It was impossible to tell if she was leading me astray. Though I sensed her words were true, for they made sense.
Of course, thinking they made sense didn’t mean it wasn’t a lie. Yet, if she was lying, she was a good liar.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“I would not thank me just yet, and you can thank me when you live to uphold your oath to me.”
“I will do my best, Morina. You have my word.”
“Fabulous,” she said. “I pray you keep it, for if you survive and do not…”
She did not need to say the words to make the implied threat clear.
I nodded. “I will, Morina. I will do what I can to help you and I will inform those close to me if I fail and ask them to aid you in my place.”
“Good,” she said. “Now go.”
I hesitated at the door. “If I fail and do not survive, will you live?”
“If I can shield from you, yes. But it no longer really matters.”
I left and felt her gaze on my back until the door clicked shut behind me.
“Well, how’d it go this time?” Cuinn asked.
“I have my answer,” I said, knowing my response was vague. I crossed the short hallway and opened the door to my room where Iliaria and Vasco waited.
When Cuinn joined us, I told them what I had to do. As I figured, neither was happy with the results. Yet, strangely, they did not try to dissuade me.
I told Vasco about my promise to Morina and he agreed to help me fulfill it or to see it followed through if I didn’t survive.
“There is one condition, colombina,” Vasco said. “I want Emilio with you when you do this thing.”
“Agreed,” I said and then looked at Iliaria. “Morina said that if I do not survive this, and she cannot shield, it will affect her. Will it affect you?”
“It might,” Iliaria said.
“I almost dragged you down with me once, Iliaria. I don’t want to do it again.”
“That was my own foolishness, Epiphany. Not yours.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“We are Dracule,” Iliaria said, “if I must shield from you, I will. Does that make you feel better?”
“Yes, a little. Are you sure you can, though?”
“Yes,” she said.
“When she tried to save you, sorella, she threw every guard she had down to try to keep you alive.” Vasco knew what I was asking, and he wasn’t going to let Iliaria side step the truth.
“I don’t want you to do that, Iliaria. Promise me you won’t.”
“When will you do this thing?” she asked.
“Tonight,” I said. “I will do it tonight.”
*
Iliaria sat crossed-legged in front of the fireplace with one of her crescent blades in her lap. I remained true to my word to Vasco, and so his son Emilio was with us while Vasco took Emilio’s shift outside Morina’s door.
Iliaria brought my attention to her. “Once we begin, Epiphany, there is no turning back.” She held the blade’s pommel loosely. “Your body will not heal a cut from this blade. Do you understand?”
Wordlessly, I nodded. I understood.
“What about Cuinn?”
Cuinn jumped off the bed and tilted his head in thought as he approached. “I’ll block ye from me, but understand, Piph, I won’t let ye slip away entirely.”
“I just need to find the brink, Cuinn.”
“Aye,” he said sadly. He didn’t protest what I endeavored to do. He didn’t need to for me to know that he, like the others, wasn’t fond of my decision.
It was touching, how much they cared about me, even more so that they were willing to set their own feelings aside to allow me to do what needed to be done if we were to save Renata.
Strangely, I was calmer than I had anticipated, much more at peace with myself than I should have been given the circumstances. I tried to focus on letting go of all of my thoughts. Morina had said that I had to make myself an empty vessel and whether that was in reference to the bloodletting or my state of mind, I wasn’t sure, but I thought it best to be cautious.
Iliaria carefully took my hand between her slender fingers. She raised my wrist upward and pressed the tip of the curled blade over Morina’s name buried in the startling vines of her mark.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
She drew the blade lightly down my wrist, applying more pressure toward the middle of the cut. The claw-like tip parted my skin in a stinging song of pain. It sent a blaze of heat burning and twitching up the entire length of my arm, and I hissed at the rush of it, but when I tried to pull away out of reflex, Iliaria held tightly and raised my wrist to her mouth. It took me a moment to realize what she was doing.
“Why?”
