Tommaso continued to slowly gaze around the room. His dark eyes taking in each drunken body with only mild interest, until they fell upon a slender form seated at the end of the banqueting table, looking aloof and displeased. Beside her, an older gentleman sat, reclining in his seat and looking near ready to spill out of it. His hand was upon the bottom of the maid pouring him more wine as he whispered into her ear.
While he watched the scene, the displeased maiden raised her head and locked eyes with him—they were blue, and as cold as a winter’s pond. Her brown hair, which was pulled away from her face and bound together at the top, with the rest left to fall about her shoulders and back, looked like molten honey to his eyes. The rosy glow of blood beneath her cheeks, gave her a look of youthful vitality that caused his fangs to prick his bottom lip.
She must have read something of the hunger in his eyes, for she turned her head away, purposefully breaking eye contact and denying him a vision that would have stolen his breath had he still need of it.
“M’lord, am I not pleasing to you?” Marie whispered, a lilt of distress to her voice.
Returning his attention to the maid in his lap, Tommaso gave a gentle shake of his head in response. “No, sweet one, you are very pleasing, indeed.”
He pressed a soft kiss to her lips, feeling her melt into his chest in happiness. The hand upon her thigh slid higher, teasing at warm flesh as he pressed soft kisses along her jaw and down her throat until he was at her pulse. Capturing her flesh gently between his teeth, he worshipped her with his fingertips as he pierced her neck, eliciting a mingled gasp of pain and pleasure from between her lips.
He drank only enough to stave off hunger rather than fill himself, and then pricked his tongue with his tooth so that he could swipe his blood upon the spots on her throat, healing her wounds. Lifting his head, he pressed another kiss to her lips, capturing her panting breath as her pleasure-filled form leaned against his chest. Smoothing her skirts back into place, Tommaso rested a hand upon her waist, and pulled back to look upon her features. She was flushed and pliant, ready to go wherever he would beckon. However, he’d had his fill of her.
“Thank you for your attention, you may return to your duties now,” he murmured. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the maiden from the end of the table standing up to leave with the older gentleman beside her.
Marie protested, but he shook his head, and with his mind told her to leave without complaint. With a distant look in her eyes and a shallow nod of her head, the maid slid off his lap and walked away without another word. Standing, Tommaso made his way across the great hall, feeling Alkaios’ calculating eyes upon him as he did. This did not stop him. Curiosity had grasped hold of him, and Tommaso felt a deep yearning to know more of the young maiden with the cold, unhappy eyes.
Laughter followed him out of the banquet hall. A chorus of song taken up by a group of drunken knights echoed off the walls, and he felt the silence of the outer halls welcome him into their embrace. The dark-haired maiden walked before him, just a step or two behind the slovenly nobleman who had brought the serving girl with him—an accommodating, yet unwilling participant in his fondling attentions.
Tommaso quickened his silent tread and, when he was close enough, he reached out a hand to capture the maiden’s wrist, and tug her to a firm, yet gentle halt. Spinning towards him, her face showed first surprise, then recognition, before finally ending on disapproval. Wishing to stem whatever tide of unhappy phrases were about to burst from her lips, he began to speak.
“Why do you follow a man old enough to be your grandfather, who has no qualms with groping another woman before your very eyes?” he questioned, searching those blue depths for an answer.
Her eyes, if possible, became even colder than they were in the banqueting hall. “And why do you seek to take that which is not yours?” With a sharp tug, she pulled her wrist free of his loose grasp.
“I meant no offence, but only wished to—”
“To comment on that which you know nothing of, in order to proposition me with a better offer.” She cut him off before he could continue. “Let me be perfectly clear, I have no desire to spend my night in your, or anyone else’s bed.” Her words were a cold whip of ice, striking a fatal blow to any further conversation.
“Manette!” Came a bellow from down the hall, the drunken man now aware she was no longer behind him as he reached the stone steps leading to the guest area of the palace.
