After a few moments, she pulled out the phone again. She dialed Olivia’s phone. She answered, though she sounded a bit groggy. Olivia apparently had already gone to bed, leaving her niece to stay awake to take care of Thomas. Raina asked her if she knew of a number where she could reach Duchess Serenity. As though she had been waiting for such a request all along, Olivia gave her the number within a few seconds. Raina programmed the number into her phone, thanked her, hung up, and dialed the new number.
“Blessed be,” Serenity’s distinctive voice answered on the third ring.
“It’s me, the Fairy Godmother,” Raina said. “Remember that thing we talked about earlier in the Hall? Count me in.”
“I’m sorry? Oh! Oh, that! Excellent! I’m so glad to hear that!” Serenity cheered brightly as she realized who was calling. “I’ll make the arrangements for your flight right away.”
“Great,” Raina said, and then a moment later, “Whoa, whoa, wait … my flight? What?”
“Your flight to America,” she elaborated. “I’ll cover all of the expenses, don’t worry.”
Raina wanted to ask where, exactly, in America, and when, and for how long. But in the same moment she realized that she really didn’t care. Anywhere else but this place was better – anywhere away from here, away from the Hall of the High Court, away from the Fallamhain Estate, and away from everyone that lived within its many walls. This was the closest thing to a vacation for which she could have hoped, and she was taking it.
“Okay. I’ll start packing. Let me know when the flight leaves,” she sighed.
“Right away! I’ll book the next flight tonight, first class.”
“Sounds great. They still serve alcohol on planes, don’t they?”
“I imagine so.”
“Good,” Raina said, “because I think I’ll have their entire stock cleaned out by the time we land.”
“Oh my,” Serenity said with a chuckle. She paused. “Your grace … is everything okay?”
Not this again.
“I’ll tell you about it on the flight. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
“That would be wonderful. I’ll call you back soon.”
“Right on,” she replied before snapping the phone shut once more.
Raina waited impatiently for Simon’s arrival, pacing anxiously back and forth and doing her best to avoid any attention from those that were walking into or out of the hospital. Traffic was slowly beginning to pick up on the street, and more people were coming into the hospital, mostly employees starting their early-morning shifts. Though the sky was thick with clouds and the rain continued to fall, the swelling brightness outside warned Raina that dawn was at hand. She would not burn up, of course, especially when the heavens were overcast and she was so thoroughly covered from head to toe, but the worsening brightness did eventually force her to retrieve her sunglasses from the case in her inner coat pocket.
The sunglasses allowed her eyes to relax enough that she was no longer squinting, and they helped (along with her hooded coat) to provide an additional degree of anonymity. Raina was at the end of her rope, the last of her nerves frayed nearly beyond use. She truly had no idea what else to do with her life from that point onward. At least people were leaving her alone now, for once. If she had been accosted by cameras or if she had been forced to reveal her identity to the family of that deceased driver, Raina would have completely lost it. Well … not that she felt like she’d ever “had it” in the first place…
When Simon finally arrived in the luxury SUV, Raina practically dove into the rear passenger seat. It always felt strange getting in on the left side and not finding a steering wheel in front of her, so she usually just chose the back seat by default. Just as well, she despised being carted around all over the place, as she honestly missed the simple pleasure of driving. But unless she went through the trouble of acquiring a driver’s permit here, she could not legally drive in London. It was just as well, anyway. She was sure that at some point, she would forget where she was, take a right-hand turn into the oncoming lane, and inevitably kill or maim someone in a head-on collision. That was just the way things usually went for her.
The act of getting into the back of the car in such a hurry caused her terrible pain, but Raina simply winced and slammed the door shut as soon as she was inside. Though she felt naked in a car without one, she didn’t bother with a safety belt. It would have hurt too much to put on, as it would have laid right across one of her wounds. If they got into a wreck serious enough that a belt might save her life, she would have much preferred to die, anyway.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I got you something,” Simon said as he turned about in his seat to face her. He picked up a covered foam cup from the center console and offered it to her. “Mocha latte?”
“Thank you, Simon,” she sighed.
“I also grabbed a couple snacks,” he added, turning back around to drive. He looked back at her via the rearview mirror. “I figured that, ah … well, the last time you probably had anything was before we left for the Hall, and…”
“It was very thoughtful of you, Simon,” she said as she carefully held the latte in her lap. Raina turned to look out the side window as they began to roll away from the hospital. “I just … I’m not sure I can hold anything down right now.”
He kept glancing at her in the mirror with a clearly concerned expression upon his face. “How are your wounds?”
“They hurt.” She let her forehead rest against the cool glass of the window as streaks of rainwater drooled across its other side. “Everything hurts.”
“Is it getting any worse?”
Raina closed her eyes. “I don’t think it can get much worse than this.”
There was a long pause of silence as Simon turned onto a larger multi-lane street and settled into a comfortable cruise. She opened her eyes and looked again to the front of the SUV. He kept glancing back at her in the rearview mirror. Raina understood that he was concerned about her, but honestly, it was beginning to annoy her.
