“Or a King,” Gaston continued, scowling at him. “Rather than someone who could not offer her a royal position other than the title she already holds. So technically—” He looked at Dom. “The Gray holds a better chance for her hand than you do being a second Prince and all.”
Uncomfortable with this direction of conversation, Pan sipped her drink not sure what else to do. By the vein popped in Raphael’s forehead she could tell he was about to erupt in a rage against his own corrupt friends.
“Enough of this,” Pan said, looking to detour that explosion. “You all talk as if I wasn’t standing right here,” she scolded, and Gaston pouted comically. “And you all forget that it is my favoritism that should be sought and not my father’s or else do you plan on sharing a bed with him?”
They grimaced.
“Good point,” Prince Horace Kane said.
“Wisely said,” Prince Blade agreed. “In that matter, share a dance with me?” He bowed, offering his arm.
Pan smiled. Standing only five foot, but in four inch heels, she was still taller than this nine year old angel faced babe trying to court her.
“I’m flattered,” Pan said, trying not to laugh. She didn’t want to offend him. “But I’m afraid I would tip over as I can hardly move my legs.” She kissed his cheek and he blushed. “Thank you for asking. Henry—”
The Prince of the Bjorn coven jumped at her acknowledgement. Only fifteen, he was the second youngest of the group yet his features were mature and spoke of the handsome man he would grow to be with beautiful satin black skin and almond sage green eyes.
“Yes?”
“I hear you’re soon to be traveling to apprentice with your extended coven in the East, how did that come about?”
As conversation changed onto the European vampires Pan waited a few moments, nodding and agreeing when needed. Dom had melted away unnoticed in the middle of it all.
When an out presented itself, Pan excused herself. They tried to keep her, but she turned and left. She didn’t have far to search as Andre appeared before her.
“How are you fairing with the wolves?” he asked. He took her elbow, directing her to the side.
Pan felt her tension ease. Andre’s presence was always comforting as he had been her protector since infancy.
“At this point I would prefer werewolves over a dozen vampires trying to dominate me. It’s overwhelming.”
“Understandable. They circle you like prey,” he said darkly. “I don’t like it.”
“Prey I may be but weak prey I am not.”
“You certainly proved that. Now they know you bite back.”
Pan smiled. “Wait till I’m Queen.”
With his bodyguards, Victor appeared at her side. “Are you agreeable to departure Pandora?”
She couldn’t have been happier to. Victor always made it a point to leave first and he always made it a point to leave spies behind to know what was said about him in his absence.
As they had arrived separately, Pan rode home alone with Andre, her thoughts company enough. Gazing out the window at the world that in one night had managed to lose its beauty with depressing insight, they grew darker and darker until she was silently seething with rage. Once home she would finally be able to let it out of its cage.
Andre though sensed it as he kept glancing back at her in the mirror.
“What’s wrong?”
“It has been a long night,” Pan said absentmindedly.
“You’re lying.”
She met his eyes in the mirror. “So?”
He sighed annoyed, but let it be.
When home Pan made a beeline for her room, walking as fast as the dress allowed. Reaching it, she slammed the doors shut. As she yanked off her fur stole they burst back open, Magda and Gertrude rushing to help her undress. Pan rounded on them.
“Out!” she ordered, casting her arm out for them to leave. “Get out! I want to be alone and unbothered!”
Gertrude huffed at the accost, but Magda knew when to leave her to her tantrums and bustled Gertrude out. When the door closed, Pan let out a shriek of pain and rage. She yanked the usekh collar off, throwing it haphazardly on her vanity, sending crystal perfume bottles and trinkets scattering.
Catching her image in the mirror, flushed and distraught, Pan paused. On the ride home her anger had built into a coiled monster that now so quickly released, deflated. Her mind battled her body with its need to continue the rage, but the pain, the sadness, was a demon far greater.
How could he lie?
Shoulders slumping, Pan braced against the table exhausted. Her arms trembled as she breathed hard for control.
