Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6

by V M Black

  He walked over to stand between my knees, bending down to kiss my forehead. I sighed and leaned into his caress.

  “It’s safer than moving, with the force that’s stationed outside that door, and the Kyrioi have other things to worry about tonight.”

  Whoever he’d sent after them, he meant. I nodded. “Who’s out there?”

  The corner of his lip twitched. “More than a dozen men—mine and some reliable contractors.”

  I started to ask about how he’d gotten the hotel staff to agree to so many in the room—and then shut my mouth. Of course the staff would agree. When agnates make a request, who says no?

  “We have lookouts downstairs in the lobby, as well,” Dorian continued. “And tomorrow, you and I will take the yacht for a trip as soon as the last party guest is ejected and the boat cleaned and restocked.”

  “A trip? Where?” I frowned, shaking my head. That wasn’t the question I should be asking. “I mean, don’t you think you should ask me first?”

  He stopped, blinked, and said, “Did I not? I believe that you’ll be safest on a boat while my allies deal with the Kyrioi. Djinn are no worry when you’re surrounded by saltwater, and neither are humans who might try to press unwanted attentions on you. Will you come?”

  “What about school?” I asked.

  “The first day of classes is still more than twenty days away. My allies will deal with the Cosimo problem while you are safely out of the crossfire during that time.” He paused and raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Or does the idea of two weeks or so in the Caribbean with me really seem that abhorrent to you?”

  “Of course not. I just prefer that you ask—and keep me up to date.” I took a deep breath. All of this seemed impossible and strange. “But I’ll go. Since you’re asking me, I’ll go.”

  He smoothed my damp hair away from my face. “By the time you get back, you won’t have to fear a single human’s attack any longer.”

  “Because I’ll change more,” I said, remembering what Clarissa had said. “When does all the changing stop? Will I still be...me then?”

  He pulled me to my feet, into his arms. “Don’t be afraid, Cora. You’ll still be the same person. Only stronger on the outside, as you already are on the inside.”

  “Stronger, faster, prettier—better,” I said, filling in the word. It was really going to happen, all the changes that I’d feared. I had chosen them.

  “No,” he said. “You are perfect as you are.”

  I shook my head.

  He tilted up my chin. “Yes, Cora. You are perfect to me. Now and always.”

  He kissed me then, and the world slid out of focus for several long minutes as I gave myself up to him and the reassurance of his touch, his body, his love.

  Finally, he broke away with a sigh. “Tomorrow, we’ll visit my jeweler while the yacht is being prepared for us to leave.”

  “Jeweler?” I echoed.

  His lips twitched. “For a ring.”

  “Oh.” The engagement ring. The thought still filled my stomach with butterflies, objections crowding again in my mind. I was too young. I hardly knew him. I would give up so much....

  But I would gain him. And that was worth everything in trade.

  I took a deep breath.

  “You really are serious about it, aren’t you? The whole wedding thing.”

  “Completely,” he said.

  I stood there with his arms around me, and I thought about what it would mean—a cognate who had been screened for compatibility and who had chosen to risk death in return for a chance at life who chose again to unite with him in a human ceremony.

  “It’s about more than me, isn’t it?” I said. It wasn’t really a question. “It’s about your cause. Our wedding would be a triumph for the Adelphoi.”

  “It is about you. But yes, it would be a triumph for us,” he corrected.

  My hand was on his chest. I turned it so that I could see the bond-mark there, on my wrist. Our cause. I wasn’t ready to go that far. Not yet. I wasn’t any kind of activist, any sort of hero.

  But I was willing to do it for him—make the wedding into everything it could be.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll give them something to talk about.”

  “Let’s get to bed, then,” he said, smoothing my wet hair away from my face. “It will be a long day tomorrow.”

  I looked up into those light blue eyes. “Only if you hold me tonight.”

  In answer, he sat down on the bed and gathered me instantly into his arms. “Every night, Cora. Every single night.”

  ***

  I woke up to Dorian’s kiss on my cheek. I turned to catch his mouth, sleepily pulling him toward me.

  He gave a deep, rich chuckle that thrilled through me and pulled back to stand beside the bed. “It’s breakfast time. Then we need to go.”

  Those words brought me back to myself—brought back everything that had happened the night before. The proposal. Geoff. My acceptance.

  I looked up at the beautiful creature who was to be my husband. From his dead-black hair to his flawless features to his pale eyes, he seemed to be constructed to play on every ideal of human desirability.

  He was mine. As I was his.

  The idea thrilled and frightened me. And I couldn’t regret a thing.

