Before he returned to the interior of the apartment, William self-consciously checked his appearance in the faint reflection of the sliding glass door and downed a breath mint. He was only here for the sake of his assigned duties, but there was no reason he should not also look his best.
Asking first for permission to enter, William was invited by Brenna to enter the bedroom. She was waiting patiently as Raina showered first. Brenna had been busying herself with selecting a proper outfit. She was not nude, but surprisingly she had no qualms about standing before him in nothing more than a bra and a G-string. Given her profession of choice as an exotic dancer, she clearly had to be comfortable with appearing so scantily clad (or nude) in front of strangers. In spite of her abrasive and crude personality, she nevertheless was quite easy for William to look at. Brenna only glanced back at him over her shoulder for a moment as she rummaged about through her closet, flipping through one item after another on their plastic hangers.
“Unless the Grand Duchess is okay with me showing up in a stripper costume or a bikini,” she told him, “I’m not sure I really have anything worth wearing. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever been planning on actually meeting the Grand Duchess in person.”
Nodding with a smirk, William acknowledged, “It certainly is an unexpected honor, isn’t it? I expect that you’ll be seeing her quite regularly in the future, though.”
She looked back at him with a surprised expression. “How’s that?”
“Raina is to be made a Lady of the High Court soon … officially,” he explained. “Given the nature of your relationship with Raina, the Grand Duchess has seen fit to give her blessing to your union with Raina, if she wishes to claim you as her consort.”
For a few seconds, Brenna simply stared at him with disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“The Grand Duchess said that?”
“I just spoke with her about this,” he confirmed with a nod, holding up his closed cell phone. “The Grand Duchess wishes to show her gratitude for helping save the life of her only remaining bloodspawn by inviting you into the House of Fallamhain as an honorary Lady.”
Again, she just stared at him with an expression of absolute shock. Her eyes, even bare of makeup, were incredibly alluring with the striking emerald green color of her irises that contrasted so starkly against the blackness of her hair. Her lips were full and shapely, ripe for kissing … and other tasks. Even standing as tall as she did, or perhaps even because of her height, she had a classic hourglass figure that many women were only able to achieve through the sometimes painful use of corsetry. Unless he had been right to judge her personality so quickly by what he had so far observed, Brenna was quite a desirable Commoner, to say the very least.
Hesitantly, William informed her, “I wouldn’t place too much importance upon what you choose to wear as much as how you present yourself.”
With her back to him, seemingly oblivious about the display she gave him in doing so, Brenna continued to rummage about through her clothes as she said, “If you’re implying that I should beg the Grand Duchess to spare my life, I’m already way ahead of you.”
“Allow me to rephrase that,” he said. “What you choose to wear when you initially meet the Grand Duchess is not as important as your public appearance with her afterwards. Actually … shortly after you are introduced to her, she will likely wish to examine you both.”
“Examine us? What, she wants to give us a physical?” she asked, selecting an item and pulling it out of the closet by its hanger. “Like, medically, or what?”
It was honestly difficult not to become distracted by Brenna as she held the see-through mesh top against her large breasts and held a skirt on another hanger underneath it to test the combination. Then again, he was by no means restricted from looking, or even from being quite attracted to her. He was not a bodyguard … or at least not her bodyguard. And although the general rule was to avoid becoming romantically involved with those that he was supposed to be guarding, even Duvessa had sidestepped that rule by having practically ordered him to sleep with her in the past. Sex was tolerated, just so long as it was only casual.
“A visual inspection will probably be involved, yes. I don’t anticipate that it should progress any farther than that with you, but with Raina, it may be a bit more, ah … involved than she may expect.”
“How’s that?”
“She will want to see her in totality.”
“In totality?”
“Nude,” he clarified.
Brenna stared at him with wide eyes, stunned. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Not at all.”
“You’re saying she wants Raina to get butt-naked in front of her, the very first time she meets her?”
“Ordinarily, this would not be the case,” he explained. “In the past, she has always met her prospective bloodspawn in a more formal and pre-planned setting. Most any vampire, as you know, would prefer to inspect a potential bloodspawn before actually becoming their Maker, rather than after the fact. However, the circumstances of this case do not allow for such niceties. As has she explained to me, Raina has already been made her bloodspawn because Duke Sebastian had already been afforded an opportunity to sufficiently evaluate her, on his own.”
“Evaluate her? Don’t you mean that he raped her?” Brenna asked accusingly, narrowing her eyes at him.
William held up his hands, saying, “Those were not my words. I am merely passing along hers.”
“She really called it that? An evaluation?”
“I’m sure she did not mean it in the same context to which you are referring.”
Brenna gave him an almost disgusted look. “So, Raina’s actually going to be graded on her looks?”
“Essentially, yes,” he replied with a solemn nod. “However, I can fully appreciate your perspective on the matter. Raina did not consent to being Made, and I very much doubt that she consented to the Duke’s, ah … other … actions.”
