Darkness Embraced

by Pennington, Winter

  I didn’t know what to say to that and so I said nothing at all.

  “How does she surprise you?” Iliaria asked.

  Renata turned to look at her. “You have not known Epiphany these past two hundred years,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  “No,” Iliaria said, “but I too have seen what you must have at one time seen.”

  “And what is that?” Renata asked in a tone that was almost defensive.

  Iliaria looked at me then, her expression most thoughtful.

  “She is small and gentle,” she said, “and careful not to insult, like a mouse trying to slip quietly through a house full of cats. But you are a clever mouse, aren’t you, Epiphany?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Even mice acquire skills to confuse the cat.”

  She laid her hand over mine, tracing a circle on my skin with the tip of her finger. “And now, those around you are beginning to see your skills. They are beginning to see that you have grown from a scared thing into something more secure.” Her fingers trailed up my wrist, brushing across the sigil in my skin. The sigil tingled, itching like mad biting insects. “Perhaps you were never a mouse. Perhaps you are only a kitten learning how to use her very sharp claws.” Her voice was a breathy whisper. I shuddered, feeling her touch call to my blood, turning it to fire in my veins.

  “The problem with cats,” Renata said in a voice gone cold, “is that they are easily distracted.”

  At Renata’s words, I caught the Dracule’s wrist. Her pulse thudded between my fingers. The mark at my wrist burned hot.

  “I am a vampire,” I said. “I am not a cat or a dog or any other manner of pet.” I looked at Renata. “Unless I choose to be.”

  Renata inclined her head in acknowledgement.

  The Dracule watched me intently. “And how often do you choose to play the role of the pet? How often, for another’s sense of satisfaction, do you choose to appear weaker than you really are? How often do you sheath your claws for the sake of avoiding confrontation?”

  I let go of the Dracule’s wrist. I did not know how she was able to read me so well, but it was unnerving, as if she read the Braille of my soul. “I do not pretend to appear weak, nor am I weak, Iliaria. I simply am what I am.”

  “And what are you?” Iliaria asked.

  “She is Epiphany,” Renata said.

  Epiphany. I was not so sure I understood what that meant anymore. When I was a human child I once asked my father why my mother had chosen my name. I never knew her, for she had died not too long after I was born. Most of the memories of my mortal life were shrouded in darkness, which was fairly typical for one who had died and lived.

  One memory that remained unaffected was that of my father’s reply. I was some seven or eight years of age, eternally curious as most children are.

  “To understand why your mother named you Epiphany, you need to know what it means,” my father had said. “You know those puzzles you enjoy so much? Well, you know that feeling you get when you find the last piece and put it down and get to see the picture all of the pieces make?”

  I had understood that much.

  “When you were born your mother saw the picture. You were the piece that made her life whole, dear one.”

  I had asked what picture my mother had seen.

  “Love,” my father said. “Your mother saw love.”

  Iliaria was perceptive, for sure, but she did not know and understand me. Renata knew me, knew my nature. The thought made me turn to look at her.

  She did not seek to outwardly understand or explain it. She embraced it. She accepted it.

  In her, I saw love. I saw the last piece of the puzzle that made my heart whole.

  She held out her hand, her expression gentle, and said softly, “Epiphany.”

  I went to her, letting her stroke my cheek with the back of her hand. The look she gave me was one of tender affection.

  You are my Epiphany, her voice flowed through my mind. You are my missing piece.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The others waited for sunrise in the sitting room. I lay in Renata’s great bed, enfolded within the circle of her arms.

  We were both silent.

  Soon, we would go and try to catch the traitor that had summoned Iliaria. Until then, we would spend what time we had together.

  Renata toyed with a strand of my hair, teasing a lock and wrapping it around her finger. I relaxed under her touch, content with the attention.

  We had not informed the three Elders that we would be waking them. They had given their aid; we would simply take them up on their offers.

  You’re awfully quiet, Cuinn whispered through my mind.

  You’re awfully fond of shattering that.

  He made a disgruntled noise.

  Cuinn…

  The both of you, stop it.

  “You heard us?” I said. “I thought you couldn’t hear Cuinn?”

  “I cannot. I can hear you,” Renata whispered against my temple.

  “Oh.” I felt a gentle smile tug at my lips. “So now it is I that has ruined your quiet moment.”

  Renata slid her palm down my back, placing her hand flat against the base of my spine. She drew me closer to her.

  “Yes,” she said, brushing my knee with her thigh. I raised my leg and she nestled her thigh against me.

  Sorrow like soft feathers touched my mind.

  “What happens when all this is done?” I asked.

  “When we execute the traitor?”

  “I still have the challenges…”

  “Unless you influence a number of Elders to vote in your favor.”

  I sat up. “You never told me the Elders could vote someone in.”

  “It is an unusual way, Epiphany. I do not allow them to cast votes lightly, as they more often than not bicker and squabble and try to swing one another’s votes in support of their own wills.”

  “What I am doing does not prove anything to them, you think?”

