by C. D. Gorri
She exhaled a breath of relief and stepped past him. She leaned against the inner wall and watched as Gavin checked the alleyway, then closed the door. The walls lit by candlelight, she could make out the wall decor of hung pictures and a nearby table.
“Sophia, what happened?” He turned to her and took her face in his palms. “Did someone hurt you?” His eyes studied hers, then he stared at her mouth.
She pressed her lips together, feeling the numbness from the kiss she shared with Dorian. She did not dare speak of the event, and shied away from Gavin.
“I am fine,” she whispered. She removed his hands and put space between them. She explained feeling chased by cloaked men with red eyes, and how they were around every corner of the walks. She shook her head. “I do not know what happened, or why I would see such things.”
Dorian took a step back and rubbed the dusting of beard on his chin. He lifted a brow and began to pace the floor.
He knows, she thought to herself. Dorian…the other set of eyes, all the eyes. The redness. It must be vampire. It is the only thing that makes any sense. She kept her thoughts to herself as Gavin continued to pace. Does that make Dorian a…a…vampire? She lowered her gaze and her heart panged in her chest. She her back pressed against the outer wall. I could never send Gavin after Dorian, not like this. Not without absolutely, positively knowing for certain. That would also mean not telling Gavin my thoughts.
Sophia reached into her cloak and pulled out her tarot cards. She walked over to a sitting desk in his room and took a seat. Shuffling the cards, she laid out a spread for divination. She glanced up to Gavin, then back to her cards. Placing them north, south, east and west, then a center point, she turned the cards over one at a time.
“Recall I told you, and the others, danger was coming in the form of a plague.” She pointed to the first card. “This plague has arrived, Gavin.”
He bent over her shoulder and gazed up on the cards. “What else do they tell you?”
She sighed and flipped the next two. “There appears to be others involved in the death that is to come. Possibly a winged creature?” She tilted her head slightly. “A bat? Maybe a serpent?”
“A bat or serpent? What is this, Sophia?”
She furrowed her brows and looked up to Gavin. “I can only tell you what I see in the cards, or what the bones tell me.”
He nodded and crossed his arms over his body. “Serpents were in scriptures of the bible. Are you suggesting the devil is among us?”
She tucked her cards away with a shrug. “I do not know, Gavin.”
“The Order will not easily agree to chase rumors of devils and bats. We are formed and bound to hunt only vampires. Perhaps, though, one of the older Hunters knows of another group consecrated to fighting such as you describe.” He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I will ask around in the morning.
She nodded and yawned then crossed her arms over her chest. “Gavin, may I stay here tonight? I do not wish to return home after tonight’s events. I feel…safe here. With you,” she quickly added, “and the other hunters.”
He nodded. “Of course. You may take my bed. I’ll make a pallet on the floor and keep watch over you.”
She smiled and lowered her gaze. “Thank you for your generosity.”
He motioned the way through the back door of the hunter's den and they walked by candlelight through a hallway. The air felt damp and musty. Lights throughout the tunnel glowed from what she assumed to be rooms.
“My room is here,” he pointed.
She turned toward him and nodded. “Thank you again, Gavin. For everything.”
He touched her chin and lifted her gaze up to meet his own. “All ever need to do is ask. I am always at your service.” His voice as soft as a whisper, Gavin leaned in and kissed her cheek.
Sophia pressed her eyes closed and held her breath. She loved Gavin, but she knew she would never truly love him as he loved her. She loved his friendship, but it would never be anything more. She took a step back and cleared her throat.
“I need to change.” She paused and Gavin stepped out of the room.
“Call for me when you’re ready for my return. I’ll fetch the blankets and pillows.”
She nodded and waited as Gavin closed the door to the room. She sighed and sat on the edge of his bed. A desk sat across the room with books opened and closed upon it, with notes and quills. Curious to what he had been studying, she stood and crossed the room. Touching the papers, she pushed a few here and there, but not paying attention to what had been written. Her thoughts were still on the events of this evening, and of Dorian.
As she closed her eyes, she saw his face once more, the fierceness he possessed when he kissed her in hopes of some sort of remembrance on her part. She opened her eyes once more and loosened her corset, removed it and sat it on the edge of the bed. Next her skirts came off and her shoes.
She pulled the pins from her hair and sat them on the table, letting her hair dangle down her back. She ran her fingers through it, giving it a brief comb through. Grasping the bed sheets, she pulled them down and climbed in, then pulled them to her chin.
A few moments passed in the silence as she laid in Gavin’s bed, waiting for him. She inhaled his scent on his pillow. It smells of him. He deserves a woman of worth.
How many times had he thought of having her in his bed?
Oh, we will not think of that, she told herself.
A light knock rapped on the door. “Sophia?” Gavin had returned.
“You may come in.”
The door pushed open and first, a candlelight entered and Gavin’s features illuminated from the orange glow. “I have brought a basin to wash with in the morning, as well as more blankets in case there’s a chill.” He let the blankets fall to the floor and lifting his arm, a pillow fell from it. He sat the candle on the desk and laid out his padding. “Do you require another blanket?”
She shook her head. “No, I am well, thank you.”
