“You too,” he said. She began to move away when he abruptly said, “Ah, your grace?”
“Yeah?”
“You are coming back … aren’t you?”
Raina considered that for a moment. She hated to make promises she wasn’t sure she could keep. She had no idea what people or events awaited her in America, or what conclusions she might come to during her time away from the Fallamhain Estate. She decided that the best answer she could give was none at all. She leaned in a bit more and surprised him with a kiss right upon the lips. The unfamiliar scratch and tickle of his well-trimmed goatee against her face was a pleasant, strange, tiny thrill. Simon was completely stunned, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted. Raina giggled, gestured that she’d left a bit of lipstick upon his lips, gave him a little goodbye wave with her fingers after he wiped it off, and then finally turned away to leave.
Olivia was standing with her arms folded and a rather disapproving expression upon her face. “What exactly was that?”
“Just saying goodbye, that’s all.” And then, just for the sake of being mischievous, Raina surprised her as well with a similar kiss on the lips that actually made Olivia flinch. “See? No harm done.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Olivia asked after a moment with a raised eyebrow. With that, she held up a tiny key on a ring and Raina’s sword, contained neatly within a specially-made black aluminum case, lined with padding and red velvet, and secured with a small keyed padlock.
Raina looked at the death-dealing instrument for a moment and her smile evaporated. “I really don’t think that’s going to do me any good where I’m going. Gun control laws are totally different over there. I don’t think I’ll be so lucky bringing a sword to a gunfight again.”
“Even so, you’ll still need it for the Communion of Blood,” she insisted with a nod. “Please take it, dear.”
With a sigh of resignation, Raina relented and accepted the sword, slipping the key into a side pocket of her briefcase. Olivia gave her a very chaste kiss upon the cheek, so light that she wasn’t even sure that her lips actually made contact, and she took a full step back with her hands clasped together anxiously.
“Do take care, your grace. I hope everything will go smoothly,” Olivia said.
Raina shrugged and smiled. “Does it ever?”
She smiled at that and replied, “I have faith in you, dear.”
“Glad to know that someone does.”
“Please do come back safely.”
“Can’t make any promises.”
“I’m being serious, your grace.”
“So am I,” Raina replied with a nod before she turned and led the way into the terminal.
Duchess Serenity was not far away, surrounded by about six or seven random people. She was posing with her consorts surrounding her so that one of her fans could snap a photograph with their digital camera. Serenity was perhaps the most well-known vampire celebrity alive at the time, second only to Raina, because a part of her rise to fame and fortune had been via her close ties with various people in Hollywood. Again, Serenity had made a career of sleeping her way to the top. Although she had been careful enough to be selective about whom she had allowed to become her bloodspawn – “safe sex” was a more literal than figurative term when it was between humans and vampires – she had developed a reputation as a sex symbol. She was the only High Court vampire to have ever (voluntarily) posed nude for a magazine, which she had done on several occasions to the tune of several million dollars per photo shoot. As long as the person with whom she wished to share herself did not have any practices or associations that in any way conflicted with her religious or personal beliefs, she was pretty much a free spirit. Again, she was the quintessential High Court vampire hippie of the time.
Serenity spotted Raina from across the terminal and, alas, waved enthusiastically to get her attention. Right on cue, everyone seemed to turn around as one and noticed the Grand Duchess standing there with two of her servants. A couple of people started making a beeline for her right away.
“Shit,” Raina muttered under her breath. “So much for being subtle.”
It took awhile to make her way over, but Serenity and her consorts met her halfway and, thankfully, airport security politely shooed away the lingering throng of fans. Duchess Serenity dropped to one knee to acknowledge Raina, as did her consorts. Raina struggled not to feel embarrassed as the High Court kissed her hand once again. From afar, a few fans were still snapping pictures of them. She had hoped to keep this trip as low-key as possible, but she was sure that it would only be a matter of time before the photos either turned up on the Internet or were sold to one of the tabloids. Sensationalism in the media and obsessive groupies were such a pain in the ass – flattering sometimes, but still a pain.
The process of finalizing their tickets and seating arrangements, checking in their luggage items, going through security and customs checkpoints, and finally boarding the plane took over two full hours. As polite as they were, the airline security officers were excessively thorough in their inspection of everyone’s belongings, taking an especially long time to make a very embarrassing and frustrating search of their baggage. Raina was glad she hadn’t brought along anything more incriminating than some lingerie, but poor Sophie had a zippered fabric pouch full of assorted “party favors” which the officers had no qualms about taking out for everyone to see. For as vain and image-conscious as Serenity was, she packed surprisingly light, and so it turned out that the biggest delay was in processing Raina’s and her companions’ items.
They were seated in the first-class, upper-deck area of the hugely immense jumbo jet. The seats were almost ridiculously large, spacious, and comfortable. It seemed almost unfair for them to sit in such comfort while she knew the rest of the passengers would have to suffer for nearly seven hours in thinly-padded, cramped, narrow seats that were barely adequate to be seated within for less than an hour. There were only six other individuals seated in the first-class area with them, all of them dressed in such a way that they were clearly business executives or politicians of some manner. These passengers eyed the boarding vampires with suspicion, perhaps even contempt, but nobody actually voiced any complaints, and the rest of the passengers boarded without incident.
