Raina found her throat tightening as she re-read the brief message at least twice. With everything that had been going on, she had somehow successfully managed to distract herself into nearly forgetting about what had happened. She had known that she would have to deal with Svetlana directly at some point after having essentially run away from her. She still didn’t know how to feel about her, or about their friendship … if anything remained at all.
She still felt betrayed by both Svetlana and Loki. Raina felt that she had already been betrayed so many times over the past year that she was seriously beginning to doubt if it was even worth trusting anyone at all. Even Serenity could not be trusted … at least not entirely. Everyone lied. Everyone had their own agenda. Everyone was only looking out for themselves and their own interests. And even though Svetlana, at her very core, was really a sweet and genuinely good soul, she had kept a very big secret from Raina that had been deeply hurtful. Friends weren’t supposed to keep secrets from one another, especially secrets that hurt. Friends weren’t supposed to steal each other’s lovers, either … although, again, Raina still had mixed feelings on that matter. Truthfully, Raina felt that she had acted selfishly by inserting herself between Svetlana and Loki without any prior consideration.
Svetlana wanted to blame herself for this mess. Raina still cared enough about her to find that unacceptable. Logically, Raina was just as much to blame. In a sense, she could hardly justify her own reaction. Raina should have seen it coming. She should have had better control of herself from the start, anyhow. And anyway, sex wasn’t a big deal anymore – not amongst vampires, at least. Anyone else amongst the High Court would have seen the entire matter as a petty faux pas, as the only “wrong” thing about it was that Raina had not expressly given her consort permission to sleep with her servant. It could easily be taken as grounds for punishment, up to and even including execution if she were so inclined. Raina did not want that. She did not wish death upon anyone, really. She had expressed how hurt she was, and at least Svetlana appeared to be genuinely remorseful, so perhaps that was enough. Loki had appeared almost indifferent simply because he couldn’t quite fathom what the big fuss was all about. It would have been a total non-issue, if Duvessa had still been alive and in charge of things.
With a heavy sigh, Raina typed out her simple, honest reply:
Right now, I don’t know what to say. I’ll be home soon. We’ll talk more then.
She sent the message without signing her name to it. If Svetlana could access her account, then she could figure out who its author was on her own. Raina managed not to tear up and ruin her eyeliner, instead taking a few deep breaths and again forcing herself to clear her mind before moving onto the next message, which was from Lady Olivia.
Your Grace,
I cannot seem to reach you by telephone. I hope that everything is well. I do hope that you return soon. As I am sure you have already been made aware, Duchess Camille is dead. While the Council appears completely sympathetic to you, I must say that the media is taking this completely out of context. They are doing their best to make a martyr out of her. I’ll never understand how anyone could pity a retched monster like her, but there are apparently more than a few such people in the world. I, for one, am quite grateful that she is dead, and I am proud to say that my Mistress was the one to defeat her. The other Elders, as well as the rest of the Council, clearly have a newfound respect for you as their leader.
I am doing my best to keep things in order here, but your presence will be necessary very soon in the Hall to oversee the election of another Elder. As of yet, the authorities have not found anything more about the men that tried to kill you. I do hope that you are more successful in America than these bumbling idiots. Please understand that I have my own emotional stake in this matter as well, and I wish as much as you to see those responsible put to justice. Not only did those men nearly manage to kill you, your grace, but they nearly killed my niece.
I have taken care of arranging services for Ethan, and I am in the process of negotiating proper compensation for the driver’s family. I do hope you will return safely, and soon. I have faith in you. May God be with you.
Sincerely,
Lady Olivia Fallamhain
Raina stared at the screen for a few moments in numb shock before minimizing the window and opening another browser. She quickly connected to a news website and opened the headlining article that was printed in large, bold type: Duchess Camille Richard Dead, Grand Duchess Raina Fallamhain in Seclusion. She sat in absolute stillness for awhile, completely stunned.
So, Camille had succumbed to her injuries. Wow. The cut that Raina had made to her shoulder had been rather small, although a bit deep, and by itself it should not have been fatal. However, that bit of silver introduced into her bloodstream, in addition to the skull fracture and severe concussion she had suffered, had proven substantial enough to bring about her death. The severity of her head injury had left her unconscious and unable to consume any of the nutrients her body had needed to repair itself – blood, of course – and because no one had apparently thought to give her a transfusion of blood directly, her body began a cycle of self-cannibalism that ultimately had proven fatal. The only photographs and video in the article were of Camille as she was carried out of the Hall of the High Court following the duel, and of stock footage and photographs of her in the past.
Nobody in the media seemed to know at the moment exactly where Raina was at, although they were speculating (correctly) that she had returned to the United States. The media was already trying to make it sound as though she had gone into hiding because she knew that she had killed Camille, as though she expected some sort of violent reprisal. That was all well and good, actually, because it provided a cover for her real reasons for being back in Arizona. Alas, it was only a matter of time before she would be found by the mob of cameras and microphones and the obnoxious people that wielded them. Once they found her, whether she said anything to them or not, the truth would inevitably come out. If she was to meet this mystery bloodspawn-to-be, this “Mistress Monsoon” person, and thus find out who was behind the assassination attempt, she would have to do so quickly before…
“Whoa.”
