I thought about that for a moment. “Will anyone know that I’m going without?”
“He will probably know it.”
That sent a wave of panic through me that made my cheeks flare with embarrassment. Of course he would.
“Well then, I guess I’m going to need some panties.”
Calliope nodded and crossed the room to fetch a matching red thong. “This will work?”
“Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
I slipped into the thong, wiggled until they were comfortable, then smiled. “Do I get to look in a mirror?”
Calliope touched a portion of the wall where there appeared to be nothing. She pressed on it, using a good bit of her weight, and it turned, revealing a mirror.
“He doesn’t half do anything, does he?” I asked absently.
“No, he does not.”
The dress fit me perfectly, and I had to wonder how Roman knew my size. There was gold embroidery and those feathery red appliqués in an Asian-style pattern across the front of the strapless work of art. The bodice fit like a dream. The full skirt was ruched high on my right hip, and again, low on my left thigh, forcing it to fall in little pleats. In the back, the bodice was fitted all the way down to the back of my legs, giving it that mermaid look when I turned around.
I loved the dress, and the color, and everything about the way it fit me. It was almost too much to take in at once.
“He knows fashion well.”
I looked at Calliope. I’d truly forgotten she was in the room. “Yeah,” was all I could manage.
Adelina came in with a pair of red satin stilettos with pleats across the length of the shoe. Diamonds shone on the toe of the shoe and at the end of the heel.
“My god,” I said softly. “I can’t wear those. I’ll break them. Or I’ll break me. One way or another, something’s going to break.”
Adelina waved it off like she heard this every day as well. “You will be fine. Put these on and we will work on your hair.”
Twenty minutes later, after having two women tugging at my head from both sides, my hair was blow-dried and piled neatly on top of my head with little gold and diamond pins shimmering everywhere, and I had my feet stuffed into shoes that should have been uncomfortable. They should have been in a display at a museum or with the crown jewels, but they were on my feet of all places! I laughed at the absurdity of the entire situation.
“Does he always indulge in such dramatics?” I asked.
Adelina only smiled. “It is not often that he has a chance to dress up for company.”
I suddenly wondered what Roman had been doing while I’d been off letting myself be pampered. I didn’t have much time to wonder, however. Adelina and Calliope seemed to think my transformation was complete. They showed me out of the bedroom and into the hall, where they took up their places with one in front and one behind. We descended the stairs this way, slowly so I wouldn’t trip over my ridiculous shoes, down where Roman was waiting.
Seeing Roman in his black military uniform standing there at the bottom of the stairs, his pale-ish skin luminescent against the dark color, his blue eyes sparkling with an otherworldly light, and a jaguar on a chain by his side, was breathtaking. A jaguar! The big cat was a dusty gray color with black and grey markings. I’d never seen one with this kind of coloring.
I didn’t want to think about what I looked like coming down the stairs to him led by two beautiful women. I didn’t want to think about what significance this simple act had. I didn’t want to think about the possibilities that he had tucked away in his twisted mind. It would have ruined the moment.
I was having too good of a time pretending to be someone I wasn’t in a world that didn’t exist to allow myself to point out any particular problems with going along with a vampire’s delusions. For all I knew, he’d grown up in an age where throwing these kinds of parties was a way of showing your wealth. The theatrics of the evening weren’t considered theatrics several hundred years ago.
Adelina brought me to the bottom of the stairs and Calliope moved around me. The girls dropped into low curtsies before Adelina literally announced my entrance.
“LeKrista Scott.”
Roman bowed and took my hand, kissing the backs of my knuckles as I stood there in shock. “A pleasure.”
I couldn’t do anything but cock my head to the side and stare up at him. Wasn’t this the kind of thing I’d always wanted to happen? For the past to suddenly reveal to me that, somewhere hidden deep within the modern world, it wasn’t really dead and I could be part of it? I curtsied the best I knew how, and that seemed to impress him.