Brenna rolled her eyes and looked down upon the outfit she held up to herself, then to William, silently asking for his opinion on it. He considered it for a moment, then gestured that the skirt was fine, but the mesh top had to go. She shrugged and tossed the skirt next to William on the bed before hanging the top back up in the closet.
“So, it’s not enough that she’s been put through all that, already? Now, she expects Raina to do a strip tease in front of a total stranger, too?” Brenna demanded. “That’s just messed up. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, I couldn’t give a damn what you all want me to do. But why does everyone want to pick on poor Raina?”
“No one is picking on her…”
“No? Then what do you call this, all of this?” she asked, angrily gesturing to herself and William. She lowered her voice a bit, just in case Raina might overhear their conversation while she was in the shower. “Don’t you think it’s bad enough that she’s already been through all of the shit that she’s suffered before this? Now, after everything that happened with her parents … and I know you all know exactly what happened … I mean, seriously, you guys honestly think all of this shit in the last few days is no big deal? Don’t any of you really care that some dude knocked her out, raped her, and forced the Change on her? And let’s not forget the fact that there’s a crazy German chick that’s running around killing everyone in the Fallamhain bloodline, and now she’s probably got her sights set on Raina.”
“I agree,” he conceded with a nod, “she has had to endure an extraordinary amount of trauma in her lifetime…”
“And now, on top of everything before, and on top of everything that’s just happened … now you people really expect her to just strip right down in front of someone like the Grand Duchess so she can be graded like she’s some kind of a fucking show pony?”
“Ms. Douglass, I understand your…”
“Brenna, okay?” she interrupted, stepping towards him. “Just call me Brenna.”
She st
opped in front of him, far enough away so as not to be intruding upon his personal space, but close enough that he had to tilt his head back to meet her gaze. She was almost as tall as him. How she was able to be this tall while still looking (and acting) as feminine as she did was truly remarkable. Perhaps he was only being prejudiced, but every tall woman he had ever known tended to be a bit less than elegant, not quite masculine but certainly far from dainty or delicate. Brenna carried herself with both grace and beauty, yet her personality exhibited a strength that went beyond the visible natural vampiric muscle tone he could see of her exquisite body.
“Again, Brenna, I understand your objections to this. And again, this is not my decision. I am merely passing along these things as they have been told to me, and as I have witnessed them in the past,” William replied softly, making a slow, calming gesture. “None of these things are certainties, of course. She may elect to decide against such a close inspection, either for Raina or for you. As Grand Duchess, and as head of the Fallamhain bloodline, it is entirely her prerogative. I’m merely telling you this so that neither of you will find yourselves so surprised later. I know only what the Grand Duchess has done in the past, and what she has done with me.”
“Oh, really? What did she do to you?” Brenna asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking…?”
He shrugged. “Like you, I was already a Commoner vampire when I was introduced to the Grand Duchess. Traditionally, when a House of the High Court takes in a vampire of another bloodline, that vampire is either bound as a consort or as a servant, either by blood or by intimacy. The Maker of an existing vampire must either consent to release their bloodspawn to that House, or they may already be deceased. My own Maker chose to release me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Brenna said. The genuinely sympathetic tone of her voice made it sound as though he had instead indicated that his Maker had died.
“It’s okay. I’m not sorry. I had an unhappy arrangement with my Maker, anyhow.”
“In what way?”
He shook his head, avoiding the question. “I was given to the Grand Duchess as a means of settling a dispute. It was essentially a trade in the same manner as you would see in many of your professional sports teams. The difference, of course, is that this was not a matter of contract disputes or multi-million-dollar salaries. Someone of my bloodline committed a grave offense against someone else of the House of Fallamhain.”
“What did you do?”
“The Grand Duchess was publicly insulted. Not by me, but by my Maker. I was offered to the Grand Duchess so that my Maker’s life would be spared.”
“So, you were like a peace offering?”
“More or less,” he agreed with a smirk. “A Debt of Blood had been levied against my Maker, and I was offered as a means of satisfying that debt. I was not happy being with my Maker, but I did not wish to see her dead, either. Her life was spared, and I was released from her bloodline, so it was mutually satisfying.”
“Oh.” She paused before asking, “So … what’d the Grand Duchess do with you, once she had you?”
He hesitated. “Well … really, one must understand the way that the House of Fallamhain works to really make sense of its private actions. The Grand Duchess believes that respect and trust are of the utmost importance in her bloodline, and she has always felt that she can only trust someone when she knows them in their entirety.”
Wrinkling her nose a bit, Brenna said, “So, she thinks she can only trust someone if she’s seen them naked?”
“Not necessarily, no. That is only a part of it.” He hesitated, and then finally confessed, “She also favors intimacy as a means of building trust.”
“So, she can’t trust someone she hasn’t already…”
“Yes … that,” he said with a knowing nod, politely averting a statement of the obvious. “Not always, but generally, yes.”
Brenna blinked at him with surprise. “So, like … you screwed the Grand Duchess?”