The voice came from behind her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath upon her right ear. Raina gasped and stumbled away from Thomas, reflexively whacking him in the chest with her right arm. She stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed as her heart fluttered briefly in her chest, but she soon relaxed. Thomas was smiling only slightly as he stood there in nothing more than a black pair of jeans.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Raina finally said after a moment, clutching a fist above her left breast as though to feign a heart attack.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just reading the news with you.” His smile faded. “So … she’s dead?”
She stepped closer and turned the laptop away from his view towards herself. “Apparently so, yeah.”
“When?”
“According to this … just a couple of hours after…”
Raina couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence entirely. She had killed another person. She had killed an Elder. She wasn’t afraid of someone coming after her for this; it was just the realization that she had killed yet another person that simply mortified her. If she had known, Raina might have been in a completely different mindset for the past forty-eight hours. She might have made a few different decisions. She might have been a bit less inclined to “party” as she had the night before with another Elder of the IVC.
Then again, perhaps she would have felt measure sort of pride for having vanquished an enemy in hand-to-hand combat. She wasn’t sure how she would have felt, really. Raina still hadn’t really decided how comfortable she was or how accepting she should be of killing people. Being that killing wasn’t really a matter of choice for her, though, perhaps it was a moot point to even think about it at all.
Thomas approached her, placed a hand upon her s
houlder, and ran the fingers of his other hand through her hair, brushing across the pointy tip of her elf-like ear. He smiled that handsome, sexy smile of his, but he wasn’t trying to be seductive right now – just soothing.
“You did nothing wrong,” he told her, his Finnish accent a bit more subtle than Loki’s as he spoke. “I’m happy she’s dead. She was evil … like Duvessa.”
Raina nodded, her eyes drifting downward. Thomas’s chest was incredibly pale, not so much from his being a vampire as from his natural color, so the curls of hair that decorated his torso stood out in stark contrast. Thomas was not an especially hairy guy. Raina just wasn’t accustomed to seeing a male vampire with body hair or facial hair – one of the unique features of the Sabertooth race. His soft, dark brown, nearly black curls seemed almost deliberately arranged. It began as a broad blossoming form across his chest, narrowed to a stripe of sorts running down his firm, flat abdomen, and then flared out once again as it disappeared under the waistband of his jeans. She barely knew what the rest of him looked like, better remembering how he felt and tasted. Raina felt a definite urge to refresh her memory.
She refrained from acting out on her impulse to reach for the top button of his jeans. She had to behave. There were things to be done, prior obligations to be satisfied. She had satisfied her curiosity enough for awhile. Hopefully, there would be more time later, preferably in private and without an audience next time. She might even be brave enough to be sober the next time they coupled … although, for Raina, drunken sex had always been the rule rather than the exception…
“About last night,” Raina began as she turned away, folding her arms and leaning against the countertop, “I, ah … I just want you to know that … it wasn’t … I mean, I’m not like that. What I did was … reckless.”
“You didn’t like it?”
She glanced at him for a moment, unable to hold back the smile that came to her lips. “I won’t lie. It was good.” And just as quickly, her smile faltered. “At least, what I remember of last night was good. I can’t say I remember all of it. In fact, I barely remember anything about what we did.”
“It was the blood. You had a lot,” he told her, confirming what Sophie had said.
“Exactly. I don’t … do those sorts of things normally. I don’t want you to think that I’m like that when I’m sober,” she told him. “I have a bad habit of doing things that I really regret when I’m drunk. Usually, it’s just the alcohol, but I guess blood does the same thing to me. So … just so you know…”
“You don’t need to explain,” he said. “I know what you are saying.” She looked at him blankly, and his face appeared just as neutral. “I understand what happened. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. I don’t want you to think that I’m like that. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.”
He nodded. “I understand. It’s okay. It’s cool.”
Raina stared at him for a few moments, initially suspecting that he was only joking with her. He appeared utterly serious, and she sensed as much in his emotions. He wasn’t sad or upset with her (or himself) at all. He really was perfectly okay with what had happened. They’d had sex. It had been random, almost accidental, and totally as a result of her drunkenness. Thomas didn’t care. He wasn’t complaining. Apparently, he was just glad to have been there for it. He wasn’t reading into it for anything more than it was. It was sex, and that was it. She found herself glaring at him almost disdainfully as she shook her head.
“God, I wish it could be that easy for me,” she told him. “Sometimes I really wish I could be that casual about it.”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because I’m a girl, that’s why. I get attached. Sex means more to me than it probably does to you,” she explained.
“Sex means a lot to me. But I know sex and love are different,” he said. And without needing to speak another word, simply with the look that he gave her, he may as well have added two more words: Do you?