“Shall we?” he asked, my hand still in his.
“Are you for real?”
“Always, my sweet.”
I felt Adelina and Calliope stiffen where they’d moved behind me, but Roman didn’t give me a chance to find out why. We turned and he led me down a hall to a set of double doors that didn’t look the least bit native to the house.
“I added this room,” he told me, just before he opened the doors. A rush of sound - music and laughter and conversation - assaulted my ears like we’d just walked out of a dead zone. As soon as we were noticed, however, the sound of the crowd died.
“Presenting, LeKrista Scott!” A man only slightly taller than I announced and I jumped. The room went up in applause, but I could see on their faces that not everyone was happy to see me.
"What am I being presented for?"
He didn’t answer, only smiled at me like I was a child who’d just done something cute. That irked me, but I kept all smart comments to myself.
We stepped into the room and my skin began to crawl. It was all I could do not to rub at my arms to make it stop. A shudder ran down my spine and I knew Roman noticed.
“Are you unwell?” Roman asked.
I shook my head and concentrated on not running from the room. My skin felt like it was trying to crawl away from my body.
"Vampires. There are some young ones here who do not know how to hide their essence as we older ones do. That is why you feel this way."
I turned to my right, just in time to see Roman’s black jaguar led through a door, but as he disappeared around the corner, I saw his shape begin to change, lengthen, shift. I swear I saw it turn into a man.
No, freaking way!
I turned back to Roman to ask, and as I did I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Porcelain skin, ruby red lips, long, dark, curly hair, and a navy blue gown that hugged her curves and pushed her breasts up until I thought they would pop out of her bodice. I froze as she made eye contact with me. She didn’t know me, but I knew her. I tried to look away, but she had me caught in her gaze. Within seconds, she knew who I was. He’d told her.
I felt my fear build. Panic rose in my chest, tightening around my lungs and restricting my air flow. It wasn’t natural or of my own doing.
“Roman,” I gasped. “Roman, I can’t breathe!”
“Come,” he told me. “This way.”
He led me off to the side where a sitting room was available and made several giggling women leave with a simple look. The moment the door closed I collapsed to my knees with a hand to my chest, struggling to breathe. Black spots encroached on my vision and I felt my arms give way like wet toilet paper. I sank to the floor, my right cheek pressed to the cool wood paneling.
“What’s happening?” I croaked, just before I lost consciousness, but I could still hear what was going on around me. Roman was shaking me, trying to wake me. He’d pulled me off the floor and onto his lap. I heard him call Adelina and Calliope in to try and revive me. I heard Adelina say that I was breathing and Calliope assured him I had a pulse. I tried to call out to them, to let them know that I was okay but I couldn’t. I tried to shout, scream, kick, hit, lick my lips, anything so they would know I could hear them, but nothing worked.
My eyes finally flew open, so big and so wide I thought they would burst from my skull. I felt that presence pinch at the back of my mind and I kn
ew it was about to do something bad.
“Get away from me!” I shouted. Adelina and Calliope dutifully stepped back and I could see hurt and anger in their eyes. They didn’t understand and I couldn’t warn them. He wouldn’t let me warn them! So, instead, I shouted words into my mind where I knew that thing was lurking and where I knew Roman might be able to hear me.
I jumped up onto my feet, wobbly because of the dangerously high heels, and turned to face them.
What are you doing?!
I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples, because the next moment my mind felt like it would explode.
Get out of my head!
Roman stared at me a moment. “Adelina, Calliope, move behind me please.”
The women did as they were told, still unsure of what was going on.
“I am afraid LeKrista is not herself at this moment.” He began to speak to me in that old forgotten tongue and I understood him and answered in the same language.
“Your fight is not with this woman, it is with me.” Roman addressed the man inside my head in Latin.
“My fight will be with anyone I choose as long as it will hurt you,” I answered. It was my voice, but the words and the language had nothing to do with me.
