“So, I actually blacked out because I had too much blood,” Raina said, half to Sophie and half to herself. “Serenity kept pushing me to get intoxicated one way or another, and since she couldn’t get me sloshed on booze, she got me drunk on blood.”
Serenity had indeed succeeded in seducing her, but not in the way in which Raina had tried to resist her. No, it was all quite clear now. Serenity preferred men, she knew that for a fact. Although she was attracted to Raina, Serenity’s plan had not really been to get Raina to have sex with her, although it had nearly gone that way. Serenity was an Elder of the IVC, a relatively young one, and her ascent to power had been through her skills of manipulation. She knew how to play upon everyone’s urges – particularly bloodlust, it would seem. She had apparently been aware of Raina’s naïve misinterpretation of the very term, and she had done everything she could to soften Raina up that night, to set her at ease and melt her into a putty-like state that she could mold to suit her own needs.
Serenity needed a protector, a guardian, because she was a far better lover than a fighter. Raina, oppositely, was a proven killer and politically the most powerful vampire in the world, but her love life had always been in a tragically pathetic state because she was a neurotic mess. What better way to win the Grand Duchess’s favor than by wooing her with an overwhelming feast of guilty pleasures?
Now, the room was spinning. Now, the little spots of color, the little flashes of light were appearing before her eyes. Now, her stomach was beginning to knot up, and those beads of cold sweat were forming upon her entire body with such suddenness that it nearly felt like she’d been doused with a bucket of ice water. Sure … now she was going to have that damned panic attack! Now, in front of someone whom she had already managed to embarrass herself before just a few hours earlier, she was going to lose it.
No. Not this time. Not now. She couldn’t let it win. She couldn’t let herself lose. Raina turned and faced the mirror with her eyes closed, clutching the faux marble surface of the countertop with fierce tenacity as she resisted her worsening vertigo. She inhaled deeply through her nostrils, filling her lungs completely, and then exhaled slowly, blowing audibly through her tightened lips. She tried to focus upon nothing, to think of absolutely nothing, to force herself into a meditative state.
“Your grace?” Sophie asked with a concerned voice.
Raina said nothing, tensely holding up her index finger to silence her. Just as quickly, she put that hand back down to help hold herself upright. She tried to think of nothing, only the act of breathing – calmness in, tension out. For the first time in a long while, she was resorting to what she had been taught so many years before – actively fighting to control her anxiety. For too long, she had found it easier to simply give into an attack when she felt it coming. She had gradually lost confidence in her own ability to fight off these attacks, especially after she had stopped taking those damned pills. Rather than fighting it and then ultimately losing and feeling that much worse when she lost control, Raina had given herself over to the strategy of surrender by simply letting each attack run its course. Giving in was no longer an option for her, especially now that she had a witness. Her reputation was at stake, and now her reputation was a determining factor in her very survival.
She felt Sophie’s hand upon her shoulder, and with a sudden twitch, Raina batted her servant’s hand away with a smack. “Don’t!”
“Your grace … you look like you’re about to be ill,” Sophie told her. “Are you all right?”
Raina put a finger to her own lips for a moment, and that brief distraction undid much of the progress she had begun to make in overcoming both her dizziness and her nausea. She felt her insides beginning to lurch upward, but she held fast.
Breathe! Breathe, you idiot! It’s okay. Everything’s cool. Nobody else is here. Nobody’s watching. Everything is cool. You’re fine. You’ll be okay.
Slowly, gradually, the half-heaves stopped, the spinning subsided, and her breathing became a bit less labored. She heard a snap and felt the corner of the countertop break off in her left hand. Oh well, no problem. It was okay. That could be fixed. Everything could be fixed, just like she was fixing herself right now. Breathing in deep, exhaling slowly, she brought herself back down. When she finally managed to open her eyes again, she was greeted by the sight of her own reflection in the mirror. She didn’t look as bad as she’d expected. Her makeup was good. Her hair was clean and almost smoothed out to where she wanted it. She wasn’t naked – well, not technically – and the towel wrapped around her was tucked in securely enough that she wasn’t at risk of flashing anything. She was good. Everything was cool. She was covered in a terribly chilling sweat, but that was all. She was safe. She was fine.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sophie asked her worriedly.
