Darkness Embraced

by Pennington, Winter

  “And what way is that?”

  Cuinn chose that moment to startle me so thoroughly that I actually jumped where I sat in her lap.

  Renata gave me a strange look.

  What your Queen is not telling ye is that she needs your blood to heal it.

  But it can be done? I asked him.

  Aye, if you’re willing to pay for it in blood.

  “And what does the little fox say?” She didn’t sound exactly happy that Cuinn was eavesdropping again. I couldn’t really blame her. He’d been so quiet for so long that I’d thought he’d well and truly gone to sleep, or at the least, out of my head.

  “You need my blood to heal it.”

  “That is only partial truth,” she said. “What is true is that I will have to remake the wound in the same way it was created.”

  I surprised us both by saying, “So be it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Renata cut the binds at my wrists first, and while she did, her thoughts seemed far away. I realized that as much as I didn’t want the wounds reopened, Renata didn’t particularly care to be the one re-inflicting them. The knowledge surprised me a little.

  When my wrists were free of the silken cord I spoke. “You do not seem very eager to do what you are about to do.”

  “I am not.”

  I touched her cheek, caught her attention enough that she stopped to look at me. “Then why did you offer?”

  “It is what needs to be done,” she said and her tone was so very matter-of-fact that it made me try to sense the emotions behind her words.

  She caught my wrist in her hand. “Epiphany,” she said, “stop trying to read me.”

  “If you would but tell me then I would not have to try and read you.”

  Her chest fell in a quick sigh. “You were more right than you know when you said I could not bear to look at it,” she said. “I cannot, not only because it is a mark on your shining body, but because it is a mark that is not mine. Do you understand, Epiphany? Do you see how selfish your Queen truly is?” she asked, unflinching.

  “I do not think that you are as selfish as you wish others to believe, my Queen.”

  “I thought you naive once, Epiphany, but you were never naive, not really. You were different, yes. Beneath the surface, your desires ran darker than others, is all. Do you think you were naive when first you came to me?”

  “No.”

  She clasped my smaller hands in hers. Her long, tapered fingers twined with mine. For a moment, she stared at our entwined hands. “Do you want me to hurt you?”

  “The way Lucrezia did?” I kept my voice as even and mild as I could make it.

  She inclined her head.

  “No,” I said. “What Lucrezia did to me is not a pain I wish to remember. Though suffering at your hands is a great deal better than having to endure her attention ever again.”

  “But you like pain,” Renata said. The corner of her mouth rose on one side. “Considerably more than either of us reckoned, I think. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, but you were right when you said I would not enjoy this.”

  She raised our entwined fingers, brushing her lips across the side of my hand. “I will try to make it as pleasurable and as painless as I possibly can.”

  “I know.”

  “Lie down on your stomach, Epiphany.”

  I moved to lay with my cheek resting against the mound of pillows. Renata climbed on top of me, using her knees to hold her body off mine. She swept my tangled hair to the side and I closed my eyes, focusing on finding some still and quiet place within. Instead, I found myself listening to Cuinn.

  Ye might as well just accept that it’s gonna hurt.

  Words of comfort I’ll accept, but reminding me of what I already know is only irritating, Cuinn.

  Cuinn gave a little snort and grumbled, Someone woke up on the wrong side of the coffin.

  Renata’s warm hands moved down the sides of my torso. “You’re tensing. It will hurt far worse if you do not relax.”

  I let out a long, unnecessary breath and tried to relax, one muscle at a time. The back of her fingers swept across the base of my spine. I knew that the knife she’d used to cut the bindings was somewhere in the bed, hidden within the folds of the coverlet. In essence, it wasn’t so different from the things we’d done before.

  Then again, it was.

  Renata had cut me up a little in the bedroom, but never had she cut me simply for the sake of causing pain. It had never been the raping of flesh that it had been with Lucrezia. Renata never forced me to surrender. I surrendered to her ways of my own free will.