“And how was it that you came to learn such a potent...trick?”
I laughed, harsh and angry. “Trick? No, my father in death. It is no trick any more than your ability to project your thoughts and feelings onto women is a trick.”
“The right women,” Roman replied, and I thought I heard a bit of tension in his voice. “No all women.”
“No. Not all women,” my voice said. “My ability is merely an extension of yours. Is it not from the one who made me what I am that I receive my abilities?”
Roman only nodded.
“This one young woman means more to you than all the other women in your harem.”
What?
“Enough!” Roman’s anger flared and his voice echoed around the room, but more than anger I felt something like fear. “I will not have you refer to my women as a harem! They deserve much more respect than that!”
“Do they?” I asked. “Do they not come to you willingly?”
“Of course they come to me willingly. I would never force myself on a woman.”
“No? Does this one come to you willingly?”
I felt that strange presence drop its control over my mind. I had a moment to look at Roman wide-eyed, breathing hard before I felt it take over my body. I screamed.
“No!” My body launched itself toward Roman, faster than it should have been able to, arms out stretched, fingers curled into claws. But I wasn’t fast enough, or strong enough. Roman caught me in midair and pulled me against his chest. Close enough that I could smell his skin and hear his heartbeat. That shocked me for a moment. I didn’t think vampires had heartbeats. Weren’t they supposed to be dead?
The presence took over my body again and I fought to wriggle from Roman’s grasp. Perhaps the person inside my head thought I was stronger than I really was. Either way, I could feel Roman’s grip on me begin to bruise.
The door to the room burst open and the roar of a large cat filled the space.
“Back!” Roman called, flinging one hand out and stopping it in its tracks, the great animal reduced to a tabby cat.
“LeKrista, I am sorry.” I couldn’t ask what he was sorry for. He touched a finger to my forehead and I felt my mind fill with...something. Then I felt nothing.
I was hunched in the woods in the cold wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans. I could see my knees from where I was squatting down. I had my back leaned against a tree and my arms wrapped around myself, but I wasn’t cold.
I was angry and breathing hard, drawing in ragged, raging breaths of the cold air trying to calm myself, but it wasn’t working. I stood suddenly, quicker and more graceful than I’ve ever been able to move and I realized I wasn’t myself but Lucretious.
“Why are you trying to kill me?” I asked, hoping maybe I could reason with this...thing.
“Careful, little human,” he warned. “You’re in my head, but we share one mind right now. I know your thoughts just as you know mine.”
“Okay, but why are you trying to kill me? What have I done?”
“What has he told you?”
This was not the answer to my question. “About what?”
“That’s answer enough. Perhaps I should give you a preview.”
I thought that would be nice. I’d really like to know what I’d unknowingly gotten myself into.
Lucretious laughed. “You humans. Always looking for an adventure or a release from your boring lives. It’s what makes you so damned easy.”
I didn’t like being called easy, and I made sure he knew it.
“Your vampire love has been lying to you.”
“He’s not my love.”
“What has he told you of Vivian? What has he told you of me?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Who is Vivian?”
“Allow me to enlighten you.” He sounded so pleased that he was able to do this.
I found myself in a great room. The ceiling was high and cavernous and there was more golden decoration. Something obstructed my view. I pushed it away and found it to be a gauzy curtain I was hiding behind.
In the center of the room, Vivian was on her knees. Long golden hair fell down her back in waves and candlelight made her porcelain skin glow, but she wasn’t a vampire. Lucretious kept part of his mind closed to me, but he wanted me to know that she wasn’t a vampire.
Her scream cut through the night like a knife. Her hands clutched her head, pulling at her hair to try and alleviate the pain.
“Answer me!” Roman shouted, but it wasn’t in English. He shouted his native Latin at her and she understood, I understood.