She bent her head, her glossy hair tucked behind her small ear, revealing the perfect line of her neck and the pulse beating there. “I’ll not have you bleeding all over the place. The others will smell it.” She sealed her lips over the cut and drank my blood, her throat working as she swallowed. Her lips against my skin sent a line pulsing to my groin, and I tried to ignore the pull of her body. But it was hard to ignore her mouth on me, hard to ignore the way my blood seemed to flow more quickly as her tongue caressed the wound.
Her mouth continued to work at the wound, and I shut my eyes. The sound of my heartbeat pounded in my ears like roaring waters in my head. After some time, the beat slowed. Longer intervals passed between the beats, signifying how much of my blood she was taking.
Though I tried not to think, I couldn’t help it. I remembered when Renata had given me the kiss of death. I hadn’t been frightened at the sharp prick of her fangs or by her draining the life from me. I wasn’t frightened now. My body felt heavy and my mind began to feel weightless as my lashes fluttered and my vision went out of focus. I had surrendered then, to Renata’s kiss, as I now surrendered to Iliaria’s.
I began to feel even more light-headed and then dizzy, and knew I was close. I forced myself to open my heavy lids, forced myself to watch Iliaria, to make her my anchor before the darkness came rushing in.
The edges of my vision were speckled with black stars. When I felt myself slip, losing my grip on the reality around me, I reached out with my thoughts. I thought of the angel’s name, thought it until it was emblazoned like a beacon in my mind.
Azrael!
I felt his name on the tip of my tongue, threatening to break free of my lips, clenched just behind my teeth. The darkness at the corners of my vision exploded, and the last thing I felt of the world around me was my body falling into weightlessness and Azrael’s embrace.
*
I didn’t know where I was. I felt strange. My head ached beyond belief, sending a cutting pain through the side of my skull. The room around me was dark, and I pulled the blankets up as if in a fog. I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t remember. I knew there was something I was supposed to remember. It seemed as though there was, but I looked inside myself and couldn’t find it.
“Piph?” I recognized the voice, or at least a part of me seemed to know I should have recognized it, but why couldn’t I recall the name that went along with it?
An orange glow bled to life in the darkness. It was bright and I shielded my eyes with a hand.
“It’s me, Piph,” the orange figure said while it came closer and closer to me. “Cuinn.”
“Cuinn?” As soon as I spoke his name, my recollections kicked in. Memories of him came flooding back, and with them, Iliaria, Vasco, Emilio…
They came so hard and fast I bolted out of the bed, hitting the nightstand and sending an unlit lamp on top of it wobbling.
A door opened, spilling even more brightness into the room. Someone gripped me by the shoulders and began guiding me back toward the bed. My body didn’t seem to want to work. As soon as my feet touched the floor, I lost my balance.
“Back,” Iliaria said. “Cuinn, get back! You are hovering and crowding her. Come, Epiphany, lie
back down…or sit…or something. There’s something you need to hear and it’s best if you not hear it on your feet.”
I let her steer me with her hands and sat down on the bed. The blankets felt lumpy and uncomfortable beneath me as I laid back. Why couldn’t I get comfortable?
I tried to sit up again and the room spun as if I’d had entirely too much to drink.
“What’sss wrong?” I tried to speak clearly and the words came out slurred and uncertain, my tongue as uncooperative as the rest of my body. Iliaria guided me to rest back against the pillows and still, I was uncomfortable. Something was digging into my back.
“Colombina,” Vasco’s voice flowed smooth and tranquil as he projected a sense of calm to me.
At first, I fought the touch of his magic. He laid his hand against my arm and I could barely feel it through the weight of my clothes. I was hot, hotter than I should have been. I started to panic and Vasco pushed out with his power again.
“Calm down, colombina, and we will explain. Take a deep breath,” he said.
I did.
“Now let it out.”
I shut my eyes tightly and exhaled.
“Focus on the beat of your heart, sorella, and only that.”