A second later, Pan knew he was there. She couldn’t explain it. It was like an internal reaction, her soul recognizing his perhaps, creating a stillness in her that didn’t belong with her stubbornness to remain angry and her caved-in heart. Pan turned to face him.
Dom stood in her opened French doors, his dark figure silhouetted in the shadows. Stepping forward, the moonlight illuminated his anxious face with a silver hued radiance. An involuntary sigh escaped her as his handsome beauty captured her yet again.
“I was afraid if I told you my birthing you would have instantly rejected me,” Dom said.
“Your birthing?” Pan stared at him in astonishment. “You’re already a Gray! My damnation and betrayal is sealed, what does it matter if you add Prince to it? You lied to me! You know everything about me, I have kept nothing secret!” She paused as a thought she was scared to have answered occurred. “When did you know?”
He stared at her.
“When?” she demanded.
“I knew you were the Princess the first night I met you. You were spotted upon arrival.”
Pan took a step back, horrified. How could she have been so foolish? Andre had been right all along. He usually was.
“They could have killed me, my friends,” Pan said weakly.
“I wouldn’t have allowed that,” Dom said, stepping closer. He looked as if he was struggling to keep his place, sensing her need for space. “When my eyes fell upon you I knew I had to have you whether you be a Rose or Gray or any other vampire stray. Seeing you Pan, I knew no enemy, only my love.”
“You should have told me who you were Dom. I give myself to you, blood, body and soul and you betray me by lying! I hate liars. If I wanted to be with one I’d be betrothed to Raphael.”
“I did lie, but does the lie or my birthing, or both make you love me any less?”
“No! It makes me wonder what else you are keeping from me.”
“Nothing,” he stressed. “You know everything about me now, including that my love for you transcends any title or ranking of our inherited identities.”
“It is inexcusable.”
“You’re right, but is it forgivable?”
He had been the one to lie, yet Pan felt devastated by the expression on his face that held desperation for her to say it was. She wanted to comfort him and soothe it away; instead she clenched her hands into fists at her sides.
“I am furious.” Her voice shook.
“I know.”
“No you do not!”
He glanced at the door, worried someone would hear her shouts. The emotional dams breaking, tears burned Pan’s eyes. She had held them back all night and simply couldn’t any more.
“I am mad because I am hurt! I am mad because you hold power over me! I am mad because I gave you my blood!”
The restraint he had held broke. Dom strode at her fast. Instinct told her to take a step back, run, as his gait was that of a predator, but Pan held her ground, her determination sound. Dom grabbed her face, pulling her close.
“I am so so very sorry Pan,” he said intensely. “I never intended to hurt you. Not once. You must believe that.”
She did, but it didn’t make the lie hurt any less as her tears could attest. Vows of love, commitment and eternity bound devotion she had given him and he couldn’t confess his single truth.
&nb
sp; Dom sweetly kissed the tears from her cheeks. At the brush of his lips her fight became light and fluttered out of sight.
Pan sniffed, defeated. “You hurt me.”
“I know, I know,” he said deeply solemn, resting his forehead against hers. “And I am so sorry.”
Holding her chin, he coaxed her to look up. Pan blinked, her wet lashes sticking and met his inhumanly majestic eyes. In that instant she held no complaints as he went from sinner to saint, his penance served by simply being her love.
“Don’t lie to me again,” Pan said.
He let out a relieved breath. “I won’t.”
“You hold my heart Dom. You have to take care of it.”
“I will. I cherish it.”
Pan wrapped her arms around his neck. He slid his hands up her back, his fingers sliding under the narrow straps of the dress. He could so easily push them from her shoulders and the dress would cascade down and she would stand before him revealed.
Pan wanted it, she didn’t care. She was his to admire, but Dom kissed her shoulder and replaced the straps. She rested her head against his shoulder, her arms folded against his chest.
“I could live to see a thousand sunrises and a million sunsets but never will I see anything more gloriously beautiful than you tonight,” he said.
Looking up at him, she stroked his neck.
“What a sight.”
“What?”