“I did not screw her, as you so bluntly put it,” he replied, watching Brenna fold her arms under her sizable yet firm breasts, “but she did invite me into her bed on the night I was given to her. Also, as is the case with any vampire of any bloodline, I was given the Communion of Blood. In the way that she prefers to do this, the experience is very … bonding, you might say. It was actually not very different than how I joined with my Maker … although I must admit, that was far less pleasant an experience.”
“Yeah … mine, too,” Brenna admitted, looking away rather sadly. After a moment, she looked to him again. “So, she’s not going to … make Raina, like … y’know…?”
“No, I do not expect that she will. They are already bound by blood, rather than merely by oath, and as you know, that is an everlasting bond. She will not require any such reassurances from Raina to trust her.” He paused, meeting the gaze of those lovely emerald green eyes of Brenna’s quite directly. “However, I do not know at all what she intends to do with you. Obviously, Raina is her primary focus, but she has an intense interest in you that she has not entirely explained. Quite honestly, I would be prepared for just about anything.”
“Something tells me there’s more to this than her having some trust issues. Does the Grand Duchess like chicks as much as she likes dudes?”
William merely shrugged. He would have expected that Brenna, having presumably already been a Commoner for some time now, would already be familiar enough with the vampiric condition to realize that one’s motivations can change drastically with the Change. This was not necessarily the case with every vampire, and certainly less so among other races of vampires such as the Sabertooth. However, it was more often the rule than the exception among the High Court. When blood becomes a subject of attraction between a vampire and another individual, human or otherwise, and one’s means of reproduction becomes less a matter of gender than of compatible blood types, a lot of other details tend to become quite blurred and even forgotten. While he, himself, did not subscribe to the tendency towards opportunistic bisexuality, as he was only a part of the House of Fallamhain by ceremony and not truly by blood, he nevertheless had been quite thoroughly introduced to the ways of the High Court (particularly those of the House of Fallamhain) through his service to the Grand Duchess. With Duvessa, there was no such thing as “personal preference” as far as sexuality – it was only a question of how much one was willing to suffer by offering resistance. And she did enjoy a bit of resistance…
Brenna appeared a bit taken aback by this revelation. She pondered what she’d learned for a few moments, then slowly turned and moved back to the closet. She appeared to be caught in an emotion somewhere between sadness and fear.
“I don’t … I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that whole deal,” Brenna finally said as she resumed her search for proper attire. “I mean … I don’t … I don’t have a problem with, y’know … being with other girls, but…”
“Again, I am not certain she would even expect such a thing of you,” he said, “but, as I’ve said, I thought it would be best to be as forthcoming as possible with regard to this. I would prefer that you know now in advance, rather than being perhaps unpleasantly surprised at some point later.”
Brenna appeared to have given up on really searching for an outfit. Now, she appeared only to be flipping through the hangers in her closet as a means of appearing to be busy while she mulled over what William had told her. Of course, it was also entirely likely that she had noticed the way his eyes wandered freely over her near-naked, deliciously sculpted body, and she was simply giving him an opportunity to admire her. Perhaps she was already attracted to him, or perhaps she was simply vain – too early to tell just yet.
At last, Brenna slid shut the mirrored door of the closet and turned to a nearby dresser. She pulled open the top drawer, dug through its drawers briefly, and came out with a simple black top, some undergarments, and a pair of opaque black stockings, tossing each item beside where William sat on the bed. She gave him a
somewhat restrained smile as she met his gaze momentarily before quickly looking away.
“Well, then … I guess there’s not much point in throwing on anything fancy if I’m just going to have to take it off, right?” she said with a shrug. She picked up a brush from atop the dresser and began to run it through her hair. “Now I just need to wait for Raina to get out of the shower.”
William dared to crack a smile. “Are you sure there will be any hot water left for you?”
She shrugged, facing her reflection in the mirror as she replied, “Well, if it were up to me, I’d be in there with her, right now. Y’know … just to save some time.”
“And have a bit of fun, as well?” he suggested with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, I wish,” she chuckled. “I’m really not the pushy type, and I think she’s already been traumatized enough. The last thing she needs is me forcing myself on her any more than I already try to.”
“But … when we were stopped on the side of the road…?”
Brenna glanced at his image in the mirror and gave a confused look. “Hey, don’t ask me. Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve been wishing I could get with her for as long as I’ve known her, and up until just the past couple of days, she’s been hopeless. Now, all of a sudden … I dunno. She seems way more open to the idea.”
“It’s the Change,” William said confidently. “Everyone reacts to it differently. Some vampires tend to lean towards lust more than blood when they’re close to falling into bloodlust.”
“Probably,” she admitted, “but I think it’s more than that. At least … I hope that it’s more than just that.”
William hesitated for a moment, watching her brush out her long, straight raven hair, admiring her surprising femininity in spite of the rest of her bold personality. He dared to be a bit bold, himself, as he ventured a guess.
The Darkest Colors Page 30