  “It proves everything to me, but if the Elders were to cast a vote you would have to sway them, not I.” She searched my gaze. “Is that a path you would like to consider?”

  “It is an option,” I said, “that’s all. Even if I sway enough of them to vote in my favor, there are those that still would not respect me.”

  “Even if you pass the challenges there will be those that do not respect you. Such is the life of our kind.” She leaned forward and I closed my eyes. Her lips followed the line of my jaw to my neck, nibbling lightly and sending desire like wine coursing through my veins.

  “What about us?”

  Her mouth found my neck and I tilted my head to the side, offering it to her.

  “What do you mean?” Her lips framed the words dangerously close to my ear.

  “What happens to us after we execute the traitor? What happens to us if I become an Elder? What happens if I fail the challenges?”

  She drew back, frowning at me. “Given your position, you are thinking entirely too much.”

  She leaned in as if to kiss me and I stopped her by placing a hand high up on her chest.

  “If you kiss me, I won’t be able to think.”

  “That is the point, cara mia.”

  “Your sweet Italian nothings will not distract me,” I said. “I’ve been overexposed these past some years and the effect it once had has diminished.”

  She caught the edge of my earlobe between her teeth, tugging until I made another sound.

  “Renata,” I said in a breathy voice.

  “I want to make love to you.”

  Italian, English, it didn’t matter coming from Renata. I shuddered and tried to focus.

  Renata let me push her thigh out from between my legs. I started wiggling toward the edge of the bed.

  “Epiphany, what are you doing?”

  “Presently trying to remember what I was talking about.”

  “My sweet Italian nothings will not distract you.” She grinned slyly.<
br />
  I gave her an impatient look. “Before that.”

  “I do not know,” she said, getting to her hands and knees and crawling toward me. “I seem to have forgotten.”

  I slid from the bed to my feet. Renata crawled across the mattress, following. Her midnight hair cascaded around her like a cloak of dark silk as she moved to the edge of the bed.

  “You forget?” I asked. “I don’t believe it, my lady.”

  “Suit yourself.” She gave a reserved smile, eyes glistening deviously by candlelight.

  I glanced at the plum colored curtain that hid the doorway leading to the other room.

  Renata tsked softly, the corners of her mouth curving seductively, predatorily. “We have played this game before, cara mia.”

  It made me want to run.

  It made me want to get caught by her.

  It always had.

  Renata smiled darkly, as if she knew and was remembering the same thing.

  “You forget I can read your thoughts, Epiphany. If you run, I will catch you.”

  I moved as I had seen Vasco move, as I had seen Renata move. I ran, not for the door, but further into the room. Renata caught me and a sound very much like a squeal came out of my mouth. She snaked her arm around my waist, and with her other hand clutching the arm she had caught, swung me around in a dance-like move to face her.

  She laughed, pulling me close.

  “I told you I would catch you.” Her arms locked like shackles around my torso. I touched those arms, running my hands up the length of them.

  “Perhaps I wanted to be caught.”

  Someone cleared their throat and I turned to see Vasco holding the purple curtain aside. He looked to the opposite side of the room. Dominique stood in the other doorway.

  “I heard a noise,” Dominique said, looking somewhat foolish as there was obviously no threat. “I beg your pardon, my Queen.”

  “You are pardoned,” she said, looking highly amused.

  Dominique stepped out and shut the door behind him.

  Vasco grinned at me. “I did not think you were in trouble,” he said. “I just could not believe such a noise actually came from you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and he grinned even wider, raising his hands in mock surrender.

  “We do not have much longer, my lady.”

  Renata acknowledged him with a nod. “I am aware, Vasco.”

  When the door clicked shut and the curtain fell back into place, I looked at her.

  “It has been a long time since I have heard you make a sound quite like that,” she said.

  I knew the expression I gave her was a serious one. “What happens to us, Renata?”

  “You are persistent.”

  “And you are evasive.”

  “I am not being evasive.”

  “No, now you are being elusive.” I sighed, slightly frustrated.

  She took my hand and I followed her back to the bed. Renata pulled me down into the circle of her arms and I tried to relax, but found it hard to because she would not answer my question and I could not understand why she would not answer it.

  “I have already decided what I will do whether you succeed to pass the challenges or no.”

  “And what is that?” I asked, not meeting her eyes, afraid of what she would say.

  She cupped the side of my face in her hand and turned me to look at her.

  I will declare you Inamorata, she whispered through my mind. I will inform the Rosso Lussuria that you are my lover and my consort.

  I knew her well enough to know that she had told me telepathically and had been evasive because she was Renata. She was the Queen and once again my lover, but being Renata, she did not want anyone to know until she chose the right moment. She told me because I had asked.

  It was a great risk for her and not one I expected her to take.

  It is a risk I am willing to take, but you must understand, Piph, that it does not solely put me at risk. It will put you at risk as well.

  “I understand,” I said. “It is a risk I too am willing to take.”

  “Good. That pleases me.” Her tranquil expression turned quizzically amused as I moved down her body. “Epiphany,” she said, imbuing my name with a thread of amusement, “what are you doing?”