“Your eyes, the love they contain when you look at me,” he said in awe.
Pan pushed up on her toes and kissed him. He rested his head against hers.
“Never have I had to fight my nature as much as I had to tonight. To see Raphael touch you—” Dom’s voice shuddered in anger.
Stroking his face, she murmured, “Be calm my love. You are and will always be my only.” It took a moment for him to relax. “Be calm,” Pan soothed, and kissed his cheek.
Dom let out a pleased sigh. “You are mine.”
Pan sighed as well. “I am.”
She was.
+ Chapter 19 +
Sour Hours
Meanwhile, as an angel is redeemed a demon runs in team. Vampire owned the Bloody Apple was a nightclub that catered to humans who played in the game of Dracula’s fame, dressed in glam Goth to imitate their dark father and nightly admires.
The club was an old, once abandoned and half ruined cathedral church that indulged their desire for danger with the threatened damnation of their souls with sacrilegious suggestions that dancing withering and grinding bodies, heated sexual tension, and dark habits being shared in the shadows, presented.
Sitting on a tipped pew, smoking a cigarette, Raphael stared up at the faded and broken golden images of Jesus, Mary’s, angels, cherubs, and disciples of devotion painted on the cracked plastered walls. Whether the divine or demonic it was always the same, they looked down upon him in condemnation. His own father and brother, no solace to be found in his mother as she was dead, fed to the worms of the earth.
“Fuck ‘em,” Raphael muttered. “Fuck ‘em all.” Taking a last hit off the cigarette, he flicked it over the balcony, not caring that it fell into the crowd below. Victor was the only one who dared to show care.
“Mr. Bitch has his tail in a twitch,” Gaston said, sitting on the balcony barrier wall. He leaned far back, dangling over. “What’s up?” he asked, sitting back up.
Raphael glared at him. Gaston was brewing a dangerous storm and if he wasn’t careful the hocus and pocus of bogus allies would strike him down.
“Need you ask?” Jean-Philippe said. “You hurt his pride.” He pouted.
Gaston touched a hand to his chest. “Moi? How so?”
“By challenging his right to Pandora,” Gregorian answered.
Gaston snorted. “What right?”
Raphael shot him a fuming glare, nostrils flaring.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Gaston continued. “Victor loves and adores her. He’s not going to promise her hand to a second Prince, a backup in case your brother bites the dust, pardon the fun pun. He’s too prideful, only the best for his darling daughter. Down the line of all hopefuls for her hand, myself included of course, Dominic Gray is apparently on the list.”
Raphael’s lip peeled up in disgust at that name. So did Gregorian’s and Kieran’s, both Rose’s. Gaston, his best friend was always baiting himself in hates fate. Stirring the pot, double, bubble, toil and trouble, his house of flesh would be torn to rubble if he kept up his lame games.
“I think we’re all hopefuls,” Horace said.
Gaston was eyeing Raphael with a smirk. “I think the real reason Raphael’s mad is because Pan won’t give it up until marriage.”
“She’s the first Princess of any coven,” Gregorian defended. “She needs to be pure. There’s great value placed on her chastity.”
Horace nodded in agreement.
“What are you nodding for?” Jean-Philippe said, shoving his head forward. Horace snarled at him, shoving him in the chest so he bounced into the wall. “You want it just as bad,” Jean-Philippe said, laughing. “The way she flaunts it in her cute little dresses, running around barefoot all the time…” He trailed off, staring in a daze.
Gaston rolled his eyes. “Whatever. She still ain’t giving it up to you,” he said to Raphael.
“Her virginity is a gift for her husband to take,” Raphael growled. “Which being Victor’s apprentice I am in high running for whether you wish to believe it or not.”
Gaston shrugged in indifference. “I’ll go with or not. And in strong proof of chastity being well armed, it is of good fortune and genetics that I was born to stand with a well pointed sword.” He held his finger by his jean zipper and wiggled it.
Horace and Jean-Philippe laughed.
“Maybe,” Horace said. “But at the end of the night, you’re still left to beat down your own weapon.”