  I took in the suit he was already wearing and sighed at the necessity of getting dressed.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said, extending him a hand to help me drag myself out of bed.

  Once dressed, I stepped into the living room of the suite like a newborn fawn on unsteady legs. I’d made my choice. My happily-ever-after had come, and I was on the other side of it and surprised by it all the same. I’d thought of my choice almost as if it would be the final chapter in my life, but I realized that it was just the beginning of something new.

  The living room had been cleaned up, every trace of glass and blood now gone. I kept my gaze averted from the empty places above the wet bar where the wineglasses that I had thrown had been.

  Men and women stood at a kind of parade rest around the circumference of the room, at least a dozen of them. My skin prickled under their eyes. Men and women, yes, but not ordinary ones. I couldn’t get a sense of what all of them were, but at least three were djinn, and some others were...werewolves? When I looked past them or saw them out of the corner of my eye, it was like I could see them double, one version human, the other animal.

  Dorian caught me staring warily at them.

  “Mercenaries work for every side,” he said shortly.

  “Are they loyal?” I asked—which was probably less than polite, but my previous experiences with the golden-eyed djinn had not been good.

  “Elizabeth trusts them,” Dorian said.

  That wasn’t really an answer at all, and at my look, he gave me a half-shrug.

  An enormous spread of food was laid out on the coffee table, as if its sheer extravagance could somehow strike back against the dangers of the night before. I hadn’t finished dinner, and my stomach rumbled loudly at the sight, eliciting a smile from Dorian. I piled a plate full and ate with a will. Dorian filled a smaller plate and sat next to me on the couch. I slid over so that our thighs touched, needing the reassurance of the contact.

  “So you have a jeweler,” I said when I had slowed down enough to talk.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Right. Of course. What man doesn’t have a jeweler?

  “Do you often shower women with necklaces and rings, then?” I prompted.

  He chuckled and raised his hands, his wrists facing me. I stared at them blankly.

  “Cufflinks, Cora,” he said. “Shirt studs and tie clips. And watches, too, though I don’t often bother with them anymore.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a little silly. I hadn’t really thought of where those things might come from.

  “And, yes, also women’s pieces,” he said. “Even an agnatic woman is still a woman, and some have heads that are turned by such things.” />
  “For your politics,” I said.

  He nodded. “If you would like to be included in our discussions in the future, it is your choice.”

  My choice—only because he gave it to me. Because it was, ultimately, Dorian’s decision, not mine. As everything in my life would be from this point onwards.

  I took a steadying breath. I trusted him. I did—I trusted him with my life because I didn’t think I could trust myself with it. But I’d grown up in a world where I’d believed in equality in relationships, and ours could never be equal.

  Aloud, I said, “Thanks. I might at some point. Right now, I think I just want to get through the next semester in one piece. And our wedding,” I added.

  “As you wish,” he murmured.

  And it would be. I was convinced of that. I just didn’t know what it was that I would wish in ten years, much less twenty or thirty. I put my free hand over my midsection. By then I might have children.

  Oh, God, and if I did, I must be sure that those children would be free from the burden of causing another’s death....

  After breakfast, one of the mercenaries brought our outerwear, and I shrugged into my coat somewhat awkwardly as it was held by a musclebound hulk who managed to make even Dorian seem slender. Other mercenaries took up our luggage, and the rest surrounded us, hustling us through the lobby and out the front door to Dorian’s Bentley, waiting at the curb. One of them got in the front passenger seat as we got in the back. The others piled into other cars that were almost aggressive in their nondescriptiveness.

  I wondered what the chauffeur made of all this, but if he thought anything at all, I couldn’t tell. I threaded my fingers through Dorian’s, holding onto them a little too hard.

  And my heart was glad. Even as my head feared for my future, my heart shed its last doubts. I looked over at him as he watched the streets slide by outside the window, and I thought I love you with so much force that it almost hurt.

  The chauffeur dropped us off in front of an unassuming shop in Old Town Alexandria. “King’s Jewelry,” read the white words on the black awning above. The mercenaries joined us on the curb and fanned out around us as Dorian pulled me under the shelter of his arm. We walked into the store, and immediately, a sales associate ushered us through the showroom and into the back.

  The room there was dark and so small that only four guards followed us in, standing up against the wall. Across from us was a solid wall made of shallow metal drawers, hundreds of them, and in front of that was a velvet-covered table with the jeweler hovering to the side.

  Dorian pulled out the single chair for me, and I sat, facing the table, and caught my breath as I looked down. Tray after tray of rings and loose diamonds lay there, a hard light shining down on them from above so that they glittered, dazzling me.

