Tyler gestured toward the large, dark gray leather couch near the fireplace. “Have a seat.”
He strode across the room and came back with a large square shape draped in black cloth. After placing it on the table before her, he gave her a look that she couldn’t decipher. Standing before her with his shirt off, his well-muscled body flexing as he fidgeted, he made her fingers itch to touch him. She gave him a flirty smile, visions of riding him on this couch filling her, but he didn’t return it.
Tyler ran his hand through his hair and began to pace. “Before you look at it, I want you to promise me you won’t run away.”
“What?”
She stared at him in confusion while he continued to pace, growing more agitated. “Just promise me. Your word, Lisabetta. You’ll let me explain before you run.”
Irritated by his crazy behavior, she snapped out, “Fine, I promise.”
Chapter Three
With little fanfare, Tyler pulled the cloth off the picture, and her world came crashing down around her as she thought she might throw up for the first time in over five hundred years.
Her whole body trembled as she took in the portrait that had led to her death and, more importantly, the death of her husband and child.
It was a of her during her mortal life done in vibrant oil colors. She was dressed in her bridal gown, a beautiful lemon yellow silk creation that her father had made for her as part of her dowry. Small pearls dotted along the bodice, and more pearls were strung through her upswept dark hair. Ruby drop earrings dangled from her ears, and happiness seemed to radiate from her. And why wouldn’t it? She was marrying into minor royalty. Even better, she was marrying the man she’d love since the moment she’d seen him. She was looking directly at the viewer, and Lisabetta stared at the younger version of herself, looking physically almost the same, but her eyes… Dear God, her eyes back then were so joyful. Melancholy pain tore at her, and she pressed a hand to her heart. She could remember her sister making faces at her as her portrait was painted, trying to get Lisabetta to smile while the artist had told her to keep her face “serene.”
The years peeled back in her mind, and she remembered how much her body had ached from having to sit in one position for so long. The artist was about three-fourths of the way done with her portrait before her fiancé put a halt to it after he saw how stiff it made her. He was always looking out for her, the young lord with dark eyes that seemed to stare into her soul. The same eyes their infant daughter had. A hint of that smile had made it onto her lips in the portrait, and Lisabetta wanted to go back in time and shake that silly girl, to tell her to enjoy the bliss of being a newlywed because all too soon her world would become nothing but blood and death and pain.
Her hand trembled as she reached out and let her finger hover over the painting. The portrait was in good condition considering its age, but not as perfectly preserved as its subject. Anger filled her as she remembered the last wall she knew this painting had hung on.
“Where did you get this?” she hissed and leapt from the couch, throwing Tyler to the floor hard enough that he cried out in pain. “Were you his? Is that why I’m here? Are you going to extract justice for that monster?”
Sitting up with a wince and rubbing his shoulder, Tyler faced her without fear. “Damn, this is the first time you’ve ever lashed out at me like that.”
She curled her fingers into claws, fear tearing at her as she hissed, “Where did you get this?”
“Relax, I didn’t get it from Arcadia. I bought it off a family who swore it was a portrait of a distant relative, but to the best of my research, I don’t think that’s true. Your descendants moved away from Italy years ago.”
“You have one last chance to tell me who you really are before I end your life,” she whispered.
“I’m the man who loves you with all his heart. That is who I really am.”
That was not what she was expecting him to say. “What?”
Standing slowly, like he was afraid to spook her, he held his hands out. “There was so much you weren’t telling me, so many things I had to puzzle out for myself. You absolutely refused to discuss how you were turned, and I knew that somehow it was the reason you freaked out about us, why you refused to turn me. I needed to know what stood between us. You were living in the past, a past you refused to acknowledge and it was tearing you apart. I had to know how to get you to live in the present again, to enjoy life. To want to live.”
Utterly confused, she took a step back. “You aren’t making any sense.”
“Dang it, Lisabetta, you were fading when I first met you. Still beautiful but also…apathetic. The first tip-off I had that you were more than you appeared was when I met your eyes. They were so old, so jaded and broken. It was disconcerting to see the eyes of an old woman in a young face. Made me want to do anything I could to see those beautiful brown velvet eyes filled with happiness. At first glance you captured my heart in a way that I haven’t felt for a long, long time.”
She trembled, fighting the urge to both run from the home and to hug him. Her mind spun, unable to process what he was saying. While she could handle fighting six vampires at once, she couldn’t figure out how to process the emotional blows that kept coming.
Tyler’s voice softened into a soothing rumble. “Please, have a seat. I’ll give you your explanation but not with you looking ready to tear my heart out any second.” He laughed and rubbed his face. “Damn, I think this is the first time I’ve ever been scared of you.”
For some reason the idea that she scared him upset her, so she took a seat without protest. “Talk.”
“Where to start… Five weeks ago I was at this bullshit dance club, dragged there for my buddy’s bachelor party. I was having fun, hanging out with the guys, when I spotted this amazingly beautiful woman across the VIP area. She was far too young for me, jailbait in a ten-thousand-dollar dress, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. It wasn’t just that she was attractive, even though she was the most stunning creature I’d ever seen. It was the air of beautiful sorrow that hung about her like a fine perfume.”