  It made all the difference, or should have, but the memories of Lucrezia’s voice at my ear, the feel of her silver blade sinking into my skin as she carved her art into my back pushed against the surface of my mind.

  So many years ago and still it haunted me. It was not Renata that bothered me, nor was it necessarily the fact that she was going to reopen the wounds in order to heal the scar, but the memories of Lucrezia’s hands made me feel nauseous and unsettled.

  I looked forward to the reminder of such abuse being erased.

  What I did not enjoy was dealing with the memories that were resurfacing, tightening my body in fear and making my limbs stiff.

  “What is wrong, Epiphany?”

  “I don’t think I’m going to relax.”

  “It is not so different than the things we once did together.” I turned my face enough to look at her. It was a little too close to what I had just been thinking.

  “Now who is in whose head?” I asked.

  Her hands swept distractingly over the back of my left hip. “I am not Lucrezia, Epiphany. You know that. I do not gain pleasure from pain alone.”

  “I know,” I said. It was true. Oh, she enjoyed my pain, but only because I enjoyed it.

  She bent, pressing her lips against my shoulder. “Then why are you unable to rest?”

  I closed my eyes, blocking out the darkened curve of her splendidly arched brows and the twin blue jewel-like fragments that glistened beneath them. “I cannot help but remember, Renata.”

  “Yes, you can,” she said. “You have but to let go and make a new memory with me, Epiphany.”

  “I have many memories of you. None of them have tainted my soul in such a way as Lucrezia’s hands.”

  “Shh,” she said, “Think of me.”

  I tried. Her mouth worked at my shoulder, lips parting as her breath eased out, cool and warm against my skin. The soft fullness of her lips marked a path like falling rose petals down my body. Her hands cupped my buttocks. Only then did I turn as much as the position would allow to look at her. Her mouth sealed around my flesh, her fangs threatening to pierce me.

  I ground my hips into the mattress and she bit down until my skin broke beneath the pressure. I gave a strangled sound as I felt her mouth sucking at the wound.

  Her fingers traced my thighs and I opened to her. She stroked my clit, back and forth, allowing it to catch on her skin before dipping into my wetness and spreading it like salve. I groaned as she traced me. Her jaw cinched tighter, until I rose up off the bed, groaning.

  Satisfied, she withdrew, catching the languorous flow of my blood with a sweep of her tongue.

  Her hands slipped under my hips as she raised me. I rose to my knees, using my elbows to support the weight of my upper body. She inclined her head, settling her mouth between my legs. She pulled me against her lips like my body was a chalice she would drink from.

  I sank into the feel of her mouth. The tip of her tongue circled me, curling like a wave dancing over me. I moaned, spine lengthening in pleasure. Renata sucked harder, hard enough that her teeth dug into me. Her tongue flicked and the muscles in my abdomen went firm as her tongue sent shockwaves of ecstasy through me.

  She was quick…so terribly quick. I didn’t even feel her move. The tip of the blade pricked the scarred tissue, parting my skin. With my mind still fogged by the aftermath of pleasure, it took a
moment for my body to register the pain. When it did, I automatically hissed and tried to crawl out from under her. Renata drove her knee into my back, using her strength to pin me to the mattress. I expected the second cut and the expectation made it all the worse. My body tensed, and with the pain stinging like a thousand bees against my skin, I cried out.

  Renata pressed her hands against the X-shaped cut and my entire body grew rigid. The pain was so intense that it stole the scream that built in my lungs and held it trapped in my throat. Her hands burned like sunlight.

  Somewhere, distantly, as if the pain had detached me from my body I heard my own strained voice pleading with her to stop.

  It was worse than what Lucrezia had done to me. Even while she’d drawn her dagger as achingly slowly as she possibly could across my skin, this was by far worse.

  The pain spread like a phoenix bursting against my back, traveling up my spine, down my spine, through my limbs like a fire that threatened to eat me alive.

  Then, it was no longer flame, no longer heat, but a cold more terrible than Sognare’s vision. Then, I did scream.

