He still didn’t move.
A smile teased her lips.
“It was a surprise in that it wasn’t about me,” she told him. “For a decade, I had been consumed by my lost ambitions, my old dreams, my pain. To the point that I couldn’t see anything else. Not even the people right in front of my face, who needed my help.
“And, frankly, the woman I had been wouldn’t have cared. Once, I wouldn’t have thought that a single life, even a rash of them, mattered in comparison to my ambitions. Once I thought that people lived to serve me, to worship me, to die for me. Once, I acted like the goddess I never was, not the queen I should have been.”
Mircea didn’t know what to say to that. He hadn’t expected such blunt honesty. He supposed the fifteen hundred years she was rumored to have lived, which he hadn’t believed until today, would give a person a chance for self-reflection. He wondered what clarity it would give him.
And then he almost laughed; he’d be lucky to make it to thirty.
“Nothing really changed after death,” she continued. “I was too sunk in horror at what I had become to learn anything. And too angry to have managed it even had I not been. I was consumed by thoughts of revenge, on the enemies I had had in life, on the creature I was forced to call master, on anything and everyone. I was sinking into the depths of the angry madness that consumes so many of us, and there seemed nothing that could change that.”
“But something did.” It was out before Mircea could stop it, and he wished he could have bitten his tongue off as soon as the words left his mouth.
But she merely looked at him, amused, letting her eyes drift over his features. “A decade or so after my Change, a vampire was brought into court. Or dragged, I suppose I should say. She was filthy, ragged, half mad, but not a revenant. A Finder had brought her in, looking for a bounty. Nothing surprising there—until he made it clear that he expected to get it from me. I asked him why, for I had put no price on anyone’s head, much less a strange girl’s.
“He said he thought I would like my daughter back.”
“Daughter?” Mircea frowned. “But you said a decade . . .”
“That was my question. I wasn’t powerful enough to make a Child, was still one myself. I am not sure at the time that I even knew how. And I was furious with this pale reflection of life, as it seemed to me then. Why would I have tried to force it on another?”
“Then she was lying.”
“She did not appear to have enough mind left to lie. But we would have thought her mistaken—had she not borne the family mark.”
“The mark?”
Dark eyelashes fluttered, and her head fell back. “Dear gods, so young. I am going to pay for this.”
“My lady?”
She sighed and shook her head before lifting it to look at him again. “All vampire families have an . . . energy pattern . . . visible to us if we concentrate. It’s part of the blood bond. Our master’s blood animates us, therefore we bear some of his power. In time, as ours grows, our pattern differentiates from his, remaining similar, but not the same. When we make a Child, they gain our pattern, and eventually form their own from it. Likewise, the humans we take as servants, if they are important to us, are marked, so that everyone knows to which family they belong—and who will avenge them should they be harmed. Even a Child traded to another family will always bear a memory of our mark alongside his new master’s.”
Mircea blinked. “Do . . . I have a mark?”
“No. You are masterless. Cursed?” she guessed.
He nodded abruptly.
“Then there was no one to give you power, no one to mark you.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “There is no pattern I can see, but the color is pale flame. It may turn white in time. You are too young to tell, at this point.”
Again, she shook her head ruefully.
“But this girl had a mark?” Mircea persisted.
She waved a hand, making her bracelets clink. “It was indistinct, muddled, as it often is with the very young. But it was there. That is why the Finder who ran across her believed her story enough to make the trek all the way out to see us.”
“Then someone in the family had made her.”
“Someone, yes. But no one stepped forward to claim her.”
“But I thought the mark—”
“None of them matched.”
Mircea thought. “Then perhaps one who had died—”
“The family had lost no masters recently, not in more than fifty years. And the girl was clearly younger than that.”
Mircea wrinkled his forehead. He usually liked puzzles. But this one . . .
“But she also did not match your pattern?”
She shrugged. “I was young then, too. And my energy pattern was so weak, it was impossible to say if the girl’s matched it or no. But I assure you, as I did them, that even had I been able, I had made no Child.”
“So a mystery.”
She nodded.
“And the girl could tell you nothing?”
“We tried questioning her, but she was delusional, her ravings that of a madwoman. She just kept calling me master and saying that she had been looking for me. And screaming and trying to attack anyone who came near me. I nonetheless kept her at court, waiting for my master to return from a trip, in order to ask him about her. But it became increasingly difficult to control her. She ran away one night, fleeing into the desert after a fit.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. I never saw her again.”
“Then . . . that’s it?” Mircea asked, confused.
She smiled. “Were you expecting something more dramatic? I am sorry to disappoint you. I could tell you stories that would be more so, but you wanted the first.”
“And . . . that helped you?” He didn’t see how.
But she nodded again.
“It did, yes. It was a brief interlude, but for the first time since the Change, I spent energy thinking about someone else. Worrying about her, even. Trying to help her. I failed, but the process reminded me of a time when I had lived in a whirlwind of action, instead of brooding about my room. It also forced me to speak with many people about court who I had never before bothered to meet. Individuals, in some cases, centuries older than I, with more knowledge than I had ever known existed. My search didn’t give me the answer to my question. But it made me think . . . that someday, I might perhaps find one.”