“Is it really that obvious?” she asked him.
“I’m sorry?”
“You keep looking at me like you know what’s going on.”
Simon appeared to be caught off guard. He stammered and stumbled over his own words for a moment or two before finally chuckling and saying, “I don’t know what you mean, your grace.”
“Oh, please,” she groaned, lying back carefully in her seat. After the pain of that subtle movement faded, Raina asked, “How long have you known about it?”
“Known about … I’m sorry, what?”
“Cut the bullshit, Simon. You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said flatly. “Did you actually see it going on, yourself, or did you just hear about it from someone else?”
“Your grace, I…”
“Pull over!” Raina cried suddenly. “Just pull over and stop the car!”
Clearly startled, Simon complied with her request as efficiently as possible, settling into a parallel parking spot in front of a few random shops with brightly-colored fronts. He put the transmission into parking gear and set the handbrake before turning in his seat to face her.
“Listen, Simon,” Raina said, leaning forward to set her cup of mocha into one of the rear cup holders of the center console, “let’s try this again, okay? Let’s just pretend, just for a little while, that I’m not some big, famous, wealthy vampire bitch. And let’s forget that you work for me, okay? Let’s just be people … just two ordinary, run-of-the-mill people, having a conversation over some morning coffee. Okay? Can we do that?”
“Okay. Sure.”
“No, I mean it. Don’t call me ‘your grace,’ or ‘your highness,’ ‘my queen,’ or whatever,” she insisted. “Just call me Raina. All right?”
“All right.”
“And please stop pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“But … honestly, I don’t.”
“Like hell!”
“Then what’s with the whole ‘what’s wrong, baby’ routine?”
He blinked at her. “I’m sorry. Did I really call you baby?”
“Not literally, but … you know what I mean.”
“Because, you know, I only had about four hours of sleep yesterday and I’ve been sucking down coffee like a nutter so, y’know, if I said something inappropriate, then maybe…”
“Simon!”
He flinched at the volume of her voice. “Sorry.”
“How … long?” she demanded sternly.
Simon looked at her for a moment with his mouth agape, utterly baffled. “How long is … umm … what?”
“You know what I’m talking about. How … long?”
He raised an eyebrow, glanced around nervously for a couple of seconds, and finally asked, “My … penis?”
“No!” Raina cried, the humor of the moment escaping her completely. “Look, you had to have seen or heard something about what’s been going on. You’re in and out of the mansion all the time, day and night. You practically live there. And the way you’re acting now, I know for a fact that you knew what was going on…”
“Honestly, I was just concerned after what happened to you earlier tonight,” he insisted gently. “I mean, some mercenaries shot up your limo, killed Ethan, almost killed Svetlana and Thomas, you had to kill three…”
“I know, I know,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “I don’t need a full recap of what happened.”
“I was honestly just … I-I-I don’t know,” Simon said with a shrug. “I was just trying to be … you know … friendly, I guess. Was it a bit too forward? It was, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”
Raina let out a frustrated sigh and shook her head sadly, looking out the window once again. Her breath created a cloud of fog upon the inside of the tinted glass.
“You’re serious. You really don’t understand why I’m upset,” she said more than asked.
Simon shrugged. “Honestly I … just wish you’d come out with it.”
“Loki’s been fucking Svetlana,” Raina said at last. Having said it aloud for the first time made something inside of her twist painfully tight again, almost as hard as it had when Svetlana had first made her confession.
Simon’s eyes drifted aside. “Oh. Oh, that.”
“Yeah,” Raina muttered, “that.”
“I, ah … guess you and Svetlana finally talked,” he said.
“Briefly, yes.”
“Did you … y’know?” he asked. Raina looked to him and saw that he was making a cutthroat gesture with his fingers.
“No! No, of course not! Jesus! Why … why would I do that?”
“Well … because as Grand Duchess, you are within your rights to…”
“No, I’m not,” she said firmly. “Being Grand Duchess does not give me the right to fly into a jealous rage and commit murder just because someone cheated on me. I thought I made that pretty clear tonight in the Hall with my decree. If humans can’t murder humans, then vampires can’t murder vampires. I don’t have a license to kill and maim with impunity just because I’m in charge.”
“I thought we were supposed to forget about you being Grand Duchess…?”
“I’m just making a point, okay?”
“Well, be that as it may … and even though I agree with you … the fact remains that you still can legally do as you please. I mean, the Code has that big catch-all loophole in it that basically says a Maker can kill their bloodspawn at any time for any reason they see fit. It doesn’t matter if you’re a High Court or a Commoner or whatever because the Code applies to all vampires. So…”
“So, you’re saying I should kill Svetlana just because she slept with Loki?”
“No. I mean … not exactly, no,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just saying the option was there, and … well, frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t.”
Raina gaped at him for a moment or two. “Jesus, Simon, is that the kind of person you think I am? Seriously?”