  There were thousands of them. There had to be. Some rings had diamonds so small that I could hardly make out the individual stones, while others were the size of a chunky pebble.

  “Whatever you wish,” Dorian said, waving at them.

  I reached forward. They were beautiful, stunning in their purity. Hesitantly, I tilted the trays in turn so that I could see them more clearly, more than half afraid to touch them.

  They were all so bright and clear, so direct in their beauty. I looked up at Dorian, who was anything but.

  “What is it, Cora?” Dorian asked as the jeweler hovered in the shadows.

  His expression was unreadable, as it so often was, and with his aristocratic looks, it made him seem as distant as the moon, far beyond my reach. But despite that, he belonged to me, as much as such a creature could belong to anyone.

  “The diamonds,” I said. “They aren’t right.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What would be right?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know.

  With a sharp nod, Dorian took the jeweler aside for a moment, murmuring something to him. The man whisked the trays of diamonds from the table, sliding them back into the drawers that lined the room. I gave Dorian a questioning look, but the only reaction he gave was the arching of a brow, so I settled back to wait.

  The jeweler busied himself in his cabinets for several minutes before returning to the table with a tall stack of trays, which he began to set before me.

  No longer was there an endless parade of diamonds—now precious stones of every type were laid out before me, rubies and sapphires, peridot and citrine, even pearls and amber and other things I couldn’t name.

  My gaze was drawn by one tray, full of smooth, black stones that glinted with blue and green and fiery red, flecks of color the seemed to be lighted from within.

  The darkness and the fire.

  “Ah, black opals,” the jeweler said as I picked one up. “An elegant stone. Opals love to be worn, as the skin keeps them strong. If they are stored away too long, they can become dry and brittle and will shatter at the least touch.”

  Some were so dark they were almost muddy. Others were a chaotic wash of color. I picked through the tray until I found one that was perfect—though it had a base of the deepest black, it glowed flame-red and blue and green with the strength of the color within.

  “This one,” I said, looking up at Dorian.

  His expression unreadable, he said, “As you wish.”

  After that it was a matter of sketching out an appropriate setting, which the jeweler did with swift skill. I approved it, handing the stone over to him reluctantly, and we left, Dorian pausing to kiss me again just inside the door.

  I would never get tired of his touch.

  “I can’t even put into words—” He broke off, shaking his head, and kissed me again. My Dorian, for once was speechless.

  Real. It was all impossibly real and permanent—the bond, Dorian, everything. I thought I should be able to float up to the sky, I felt so light to have the burden of it lifted from my shoulders. In the car, I pulled out my phone and typed out a quick email:

  Hey, everybody! I’m going to be out of range for a while—taking an unexpected trip out of the country, and I don’t think I’ll have phone or internet access. I’ll see you all when school starts, if not before. Hugs, Cora

  I scrolled through the list of email addresses, adding all my college friends. My finger hesitated over Geoff’s name. Biting my lip, I added him, too.

  The yacht was waiting for us in its slip, all traces of the New Year’s Eve party swept away. We left our guards on the pier and took the gangway up to the boat.

  I stood on the deck, facing the docks, as the yacht began to pull away. Slowly, we moved down the Potomac, the capital slipping away before me, foot by foot.

  “We’ll be back.” Dorian’s voice was a rumble as I leaned against him, his arms crossing my chest to hug my body against his.

  I tilted my head to look at him. His eyes were fixed on me.

  “I know,” I said.

  We’d be back, but it wouldn’t be the same. I was leaving a life in College Park, a life of classes and friends and a familiar, carefully rehearsed future. When I came back, it would not have changed. But I had. I wouldn’t be able to fit in it anymore. My world was too big now.

  My world, which now centered around Dorian. The flame to my moth. Darkness, shot through with the most beautiful light, one I could not tear myself away from.

  My hands tightened on his wrists as I turned back toward the shore, watching it all slip away, behind us.

  I loved him, this creature suspended between good and evil. My fallen angel, my rising demon.

  And whatever the price, I could never let him go.

  A new story begins in...

  For All Time

  Cora’s Bond – Book 1

  September 16, 2014

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  Dorian Thorne and Cora Shaw return from their Caribbean and plunge into th
e thick of vampiric politics—and Cora is caught right in the middle. She is determined to manage her relationship with Dorian, their wedding plans, and her final semester of college. But there are factions in deadly opposition to their wedding, and as events begin to unfold, it appears that there is more on the line than either of them suppose.

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