A fine tremor ran through her again as she fought the animalistic flight-or-fight sensation filling her. She refused to acknowledge it as panic and clenched her hands into fists. There was a vague sense of knowing what he was talking about, those flashes again of his face smiling at her a thousand times. With a sinking sensation in her stomach, she thought she might know what was going on, and the idea terrified her.
When she didn’t say anything, only stared at him, Tyler continued. “I tried to ignore that beautiful girl with the disturbingly knowing gaze, but then she asked me to dance with her. At the first hint of her accent I was a goner. We spent the entire night together, and at the end of that night, she discovered something that terrified her enough that she asked her Maker to come and take the memory from her. That was the first night I met Sargon.” He chuckled with a wry look on his handsome face. “Fucker kissed me that night, showed me exactly how strong a male vampire in his prime could be and why I should be scared of him. Kinky bastard.”
Panic filled Lisabetta as she flung out her psychic senses as far as she could. There, on the very edge of her awareness, hummed a blank spot that could only be a Scion. Sargon. Her legs trembled with the effort of staying still, especially when Tyler knelt before her. He moved slowly, ever so slowly, broadcasting his intent while he stroked her cheek. The sensation of his rough skin on her smooth flesh cut through her fear like a knife, and she closed her eyes, letting out a slow breath.
She whispered, “How many times have we been together?”
“Every chance I could get. Thank fuck I have a competent staff at my company, or I’d be in trouble right now. You didn’t come to the club every night, but almost. And when you did you would search me out, look for me even if you weren’t aware of it. If I wasn’t there Sargon made sure you went home with him.”
She kept her eyes closed, sinking into the feeling of his hand stroking
over her. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and she wondered if her Maker had purposely begun to leave bits of her memory behind. The fact that Sargon was here, close enough to be on hand if she needed him, touched her on a deep level. He was a very, very busy man and it had been a long, long time since anyone had cared about her enough to be there for her. Now that she thought about it, her Maker was always there for her, when she allowed him to be. She hated asking for help, hated appearing weak. Plus, she knew on some deep level that Sargon wanted more from her than what they currently had.
Looking into Tyler’s beautiful eyes, she said, “Sargon is nearby, isn’t he?”
Tyler nodded. “Your Maker is always near if you come to the club.”
Hating the sick feeling of fearing the unknown, she forced herself to ask, “What alarmed me so much that I would ask for the memory of you to be taken from me?”
He let out a soft sound of frustration. “Well, it’s actually a couple things. First, you can’t erase my memories.”
“What?”
She started to bolt, but he pinned her to the seat with a stern look. “Sit still and listen. The second thing is that I’m stronger than a mortal man now. Every time you notice that you freak out. Thankfully Sargon would always come to spend time with me before sunrise and talk about what happened that night.”
Offended, she lifted her chin. “You talk about me?”
“Not in a bad way, honey, a good one. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but Sargon would give his left nut to make you smile. That man worships you. He’d do anything to make you happy, including helping the mortal man that you seem so enamored with. I’m lucky Sargon finds me charming as well. Otherwise, I would have vanished after our first date for the threat I presented to his claim on your heart.”
“What?”
He gave her a chiding look. “Come now, Lisabetta, you must know he loves you, and you love him. I was plenty fucking jealous when I first figured this out, but then I realized that whatever he is to you, it isn’t enough. You need me on some fundamental level almost as much as I need you. And do you know why I’ll never leave you, never betray you? Why it is now physically impossible to ever do you harm?”
“Because…” A hard shudder went through her. “Because we’ve exchanged enough blood to start turning you. That I…oh Sweet Mother of God, I’m your Maker.”
“Yes. Lisabetta, look at me.” When she didn’t, he forced her chin up, and as their gazes met, a sense of anguish filled her. “You did not do this to me against my will. Every single night I made the choice to come with you, to give you my blood, to surrender to you on every level. I could have turned away at any time, could have never stepped foot inside that club again, but I chose you, time after time.”
She rubbed her face, trying to search her vague memories but coming up against holes in the timeline of her life over the past five weeks, just like Tyler said. Oh, she remembered the parties that Sargon threw to celebrate her independence, the time they spent alone together, and the endless rounds of vampire politics, but there were entire evenings missing from her mind. Leaning closer, she took a deep inhalation of Tyler’s scent and detected hers and his mingled together. No wonder he’d smelled so good to her. He was her fledgling.
Oh dear blessed God, she’d begun to make a vampire. Something she’d sworn never to do. Her transition from mortal to vampire had been so painful, so agonizing that it had broken something in her spirit. She’d promised she would never turn anyone, and so far, she’d managed to keep that vow.
She wouldn’t wish the extended torture of the transition on anyone, especially someone she cared for.
No, it wasn’t too late. She could run now and never come back. She had to go, had to flee. But before the order could go from her mind to her limbs to flee, Tyler latched a silver chain around her ankle, a chain cleverly hidden beneath the seat he’d told her to sit on. Sneaky, conniving asshole. The silver weighed against her skin like a thousand pounds, pinning her in place like a butterfly with a steel pin through its heart.
