The Medici Queen

by Emily Bex

  “Bel, it’s volare! Not polare.” Shade chuckled. “Let it roll off your tongue, put some pizazz into it, si?”

  Kate was laughing as she tried to repeat the word, “Vo-lare. Volare. I can't roll my r's... wait... where do you put your tongue?”

  Shannon howled with laughter. "Where do you put your tongue?"

  Kate laughed. “To roll my r's, smartass!”

  Luca put his face in his hands and shook his head then looked up at Shade and laughed.

  “Mi amore, did you just say roll your arse?” Shade and Luca both howled with laughter. “You know I can do that quite well, but I don’t suggest we do that in mixed company.”

  Kate shouted above the laughter, “R's, I said r's not arse! I already know how to roll my arse, thank you very much.”

  He grinned wickedly and pulled her over his lap and slapped her ass playfully.

  “Oh si, mi amore, you roll that arse quite well.”

  They were all laughing when Shade picked up the sound in the distance. It was faint, and he hoped to fucking hell no one else heard that scream. Son of a fucking bitch, who the hell is that? There was only one master who’d been invited to stay at Castello for the coronation who remained here as a guest, and that was Alec. Shade knew Alec would remember the Gorean Sex Cult and the room in the caverns beneath the castle. He was a sick bastard, and it would be just like him to take Rissa down there. Shade would kill him for this fucking nonsense! He didn’t know if Shannon could hear the faint sound, but he was damn sure Luca probably did and bel may have as well. Then it started again, and the screams continued, louder now and Shade caught Luca’s eye and knew he heard them as well.

  Luca locked eyes with Shade as he recognized the sounds. He knew they were coming from inside Castello. Luca recalled the years his master fell into that darkness, and Alec eagerly joined him in the escapades that took place out of sight, but not out of earshot. The staff and warriors were all relieved when Shade broke free, ending his relationship with Sabine and closing that room, ending the parade of depraved individuals who went there nightly. Luca glanced at Shannon, who was still talking, but Kate was starting to turn her head. She had heard the sounds as well. Screams, faint but getting louder.

  Kate looked at him with a question. “Shade? Did you hear that?”

  Shade exchanged knowing looks with Luca and they both knew who it was and what was going down.

  He looked into her eyes as another resounding scream traveled through the house and he sighed. “Si, mi amore, I heard it, nothing to be alarmed about. Perhaps we should all take a stroll out into the gardens, get some air?”

  As the screams got louder, it was now clear to Kate what she was hearing. She looked at him with questioning eyes, and then to Luca, who looked down at the floor. She turned back to Shade.

  "That’s a woman's scream. It's coming from inside Castello. I can't tell from where, it sounds muffled, but I don't understand. You’re telling me not to be alarmed? A woman is screaming inside our home, and you say don't be alarmed?”

  Shannon perked up. Her hearing was not as acute as theirs, but she too heard the screams. She walked to the doorway and listened. "Down there. Down the grand hallway somewhere. I heard it too."

  Shade looked in her direction. “Shannon, step away from the door.” He gave Luca a stern look. ”Don’t let her go out that door.” As Shade closed his eyes, another scream ripped through the house, and he felt Kate ready to stand up from the sofa as he reached out to restrain her. “Stay where you are, mi amore. There are rules within the vampire community. Not all vampires are alike in how they treat their mates. But the most important rule we follow is you never tell another master how to control his mate. We still have guests within Castello. That’s all I need to say.”

  The scream was piercing and filled with pain. Kate pulled from him, trying to break his grip. “I don't understand. What do you mean you don't interfere? It sounds like someone is being killed in our own home, and we’re supposed to do nothing? Someone is in trouble. Do something!”

  “Bel, relax please.” He snuggled into her hair and held her tightly against his chest and whispered. “It is Alec and Rissa. I know you don’t understand, but I cannot interfere. Please try to appease me on this. She is not being hurt.”

  “Rissa? Those are Rissa's screams? How can you say she’s not being hurt?” Kate struggled to get free. Why was he holding her here, when clearly there was someone in danger? This was not like him, or Luca. “I don't understand. You’re warriors. Why are you ignoring this?”

