He was right, of course. Damokles didn’t give us any choice but to prepare to fight back, and I couldn’t blame anyone for defending themselves. Still, it seemed petty and wasteful. And ungrateful, ungrateful of the gift of life.
The bat flew back to us when he was done hunting and landed on Cuinn. Cuinn startled, but didn’t protest and neither did the bat when I picked him up to put him back in his gilded home.
I stared up at the castle as we approached it. I was glad Renata and Iliaria and Vasco were there, but I was ready to return to the Sotto, for things to return to normal and not to be at the brink of war.
I was ready to go back to the Sotto, and I realized for the first time I did actually consider it my home. The knowledge startled me a little, for I had always considered Renata my home, but somehow, at some point, I’d begun thinking of the Sotto that way.
Renata descended the stairs when we walked in. I didn’t know if she sensed my thoughts or read some expression on my features, but she came to me and slipped her arms around my waist. “Soon, cara mia. Soon, we will shake the dirt of this place from our feet.”
I wrapped my arms around her and she held me more tightly whilst I sank into her. For now, the piece of the home I found in her and the others would have to do to combat the dark fear that set within my breast while we stayed within these walls.
“Soon,” I said, “whole and safe and soon.”
As far as prayers went, it was one of the sincerest I had ever made.
*
Despite so many vampires in so small a place, I found myself restless and unable to keep to my room. The sun didn’t rise, and thus no one slept. The others stayed well away from my chambers, namely because of who I shared those chambers with, but Renata managed to find ways to keep herself occupied as she conspired with King Augusten and Queen Helamina and our Draculian allies. They arranged for our allies, friends of Iliaria and Anatharic, to bring the Donatore we would need. Renata chose those who were loyal to her and who enjoyed her service to come to the castle. Queen Helamina chose among her humans, and King Augusten chose among his. It was not only war we had to worry about, but necessities and taking care of ourselves while we prepared for it.
I walked with Cuinn in the dead gardens under the light of the waxing moon. The vague memories that I had picked up from Andrella clouded my memory and made me feel somewhat melancholic, no matter how much I tried to shake them.
I stopped to sit on the stone bench and Cuinn silently followed. The night was alive with the hushed whisperings of the others within the castle’s walls. I turned my gaze toward the balcony that overlooked the garden.
I still had not approached Morina. I was gazing at the balcony, thinking on her, when Cuinn got to his feet and put his body in front of mine. A noise of warning tumbled from between his black lips.
Gaspare swaggered into the clearing as if he sought to claim ownership of it. Just the sight of his walk inspired me to roll my eyes, but I resisted the urge. He fingered his dark beard idly, a gesture he often reserved for when he was prowling pretentiously around the court. His black pants were tucked into a pair of impractical thigh-high boots. The only color on his person was the shine of the sword hilt at his hip and his pale skin that peeked through the edges of his black jacket.
He stopped and looked at me as though I’d just appeared.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know I was here, Gaspare,” I said, knowing his oblivious and arrogant saunter was all for show. “What do you want?”
He smiled and there was something petty and cruel in it. “Your tongue grows bold, little rabbit.”
“And your games grow tiresome, Gaspare.”
Cuinn stayed between us, stating his loyalty. If he unsettled Gaspare, aside from staying where he had stopped at the end of the pathway, Gaspare didn’t show it outwardly.
Gaspare tutted softly. “I haven’t started a game with you.”
“That’s a lie,” I said, “but I’ll remind you and advise you against starting one. The last time you tried to play a game with me you ended up enduring our queen’s mercy, did you not?”
Gaspare had openly attacked me in court after I exchanged verbal insults with him. Renata had tortured him for it. The reminder didn’t sit well with him, and his eyes narrowed beneath his bushy brows.
“So,” he said, “becoming the slave-bitch-whore of our queen and the Dracule has at last gone to your head, little queen.”
“Yes, Gaspare. That’s precisely it. All the sex has gone from my groin and directly to my gargantuan head,” I said, rising. “Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve better things to do than to sit around and play repartee with you.”