My heart was beating rapidly. I forced myself to take the breaths that he had told me to, making them longer and deeper. My heart rate began to slow as I controlled my breathing.
“What do you remember of the night you sought Azrael?”
“Iliaria,” I said. “Her mouth.”
“And?”
“Iliaria drank me,” I said slowly, as it still seemed more difficult than it should have to speak aloud. “I remember Emilio and Cuinn.”
“And?”
“I don’t know…I can’t think.”
“Vasco, just tell her,” Iliaria said with a thread of impatience.
“Am I dead?” I asked.
“Your former self is,” another voice said, a woman’s voice. “Congratulations, vampire. It appears your dance with death was a smashing success.”
Morina leaned against the bedpost with the black patch shielding her scarred eye. I made a face, trying to convey my displeasure, but it felt funny. My face felt strange. I raised my hand and Iliaria snatched it.
“Epiphany,” she said.
I met her gaze.
“I do not know what you said or what you did, but Azrael has answered your request.”
I tried to glance down at her hand on my arm and she moved her other hand to bring my gaze back to her face.
“Not yet,” she said. “You do not remember a thing about Azrael?”
“No, why? What happened?”
“Bugger it all!” Cuinn exclaimed. “Just tell the poor girl!” He leapt onto the bed. “You’re one of them now.” He motioned with his snout to Iliaria. “You’re Dracule, Piph. You asked and received.”
I blinked. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, and if I had, I wasn’t sure I believed it. I felt strange, but wouldn’t I know if I had changed that much?
Cuinn must’ve seen the disbelief on my features, for he snorted and said, “Get a mirror.”
“You are going to send her mad,” Morina said, but not like she really cared.
Iliaria let out a heavy sigh and released me. She held a mirror. “It is true, before you doubt. Remember that what you see here is only what is true now. It may not always be so.”
She held up the mirror. I managed to catch a glimpse of myself and no more than that, for as soon as I saw the white fur, the angular face, and fathomless eyes—
My heart lurched with panic and I scrambled from the bed, though Vasco and Iliaria tried to contain me.
It was a mess. I was a mess, a mess of the tail I paid little heed to, a mess of wings I didn’t know how to use, a mess of the slightly bent legs that I had not yet learned how to maneuver.
If it weren’t for Iliaria, I might’ve taken all three of us to the floor. As it was, she pulled me down and sealed her arms tightly around my midsection. “Stop, Epiphany! Stop fighting it!”
I tried, but every instinct within me told me to fight, to panic. Every fiber of my being told me it wasn’t right.
For some reason, Queen Helamina’s vision came to my mind.
“It’sss me,” I said.
“What is?” Iliaria asked.
“Helamina’sss visssion.”
“Sì,” Vasco said. “We kind of noticed that.”
I slumped against Iliaria, defeated. “Tell me.”
Vasco understood. “You died, Epiphany. Iliaria drank you empty.”
“Vasco begged me to interfere,” Emilio said. “I couldn’t.”
“Neither could I,” Cuinn said. “Nothing we did to try and pull ye back worked.”
“I thought I had lost you,” Iliaria mumbled against my neck, tickling my fur with her lips. “I lost control. I couldn’t stop drinking. I’m sorry.”
“What elssse?”
“Azrael came,” Emilio said. “We could see him. He stood over you. He knew what you sought and he gave you what you asked.”
“Why?”
“Love, I think,” Vasco said. “He did not explain why. He barely spoke to us, sorella. He only said, ‘For turns of the whole moon, she will have what she asks.’”
“Four,” Cuinn corrected him. “As in, four months. He took the cloak from his back and wrapped you in his magic,” he explained. “In four months, he will return you to your former self.”
“Where are we?”
“Azrael wrapped you in his darkness,” Iliaria said, stroking my back like you’d calm a child. “When his darkness began to fade, we saw that he had indeed changed you. I too remembered Helamina’s prophetic vision. We feared she would turn against us, so we’ve brought you somewhere safe.”
