Darkness Embraced (12 page)

“Are you satiated?” she asked.

“Yes, are you?”

She smiled like a contented cat. “What do you think?”

I rested my head on her breast, kissing the soft and delicate skin there. “I think you are.”

She laughed and kissed me. “Then you would be correct,” she said. “Though I shall never in a million years think that I could ever get enough of you.”

My heart gave an expectant leap. I touched her face. “It’s hard to believe this is how it once was. Hard to believe we ever lost this.”

“I know,” she said and I felt the pang of sorrow and regret inside her. The look she gave me was somber. “Yet, it feels as if nothing has changed at all, except for you.”

“And you,” I said.

“I have changed?”

“A little.”

“How?”

I tried to pinpoint what exactly was different but couldn’t. “I don’t know,” I said at some length. “It just feels…different. It’s a better different, but it feels different.”

“Perhaps it is only different because of your growing powers and not some change in me. My feelings for you never wavered.”

I remembered her mouth between my legs. I had felt her love then, felt her love and lust that was so much like my own, but at the same time so very different. It hadn’t been my body or the sex she wanted to possess.

It was me, and in her own way, that was love.

I knew without doubt.

Everyone loves differently,
Cuinn mused.
Methinks your Queen is right. Ye did not see her love because ye did not know that in her own way she loved ye.

Cuinn…

Aye?

I don’t need relationship advice from a fox.

He seemed to think that was amusing, because he gave a startling bark of laughter that rang in my skull, making me flinch.

“What is it?” Renata asked.

“Cuinn,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did the little volpe say?”

I shook my head. “Nothing,” I murmured, “he’s agreeing with you, is all. Volpe?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “Fox in Italian. And I may very well like him after all.”

“I would like him much better if he weren’t in my head.”

“Well”—Renata nestled back against the pillows—“you are the one that picked the sword.”

She’s r—

Cuinn
, I warned.

I don’t need to say it.

No,
I thought,
you don’t.

As strange as it may sound, I was loathe to wash the scent of our lovemaking from my skin. The idea of walking before the entire court and smelling of her claim upon me sent a little thrill through me. In the end, I was reluctant to be so brash and baiting. I wore a wine-colored dress that cinched at the waist. The sleeves were long and wide, but not so much that they would get in the way. It was something comfortable that I could move freely in.

There was a knock on the door and I stood from my perch in front of the vanity table.

Epiphany.

I sighed and took the fox blade from the dresser, since Cuinn made it clear I had to.

It’s only Vasco
.

I was close enough to the door that I could smell the crisp scent of his cologne.

Caution before folly.

I rolled my eyes, opening the door.

Vasco strode into the room and I closed the door behind him, laying the fox blade back on the dresser.

When I turned around, I got an eyeful of his attire. He looked like a white and silver wrapped present.

“Damn.” I stared at him for several moments. “Is it Christmas already?”

The pants he wore were very tight. The only darkness was his hair and the black leather boots that hit just below his knees. There was a slight heel to the boots, making his legs look longer. The silver thread was still twined in his hair, but the braids had been pulled back, held captive in a low clasp.

Vasco grinned at me.

“Don’t even start,” I said and motioned with a hand at his outfit. “That was worth a stare or two.”

He laughed one of his low, rumbling laughs. “Even from a woman that loves women?”

“If those pants were any tighter, Vasco, you’d be a woman.”

He gave me a serious look. “Sì.” He wiggled his hips. “They are a little tight.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and caught my bottom lip between my teeth. I shook my head at him.

He gave a quick grin and returned to seriousness. “We do not have very long to talk. I am to escort you before the Elders.”

I nodded, already guessing as much. “Are you going to tell me about the upcoming challenge?”

He spread his arms out. “That is why I am here.”

I went back to the vanity table, watching his reflection in the mirror. He sat on my bed.

His nostrils flared and he turned toward the pillows like a hound on a scent trail.

“Vasco,” I said before he could pick the sheet up and hold it to his face.

His hand hovered. “Who did you sleep with last night, colombina?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

He started grinning again.

I pointed the brush at him like a weapon. “Stop it, Vasco.”

He was still grinning when he picked the sheet up and inhaled loud enough that I could’ve heard him without the supernatural hearing.

As quickly as the grin had appeared, it vanished. He dropped the sheet to the bed with a look of shock and horror.

I folded my hands in my lap with a sigh as Vasco leapt to his feet and started cursing in a slew of Italian. Although I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I understood what he was feeling. He was afraid, not just for me, but for Renata too.

I managed to catch the word, “Foolish,” and then that too was sucked in and drowned out by another long line of fast and indecipherable Italian.

“Great,” I said. “That’s nice, Vasco. Can you repeat that? In English, please?”

He froze. Apparently, he hadn’t realized he’d been speaking Italian.

After a moment, he blinked. “What have you done? What have you both done? You heard what she said last night!”

Impatiently, I started pulling the curls of my hair back, tying it off with a long black ribbon.

“I heard a lot more than you did, Vasco.”

He sat back on the bed heavily. “What is done is done.”

“It is,” I said. “Now tell me about the next challenge.”

“Signore dei Sogni. Lord of Dreams.”

