Darkness Embraced (17 page)

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.

“Some of your clothes are in that chest.” She dipped her head in the direction of a chest that was tucked neatly into a corner. It did not surprise me that she still had some of my clothes. When she had disowned me as her pet I had only received the dresses and clothes that she had decided to return. Why she’d kept some of them, I could not say. I raised the latch and opened the lid to find a crimson dress neatly folded on top of the pile. I picked up the heavy material, running a fold through my hands.

We do not have time,
Cuinn said again, but this time, as if he shared my memory and moment of melancholy, his voice held sympathy.

I felt Renata watching me from the doorway.

Cuinn
, I thought, setting the dress aside and finding a knee-length black tunic to slip into,
if I have time to dress then you’ve got time to explain.
I found a pair of gray trousers that were a few shades lighter than the tunic and pulled them on, lacing the ties over my hips. I made to move past Renata, when she caught my elbow and started to speak, but what she said clashed with Cuinn’s voice in my mind. I had a moment to hear her say “Why” before Cuinn chimed in with,
There are ancient magics at work.

I raised my hands. “Wait,” I said to Renata, “one at a time. Cuinn is explaining.” I said aloud, “Finish, Cuinn. I heard ancient magics. What about them?”

Someone in your clan has summoned something, Epiphany.

Are you sure?

Aye.

How are you sure?

I sensed magic…dark and ancient.

Do you know what it is?

Behind my eyelids, I saw Cuinn give a shake of his head.

Nay, I cannot tell from so far away.

I looked up at Renata and said, “You should dress. I’ll explain then, but whatever it is that Cuinn is sensing scares him.”

Renata went very still. “I may not trust the spirit, but I will trust your judgment, Epiphany.”

“Why else would Cuinn wake us?” I asked. “He is bound to protect me, is he not?”

She gave me an incredulous look. “One does not know how deep the binding goes with fox spirits.”

“I remember, but I sense his fear, Renata, and it’s genuine.”

She went to dress. I laced my boots and retrieved the fox blade.

I heard something then. The sound was faint, as if it had come from somewhere deeper down the labyrinth of halls. It came again, an inaudible whisper like a breeze in the night.

Renata emerged from the closet, her dark brows drawn together and head tilted.

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” I said.

“There is no wind here. There should be no sound whatsoever in the Sotto other than that of the Donatore and their Watchers.”

She was right. Nothing in the Sotto should’ve been alive during the day to make a noise as strange as that.

If what Cuinn had said was true, and it seemed it was, something or someone was out there. Did that mean that he was also telling the truth about something dark and ancient summoned? I closed my eyes.

If ye combine your energy with mine, we can see what it is.

I was about to think my answer when Cuinn showed me that he was not going to give me the time to frame a mental reply.

The force of his energy hit me and I staggered, feeling the vague sense of falling. I felt Renata catch me at the elbow before the room fell away. The gray stone of the hallway came into view. We were running, running the hall on four paws, feeling the invisible wind raise and carry our tail high behind us. We rounded a corner, following the breeze of power and a cold, cold energy.

At first, I couldn’t make sense of the shape at the end of the hallway. It appeared to be an incredibly tall human. From Cuinn’s height it was hard to guess exactly, but the cloaked figure must’ve been around seven feet tall. The figure moved, stepping into a spill of torchlight. The torchlight caught the glossy surface of its cloak, making it appear like black leather. A spur graced each slim shoulder. The figure turned and I realized it was no incredibly tall human. The cloak was actually thick wings that the creature had enfolded around its body. Two elongated black ears swiveled, and a mouth that was more feline than anything else I could compare it to, opened. The creature hissed, flicking a red ribbon of a tongue out from between very sharp upper and lower canines.

That much, I saw before I came back to myself on Renata’s floor. My head was resting in her lap and she touched my forehead with gentle fingers. I moved, getting to my feet.

“Epiphany, what is it?”

The fox blade was still in my hand. “I don’t know. Someone summoned a…” I hesitated to call it a demon. But if it wasn’t a demon, what was it? “A demon…”

“That is not possible.”

“Apparently, it is,” I said, “because I just saw it.”

She grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked me down to my knees. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Do you understand what you are telling me, Epiphany? Do you comprehend what you are saying? If someone in the Sotto has summoned anything, they have to be awake to summon it.”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “Yes, I understand that. Renata, let me go.”

She didn’t. “Why? What are you going to do?”

I licked my lips. What was I going to do? I hadn’t thought about that. What would Vasco have done? The thought made me think of him.

“Renata,” I said, swallowing, suddenly horrified. “Vasco. I have to check on him.”

“If he were truly dead I would sense it, Epiphany.”

“The sun is up. You cannot sense the death if one is already dead.”

Her grip tightened harshly, making my scalp ache. “I would sense it.”

She has not sensed the other.

You know for a fact it has killed?

I see more than ye,
Cuinn said.
It has devoured the life energy of its prey.

I met Renata’s gaze and held it. “You can’t sense them die if they’re already dead during the day. Whoever conjured the beast did so for a reason. More than likely, just to kill us, but they are being clever. Think about it.”

She let me go, her rich lashes fluttering. “If what you say is true then they summoned it during the day for that reason alone, that I would not sense their deaths.”

“Yes. Renata, we don’t have time and you don’t have guards.” I left the room before she could stop me, heading toward the hall at a full out run. As I left the shelter of her bedroom, I felt her dread and worry like a dart in my side. Cuinn, understanding me, was silent.