“Yes. More than ever. You have no idea how determined I am.”
“Oh, I’m seeing more of that every day. I want you as my partner, always.”
His posture relaxed. He dipped his head, almost in a bow.
“That’s all I want in the world, madame. And I give you my word, on my brother’s life, that I will respect your rules. And it won’t be difficult.”
“No?”
“No, because it’s easier to accept that you and I will never be lovers than it would be to lose our partnership. There are nobler goals in this world than taking a lover, seducing your heart’s desire or even marrying her. Given a choice between my hopeless yearning for you, Madame Violette, and my passion for eternal fame – I chose fame.”
His sincere tone, spiced with self-mockery, made her laugh out loud.
“Profound, Emil,” she said. “Welcome back.”
* * *
By sheer hard work with a good dash of panic, Violette’s new theatre opened on time. This was not the first time she’d performed these ballets, but the first time in her own domain was magical.
Taking her curtain calls to a storm of applause and bouquets afterwards, it struck her that this was the happiest night of her life. That she was actually happy.
Emil had been astonishing. No one outside their circle would begin to guess what had happened to them. He was the gleaming golden prince again, the perfect foil to her ineffably beautiful ice maiden. And he, too, was back in his true element.
Long may this last, she thought, her hand resting on his as if they were a king and queen before their court. Somewhere in the darkness, Amy Temple and Karl were capturing everything on film.
A hundred years from now, people may look at our efforts and smile, she thought. I only hope they smile in pleasure, not disdain.
Backstage, amid the bustle of post-performance activity, Violette was amused to see Emil leaning against a wall near his dressing room, a towel slung around his neck, cheerfully shaking his head as Stefan made a blatant attempt to flirt with him. As an excuse to listen, she paused by a hamper and rested each foot in turn on the lid to untie her pointe shoes.
“Are you absolutely sure you only like women? Couldn’t you be persuaded to be a little more… adventurous?”
“I really think not,” Emil said with good humour. “To be frank, my friend, I have decided to put my art before all other… distractions. There are things in life greater than mere love and desire. That’s the path I’ve chosen.”
Violette smiled to herself. She doubted his vow of celibacy would last long. She felt sorry for those women whose hearts he would break along the way, but as long as she had her ideal partner once more, she was content.
“What a shame,” said Stefan. His blue eyes were alight with mischief. “If you change your mind…”
“Stefan, leave him alone,” said Charlotte. She slid up to him and put her hand through his arm, ushering him away. “You’re outrageous. Emil, he’s only teasing.”
“I know,” said Emil, giving a haughty smirk as he stepped into his dressing room and shut the door.
Despite Charlotte’s scolding tone, Violette met her gaze and they shared a moment of amusement. Stefan was as roguish as ever. Perhaps his eyes were a little too bright. He wore a silk scarf, she knew, to conceal the bright red scar across his throat. The wounds were slow to heal.
“Believe me, I meant it,” Stefan told Charlotte, looking at the closed door. “He’s a challenge. And I think he likes me.”
“Everyone likes you,” said Charlotte. “That’s why you get away with anything. But no feasting on Violette’s dancers, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it!”
Violette smiled pointedly at him as she walked past, a look that said, No, you had better not. In the doorway to her dressing room, she turned to look back at them with affection.
“Good,” Charlotte said gently, “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you coming back to life, my dear friend.”
Stefan kissed her cheek. “You endured my selfishness, my tantrums, my self-centred death wish, everything. I can’t express how much I regret my behaviour, or how deeply I value your patience. I love you, Charlotte.”
“You are insufferably annoying at times. That’s true. But you were grieving. All the thanks we want is for you to live.”
“I wasn’t sure I could,” Stefan said quietly into the middle distance. “Was Karl actually going to hack off my head, or did I dream it?”
“Um,” Charlotte said faintly. “Those bone-knives bring terrible dreams…”
“Oh, the Istilqa sleep was blissful,” said Stefan. “Each time I woke, I cut myself again to return to that oblivion… hoping it would last forever. Don’t frown at me: I’ve no desire ever to try again. I see how addictive it could be.”
“A false comfort.”
“Yes. Really, there is no comfort. It’s so strange. I keep looking around for Niklas at my elbow, but there’s no one there.”
“You’re not alone. We’re here, all your friends.”
“I must admit, it was fun helping Karl with that movie scene,” said Stefan. “Plotting together. I thought the one thing I needed was revenge on Reiniger, and then I could die. But you wouldn’t let me. When I came back to myself, I realised… that perhaps I can survive after all. If my friends would go to such lengths to save me, who am I to argue?”
* * *
In the main auditorium, in an alcove high up in one wall, there sat an urn containing Niklas’s remains.
Violette had been most unhappy that Stefan had brought the body into her house. Initially, she’d feared he was unhinged enough to carry his twin around forever, like some ghastly decomposing doll. But once the corpse had shrunk and crumbled, Stefan quietly surrendered Niklas to the urn.
Violette had offered to display the vessel in pride of place, hoping to discourage any urge he had to take it everywhere. To her surprise, he’d readily agreed. That was a good sign. It meant he knew he must let his brother go.