“I am coming,” she called back. Without another glance in Tommaso’s direction, she hurried to catch up with him and the serving girl.
Tommaso felt a hand upon his shoulder, ceasing any efforts to follow after her further. He watched her disappear up the stairs, before turning to Alkaios behind him.
“Why have you left your adoring lovers?” Tommaso asked, feeling like a child about to be scolded for misbehaviour.
“I was curious why my Maso was scurrying off from the celebrations, and what do I find…” He drawled, leaning against the stone wall. “But my dearest, swooning over a young maiden in the dark corridors.”
“I was not swooning,” he muttered, a slight scowl touching his dark brow. While he had always been free—even encouraged—to do as he pleased, Tommaso did not like the thought of Alkaios being aware of any special interest he might hold towards a human. His companion had a tendency of finding the smallest things to suddenly become agitated over, which would then awaken his possessiveness of Tommaso.
Sensing his unease, Alkaios reached out to cup the side of his head, smoothing his thumb over his creased brows. “Don’t fret so, Maso, it’s unbecoming. But do be careful of what trinkets you choose to chase. A nobleman’s daughter is a far more noticeable target than that of a farmer’s unwanted git.”
Tommaso remained silent, but accepted the press of Alkaios’ lips to his own, the other man’s fingers still threaded through his hair. When they parted he watched his mentor push away from the wall and head back towards the celebrations.
“Come along, I’ve a few tasty morsels I wish to introduce to you before the night grows too late.”
The stars above still shone brightly, but in the distance, there was a faint hint of a softening sky. Dawn would be here soon enough, and he would need to retreat into the darkness of the palace. While the night still allowed it, Tommaso was going to enjoy the openness of the early morning sky, and escape the cage that was this immortal life. He drew a deep breath into his lungs, simply to feel the cool freshness fill him and then released it unused and unneeded.
To his back lay the chambers designated to Alkaios, where their evening’s true debauchery had taken place. Bodies of chambermaids and page boys lay strewn over every piece of furniture, dangling as if lifeless. They were not, all had been left with enough blood in their veins to leave them feeling well and truly hungover in the morning—evidence of nothing more than a heavy night of drinking and fornication.
Still, there was a heavy scent of blood in the air, full and completely sated, and it sickened him. His hands pressed to the stone railing of the balcony as he leaned his weight upon it, distancing himself from the room behind. Feeling the cool morning air tickling at his hair, Tommaso closed his eyes and allowed himself to simply be.
Resting in the moment, cold blue eyes returned to his mind, followed by a pale face framed with dark hair. Manette. Her name echoed like a siren’s call within his mind and he wondered what this feeling of longing inside of him truly meant. While he had long ago cast aside his vow of chastity, none of his lovers had ever intrigued him in quite this way, not even Alkaios which was born out of something darker. She had spoken barely any words, and what she had uttered were words of disdain—yet the memory of her voice washed over him, leaving his body humming with expectation.
For a moment, Tommaso believed his memory had become so all-encompassing that he was hearing her voice on the winds, only to realize that it was not his imagination, but reality. Peering over the rail and down into the dark gardens
below, he made out the slender figures of two women walking quickly over the grass.
“M’lady, please…You should not be out of your chambers at this hour, and without a chaperone!” called the woman hurrying after her, skirts drawn up so she did not trip in her haste.
“I have you,” Manette returned crisply, continuing her walk through the garden until she ended up in a dead end, closed in by rose bushes. “And I cannot remain inside there, I feel trapped. Encased in stone just as my future is encased in joyless marriage.”
As their steps took them further from the palace, Tommaso strained to hear each word carried up to him on the remnants of last eve’s winds. The servant, frantic to usher her mistress back beyond the confines of the palace, hurried to her side, only to be brushed off as Manette dropped down onto a stone bench.
“I cannot do what he asks of me Anais, the mere sight of that man repulses me.” Manette appeared distraught, burying her face in her hands once the words were torn from her throat. Even from the balcony, Tommaso was able to hear the pain lacing each syllable.