  Shannon looked back at Luca. “I think someone should go check... at least check.”

  Luca stood and spoke sharply. “No! Stay where you are. This isn’t our business.”

  Shade held Kate firmly by the shoulders. “Listen to me. It’s Rissa and Alec. They are, cazzo, how the hell do I say this? They are in an underground chamber of Castello.” He stared at bel, trying to make her understand. “We don’t interfere with other master’s mates, Kate.”

  He looked to Luca and shook his head. “Luca, please take Shannon back to your room, outside, take a drive, whatever you need to do that makes her more comfortable.” Looking to Shannon, he said, “I apologize to you, I know you don’t understand, but I won’t interfere, not even in my own home. It is our code. Perhaps, Luca can explain it to you in a more understandable way.”

  Kate stared at him in confusion as he told Luca to leave with Shannon. Luca got up and took Shannon by the arm and led her back upstairs. After they left the room, she looked at Shade. “And perhaps you can explain to me in a more understandable way. What’s going on? Why are they underground in Castello? The turning chamber? Are they in the turning chamber?”

  He crouched in front of her, between her knees, as she sat on the sofa and he looked into those beautiful worried eyes. He laid one hand on her knee and slid the other hand along her arm.

  “Mi amore, I will explain. But I need you to listen to what I am saying and hear me. They are not in the turning chamber. They are at the opposite end of Castello. They are having rough sex. Alec is a very different master than me.” He looked down and shook his head. “He’s a sexual sadist. He loves to hurt her, but you must understand she loves the pain, she does not fight it. It’s how they get pleasure from each other and I cannot interfere.”

  Kate looked confused, but remembered Rissa’s warnings from long ago, about vamps and rough sex. “Okay. I get that. I’m aware of the whole bondage thing. But it sounds...more than that. It sounds like more than just rough sex. And why are they down there? How would he know about the area underground? Why not in their own bedroom?”

  “Mi amore, I promised I would hide nothing from you. I’m not proud of this, but it is in my past. Alec and I did some running around together. That’s how we know each other. There are...tools, toys, and they are used for creating pleasure and pain. We belonged to a sex cult, the Gorean Cult. It was custom at that time in Europe. We used these rooms for pleasure, for orgies and playing out sexual fantasies. For me, it was a phase, a dark phase. But for Alec, it is a lifestyle, one he maintains to this day.

  “Alec was drawn to Rissa as I was drawn to you. But for him, he saw her darkness, her need to submit to his dominance, her desire for pain. This is what he likes, what they both like. He is very dark. He loves to abuse women with pain, it brings him pleasure. Please understand, I beg you.”

  Kate pulled away from him. “You built this room? You belonged to a cult? A sexual cult?”

  She stood up and walked around the room, pacing the floor. It’s what she had always feared. His experience so outweighed hers, he’d grow tired of her. Orgies? How did she compete with orgies? Had he made women scream out in pain? This wasn’t the Shade she knew. Or did she know him at all? “But you kept this room? Did you think... Did you plan to use it?”

  Watching her pace, he felt his heartbeat rise. He was going to kill that bastard for doing this in his home, making his own mate doubt him, doubt herself and everything
she knew about him.

  “No! Please don’t think I ever planned to use it again. I had forgotten it, actually. I spend little time here at Castello. I was building my empire, gaining land, out being a warrior. I have not spent much time here in the past few years. And the room, it was simply forgotten.”

  He stood and ran his hand through his hair while she began to pace, and he watched as she put her face in her hands. “Please, mi amore! I’m not that man any longer. That is my past. I would never use it again. I had forgotten it was here! And yes, I did make women scream in pain. Yes, yes, yes to all the damn questions in your head!”

  Kate squeezed her eyes shut as he said he made women scream out in pain and put her hands over her ears. Who is this man? She paced the floor again, her head spinning. “I need to see this room, lover. I need you to take me there.”

