The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations

by David M. Bachman

  Raina considered that for a moment. She shrugged, saying, “I’ll admit there’s a resemblance, but … you’re definitely unique. You seem to have almost gone out of your way to make an identity for yourself. Honestly, that’s what I think I like the most about you. I like the fact that you’re you, and that you don’t let others define who and what you are.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile.

  “What about you, though?” Raina immediately asked. “How do you feel about … you know … what happened?”

  “You mean … how do I feel about when you kissed me?” She grinned and looked away almost shyly for a moment, pausing to choose her words carefully. Samantha turned back toward Raina with a slightly more serious expression. “I wasn’t expecting it, of course. But I wasn’t offended at all, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re not the first woman that’s ever kissed me. I’ve done a lot worse.”

  “Worse?” Raina echoed with a raised eyebrow. “Meaning … it’s bad?”

  “No, no,” she said quickly, “I only mean that I’ve had my share of experiences. Everyone experiments a little bit at some point in their lives … especially nowadays. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve been with other women before. You name it, I’ve probably tried it. I’ve never dated another girl before, though, and I’ve certainly never been in love with one. I just don’t find them to be all that interesting.” She hesitated, meeting Raina’s gaze for a few moments. “Not usually, anyway.”

  Raina studied her face for a few moments, trying to read her emotions for some clue as to what she might be thinking. She could discern nothing that was of any help, really. Samantha was attracted to her, but it seemed to be a very light, shallow sense of attraction, nothing as intense as how she honestly felt towards Samantha. Then again, she had never been able to read humans that well, so it was hard to say with any vague kind of certainty what Sam really felt. She didn’t want to risk offending her, but just as well, she would never really know unless she was bold enough to ask.

  Raina tipped her glass back to empty it as Samantha did the same. She took one last drag from what was left of her cigarette, and then dropped it into the empty wine bottle, exhaling that last smoky breath aside. Raina briefly glanced up to the dimly visible stars above as she spoke.

  “So, then,” she said with a restrained smirk as she slowly began to turn her head back toward Sam, “what would you do if I…”

  Raina found Samantha’s hands upon her face and their lips being pressed together, answering her question before she had even finished asking it. Raina was surprised, but she gave herself to the kiss readily, closing her eyes and opening her mouth to Sam’s as she reached for her. Samantha was half-standing, with one knee beside Raina upon the bench, so she wasn’t close enough for her to embrace. Tasting of merlot and tobacco, a delicious smoky sweetness, Raina laid her hands upon Samantha’s shoulders and brought herself to stand without breaking that precious kiss, thus enabling her to wrap her arms about the slender waist of her future bloodspawn. Her hands rested at the small of her back innocently enough, and she had to consciously fight the urge to start tugging away Sam’s clothing immediately.

  Samantha seemed to deliberately intensify their kiss, humming softly with approval as her tongue softly probed and explored. Carefully, delicately, Sam seemed to consciously focus upon the sharp, smooth, glossy texture of Raina’s upper teeth, and Raina withdrew her own tongue to allow this … and to avoid the risk of accidentally cutting her own tongue again. The moment she tasted blood at a time like this, she would lose all control. Right now, she was teetering on the edge, but she still knew where the line was drawn. She could still retain conscious rule over her own actions, and she could stop any time Samantha was ready to stop.

  The kiss seemed to last forever. That was perfectly fine with Raina. They stood together, they held their bodies firmly together, and they kissed as though they were breathing through one another … and that was all. It had been so very, very long since she’d ever simply kissed someone, a virtual eternity since she had done something as relatively innocent as making out. In fact, now that she thought about it … when had the last time been?

  Always, always, whenever she had kissed someone like this, it had led to sex. This had been especially true with Loki. He wasn’t unaffectionate, but he never had seemed to understand her other needs and desires – the ones that didn’t involve an orgasm. No, she realized now that it had never really been lovemaking with him so much as simple fucking, every bit as crude and primal as that word sounded … and sadly, that had been good enough for Raina, at least since Brenna had died. But, again realizing it only then, Raina knew that she also had never kissed Brenna like this, or at least not that she could recall.

