Darkness Embraced (27 page)

There were always Underlings. Anytime a mortal was reborn a vampire, they became an Underling within whatever clan they belong to. It was the way our society worked.

Of course, there were Underlings that let their newfound powers go to their head. There were also Underlings that never came into their power and those who chose not to embrace it even when they did. The Underlings that sought to ascend rank sooner than allowed were punished by the clan’s head, if not the Elders. Those Underlings that conformed and served their Queen or King, that offered utmost loyalty, they would have made the perfect spies.

The Elders in a clan did one of two things with Underlings. As Lucrezia had done to me, they tormented and taunted, but as some of the other Elders had done, like Vittoria and Vito, they ignored the Underlings in such a way that it seemed almost as if they were pretending they did not exist.

If you were not important enough to be acknowledged, were you important enough for someone to censor his or her words and actions around you?

“The Underlings,” I said.

Renata turned to Vasco. “My, my, Vasco. What have you been teaching her?”

Vasco practically beamed with pride. “My lady, I have learned that if you offer Epiphany a grain of sand she will eventually find the ocean.”

“Well said, Vasco, but that does not tell me what you have been teaching her.”

“I have taught her little in comparison to what she has figured out on her own.”

“Again,” she said to me, “you surprise me, Epiphany.”

I didn’t know what to say to that and so I said nothing at all.

“How does she surprise you?” Iliaria asked.

Renata turned to look at her. “You have not known Epiphany these past two hundred years,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“No,” Iliaria said, “but I too have seen what you must have at one time seen.”

“And what is that?” Renata asked in a tone that was almost defensive.

Iliaria looked at me then, her expression most thoughtful.

“She is small and gentle,” she said, “and careful not to insult, like a mouse trying to slip quietly through a house full of cats. But you are a clever mouse, aren’t you, Epiphany?”

“I don’t know.”

“Even mice acquire skills to confuse the cat.”

She laid her hand over mine, tracing a circle on my skin with the tip of her finger. “And now, those around you are beginning to see your skills. They are beginning to see that you have grown from a scared thing into something more secure.” Her fingers trailed up my wrist, brushing across the sigil in my skin. The sigil tingled, itching like mad biting insects. “Perhaps you were never a mouse. Perhaps you are only a kitten learning how to use her very sharp claws.” Her voice was a breathy whisper. I shuddered, feeling her touch call to my blood, turning it to fire in my veins.

“The problem with cats,” Renata said in a voice gone cold, “is that they are easily distracted.”

At Renata’s words, I caught the Dracule’s wrist. Her pulse thudded between my fingers. The mark at my wrist burned hot.

“I am a vampire,” I said. “I am not a cat or a dog or any other manner of pet.” I looked at Renata. “Unless I choose to be.”

Renata inclined her head in acknowledgement.

The Dracule watched me intently. “And how often do you choose to play the role of the pet? How often, for another’s sense of satisfaction, do you choose to appear weaker than you really are? How often do you sheath your claws for the sake of avoiding confrontation?”

I let go of the Dracule’s wrist. I did not know how she was able to read me so well, but it was unnerving, as if she read the Braille of my soul. “I do not pretend to appear weak, nor am I weak, Iliaria. I simply am what I am.”

“And what are you?” Iliaria asked.

“She is Epiphany,” Renata said.

Epiphany. I was not so sure I understood what that meant anymore. When I was a human child I once asked my father why my mother had chosen my name. I never knew her, for she had died not too long after I was born. Most of the memories of my mortal life were shrouded in darkness, which was fairly typical for one who had died and lived.

One memory that remained unaffected was that of my father’s reply. I was some seven or eight years of age, eternally curious as most children are.

“To understand why your mother named you Epiphany, you need to know what it means,” my father had said. “You know those puzzles you enjoy so much? Well, you know that feeling you get when you find the last piece and put it down and get to see the picture all of the pieces make?”

I had understood that much.

“When you were born your mother saw the picture. You were the piece that made her life whole, dear one.”

I had asked what picture my mother had seen.

“Love,” my father said. “Your mother saw love.”

Iliaria was perceptive, for sure, but she did not know and understand me. Renata knew me, knew my nature. The thought made me turn to look at her.

She did not seek to outwardly understand or explain it. She embraced it. She accepted it.

In her, I saw love. I saw the last piece of the puzzle that made my heart whole.

She held out her hand, her expression gentle, and said softly, “Epiphany.”

I went to her, letting her stroke my cheek with the back of her hand. The look she gave me was one of tender affection.

You are my Epiphany,
her voice flowed through my mind.
You are my missing piece.

The others waited for sunrise in the sitting room. I lay in Renata’s great bed, enfolded within the circle of her arms.

We were both silent.

Soon, we would go and try to catch the traitor that had summoned Iliaria. Until then, we would spend what time we had together.

Renata toyed with a strand of my hair, teasing a lock and wrapping it around her finger. I relaxed under her touch, content with the attention.

We had not informed the three Elders that we would be waking them. They had given their aid; we would simply take them up on their offers.

You’re awfully quiet,
Cuinn whispered through my mind.

You’re awfully fond of shattering that.

He made a disgruntled noise.

Cuinn…

The both of you, stop it.