Mircea thought about that, and found it both useful and not. Useful, in that it highlighted something he’d already vaguely understood: that those who succeeded at this life had more than raw power. They had something to live for. Something so compelling that it made them willing to struggle on, despite whatever obstacles were placed in their way, rather than take that early morning walk along the beach.
And not useful, because he wasn’t sure that he had anything similar himself.
He looked up suddenly, to find her watching him. Her expression was unreadable, but he didn’t need it. She’d been more generous than he could possibly have expected, almost . . . kind . . . although he didn’t understand it.
“Why did you tell me this?” he asked, half in wonder.
“My ladies and I knew that you were young, but not so young. It is often hard to tell, with those newly Changed. We guessed . . . wrongly. And assumed you had reserves that you did not.”
“Then . . .” Mircea took a moment to get his head around the idea. “Then this is an apology?”
A fine eyebrow went up. “I never apologize.”
“Then why help me?”
“I am aware that perhaps sometimes I should do,” she laughed, and pulled him down to her.
Chapter Fifteen
“I don’t think you’re cut out for this lifestyle,” someone said, as Mircea swam groggily back to consciousness.
He blinked his eye
s open, not that it helped much. All he saw was pillow. Until he flipped over—and damn, that hurt—and saw a cracked mug instead. One that was dripping cold, clear, wonderful water onto his upturned—
Mircea grabbed the thing desperately and drained it dry before he bothered to look around. “Why is that?” he finally croaked.
“Well, one thing would be, every time you go out, you almost die.”
Mircea managed to focus his eyes enough to see Jerome sitting on the foot of his bed. At least, he thought it was Jerome. “What did you do?” he asked, staring at the man’s head.
“It’s the latest thing,” Jerome told him, pausing to admire himself in the small convex mirror over the washstand. “What do you think?”
“That it looks like you’ve lost your damned mind,” Bezio said, from the doorway.
“I wasn’t asking you.” Jerome sniffed, and looked expectantly at Mircea.
Mircea thought it looked like a terrified poodle had climbed onto the vampire’s head. And died. Because, in place of his former sleek locks, Jerome now sported a wide shock of frizzy blond hair, with a shaved neck that virtually forced the two sides to stick out like, well, like a dog’s ears.
“Isn’t it fun?” Jerome asked.
“It’s . . . stunning,” Mircea said truthfully, and rolled out of bed. And went to his knees, but not because of blood loss. But because—
“What happened to me?” he whispered, wondering why everything hurt. And then he caught sight of himself in the little mirror and just stared. For a moment, he was terribly afraid he was about to be told that this was also “the latest thing.”
“I told you,” Jerome said patiently. “You almost died again. You need to stop doing that.”
“I’m sure he’ll keep that in mind,” Bezio said dryly. He looked at Mircea. “You really don’t remember?”
Mircea shook his head, and then immediately regretted it. His skin felt too tight, and looked it, too. It was also slick, shiny, and bright red. If he hadn’t been a vampire, he’d have thought he had a bad sunburn.
But that was clearly absurd.
“I could explain but . . . I’m not sure I could do it justice,” Bezio told him. “It’s better if you see it.”
“See what?”
Jerome laughed, and slid off the bed. “That’s right! He can watch it with us. Come to Marte’s room when you get dressed,” he told Mircea. “But don’t wait too long. It’s about to start!”
They left. Mircea gingerly walked over to the wash basin and repeated the performance of the previous day. The water felt as good as it had then, better even. And without the need to breathe, he could keep his whole face in the cool, cool liquid, waiting for it to stop feeling like it was going to combust.
The gown was secured by a jeweled clasp on each shoulder. Mircea didn’t bother removing them. He pushed the material aside, impatient, greedy, suddenly ravenous. And found sweet, firm flesh that pebbled under his tongue as she arched up, heedless of the nearby crowd.
Possibly because it was no longer there.
A glance showed him the final guests heading down the stairs, glasses in hand. A few paused to look back at them, and then to whisper something to each other, before hurrying away. To join the crowd beginning to assemble in the gardens below, as the contest drew to an end.
He decided he didn’t care.
“There’s to be a ceremony,” she said, as he slid the dress off the other shoulder.
“You’re going to miss it,” he told her.
Coral lips curved. “I’ve had ceremonies.”
He stood up, efficiently stripping off his cioppa, the short velvet robe worn over the doublet on formal occasions. Too efficiently, as it happened.
“Slower,” she told him, as he threw it over a nearby table.
He stopped, realizing what she wanted.
And an insane, mischievous urge caught him. He slowed his movements to a crawl, undoing the several dozen small buttons on his doublet with excruciating deliberateness. He then carefully folded the expensive garment, so that the tiny jet beads on the embroidery were inside and protected, before finding a spot for it on the table with his robe.
His client watched him through lowered lids, and said nothing.
