by Karen Chance
Because this wasn’t the rule, this wasn’t even close to the rule. I didn’t go around just losing fifteen minutes! Not with no threat in sight and when I wasn’t stressed, when I was the opposite of stressed—happy and warm and clueless, because of course the rules had changed.
Ever since that barrier in my brain went down, everything had.
I didn’t know how to control her anymore.
I don’t know what my face looked like, but Louis-Cesare’s suddenly altered. And then he was hugging me, carefully because of the damned ribs, which shouldn’t have helped. Which should have made the whole claustrophobic-in-my-own-skin thing even worse, but somehow didn’t. And I was holding on to him when I should have been getting out of here, but I somehow wasn’t.
“She was not here,” he murmured, after a moment.
“You can’t know that—”
“I can.” He pulled back, so that I could see his face. “I can feel when she’s here, instead of you. I don’t know how to explain it,” he added, when I started to say something. “But it’s unmistakable, the difference between a sunny day and a dark night. If she’d been here, I would know.”
“Then how do you explain those fifteen minutes? I don’t remember—” Anything, I realized. And not just from today. “What happened last night?” I asked, my voice suddenly soft and frightened. But I couldn’t help it. I was getting flashes, strange and skewed, that didn’t make sense. That wasn’t how it went!
Was it?
“You fell,” Louis-Cesare said, his mouth tightening like he wanted to say more, but was holding back.
I nodded. That much had been memorable. The dizzying fall into nothing, from a height that could turn even a dhampir into hamburger, but hadn’t because—
“Those things caught me.”
“The spriggans, yes. But not out of altruism. If you hadn’t had that gold, and been clever enough to use it—” He cut off, and then his arms tightened again, as memories whirled about my screwed-up brain. Memories of bouncing around on a sea of fey, like bodysurfing at a concert, only bodysurfers don’t usually get thrown about that much.
“And then a troll fell on us.”
“Two trolls,” he said, scowling. “They were fighting and fell together. I managed to brace somewhat, but I didn’t reach you in time to do a proper job. Your head still hit the floor. It’s likely why you’re having trouble remembering things.”
I shook the area in question.
That wasn’t why.
And I hadn’t forgotten everything, after all, because suddenly there were pieces, like of cut-up photographs, crowding my mind. Not of the crazy landing, but of other things: a huge troll, the biggest of them all, racing up a wall; an albino with long, white hair stepping through a brilliant portal, searing my eyes; a feeling of flying, soaring into the sky and then turning to look down at the temporary fairgrounds, trash strewn and windswept, with a few bonfires still burning—
I winced, and shut down the flow, because my head hurt.
And because I hadn’t done those things. I’d been passed out on a cracked subfloor under a couple thousand pounds of troll, with a ton of bouncy toys and a freaked-out boyfriend. I remembered Louis-Cesare yelling my name; hands lifting me, gentle as a baby; some confused shouting . . .
And rocketing through an intersection in a troll-laden truck, while a witch with cigarettes in her hair laughed and laughed.
Louis-Cesare’s fingers gently combed over my abused scalp. “The doctor said there should be no lasting damage, that dhampirs have the hardest heads she’s ever seen.”
“I’m fine,” I told him.
Physically, anyway.
“You won’t be if you don’t rest,” Louis-Cesare said. “You all but passed out on me a moment ago—”
“What?”
He nodded. “That’s why you don’t remember the last few minutes. You’re so tired you drifted off.”
“I did not!”
His lips twitched, the worry suddenly eclipsed by what looked like genuine humor. “You look so indignant.”
“I’m not,” I told him, and then thought about it. “Okay, maybe I am, but I don’t nap.”
Louis-Cesare’s lips twitched some more.
“Stop doing that!”
“Then explain to me what is so wrong with a nap? I recall quite liking them once.”
“They’re”—stupid, ridiculous, weak—“dangerous. To zone out in a fight—”
“But you weren’t in a fight. You were home, behind excellent wards, and I was here. It is hard to be safer than that.”
I ignored the smug comment, because he wasn’t wrong. About that, anyway. “I don’t nap,” I repeated.
“Not normally, perhaps. But it is as the doctor said: you need time to heal. Time you haven’t been taking.”
He turned me around again, and started lathering up my hair.
“I’m not hurt,” I said—and tried to put some heat behind it, because the magic fingers were doing a good job of making me forget how serious this was. “And that wasn’t a nap. Don’t you get it?”
“No,” he said simply. “Tell me.”
Yeah, like it was that easy. To compress a lifetime of fear and struggle and pain into a few sentences when I never talked about it, not with anyone. Because who would care? And because I didn’t know how.
Only I guess I did, because it came out in a rush. “I used to try all kinds of things to keep Dorina under control. They didn’t always work, but I got pretty good at it. Enough that I could tell when things were about to go bad and smoke some weed, or walk away from a conflict, or punch a tree until I calmed down. But now . . .”
“Now?”
Those damned fingers should be registered somewhere, I thought, unconsciously leaning back into the feel of them. “Now everything’s changed. Dorina couldn’t come out when I was conscious; the barrier prevented her. That was the whole point of it.”
