Time After Time (Cora's Bond)

by V M Black

  I wanted to rant and rail and threaten to have his job if he didn’t connect me immediately, but I knew that all that was useless. So I just took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “Well, leave him a message to call me as soon as he can. No, scratch that,” I corrected. “Tell him I want him to call me now, no matter what.”

  “I shall pass on your message, madam,” the man said.

  “Thank you,” I said instead of screaming with frustration, and I hung up and curled my legs up against my body, resting my forehead on my knees.

  “You’re awake!” Lisette appeared in the doorway.

  I unfolded, getting stiffly to my feet. “Yeah, sort of.”

  She looked me up and down and said, “I’ll make you some oatmeal.”

  “You, cooking breakfast twice in a month? Who are you, and what have you done with my roommate?” I joked weakly, hanging up the towel that someone—probably Lisette—had used to cover me as I slept.

  “Yeah, whatever,” she said, busying herself in the kitchen. “I’ve never seen you like that. I swear, when you finally fell asleep, I was minutes from calling an ambulance. You didn’t look that miserable when you were dying of cancer.”

  I collapsed into the cushions of the sofa, feeling like I was a thousand years old. “I didn’t feel that miserable when I was dying of cancer. But I don’t think it’s contagious, so don’t worry.”

  “Contagious or not, you’re staying home today,” Lisette ordered. The microwave stopped with a beep, and she brought over the oatmeal just as Christina stumbled out of her room, yawning, and gave us both a wave.

  “You look better,” she said.

  “I feel better,” I replied, even though my mouth tasted of stale bile.

  Christina nodded and disappeared into the bathroom she shared with Chelsea.

  “Yeah, a whole two steps from death instead of just one,” Lisette said, sitting across from me.

  The ache had faded from my bones before I even ate the first spoonful of oatmeal. I was surprised at how hungry I was—and thirsty. The thin oatmeal took care of both of those desires handily. Trust Lisette to know exactly what I needed.

  I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m fine now.”

  Lisette didn’t look convinced. “Well, finish that up, and then get back in bed, okay? You’ve got a lot on your plate, and you won’t be able to do any of it if you keep getting sick.”

  “Right, okay.”

  She frowned at me. “I mean it, Cora.”

  And she did. As soon as I finished my oatmeal, I took a shower to get rid of the lingering smell of sickness and then let her bundle me into bed. I slept my first true sleep since Tuesday night then, though my dreams were haunted by nightmares.

  When I finally woke up again, the clock on my phone told me that my class of the day had already begun. I groaned and rolled out of bed feeling like my brain had been turned inside out. I tapped through to the house app to send the chauffeur a message about picking me up in front of my apartment instead of at my class, and then I stumbled into the living area to find Clarissa lounging on my Gramma’s sofa—which Rojek had assured me would be taken away over the weekend—with her feet propped up on the coffee table.

  I frowned at her, but of course she took no notice.

  “About time you were up, sleepyhead,” she said.

  “What are you doing here? And what happened to your hair?” I asked suspiciously.

  Clarissa now sported a fashionably shaped bob instead of the nearly elbow-length waving layers that she had worn just the day before.

  “I’m guarding you, of course. You didn’t go to class, and so I didn’t go to class. Like the hair?” She raised her hand to pat the auburn locks. “I’m afraid it might have been a mistake. I might be taken for someone’s mother.”

  I looked at her perfect, unlined face. “You won’t ever be taken for a college student’s mother, no matter what you do to your hair. Why did you cut it?”

  “Can’t a girl get bored?” Clarissa pouted.

  “Yes, a girl can, and I know you do, too, but if you cut your hair every time you got bored, you’d be bald.” I sat on the chair across from her. “So gives? What’s happened that Dorian won’t tell me about? And how is he?”

  She met my eyes and said with absolute sincerity that I didn’t believe for a moment, “Nothing’s up, and Dorian is as fine as I am.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying again. “So what happened last night, then? Was he okay last night?”