I turned my back on him, trusting Cuinn to alert me if he made any sort of threatening move. I didn’t trust Gaspare at my back for an instant.
But Gaspare didn’t have to attack me in the courtyard to bring me up short. “How many women are you sleeping with?”
I turned my head slowly to peer over my shoulder at him. “What makes you think that’s any of your business, Gaspare?”
He smiled again, cruelly, arrogantly…coldly.
“Know this, little rabbit, were it not for your skills…” His smile stretched even wider as his eyes glistened darkly. “You would not have been so lucky.”
I let out a deep breath. At last, it was happening to my face. He was trying to belittle me by implying that if I was not Renata’s lover, I would have not survived the challenges, that I would not have survived his challenge.
I shook my head, unsure how to respond. In truth, Cuinn had aided me during my duel with Gaspare. Not Renata.
Cuinn gave no warning save to bark. His fur took on an orange glow, illuminating the night like a firefly. He rose up and slammed his paws down on the stone pathway that led to Gaspare, and the pathway rolled as if a small wave of water had set itself beneath it. Gaspare fought to keep his footing, caught off guard by Cuinn’s magic.
Cuinn drew his ears back and he faced Gaspare. “Ye think it’s been just your queen protecting her, do you? Believe if it wasn’t for her you’d be able to do what ye want and hurt who ye want, do you?”
Gaspare’s leather-clad hand went to the hilt of his sword. “Are you threatening me?”
I moved then and diverted his attention. Gaspare’s gaze flicked from Cuinn to me and back to Cuinn. I touched the top of Cuinn’s head, and a surge of strength and courage emitted off him and filled me.
I approached Gaspare, and as I did, I showed him exactly what I felt. I was not afraid. “For all your big talk, you don’t have much bite,” I whispered, and the night breeze carried my voice. It stroked awake the fire of something within me, and I felt my skin grow warm with the heat of its glow. “Gaspare.” I raised my hand and he flinched when I placed my palm flat against his cheek. My power stretched open wide like a whirlpool in the center of my body. I felt it distantly, felt it reaching out to those nearby. I grabbed hold of the energy and narrowed it on the vampire in front of me, molding and shaping it into something more powerful than anything I had felt before.
And I felt it when it grasped Gaspare, felt it wrap itself around him like a dark void pulling, tugging, absorbing, making my skin crackle and head swim. I felt as if I stood in both positions at once, where Gaspare stood and where I stood. I felt his surprise and his struggle to fight it, to try to shield himself against it, to resist its call, and knew somehow that it was too strong for him to resist.
My power had never risen like this. It seemed to have grown stronger, wilder. I did not know if it was some byproduct of the soul bindings or if my power was really just growing on its own, but what it sought, it found and pulled from Gaspare as easily as a hand unravels a bundle of yarn.
Memories flashed in my mind, memories that were not mine. I saw a child’s calloused and blistered hands. I felt the pain of blow after blow. I heard the screams of fighting voices and a younger child’s cries.
They were Gaspare’s memories, and I knew while I viewed them,
he relived them. My power sucked him in and took us both to that place inside him full of helplessness and hurt.
When I came back to myself, Gaspare had fallen to his knees on the stone pathway. His chest rose and fell heavily beneath his velvet jacket as if he were about to hyperventilate. I laid my hand on the top of his bowed head, and when I spoke, the echo of power tinged my voice. “You are not a boy anymore, Gaspare.”
Gaspare scrambled to his feet and away from me in a panic. “You had no right!” he yelled, his emotions unstrung to the point where he obviously didn’t care if the others heard us.
I reached out to touch his arm and he whirled away from me, drawing his sword with a hiss. By the light of the moon, his eyes were wild.
“Gaspare,” I said and my voice was as calm as I could make it. I tried to focus on drawing the energy back into the center of my body, of not reaching out to him again, though the power wanted that. I could feel it yearning to absorb whatever it could. “I will not fight you.”
