Lover's Knot

by Karen Chance

  Lover's Knot

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lover's Knot

  By Karen Chance

  Copyright 2017 Karen Chance

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends.

  This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes,

  provided the novella remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this novella, please

  return to your favorite retailer to discover other works by this author. You can also visit my web site at KarenChance.com for more free shorts and news about upcoming releases.

  Spoiler warning: This novella is part of the Dorina Basarab series of books published by Penguin Random House. It is set after the first three novels of the series, Midnight's Daughter, Death's Mistress and Fury's Kiss, and provides some spoilers for those books.

  Chapter One

  1457, Mircea

  The rooftops of Venice, Italy

  Something hit the side of a building and exploded, sending dagger-like pieces of brick flying outwards. One cut Mircea's cheek, even in the split second it took for him to race by at vampire speed. He bit back a curse, and then wondered why he bothered. Blood was a siren's song to his ears, and likely louder still to his pursuers.

  But he and his companion were already covered in it.

  A stray beam of moonlight lit the tumbled blond hair and ivory features of the vampire Mircea was now less supporting than outright carrying. It also highlighted the fear in his eyes, because Jerome could sense their pursuers, too. And the fact that they were closing in.

  "Leave me," he whispered, barely a sigh on the wind. But right on cue, two more shadows altered course, converging on their position from several streets over. Or several canals, which was the only thing that had saved them so far. Walking on water was a skill set reserved for the undamned part of humanity, of which neither they nor their pursuers could number themselves any longer.

  But it wasn't going to be enough.

  Mircea could see it in the slow but steady gain the leaders were making. Could taste it in the difference in the age and quality of the blood flowing through their veins, and that trickling down his own face. Could feel it every time one of those strange energy bolts they were throwing exploded against a building or hissed through the water in a canal. Only a superior knowledge of the city had kept him alive this long.

  Alive, he thought derisively, a bitter gorge rising in his throat even as he leaped from the side of a canal. He hadn't been alive for years now, as evidenced by the fact that, instead of taking a bath in the dirty water, his foot hit the bottom of a passing barge, using it as a springboard to the side of a building on the opposite shore. But he wasn't ready to go into the great unknown that followed death just yet either, although that was starting to look like an inevitability.

  At least, it was if he stayed on the ground.

  "Hold on," he told Jerome, and jumped for the roof.

  There was a brief, very un-vampire-like scramble for purchase on crumbling brick, before his foot finally caught a piece of masonry that didn’t disintegrate under his heel. His free hand grabbed a gutter, his other foot found the top of a window, and there. Suddenly, they were tearing across the rain-slick rooftops of Venice, terracotta sliding under Mircea's feet as he fought for balance and speed.

  And he wasn't the only one. The vampires were right behind them, dark, barely visible silhouettes against the star-strewn sky that were rapidly getting bigger. Because the ruse hadn’t worked.

  "Leave me!" Jerome said again, grabbing the front of Mircea's shirt.

  "Be silent," Mircea hissed, wishing passionately for a sword. But swords and armor were from his old life, and wouldn’t help him now. Not when all the rules had changed, and everything he'd ever been taught about life upended.

  Well, almost everything.

  "What are you doing?" Jerome whispered, as Mircea grabbed the heavy coin purse off his companion's belt. And bounded to a house across a narrow alley. And scrambled over the pitch of the roof to stare down at the brilliantly lit square below, which was flooded with revelers now that the earlier squalls had dissipated.

  "Mircea . . ."

  "Buying time," Mircea said, and threw a glittering arc into the teeming crowd.

  A moment later, he and Jerome landed in the middle of the yelling, scuffling, gold-maddened throng, along with a dozen shadows he could barely see, but not because of anything they were doing.

  But because the square was dazzling.

  The quiet, moon-drenched canals had suddenly been replaced by a dizzying kaleidoscope of senses. Light streamed across Mircea's vision from torches and windows and lanterns and candles. Sound hit his ears like battlefield bombardment, full of shouts and squeals, calls and curses. Scuffling feet and flying elbows were everywhere, along with gleaming dark eyes behind leering masks, and glittering jeweled necks, and reaching dirty hands, and incense and mildew and bad breath and alcohol. Even for a human, it would have been stunning; for someone with a vampire's abilities, it was like being hit with a fist, disorienting as all hell.

  Mircea badly needed a moment.

  But he didn’t have one, because that was the point: to lead his pursuers somewhere where their elevated senses would actually work against them. So he pushed forward, onto a side street, while hunching over and throwing his cape across Jerome. And hoping that nobody had gotten a good look at him.

  But they’d certainly gotten a good smell.

  Smell this, Mircea thought, as a hand like a vise grabbed his arm, and he grabbed minds in houses all along the narrow street. Shutters slammed open, people appeared on balconies, and a rain of trash started pelting down all around them. Old fish heads, rotting vegetables, and the contents of a day's worth of chamber pots filled the skies and splattered the already rain-slick streets, sending beautifully dressed revelers slipping and sliding and screaming invective. And Mircea tearing away from his pursuer in the chaos.