There was a strange urge within himself to go down into those gardens and offer his services in whatever capacity they may be needed. However, his form remained still, even as his mind raced.
“Have you spoken to your father?” the maid questioned, taking a seat on the bench beside the young woman. Gently, she brushed a hand up and down her back.
“A hundred times,” Manette dropped her hands into her lap so that teardrop-filled eyes could ponder the woman beside her, as if searching for the answers to life’s questions within the lines of her face. “Until my throat has burned in agony and been run raw, but he will not hear it. You know whatever dowry I once had to my name has long been spent by my father…It would seem that Lord Auguste would see us wed without a silver piece to my name. Father wants nothing more than to be rid of me.”
Their voices then fell too soft for Tommaso to make out what was being said, no matter how hard he strained. A sudden hand upon his shoulder startled him and he spun to face Alkaios, in all his naked glory, hair mussed and features relaxed.
“Dearest, what draws your attention so entirely that you fail to notice the rising of the morning sun?”
Tommaso shook the thoughts from his head and offered a gentle smile to his companion. “I suppose only the beauty of the early morning. One does miss the way daylight changes their
surroundings.” Alkaios laughed softly at these words, slipping an arm around his waist to begin
drawing him into the sanctuary of his chambers. Tommaso followed, as he had always followed these past centuries.
“Sometimes I forget how young you still are, my beautiful fledgling,” Alkaios murmured, laughter in his tone. He peered briefly over his shoulder and down into the garden as he ushered Tommaso through the doorway.
It would be two evenings before he found occasion to speak to the young maiden once again. When he did, he stumbled upon her in the gardens, hiding away from the demons she faced inside the great hall of King Philip. Unlike before, when the slovenly drunkard had forced her away, Tommaso meant to use this solitude as a means of keeping her speaking until she had decided to do so of her own free will. She had plagued his thoughts since that initial night, and he found himself waking each evening with the sound of her voice ringing in his ears, knowing he had been hearing her within his dreams.
Manette sat not upon the stone bench in the centre of the rose garden, but upon the ground against a bush. Its thorns picked at her royal blue garments and snagged at the strands of her long hair. In her limp hand which lay in the grass beside her, rested a mostly empty bottle of wine from the king’s stores. The young woman, it would appear, had drunken herself into quite the daze.
“A lush of a woman was not what I expected to encounter amongst the roses…However, I do not find myself in complaint,” he announced with a leisurely drawl as he came upon her.
He found himself impressed with how quickly she glanced up with death in her eyes, to glare at him and respond.
“While you may not find complaint in this situation, I find myself nothing, if not filled with it. Please leave me be…”
There was a true depth of sadness in her plea that had Tommaso pause in his actions and take stock of the situation. While he had no desire to leave her side, he was realizing that if he wished to stay, there was a need to change his current strategy. Moving more cautiously towards her, keeping himself poised in case she attempted to flee, he came to stand before her, slowly lowering himself down to the ground. He kept a respectful distance between them so as not to encroach upon her person too much, but remained close enough to gently pry the wine bottle from her hands.
Bringing it to his own mouth, he sipped from what remained, his eyes staying upon her. Manette watched him through partially lidded eyes, but did not make a move to leave. When he was finished sipping for the mere sake of sipping, Tommaso set the bottle down on the grass between them, and took a moment to truly look upon her face. Manette was beautiful, like the first warm day in early spring, just as the sun rises over the mountains to graze the crystalline depths of a thawing pond. Yet, there was a fragility in her eyes, just like the thin ice upon its surface.
“I know why it is you drink,” he announced.
“Oh, please do tell me why.” There was scorn in her eyes that melded with the disdain in her tone.
“You are to be married to a boorish slob who is three times your age, and does not hesitate to fondle the servants in your very presence.” The thought of this beautiful flower in the paws of that glutton was enough to make even he wish he were able to get drunk.