She felt a touch ashamed, now, for crediting Stefan with so little wisdom.
Anyone looking up from their theatre seat might notice a large porcelain jar of blue and gilt in the Sèvres style. If they used opera glasses to look more closely, they would see that the vessel was hand-decorated with a portrait of a smiling young man, an angel in blue satin and white lace.
Violette would never explain to anyone why it was there. For as long as the Ballet Lenoir remained in Lucerne, people would look, and wonder.
* * *
Long after the ballet and the after-show party were over, Karl and Charlotte walked alone along the snowline where the steep meadows met the Alps. A crescent moon hung above the peaks. Karl tasted the blood of a recent hunt on his tongue, felt Charlotte’s affectionate presence close by his side, and was content.
“You’ve often told me there must be unknown circles of vampires, hidden from us,” she said. “And we found one. Or rather, they found us, which is disturbing.”
“I’m sure there are others,” said Karl. “There must be. If Ilona and Pierre don’t return from their travels before the year’s end, I may start to worry.”
“I’d be more concerned for the vampires they meet,” she said with a soft laugh.
They walked in easy silence for a while.
“Karl?” she asked at last. “You never answered Stefan’s question. If I were fully dead, whatever that means for us – let’s say beheaded – would you react like Kristian and slaughter scores of humans to bring me back?”
Karl looked up at the stars: delaying tactics to put off the impossible question. “I think that I probably would. Only for you.”
“Well, don’t,” she said softly. “I release you from the obligation to do so. If I did such a horrific thing, you wouldn’t thank me, would you? You’d rather stay dead? Well, so would I.”
“Charlotte, dearest.” He slid his arms around her in a strong embrace. “If you died
, I wouldn’t want to exist without you. Will you please desist from being so morbid?”
“We’re vampires. We’re allowed to be morbid. I’ll desist when you answer me.”
“All right. I would hold your lifeless corpse against me, like this, and take us both up into the Weisskalt where we could sleep forever.”
“You mean it?” She drew back her head to meet his gaze. “That’s the most weirdly comforting thought… as comforting as anything could be when we’re talking of dying and freezing for eternity.”
He smiled. “It’s the best answer I have. Not to be parted, in life or in death.”
“And if things were the other way round, I would do the same.”
“Ah, love, no. You’d survive without me.”
“You should know better by now than to argue with me about matters of life and death.” Charlotte gave him a long solemn look. “My heart still stops, every time I see you. I’ve tried living without you, and once was enough. We’ll do this for each other. Promise me.”
They promised each other.
“An easy vow to make, while we’re still full of passion for life,” he murmured, “but I don’t make it lightly, beloved. We may have a hundred years left, a thousand, or a single day. What a blessing that we don’t know.”
“Well, one day or centuries: we’ve made a binding pact,” she answered.
Fresh air scented with melting snow blew into their faces as they turned and began to stroll arm in arm towards the town.
* * *
Talk of death made them hungry for life.
Now they lay together in a bath tub filled with steaming, rose-perfumed water. Karl was underneath, Charlotte lying back in his arms with her hair spread out and drifting on the water. Candlelight shimmered around them. There was no sweeter distraction than Karl’s fingers stroking her, his lips moving over her shoulders. His hands left trails of warm ecstatic sensation everywhere they touched until she was trembling from head to toe, hardly able to catch a breath. Not trembling outwardly, but with internal waves of heart-stopping sensation.
Their bodies gleamed under the rippling surface. However gently they moved, the water kept threatening to overflow on to the tiled floor.
“We shall be in trouble if we cause a flood,” Charlotte whispered.
“At this moment, I don’t care,” said Karl, barely coherent. “You look like a moon goddess, and this waterfall of golden hair… Ah, I shall drown in you.”
“In each other,” she echoed. “I have been drowning in you since the first moment you looked at me.”
She rotated to face him, her spine arching as the water buoyed up her outstretched legs. He drew her down hard against him, causing a small tide to lap over the rim of the bath.
Karl’s long, sleekly muscled body shone – all she could see of him that wasn’t covered by her own. The rest, she felt moulded to her. His slender, strong thighs. The very warm, firm evidence of his desire left her thrilled and breathless: her source of eternal, sensual delight.
He was pressing raptly against her, moving, teasing, but she needed him inside her now. Where they both belonged. Joined.
His eyes were half closed, gleaming and sultry. His head tipped back as she enclosed him within herself… or tried. A bathtub was not the easiest place to do this – she slipped, and he caught her arms, but she was slippery with rose oil and fell forward, went right under with her face on his chest, then righted herself, spluttering. They wrestled, laughing and groaning, until they found their way.
Then the world went scarlet behind her eyelids. Exquisitely subtle and slow at first, barely causing a ripple… and after a time – not long, for the water was still hot – writhing together in uncontrollable spasms of ecstasy.
Blood swirled in the water as they bit and fed on each other. A rose-coloured tide splashed over the rim of the bath tub, pattering on to the tiles. Waves tilted back and forth as they subsided, spent, lying lazily against each other with their limbs intertwined.
