
She laughed again and cradled her belly. “And who knows? Soon enough, you’ll have little ones of your own to think about.”
With that, she sashayed off, the men sauntering in her wake.
“Are they really both—” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “But it’s considered very poor form.”
I reached for another flute of champagne as a waiter passed by, but no sooner had I grasped it than Dorian plucked it from my fingers and placed it back on the tray, then took my free hand in his for a brief squeeze.
“You’ve had quite enough, Cora,” he said. “You’re doing fine. You don’t need that.”
His reassurance wrapped around me with almost a physical force, warm and muffling, and I sensed a distant twinge of panic that I could not properly feel.
My head was spinning with all the people and the champagne by the time the orchestra stopped and a bell rang deep in the recesses of the house. The sea of guests began to flow, slowly but steadily, toward the stairs, the buzz of conversation continuing unabated.
Dorian stepped along with them, and I bobbed at his side, anchored to his strength.
“Is it over?” I asked, not quite daring to hope that it was.
“Only the introductions.” Dorian looked down at me, studying me closely for the first time since he had stepped down from the top of the stairs. The hard light of victory faded slightly from his eyes, replaced with a hint of pity.
I didn’t want his pity. I wanted to escape.
“This is horrible,” I said, putting all the force of my feeling in those words. “I want it to be done.”
Except it wouldn’t ever be done, not really. This was my life with Dorian, in one form or another, forever.
His arm tightened infinitesimally against mine. “I know. I’m sorry. Only dinner and dancing are left. That will likely last until dawn, but we will not be obligated to stay that long.”
As we reached the grand staircase and headed down toward the ballroom, I looked at all the beautiful, ageless faces around us and realized that except for the children, I could very well be the youngest person in the room by a hundred years.
“Dancing,” I said. “I don’t think I can do the kind of dancing that you’re talking about.”
“But I can,” he said. “Have no fear, Cora. You will only be expected to watch the grand march with me and take the first dance, and then you can sit in a quiet corner near the buffet until it is over.”
And then I could be put back on the shelf with the other playthings. I knew he had meant to be comforting, but it was anything but. My stomach turned. My place in his world as his cognate seemed to tighten around my throat like a noose. I’d had a future planned, before I’d gotten sick. But the future I wanted and the future demanded of me as Dorian’s cognate couldn’t both survive.
I braced myself to enter the ballroom.
Chapter Two
The back of my neck prickled as we reached the lower level, the memory of the proving that had been held there two nights before bright in my mind. But the tables that had been set up to test Dorian’s staff for loyalty were gone now. Every light in the room now shone, even the candelabra on the mirrored walls, and great, thick garlands of roses and lilies hung from them, perfuming the air.
Love and death. How absurdly appropriate.
Another orchestra occupied a raised dais at the far end of the room, now sitting at rest as the agnates and their cognates poured in around us, gathering at the vestibule in front of the dance floor. Four different buffets were set behind the columns that ringed the room, servers standing to attention behind the tables, with golden chairs against the walls in between.
Dorian ignored his guests even as they made way for us, moving aside as we stepped from the marble entry onto the parquet of the ballroom proper.
On cue, the orchestra struck up a stately march. My death grip on Dorian’s arm grew even tighter.
“What do I do?” I whispered urgently.
His smile did nothing to put me at ease even as my heart did a little hiccup in my chest. “You walk with me to the viewing platform.”
He led the way down the length of the room to a small, elevated stage just below the orchestra’s dais. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement, but I didn’t dare look aside as Dorian stepped up onto the platform. I stumbled after and turned with him to face the assembly.
The guests had paired up down to the smallest of the children and were executing an elaborate choreography in intricate, shifting geometries across the floor, as if there were some giant puppeteer pulling strings above. Every movement was exactly synchronized and so beautiful in its studied grace that it almost hurt to watch.
I was struck with the thought of how deadly those lovely creatures were, the danger in every perfect turn and nod, and I felt like a small, furry animal, mesmerized by the swaying of a snake.