  Gradually, the cold began to ease from something fierce and biting to something soothing and cool. I was left gasping.

  Her fingers swept the damp curls from my face. “Epiphany?”

  I turned my head, realizing I’d been smothering my face with the black velvet pillow. If I had been human, would I have passed out? Would I have unintentionally suffocated myself?

  I didn’t make a move to roll onto my back, which ached more with the memory of pain than the actual pain itself. My entire body was dewed with sweat, as if I had broken a fever.

  I found my voice and it was raw and hoarse. I wondered how much screaming I’d actually done.

  “That hurt like bloody hell,” I said, realizing the words didn’t quite convey the agony of the experience.

  “I know,” she said, laying down beside me. “I told you the healing would come at a price.”

  Aye, that she did, Cuinn said, sounding somewhat disturbed.

  I ignored him, touching a strand of Renata’s still matted waves.

  “You kept your word,” I said, almost idly while I tried to push the memory of the pain aside. “You tried to distract me.”

  “As much as I could.” She played with my hair, coiling it around her fingers. “The endorphins, even for a vampire, make the pain a great deal less than what it would have been.”

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, cupping the back of my neck in her hand. She drew my mouth to hers. “Yes, it worked.”

  “Good,” I said. “That is good.” In the back of my mind I sensed the rising sun, like the promise of a dreaded heat against my skin.

  “The sun is about to rise.”

  Renata wrapped her arms around me and I settled in against the gentle curves of her body, a welcomed respite. “I know.”

  While she held me, I awaited death. Dying at dawn was not like waking when the moon rises. It was at once more intense and less intense. What I could only describe as an invisible force began to seep into every corner of the room, building and waiting like a serpent for the right moment to strike. It was nothing to see with the eyes, but with the soul. That unseen force stretched and grew like a great dragon unfurling from its sleep. The energy rose and I had a moment to brace myself, a moment to will my body to submission, before that invisible dragon slammed into me. It hit, and like falling from a great height, knocked the life from my lungs, my body. In such a moment, one does not think that the world is going black. One does not have time to think.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A dancing light sprang to life in what seemed like an infinite darkness. The darkness did not scare me. An orange and white glow flickered, casting a halo of light that aroused my curiosity. The light wavered and spoke my name. Intrigued, I moved toward the light. The edges of the flame burned black. The flame stretched and reshaped itself until the outline of a glowing orange fox took form.

  Cuinn? I wondered.

  Aye, it is I.

  Cuinn moved and it was as if he had swallowed a bright orange sunset, but this sunset was dim enough that it did not hurt my eyes. The orange glow surrounding his aura illuminated the endless dark.

  Ye must rise, Epiphany.

  Rise? I asked.

  Aye, he said, there isn’t much time. Ye need to wake!

  Wake? I asked, wondering again what the little fox was up to.

  Cuinn lowered his furred body to the ground and leapt at me. His paws hit my chest and I was falling, falling in that vast darkness, falling so fast that my stomach lurched.

  I woke, bolting upright, clutching my stomach against the pain and dizziness.

  I felt the soft sheets against my nude body. Renata’s chamber. The thought made me turn and look for her. She laid beside me, beautiful in her death.

  “Cuinn,” I whispered his name aloud as the panic squeezed my chest like a vice. “Cuinn, what have you done?”

  I felt the threat of sunlight hanging unseen over my head.

  We need to wake your Queen.

  Why, Cuinn? The sun is still up! Why did you wake me?

  Stop!

  I froze, clutching the sheet to my body in a trembling grip.

  I will explain, but there is not time. Ye need to wake your Queen and ye can only do that with me in your hands. Get up; get the sword.

  The thread of urgency in his voice made me scramble from the bed, but it was dark and though I could see shapes, I could not make out where Vasco had last left the sword.

  A flash of silver and amber light burned and then dimmed. I went to the armoire and found that the soft glow was that of the sword. The sword was glowing.