Karl’s lips rested on her hair. She ran her tongue along his collarbone, taking the last drops of blood.
Desire is never about a single encounter, a single explosion of pleasure, she thought. It’s a hunger that burns and burns. Makes us insane with the need to consume each other over and over again, to be joined constantly, because this is where we belong.
“Would you really have killed me?” he asked. His wry but serious tone ambushed her. “When I tried to end Stefan’s life?”
“Oh, don’t ask that now.”
“When better? Whatever you say, I shall be content. I’m just curious.”
She believed him, only because she knew him so well.
“Would you have killed him?” she riposted. “I meant it in the heat of the moment, but… I think I would have thrown myself over Stefan like a shield and felt the cleaver bite into my own back, rather than harm you.”
“We were all unhinged at the time,” Karl said thoughtfully. “Despite that, we each did what was necessary to avoid the worst outcome.”
“Sense prevailed.”
“And love.”
“Karl, the vow we made… I should feel anguish at the very thought, and I do, but it’s awe-inspiring. Terrifying yet full of wonder. All the same, is it right to decide how our story will end?”
“We can make all the pacts we want,” said Karl. “The universe may have other plans.”
“The universe can do what it likes. I don’t care, because this moment matters more than eternity, more than any supposed afterlife. This moment.”
She bit into his throat again, tasting the compelling richness of his blood. Karl gasped. She kissed him with his blood on her lips. The water swirled red, pooling on the floor and staining the white towels. Someone entering might think they’d walked into a murder scene.
“This is heaven,” she said.
“Paradise,” he echoed. “This is why we live.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For all their help with inspiration, feedback and general support, I would like to thank Aliette de Bodard, Kari Sperring, Keren Gilfoyle, Jenny Gordon, Tricia Sullivan, Anne and Stan Nicholls, Storm Constantine, Jane Johnson, Juliet McKenna, Ian Whates, Sam Stone and David Howe, Chelle and Kevin Bullock, and my American namesake, the “other” Freda Warrington.
And of course, always, my husband Mike.
I also wish to thank my agent John Berlyne, my editor Natalie Laverick and all at Titan Books and Forbidden Planet, for being wonderful. I can’t express how delighted I am – twenty years after A Taste of Blood Wine was first published – to be given the chance to write a brand-new book in the series. Karl, Charlotte, Violette et al. have long been my favourite characters and always will be. I’m determined this won’t be the last you see of them!
As you’ll know from my previous Blood Wine books, I’ve long found inspiration in the music of Stevie Nicks and the romantic, eerie, gothic atmosphere she creates, particularly with songs such as “Sisters of the Moon” and “Outside the Rain”. In continued tribute, many of the chapter titles were inspired by snatches of her lyrics. I doubt she will ever know it – but thank you, Stevie!
My usual modus operandi, when setting scenes, is to use real places and then play with them, inserting locations that aren’t really there but could be, even to play fast and loose with the terrain and with snatches of fictionalised history that could have happened.
(For example, dissenters really did try to shoot Mussolini…)
So before you write to tell me there are no such buildings as Bergwerkstatt or the Ballet Lenoir in Lucerne, no Hotel Blauensee, no such cinema or beer hall, no house in Algiers as Bayt-al-Zuhur, and so on… I know! While I’ve done my best to be historically accurate, any mistakes are mine so please forgive my use, or misuse, of artistic licence.
If you’d like to learn more about my work, please visit www.fredawarrington.com. From there you can read all about my other novels, contact me, reach my blog and find me on Facebook, Twitter and other sites
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Oh, and as the saying goes: “Save an author. Write a review!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Freda Warrington was born in Leicestershire, UK, where she now lives with her husband and mother. She has worked in medical illustration and graphic design, but her first love has always been writing. Her first novel A Blackbird in Silver was published in 1986, to be followed by many more, including A Taste of Blood Wine, Dark Cathedral, The Amber Citadel, and The Court of the Midnight King – a fantasy based on the life of the controversial King Richard III. As well as the Blood Wine Sequence for Titan Books, she writes the Aetherial Tales series for Tor. Her novel Elfland won a Romantic Times award for Best Fantasy Novel. She can be found online at www.fredawarrington.com and on Twitter @FredaWarrington.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
A TASTE OF BLOOD WINE
Freda Warrington
1918. A First World War battlefield becomes the cosmic battleground for two vampires, as Karl von Wultendorf struggles to free himself from his domineering maker, Kristian.
1923. Charlotte Neville watches as her father, a Cambridge professor, fills Parkland Hall with guests for her sister Madeleine’s 18th birthday party. Among them is his handsome new research assistant Karl – the man Madeleine has instantly decided will be her husband. Charlotte, shy and retiring, is happy to devote her life to her father and her dull fiance Henry – until she sees Karl…
For Charlotte, it is the beginning of a deadly obsession that sunders her from her sisters, her father and even her dearest friend. As their feverish passion grows, Karl faces the dilemma he fears the most. Only by deserting Charlotte can his passion for her blood be conquered. Only by betraying her can he protect her from the terrifying attentions of Kristian – for Kristian has decided to teach Karl a lesson in power, by devouring Charlotte.
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