  If they didn’t want us dead before, they do now, Jerome sent him mentally, as another vampire lunged for them. Only to be hit by a fetid stream from above that soaked his clothes and sent his feet flying out from under him.

  But he was the only one. The others were briefly held up by the crowd's churning outrage, but they were still coming. His trick had bought seconds only and Mircea couldn’t pull a stunt like that again. As it was, controlling that many minds at once had his vision pulsing in and out and his heart pounding as it hadn’t in a decade.

  What a time to feel human again, he thought grimly, and darted down another street, this one filled with fishermen.

  They were coming in from a long day on the boats, and cutting an odorous swath through the glittering throng. Mircea dove through a cloud reeking of their trade, overlaid with stale sweat, cheap wine, and rotting teeth. And then into another composed of frying oil and frittelle from a peddler's cart, pungent with vanilla and orange. And finally into a perfume explosion around a crowd of yellow-garbed girls, in the particular hue that Venice reserved for its whores.

  One of them stuck a flower behind his ear when he paused to stare around. “Bona fortuna," she laughed, and kissed him.

  The low-cut top of her d
ress showed off a chest as flat as a boy’s, belying the promise of carmine lips and kohl-rimmed eyes.

  She looked all of about twelve.

  She wasn't.

  The dark-haired beauty had been plying her trade since Romulus was suckling on a hairy teat, as evidenced by the strength of the slender hand that gripped his arm. And by the mental command he couldn’t hear, because he wasn't a master and it wasn't directed at him. But which caused a cascade of silks to flutter into the street behind them.

  "Marsilia," Mircea gasped, in considerable relief.

  "My girls can’t hold them for long," she told him quickly. "Get to the square; I'll send help to you there."

  He nodded, and pulled Jerome forward, while a commotion started up behind them. It wasn't a fight, just a line of laughing girls playing one of the pranks carnival was famous for, and blocking the path. Of course, the crowd was doing the same thing to him, battering him on all sides, and pushing him and Jerome toward the edge of a canal. Where a smear of golden fire from a string of bobbing lanterns illuminated a floating, flower-festooned parade.

  Venice's high society was packed into boats along with their trains of hangers-on, sycophants and bodyguards, none of which reacted to having two panicked vampires plow through their midst. Because Mircea made sure that they were gone before their presence even registered, leaping from boat to boat to boat, working their way around the blockage. And then running down a narrow alley, before spilling out into the great square beside St. Mark's.

  Mircea paused, both because Jerome had just become a complete dead weight, falling into a healing trance in a last-ditch effort to save himself. And because, ahead of them, was a working sea of people: thousands, maybe tens of thousands, filling the huge square to the brim and running over. And packed so tightly, Mircea doubted he could have gotten a piece of paper in between them.

  It would have been perfect—if he and Jerome had been on the other side. As it was, there was no chance of battling their way through before their pursuers caught up. No chance at all.

  His head tilted back.

  Well, except for maybe one.

  And then a leering jester jumped at him out of the crowd, right in his face. Mircea flinched back, before the exaggerated mask was pushed up, leaving him looking at the broad, familiar features of Nicolò, Marsilia's right-hand man. The dimpled face under the mop of curly dark hair was usually grinning, to the point that people forgot how truly vicious he could be.

  He wasn't grinning now.

  "How many?" Mircea yelled, the roar of the crowd making discretion impossible, and probably unnecessary.

  "Fifteen."

  "Fifteen?"

  "That we've counted so far—"

  "And your men can’t take that many," Mircea finished for him, because it wasn't even a question.

  Nicolò shook his head. "Not with a master among them, second level at a guess."

  Mircea swallowed. A second-level master was basically an army all on his own. But at least it explained how Jerome had ended up gutted. He was a master himself, as far above Mircea's limited abilities as Mircea was to a human. Strong enough that he hadn’t bothered with bodyguards.

  Might want to rethink that decision, Mircea thought, and pushed him at Nicolò.

  "And what do I do with this?" the larger vamp demanded.

  "Take him to my house! I'll meet you there."

  The curly head shook again. "I told you, we'll never make it—"

  "I'll provide a distraction!"

  "Better be a hell of a distraction," Nicolò muttered, and grabbed a barrel off a passing cart. He cracked it open like an egg, drenching both himself and Jerome in the process, and covering the scent of blood with the acrid tang of cheap wine. "Now we smell like everyone else," Nicolò yelled.

  And abruptly jerked his head around.

  Mircea followed his gaze, to see Jerome's pursuers running full tilt down the alley. But not because the crowd had suddenly thinned, but because they had gotten on top of the problem—literally. They were sprinting above the multitude, on shoulders, backs and even heads, using the densely packed revelers like rocks in a stream, and as a shortcut to the square.

  "Whatever you're going to do, now would be good," Nicolò said—from behind him. Because Mircea had already taken off, ripping the blood-soaked shirt from his back and flying it above his head. And then above the crowd, as he took a page from the vamps' book, and vaulted on top of the throng.