  “Of course he was,” Clarissa said in a way that didn’t convince me in the least. “If he’s okay now, he had to have been okay last night, too, didn’t he?”

  I scowled. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t often have to try very hard on humans.”

  “Well, I’m not human,” I snapped. I stood up and retrieved my coat from its hook beside the door, shoved it on, and slung my backpack over it.

  Clarissa got up more slowly. “You don’t have to tell me that, kitten. If you want to know what’s been going on with Dorian, you’ll have to ask him yourself when you get to his house.”

  “He’ll be there?” I asked as I paused at the door, voicing for the first time my fear that maybe he wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.

  “Of course,” she said, following me out of the dorm room. The shifter bodyguards fell in behind us—two this time instead of one. That change caught my attention enough to truly register their presence for the first time in weeks.

  “Why isn’t anyone concerned about large men and women standing in the hallway next to my door all night?” I asked Clarissa. The other bodyguards were under general instructions to avoid looking like they were with me, and talking to me was at the top of their list of no-nos.

  Clarissa laughed as if relieved at the change in subject. “Oh, I’ve taken care of everyone on this floor, for the time being. The effect wears off fast, but a simple aversion like that—‘pay no attention to the hulking dude in front of the door’—works for short bursts without requiring a full-fledged thrall. And if someone reports them to the apartment staff, well, I have the staff under slightly tighter control, shall we say.” Her eyes went half-lidded, and I wondered just how much she enjoyed the process of enthralling people.

  Knowing Clarissa, probably a lot.

  We took the elevator down, and by the time I reached the sidewalk, Dorian’s Bentley was waiting for me. I swung my backpack in and followed, nodding to Jenkins as he shut the door.

  I tried not to scowl at Clarissa, still standing at the curb. Being angry at her was as pointless as being mad at the clouds when it rained. But I was glad when the car rolled away, taking me away from her—and toward Dorian.

  Chapter Six

  Rojek greeted me at the door, and I remembered my manners long enough to pause as the footmen took my jacket and backpack, thanking him for arranging for my grandmother’s things to be donated.

  “Of course, madam,” he murmured, but his stoic face managed to radiate approval.

  “Where’s Dorian?” I let myself ask—the only thing that I really cared about right then.

  “He is awaiting you in the grand salon, madam.”

  I looked up the single flight of stairs that led from the entrance to the salon, but I already knew that the angle of the steps would block the view. I thanked the butler as politely as I could, and, aware of the eyes of the servants upon me, I didn’t run up them as fast as I could, calling Dorian’s name like I wanted to. Instead, I steeled myself and walked with careful deliberation, and at the top, I froze.

  There was Dorian, dressed in a tuxedo and sitting on one of the sofas with an unconscious grace I could never hope to match, looking as if nothing in the world was wrong.

  I opened my mouth to scream at him, to run at him and hit him and cry until I was out of tears and tell him how much I loved him and hated him all at once.

  But I couldn’t even move. I could hardly breathe. He stood, slowly, at my appearan
ce—unusually, unnaturally slowly.

  Finally, I managed to make my legs move, and I crossed to meet him. He was paler than I’d seen him since he’d first drunk my blood, and his face was hollow, his high cheekbones so sharp that I could cut my heart on them.

  I reached out almost tentatively to touch his sleeve, and I felt a ridiculous, irrational surge of relief at the texture of the suit jacket under my fingers. Only then did I risk seizing his hand—for some reason, it did feel like a risk, like there was a chance that it wouldn’t be there. But it was, and at the touch of his naked skin, the touch that in the depths of the night I’d feared that I would never have again, the tension that was still coiled inside my belly unwound all at once, and I swayed under its force.

  He was here. He was real. He was alive.

  “Dorian.” I breathed his name, and then I bit my lip as I blinked to clear my vision. “Oh, God, Dorian.”