“Who elssse isss here?”
“All of the Rosso Lussuria, save Gaspare,” Vasco said. “We decided to leave him behind just in case he goes shouting wolf.”
The corner of my mouth tugged in a smirk. “Wissse.”
“Aye, I didn’t disagree with it,” Cuinn added. “Bit of a whiny bastard, that one.”
“Anatharic will be here shortly,” Iliaria said.
“I ssstill do not know where we are.”
“We’re in a hotel room in the human world,” Vasco said. “And don’t worry, Emilio’s warded and spelled the place. No one will know we’re here.”
Morina snorted.
“Why isss ssshe here?”
“We had no choice but to bring her,” Iliaria said.
“Aye, she threatened to squeal on us if we didn’t,” Cuinn added with an accusatory glance toward the Dracule in question.
“Don’t sound too thrilled,” Morina said sarcastically.
“Anatharic and I will teach you how to use this body.” Iliaria gratefully changed the subject. “Are you able to stand?”
“I think ssso.”
She helped me to my feet, and though I still felt like a drunken sailor on a swaying ship, her hands on my arms helped me to remain upright.
“Use your tail for balance, Epiphany.”
“How?”
“If you focus, your body will react. It’s a lot like moving the rest of your limbs. Think about it and it will happen. Your wiring just hasn’t sorted itself out yet.”
She was right. When I focused on trying to move it myself, it did. Left, then right, left, then right…
I knew I made a strange face at the sensation. “Odd.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
I swung it a bit roughly and nearly lost my balance again. I reached out to catch myself by gripping Iliaria’s arm and accidentally stretched a wing outward.
Iliaria laughed. “It’s a bit like watching a newborn colt, sorry,” she said when I glared at her. “In time, they’ll become just another part of you, but for now,” she started guiding me back toward the bed, “rest. Sleep. It’s something your Draculian body needs.”
She dismissed the others, all save C
uinn, to an adjacent room. Iliaria climbed into bed beside me.
“Try your stomach,” she said, noticing when I began fidgeting and trying to get comfortable.
I rolled onto my stomach and felt the node of flesh between my legs pressing against the mattress. I rose up on my arms with a gasp.
Iliaria laughed again and stroked a hand down my back, between my winged shoulders blades. My fingers curled in pleasure and with them, the spurred tips.
“Just lie down,” she said. “Try to ignore that.”
“Awfully bleedin’ hard.”
“Is it?” she asked with a mysterious smile. “So soon?”
I gave her an impatient look, but lay back down on my stomach, a bit more cautiously this time.
“Not like that,” I grumbled.
Another trickle of laughter fell from her lips and I closed my eyes, burying half my face in the pillow. “I’m hot.”
“You’re supposed to be. You’re Dracule now, no longer a vampire.”
“Couldn’t Azzzrael have made me hairlesssss?”
“A bald Dracule?” Iliaria asked. “That’d be an odd sight and I think it unlikely that you’d fool Damokles that way.”
I groaned unhappily.
Iliaria stroked my ear and it tickled insanely, making them twitch wildly as I tried to avoid her. I felt them flatten against my skull, tugging the muscles near my forehead whilst I frowned.
“We’ll teach you to change your form,” she said. “When you’re ready…for now, sleep, Epiphany.”
She started to leave and I laid a hand on her arm. “Ssstay with me, pleassse.”
“I will,” she said as she curled her long body against mine. “I promise.”
*
I stretched, relishing the mists of sleep that clung to me. After two hundred years, I’d forgotten how good it felt to sleep normally instead of dying at dawn. The stretch alone felt incredible, sending a tendril of pleasure unfurling from the center of my body and spreading through every inch of me. My ears sank back as my toes curled, and I yawned.
A triangle of sunlight cut through the hotel bedroom and I ducked down low and instinctively in the bed.
“Good morning,” Iliaria said as the thick curtain over the window swung back into place. “You need not fear sunlight, not as one of us.”
Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel Page 25