Manette stared at him for a moment, and then broke into a peel of laughter that both surprised and confused him.
Wiping her eyes with the tips of her fingers, the girl settled back against the bush despite the thorns pricking her flesh. “That was not Lord Auguste, the night you attempted to woo me into your bed, that was my father.”
Tommaso felt his brows purse.
“Oh, it was not—”
“No. Lord Auguste, though many years my senior, is actually a handsome man, one which a girl such as myself should be quite happy, and honoured, to wed if she were not to be the next wife in a long line of wives who’ve all died under strange circumstances. Nor marrying a man who is unable to treat even his own dog with a sliver of respect.” This time her laughter was bitter.
“Do you accuse him of the death of his wives?” Tommaso asked, watching her closely in the moonlight.
Manette merely looked back at him, her eyes speaking for her.
“I can help you,” Tommaso found himself saying, though he knew not why.
This was exactly the sort of situation Alkaios was continually telling him to refrain from getting involved with. Human lives were so fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye when compared to the never-ending lifespan ahead of him. Yet, he could not seem to stop himself.
“Do not patronize me,” Manette spat out, rising quickly to her feet, tugging her skirts free of the thorns before she was able to move away from him.
Not wishing to lose her once more, Tommaso rose without effort to his feet—barring her way in the space of a heart beat.
“I do not patronize, I speak the truth. Let me help you.”
“And how are you, a stranger, meant to help me?” Her hand lifted to press to his chest, seeking to move him from her way. However, he was a wall that did not budge, and instead, helped to keep her from swaying on her feet.
“However I may.” His own hand lifted to rest overtop hers. There was a sweet scent to her blood, a tinge of desolation and wine, a heady mix that made his baser urges wish to puncture the fluttering pulse at her throat and take a sip. Instead, he fought the natural desire he was not trained to resist, only limit.
“I do not require aid, especially not from a man whose name I do not even know.”
“Tommaso, and you do require my aid, or you will be wed to a man who you cannot even stom
ach to look upon,” he murmured, recalling her words from the garden that night.
Manette pulled her hand free from beneath his, and held it clasped to her own bosom instead. “I do not need your help,” she repeated, and then stepped around him, her long skirts brushing the side of his leg as she went past.
He let her go this time, feeling the resistance within her—she did not wish for him to follow.
He felt restless, having kept his distance from Manette. There was almost a madness in her eyes whenever she beheld him drawing too near, and so he respected her obvious need for him to stay away. Instead, in-between Alkaios’ high demands on his attention, he spent the remaining hours of his nights searching for Lord Auguste. In the end, he was not hard to find.
Wealthy, handsome despite his years, and surrounded by his own men-in-arms, Lord Auguste was as unsavoury a character as Manette had made him out to be. On the surface, he was charming and witty, popular amongst the noblemen and knights alike. However, below the surface there lay a dark force that Tommaso was not unfamiliar with, a monster hid just below the skin—waiting to be unleashed.
Manette was not his concern, yet the soft tread of her footsteps down the hall continued to catch his ear, while her soft, steady voice turned his head each time it sounded out. Something Alkaios did not fail to notice. Tommaso knew better than to mettle, but the notion of her slight frame pinned beneath the weight of the slumbering beast within Auguste disgusted him.
Which was how he came to be following the man one evening as he left the banquet hall. Lord Auguste had imbibed quite heavily in drink, and there was an aura of darkness around him that Tommaso recognized. Tonight, someone was falling prey to an act of viciousness, and he would be there to witness—or possibly prevent—it.
Though half lost to his wine, Auguste moved with intent and purpose, knowing precisely where he wanted to end up. Tommaso could smell the scent of hunger upon him, the lust for feminine wiles, and could only assume he was headed to the chambers of his current bedfellow. His Lordship came upon the door and rapped abruptly on it, and Tommaso was unhappy to find Manette on the other side when at last it opened.
Something in the Shadows Page 8