I felt him nod.
“But now it’s gone, and without it . . . there’s nothing to keep her from showing up anytime she feels like it. And what if she feels like it all the time? What if—”
I stopped for a moment, because I didn’t do this shit. This touchy-feely, let’s all share our deepest fears shit. It made me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable and a bunch of other things I hated, made me want to run away or lash out at something, which usually worked pretty well to change the subject. But I couldn’t do that this time.
Louis-Cesare deserved the truth.
“What’s stopping her from just taking over my life,” I rasped. “All of it, all the time, and shutting me out? For good this time?”
Like I’d tried to do to her.
I’d always treated this as my life—all mine. Because of course I had; I hadn’t even known she existed until very recently. I’d spent years thinking that I just had fits sometimes, that it was the dhampir crazy coming out, and concentrated on finding ways to tamp it down, while hoping that someday, someone would find a “cure” for my “disease.”
Only to find out that I didn’t have a disease, I had a—
Twin.
The word floated through my mind suddenly, frighteningly, because I hadn’t put it there. Wouldn’t have, since I’d never thought of us that way. We weren’t twins, we weren’t sisters, I didn’t have a sister! I had a fucked-up mind thanks to Mircea and, yes, maybe it had been necessary to save my life, but I didn’t know that, did I? I’d been there, but I couldn’t remember any of it.
Like I couldn’t remember the last fifteen minutes.
Had I been asleep? Just nodding off in the warmth and security of my boyfriend’s arms, because I was that beat? Maybe. It had been a hell of a month, with things coming hard and fast, one after another, before I had time to blink sometimes, much less to heal. And although the family had some gifts in that area, with
the war raging, most of them had been in need of help themselves. And, anyway, they could only do so much.
Sometimes, nature just had to take its course.
So, yeah, maybe I’d drifted off when I never did. But I didn’t know for sure. And neither did Louis-Cesare, no matter what he thought. He’d only met Dorina a couple of times, and both had been under duress. Would he feel that difference he talked about if she was just . . . there? If she was just . . . watching?
I shuddered, and didn’t manage to stop before he noticed.
Louis-Cesare’s hands stilled. “You truly think that is possible?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore! I just—” I twisted around, and my damned ribs rewarded me by shooting savage pain up my newly loosened spine. “Goddamn it!”
Louis-Cesare’s hands dropped unerringly to the source, sending warmth and relief coursing through me, despite the fact that I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted—
I didn’t even know.
Like I didn’t even know what he was still doing here.
“Why are you here?” I asked wearily, looking up at him.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because, when you hooked your wagon to the crazy, it wasn’t this crazy?”
He just looked at me.
“I’m a disaster,” I told him plainly. “I always have been, and things aren’t getting better. You ought to bail while you can.”
It hurt, even more than the ribs, but it was the truth. I’d always known it, but I’d hoped to hold on a little longer, to hold him. But things were starting to fall apart—I could feel it—and Dorina—
Isn’t here, he told me mentally, because he could do that sometimes.
All vampires could. Even babies could talk to family, and masters could communicate silently with almost anyone they chose. Except for me, who wasn’t a vampire and who’d had exactly zero mental gifts for five centuries, until that wall started to fall.
And all of a sudden, I was hearing voices.
But not hers.
She had the mental gifts, not me. I had no idea how to contact her, but she could talk to me any time she wanted. But she hadn’t.
Why talk to someone who won’t even be around much longer?
Why get to know someone you plan to kill?
“Listen to me.” Louis-Cesare’s hands came up to frame my face, his eyes fiercer than I’d ever seen them. “I am here. I’m not going anywhere. And no matter what happens, we will find a way to deal with this!”
Looking into his eyes, I almost believed it. But I’d learned the hard way not to want what I couldn’t have, not to reach for things out of my grasp, not to hope . . . for anything. Or anyone.
Because who the hell would want to waste their lives on a crazy dhampir?
And for years, I’d been happy that way. Okay, maybe “happy” wasn’t the word, but content, at least. Once I’d thought that things were going pretty well if I had a full stomach, a place to sleep in safety, a job to do, and no frightening episodes for a while. That had been the good life; that had been all right.
So when had “all right” stopped being enough?
I had a feeling it coincided with meeting a certain blue-eyed vamp who had somehow retained a measure of innocence that was ridiculous, just ridiculous, in our world. He’d come out of nowhere with all these ideas, stupid, antiquated things like chivalry and nobility and decency, the stuff humans usually scoffed at, and that vampires . . .
Well, I doubted some of them even knew the words anymore.
I didn’t think some of them ever had.
And yet here was Louis-Cesare, a ridiculous contradiction of a creature, determined to ride or die when the latter was a lot more likely, not caring that his girlfriend had a split personality that could kill him, and just might for shits and giggles someday!
He was a naive fool, and I should have kicked him to the curb as soon as I met him.
But, instead, here I was hoping again.
So, who’s the fool now? I wondered, and pulled him down.