  Shade spun around and stared at her. “Why? Why would you want to see it, mi amore? You abhor it, look at you? It is already making you doubt me, wonder about me. Have I ever brought you such pain? No, never! I’m being honest with you. I am telling you my past, hiding nothing from you, nothing! And still, you want to see this den of sin?”

  He realized if she insisted, he’d have to take her there and deal with the outcome. Alec and Rissa might still be there. He hadn’t heard anything after Alec’s roar, but he was making damn sure. “Gi, can you make sure Master Canton and his mate are in their room?”

  Gi told him Alec had called for Rosa to draw a bath and had returned to their bedroom, carrying Rissa. Shade sighed, hoping to hell he hadn’t killed her. Alec was one out of control bastard at this play, and even though Shade knew Alec still engaged in rough sex with Rissa, Shade knew damn well Rissa experienced things tonight she’d never experienced before.

  Kate spoke to him in a small voice, “I just... I need to see it. I need to understand.” She wasn’t sure herself why she felt the need to see it. But if she didn’t, she knew her imagination would just try to fill in the blanks. “Please...”

  Shade stood before her. “I don’t like this, but I can tell you need to see it to understand it is not who I am anymore.” Holding out his hand, she took it and he kissed her lips gently. “I can teleport us right outside the door, or we can walk, it is a ways to go, your choice.”

  “Teleport me.”

  He nodded and lifted her in his arms and teleported swiftly under Castello and stood outside the closed door. He sat her down on her feet and looked into her eyes. “We are deep underground, mi amore, far from the turning chamber. Remember who I am please, Kate. Remember this was years ago, and I am not this man any longer. I love you.”

  Watching her nod to him, he lifted the latch and swung open the door, willing on the lights. He held out his hand for her to enter and wondered how the hell this night with his mate turned into chaos.

  She knew he didn’t want her in this room. He reluctantly opened the door. He stepped in behind her, standing rigid, not moving. As her eyes scanned the walls, the ceilings, she walked through this den of torture and realized she was wrong. There was nothing in her imagination that could have prepared her for this. She was hit hard with the sense memory of him in this space, his emotions when he had come here, and it staggered her. Then she saw the images floating through her head of the women, the nameless, faceless legion of women who had been paraded through here. Some had come willingly, some not. She felt his darkness, and his loneliness. Sex had been used like a drug or alcohol, sex used to numb the pain, or make the body feel something other than a soulless emptiness. The women’s pain had been his sick pleasure, followed by self-loathing, and a sicker desire to do it all again because feeling something was still better than feeling nothing, better than feeling lost in the darkness. Soulless sex. Mindless sex. There was no love here. There wasn’t even passion here, only anger. This was the beast he always feared she would see. This beast only rejected and destroyed. This beast had no limits, wanted no limits. This beast felt like the demon that came to her in her turning, gripping both ankles and refusing to let her leave the hell that waited for her. This beast took and took and gave nothing in return, but pain and more pain. This beast pulled him deeper into the darkness and refused to let him go because the darkness and the pain fed his sickness. This beast rejected all that was light and good and held him in an unrelenting grip.

  As she ran her hands across the table, she stepped over Rissa’s silk robe, spattered with blood, and Alec’s jeans. She walked past the sawhorse, the stockade, the chains, and straps, she saw the faces of the women, and heard their screams, as they all flashed through her head. And then she saw her...Sabine.

  “She fed your sickness with her own dark desires. She held you in your pain and anger. She fed the beast and gave him more power, stripping away at your soul. She didn’t love you, Shade. She couldn’t love you because she didn’t love herself. She needed a companion to walk through this soulless nightmare, and you were her willing partner. I don’t know how you broke the grip of this place, how you came to resist its pull, only that you did. But it’s still in you. And that was the darkness I saw in your eyes when I first met you.”

  This was what she intuitively felt made her fear him, resist him, and yet, at the same time, made her inexplicably drawn to him. She wanted to heal the pain, to shine a light on the darkness, replace the emptiness with love, and the soullessness with heart. “Did you see that too? Did you know that when we met?” she questioned telepathically.