“Yeah,” Raina finally said with a heavy sigh, “I am now.”
“Bit of a hangover?”
Raina glanced at Sophie’s reflection in the mirror and cracked a smile, answering “Yeah, I … I guess so.” She felt so glad for that easy excuse that she had to resist the urge to give Sophie a big hug.
Sophie chuckled and held up her right wrist in offering. The puncture wounds to her wrist were already half-healed, but still obviously recent. Dried smears of blood still remained around the small wounds.
“Hair of the dog?”
“Hell no,” Raina said, turning away with revulsion. Aware that she was being rude, she corrected herself: “No, thanks. I appreciate the offer, though.”
Sophie retracted her arm and leaned upon the counter beside Raina as she held up the piece of the countertop that she’d broken off. “So, you’re not gonna chuck?”
“Not right now, no.”
“Cool. Then Auntie O was wrong, I guess.”
“Wrong about what?”
“She was wrong about how you handle stress. She said you had a very weak stomach.”
Raina looked to her with a raised eyebrow. “She said that?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said with a nod, “but y’know what? If you don’t mind me saying so…?”
“Go ahead.”
“There’s not a damned thing about you I’d ever call weak.” She smiled as she moved closer, placing a hand upon Raina’s shoulder as she leaned in nearly close enough to kiss her cheek. “Just between you and me … I think Auntie O’s a bitch. I think she just said that because she’s still holding a grudge against you.”
“A grudge? Over what?”
“Over Duvessa,” she replied. She glanced back over her shoulder for a moment to the closed bathroom door. “Honestly … I think she really wishes she could be in your shoes, and she’s just trying to do what she can to pretend she’s something that she’s not. She’s jealous as all bloody hell that you’re the Grand Duchess and she never can be. Her and Duvessa used to see eye-to-eye on everything, so she used to be okay with that. But now that Duvessa’s gone and you’re in charge, she doesn’t like the way you’ve changed things.” She shrugged as she backed away. “But that’s all just my opinion … for whatever it’s worth…”
Raina stared at her for a moment, mulling over what that bit of inside information could mean. It did certainly explain Olivia’s desire to keep a personal distance from her, as well as her tendency to assume a mentor-like or even a motherly role to her, just as Duvessa had done. She saw Raina as being beneath her, as naïve and innocent as a young child. Regrettably, Raina also then realized that she had begun to take that sort of a position with Sophie, herself. Raina knew that Sophie was significantly younger than her, although she still wasn’t sure exactly how much younger. Raina was thus inclined to treat Sophie far differently than Svetlana, for example, who carried herself with far more maturity. It was wrong, it was stupid, it was petty, and it was not the way that Raina wanted to treat anyone, much less a way that she wished to be treated, herself.
As such, she turned to face Sophie, drew her close, closed her eyes, and kissed her directly upon
the lips, fully and deeply. She didn’t hold back much, but she didn’t let the kiss go on for too long. She broke the kiss after a couple of seconds and looked directly into Sophie’s eyes as the pretty blonde licked her lips with a smile.
“Your opinion is worth a lot to me, Sophie,” Raina said to her. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“No problem … your grace,” she replied. Sophie leaned close, taking hold of Raina’s hips to pull her even closer. “If there’s anything else you’d like for me to, ah … share with you…?”
“I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m ready,” Raina answered with a shamelessly fang-flashing grin as she gently pushed Sophie away.
Sophie nodded, picking up the hair straightening iron and resuming her formal duties with a satisfied smile. Something was going to happen between the two of them before this little vacation was over – good, bad, or otherwise.
* * * *
Chapter Sixteen
Gold Canyon, Arizona
“What are you doing?”
