Tatiana shivered as they passed a round chamber filled with old bones. The bones were stacked into neat piles, separated by type. Along the tops of them were endless skulls.
“Why would someone display them in such a way?” she asked, eyeing the orderly bones in fear and fascination. She hugged her arms around Marcello’s neck, not wanting him to let her go. She felt safe in his arms.
“The Parisian graveyards were overrun with the dead, so they moved them below the city streets to make room for others,” Marcello answered.
It was still silent as a grave where they walked. Tatiana hugged closer to Marcello’s chest, and she felt him gripping her body tightly in response. Her wide eyes watched over his shoulder as the torches faded into unyielding black.
As they came to a narrow row of stairs, Marcello set her down. He climbed, lifting his hand to move a block of concrete from above, opening an entryway to the streets of Paris. Almost instantly the sounds of Parisian nightlife wafted down. The orange glow of the torches faded, replaced by the softer light from the city’s streetlamps.
Marcello stepped aside, offering his hand as he began to lead her up the narrow stairs. Tatiana’s gown was tight, and she tried to step sideways to keep her balance. Marcello chuckled and wrapped his arm around her waist. She gasped as he pulled her into his strong chest. She felt the hard length of him against her body and shivered in needy response.
“Hold on,” he whispered. Tatiana’s gaze moved to his lips, wanting to kiss him, at the perfect angle to do so. Marcello jumped, and they flew up, emerging from the catacombs.
Tatiana gasped as her feet hit the pavement. The narrow side street was wet, and the air smelled like it had just rained. She looked around. The city air wasn’t as fresh as the country, but it was better than the stillness of the catacombs.
Realizing she still held onto Marcello, her wide green eyes turned up to him. He was looking down at her, an openly curious expression on his face. His hands stayed on her lower back, kneading her lightly. She became all too aware of his thick erection pressing into her stomach. He was ready for her. With one command, she knew she could make him take her there on the dank city street.
Tatiana pushed back, ashamed by the thought and her brief consideration of it. Marcello let her go, a frown marring his brow as if to say, “very well then, bella mia.” He placed the concrete back over the hole.
“What is that music?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“We are in Montmartre, home of the magnificent bohemian movement of Paris,” he answered.
Tatiana was surprised to see the wave of interest cross over him. He offered her his arm. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve thought he was excited. She started to go to him, only to hold back.
“Wait, Marcello, I can’t go about Montmartre. My father said that it is full of heathens—women of low morale, poverty-stricken artists, and writers who have no respect for the old rules of nobility and propriety and...and...”
Tatiana looked at him helplessly, only to stop when she realized what she’d said. Her eyes burned almost instantly with tears, comprehending why he would bring her to a place such as this, instead of a Parisian opera or ball.
“Oh.” Dejected, the light in her eyes looked died a little in that moment. “I understand. I am a woman of low morale, am I not?”
Tatiana tried to smile, but the effort was weak. She couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze.
“Tati—”
“Lead the way, my lord,” she interrupted calmly.
Marcello took her arm and led her out from the alley into the busier city street. She couldn’t help but widen as they looked up into the night sky. She gasped in amazement and wonder. Above them turned an illuminated windmill.
Gentlemen stepped out of grand carriages, looking as fine and respectable as Marcello did on her arm. They wore their black suits, top hats, and pristine white gloves. Their presence did not comfort her. There were no women of gentry with them.
But, there were women on the Boulevard de Clichy, women brightly painted, women who wore vivid colors, women who called out to the gentlemen with their swarthy French accents and brazen laughs. Tatiana could make out a few of their words, but she did not need a full translation to know what they said. The shameless movements of their worn bodies, as they grabbed their breasts and wiggled their hips enticingly, said it all.
A few of the women they passed by on the street stopped to point at her. She heard their mocking laughter as she pulled closer to Marcello’s arm. Tatiana tried not to stare. She saw the vividness of her own dress and knew they thought she was Marcello’s courtesan. How could she blame them? How could she deny it? Even though he’d not pressed her to be with him again, she knew it would only be a matter of time before she submitted.