“Answer me!” Roman shouted again and, when he did Vivian made a strangled sound in her throat. She began to speak in a string of Latin words, but I wasn’t able to follow because they were all strung together. Not even Roman could understand her.
“Be silent, whore!"
Vivian started to cry, not because of her unimaginable pain, but because her love had called her a whore.
As I watched, blood began to trail from her ears and nose. Alarm ran through me. Could he not see what he was doing? I looked up at Roman’s face and saw the disgust, cruelty, and hatred that I had seen a shadow of earlier that evening when I mentioned Pierce. He knew what he was doing.
“You’re killing her!” I shouted. “You’re killing her!”
But it wasn’t me, it was Lucretious. The room disappeared and I looked around. I was alone, but I needed to see him. “Where are you?” I called. “Show yourself. Please.”
And he was there, standing in front of me in nothing but his black jeans. “Why? Does this make it easier to bear?”
I shook my head and looked into his eyes. “Show me the rest.” I saw the muscle in his jaw work as he deliberated, then nodded. The room came back in a rush.
Vivian was bleeding from her ears and her nose and I could see that blood was starting to trickle from her tear ducts as well. I looked at Roman. Surely all that blood was a temptation for a vampire. But there was nothing but anger and hatred in his handsome face. His features were twisted with it. His eyes had turned almost black.
I looked back at Vivian. Her body jerked unnaturally and she slumped to the floor. Blood began to pour from her eyes, ears and nose and I thought I could see a slight swelling in her head. He’d killed her.
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes and tried not to cry. He wanted me because I reminded him of Vivian, but how? Surely there was no connection between us. He’d killed her for...what? Cheating?
“You really don’t know?” Lucretious’ hatred seemed to ebb and a soft regret coated his next words. “Then, I am sorry for what I must do.”
“What happened?” I asked, ignoring his apology, because I didn’t want to like him. “Why did he do it?”
“Because she fell in love with me. She no longer loved him as a woman loves a man, as you don’t love him, and he could no longer use her the way he wanted.”
“Use her for what?”
“We’re taking over, LeKrista. Living humans will no longer rule the world. We will, and very soon. It’s happening now, even as we speak. Soon, those who stalk the night for a mere taste of blood will never again have to live in hiding. It will be your kind that must hide in the night.” He laughed then, a villainous laugh.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked.
“With you, his power will be great and he can be the ruler of all. With you he will take over the world.”
I shook my head. “But I don’t love him.”
“It doesn’t matter. Do you really think you stand a chance against a vampire as old as he?”
“I can run. Hide. You don’t have to kill me.”
Lucretious laughed and began to fade. “Oh, little human. You are funny.”
“If you come after me,” I said, mustering all of the anger and hatred I could, “I will kill you.”
Even as he faded, I felt him smile. “You sound just like Vivian. And I welcome the true death.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I woke with my two “ladies maids” attending me. Adelina and Calliope sat at the head of the sofa where I was carefully laid out with my skirts tucked around my ankles for modesty’s sake. Roman came through the door then anyway, apologizing out the ass. He had a pretty girl with him and, at first I thought she was a vampire. Her skin was so pale that her burgundy red hair stood in stark contrast. Then I saw her pink eyes and I knew she wasn’t a vampire but an albino.
“LeKrista, I am sorry.”
“For what?” I asked, my voice a little rough.
“I did not want to harm you.”
“Harm me? You mean by knocking me out?” When he nodded there was so much guilt in his eyes. “Are there any lingering effects I should know about?”
“There do not seem to be any, no.”
I shrugged and tried to swing my legs over the edge of the sofa, but they got all tangled in the fabrics and I couldn’t get them apart. I tugged and yanked with my legs so much that Adelina and Calliope came over to help me. A loud riiip made me stop. Everyone froze for a moment. I felt Roman’s shock, then amusement and the albino girl giggled. Adelina and Calliope finished unwrapping my ankles and I swung my feet to the floor, finally free.
Scorned Page 7