The music swelled and came to a clashing finale just as the entire company turned to face us and bowed.
“And now it is our turn,” Dorian murmured. He returned the bow, his gesture low, sweeping, almost exaggerated. Caught off guard, I ducked my head and made a wobbly curtsey at his side.
He straightened and stepped down onto the floor as the assembly faded back. I was pulled along on his arm toward the center of the floor.
“The first dance,” I said, a tremor of panic rising in my voice.
“Indeed,” he said.
The orchestra began to play a slow, swinging jazz. Not quite what I had expected, but I didn’t know what to do with it one bit more than if it had been a waltz. Around us, the couples scattered outward and began to dance around the floor. Even as they whirled past us, I could sense their eyes on us, watching, judging.
Now what?
Dorian shifted the arm I was still holding so that he cupped my shoulder blade, loosening my grip gently and transferring my hand to his shoulder.
“Foxtrot,” he said. “My request. It’s simplicity itself to follow.”
He took my other hand in his free one and raised it, pulling me against him from chest to hip. I closed my eyes at the contact, clinging to the sensation of the hard length of his body against mine—despite everything. The intimacy of it shot through me, bringing a flush of heat to my cheeks and a welcoming blossom of heat deep in my center.
He was the cause of the chaos in my world—and the only still point in it.
Dorian shifted his weight to one foot, pulling me with him, and my eyes flew open again.
“Just feel what I do, Cora,” he said, and he stepped out.
I panicked, clenching his arm and stumbling.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I hissed.
He ducked his head to my ear and murmured, “Don’t be afraid. I have you.”
The words carried the force of all his persuasion with them, and my anxiety evaporated. I stepped easily with him, his body guiding my own as effortlessly as breathing.
I had been changed again. Panic welled up inside me, churning in my guts, sending my heart lurching sideways. He held me pinned in his arms.
“Don’t,” I whispered. “Please, don’t.”
A small frown marred his perfect forehead. “I was trying to help.”
“I know,” I said as we weaved between other swaying couples. “But stop doing it. I want to be myself. If I’m afraid, then I want to deal with it. I don’t want to have it all wiped away for me. That’s only one step away from turning me into—into an Isabella.”
His arms tightened around me. “I would never do that
.”
The promise, however treacherous it might be, gave me an infinitesimal reassurance, and the frantic drumming of my heart slowed fractionally. Somehow, my feet never tangled in his, and we never collided with any of the other dancers. The song ended, and he took me on his arm again and led me under the colonnade that encircled the room, heading toward the nearest buffet.
“I have duties as the host to attend to,” he said. “But you can have some peace. Nothing will happen to you here.”
“How much longer will it be?” I asked. My hand ached from clinging to him.
“Two hours, maybe three. I must make a few rounds of the room—speak to the right people, dance with the right people.” He looked down at me, his expression graver than his light words. “I will come for you when I can.”
I didn’t want to be left alone in a roomful of vampires, even though the irony of clinging to Dorian for defense left a bitter taste in my mouth. Right now, he might very well be more dangerous to me than any of the other agnates.
But I said, “Okay. I’ll be here. But if anyone else asks me to dance, I’m refusing.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “Just tell them you’re tired. A cognate’s prerogative.”
A boyish-looking agnate with an unruly mop of yellow hair came up to us. I tried to retrieve his name from the long list of introductions but failed.
“Here I am, Dorian, as promised,” he said. Behind him were two uniformed servants.
Dorian shook his hand warmly. “Cora, you remember Tiberius. He’ll chase any unwanted attention away.” He nodded to the staff. “And if you need anything, send one of them to get me.”
“I will,” I said. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
“As soon as we can politely leave, I will come for you,” Dorian promised, and I detected something in his eyes.
Was it reluctance? Or regret?
Tonight was the celebration of the triumph of his work—work that would have taken a human’s entire career. It was an event that starkly marked his victory and portended the failure of his enemies. And he was willing to cut that short. For me. Because I was sick and frightened and miserable, he was willing to bow out of his own victory fête.