She took in a breath, held it, and slowly let it out. She shut her eyes and placed her fingers to her temple. This creature before her was going to give her a headache. I am a fool. An utter and complete idiot. She could almost hear the Roma witch who had taken her in yelling at her to turn tail and run. That another day of life was worth more than his embrace.
But was it?
A life alone?
She had become inured to the cold, standing out in the lonely winter night of her life. But now that someone had beaconed her inside to stand by his fire…she looked back out into that frozen darkness and did not know if she could survive it.
She knew she did not wish to try.
“Come to me, Maxine.” His voice was that low rumble that carried without effort, both pleasant and foreboding in the same moment. She looked up to see him holding out his hand to her, palm up. Asking in his own way for her to join him. “The curtain rises soon.”
This is my choice. If I take his hand, I can no longer pretend that I stand against him or the horrors he wishes to commit.
“You may always seek to better my nature, Miss Parker. Walter would certainly love the assistance. The poor bastard has been alone in playing my conscience for a very long time.” He smiled tenderly. “I will never fault you for it, if you do not loathe me for when I do not comply.” And still, he held his hand to her, waiting.
Damn me to the pits where I belong.
She placed her hand in his.
She accepted him, and this, and what they were to become.
He pulled her toward him slowly, giving her every chance to resist. To change her mind. But she did not. He banded an arm around her back and, with the crook of a finger, tilted her head up to meet him.
“Miss Parker…I think you may have stolen my heart.”
He did not wait for an answer. Instead, he kissed her, and she sank against him and into his embrace. He filled her mind even as his tongue danced against hers. The passion that burned in him threatened to consume her. And like a torch to a drum of oil, he lit her aflame in response. Her hands were tangled in his lapel, and she pulled him closer.
His hand slipped down to grasp her rear, squeezing it tightly. She shoved against him, but he didn’t relent. He kneaded her flesh in his grasp, unconcerned by her struggles. She slammed a fist into his chest.
He growled low in his throat, a needy sound, and it seemed to take every ounce of his self-control to finally separate from her. “I will never tire of your kiss. You wish to fight me, and yet you cannot help yourself. You are like stolen fruit from a garden. Sinful and sweet.”
Maxine slapped him.
Not a single person near them even flinched at the sound. The impact rocked his head to the side, although she was certain it was entirely from surprise and not because she had done him any amount of pain or damage.
She, on the other hand, felt as though she had struck a rock. Her fingers stung. She waved her hand and winced. “Ow.”
He laughed. She expected it to be cruel. But instead, he sounded truly mirthful. When he looked down at her, warmth creased his eyes, and she found him smiling at her with a genuine affection that made something in her heart hitch. The sight of his granite features grown tender was a beautiful thing.
“You really are quite perfect, you know.” With the tips of his sharp claws, he tucked a strand of his dark hair that had escaped the silk tie when she struck him behind his ear. “Come. The show is to begin, and we have not fetched our drinks or taken our seats.”
“I…”
“You have every reason and right to strike me, Maxine Parker. It troubles me none. Do it as much as you see fit. I will never be angry at you for it. Indeed, I may enjoy it.” He tilted his head to the side slightly as he watched her, as if the change in angle might provide him new insight. “Loathe me, love me, fight me, obey me—I will take it all with joy. But you have made your choice, and the moment has passed. You cannot escape me now.”
She was stunned. He was overwhelming—there it was again, that word. He took her hand and led her inside the Opera House, and she followed him in a daze. His hypnosis was not to blame. She found herself lost in her wheeling thoughts as he led her to their private box. Before she could do much else, she was seated in a chair next to him, a glass of wine in her hand, looking out at the rows of people beneath them.
“Are you quite all right?” A knuckle stroked her cheek.
She nodded once. “You are a rising tide, Vlad Tepes Dracula.”
“Truer words have never been said.” When she glanced to him, he was smiling. “You haven’t even asked me what we are seeing this evening.”
“To be fair, it is the least of my concerns.”
He chuckled and pulled a pamphlet from his pocket. He passed it to her. The program for the night proudly exclaimed that tonight they would be watching a production of Faust.
She shot him an incredulous look.
He laughed. “Too on point for you?”
She had to join in his laughter, and she handed the program back to him. “Tell me. Are you Mephistopheles or our misguided alchemist?”
“If there is one thing I have learned, my darling Marguerite, it is that one man can very well be both.” He let out a thoughtful hum and sipped his wine. “If Gounod or Marlowe had any sense at all, they would have written it to reveal such a thing instead.”
“I argue that they have. The theatrics are there for simply that—melodrama. The devil in this play is only taken literally by those who do not see the story for what it is meant to be—a parable for human weakness.”
“Have you seen it before?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a fan of the stage?”
She smiled. “Very much so. I attend whenever I am able. Especially when they tend toward the more fantastical. I was glad to have had the opportunity to visit the Grand Guignol in Paris. I loved to watch their special effects. Especially the blood. I convinced one man to let me down beneath the stage to see how it was done. Wonderful contraptions.”