He raised his sword high between us. His hand trembled ever so slightly on the pommel. “Better you should fight me than ever try that again.”
“You instigated this, Gaspare.” A touch of anger flared within me, and I didn’t question where it came from, whether it was his or mine. I harnessed it and I let Gaspare see it. “If you ever seek to harm me or mine, I will open you up from the inside out and I will spill you raw until there is nothing left.” The power was still there, but it was paused as if someone had placed a stopper in the place where it rested. I knew all it would take was a thought to release it like silk in the wind. I moved into Gaspare’s space, and this time, he gave ground. “I never sought to have any quarrel with you, Gaspare, but my days as a frightened Underling hiding behind the face of another’s power have passed. Do you understand?”
I sensed Cuinn approach my side, his presence like a small flame of magic near my skin. Gaspare’s armor of arrogance crumbled and he sheathed his sword with a shaky hand.
For the first time, I tasted the duality of my power. I had never realized until then that empathy could, in fact, be used as a weapon. It had never occurred to me that I could open someone so wide that I could bring all their inner shadows out to haunt them, that I could force them to face the beasts within themselves. Or the beasts who had chased them.
I knew myself in that moment. I could have torn Gaspare at the seams and turned his own inner demons against him. Somehow, I think he knew it too, and he was frightened of me.
He met my gaze one last time, and a part of him, I think, wondered just how far I could rip him open. I wondered as well.
“Epiphany,” he said and took his leave with his tail tucked nicely between his legs before making his way quickly back to the castle, casting cautious glances over his shoulder at me until he was safely inside.
I released a sigh of relief and Cuinn pressed himself against my leg to comfort me.
“Cara mia.” Renata’s voice startled me, and I spun around to find her standing at the other end of the pathway near the bench where I had been sitting only minutes ago.
“How much did you see?” I asked.
“Enough,” she said.
“Which means she’s been there the whole time,” Cuinn said.
Renata came to me and her palms slid across my cheeks. She buried her hands in my hair and bent her face low and kissed me, cupping the back of my head while she did it. At the touch of her lips, I opened to her, ignoring Cuinn’s grumble of protest. Beneath the light of the moon, she pressed her body against mine and her kiss hardened, became something more ardent and deeper.
A world of yearning unraveled within me and I made a noise low in my throat. Renata broke the kiss to search my face.
“What is wrong, cara mia?”
“Nothing.” I tangled my hands in her gorgeous hair and pulled her face back down to mine. “I missed you. Kiss me again.”
She kissed me until the blood in my body thrummed for her, until I felt pleasantly light-headed and the dead gardens around us seemed foggy and unreal.
“I think we should request some privacy this evening.” Her lips moved against mine as she spoke into my mouth. I groaned as her hands slid down my back as she pulled me tightly and possessively against her.
“Yes.” I near-panted, my entire body set ablaze and aching for more of her, all of her.
Renata gave a low, purring laugh before she grabbed a handful of my hair and tilted my head back. I felt her mouth a second later as she nibbled a path down my neck and my knees threatened to give out under me.
“Mayhap now?” I moaned as she caught my skin between her teeth and bit lightly, teasing me on the cusps of her fangs.
Renata scooped me up into her arms and carried me back toward the castle. “A marvelous idea,” she said and her smile managed to be both mischievous and intimate at the same time.
She carried me through the house and up the stairs. If anyone gave us strange glances, she made it abundantly clear when she closed the bedroom door behind us that she didn’t care.
Renata lowered me onto the bed and instantly started to remove my clothing. I helped her by easing my shirt off and tossing it carelessly aside. I tugged at her gown, pulling it down to bare her beautiful shoulders. I pressed my lips against her skin, kissing and nibbling gently. She rewarded me with a sigh, and I turned my face into the bend of her neck and pressed my lips there, too, opening my mouth to catch her skin between my teeth. I drew my fangs across her skin and teased her as she had teased me moments ago.
