Catarina shook her head, her memories reflected through the sadness in her eyes. “No, I wasn’t. I should have gone back to the Secundis Domus for a few weeks. It never really occurred to me.”
Marissa laid a gentle hand on Catarina’s arm. “I’m sorry things have been so hard for you, and I’m sorry you’ve been unable to properly say good-bye to Lord Itsak.” She gripped Catarina’s arm a little tighter. “You know, you could still go. Take some time off as it were.”
“I don’t think I could. That would mean leaving Dominic—”
“Would he notice? He’s been locked up in that laboratory since we returned from Corvinestri, and now with this dictate from my patron, I can’t imagine that will change.”
Catarina nodded. “That’s how he spends every day.” She seemed lost in thought. “He rarely drinks from my wrist anyway.” She looked a little sheepish. “I’m afraid that’s my fault. I haven’t been the most accommodating.”
Marissa sat back. “Drain some blood before you go. As long as you have some in cold storage, he’ll be fine.”
“There’s plenty there already.” The other comarré’s eyes brightened. “Do you think he’d really let me go?”
Marissa tipped her head to one side and made a show of thinking. “What if I told him that you and I had argued again and I sent you away? Then I can take the blame if he disapproves.”
“You would do that for me?”
To save her daughter, Marissa would do anything. “I would be happy to. After all, I owe you for being so inconsiderate when we first met.”
Catarina jumped up. “I’m going to pack immediately. Thank you. I feel better already.”
Marissa nodded. So did she.
Chapter Seven
For the third time in what had been a very long evening, Dominic lowered the lens of his microscope too far and cracked the glass slide protecting his sample. “Vacca Boia!”
His inability to concentrate was Marissa’s fault. No, that wasn’t right. He could concentrate, but only on the blue of Marissa’s eyes, the curve of her pale neck and the way her sweet aroma made his jaw ache.
She’d tried to get him to bite her and she’d almost gotten her way.
But he was stronger than that. Wasn’t he?
His body said no. And his body was right. He sat back on the stool, arching his back and feeling his hunger right down to his bones. He’d gone without feeding for too long. Also Marissa’s fault. Maybe he should bite her. Take the blood he’d been denied. She’d given him every indication that’s what she wanted.
No.
Arnaud already had reason enough to destroy him. Drinking from Marissa would be a very wrong step in a very bad direction. What he needed to do was get Catarina in here and feed, regardless of her mood or how she felt about it. As patrons went, he was beginning to realize he was much too permissive.
He yanked the bellpull near the door. Several long minutes later, a servant entered. “You rang, my lord?”
“Send Catarina in to me.”
“Very well, my lord.” The servant left and Dominic returned to his work. The sun would be up in less than an hour and he was only now just finalizing the sunlight serum.
The door opened a second time, but he didn’t bother looking up from the microscope. The sweet scent of comarré rolled over him as he added a drop of heliotrope essence and watched the serum come together perfectly. “I don’t want any discussion. Just give me your wrist and we’ll get this over with as quickly as possible; then we can both go back to tolerating each other.”
Warmth invaded his space and the air stirred as pale, gilded flesh filled his periphery. “I’d prefer you take your time.”
He jerked at the sound of Marissa’s voice, his body instantly primed, his fangs descending. “Where’s Catarina?”
“She’s taking a little time off, going back to the Secundis Domus for a couple of weeks. She needs to grieve for her first patron; then she’ll come back to you. And probably be better for it.” She held her hands up like she knew he’d protest. “It’s perfectly within her privileges as a comarré. If you’d obtained her through proper channels, you’d know that.”
She lifted her wrist a little higher. “Please, take what you need. There is no one who will know but us.”
Everything human in him said no, but the human side of him had died centuries ago. He stood and took her wrist in his grasp. “We should not be doing this.”
Her other hand lifted and her fingers delicately followed the lines of his vampire face. “You treat me with such kindness. I wonder if you mean to turn my head, but then you refuse to take what I offer—”
“I am not trying to turn your head.” Or was he? He didn’t know what he was doing when she was around. He brought her wrist to his mouth and kissed the tender flesh. “My refusal is for your safety. Something you seem to care very little about. What makes you so bold, comarré?”
She leaned into him, closing her eyes slightly. She swallowed and the sound drew his eyes to her throat. “You make me bold,” she confessed, regret shading her face as soon as the words left her tongue.
He dropped her wrist, slid his hands into her hair, and kissed her, hard. For a moment, she went utterly still, only to melt into him a second later, but her acquiescence was short-lived. She yelped in surprise as though she’d just realized what was happening. His mouth muffled the sound.
He let her go, threw his hands up, and walked away. “Mi fai impazzire!” He growled softly, and muttered admonitions to himself. “Pazzo! This between us is wrong, crazy, and yet I do not care.” He spun on his heels and came back toward her. “In fact, I tell you, I do care—I care that Arnaud does not touch you again.” He beat his hand against his chest. “I should not feel that way, but I do.”
Her hands covered her mouth. “Because I am comarré and you are vampire.”