  Given the way that bloodlust blurred her memories with its passion, she very well might have experienced this with Brenna when she had Duvessa had consummated their union. And those hours she had spent with Duvessa on their first night together … who knew? Barring those possibilities, Raina could not think of a time in recent history that she had ever known a kiss like this. Perhaps not since … wow … not since her days of dating in high school.

  There had been that one boy, the one that she had dated for all of two weeks, and the time they’d done a bit of necking behind the privacy of some tall bushes in his back yard. He had literally taught her how to kiss, and although his lessons had not been wasted upon her, she felt that nobody else she had ever been with since then had in any way appreciated that first level of physical affection. Perhaps she had unlearned everything over the years, forgetting what it was like to truly enjoy the intimacy of a good kiss. Samantha seemed quite willing to help refresh her memory, perhaps even show her something new. She was certainly an enthusiastic teacher.

  Samantha wasn’t just passionate about kissing. She was superbly skilled at it, too. She would break the kiss only to take another angle at it, to place lighter pecks up and down her cheeks and neck, or to flick her tongue at the soft lobe of Raina’s pointed elf-like ears. She would run her fingers through Raina’s hair or caress her throat when she wasn’t grabbing her shoulders or waist to pull her in even closer still. Her tongue was never intrusive, only curious, teasing. And twice, she would pull away and hold Raina’s face in her hands, their foreheads touching lightly as those amazing emerald green eyes of hers seemed to try to read things in Raina’s soul that even her own High Court abilities would never be able to detect in others.

  It wasn’t dirty or kinky or even sexual in the slightest bit, really. It was like breaking through the surface of a frozen lake and taking the first few gasps of precious air after having been held underneath for most of her life – refreshing, invigorating, and yet so strange and new that it was almost frightening in a way.

  For once, Raina didn’t find herself overwhelmed. She didn’t black out, nor did she catch herself in the midst of doing something she hadn’t been consciously doing in the first place. No, this was all very real, all very in-the-moment. She wasn’t so blinded with passion that she was unable to consciously listen for any sounds of another’s approach, as she did not want to be interrupted twice in one night. But she was not so worried or so paranoid about being observed that she could not give herself adequately to the experience.

  At last, Samantha withdrew and placed her hands upon Raina’s shoulders to hold her gently away at arms’ length. Licking her lips and smiling, she caressed Raina’s cheek gently with one hand, letting out a heavy sigh of contentedness.

  “God, you’re amazing,” Raina breathed.

  “It was only a kiss,” Sam replied with a grin.

  “Maybe for you, yeah.” Raina’s eyes grew heavy as she nuzzled her face against Sam’s soft fingertips. “Nobody’s ever kissed me like that.”

  “Like I said, it was only a kiss,” Samantha insisted as her smile became more seductive. She nodded toward the French doors to their left. “We can take this into the bedroom, if you’d like…?”

  Raina o
pened her mouth to reply, but she caught herself. It wasn’t a flirty suggestion; it was a legitimate question. And the question, at least as far as Raina was concerned, wasn’t simply a matter of whether or not she was interested in getting carnal with Samantha, but rather a question of whether or not she was willing to commit.

  Surely, Sam understood. She had been around vampires often enough, or at least read about them and heard enough about them, so she knew the means by which vampirism was spread. Essentially, the rules for avoiding the Change were about the same as for avoiding, say, an infection with HIV: no blood or sexual secretions. Between a male and a female, that was more or less just a matter of slipping on a latex sheath. It wasn’t so simple between two females, or at least it wasn’t anything Raina wanted to try, because that would have made the whole thing seem to detached, impersonal, and … well, pointless.

  What Samantha was essentially asking was whether she wanted to initiate her Change that night. The Communion of Blood was a traditional means of starting the Change, but not the only way, of course. For once, Raina preferred to be traditional. Besides … it was just too damned soon.