“You heard us?” I said. “I thought you couldn’t hear Cuinn?”

“I cannot. I can hear you,” Renata whispered against my temple.

“Oh.” I felt a gentle smile tug at my lips. “So now it is I that has ruined your quiet moment.”

Renata slid her palm down my back, placing her hand flat against the base of my spine. She drew me closer to her.

“Yes,” she said, brushing my knee with her thigh. I raised my leg and she nestled her thigh against me.

Sorrow like soft feathers touched my mind.

“What happens when all this is done?” I asked.

“When we execute the traitor?”

“I still have the challenges…”

“Unless you influence a number of Elders to vote in your favor.”

I sat up. “You never told me the Elders could vote someone in.”

“It is an unusual way, Epiphany. I do not allow them to cast votes lightly, as they more often than not bicker and squabble and try to swing one another’s votes in support of their own wills.”

“What I am doing does not prove anything to them, you think?”

“It proves everything to me, but if the Elders were to cast a vote you would have to sway them, not I.” She searched my gaze. “Is that a path you would like to consider?”

“It is an option,” I said, “that’s all. Even if I sway enough of them to vote in my favor, there are those that still would not respect me.”

“Even if you pass the challenges there will be those that do not respect you. Such is the life of our kind.” She leaned forward and I closed my eyes. Her lips followed the line of my jaw to my neck, nibbling lightly and sending desire like wine coursing through my veins.

“What about us?”

Her mouth found my neck and I tilted my head to the side, offering it to her.

“What do you mean?” Her lips framed the words dangerously close to my ear.

“What happens to us after we execute the traitor? What happens to us if I become an Elder? What happens if I fail the challenges?”

She drew back, frowning at me. “Given your position, you are thinking entirely too much.”

She leaned in as if to kiss me and I stopped her by placing a hand high up on her chest.

“If you kiss me, I won’t be able to think.”

“That is the point, cara mia.”

“Your sweet Italian nothings will not distract me,” I said. “I’ve been overexposed these past some years and the effect it once had has diminished.”

She caught the edge of my earlobe between her teeth, tugging until I made another sound.

“Renata,” I said in a breathy voice.

“I want to make love to you.”

Italian, English, it didn’t matter coming from Renata. I shuddered and tried to focus.

Renata let me push her thigh out from between my legs. I started wiggling toward the edge of the bed.

“Epiphany, what are you doing?”

“Presently trying to remember what I was talking about.”

“My sweet Italian nothings will not distract you.” She grinned slyly.

I gave her an impatient look. “Before that.”

“I do not know,” she said, getting to her hands and knees and crawling toward me. “I seem to have forgotten.”

I slid from the bed to my feet. Renata crawled across the mattress, following. Her midnight hair cascaded around her like a cloak of dark silk as she moved to the edge of the bed.

“You forget?” I asked. “I don’t believe it, my lady.”

“Suit yourself.” She gave a reserved smile, eyes glistening deviously by candlelight.

I glanced at the plum colored curtain that hid the doorway leading to the other room.

Renata tsked softly, the corners of her mouth curving seductively, predatorily. “We have played this game before, cara mia.”

It made me want to run.

It made me want to get caught by her.

It always had.

Renata smiled darkly, as if she knew and was remembering the same thing.

“You forget I can read your thoughts, Epiphany. If you run, I will catch you.”

I moved as I had seen Vasco move, as I had seen Renata move. I ran, not for the door, but further into the room. Renata caught me and a sound very much like a squeal came out of my mouth. She snaked her arm around my waist, and with her other hand clutching the arm she had caught, swung me around in a dance-like move to face her.

She laughed, pulling me close.

“I told you I would catch you.” Her arms locked like shackles around my torso. I touched those arms, running my hands up the length of them.

“Perhaps I wanted to be caught.”

Someone cleared their throat and I turned to see Vasco holding the purple curtain aside. He looked to the opposite side of the room. Dominique stood in the other doorway.

“I heard a noise,” Dominique said, looking somewhat foolish as there was obviously no threat. “I beg your pardon, my Queen.”

“You are pardoned,” she said, looking highly amused.

Dominique stepped out and shut the door behind him.

Vasco grinned at me. “I did not think you were in trouble,” he said. “I just could not believe such a noise actually came from you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and he grinned even wider, raising his hands in mock surrender.

“We do not have much longer, my lady.”

Renata acknowledged him with a nod. “I am aware, Vasco.”

When the door clicked shut and the curtain fell back into place, I looked at her.

“It has been a long time since I have heard you make a sound quite like that,” she said.

I knew the expression I gave her was a serious one. “What happens to us, Renata?”

“You are persistent.”

“And you are evasive.”

“I am not being evasive.”

“No, now you are being elusive.” I sighed, slightly frustrated.

She took my hand and I followed her back to the bed. Renata pulled me down into the circle of her arms and I tried to relax, but found it hard to because she would not answer my question and I could not understand why she would not answer it.

“I have already decided what I will do whether you succeed to pass the challenges or no.”

“And what is that?” I asked, not meeting her eyes, afraid of what she would say.

She cupped the side of my face in her hand and turned me to look at her.

I will declare you Inamorata
, she whispered through my mind.
I will inform the Rosso Lussuria that you are my lover and my consort.