  He brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers and before catching me around my waist, pulling me against his body as all the strength went out of mine. “My love, don’t cry. I’ll never leave you. Even if I have to storm the gates of hell itself, I’ll never leave you.”

  I nodded, swallowing back my tears. All I knew was that I’d come close to losing him, but I still had no idea how or what had happened. I saw in his closed face his stark intention of keeping it from me, and deep inside the pit of my stomach, I despaired.

  “Tonight is the vigil for Jean and Hattie,” he said. “Are you coming?”

  “Vigil?” I echoed, not having any context for the word.

  “The wake, it’s called more commonly now among humans, I believe,” he said, “though agnatic practice, like human practice, has changed over the years.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know if I could stand that just then, not when all my nerves felt so taut and raw. I still didn’t want Hattie to be dead, and even though it didn’t make any sense, the finality of a wake and funeral made her death more real, and in my jumbled state, I didn’t think I could bear it.

  But Hattie wouldn’t have let her uncertainty stop her from doing anything she’d decided was important. And neither would I.

  I straightened my shoulders and swallowed down all the confusion of the past few days, and I said, “Of course I’ll go. You just surprised me. I was thinking of everything being tomorrow.”

  Dorian gave a slight, peculiarly stiff bow. “Of course. How remiss of me. I should have made a point to inform you ahead of time of the schedule of events.”

  “What happened?” I asked then, unable to keep back the question any longer. “Since Wednesday. And last night,” I clarified, even though I was completely certain that he knew what I meant.

  “So many things, Cora.” The darkness in his face wrung my heart.

  “You have to tell me,” I insisted, even though I knew full well that he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to.

  “I will,” he said. “It’s over, and I will. But not now. After the vigil.”

  “Do you promise?” I insisted, not trusting him, not after what he’d put me through. Not after what he’d done to himself.

  “I swear,” he said.

  I still wasn’t satisfied. “You have to answer all of my questions now with real answers, not stuff you know I won’t understand.”

  Looking tired, he agreed. “Real answers, Cora. Complete answers. Worth will help you dress. The car is already waiting.”

  I nodded, and reluctantly, I stepped back and let him go. He watched me go up the stairs with a burning gaze that seemed to sear my soul.

  ***

  A Mercedes limousine that I hadn’t seen before whisked us to a high-rise apartment building in Arlington, and where it stopped under the overhang by the double brass doors. Dorian offered me his arm as I climbed from the car, and I took it automatically. We approached, and a white-gloved doorman bowed us into the foyer at Dorian’s murmur of, “Morel-Buchanan vigil.”

  “Are you sure I look okay?” I asked, adjusting the small black hat that Jane Worth had pinned to my head.

  “If you were of a different temperament, I’d say you were fishing for complements,” Dorian said as we crossed the gleaming lobby to the bank of elevators.

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant, are you sure it’s the right thing to wear? To a funeral?” I wore a strappy black cocktail dress under my heavy coat and spike heels to match.

  Dorian looked me up and down, and my skin prickled in the wake of his gaze. “No, but for a vigil it is.”

  “I don’t like funerals.” My hand tightened over his arm as the elevator doors slid open. “Or vigils. Or wakes.”

  “We’re only going to a few hours of this one, at the most. Less if you wish,” he said. We stepped inside the cabin, and he hit the button for the top floor.

  “Right,” I said. “Hours.”

  I dropped into silence as I realized how shallow and whiny I sounded. I didn’t mean to be either. What I really wanted was for Dorian to talk to me, to tell me what had happened to him that had caused me to spend the previous night doubled over the toilet—what had caused him to look so pale and drawn and move so slowly even now.

  Instead, I was at the last place I wanted to be. It reminded me of my Gramma’s funeral, plus I missed Hattie too much to want to bid her farewell, which was a stupid thought because it was the exact opposite of what I should be feeling. And realizing that just made me angry at myself.