  She realized, yes, he did know, the beast knew, and Madre knew. Whatever fates conspired to bring them together, knew love healed all. Love filled the emptiness and filled the soul, soothed the pain, and ended the loneliness. The beast knew, just as Kate knew the beast. This was what Shade saw, when he had so much fear for her to meet the beast. He saw the beast that dominated this room, the beast that only knew destruction and pain. Kate saw the beast that was trapped in darkness and loneliness, and couldn’t find his way out, but a beast that knew love conquered all. Love healed.

  She walked back to him, slid her hand up his chest and around his neck. Standing on tip-toe, she pulled his face forward and gently kissed his lips, soft kisses. This room had never known soft kisses.

  She whispered to him, "Come, lover, there is nothing for you here anymore. This is who you were, this is not who you are. It has no hold on you anymore."

  She turned and led him out of the room, pulling the door closed behind them. "Leave it, destroy it. It matters not to me. I know you. I see you. I always have. You fear I’ll be driven away by knowing the darkest parts of you, but you don't understand. I saw the darkness first. I fell in love with you in spite of the darkness, and there’s nothing in your past that can push me away. Love conquers all, lover. Now come, we won’t speak of this again."

  ***

  Shade watched her closely as she walked through the room, standing back, there were no words between them, and none were needed. She felt it all, knew it all. Far beyond what he could ever imagine, she knew the depth of who he was. This is why she was his, why he wouldn’t let her go, why he loved her with every fiber of his being. She understood him as no other female ever could. She was never afraid to love him, only afraid of herself.

  He had never gotten over this part of his life, and it still lurked in the dark corners of his brain. She now understood what it meant when he told her she was the light in his darkness. He loved her. He too understood why his beast fell in love with her the moment he saw her. He knew she was the light he’d been seeking that would comfort him and the beast.

  “Si, mi amore, love conquers all.”

  9

  Soon they’d be leaving Castello and heading back to the States. Shade watched Kate sleeping, and knew she needed her rest. She wasn’t used to all the changes in her body yet, but she was coping far better than he ever expected. Neither of them had discussed when they’d return, but he knew both of them were anxious to get back home to Bel Rosso.

  He had a warrior camp in development that should
be near completion and he was eager to get that started and get his ranks built there. As for bel, he smiled looking at her. He had some plans for her as well. A new bambino would keep both of them busy. As his thoughts went to her, he thought about Marco and Theresa. Their discussion at the reception was icy and he knew Marco didn’t receive the news of her decision to return to the States well. Maybe it was time to have a talk with his oldest friend.

  Shade liked walking to the warrior camp. It gave him time to clear his head, reflect on where he’d come from as well as where he was going. The Florence camp was very old school in its teachings and traditions, and he’d never change that. The Euro vamps were still different in their thinking and fighting skills than the American vamps. He liked straddling both worlds, it was a challenge he grasped with both hands. As he rounded the corner into the camp, he saw a feeder leaving Marco's quarters. She didn’t see Shade, and he stopped to watch her leave. Feeders in the camp were forbidden, but Shade had always cut Marco some slack. Didn’t take his brother long to decide on whether to work on his relationship with Theresa or let her go, and somehow, that made him sad. He knew if he didn’t speak with Marco before he left, there would be unresolved anger between them, and he couldn’t live with that. Both of them knew they either talked it out or fought it out, and they were both too damn old for that bullshit anymore. They needed to save their energy for the real enemies. Tapping on the door, Shade walked in and found Marco lounging, and watched as his eyes rolled up to greet him. “Brother, good night so far, I take it?”

  “Good so far, old man. It should be better once I get a sword in my hand and my ass on the field. Something you want?”

  Shade took a drag on the cigarette and exhaled slowly, “You know, brother, I’m too fucking old to be playing these games. So, I’m getting straight to the point. By the looks of the beauty that just strutted out of here, I take it you’re letting Theresa go back to the States without a fight. So, tell me,” he sat down in a chair and threw one leg over the opposite knee. “What happened?”