Chapter Seven
And, God, he was good, because Louis-Cesare was always good. Even in a tub partially filled with soapy water, because the drain mostly didn’t. But you couldn’t beat the size of the thing, which was six feet long and comfortably roomy, because the Victorians knew how to make ’em, yes they did.
Made you wonder what they got up to, all those upstanding citizens, when the curtains closed.
That, I thought, arching up.
If they were really lucky.
Oh, yes, just like that.
But good as it was, it wasn’t what I wanted tonight. Only I didn’t know what that was. I just knew there was something—
Something he seemed to understand, because he started kissing his way up my body a lot sooner than normal. Stopping at all his favorite spots until he paused at my neck, right over the pulse point. I swallowed, my heartbeat speeding up, but he didn’t bite. Just rested his lips against the hot, soapy skin under my hair, his own falling over my shoulder, his breath tickling my ear.
“What is it?” he murmured, because I’d tensed up, going rigid in his arms.
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. Just gripped his shoulders, feeling the hard muscle underneath as he slid against me—and, God, yes, that’s what I needed like the air I wasn’t getting in panted breaths. My ribs protested, but I didn’t care. My ribs could go to hell.
And then he pulled away again.
I stifled a scream—just. “What?” I breathed.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, frowning. “Not now.”
“Oh, yes, we should.”
But he was getting that look again, that stubborn “I know best” look that drove me half-mad even when I wasn’t already there. He was hard against my thigh, hot and huge and insistent. And so ready he was shaking with it. Typical of the man to be noble, even when need had turned to agony, too gentle or polite to take what he wanted.
So I did it for him.
With a cry of pure frustration, I flipped us, throwing him onto his back again and straddling him with efficient grace. Wrapping one hand around the base of him and curling the other around the back of his neck, I sat down smoothly. And simultaneously pulled his mouth close enough to kiss, swallowing his protest.
Mine, I thought deliriously, and with a growl, I ground my hips down, setting a ruthless pace, latching on to his neck with my teeth and—
Louis-Cesare froze.
Suddenly, everything slowed down, from the wave of soapy water splashing over the side of the tub, to the shower curtains billowing out to show the bathroom in flashes, to the heart beating hard under my lips.
I told myself to let him go, to pull away, but I didn’t appear to be listening. I managed to get my fangs out of his skin before they had done more than dent it. But then I stopped, like I’d hit a wall.
I stared at that expanse of pale flesh and a tingling spread over my skin, like a fever had gripped me. I could feel how it would taste as I bit down. It would be firm and slightly resistant, warm, with faint traces of soap and Louis-Cesare. My fangs would slide in, slick as glass, pushing past his body’s defenses until the blood welled up, hot and thick and alive in my mouth.
It was an insane thought to have. I didn’t have the bloodlust of a vampire; I never had. Blood did nothing for me: I couldn’t use it, didn’t need it. But suddenly I could taste it, wanted to, with a craving beyond any I’d ever had—for anything.
I wanted to bite deep into that vulnerable spot where shoulder met neck, not to harm but to mark. To leave an unmistakable brand to everyone who saw him that this one was taken. This one was mine.
I heard him swallow, felt the chest beneath me rise and fall faster, as if some of my intent had leaked over. But he didn’t draw back,
even when my lips ghosted over that exact spot again, when the faintest edge of my teeth grazed him. A shudder rippled through him and into me, and his hands clenched on my body, but to draw me closer, not to shove me away.
His hand moved to my nape, sliding under the hot, wet strands of my hair, pulling me close. My tongue flicked out, laving the warm surface, his pulse beating hot and fast under my lips. His neck was smooth, free of any marks, an unbroken pale expanse that no one had ever dared to claim, because that wasn’t how this worked.
The more powerful vamp made the mark, and I didn’t know too many more powerful than Louis-Cesare. The damned vamp had held another first-level master, the highest rank of all, in thrall for a century, so I was thinking power wasn’t really a problem for him. So, technically, it should have been him marking me, only he wasn’t moving.
But he wasn’t moving away, either, and I didn’t know what that meant.
I also didn’t know that I could even do it. I wasn’t a vampire; I’d never marked anyone in my life, not like that. But somehow I knew it would work, knew I could leave an indelible trace of our connection on his body, something no amount of time would erase. The urge was so overwhelming that, for a moment, I just clung to him, vibrating, my nails digging into his hip, his shoulder, deep enough that they threatened to leave marks of their own.
“Dory—”
“Don’t.” I growled, my voice low. “Don’t talk.”
I turned my head to the side, and gulped in a breath, almost dizzy with the desire to finish this. And knowing I couldn’t. Vampires bit often, but they marked oh so rarely. To do so was to make a final claim, an eternal commitment. A formal declaration of alliance that joined houses, bloodlines, and fortunes in a way that made a mockery of human marriage.
And once done, it could never be undone.
Not to have one at your side whom you had marked was one of the biggest signs of weakness possible. It could open him up to attack, to challenge, by those who didn’t understand that the one who had marked him wasn’t a vampire, wasn’t someone who had the right. Wasn’t someone who had anything to offer.
Not even herself, since half of me was owned by someone else.