Even as enraged as she was, it never occurred to her that she could kill him with a flick of her wrist. Instead, she hissed at Tyler while he glared back at her. “You are not fucking running away from me anymore, Lisabetta. I don’t care how much you hate me. I know what happened to you. I know about your husband and child, and while my heart aches for what your original Maker did to you, it is time for you to let go of your past. You’ve vanquished your enemies, built your empire, and atoned for any possible sin over and over again. Allow yourself the chance to love again. You’ve spent lifetimes alone. Let us in.”
She curled into herself at the confirmation of her worst fears. He knew. He knew that she was responsible for the deaths of her husband and child all those years ago.
“How did you find out?” she asked in a dead voice.
Tyler made a soft, sorrowful sound. “I managed to figure out most of it on my own, but Sargon keyed me in on a few key details that I didn’t know. I was aware of the basics, the beautiful Lady Lisabetta, how she vanished and was presumed dead, leaving behind her husband and young child who fell to the pl—”
Her soul screamed in agony, and she abruptly launched off the seat at him, the silver chain digging painfully into her flesh, easily bruising her. “Silence! You have no right to speak of them. Do you hear me? No right!”
Shaking his head, Tyler remained just out of reach. “It wasn’t your fault. Your only sin was posing for a portrait. There was no possible way on earth you could have known an insane vampire would see it and become obsessed with you. That he would hunt you down and take you away from everything you loved. I know he tried to break you, the terrible things you’ve endured, but if you can still love, he didn’t win. Couldn’t destroy the beauty of your soul. You are so good, Lisabetta. I wish you could see that you are as much of a victim as anyone else.”
The weight of her past came crushing down on her. “You’re wrong. I did sin, and my sin was vanity. If I hadn’t so enjoyed the attention of posing, it never would have happened.”
He moved within touching distance, only the faintest tightening of the lines around his eyes betraying his fear. “That’s bullshit.”
She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. “What?”
“That’s bullshit. If that were true, then I’d be responsible for the death of my wife and daughter.”
A memory tickled across her mind of holding Tyler while he sobbed in her arms, mourning the loss of…of… “Meredith, her name was Meredith.”
He gave her a surprised look. “Yeah, you remember.”
She strained harder, knowing this was a precious memory, something to be honored and cherished. Vampires only showed their emotions to a chosen, trusted few. For Tyler to show his grief to her through his tears humbled her through his act of trust. Then again, she hadn’t been her usual stone-faced self at all. The fact that she’d let Tyler see her emotions so early on should have tipped her off.
Tyler said in a rough voice, “Do you remember how they died?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I was tired, driving back from my in-laws’ house after Thanksgiving, and didn’t notice the guy in front of me swerving. He was drunk and on Valium. We wrecked. I don’t really remember that part, but my wife and daughter died that night. All because I didn’t notice a guy driving drunk in front of me.”
The self-loathing in his voice had her enveloping him in an embrace before she knew it. Though he was so much bigger than she was, she had the impression of him letting go for a moment, really leaning on her and allowing her to accept some of the burden of his grief. Memories of her own sorrow at the news that her family had died tore at her soul.
Whispering against his shirt, she told him the sad, short tale of the seventeen and a half years of her mortal life. “I’d been married for two years and had a one-year-old daughter when Arcadia came for me. My life at that point was bliss. I had a handsome husband, who not only
adored me but also challenged me intellectually, a beautiful home, and lovely friends who filled my world with laughter. And my daughter…”
A sob escaped her as she remembered the smell of her baby’s dark, soft hair and how proud and in love her husband had been with their child. Tyler made a hushing noise and kissed her forehead while rocking her gently. It shocked her on some distant level how the loss that happened hundreds of years ago was still as fresh as if it had just happened. After she’d finally regained some semblance of control, she lifted her head enough to look at Tyler, needing him to really listen to what she had to say next, to understand what he was asking for if he became a vampire.
“Arcadia stole me in the middle of the night from my bed without my husband even stirring. At first I thought he was some ancient god come to life. Despite his rotten soul, he was physically beautiful in a classic Roman way, but that notion was soon disabused by the flash of his fangs. I fought him with everything I had, but I was no match for his strength, his cunning. He glamoured me into believing that he was my husband sometimes, just another way to break my spirit.”
“The days I spent trapped in his dungeon, being slowly turned, were some of the worse I’ve ever endured. I kept praying that someone would find me, end my misery, but the only person I ever saw was Arcadia. Sometimes I’d sit in the dark for days at a time, all alone and slowly losing my mind. But even the reassurance of insanity was denied to me. Arcadia fed me his blood, and I’d lie convulsing on the dirt floor of my cell, my feet digging into the earth and my hair becoming matted with the filth. He was ancient, so old the weight of the years had broken his mind, and the only joy left in his dark world was my pain.”
Tyler growled softly. “If he wasn’t already dead, I would kill him.”
Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology) Page 29