“Sognare?” I asked, remembering the Elder’s name. Sognare had never been, in my opinion, one of the crueler Elders. In fact, in the past two hundred years I couldn’t remember him bothering me at all.

“Sì,” he said.

“Lord of Dreams?”

Vasco nodded. “His power has to do with dreams, inspiring them, controlling them.”

I tilted my head. “But that’s impossible. We don’t dream.”

“If Sognare wants you to dream, you will.”

That was interesting. I’d never heard much about Sognare. Actually, come to think of it, I hadn’t heard much about the Elders and their specific powers. I’d seen Sognare several times. And if you ask me, he reminded me an awful lot of the way humans portrayed their fictional wizards. However, that was probably because he was the oldest vampire that I’d ever seen. His gray beard was long enough to sweep the floor.

“That doesn’t sound very physical,” I said.

“Mental.” He shrugged. “Physical. It is both.”

I picked the fox blade up. Call it a hunch, but I had a feeling Cuinn wasn’t going to let me leave him behind.

Vasco eyed the sword. “It is true?”

“This?” I lifted the blade.

“The volpe spirito,” he said.

“Renata told you?”

“Sì,” he said. “She explained some. I have been assured that you have not gone deliriously mad and that your wits are still about you.”

“Well, not yet,” I said.

He offered his hand. “May I carry it? I know they are peculiar about such things, but you cannot walk into this challenge armed, as it is not a challenge of weapons.”

Not visible ones.

I waited for Cuinn to add more, but he didn’t.

Cuinn?

Aye?

Will you let Vasco carry you?

He seemed to consider it.

Then he surprised me by saying,
Aye,
I suppose.

I handed the sword to Vasco, hilt first.

Vasco took it. I turned toward the door when a heavy thump made me turn on my heel. The fox blade was planted firmly in the floor. I watched as Vasco struggled to retrieve it.

I heard Cuinn give a little snicker of laughter.

“Cuinn,” I said, this time aloud.

Vasco gave me a look and tugged on the sword again, bracing his booted feet several inches apart. The sword wasn’t budging. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to, either, supernatural strength or no. Vasco swore and this time I heard him say, “Volpe!”

All he needs to do is ask nicely.

“Vasco, ask nicely.”

“What?” He looked startled.

“You’re going to give yourself an aneurism; just ask him nicely!”

He blinked. “Why?”

I moved toward him and the sword Vasco and moved out of the way. I pulled the sword out of the stone in one fluid motion. “I’m not handing the sword to you until you ask nicely.”

Vasco blinked again. “Per favore?”

That’ll do.

I handed the sword to him. Vasco removed his own sword from his back sheath and laid it on the bed. He slipped the fox blade into his sheath, checking it with his hands. He seemed satisfied that it fit.

I let the surprise show. “It fits?”

“The sword and sheath were blessed by one of the Stregheria.”

“The what?”

“Stregheria,” Vasco repeated. “An Italian Witch. The sheath will fit any sword.”

“And the sword?” I asked.

“The sword will kill a vampire.”

“That’s a nice thing to be carrying on your back.”

“Right now I am carrying your volpe spirito trapped in steel, and this too is a nice thing to carry on one’s back.”

I didn’t know if he was teasing or not. “You’re saying my sword can bring true death to one of our kind?”

“Sì, or anything that you wish it to kill, for that matter.”

Cuinn,
I mentally purred at him.

Aye?
he said again, but this time he sounded irritated.

Is this true?

His ears swiveled back as he rested his maw on his forelegs.

It is.

You didn’t think to tell me, why?

’Cause ye’d find out eventually.

I shook my head. “Let’s go.”

Vasco bowed. The pommel of the fox blade was hidden behind the long braided tresses of his hair. I opened the door and stepped out in the hall, too busy giving in to my irritation to be particularly afraid.

Renata turned toward the doors as I made my way before her. I caught a flash of her dress, blue velvet so dark it was almost black, before I sank gracefully to my knees and fixed my gaze on the stone below me.

“Vasco,” she said and he rose from his kneeling position, knowing her will and taking his seat among the other Elders.

To me, she asked, “Is it your will to proceed?”

I dipped my head lower. “It is, my lady.”

“Lucrezia,” she said, “summon Sognare.”

I sensed more than saw Lucrezia get to her feet. She moved past me, and as she passed, the bulk of her heavy skirts brushed the side of my body.

A spark of anger flared through me and I fought to conceal it. The double doors clanged closed and the room was suddenly filled with eerie silence. It was a silence that belonged to an empty room, but it was not. It was only a room full of vampires that had no real reason to make any noise. Or so I thought.

A rustle of material sounded. Someone whispered, “Little rabbit.”

I looked up then, turning my face toward the sound of Gaspare’s sour voice. He sat beside Baldavino, who reclined at ease, rolling his eyes at Gaspare’s comment. The hair brushing his shoulders was as gold as a lion’s mane. Both of the Elders wore deerskin breeches, but where Gaspare’s velvet jacket was black, Baldavino’s was the solid color of pine needles.

I met Gaspare’s eyes and the look of taunting malice in them.

Cuinn’s androgynous voice crooned through my head,
Your mother was an ogre and your father the dribble from a goblin’s arse.

I gave a short and unexpected laugh.

On the dais, Gaspare’s hands clenched into fists. “You dare to laugh at me?”