Renata placed her hands on my shoulders and pushed me down against the mound of pillows. She stayed on her hands and knees, holding her body above mine as a dark brow arched exquisitely across her faultless features. I reached up to trace her figure and when she didn’t complain or stop me, began working her dress down even lower.
Renata shook her head and laughed. “Cara mia, cara mia,” she said in a voice that was almost a purr. She sat up and rose from the bed to disrobe, baring her gloriously nude body slowly. The sight of her deliciously bare coaxed a fire between my legs that nearly inspired me to lunge and pounce on her.
I refrained from doing just that and rose to my knees instead. Renata came to me and I touched her naked hips, traced the smooth plain of her stomach until the white mounds of her breasts hung over my hands. I bowed my head and kissed her, feeling her nipple stiffen under my tongue.
Renata placed a finger beneath my chin and I followed her guiding hand. She kissed me again, her mouth parting slightly as her tongue twined with mine in a dizzying rush of desire. She guided me back onto the bed and her lips trailed a path of petal soft kisses up the arch of my neck. “What do you want?” she whispered.
I buried my hands in her hair, crushing the waves in my fists. “You.” I kissed her again. Her tongue filled me in another kiss that was sweet and slow like molasses. I stroked my hand down the waves of her silky hair and to the dip between her shoulder blades. I drew away from the kiss and whispered against her mouth, “Like this,” I said, “sensual and heavy.” I slid lower down her body until I could put my lips against her throat. I sucked her skin lightly as I reached for her hand. I found it and she allowed me to guide it to my thighs. “I want to feel and savor every inch of you.”
The tips of her fingers played against me, threatening to part me but not quite finishing that last bit of movement that would put her in direct contact with the heated folds of my sex.
“Do you realize, cara mia, that this is the first time you have played the role of the seducer with me?”
I blinked, drawing back to see her more clearly. “Is it?” I asked.
She traced the slit between my legs and I spread them wantonly, trying to get her to touch me where I needed her most. When she didn’t part me, I pressed more solidly against her hand. Renata drew her hand back with a knowing smile.
“A lot of good it’s doing me,” I said.
She laughed and worked her arm effortlessly underneath me, pullin
g me upright as she sat up high on her knees and nestled back against the pillows with me in her lap. “Oh, it’s doing you more good than you think it is, my dear.”
She tickled a path from my navel to my groin and I opened to her again. Her fingers slid into me with ease and I shuddered, catching hold of her shoulders and breathing a sigh against her skin. Renata touched me and teased me until I was drenched and ready to ride whatever part of her body I could swing my hips into. She laughed again as she traced a circle around my clitoris and I growled in frustration. She abruptly pushed inside me, forcing my spine to arch and thighs to tremble as my body contracted around her.
My nails scraped her skin as I fought to hold myself upright. I clung to her shoulders when she began to thrust harder, and the heel of her hand rubbing and pumping against me nearly made me lose my mind.
“Not yet,” I begged, whispering the words against her hair. “Please, not yet.”
Her fingers slowed to a stroking rhythm.
“What do you want?” she asked again, her voice gentle.
“Together. Come with me.”
For a moment, the lovemaking stopped altogether as I sensed her working it out. Which position would be best given the difference in height between us?
I cupped her face in my hands and smiled. “Renata, you’re over thinking it.”
She laughed and the sound was genuine and joyous. “Mmm, no, I know just how I want you, dolce mia.”
“And how is that?” I asked.
Renata rolled me onto my side as she rolled onto hers and faced me. She reached between my legs and spread me open again. She propped her long leg over mine and I found her sex with the tips of my fingers. My name fell sweetly from her lips before she buried a hand in my hair and forced me to hold eye contact with her.
“Open yourself to me,” she said. “Epiphany, cara mia, open all of yourself to me.”
I knew what she wanted and so I called to my power, releasing the will that kept it shackled deep within the heart of me. Renata released hers and her eyes awakened like dark moonlit waters and a spring blue sky.
Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel Page 20