  Then there were my fears about the other guests that I didn’t want to admit that I still harbored. The only social gatherings I’d been to since the nightmare of my Introduction had been small and carefully orchestrated by Dorian. And this was to be neither. Though it was an Adelphoi-only gathering, it would be open to all Adelphoi, and from my point of view, plenty of Dorian’s allies were almost as bad as his enemies.

  The elevator stopped, but the doors didn’t open. Instead, there was a chiming sound from somewhere far away. I looked at Dorian.

  “Is the elevator supposed to be doing that?”

  As if in answer, the doors slid open all at once, revealing a living room with a sweeping view across the Potomac River.

  I stepped inside reflexively as Dorian moved forward, into the party that was in full swing. The room was crowded with men in tuxedoes and women in black cocktail dresses. Servers bearing trays of canapés circulated among them while a bartender mixed cocktails at the near end of the room.

  All the women wore some kind of sartorial nod toward a hat, veil, or both, and I supposed that I owed Jane an apology for doubting, however privately, the appropriateness of her selections. She’d probably rather commit hara-kiri than sent me to a public event in the wrong clothes.

  “Penthouse suite,” Dorian explained. “Can’t just let anyone stroll in.”

  “I suppose not,” I said, slightly stunned.

  Incongruously, a small choir stood at the far end of the room, dressed in robes as if for church, and in front of the singers were two closed coffins, one a shiny piano black, the other white in a matching finish, attended by a priest and a pair of assistants. The clergymen were silent as the choir sang softly, hauntingly—no, not sang but rather intoned or chanted, the call and response of the lead singer not resembling that of a modern melody.

  To make the entire event even more surreal, there were about a half dozen women in the crowd who were dressed in clothing unmistakably from another time, from hoopskirts to flapper dresses.

  Two servants who looked vaguely familiar to me came up to take our coats. I surrendered mine and my small purse as well. I wasn’t going to try to juggle a drink, a plate, and my clutch all together.

  Looking resplendent in his tuxedo despite his pallor, Dorian offered me his arm again. I took it, resting my fingertips along the fine fabric of his tuxedo jacket. I was all too aware that I was garnering more attention than a cognate on the end of her agnate’s arm ought to. But that was to be expected. I was the symbol of the research that Jean had been killed to obtain.
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  “There aren’t as many...interesting outfits here,” I said as softly as I could physically manage while still getting the words out. The agnates’ hearing was unnaturally sharp, and I didn’t want to offend anyone. “Is that because those people were all Kyrioi?”

  Several heads turned sharply toward me at the mention of that name. Clearly, I hadn’t spoken softly enough.

  “Shh,” Dorian said. “No, the ones who dress the strangest are usually fairly apolitical. Not exactly in step with current events, you see.”

  “Oh,” I said, filing that away.

  There were faces here that I recognized, nearly a dozen of them, cognates and agnates that Dorian had introduced to me on happier occasions. And there, near the buffet, standing next to Marie was—

  “Paquita!” In my surprise, I said her name aloud.

  “Yes, Raymond brought her back for the funeral after we understood the reason for Jean’s murder,” Dorian said.

  I looked up at Dorian narrowly. His words were too bland, his face too impossibly still. I could feel the agitation underneath, a fierce kind of surge that I could almost taste, it was so strong. But I didn’t know what any of it meant.

  So I made a mental note of my intention to ask later and simply said, “I’m glad she’s back. I hope she’ll be in my wedding now.”

  Dorian said, “I don’t see why she wouldn’t be. They’re back in the country for the duration, as far as I know.”

  “Can I go talk to them?” I didn’t think about the question before I said it, and it surprised me as the words reached my ears. I actually wanted to leave Dorian’s protection in a room full of vampires.

  He looked down at me, and his brow creased for an instant before going still again. “You needn’t ask my permission.”

  “I didn’t know if it might violate some kind of tradition or convention or something—if we needed to do something together first,” I said.

  Dorian hesitated for a moment before seeming to make up his mind. “No. You may speak to them now.”