  “Not yet. Not tonight,” Raina finally said, although it was very hard.

  Samantha looked surprised. “You don’t want to?”

  “Oh, I do. Totally,” she agreed readily with a nod and a smile. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not for a lack of wanting.”

  “Then … why not?”

  “Too much, too soon. I don’t want to rush into anything.”

  “So, you’re not sure about me…?”

  Raina shook her head and held up a hand. “That’s not what I mean. I’m cool with that. I’ve already agreed to be your Maker. That’s already been decided. I’m just not sure if we … y’know … if we should be…”

  “Getting intimate?”

  “Maybe.” Raina shrugged, awkwardly glancing away. “Hell, I don’t know. Am I being weird about this?”

  Reluctantly, Samantha smiled a bit and admitted, “Maybe.”

  “Well, for one thing, I want to do this right. I don’t want your Change to be started by accident.”

  “Then let me have your blood,” Samantha replied bravely. “Don’t worry, I’m not squeamish. I won’t get sick. I’ll drink as much as you’re willing to give me. I’m ready for it. I’m not afraid.”

  Raina shook her head. “You don’t understand. I want to do it properly, with witnesses and everything. With Loki, it was just an accident … and a mistake, honestly. I don’t want to leave anything to chance with you. If you want this … if you really, really want this … then I want to do it right. I want it to mean something, instead of just being an ‘oops’ kind of thing. You know?”

  Samantha reluctantly agreed to that, nodding her head solemnly as the mood evaporated. They let go of one another and found themselves standing together in awkward silence. Raina noticed that she had dropped her wine glass upon the soft, damp grass of the lawn, the only thing she had done amidst her excitement that she hadn’t been aware of doing. She picked it up and plucked away a couple of loose blades of grass from its surface before looking to Sam again. For the first time, Samantha actually let her prim and proper façade of elegant womanliness slip, momentarily replaced by a shy young girl in a thirty-something’s body. She nibbled nervously upon the black polished nail of her index finger and spoke around it as she talked.

  “We don’t have to do that,” Samantha said shyly. “We can just … be together. You know? After all, It’s not as though either of us has never been with another woman.”

  Raina smiled a bit, stepping closer to take her by the shoulders. Looking into those beautiful eyes of hers once more, she said, “I’m trying really, really hard to be good and do the right thing, Samantha. I am the Grand Duchess. I have to do things a certain way because that’s what I am, and because that’s what is expected of me. People in the IVC don’t see things the way normal folks do. When a Grand Duchess picks a bloodspawn, it has to be a big production. It’s supposed to be official. What happened with Loki was embarrassing because we had to do the Communion of Blood after he’d already started his Change. I caught a bunch of flak from the IVC Elders for that. I don’t want to do that twice.”

  “I see.” Samantha let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re right, this is too soon. I’m moving too fast…”

  “No, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Raina insisted, running her fingers through the silky smooth blackness of Sam’s hair. “I’m just glad you stopped to ask. I don’t think I would have stopped unless you’d made me think about it first. If you’d just led me by the hand to the bedroom … well…”

  Sam smiled almost impishly as she tugged upon Raina’s hand. “What if I led you by the hand right now?”

  “Please, don’t do that.”

  “You’re not interested?”

  She paused, tilting her head slightly aside. Rather than answering her question, Raina asked, “I thought that Serenity told me you were straight…?”

  Samantha shrugged as she replied, “It’s just been a personal policy of mine never to date other women, that’s all. I’ve just never wanted to have a full-on relationship with someone of my own gender. But … I’m willing to make an exception here.”

  “Why me? Why am I so different?” Raina asked. After a moment, she added, “I mean, besides the whole Grand Duchess title and all that…?”

  “Quite honestly, I’m not sure,” Sam replied, “but I’d like to find out. I hold a great deal of respect for you and for the things you’ve done for others.”

  “Respect isn’t the same thing as attraction.”