“No, no … but … I mean … well, it would certainly seem like a natural reaction,” he tried to explain. “I mean, you see it all the time on the news, a wife comes home and finds her husband in bed with another woman, she comes after both of ‘em with a knife, and…”
“Okay, look. First off, I didn’t catch them in the act,” Raina said, counting the items off with her fingers. “Secondly, Svetlana is … well, was one of my best friends. Third, Loki is the only person besides me that carries the kind of blood that I do, so I’d be pretty stupid to make myself the only person of my race that’s still alive in the entire world. And fourth … look, I’m getting awfully tired of saying this, but I … am not … Duvessa. I don’t torture people for fun, and I don’t kill people just because they piss me off. I know I’m probably just living in denial, and I’m sure that I’m probably just going to turn out to be another homicidal psycho bitch like her, no matter how hard I fight it. But for right now, I’m just trying to be me. I’m just Raina. And I don’t fucking kill or torture people just because I can. Okay?”
“All right,” Simon said with wide eyes and a lot of nodding. “All right. It’s cool. I just … y’know … I just thought I’d ask. That’s all.”
Raina saw a few people slowing in their steps to look at the high-dollar SUV with its darkly-tinted windows sitting outside of the shop. “We’d probably better get moving.”
Simon nodded, put the SUV back into gear, released the brake, and merged smoothly with traffic to continue on home. There was a long break of silence as they drove along. Simon finally switched on the radio and selected a classical music station. The soft melodies of a string concerto sounded quite amazing through the high-end stereo system of the SUV. Raina tried unsuccessfully to distract herself for awhile by breathing a fog onto the window and drawing a frowning face upon it. On a whim, she added fangs and pointy ears to it. Feeling her sense of humor was utterly flat, she wiped the image away with her palm and sat up in her seat, sipping upon the mocha latte as she thought to herself.
“By the way,” Simon finally said after awhile, “I’m really very sorry.”
Caught off guard, Raina abruptly gulped the warm mouthful of latte she’d been savoring. “About what?”
“For what happened,” he said with a shrug. “Just … for everything that’s happened, in general.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll get over it eventually. I mean, theoretically, I’ve got the next couple of hundred years or so to deal with it. And hey, even if I don’t, and if I get killed within the next day, week, month, whatever … fuck it. None of this will matter anymore when I’m dead. Right?”
“One way to look at it, I suppose.”
She took off her sunglasses and pulled back her hood. It was shaded enough within the SUV, with its heavily tinted windows, that she could do so even in broad daylight and not be almost blinded. She set the cup of overdressed coffee back into the cup holder on the console and leaned forward a bit.
“Have you ever been cheated on before?”
Simon rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Honestly,” he said, “I had this crazy idea for awhile that there was this little devil that followed me around all of the time, ever since I hit puberty. Every time I met a girl, he’d jump out of my pocket, hop on her shoulder, and start whispering things in her ear. Then he’d tell her to snub me in a really cruel and humiliating way, or to take my number and never call me. Either that, or he’d tell them to date me but then go have sex with every guy within a twenty-mile radius except for me.”
She stared at him for a few moments. “God … you’re not a virgin, are you?”
“No! Not at all,” he insisted confidently.
“Oh. But … you’ve probably got a pretty negative opinion of women, right?”
“Not about women, no,” he said,
“just about myself.”
“Why? Did you ever cheat on anyone?”
He curled his lower lip a bit as he shook his head. “Never saw the point in it. I mean, if you’re really so unhappy with someone that you’d rather have sex with somebody else … why not just break up?”
“Probably because breaking up isn’t always a simple thing,” Raina replied. “Too many strings attached to just break things off in a hurry.”
“I assume you’re referring to marriage?”
“More or less,” she agreed. “I guess sometimes being in a committed relationship makes a person feel like they’re trapped.”
“That depends on your definition of a committed relationship.”
“Well … being somebody’s bloodspawn I think would qualify as being a pretty hefty commitment,” Raina mused with a light shrug that made her side and shoulder ache. “What about you? Y’know … with dating regular people? At what point do you consider yourself committed?”
“I always went by the Three Date Rule,” he said. “If you make it past three dates, then it’s official. You’re boyfriend-girlfriend at that point. Of course, I’ve dated a couple of women that didn’t even wait that long before they started shopping around for a side order of chips and a pint to go with their fish, so to speak.”
“Maybe that’s it, then,” Raina sighed. “Maybe that’s why he did it.”
“For chips and a pint?”
“Maybe Loki felt trapped or … maybe he felt like I tricked him into being with me,” she elaborated. “I mean, they were both serving Duvessa for awhile before I ever came along. Who knows? They might have had a thing for each other a long time ago. Maybe they’ve been doing it all along.” She thought about that for a moment. “If I came along and just stuck myself right between them the way that I did, then maybe … I dunno, maybe I’m the one that’s been screwing things up for them?”
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 19