Marcello looked around with interest, loving this section of Paris. He displayed the beautiful woman on his arm proudly, knowing he would be the envy of all the men at the Moulin Rouge. The nightclub was the perfect representation of the artist movement of the modern time. It was a dance hall, a cabaret of the senses, an underworld of discovery. Energy flowed in excitement over the air, crackling it with life.
The music hall was a great achievement of the time. It housed a gallery and a large dance floor surrounded by a hall of mirrors, lit by gas lamps. There was an outdoor stage in the gardens, along with a giant wooden elephant where you could climb to its top. There one would find a howdah with a glass bottom to enable a person to see the sites below. Hidden in the elephant’s belly was an opium den.
To Marcello, this one place embodied all that humans were capable of, their love and hate of each other and of themselves. Their grand dreams were represented in the amazing buildings and structures. Their nightmares were in the tired faces of the drug addicts lining the streets, hallucinating on absinthe and numbed by morphine and opium. There was the gaiety of entertainments—street performers, exotic dancers, sideshow freaks, tamed monkeys, the infamous can-can dancers, music, and comedy. But, there was a darkness lurking beneath the bright lights and brilliant colors. For a price, a gentleman could buy any dark desire, feed every deviant pleasure.
Marcello had explored it all, feeding off the dancers and patrons alike, but always leaving them alive. He did not have to hide himself here as he watched it all in enthrallment. He was looked at as another grand eccentricity, a gentleman rogue of the night.
Life here was like a play set before him, and it amused him greatly to watch it. That is why he wanted to bring Tatiana. He wanted her to witness it as he witnessed it. He wanted her to see things as he saw them. He wanted to share his fascination of it with her. And, truth be told, he wanted her stirred by it as she stirred him. He wanted the excitement, the danger, and the thrill of this underworld to fill her blood and stimulate her darkest desires for him again. He wanted to show her that there was more to life than the proper, stifling upbringing she’d been fed since birth. He could feel a burning need within her, a need to break free, a need to discover and learn.
Curiously, Marcello glanced down at Tatiana. She’d said nothing since they’d left the alleyway. He expected her to be looking around in amazement. He expected her mouth to be agape with wonder and awe. Instead, he found her face toward her shoes. A wave of intense misery flowed out of her and into him. He felt her deep pain. He felt the squeezing of her heart. Her agony was dizzying, and it left him feeling sick. He blocked it quickly. He was tormented that she felt this way next to him in light of the gift he tried to give her, the gift of truly being able to live, to see, to experience.
“Bella mia?” he asked quietly. “What is it? What is wrong?”
“I am ashamed,” she answered. He felt the honesty within her.
Marcello’s expression hardened, and some of the pleasure left him to be replaced by anger. She insisted on thinking of him a demon. She was ashamed to be seen with him. Well, if she wanted to think of him as a monster who was he to stop her? Grabbing her arm, he pulled her roughly forward. Perhap
s, he’d have to show her just how much of a monster he could become.
Chapter Nineteen
Inside, the Moulin Rouge was extravagantly decorated, and not only the dance hall. The entertainers were just as excessive if not more so than the building itself. They danced in brightly colored patterns along the dark wood floor, enticing and entertaining the noblemen in their revealing gowns and rounded skirts. The hall was loud with music from an orchestra mounted over the stage. Long, sweeping curtains plunged over the private booths and stage front. Smoke curled from thick cigars, and the smell of beer was heavy in the air.
To Tatiana’s surprise, Marcello was recognized instantly at the door and ushered past some of the other noblemen awaiting a seat. She wasn’t unaware of the jealous, yet openly curious stares the count received. The man who led them to one of the large private alcoves along the wall, smiled at her brightly. He wore a checkered waistcoat of bright green and yellow, which looked absurd over his rounded belly, and he spoke in rapid French.