  Sam’s smile faded as she glanced aside. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, and I know it may sound strange, but … quite honestly … I’d like to get to know the person my sister so dearly loved. From everything I’ve seen and heard about what the two of you shared, I know that Brenna loved you like she never loved anyone else before. You were very, very special to her.” She met Raina’s eyes once more. “I’ll understand if you don’t feel comfortable with that idea.”

  Raina considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “Let’s just take this one step at a time. Okay?”

  Sam grinned for a moment before looking over her shoulder toward the back door leading into the laundry room. The light inside the kitchen still glowed, and Raina was sure that she glimpsed a shadow of movement inside. Had Sophie or Thomas (or both) been watching them all that time? If they had … well, so what? It was nothing of which to be ashamed. And anyway, the world would know soon enough that Samantha and Raina were to be bound by blood.

  “So,” Sam finally said as she turned to Raina again, “when will I be yours?”

  Raina shrugged. “Why not tomorrow?”

  “Why not tonight?” she persisted gently. “We have witnesses here.”

  She shook her head, her smile vanishing. “You don’t understand. Normally, I wouldn’t want to make a media circus out of things like this, but … it actually would help us if we did. If everyone knows that you’re my bloodspawn, then nobody would dare to hurt you or your family.”

  “Well … that was more or less the original plan, wasn’t it?” Sam replied with a smirk.

  “That was the plan with Jasmine, actually.” Raina narrowed her eyes slightly. “Let’s not get carried away here and lose sight of why we’re both standing here right now.”

  That immediately put a damper on Samantha’s spirits. She turned away and stepped out of Raina’s reach as she picked up Raina’s dropped wine glass and then paced calmly toward the swinging bench to collect hers.

  “If anything happens to that poor girl, I’ll never forgive myself,” she told her sadly. “If I hadn’t been so selfish about things…”

  “She’ll be fine, I’m sure,” Raina assured her. “Dante Giovanni wouldn’t dare. He knows better. He knows what I’ll do to him if he hurts her.”

  Samantha’s face paled with dismay as she said, “But … if he kn
ows that … then he already knows that you intend to kill him. He’s got nothing to lose.” The remorse and sorrow that Raina sensed from her showed plainly in her eyes. “He’s probably already killed her by now. That poor girl…”

  Raina moved in closer to her, putting a hand upon her shoulder. Samantha almost seemed to shrink away from her just a bit, as though she expected that Raina would blame her for Jasmine’s fate as much as Sam appeared willing to blame herself.

  “Don’t be so negative. It won’t do us any good to always assume the worst.”

  Sam offered an almost pained smirk. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not the most positive-thinking person you’ve ever met. Life has taught me that the easiest way to set oneself up for disappointment is to always expect a positive outcome. When you always assume the worst, the outcome is easier to handle when it turns out that you were right.”

  “Wow,” Raina breathed, “that actually sounds like something I would say.”

  “Then perhaps we’re a better fit than either of us initially figured,” Samantha replied with a smile, softly kissing the back of Raina’s hand.

  * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gold Canyon, Arizona

  “I am very unhappy with you,” Mister Giovanni said as he drove them along in the plush Cadillac SUV. “I gave you a perfect life. I gave you gifts. I paid your bills. I bought you clothes. I took you places. I shared my home with you. I gave you everything. And this is how you thank me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jasmine said as she stared out the side window, though her words sounded every bit as insincere as they felt.

  Surprisingly, he hadn’t caused much of a scene when he had more or less dragged her from the club … mainly because he had sent someone else in to fetch her. One of Dante’s hired goons had calmly walked in just after she had finished her set, grabbed her by the arm with a vise-like grip that would surely leave bruises, and escorted her straight out to meet a clearly displeased Mister Giovanni in the parking lot. He seemed edgy, not only with anger but also with something else, an emotion that she had never before seen from him but now was plainly clear. He was afraid, very afraid. He knew exactly what was going on, or at least he had a pretty good idea, and the reality of it scared him. How could someone like him have never seen this coming?