“I don’t know.” She looked away with a sigh, rolling her eyes. “I really don’t know, anymore. I used to think that you were only supposed to have sex with someone that you love. And now, it’s like sex is something all by itself and … God, I’m not even sure that I know what love is, by itself.”
“It just is. It’s something that … you just feel. You just know it, and you … take it for what it is,” he told her, apparently having to search for the proper English words to fit his sentiment. “You don’t think about love. It just is. Love is just love. And sex is just sex.”
“So … sex is meaningless to you? It’s just a thing that you do, and that’s it?” she asked, looking to him once more. She wasn’t even sure why she cared what he thought – morbid curiosity, perhaps.
“No, sex is good. Even when sex is just sex, it can be very good. And sex with someone you love is very … amazing,” Thomas replied with an added smile. “I just like to … take things for what they are. I don’t think about these things much. I used to think about things too much, and it made me crazy. Life is much better when you just enjoy it instead of thinking about it.”
Even without using any fancy words, Thomas had one hell of a point. In fact, his tendency to word things simply because of his slightly limited vocabulary in English made it that much easier to understand. And just like that, a big piece of the puzzle that Raina had been missing just snapped into place.
“You’re right.” She smiled, pushing away from the counter and approaching him. “God, you make it sound so simple.”
“Life is simple,” he said with a shrug. “People make life … what is the word?”
“Complicated?”
“Yeah. Complicated,” he agreed with a calm nod. “Life is only complicated if you make it complicated.”
She frowned a bit. “All I’m doing is just trying to make sense of everything. And every time I start to think I’m figuring it all out … well … then I realize that I don’t know shit about shit.”
Thomas chuckled at that and drew close to her, putting his arms about her waist. She immediately leaned into him, closing her eyes with a sigh, and it felt right. No, she wasn’t in love with Thomas. She liked him a lot, both intellectually and sensually, but she was not in love with him. But she couldn’t deny when a moment felt true and proper, and that was one such moment. She allowed this Sabertooth to hold her, rocking slightly, and she breathed in the scent of his skin as she ran her fingers through the soft fur of his chest. It was comfort, plain and simple, and without any strings attached. Sometimes, that was all it took to make her day.
* * * *
Chapter Eighteen
Gold Canyon, Arizona
She looked better than ever. No, wait. Scratch that. She looked better than she had in months; before she had looked much better than this, and without needing to try so hard. Sometimes, covering up bruises, bite marks, cuts, and scratches with concealing makeup could take quite a bit of time. Normally, she only needed to be concerned with the marks visible upon her face, neck, and hands, as she could easily enough cover up the rest with long sleeves, stockings, and longer skirts. She would be taking to the stage tonight, though. She had to look her best with her clothes on and off.
She had made arrangements, pulled a few strings, and called in a few favors. She was honestly excited about the prospect of going out to work that night, feeling a tingle and hum of anticipation throughout her body that she hadn’t felt since the first night she had ever taken hold of a brass pole. It wasn’t the idea of dancing in front of strangers with money that thrilled her on this night. In fact, her enthusiasm was not only rooted in the anticipation of whom she would be meeting that night, but also the realization that this would surely be the last time she would ever have to subject herself to this lifestyle. On this night, she would put an end to a sad, pathetic chapter in her life and begin anew. There was always the potential for disappointment, but she could ignore that risk when there was also a potential for great rel
ief and fulfillment. A future without potential was no future at all.
Of course, none of this had Mister Giovanni’s blessing. He was completely oblivious to her plans. She had done everything that she could to keep them a secret from him and anyone else that was not directly involved. He might have already suspected that she was up to something, but if he did, he hadn’t yet made it apparent. Then again, Mister Giovanni was paranoid enough to always believe that someone was plotting against him.
From what she had heard, he had always been abusive and mistrusting of others, particularly women. It was a despicable trait that had only been made worse when he had been severely beaten in front of his business and social peers by Grand Duchess Duvessa and Lady Brenna Fallamhain. In his twisted mind, Mister Giovanni somehow felt that Duvessa had betrayed him, having disregarded their prior alliance when she had made a public spectacle of him for the benefit of her newest bloodspawn. He had used this as his justification on more than one occasion for being so obsessively mistrusting and for, as he saw it, needing to assert his authority and dominance over the women in his life.
Well, none of that mattered, anymore. She would be out of his life soon enough. Or perhaps it was the other way around? She gave herself one last careful look-over in the glaringly bright lighting of the guest bathroom, posing this way and that, and testing a few facial expressions and motions just to be sure she had achieved the look she wanted. She didn’t want to be the subject of pity. She didn’t want to appear weak. She knew what this was all about. She knew how the game had to be played – and it was a game, really, but with very high stakes. To the best of her ability, she had to appear smart, confident, brave, and capable. She also had to appear sexy, desirable, and not the least bit shy. She didn’t know and honestly didn’t care whether sex would again be part of her future job description, but she figured that it couldn’t hurt to do her best to appeal to a vampire’s instinctual motivations. Whether straight, gay, or otherwise, every vampire could appreciate sex appeal, regardless of the gender presenting it.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 36