The Darkest Colors

by David M. Bachman

  Dante again dropped to his knee, reaching for her hand to kiss it. “Please, your grace, forgive me…”

  She jerked her hand away with disgust, saying, “Stand up, Dante. You’re degrading yourself in public. It’s sad and unnecessary.”

  “But … I have sinned against you, your grace,” he protested, remaining upon his knee as he looked up to her with those sad, mournful, puppy-dog eyes. “I have committed a grave offense against a member of the House of Fallamhain.”

  “Are you begging for punishment or forgiveness? I already forgave you long ago, if you will recall. I did clean up your mess, after all.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “However, if it is punishment that you desire…?”

  “No! No, I do not want punishment,” he insisted anxiously.

  “Would you prefer humiliation, instead?”

  “Your grace, I … I need your protection.”

  Duvessa blinked at him. At first, she merely chuckled. The more she looked at him, basking in the soothing tremor of his fear and dread that tickled her from within, her chuckle swelled to full laughter. She stifled her own laughter, slightly embarrassed by her own reaction to his plight as a few attendees’ gazes were drawn in their direction.

  “Protection?” she echoed with a smile after managing to regain control of her laughter. “You are asking me for protection, Mister Giovanni? You, of all people?”

  “Yes, your grace.”

  “Protection from whom?”

  “From your bloodspawn … the Duchess,” he replied.

  “Raina?” she blurted with a laugh. She quickly smothered her own laughter discreetly with fingers over her lips. “And why should I protect you from Duchess Raina? Why should she wish harm upon you?”

  “Because I am Lady Brenna’s Maker…?”

  “No,” she said, “you are not. Now, stand up before everyone sees you groveling like this. It’s embarrassingly pathetic.”

  He promptly stood, glancing over his shoulder to those behind him. Onlookers quickly turned away, pretending not to have noticed his sad display of fake remorse and genuine cowardice.

  “But I … I do not understand, your grace.”

  Duvessa rolled her eyes at him. “We discussed this long ago, Dante. You agreed to abandon your claim to Brenna when you chose not to be accountable for your actions upon the night that her Change was initiated. And now, Lady Brenna has sworn herself to me. She is as much a Fallamhain by oath as Duchess Raina is to me by blood. Twice over, you are absolved of any obligation to Lady Brenna that you may have had, should you have chosen to keep her.”

  He looked no less afraid, not the least bit relieved by her declaration. “But … I thought … I was sure that she was … dead…”

  “To you, yes, she was dead. Lady Brenna was left by you to be an orphaned bloodspawn,” she explained. “The House of Fallamhain cleaned up after your careless mess, and you have long ago repaid us for this. As far as your involvement is concerned, we may simply pretend that nothing has ever happened. I have since adopted Lady Brenna as a Fallamhain, and she will now serve Duchess Raina.”

  “This is … what frightens me, your grace,” he admitted with wide eyes. “Brenna recognizes me. She wants revenge. I saw it in her eyes, how she hates me for what I did to her. She may ask Duchess Raina to kill me.”

  Duvessa could not help but to continue smiling. “And so she may. As it has been said, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Whatever debts that either of you may feel still remain are entirely between you and Lady Brenna … and Duchess Raina, it would seem. If Lady Brenna wishes to exact revenge upon you for what you did to her, then she is within her rights to do so. She does not need Duchess Raina to do this for her. Yours is a private dispute between Commoners that does not officially concern my bloodspawn.”

  He gathered his courage for a moment, visibly swallowing back his anxiety as he wrung his hands nervously. His fear, his sharp, delicious fear was almost smothering in its intensity. Duvessa was fighting the urge to take a step away from him so as to place distance from his psychic influence, but she did not want to appear intimidated by him in any way. And anyway, it was simply too pure, too raw to deny. Only her dear, sweet Raina had given her this much of an intense taste of her favored empathic treat in recent history. It had been too long since anyone had prostrated themselves at her feet. She was quite tempted to privately punish him, herself, simply to indulge in that taboo luxury she had denied herself for so long.