Those four words were spoken firmly and with such sudden unexpectedness directly behind her that she couldn’t help but to gasp as she turned to face him. In her surprise, she nearly dropped the cell phone. His eyes widened slightly and his nostrils flared at the sight of the phone, and he immediately seized her slender wrist with his thick, strong hand.
“What is this?” Mister Giovanni demanded, plucking the phone from her grasp and holding it up.
“A cell phone,” she replied simply.
As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Even though she hadn’t meant it that way, her response would probably be misconstrued as being a smart-aleck reply. He didn’t hit her, though. Not yet, anyway.
“Where did you get it?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. He moved closer, practically towering over her. He wasn’t extremely tall, nor was she especially short; his imposing presence just made her feel very, very small by comparison.
She hesitated, but not for long enough to draw his ire. “A … a friend gave it to me.”
“What friend?”
“A friend … at work.”
“Why? Why would someone give you a phone?” he persisted. “What is his name?”
“One of the girls I work with was being nice. She was worried about me after that wreck, and…”
Mister Giovanni snapped the phone shut, turned on his heel, and threw the phone across the spare bedroom with a baseball-like pitch. The phone traveled like some kind of a ninja’s throwing star; adding to the effect, the phone surprised her by punching a rectangular-shaped hole in the painted drywall, rather than exploding into several pieces like the last phone of hers that he had destroyed. Sure, she had lied about a co-worker having given her this phone. It was just a cheap prepaid wireless phone she had bought at a convenience store near her workplace. It had been worth less than fifty dollars. The last phone he’d destroyed had been worth three hundred dollars, not counting the one-hundred and fifty dollar early contract termination fee she’d also been forced to pay after he had smashed it to bits upon the concrete outside and then kicked the pieces into the swimming pool. The only cell phone he allowed her to keep was the one for which he had paid, himself, simply because he could more easily track her calls and place limitations upon who she could contact.
In spite of this violent exhibition of property destruction, he appeared quite calm as he turned back toward her. He always looked calm and polite when he was angry. This was when he was at his worst. If he’d read the text message she had almost been ready to send, he would have been even more enraged.
“You don’t need another phone,” he told her. “I gave you a phone, a very nice phone. Do you not like it?”
“Oh, I … I like it,” she lied, “I just thought, ah … it would be good to have a phone for, um … emergencies.”
He frowned at her. “What emergencies?”
“If … uh … someone else hits my car again … or something,” she replied awkwardly.
“You can call for help with the phone that I gave you,” Mister Giovanni informed her flatly. “I bought that phone especially for you. Just push the big number ‘1’ to call me. You do not need another phone to do that.”
She couldn’t help but to avert her eyes nervously. She was only good at lying when she had time beforehand to think up a credible story. She was a terrible liar-on-the-fly.
“They gave it to me because they said I needed it,” she replied softly. “I didn’t ask for it.”
“Well … now you don’t have it,” he told her. “Tell your friend to mind her own business. It is my job to take care of you. You are my responsibility.”
“Okay.”
He smiled, that creepy, fake smile of his that never reached his eyes. He bent over slightly and kissed her briefly upon the lips before caressing her cheek as he pulled back. “You are very special to me.”
“Thank you, Mister Giovanni.”
He stepped away from her calmly and walked back into the huge main den area, leaving her standing there in the spare bedroom. The rush of adrenaline was only just then beginning to flow throughout her body. One of the problems she’d always had in dealing with Mister Giovanni’s abuse was that it was always so random, so sudden, and so brief that she could never adequately prepare for it or defend against it. If she could foresee an incident well enough beforehand, she could have potentially armed herself, or at least done something better to protect herself from harm. All she had to go on, unfortunately, were the memories of past incidents.