Tatiana watched in fascination as Marcello answered the man in kind. The vampire’s voice sent chills over her skin, and she wondered just how many languages he could speak. She studied him in a new light, noticing how intelligent he seemed, how refined he moved, how well spoken. Tatiana began to wonder if she judged him too harshly. If he wasn’t the true demon she’d made him out to be, then what exactly was he? And why did he keep her?
True, Marcello threatened her with the death of innocents and ordered her about in a menacing, gravelly voice, but he’d never harmed anyone that she saw. He never really harmed her. Well, aside from the time he drank from her neck. And there was the small matter of him nearly starving her and trying to bind her new powers with the old witch. To his credit, though, he’d taken care of her afterward.
As they passed the occupied private alcoves, Tatiana noticed that some of their curtains were pulled for privacy. Through a thin strip of one drawn curtain, she saw the bare breasts of a naked woman being pressed into a gentleman’s face as his friends watched. Tatiana turned red but did not look away as fast as she should. One of the celebrating gentlemen, with an abnormally large nose, caught her looking and audaciously winked at her. Tatiana hastened past, drawing closer to Marcello as she clutched at his arm.
The Frenchman stopped and bowed with flourish as he arrived at their booth. Marcello stood by the table, taking off his overcoat and handing it to the man. Next, he lightly motioned for Tatiana to sit along the cushioned seat of red velvet. She did, moving over to give him room. Marcello slid next to her, placing his hand on her knee to stop her from moving farther away from him. She tensed, and he let her go.
Tatiana was all too aware of Marcello’s body close to hers. He did not look at her, but instead around at the acrobats and dancers on the main floor. She took the opportunity to study the ominous set of his jaw. He was handsome, devilishly so. She licked her lips, suddenly enthralled by the smooth texture of his skin. The long sweep of her black lashes fell lazily over her eyes. She felt a stirring in her limbs, knowing it was the same longing that had made her enslave him years ago.
The man in the checkered waistcoat came back, carrying a bottle of wine and two empty glasses. He spoke to Marcello for a brief moment before laughing heartily and parting with an exuberant wave and another bow.
Marcello took up the wine bottle and poured a dark red liquid into one of the glasses. Tatiana stared at the ruby ring on his hand, more interested in the elegant finger it clung to. Marcello held the glass out to her, and she took it hesitantly. His finger brushed along hers and, even with their gloves, she felt a shock wave racing through her body from the touch.
“Will you not…?” she began, looking at the glass left empty. “I mean, can you not drink anything but…?”
“But blood, cara mia?” Marcello provided when she faltered. She met his serious eyes and nodded. A sad smile moved over his lips, and his answer came out a soft, “No.”
“Oh,” Tatiana breathed. She looked at the glass and lifted it to her nose, smelling it. “What is it?”
“Chianti.” Marcello watched her with the same interest he’d shown the dancers on the floor a moment before. “It is made near where I was born, in Toscana, near Firenze.”
Tatiana stiffened at the admission. “Where you became a...a vampire?”
Marcello studied her. He’d meant his human birth. Slowly, he nodded, smiling wryly. “Sì, that too.”
“Do you...?” Tatiana stopped herself. Do you miss being human?
She took a sip of the wine. It was delicious. She smiled slightly and set the glass down.
“Do you ever go back?” she asked.
“No, there is nothing for me in Italy,” Marcello said. His voice was calm, but she could tell he didn’t want to speak of it. He turned from her to a row of dancers coming out onto the floor.
A wild cheering went up in the music hall, and it became so loud that Tatiana couldn’t hear anything else above the racket. She flinched, taking a longer, unladylike drink of wine when Marcello wasn’t looking. The alcohol curled in her stomach, instantly warming her. She set the empty glass down, moving to look over his shoulder with interest.
Even though she was hurt by the fact that Marcello brought her as a courtesan to show her off, she was fascinated by what she saw. If she were still under her father’s care, she’d never have a chance to see what the bohemian lifestyle was all about. Suddenly, the idea of another opera paled, and she was secretly glad Marcello had brought her with him to such a place. It excited her though she hated to admit it. She felt safe being anywhere with him and knew she’d never have come on her own.