He toed off his shoes, biting back a smile, before carefully lining them up beside the chaise. He decided they weren’t quite straight, and nudged them into line with a silk-covered toe. Better.
The shirt he left in place, the mass of embroidered linen as long as a tunic, the extra needed for pulling through the slashes in the doublet. The belt and hosen were easily dealt with, but he stretched out the process, being as careful with them as Paulo could have hoped. He was still dithering about, trying to find the best way to fold a garment that was in no way square, when he heard bracelets clink.
And looked down to find a beautiful face—and yes, it was beautiful, how had he ever thought otherwise—staring up at him from a few inches away.
And then the shirt was torn in two, leaving him wearing only a few scraps of expensive linen.
“I thought you wanted a show,” he said, in mock protest.
“I’ve had shows, too,” she said, and jerked him down.
Mircea surfaced, hard enough to send a plume of water splashing against the wall. It left a large mark on the old plaster, which he watched soak in as he tried to summon the memory again. It didn’t work.
The last thing he recalled was being pulled down onto the chaise. And catching his breath at the implication that she’d had shows but not him. And his immediate resolve to correct that deficiency.
He stood there for a moment, naked, dripping, and quivering in frustration, waiting for more. Which stubbornly refused to come. He scowled at his reflection, but stopped because it hurt. Even tiny movements did. Not too surprising, since the sunburn or whatever it was had not been confined to his face.
Mircea twisted in front of the small mirror, frowning. If it had been the sun that left him like this, shouldn’t his face be the worse off? Or his hands? They’d been exposed for far longer, after all. But they were actually less of an issue than the back of his body, which was several shades darker and far more painful than the front.
He looked like a pig on a spit that a careless servant had left to roast for too long without turning. He hadn’t blistered, or if he had, his body had already taken care of it. But he understood why he’d been sleeping on his stomach.
He finally started dressing, using the shirt from his red outfit in place of the one designed for the black. It matched well enough, although he was certain Paulo would notice the difference. Not that Mircea would have cared if he could just remember—
The smooth, olive-skinned body was draped in acres of shimmering silk, so diaphanous that it might have been merely a glittering cloud. It concealed well enough when bunched together, but offered tantalizing glimpses of the treasures below whenever she moved. Or stretched, or arched up shamelessly, destroying the last of his resolve.
Mircea feasted on the silken purity of a long throat as he worked his way through the excess fabric. “I hadn’t planned . . . on this today,” she laughed, as he fumbled with her belt.
“But you did . . . plan on it,” he said, still kissing her, as the stubborn thing finally came free.
“It crossed my mind. When you’d recovered.”
“I’m recovered.”
“So it would seem,” she murmured, pressing up against him. “Your mistress fed you well.”
She hadn’t, but Mircea didn’t feel the need to point that out. Or anything else, for that matter. Not when the gown parted, revealing, as he’d suspected, that she wore nothing underneath.
He paused a moment, transfixed by the smooth, olive-skinned body, the full breasts, the dark nipples, the small waist.
And the long, shapely legs that parted to allow him room
between them.
Mircea knelt beside the chaise, his lips finding the taut flesh of her inner thigh. And moving up in a slow, dragging caress. She was like honey warmed in the sun, he thought dizzily: sweet, fragrant, and, finally, liquid.
She arched up at his every movement, flagrantly passionate, directing him with her body and the soft sounds she made where she wanted him to go. Mircea followed the hints, gave her what she wanted, but it was so goddamned hard. Hard to go slow, hard to wait for the gradual buildup of passion when he was already there, hard to enjoy part of her and not have all of her.
He didn’t want to go slow. He wanted to make love in the sunshine, as he hadn’t in so long. He wanted to feel alive again, just for a little while. He wanted to find out if such a thing was even possible.
He wanted . . . he wanted.
He growled and moved closer, hands gripping her hips, his body sprawling half over the chaise in his eagerness. He heard her laugh above him, and then felt his head being pulled up to meet a pair of amused dark eyes. “Enjoy it,” she murmured. “Next time is on my terms.”
He didn’t understand what she meant by that, but for some reason, it sent a shiver down his spine.
But the “enjoy it” part he understood perfectly.
“Are you coming?” The voice was jarring, and unwanted enough that Mircea snarled as he spun toward the door.
Jerome jumped back, blinking. And then stayed where he’d landed, hidden partly behind the door, with just his head protruding around the jamb. His usually big gray eyes were huge.
Mircea put a shaking hand up to massage the bridge of his nose, but jerked it away when that hurt, too. He stood there, panting, for a moment, in pain. And frustrated enough to have punched through the damned wall.
He wasn’t sure what he believed about the Divine anymore, after all that had happened to him, but he knew there was a God.
Because He hated him.
“I—it’s just—it’s starting,” Jerome squeaked. And then scampered away, like a frightened rabbit.
Mircea stood staring at the door for a long moment. And at nothing else. He finally sighed and finished dressing, pausing to run a comb through his hair briefly before following after the smaller vampire out the door.