He nodded and made his way back toward the door. “I have obligations to take care of tonight,” he lowered her gaze and turned toward the door. “Please, do not wait up.”
“Where are you going at this hour?” Does he think they were vampires?
“I’ll be back before dawn.” Gavin pressed his lips together in a thin line, then he stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.
She sagged back into the bed with an exhaustive sigh. She needed to rest and closing her eyes, restlessness would be her undoing tonight, along with the rabid dreams of demons and vampires.
Vampires.
Sophia’s eyes opened with a start, wide with thought. He fought with a sword that dripped with blood. He had stubble on his chin, tears in his eyes, blood seeping from wounds. He cannot possibly be vampire! Vampires do not bleed, sweat, or grow hair. They do not do any of these things.
She sighed a breath of relief to her own thoughts of self-acknowledgement. Feeling proud she solved her very own puzzle of sorts, she closed her eyes with a smile, turned on her side, and allowed sleep to claim her for the night.
*.*.*.*
Sounds of horses neighed in the distance and men talking of the day’s events echoed in the hall. Sophia turned on her side as the moment between sleep and awake pulled to her conscious mind.
As she began to open her eyes, her dreams continued and she gasped. Fingers lightly trailed over her arms and lips nibbled gently along her neck. The fingers nestled into her hair and tugged her head to the side sharply.
In her mind’s eye, she then realized she began to have a vision. No longer dreaming, but foretelling what might come, she gazed upon the man who held her body.
Dorian.
She smiled and gave herself over to him. They were back in a shop somewhere, maybe his hotel room. The place did not matter to her. Her back pressed to the wall behind her, Dorian reached for her skirts and pushed them toward her waist. He pulled one leg around his hips and pressed into her, the friction of his
erection caused the familiar heat he drew from her to reappear.
She gasped and pulled him closer. She wanted him, needed him, on her, in her. “Dorian,” she whimpered.
“Do you remember me now, my love?”
She opened her eyes and looked upon him. He met her gaze and his eyes flashed so quickly, she blinked a few times, then let the thought go. He growled and pushed her breasts together, then pressed his face between her luscious mounds. His fingers and thumbs pinched and teased her nipples and she moaned softly.
Dorian pulled back enough to press a metallic object against her body, then hearing the rip of fabric, she looked down to her corset being shredded. She smiled, not having a care in the world. He pulled the material free from her body and yanked at her undergarments. He lowered himself to his knees and looked up to her once more, then pushed one of her legs up over his shoulder.
Sophia gasped hard and her head hit the wall behind her. Never had a man put his mouth on her body before in this way. She gripped his shoulder and head, holding her balance on one leg. She moaned louder as he pulled against her. His tongue did things to her she had only imagined in dark, secret places of her own home, her own thoughts.
“Oh Dorian, oh my God,” she cried out. Her leg began to buckle as a growing sensation built between her legs. A throbbing erupted in her sex and she cried out for him to never stop.
She heard another growl and as she looked down to him, on the verge of what could only be explained as a pure, euphoric feeling, and fear suddenly grasped at her. Gone was the beautiful, sensual male seducing her to a state she had never visited before, to be replaced with a man with such fierce veracity, with the familiar dark red eyes. He hissed and made his way back up her body and pressed himself against her.
Behind Dorian stood the woman she saw from her first vision. A tiny thing with pale curls and cold eyes.
Gavin took her chin and turned her attention to him again. “Tell me, love, do you remember me now?” He hissed again and Sophia screamed.
She sat up in bed, panting hard, sweat beading on her forehead. Her sex throbbed and she pulled the sheets back, looked down and wondered briefly if Dorian would be in her bed.
That’s ridiculous, she told herself. The longing she felt for the man began to shift to agitation and anger. Why did she have this vision of him? What purpose did it serve? She shook it off long enough to turn toward the basin.
In her peripheral vision, a man laid upon the floor and she almost screamed. She closed her eyes and laid her hand over her beating heart. Forgetting where she slept the night prior, she sighed and looked upon a sleeping Gavin.
He slept on the padding he made the night before. He snored softly, one arm draped over his chest, the other over his forehead. The fear left her and in its place, sadness. She laid back upon the bed and stared at her friend. She felt the sadness of what he wanted from her, everything he wanted her to be, how devoted he had become to her.
She felt a twinge of guilt for teasing him about being a rake and a rogue. Then again, since he didn’t believe her about her serpent bat vision, she did not feel so bad after all.
A new determination hit her; now more than ever she must discover who Dorian was. Why he thought she should remember him, why she felt drawn to him, no matter the cost. She had to find out for herself.
She silently removed herself from the bed and gathered up her clothes. She side-stepped Gavin and dressed herself as quietly as she could. Satisfied she did not wake him, she headed out of his room and made her way toward her own home. As she walked the streets, she made a quick decision and change of direction to visit the ship captain first. Maybe she could gather information on Dorian, maybe the people on the ship as well.
Chapter Thirteen
Worry had worn her out.