  Why is it glowing? I hesitated in picking it up.

  ’Cause ye summoned it with your thoughts. Take it, Epiphany. We haven’t much time. Again, his soft voice was filled with urgency and something close to panic. Somehow, Cuinn panicking didn’t seem to bode well. I let go of my questions and grasped the sword.

  How do I wake her, and promise me, Cuinn, give me your oath that you have a very good reason for this.

  Ye have my most solemn oath that I’ve a very good reason. You’ve only to prick yourself with the sword and offer your blood to your Queen.

  I pressed the tip of my index finger against the sharpened point and hissed as it broke the skin more quickly and easily than I had expected. A tiny drop of blood welled and I squeezed, forcing more of the red richness from the nick.

  Offer how? I asked.

  Put it against her lips.

  I touched the silken flesh of her bottom lip, tentatively smearing the blood across the bowed crevice of her mouth. Nothing happened.

  She has to taste it!

  I put the sword down long enough to clutch the soft angled line of her jaw in one hand. I used my fingers to part her lips, squeezing the blood out. A drop spattered across her perfectly white teeth, and still nothing happened.

  “Shite.” I grabbed the sword, raising its tip to my face. I didn’t think about the fact that there would be pain involved. I merely acted, bringing the blade to my mouth. I tucked the tip of my tongue against the back of my bottom teeth and drew the metal tip across the flat part of my tongue. It stung, immediate and fierce. I covered my mouth with a hand and fought against every instinct in me not to swallow the blood.

  I pried Renata’s lower jaw open and kissed her. I forced my injured tongue between her teeth, sliding it over the cool velvet of her. I pushed my blood inside her.

  A slight intake of air sounded and I made to draw away. Renata made a sound low in her throat, catching the back of my head with her hand. She held me against her, feeding at my mouth. There was no skill to it, no contained passion. The kiss was wild and reckless, driven only by the taste of my blood and her desire for more of it.

  I tensed and Renata felt my resistance, pressing her lips against mine as if she would weld our mouths together by the sheer force of her kiss.
I opened wider to avoid being injured further.

  She shoved her tongue toward the back of my mouth and I pushed at her shoulders, trying to get her to ease up a little. She didn’t and so I pushed into the kiss, using my own strength to drive her back against the pillows.

  Under other circumstances, a kiss like that probably would’ve driven me mad with desire. Having just risen to the call of my blood, she was not yet herself. Though I too am vampire and it is unlikely that she could wound me so severely with her own body that I could not heal it, I felt her desire and shuddered against the shadows there.

  In her bloodlust, she wanted to consume me in ways that had nothing to do with conscious thought and everything to do with animalistic force.

  A lash of power hit my body like a fiery whip. I broke the kiss, hissing against the pain.

  We do not have time for this! Cuinn’s words rang inside my head like some great bell.

  I watched Renata battle her own bloodlust.

  “Epiphany,” she said. It was the first time I had ever heard her voice wrought with uncertainty. “What happened?”

  I sat back on my heels as she sat up. She glanced around the room and I realized that she wasn’t just looking around the room. She was scanning it, searching for a potential threat. If I could feel that the sun hung heavy in the sky, then so could Renata. She was my creator, my Queen and Siren, and far more powerful and sensitive to such things.

  “Why am I awake, Epiphany?” There was something suspicious in the look she gave me. The flicker of a thought crossed my mind that I could try to read her, but I didn’t. Cuinn had said we didn’t have time. Whatever he had woken us for, it was not to sit and chat.

  I stood from the bed, thinking to find clothes. I went to Renata’s closet, opening the wide doors.

  “Cuinn woke me. I do not know why, exactly, as he has not yet explained himself. Whatever it is, he felt it was pertinent that I use the fox blade to wake you.”

  “You used the sword?”

  “Yes,” I said stepping into the closet that was the size of a small bedroom. I heard the rustle of the sheets a second before Renata appeared in the doorway.