  My fingers brushed the hem of her dress. I turned my head, hiding behind my hair.

  “You were not satisfied earlier.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  I bowed my head even more, still hiding. It was a demure gesture and a subservient one that I knew would please her.

  “I endeavor to please you, my lady.”

  She touched my chin with cool fingers, turning my face to hers. “If you would please me,” she mused, rising and catching the edge of my knee-length tunic in her hands, “take off your clothes.”

  I undressed quickly, but she did not remove her own attire. Renata merely raised the black velvet of her skirt and allowed me to draw the undergarments hidden beneath the heavy material from her porcelain skin. I situated myself between her legs, kissing her thighs with half-parted lips.

  We did not have long until the sun rose. But what time we had left, I would use wisely.

  It would not be a quick and passionate outburst. There would be no bloodlust to fan the fire or exquisite force to bend the will. If there had been more time, I would have requested that she disrobe. I would have taken great pleasure in running my lips over every inch of her body. As it was, there was not the time for such languid lovemaking. I kissed her thighs, tracing an invisible path with my lips to the hollow near her groin. The smell of her arousal hung in the air like something sweet and honeyed. With closed eyes, I stroked her cleft with the tip of my tongue, teasing her open.

  I kissed her, burying my mouth between her legs. Renata moaned, hips rising to meet my face. I licked her, once, twice, a sensuous glide of tongue, searching and exploring her inner folds.

  “Epiphany,” she said, voice caught somewhere between a whisper and a moan.

  I stopped my prolonged investigation and rose, taking her clit into my mouth with lips and tongue. I sucked her gently, tracing her with lazy circles.

  Her hips jerked and she ground herself against my face. I felt her frustration but did not lose my deliberately leisurely pace.

  “Epiphany,” she said again, and this time there was enough command in her tone that a shiver of excitement prickled down my spine.

  She slid from between my lips as I drew back, watching the shudder tremble through her limbs.

  “Yes, my lady?”

  Her look hardened in a way that promised penalty.

  Steady desire like quiet waves murmured through me.

  I bowed my head. “As you will.”

  I took her between my lips, licking and sucking, ceding my mouth to her pleasure without restraint. I drowned in her. The taste of her filled my mouth like honeyed wine, subtle yet no less intoxicating.

  She moaned, muscles going rigid as she spent herself against my lips.

  I did not resign until I felt her hand stroke down the back of my head. Then I licked her, catching the last of her honey upon my tongue.

  “Come here,” she said, offering her hand.

  Taking it, I let her lead me to her.

  She reached between my legs, fingers gliding through the sea she called from my body.

  “We don’t have time,” I breathed the words. Need and want of her made my stomach clench tight.

  She slid her fingers inside me, forcing my body to shudder in eternal pleasure. “I say we do.”

  My hips danced against her coaxing hand.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good girl,” she said, picking up her rhythm and forcing my hips to move faster to echo the song her fingers played. “Now come for me, Epiphany.”

  *

  There was a light knock on the door behind the curtained tapestry.

  Renata called out, “Enter,” and the door opened as Iliaria stepped into the room.


  “Vasco has died.”

  Renata closed her eyes, whispering, “Soon.” When she opened them she looked at me. “Go and wake him, Epiphany.”

  I did not feel any different. In fact, I had not even known the sun had risen, which is something I should have sensed like a great weight pressing against my mind and skin.

  The sun had risen and Vasco had died. Soon, Renata would die as the sun made its ascent, spreading its golden fingers out over the land and the world above.

  I wondered if the ring gave the wearer the capability of walking in sunlight, but it was not the time for those kinds of questions.

  “I will stay here until I can use the sword to wake you, then I will wake Vasco.” I turned to Iliaria. “Will you stay with him until I am done here?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding, “I will stay and keep watch.”

  “Did Dominique and Dante make it to the room before the sun rose?” Renata asked.

  If Dominique had gone to the sitting room he must’ve taken the long way to get there, as he had not come through the room. The long way involved navigating a labyrinth of hallways to get to the back hallway and secret corridor.

  “They did,” she said.

  This time, it was Renata who nodded.

  The Dracule left, leaving the purple tapestry swinging.

  “You waste time, Epiphany.”

  “Not to me, I don’t,” I said.

  She looked at me through a slit of her dark lashes. “You are being stubborn.”

  “About this?” I asked. “Yes, but only because I want to make sure you are safe.”

  “Epifania,” she said and I felt her light touch on my arm and turned to her.

  Renata’s chest rose as she drew a sharp breath, and when her eyes closed I knew that dawn’s curse had taken her.

  I stood, picking up the fox blade and pressing the tip of my finger against it until a drop of blood welled at the tip. I crawled over Renata’s still form and used my other hand to pry her jaw open. I slipped my finger between her teeth and held my other hand above her mouth, squeezing to encourage the blood to flow before the cut healed.

  The drop fell, hitting the back of her mouth. The sword in my hand felt warm.

  I slid from the bed and stood.