Raina hated flying. It wasn’t the actual act of flying, itself, that bothered her. She simply hated the inherent risk of it all. Sure, statistically speaking, flying on a commercial aircraft was far safer than riding in a passenger car on a highway. The odds of getting into an accident in an automobile were far higher than that of experiencing one in a passenger jet. However, the odds of surviving the crash of a commercial airliner were … well … pretty much zero. On a highway, one might hit a deer, hydroplane into a ditch during a storm, or get run off the road by an inattentive driver, but it wasn’t automatically fatal, especially with seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, and so forth. On the other hand, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour, thousands of feet above the Earth, well above the cloud line, the only thing separating her from the freezing, oxygen-deprived atmosphere or a sudden, violent, explosive impact with the ground were a few layers of plastic, insulation, and aluminum. Raina was glad she hadn’t been stuck with a window seat.
Surely by no accident at all, Serenity was seated right next to Raina. She somehow expected her to talk her pointy elf-like ears off for the entire duration of the flight. Surprisingly, though, Serenity remained rather quiet for a great deal of it, instead choosing to meditate for nearly an hour before inevitably striking up a brief conversation with Raina.
Serenity was definitely inquisitive. What she lacked in aimless yammering she more than made up for with some very pointed, nosey questions. Of course, there was the almost mandatory discussion of IVC politics, as well as a full review of her duel with Duchess Camille. But a few hours into the flight, she also had managed to pry from Raina an admission of what had happened between Loki and Svetlana, how she felt about it, whether or not she
planned to punish them (and, if so, how), and what her plans were for the near future.
“Honestly, your grace,” she told her, patting her hand, “you’ve nothing to worry about. You made the right choice in showing them mercy. Karma has a way of working things out for you. After all, whatever you do comes back to you threefold. So really, the negativity and unhappiness that your consort and your servant have brought upon you will inevitably find its way back to them in a much stronger form. You’ll see. The Goddess has a way of always setting things back into balance.”
“But that’s just it,” Raina said, “I don’t want anything to happen to them. I’m not really mad at Svetlana because I don’t think she really understood that what she was doing was wrong. Not entirely, at least…”
Serenity looked confused. “But … you said that they were being secretive about their affair…?”
“They were, but I think that was mostly Loki’s idea. He knew better. He had a pretty normal upbringing,” Raina explained. “I mean, given, he was born and raised in Finland and things are a little different there than, say, in Arizona, but still…”
“Much colder in Finland,” Thomas offered with a smile from nearby.
Returning his smile briefly, Raina continued, “He grew up in a similar kind of culture where sex is kind of a sacred thing. You know? Where, at least ideally, you’re supposed to be monogamous and just stick with one boyfriend or girlfriend at a time. And if you’re married to someone, that’s it. You’re bound to that person for life because that’s the person you want to be with forever. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work … y’know, in theory…”
Serenity took Raina’s hand into hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, looking directly into her eyes. “Do you truly wish to be with Loki for the rest of your life?”
“Well, I guess I did,” Raina said after a moment, “but at this point … no, not really. I mean, I always wanted to be in a stable relationship and get married someday, and even though Loki just sort of came into my life by accident … I was willing to go with it.”
“Go with it?”
“Yeah, you know … like … I figured I’d take what life was giving me,” she replied with a shrug. “I figured that being with him was my one good chance for having a normal, happy kind of life, in spite of everything.”
Serenity narrowed her eyes slightly. “Do you love this man?”
“Well … yeah, of course.”
“Are you truly in love with him? Do you truly ache for him, dream of him, and find yourself wanting to be in his arms at all times?”
Raina blinked and, for a moment, felt incredibly stupid. “Honestly, when you put it like that … not really.”
“Ouch,” Thomas commented. This time, Raina gave him a stern look and he took the hint to stay out of the conversation.
“So your love for him is not a love of passion or desire, but a love of … convenience?”
She frowned at the insightful High Court. “I wouldn’t call it convenience. It’s not like he’s my sugar-daddy or something. And he’s not a deadbeat slacker or a mooch. He’s a good guy. He does everything he can for me.”
“Except that he doesn’t inspire you,” Serenity said. “He doesn’t satisfy you.”
“How so?”
She shrugged. “Does he make you feel special? Does he worship you, and do you worship him? Does he help to complete your life, not only practically, but emotionally … and sexually?”
Raina glanced over and saw that not only was Thomas looking at her, but Sophie was listening in as well. Great. Raina struggled to find an adequate response, knowing that anything she said would be an embarrassment.
“I, ah … I’ve never had any complaints, really,” she admitted.
“But you’ve had better?” Sophie suggested. She wasn’t saying it for the sake of humor, as Thomas would have done. She looked dead-serious. She was genuinely engrossed in the topic, now. Reluctantly, Raina finally shrugged and looked down.