“Si. As foolish as the lion falling in love with the lamb.”
She went very still and he realized what he’d said too late. Her hands dropped from her mouth. “You…love me?”
He hesitated, frozen by his own words. Then he threw one hand into the air as if none of it mattered. “I love many things. Wine. A well-tailored suit. Art.”
Her expression darkened. “So I am just another thing to you.”
“That is not what I meant.” This was going poorly. Very poorly. “I only meant that…” He shook his head. “You make me crazy. I cannot think when you’re around.”
“Why?” She came closer. “What fills your head?”
He stared at her. “What do you think? You. Your sweet scent. Your gilded skin. Your damnable glow. You are like a sickness in my blood.” A sickness he no longer cared to be healed of.
“And Catarina never made you feel that way?”
“Catarina, pah. I am a plague Catarina has not yet found a cure for.” He shook his head. “Why do you not treat me the same way? It would be so much easier.”
“Perhaps if you drank from me, being around me would not be so difficult?” She held her wrist out to him again.
But it wasn’t her wrist he wanted. The depths of his vampire soul cried out for the taut column of her neck. “Perhaps you are right.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms, cradling her head and bending over her before she could protest. Swiftly, he sank his fangs into her throat and drank deeply.
She moaned softly, a sound he’d not heard since he’d last bedded a woman. It spurred him on. He held her tightly, his other hand pressed into the small of her back. The taste of her spun light through his veins and heat into his bones.
In a word, paradiso.
He let it spill through him, willingly giving himself over to her forbidden blood. Catarina had never tasted like this.
Then, afraid he would take too much, he released her. Her eyes were wide, her chest heaving. The tiny wounds at her neck began to close almost immediately. She blinked a few times. “You are a very powerful vampire. Already I feel renewed.”
A sha
rp pain racked his body as the strength of her blood became his. He grabbed on to the workbench and let it run its course. His muscles tensed as hot and cold warred within him, and as the pain subsided, his heart began to beat. He inhaled, filling his lungs with her perfume. “So much…different than Catarina. That’s twice the reaction I get from her.” He blew out a breath and the storm of sensation inside him leveled out. “Are you all right, cara mia? You look shocked. I was too rough.”
He took her hand and led her to the stool. She sat, looking a little dazed. “No, you weren’t too rough. You were fine. I just…Arnaud always takes my wrist. Or maybe it was”—her chest rose and fell with a deep breath—“the kiss.”
Her skin was flushed and the rhythm of her pulse matched the beat of his own. Perhaps he was falling in love with her. Either way, the thought of her returning to Arnaud made him want to run a sword through Arnaud’s heart. “That was too forward of me. But I am not sorry.”
She smiled a little. “I’m not either. I just never knew a kiss could make you dizzy.”
“Then you’ve never really been kissed before.”
She laughed. “Of course I’ve never been kissed before. I’m comarré.”
“So I am the first to kiss you? And the only one to have pierced your throat?”
She nodded, her cheeks faintly pink. “Yes. You have ruined me,” she teased. “How will I go back to Arnaud now?”
Possessiveness griped Dominic’s spine like steel claws. “You will not go back to him at all.”
“What?”
He glanced over at the sunlight serum still awaiting testing on his workbench. “Arnaud is too dangerous. He doesn’t need the ability to walk in the sun any more than he deserves to have you as his comarré. You will not return to him. I have enough wealth. We’ll leave, start over somewhere new. Then neither of us will ever have to face him again.”
The color bled from her face. “I can’t do that,” she whispered. “I cannot spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.” She grabbed his hands. “You know Arnaud. You know he won’t let either of us leave like that. I cost him money. He would consider you a thief. He will have you made anathema.”
The word cooled Dominic’s ardor, but not by much. He wanted this woman, but if protecting her meant losing his status, could he do it? Could he give up everything for…love? For companionship? The physical contact alone nearly swayed him. He’d lived this solitary life for centuries, long ago accepting that the bulk of his years would be spent alone. With Marissa’s arrival, that acceptance had begun to erode. The ground beneath his feet grew dangerously thin. “There must be a way for you to leave him.”
She went paler still. “There is, but…it’s not something I’ve ever known another comarré to do.”
“Tell me.”
She hesitated, staring deeply into his eyes as if hoping to find her courage there. “I could claim libertas. But then I must fight Arnaud and if I lose, I die.”
Chapter Eight
Libertas. The word erased the last whorls of pleasure from Dominic’s kiss and left fear in their wake. Marissa had thought about it, but thoughts and going forward were two very different things.
“What do you mean, die?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to make it any clearer. Either I kill Arnaud or he kills me. It’s a death match. The winner gets their freedom. Or a new comarré.” She shuddered. “There’s no way Arnaud would turn me down, either. He’d relish getting a new comarré and the chance he’d lose would never enter his mind.”
“You cannot fight him. I will not allow you to do that.”
She straightened. “You will not allow me? You don’t have that kind of say in my life.”
He held up a hand. “You’re right; I do not. I spoke out of turn, but it is insanity to think you could fight Arnaud and win.”