“What are they doing?” Tatiana asked quietly, more to herself than to him. Her stomach was empty and her body soaked in the comfort of the wine quickly. The tension eased from her muscles and she began to relax.
Marcello turned, hearing her over the loud hall. He leaned to her ear and answered, “They will perform the can-can. It is a favorite dance of Paris.”
“Oh,” she breathed, shivering as she felt the unintentional brush of his lips against her lobe. Marcello turned and silently refilled her wine glass for her. He set the bottle down and shot her a brief smile before turning back to the show.
The cries died down and were replaced by loud music. To Tatiana’s amazement, the girls, standing in a straight line, began kicking their legs violently to the frantic rhythm, reaching them nearly as high as their shoulders. Absently, she grabbed the wine glass and started to drink. She edged closer to Marcello to get a better view.
Marcello glanced over his shoulder as he felt her near his back. Her wide eyes stared forward, captivated. Her hand slowly crept up his spine, a delicate whisper of a movement.
“Do you like it?” he asked her, his voice soft.
Tatiana heard it more in her head than her ears. She blushed. “It’s different. I did not know the leg could go up so high.”
Her tone sounded so thoughtful that Marcello couldn’t help but laugh. Without thinking, he placed his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t tense at the contact, keeping her eyes fixed on the dancers.
“Would you like me to pour you more wine?” he whispered, wanting to draw her captivated attention back to him.
It worked. Tatiana felt his arm around her shoulders. His fingers curled near her waist. “I would like to try some of that green drink with the cubes of sugar.”
Marcello followed her eyes to a nearby table close to the dance floor. The men were drinking absinthe. He frowned, shaking his head in denial. He’d seen what that liquor did to people. It made them see visions. He could just imagine what it would do to his witch. “No, tesoro mio, it is bitter. The wine is better.”
“But…”
“I said no,” he stated, frowning. His voice became harsh. “You stay away from that drink.”
Tatiana’s heart sped slightly at his commanding tone. She pulled out of his arms, suddenly feeling as if her corset was too tight. She grabbed the wine bot
tle and poured a full glass, gulping it down. Marcello watched her for a brief moment, before moving his gaze away to the dancers.
Tatiana took a deep breath as she set the empty glass down. Her head spun lightly. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Ah, bloody hell,” she swore.
Marcello started to turn to her, surprised by the heat in her words and her uncharacteristic choice of language. He wasn’t even fully around when Tatiana grabbed his face and wrenched it to hers.
Tatiana moaned lightly in anticipation, pushing her mouth onto his. Her lips parted, automatically wanting the kiss to be deep. Marcello’s gasp of surprise soon turned to a passionate moan. He took control, pulling her waist near, forcing her breasts into his firm chest.
His tongue darted inside her mouth, and she sucked it eagerly as he explored her. In his passion, his fang nicked her lip, mingling the taste of her blood with the wine in her mouth. She moaned, not caring, excited beyond measure that she was finally giving in to him.
Marcello effortlessly lifted her up with one arm, sliding her sideways over to his lap. His thick arousal pulsed violently into the tender cheeks of her backside, begging to be set free. She shivered, rocking herself lightly against him. She grabbed his face with her gloved hands, tangling her fingers in his hair, assuring he couldn’t escape her kisses.
Suddenly, the wild music stopped. A loud laughter shot over the hall. Tatiana pulled back, panting for breath. She looked around, turning a slight shade of pink as she remembered where they were.
“Bel—”
“Draw the curtains,” she broke in, hoarse and panting. Her heated gaze bore into his darker one. She began to move from his lap, but he gripped her tightly. To her amazement, he lifted his fingers and made a small motion in the air. The curtains slid shut without him touching them. They were left in the soft illumination of the fake gas-lighted candles.
Eternally Bound Page 14