  “I am sorry, your grace,” he said softly, “but I must invoke the right of Maker’s Immunity.”

  Her smile disappeared abruptly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I wish to invoke the right of Maker’s Immunity,” he repeated, straightening his suit jacket slightly. “The Code says that a bloodspawn cannot slay their own Maker, either by their own hand or by…”

  “I bloody well know what Maker’s Immunity is, you arrogant dolt! In case you may have forgotten, Mister Giovanni, I wrote the Code!” she snapped. “I am simply appalled that you would have the audacity to presume that you have any right to invoke such a privilege.”

  “I am Brenna’s Maker, your grace,” he insisted. “She cannot slay me if I invoke the right of Maker’s Immunity.”

  Her hand flew outward in a blur of movement. The palm of her hand struck his cheek with such force that he very nearly was knocked off his feet, spinning him halfway around and causing him to stumble to maintain his footing. She had not struck someone publicly in quite some time. The sound of flesh upon flesh was always musically pleasant, but this was not so much gratifying as it was necessary. She hoped to knock some sense into this dim-witted fool. The sound of her blow echoed slightly off the tall fencing that surrounded the pool patio and the glass windows behind him. Even those inside that did not actually see the slap apparently heard its report as they turned to look at its source. She did not allow the sudden audience to distract her – in fact, she felt better, knowing that others would bear witness to Dante’s humiliation.

  “How dare you!” she hissed, raising her voice to a public volume. “Who do you think you are to even think that you may lay claim to a Fallamhain? How dare you insult me with such stupid arrogance!”

  “Your grace, please! Forgive me, I…”

  She slapped him again as soon as he stood upright. The blow was much harder this time because she was afforded the opportunity to deliver it with more precision, trading off speed for technique and force. The sound was quite like the pop of a leather whip. Mister Giovanni spun and fell to his knees this time with a grunt. She could have punched him, but she preferred to reserve such blows for actual combat. Her intent was not to kill him, for a solid punch could have broken his neck. Rather, she meant to humiliate and shame him with (barely) non-lethal punishment. Delightfully, it was working quite well.

  “You gave me your word, Mister Giovanni, that you were content with the terms of our agreement,” she reminded him. “What I did for you was a favor, a gift of friendship. And now you come to me again? You dare to extend your hand once more, not simply asking for my generosity but demanding it? You invited me here under the false pretense of a memorial for my consorts, thinking you could use this as an opportunity to force me to grant you another favor? How dare you!”

  “Please! You don’t understand! Let me explain!” he pleaded, tears creeping into his voice as they began to spill from his eyes. “Please, your grace! I meant no offense…”

  Duvessa took half a step closer to him, lifted the hem of her dress slightly to allow herself more movement, and she kicked a foot out at his face. He apparently did not anticipate the kick, or at least was too stunned to think to even turn his face away, and so the instep of her left foot struck him directly in the mouth. Immediately, she realized the error of this blow, for she should have used her heel, instead. Her foot instantly went numb upon impact as she was simultaneously rewarded with a softer pop sound as it met his teeth. Dante’s head flew back with another grunt and almost toppled him over backw
ards before he brought his hands to his mouth and curled into a ball upon his side, sobbing pathetically.

  Blood spilled readily from between his fingers clasped tightly over his mouth, dripping wetly onto the desert-warmed surface of the concrete pool patio in a lovely crimson drool. Bits of teeth were visible immediately, and Dante removed his hand to spit out several more bloody and broken dental items that clicked like dice upon the concrete. Duvessa looked down and found the flesh at the top of her instep, exposed by the open design of the elegant shoes, to be torn in a ragged and ugly pattern with a couple of oddly-colored spots. She stared for a moment, lifted her foot enough to grab it with her left hand, and winced painfully as she extracted both of Dante’s broken-off upper canines from where they had embedded themselves between the bones of her foot.

  “You … bastard!” she shrieked as she threw the ruined fangs at him where he lay. “You worthless, deceitful, traitorous bastard! How … dare … you!”