He grinned. “You are a morbid little thing.”
“With all the human suffering I can remember that far outweighs my own years, I think I would rather have to take on a morbid outlook to keep my own sanity.”
He was still smiling broadly, a warmth in those red eyes of his. “And I am all the happier for it. So many with your manner of gifts wind up in an early grave.”
“Have you met many like me?”
“Like you? No. Those who scratch the surface of what you are? Most definitely. I have met soothsayers and fortune tellers, those who see that which is unseen, and more. I have known warlocks and witches, wolves who have become men, and vice versa. I have seen it all.” He picked up a lock of her hair and twirled it through his fingers. “But none quite like you.”
“Now you flatter me, vampire.”
“Is it working?”
She laughed and swatted at his knee. His hand caught hers and twined their fingers together, resting against his thigh. She looked away from him shyly.
“Do you regret your choice?”
“No. But I fear what I have done.”
“Be nervous, but not afraid. All I ask is that you do not hide behind your troubled thoughts as false reasons to refuse me.”
“I promise I will not hide behind my doubts and misgivings. I will be honest with you about what I feel. I do not think I could hide it from you if I wished. But for all my talents, I worry that you can.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are strong enough to lie to me, if you wished to. I am left to simply ask you, like anyone else would—please do not lie to me. Play games with my life if you must, but not like that. Do not claim I hold your heart in an attempt to secure my own. That is too cruel for me to allow.”
“I still do not understand.”
“I know a great deal of how the living wrong each other. I know how they betray, they hurt, they steal, and how they kill. I know how men and women might s
pin tales. To say that they might love another, that they are their sun and moon and stars in the sky, but to have it all be but a falsehood. All of it as means to an end. Once the goal is achieved, the game is over. Do not tell me I have stolen your heart only to be a lie, I—”
His hand was on her cheek. He was towering over her, his hand resting on the armrest of her chair. He had moved so quickly she hadn’t seen it. He was suddenly there, caging her in, his clothing still settling with the inertia of his movement. His sudden presence stopped the words in her throat. “You think I do not mean my words? Even if I could hide such things from you, why would I bother?”
“I do not know.”
“Without an ulterior motive, what could inspire me to act as you fear I will?”
“How do I not know you are simply exploiting my weakness?”
He turned his head away to laugh, a low, dark, mischievous sound. Turning back to her, there were a great many things burning away in his expression.
“I—”
“No.” A finger landed on her lips, shushing her. “It is not I that you do not trust. It is yourself, isn’t it? You honestly think yourself undesirable.” He tutted her. “Perhaps to foolish mortal men you may be. I am no mortal man.” He grinned. “If I thought you amenable, I would have you on my lap, here and now, and I would make love to you until the curtain fell upon the stage.”
“M—”
“Shush. My games are not those of mortals. I do not lie about that which I want. Tonight, you shall share my bed. Tonight, I shall show you the pleasure which I am capable of paying you. And you, Maxine Parker, will have come into my spider’s web of your own accord. I will take you to the heights of bliss that you have been so grievously denied until now. You will lie down before me, and I will show you that you hold my heart in your hands, even as you do my soul.”
And as quickly as he was there, he was gone. She felt too hot—her heart was pounding. He was sitting back in his chair, smiling a wry, over-pleased smile. He sipped his wine. The lights began to dim. “Enjoy the show, Maxine.”
22
Save for his rather lascivious speech prior to the opening overture, the vampire behaved himself. He barely touched her more than to simply hold her hand, and they discussed trivial things, far away from the morbid arrangement in which she found herself. Of the performance quality, of the acting, of the set production. He was well-versed in every aspect of the stage and seemed to be a wealth of knowledge on all subjects. There was nothing she could speak of in which he was not well-educated. “I am so very old,” he had said to her before. And the weight of those years was clear. She could feel it when her fingers were twined with his.
The heavy burden on his shoulders. It would have crushed a lesser soul and sent them reeling into madness. He is here to destroy my city. Is that not a kind of madness? He desires to live or to die, not to be trapped between the two as he is now.
A thought came over her—a small realization. More of a question, really. Does he play these games with hunters in hopes they might discover a way to end him? She looked over to the vampire and found him idly smiling. Merely a small, knowing twist of those lips. He could hear her thoughts, after all. And she could hear his soul.
There was nothing more substantial than wax paper that separated them in truth.
The idea of how close they would be before the dawn made her stomach lurch in fear and excitement. There was terror, yes, a deep instinctual need not to leap from the cliff into the ocean. But there was also an anticipation that pushed her forward.
During intermission, she sought his hand, lacing her fingers between his. Crimson eyes watched her with curiosity and surprise as she lifted his hand to her face and kissed his fingers. One at a time, exploring him. He did not move and let her do as she pleased.
Touching him was addictive, she realized with no small amount of dismay. She bent her cheek to rest it against the back of his hand, wondering if she could warm him by touch. If she could give him shelter from the storm.