That was the only excuse Mila could accept for waking up well into morning. She had spent the night listening to the music of fear and dancing along the edges of betrayal. In her thoughts, Dorian, Gavin, and Fanti had abandoned their expected roles, mingling and mangling the boundaries of trust, love, and deceit. There was no other explanation for how she had found herself flirting with a mortal, taking comfort in the arms of a man who was not of her coven, and hunting down her own Creator.
The chains of her loyalty to Dorian still held, though, and she dragged herself out of bed to dress and go find him. Despite the heavy draperies over the windows, the weight of the midday sun made itself known, leaving her feeling dull and sluggish. It was a struggle to get into even the simplest of her clothing, a cream-colored quilted skirt and a sage silk caracao jacket, forgoing the usual lace fichu around tucked into her bodice. Inside the palazzo, there was little need to pretend to modesty or feeling any chill. She could not be bothered with stockings and such, either. Finding Dorian was the priority. Fripperies could wait.
She slipped through the palazzo barefoot, holding little embroidered mules in her hands. The noisy wooden heels and leather soles would only attract attention she did not want. Dorian was not in his room, nor did she hear or smell him from behind any of the other bed chamber doors. The halls were empty, and only one or two of the older vampires of Fanti’s coven sat in the grand drawing room of the piano nobile. She turned away to continue her search when she caught a bit of the conversation between the older men. She ducked behind a door and listened.
“He has brought that mortal here again.”
“Our esteemed Sire has but one weakness, and that is politics. He simply can’t help himself. He must meddle with mortal affairs.”
“I won’t deny we have had some close calls in the past because of this, but it is also because of his work that we can live and hunt as openly as we do. I was born in Venice, and it would kill me to have to leave.”
“I might kill you if you stay.”
“You always say that, Mercutio, but you know that no one would put up with you the way I do. I am irreplaceable.”
“Humph! You are an annoying prick is what you are. But that is neither here nor there. I still think there is something distinctly wrong with this particular mortal. He might be the right hand of the Doge, but he could be the Doge’s piss boy, and I wouldn’t trust him.”
Mila remained a perfect statue behind the angle of the door that hid her.
“Oh, Mercutio, you see goblins in every shadow! You know Fanti is simply trying to oust the current Doge and install a man who owes him more favors and fear. It isn’t anything he hasn’t done before.”
“Ha! I have you there! Fanti has never dealt with another mortal other than the Doges in these games.”
“Perhaps this lackey wishes to become the Doge? If so, he’ll end up Fanti’s next meal if he is that gullible.”
“And that is precisely what worries me. If he is not that gullible, what will this jumped-up pageboy demand from Fanti? From us?”
“Who knows? Who cares? It won’t be anything that Fanti hasn’t already anticipated and turned to our advantage.”
“Do you think our guests have anything to do with all this? The timing is all very curious. They arrive, their coven leader disappears, and the rest of them feed like savages. This morning, the Doge’s piss boy shows up with his small clothes in a bunch, crying about the bodies bobbing around in the canal and how everyone is whispering about the plague.”
The other vampire chuckled. “Well, if that French bastard’s coven didn’t have anything to do with Fanti’s plans before they arrive, they certainly do now.”
Mila had heard enough. She knew that Fanti would meet with a mortal in one of the rooms on the floor below this one. Any mortals that came to do business with his coven would only be allowed so far into the palazzo, a good policy that in general prevented tasty humans from running into hungry vampires. Dorian had the same rules in his various chateaux in France. Still, it left her with the problem of finding her way to wherever they were meeting.
In the end, it was painfully easy to figure out which room it was.
Lady Abberley and
Madame Bellefontaine were stationed at the door and listening raptly to the muffled sounds of Fanti’s voice. Mila ground her teeth and drew back around the corner. She had to find a way to eavesdrop. Closing her eyes, she visualized the layout of the palazzo and its relation to the square, streets, and canals outside.
Fanti’s study was on the side of the palazzo that faced a narrow canal lined by the windowless walls of other buildings. The study overlooked a cobblestone alley that really only existed to allow access to the steps leading down to the boat landing. More importantly, there was a small, ornamental ledge that ran under the palazzo’s windows.
That was all Mila needed to know. Tucking her shoes under a chair, she opened shutters of the nearest window and nimbly jumped out onto the ledge. It was easy enough to work her way around the sides of the palazzo that lay in shadow. When she turned the corner, she was struck by the full intensity of the midday sun.
The light sapped her strength, leaving her weak and wobbly like a human. She closed her eyes in an attempt to regain her composure from the dizzy ringing in her head that threatened her balance. Even though it was autumn, the direct light of the sun was warm enough to make her skin itchy and hot. Opening her eyes again, she saw that the study windows she was aiming for was only a few feet away. She ceased breathing in case even that small movement disturbed her equilibrium.
She cautiously slid one foot along the ledge, pleased when she did not falter. Shifting her weight to the forward foot, she began to close the step with her other foot. A sense of relief crept through her that she was once more calm and steady.
“What in Heaven’s name?”
That voice which she now knew all too well snapped her concentration and sent her tumbling backward off the ledge. There was a moment of rushing air and nothingness before strong arms caught her and held her securely.
Gavin smirked down at her, shifting her in his arms to hold her more easily. “You know, it’s not every day that beautiful young ladies fall out of windows in Venice.”