They all laughed.
“If she even is a virgin,” Gregorian said in thought. “She hangs out with Paul and Brighton all the time and they’re both in love with her. I wouldn’t be surprised if something has happened between them.”
Gaston wagged his eyebrows. “One of us will find out soon enough, right? Meaning me as Victor just had a meeting with my father, talking of possible nuptials.” He breathed on his nails then rubbed them on his shirt to shine them up. He glanced at Raphael who was glaring at him, silent fury boiling beneath.
“You didn’t know that did you?” Gaston asked him.
No, Raphael had not. It felt like a betrayal from Victor. But then again, anything for his darling daughter, and Pan has made it known her fondness towards him was greatest when he was walking away. But this—would only make him try harder, be more tender, and cage the offender she claimed him to be.
“When was this?” Horace demanded.
“Last week,” Gaston said, a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
Jean-Philippe watched him through narrowed eyes. “You lie.”
Gaston brows shot up. “Do I? I like Pan and Pan likes me. We would make a strong union, the Castle and Rose covens joined. Victor knows that. Man,” he said in admiring thought. “She looks so innocent, but I bet once you split her open, she’d be your dirty little whore.”
Raphael and Gregorian shot to their feet. Before Raphael could reach him, moving in a blur, Gregorian grabbed Gaston by the neck and slammed him into the wall with such a force plaster cracked and fell.
“How dare you speak of my Princess in such a manner!” he said, yellow eyes, glowing gold.
“That was crossing a line,” Horace agreed.
“I’m sorry,” Gaston said, strangled. “You’re right, it was uncalled for.”
Growling, fangs sharp and gleaming in the flashing lights, Gregorian shot forward as if to bite him. His teeth snapped closed an inch from Gaston’s face.
“Speak of her like that again and I’ll make you flinch next time,” Gregorian warned, as Gaston had neither flinched nor blinked. A fool’s mistake when he was at stake
of being savaged by three Rose vampires, not including Raphael himself.
Shoving him in the chest, Gregorian released him.
“I am sorry, it’s just—” Gaston ran a hand through his hair. “I want her.”
“Who doesn’t?” Gregorian snapped. “She’s the most sought after Princess since Cleopatra. I remember when she was born. If I ever hear—” Jaw clenched, he shook his head and looked out over the wave of dancing bodies.
Pulling another cigarette from behind his ear, Raphael lit it up. Drawing in a hit, smoke oozed from his parted lips as he watched Gaston through slitted eyes.
“Relax your mouth,” Raphael said. “Douse your pride and choose a human to ride. Savor her blood and bud. Otherwise—keep talking and get the shit beat out of you.”
Gaston nodded like a scolded child. “You’re right. This night has a lot to offer. I am sorry.” He looked to the sill fuming Rose’s.
“Whatever,” Kieran said, turning his back on him.
Raphael gripped the back of Gaston’s neck. “I’m only looking out for you.” Gaston was like his brother. He went then to Gregorian and clapped him on the shoulder. He was gripping the edge of the balcony so hard it was crumbling to dust. “Relax man. We knew long ago we should have put a muzzle on him.”
“I put my fist through his mouth he won’t need one.”
“Either way—” Raphael headed for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Jean-Philippe asked.
Raphael turned to walk backwards. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Anywhere.” Saluting them goodbye, he left.
Leaving the pounding music and rank of sweaty humans behind through an employee’s only door, Raphael walked into the real party. Dim lights flickered. The music muted to their sensitive ears, moans filled the air as vampires laid around gorging themselves on humans. Razors, scalpels and other instruments of play were laid out in display.
In the air, but not in sight was the pungent smell of sex. Mixed with the spicy scent of blood, lust for both stirred his gut, but Raphael kept walking. He wasn’t sure he could contain himself and he couldn’t shoulder anymore blame. He shoved through one of the four blood red doors that lead into a cramped rock tunnel illuminated by red lights strung along the walls.
The Dark Rose Page 14