  These people didn’t seem as drunk and oblivious as those in the alley, but Mircea didn’t give them time to complain. He leapt from strong back to strong back, and then from horseback to horseback, skipping down a processional line and narrowly avoiding a knight's mailed fist. He jumped to a palanquin bearing the effigy of some saint, crossed himself for the sacrilege before laughing at how stupid that was, and then laughed some more as the crowd opened up a bit and he hit solid ground again.

  He sounded frankly demented, but he didn’t care.

  Because he could finally move, unfettered and unburdened, and it felt wonderful.

  At least, it did until he reached the towering shadow of the campanile, the huge bell tower overlooking the square, with an army of shadows converging on him. Mircea hadn’t been moving slowly before, but the wind of his passing now fluttered hair and widened eyes, causing heads to turn to try and see what was no longer there. Like that of the guard at the tower door, who blinked and missed the blur that ran past him and up the stairs.

  The roar of the crowd was suddenly muffled, cut off by the heavy brick walls. Enough that Mircea could hear the almost silent footfalls behind him, could feel the subtle vibrations of their tread on the steps below. He ignored them, knowing that if he paused, even for a moment, he was lost. So he tore up the narrow, winding staircase, running full-out, while his pursuers pounded at his heels, while they grabbed at his clothes, while he slammed a foot into someone's face and heard him curse—

  And then he was out the top, tearing across the checkered floor of the highest story. And to the columned opening overlooking the crowd. And the one chance he'd seen below: the thin rope used by Turkish acrobats who delighted carnival goers every year by walking up, up, up to the top of the bell tower, balance pole in hand, from a platform far out in the bay.

  Mircea didn’t have a pole, but he did have a blood-slick shirt. He twisted it into a chord and flung it over the heavily slanted rope, as half a dozen vampires piled up on each other at the narrow opening of the stairs. Dizzyingly far below, the crowd looked up, their attention drawn by the bell hit by one of those strange energy bolts that had been thrown at Mircea's head. It was the Malificio, the one usually rung when an execution was about to take place.

  How fitting, he thought, as the snarl of vamps released, sending them stumbling onto the tiles behind him.

  "A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale*," he told them.

  And jumped.

  -------------------------------------------

  *"At Carnival, anything goes."

  Chapter Two

  Present day, Dory

  A floral boudoir in upstate New York

  I stumbled hard and went down to one knee, before my hand grasped some expensive blue-and-white wallpaper. I stared at it blankly, while the lines of little flowers and ribbons and bows danced in front of my vision. And my brain finally got its shit together and managed to identify them.

  Of course.

  Home was an old, paint splattered, slightly dusty bedroom in a sagging matriarch of a house in Brooklyn. This place belonged to my boyfriend—if you could use that word for someone four centuries old. I knew that because I’d been here a week ago, when he unveiled the homage to the Rococo that his designer had put together for me, after steadfastly ignoring his boss's comment that my favorite color was black.

  My favorite color was now blue—and white and pink and bright sunny yellow. And I apparently enjoyed it festooned with lace and feminine doodads. It was pretty damned hideous, which was why I distinctly remem
bered nodding and smiling and getting the heck out of dodge as quickly as possible.

  Only now I was back.

  For some reason.

  I shook my head, trying to clear it, but it didn’t help. I kept wanting to see a wintry carnival, fogged by the breath of a massive crowd, full of light and color and noise. And stilt walkers with huge, painted heads, and people leaning out of windows to toss handfuls of sweets to too-drunk-to-catch-them revelers, and three bands trying to outdo one another and just adding to the din.

  And my father, tear-assing above it all, a pack of masters at his back, laughing like a madman.

  A new wave of disorientation hit me, and I decided to graduate from clutching the wall to lying face down on the carpet. I closed my eyes and breathed in the fibers off a new smelling rug, and slowly began to feel a little better. Enough to eventually notice other smells permeating the air of my big walk-in closet.

  Some of them were expected: the enthusiastically applied lemon oil on the antique furniture in the bedroom, the stuff the staff used on the sheets to make them cloud soft and smell like a summer breeze, and the sachets the maids insisted on sticking everywhere, despite my pointing out that sneaking up on bad guys was a little hard when I smelled like a lavender field.

  Other smells, however, were less expected. Like a wedge of my world that had intruded into the gleaming perfection: sweaty, frightened, panicky scents that the lavender was battling, but not defeating. Because it was a constant, while the others . . .

  Kept on coming.

  I cracked open a gummy eyelid.

  A bunch of terrified people were huddled in the corner of the closet, regarding me like I was the Anti-Christ.

  I shut the eye again.

  You know, you'd think I’d be used to this by now. Being a dhampir, the half human, half vampire, all screwed up version of humanity that I was, came with issues. Not least of which was going batshit crazy on a regular basis. That meant I had plenty of experience waking up in stranger places than a flowery boudoir, trying to handle the confusion of yet another foray into the weirdness that was my life. Sometimes, I really thought—