He didn’t really have a rigidly established pattern of abuse. It wasn’t necessarily a list of specific things that set him off. He just had a strange free-floating sort of rage that occasionally manifested in physical abuse against her or the other girl(s). He was just as apt to let the big things slide as he was to totally snap over petty issues. She didn’t even have to be directly responsible for his moments of anger; more than once, he had flown into a rage over something completely separate, and then he had simply vented that anger by using her and/or whoever else was within reach as an outlet for that rage. Just as well, there had been times where she had been sure that he would have snapped because of events that would have surely caused anyone to become at least mildly annoyed, yet he had remained cool and calm. Perhaps he simply chose to bottle up his anger and unleash it whenever it was convenient for him…?
At first, she had wanted to simply blame it upon cultural differences. Maybe she just didn’t understand his ways because he had been born and raised in Italy. Men didn’t always treat their women the same in other countries as they were expected to in the United States. In fact, by comparison to some cultures, including the one into which she had been born, her treatment could probably be considered either normal or even downright good.
She was wise enough to know better, though. She knew that this was abuse, and she knew that there was no valid excuse for it, no way to rightfully forgive the bruises, the fractures, and other injuries. But just the same, she sincerely believed that her suffering was a necessary evil. She only endured all of this because there was no other way for her to attain the life she sought. She had to suffer now so that she could (hopefully) enjoy life later. And that time was coming soon. Oh yes, it was.
The end of Mister Dante Giovanni’s tyranny was nigh, and thereafter she could truly begin to start anew. She understood that there were risks involved, very severe risks with potentially lethal consequences. She could very well die in trying to escape from this life. If that happened … well, then perhaps it was just as well that she did die. Either way, she would be done with this. The foolishness, the humiliation, the pain, the anguish, and the longing for something better would be over. She remained hopeful. She had faith in her plan. She knew this would work … because it had to work. She was a careful planner. Life had given her a long, hard lesson in cautious planning. The last time she had dared to be impulsive, thinking emotionally rather than logically, she had lost everything. She could no
t afford to do that again, not when the stakes were this high.
Quite frankly, she did and didn’t know what she was getting herself into with this plan of hers. Again, for all she knew, she could very well have been simply trading herself from one master to another. The bondage into which she was preparing to commit herself was, without a doubt, a permanent situation. She was quite aware of that. But that commitment was, in itself, an empowering thing. Once she had left behind this weak, frail, and damaged body of hers, she would finally have the strength and the speed to defend herself against others like Mister Giovanni. She would not allow herself to become a victim anymore. If worse came to worse and she found herself serving another cruel individual, she would find a way out of it, and she would just do it. She would not be invincible, but she would no longer be weak. She would fight and she would win … or, if nothing else, she would at least be able to get away.
Alas, the cell phone’s destruction did present a bit of a problem. Actually … it was a huge problem. She hadn’t finished reading the text message that had just been sent. She hadn’t been given a chance to ask where and when the meeting was supposed to take place. They had agreed upon one place beforehand, but circumstances had required her to reconsider. Sadly, there were individuals with whom she worked that were stupidly loyal to Mister Giovanni. If they knew what she was up to, or if they at least suspected she was up to something, they would spoil everything. Making matters worse, because he was surely suspicious over her having a second cell phone, Mister Giovanni would be watching her even more closely now. Now, it would be even harder to get away from him, and that only made a difficult scenario even more complicated.
For one thing, the party she was meeting did not know what she looked like at all. She had tried sending a picture of herself, but that had failed. Sending and receiving pictures had been the main reason she had bought this second cell phone. Any picture she took or sent with the phone Mister Giovanni gave her would have been reviewed and thus drawn immediate suspicion, for he knew that she had never been one to take pictures of herself. The camera on her cell phone did not have a flash and the lighting in the house was far too dim most of the time to get a good picture without turning on a light, which would surely draw Mister Giovanni’s attention at this time of day – too much light bothered his eyes. The picture she had taken and sent had been so grainy and dark that it looked more like a silhouette, but it would have to suffice. She could only hope that the display on the other party’s phone was brighter and of a higher resolution than her own. Fortunately, however, she did already know the face of her friend – or rather, the faces of her friends, as she would be meeting all of them at once – and so she would simply have to hope that she could spot them in a crowd first.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 34