“Hah.” She glared at him. As much as she wanted to tell Dominic about her years of training in many different types of combat and her skills with daggers and swords, she didn’t. Those were comarré secrets. Revealing them could get her into deeper trouble. If only she could just run away with Dominic, but that would simply give her a life of fear. She needed a life of freedom.
“Why do you laugh? You think you have a chance against him?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. I just don’t know how much of a chance.”
Dominic leaned against the workbench and studied her. “You could beat him?”
“I could.” Maybe. “Or at least come close.”
“Close still means you would be dead.” He shook his head. “No, I do not want to be a part of this. Perhaps it is my own foolishness, but I find myself having…feelings for you. I am a passionate man, and I tend to give those passions free rein. What they want most is you. So you can understand why I do not wish you to go through this. Or anything that might harm you.”
Despite his declaration, her frustration built. “There is no other way for me to get free. No other way for us to be together.”
“We will find a place safe from Arnaud.”
“That place does not exist.” She got to her feet and paced toward the other end of the room, thinking. Books, bottles, and papers crammed every available space, making it hard to believe Dominic couldn’t find an answer among them somewhere. She shook her head. “I will have to go back to him. And you will have to find a way to change my blood.”
He was quiet for a while, letting her pace. At last he spoke. “I have another idea.”
She turned and looked at him. “I’m listening.”
“You say libertas is the only way you’ll feel safe leaving him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you could ever care for me? Not as a patron but as a man?”
Tiny sparks went off in her belly, the kind she’d never felt before. The kind that promised both pleasure and trouble. The kind that said her plan to use Dominic for her own end was quickly turning into something very different. “I have very little experience with this kind of thing, but I believe I have already begun to care for you.” There was no point in lying to him. They could both be dead in less than a month, depending on what Arnaud decided.
His eyes glimmered silver and his face relaxed with confidence. “Then what if I give you an advantage?”
“What kind of advantage?”
“What kind do you want? Strength? Speed? Agility?”
For the first time since they’d begun the discussion, her footing felt firm and even, not like she was struggling to climb an insurmountable cliff. “All of the above.”
* * *
Two nights later, she and Dominic were in his recreation hall, a space big enough to hold a variety of sports events normally reserved for outdoor arenas. He lounged in a chair at the edge of the floor while she faced off with a fringe vampire she assumed was one of his staff. Nero was a half meter taller and outweighed her by probably thirty kilos. Essentially, Nero was a beast. Dominic probably employed him as security.
“Ready, Nero?” Dominic’s voice echoed through the cavernous space. “Don’t hurt her.”
Nero grunted. Presumably that meant he understood.
She frowned at Dominic. “Does that mean you have no faith in your work?” He’d injected her with a large dose of a new serum. Something he named Bellona, after the Roman goddess of war.
“I have great faith in my serum. It’s your abilities, cara mia, I do not know enough about.”
“Prepare to learn, then.” She’d keep things simple but efficient while trying to hide her true skills enough that he wouldn’t suspect the comarré’s greater purpose.
“I am prepared.” Dominic gave her a wink. “Nero, down.”
The giant fringe went to his knees.
Marissa backed up a few steps, took a running start, and leaped over him. She landed lightly and looked back at Dominic. “That wasn’t a challenge.” She snapped her fingers. “Nero, stand up, please.”
He did as she asked. This time, she crouched and
jumped from where she stood. She sailed over him, coming down a little bit harder. She gave Dominic a thumbs-up. “That was half me, half Bellona.”
Dominic just nodded. “What else can you do?”
She walked toward Nero, stopping in front of him. “Keep your body very stiff.”
He grunted.
She grabbed his upper arm and midthigh, barely getting a grip on the thick muscle, then bent and pressed him overhead. He went rigid so fast she knew he’d been shocked at her actions. She wobbled a little but held her ground.
Dominic’s brows lifted. “Strength is not an issue, then.”
She dropped Nero to his feet. He growled softly and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
Dominic stood but didn’t approach. “The two of you race to the end and back to this spot on my mark. Ready? Go!”
She took off, covering the distance faster than she’d ever gone. She dug her feet in as she approached the wall, skidded enough to turn, then headed back. She passed Nero on the way and reached the starting point a few seconds later.
Dominic walked toward her but held his hand out to Nero. “Stay.”
The giant lumbered to a stop several meters away.
“This is all very impressive, but you’re not challenging Arnaud to an evening of track and field. I still have no proof you can hold your own against him in a fight to the death.” His countenance darkened. “There is only one way I can agree to this.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “What’s that?”
He lowered his voice. “Kill Nero.”
“What? He’s a member of your staff.”
“He was found by a member of my staff. He’s a local thug, one of the fringe who’s come to Tesoro in hopes of working for a noble. Spent a good deal of time terrorizing the mortals who reside here.” Dominic shrugged. “No one’s going to miss him. He’s only here because he thinks I’m going to hire him permanently.”
“I don’t care who he is. I won’t do it.” Nero might not be the poster boy for vampire reformation, but it wasn’t enough reason for her to end his existence. She was not without rational thinking.
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