“Yes. You can.” His voice was low and thick with emotion. Her silent yet well-heard question had carried more meaning to him than she intended. “Does the cold truly not bother you?”
“No. Although I do not have much to compare it to.” She smiled faintly. “Does it trouble you? To be so frigid?”
“Rarely. Only in the moments when the warmth leaves me.”
She placed a kiss against him again and lowered his hand to her lap, keeping it grasped within both of hers. He squeezed, reassuring and thankful. “Your compassion will be your undoing.”
“I am an empath. All I am is compassion.” She chuckled. “Sometimes I wonder if I am real at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am filled with memories that are not my own. If I shut my eyes and ponder, I can feel heavy, mud-slicked boots on my feet. I can feel the crunch of bone and hear the screams of the dying that I have maimed. I feel their ichor on my hands. I taste their blood. I feel the weight of the sword in my hand. I remember the battlefield that I was shown when I touched that brooch of yours. That memory is now mine, added to all the rest. That is why everyone believes me to be far older than I am at first glance.”
She let her fingers run over the wood armrest of the chair in their box seat. It was an elegant piece. She caught the grooves in her fingertips, glad she wore her gloves. She was certain the chairs had seen several instances of exactly what Vlad had teasingly threatened her with earlier. How many couples had stolen passionate embraces in the darkness of the theater when they thought no one could see?
“All we are, in the end, is a product of our context.” She continued to circle her fingers along the wood grooves thoughtfully. “A series of events that surround us and define us. You are what you are because of the life you have lived. Some of it was your doing, much of it was not. But it is what created you all the same.”
“You mean to say that we do not have a soul.”
“Oh, no, that is not what I am saying at all. But when we begin, we are a seedling. A tree, or a flower, or a great immortal redwood like yourself. Our soul defines our potential. But our context—bad winters, dry summers, a perfect spring—define the branches we might sprout. The bark we might grow to protect us. Whether we bear fruit, or if we become grizzled and empty.”
“My empath is a poet.”
She chuckled. “I am no such thing.”
“You are. You speak in metaphor.”
“I think in imagery. In photographs of another time. I describe only how I process the world.”
“Sounds exhausting. No wonder you always look overwrought.”
“Stop teasing me.” She still couldn’t help but smile.
“Never. Please, continue, Sophocles.”
“I would like to think I am far more attractive than he was.”
“You are. And far less irritating after a glass of wine.”
She looked up at him curiously. He spoke as though he had met the man. Then she realized…he very well could have. He was ancient. Older than she could fathom. He merely smiled at her tenderly and watched her through half-lidded, crimson eyes that caught the lamplight and flashed occasionally, reminding her that he was a wolf who had taken it upon himself to walk at her side and not devour her whole.
“Please. Continue.” He squeezed her hand again.
“If we are all merely a product of what we have experienced, then…most of what I know has not been my own. I wonder sometimes if I am only an empty vessel. A collection of other people’s memories and context. I seclude myself from others not only because I cannot touch them, not only because they can sense that I am distinctly other, but because within the noise, I lose myself.” She looked down at the crowd that was beginning to take their seats again. “I do not feel real. Sometimes I feel as though I am only a dream.”
“When this world burns to dust, and the sun swallows it whole, I will have seen all of humanity come and go before me. I can control the nature of the world
around me. I am expert in what is real, my darling. If you are a dream, then it is one from which I do not ever wish to be woken.”
Her face bloomed with warmth, and she looked down at her lap, at his hand still twined with hers, and smiled. “Now you are the poet.”
“Perhaps.”
The overture began to play, heralding the beginning of the second act, and she fell silent as the lights lowered and the curtain lifted. In the darkness, she released his hand briefly to pull off her gloves and lay the black silk on the arm of the chair. In the first instance of such a thing ever being the case, she preferred to feel him against her skin. To feel him closer to her. His touch no longer scared her. His soul against hers was no longer jarring. It was welcoming.
She leaned her head to rest it against his arm. Soft fabric over a frame that could crush steel. A beast that was so very powerful, but still remained affable, and…benign would go too far.
“You inspire such genial things in me.”
The show recommenced, and she found herself smiling throughout the second act. She dared say, it felt nice. He had asked to show her his kindness, and she found herself enjoying it greatly. It was as though they were any hopeful lovers enjoying a lavish evening on the town.
The curtain fell, and she found herself both a little sad for it and once more eagerly anticipating with both fear and delight what was to inevitably follow. At the end of the production, they headed to the street with the rest of the crowd.
There was no carriage waiting for them outside.
“Come. It is a beautiful night. Let us go for a stroll.”
“You are not planning to turn us into bats and whisk us off once more, are you?”
He struggled not to smile, but his lips twitched. “No.”
“Liar.”
That was enough to break his resolve, and he smiled fully. “You will become adjusted to the disorientation, I promise.”
“I do not think I believe you.” Regardless of her mistrust, she tucked her hand into his elbow as they walked down the street. He was a knavish thing. For all the appearance of a King and aristocrat that he wore, he was a rogue deep down.
Heart of Dracula Page 24