“I have had better,” she confessed, “but not with a guy.”
Glancing over, she saw Sophie lean back in her seat with a strangely satisfied smile. She was making her intentions almost painfully obvious. Between her attraction to Thomas and Sophie’s flirtations, she was already sure that something was going to happen between the three of them before this little vacation was over – good, bad, or otherwise. Perhaps she would have been wiser to have only brought along Olivia, instead…
“So then, the answer is no,” Serenity finally said. “You love him, but you’re not in love with him. He is more of a brother to you than a lover.”
“Uh … okay. Let’s just stop right there. I’m sorry, but that’s just messed up.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I do not love him like a brother because I would never have sex with a brother,” Raina replied. “I’m sorry, but I draw pretty firm line on some things about sex. Me, I’m over here on this side of the line. And screwing your siblings? That shit is way the hell over on the other side of the line.”
Serenity smiled and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant, dear. I only mean that you love him … I suppose I should say, you love him as a friend, not a brother, and not as a lover. Am I right?”
"Well, yes and no,” Raina said with a shrug. “Obviously, I think of him as more than a friend…”
“But you do not feel it.” Raina simply stared at her for a moment. “You say that you love him and you seem to regard him as your husband, but your words and your actions are empty. The emotions are not really there, not adequately enough for you to say that you are truly in love with him. You are playing a role simply because it is expected of you.”
“I, ah … I don’t think I’m comfortable with…”
“Please, dear,” Serenity interrupted gently, patting her hand again, “don’t take this as criticism. I am merely trying to help you see things clearly as they are.”
Raina narrowed her eyes slightly. “Why?”
“I want you find happiness in your life.”
“And again … why?” she persisted with a shrug.
“If I may be so bold as to say, your grace,” Serenity said, “I think that the IVC would benefit far more greatly from having a happy Grand Duchess than a miserable one. Misery tends to cloud one’s view of things and negatively affect their decisions. So, it behooves me to do anything that I can to help rid you of at least some of this negative energy which I see so often affecting you.”
“Is it really that obvious?” Raina asked half-seriously.
Serenity smiled. “My sensitivities go well beyond that which we are already blessed with as members of the High Court, your grace.”
“So, in other words … you want to be my personal shrink?”
“Your spiritual advisor, perhaps,” she offered with a graceful shrug of her own. “If you wish to grant me the opportunity, I am quite certain that I can help guide you to a new level of consciousness where you may look upon all things with an entirely new perspective, where you can balance out the negative things in your life with much more positive ones.”
“No offense,” Raina said with a smirk, “but I think it’s going to take a lot more than just a New Age makeover to iron out a lot of the kinks in my psyche. My list of issues covers more topics than the Library of Congress.”
“Care to share any with me?”
“You’ve already heard a few.”
“Are there many more?”
“More than I can count.”
“Well,” Serenity said with a smile, “it is a long flight, your grace.”
Raina rubbed her temple sorely with one hand. “You’re right about that. This is definitely going to be a long flight.”
* * * *
Chapter Eleven
Gold Canyon, Arizona
She stared at the blood-red digital display of the clock in the near-absolute darkness of the bedroom. The numbers appeared to stare back at her vertically, the LED display being so bright
that a blue ghost image of the digits remained in her vision when she closed her eyes again. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but she had a definite feeling that something major would soon be upon her. If her dreams were any indication at all of the future – and they usually were – then it would either be her salvation or her doom. Since waking from that dream, she hadn’t known what else to do but to lay there in the forced darkness of the bedroom.
Throughout the large house, the windows were covered with both a very dark tinting film and the addition of heavy drapes so that her host could walk about during the daylight hours without discomfort or harm. The night before, he hadn’t let her sleep until he, himself, was ready to do so. He micromanaged so many details of her life that she all but had to ask for permission to use the restroom. That was how he operated. That was part of his game. She was accustomed to his routine because she had been with a man like him before. The only difference between him and the other was that he didn’t even bother trying to disguise his behaviors as anything else. He was a controlling bastard. He owned her. And sadly, for the most part, she had come to accept that.
He snored, and loudly. She wasn’t sure why, but she had never thought that vampires could snore. Well, this one certainly did. And worse still, so did the other woman in bed with them. Even worse than that, the other woman had a tendency to talk and thrash about in her sleep when she’d been drinking, which she had done quite a bit before passing out. She was a light sleeper, but she had found that if she was ever lucky enough to fall asleep before either of them, she could usually get a fair amount of sleep. This was not one such occasion. She had managed to sleep for awhile, but once she had awoken, that was it. She was done. And thus, she could not go back to sleep, but she was not entirely free to leave the bed, either.
The cause of her insomnia was not the snoring of the other two in that king-sized bed, but rather the dream that had forced her to wake in a cold sweat. She could not even remember all of the details of that dream, only a few key parts. What she did recall was enough to scare her away from the idea of sleeping any further. Some dreams were memories, some were of things of present urgency, and some were of things that had yet to transpire; her dreams that day had been of all three melded together into one terrifying concept.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 22