  The damage she had done to him at that point was largely deliberate. As a vampire, he could always grow another set of fangs in a week or two. At first, before delivering that kick, she had thought it best to let him wear the temporary badge of shame that was his shattered grin until he had healed, ensuring that others could see and forcing him to explain his foolish arrogance to them.

  Now, however, seeing that he had also succeeded in injuring her, she realized that mere humiliation was not an adequate punishment. Not only had he insulted her and challenged her status, as well as her right to claim Brenna, but he had also drawn her blood without her consent … whether intentionally or not. Reaching for her saber, she knew that this grave offense could not be allowed to stand unanswered. Public or not, this had to be done. Justice had to be meted out swiftly. She would see to it. Had she ever executed someone in public since the Great Reveal? If not, then she was about to make history yet again…

  Duvessa’s hand was stayed by the sound of the patio door sliding open and guests’ voices of astonishment and dismay filtered out. She looked up and to her right to see William rushing over to them. Robert had moved closer, but wisely had thus far elected not to intervene. Raina and Brenna followed closely behind William, all looking equally concerned and surprised.

  “Your grace? Is everything okay?” William asked as he hurried to Duvessa’s side.

  She found herself somehow smiling at their arrival, relieved to know that they were safe. “Oh hello, dear. It’s no bother, really. I have everything perfectly under control.”

  He glanced at where Dante lay, then to Duvessa’s hand as she mercifully decided not to draw her saber. Instead, she interlaced the fingers of both her hands at her waist, doing her best to appear utterly innocent of the bloodshed at hand.

  “So … where is Senator Daniels?” she asked him as she noticed the absence of a prominent face.

  “He asked me to express his regrets that he had been unexpectedly called away on an urgent matter after meeting with the Duchess,” he explained quickly.

  “Did he, now? That’s rather odd of him…”

  “What happened here?”

  “Oh … oh, this? Well … you see, Mister Giovanni chose to insult us all by inviting us here under false pretenses,” the Grand Duchess replied calmly, ignoring the rapidly worsening pain in her foot. “He saw my grief as an opportunity to take advantage of my generosity.”

  “Um … your grace? You’re, ah … you’re bleeding,” Raina declared uneasily.

  As one, everybody’s gaze simultaneously looked down to where Raina pointed at her foot, and suddenly they went wide with alarm. Glancing down, she saw that a tiny pool of blood was forming around her right foot underneath the hem of her white gown. She pulled up her dress slightly in the hopes of saving it from harm, but its hemline was already spotted with crimson.

  “Oh, bother! My dress,” she bemoaned softly, shifting her weight to her left foot and feeling a wetness that was gradually cooling underfoot. “And now my shoe is ruined.”

  Thinking quickly, Raina hurried over to a nearby table of drinks and snacks. She grabbed a handful of plush napkins, knelt beside her, and pressed a stack of them over the wound atop Duvessa’s instep. The pain was horribly sharp for a moment, but she sustained it. To a small degree, she even savored it. Her vision wavered slightly for a moment with the intensity of the pain before her eyes sharpened as she glanced to where Dante still lay upon his side. She looked then to Brenna, who stared down at Dante with a blank expression and a swirl of mixed emotions.

  Somehow, seeing and even smelling so much spilled blood and then beholding the admittedly appealing physical image of Brenna, she found herself wanting to know her very soon. Yes, she was partly at fault for this incident, and yes, she was not particularly fond at all of this Commoner’s personality. Still, Duvessa could not deny that Brenna was both a strong and beautiful creature. She stared at her unabashedly, imagining her completely bare and ready, and she dared to think what fun she could offer with what she had heard was a great deal of lustful experience.

  It was only then, as she found her own breath and pulse gradually quickening, that she became aware of the fact that she was in the early stages of bloodlust. She had not fed since the prior morning, and even then, she had not dared to take much more than a light taste from her dear Raina, for she’d still had so very little to spare. The poor girl was still recovering from her Change, surely not yet able to offer a full feeding as any of her others might have, and so they had both satisfied one another’s cravings with lust rather than bloodshed. However, considering the blood she had given beforehand in the ceremony, as well as the resources needed to heal the cut she had inflicted upon her own hand, her nutrient intake and bodily consumption were not balanced. Added atop this were her worries for Raina’s welfare, the stresses of an imminent confrontation with Countess Wilhelmina, her ongoing grief for the loss of her consorts, this nonsense with Dante, and now a rather painful wound to her foot … bah! It was no wonder that she was so short-tempered and longing to kill on this night. It had been a very long while since she had found herself in such a predicament, but it appeared that she was actually in the early stages of bloodlust. How embarrassing!

  “Pick him up,” she said to William. He hesitated, blinking dumbly at her. She snapped her fingers loudly and then pointed at Dante. “Pick … him … up!”

  “As you wish,” he finally said with a shrug, nodding to Robert. Together, they dragged Mr. Giovanni to his feet by his arms and held him aloft as his knees momentarily appeared unable to support his own weight.

  Duvessa turned to Brenna with a kind smile. “Does it bring you any satisfaction, dear, to see him like this? Does it please you to see him suffering in pain and humiliation?”

  Lady Brenna momentarily appeared surprised that she would even ask such a thing, but soon turned to look at her unofficial Maker. She studied him for a few seconds, reflecting upon her own feelings for a moment, and then turned to look at Duvessa once more, shrugging.

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  “Only a little?”

  She glanced at him once more. “I just … I wasn’t expecting you to … y’know … kick his ass for me.”

  “I did no such thing,” she insisted innocently, glancing down at Raina as she continued to tend to her wounded foot. “His injuries were a result of his own arrogance. Essentially, he did this to himself. He challenged my authority by hoping to claim you as his own. He wished to insist that he was your Maker.”

  She was clearly confused. “But…”

  “He is not,” Duvessa insisted, silencing her with a quickly raised hand. She pointed at Brenna. “You took an oath of eternal allegiance to the House of Fallamhain. In doing so, you have renounced anyone else as your Maker. And through his own actions, Mister Giovanni long ago forfeited any claim he may have had to you. He was overstepping his authority by trying to invoke the right of Maker’s Immunity.”

  “Immunity from what?”

  Duvessa grinned at her. �
��Why, immunity from you, my dear! He was afraid of being destroyed by the monster that he had created.” Brenna was within reach, and Duvessa reached out to gently caress the enchantingly pale, silken, flawlessly alabaster flesh of her cheek. “I mean that only as a figure of speech, of course. You are far too lovely to be called a monster.”

  “Uh … thanks,” she said reluctantly.

  “I am sorry … so sorry, Lady Brenna,” Dante blubbered, drooling blood messily as he slurred his words with pain, emotion, and broken teeth. “I did not mean to … I did not mean to hurt you.”

  “Shut up,” Raina warned him as she looked up from below. “Seriously, don’t push your luck. Just shut up.”

  “No, I must … I must … apologize,” he insisted, accidentally spraying a shower of crimson upon her as he spoke that last word. Raina flinched away as droplets of blood spattered upon her arm and shoulder. Dante saw this and was fearfully remorseful. “Oh! Oh, I am … I am so sorry … so sorry, your grace! Please…” And again, that last word clumsily misted her with redness, dotting and smearing her exposed let as she scooted away from him.

  “Jeez! Say it, don’t spray it,” Raina muttered as she got up, blotting herself with a clean napkin from her other hand.

  Darkly amused, even aroused by so much blood, Duvessa looked to Brenna with a smirk. She was looking right past the Grand Duchess and glaring hard at Dante now. Ah, yes! There it was. The anger was welling up within her, bubbling up like molten rock within a volcano. Perhaps it was his clumsy liquid assault upon Raina, or perhaps she perceived some kind of insincerity in his apology. It was obvious enough to Duvessa, at least, that Dante’s remorse was largely a matter of fear and cowardice. An apology by necessity was better than no apology at all, but for the manner of crime committed against Brenna, an apology seemed hardly adequate.

  “Well then, my dear,” Duvessa said, “he wishes to make amends for his sins against you. Are you willing to forgive him?”