Masks (9 page)

It seemed amazing to him now, almost as amazing as the timing of his epiphany. But then, how better to see yourself clearly than when there were no barriers? No clothes to hide behind or names to live up to. Just sweat-slick skin and undulating hips and rasping breaths as the most primal of needs built toward a climax.

The women draped over the couches had started murmuring, discussing him among themselves, the soft rise and fall of their voices like the lap of waves in the canal outside. But it didn’t bother him now, any more than the feel of their eyes on his body. Somewhere along the line, he’d stopped thinking about being on display for them. And started noticing other things.

The flutter of soot-black lashes against honeyed skin. The dark purple stain on a pair of perfect lips. The swell of a breast above creamy silk.

The feel of a dozen hands sliding over his body.

The women hadn’t moved, much less their mistress. In all the room, nothing did. Except for the flicker of lamps, the slide of raindrops, and the erotic shadows he threw on the wall.

But moving or not, he felt them, some part of them, everywhere. Fingers soft as air combed through his hair, explored his ribs, ghosted over the tense muscles of his backside. Invisible teeth nipped the peak of a nipple. Phantom tongues followed the curve of his ear, skimmed down his collarbone, dropped to trace patterns in the sweat on his now heaving chest.

And then slid underneath the mask he wore, and started to push it up.

It ripped the first sound from his throat, a desperate, keening cry. It also finally broke his rhythm when he hunched over protectively, he didn’t know why. It was such a little thing, when he had revealed so much already.

But it was also his last.

The last bit of him still hidden. The last taboo still unbroken. The last, most private part of him, far more so than his body.

He felt that heady sense of freedom evaporate in an instant. That man in the mirror could be anyone, anyone at all. But once he showed his face . . .

Then it wouldn’t be an anonymous courtesan doing these things anymore. It would be him. It would be Mircea.

But it seemed that his audience was determined to have everything.

Unseen hands pulled his own away from his face. Leaving him with no way to hide as the soft touches returned. Sliding through his hair, tugging at the silken straps, undoing the soft knot. He could have fought them, could have resisted. But emotions were roiling in him too fast and hard to know how to respond as they pulled away his last remaining defense.

And laid him bare.

He stood there, watching the last of his old self die as the mask fell away. As he transformed from a living statue, to be admired for adherence to ancient aesthetics, to a flagrantly sexual being. One standing tall and proud and utterly exposed before the room.

And before his client. Who kept him like that for a long moment, her eyes going over him. From the convulsively working throat to the glistening chest to the proud jut of his manhood. And then back up to meet his eyes.

She studied his face, that last forbidden area. She took him in, she took all of him. Until he was trembling, his head was spinning, and his body was teetering on the brink.

“Now.”

She’d barely said the word when he was caught in a furious cloud of invisible lips and tongues and teeth. They dropped him to his knees, with delicate, razor-sharp fangs that slid into the bulging veins at his neck, his breast, his wrists. They bent him backward, leaving him arching and thrusting into the air, before piercing him at his thigh, his groin, even the vein running down his length.

They tore another cry from his throat, and then another and another, pulling them out of him as if on a string. Each sounded shockingly loud in the silence, but he didn’t care, couldn’t care. Caught in the middle of a sensual assault unlike any he’d ever imagined.

And then finally, finally, the pain gave way to sweet, yielding flesh, to the demands of a dozen bodies sliding against his, their need mingling with his own to send it spiraling higher and higher and higher. Until his orgasm erupted out of him, along with a roar that crashed through the well-mannered stillness and echoed off the walls.

And announced his climax to the room.

Mircea staggered through the back door of Martina’s house, along with a burst of rain and wind that set the candles guttering and someone cursing. Someone else went running, and something hit the floor with a clatter, scattering in a thousand rolling pieces. Which hurt like the devil when he fell on them.

He decided he didn’t care and hugged the rough wooden floorboards gratefully. Whoever had been swearing did it some more. And then tugged the sodden cloak off him, which had proven worthless when the clouds opened up halfway back.

Fortunately, he’d been in a gondola, being too weak to walk. Unfortunately, the gondolier had decided that he wasn’t being paid enough for this, and had dropped him off at the end of the street. Which Mircea had never before realized was quite so long.

But he’d made it, and now someone was pulling him into a slumped sprawl against the nearest wall, giving him a strange angle on the large room. Or maybe that was him. He had the feeling he might not be entirely level.

Thankfully, the kitchen was the one room where nobody cared if you sprawled in the corner. The rest of the palazzo felt alien with its glass this and inlaid that. The house Mircea had grown up in wouldn’t have been thought fit for a self-respecting tradesman in Venice, much less one of the wealthy merchants, who lived like the princes they thought they were.

But the kitchen was better, with its rough, open board ceiling, plain plaster walls, and plainer furniture. There was an old, scarred table, a few wooden stools, rows of shiny brass pots, and a couple pieces of cracked pottery that the cats ate out of when they weren’t feasting on Zaneta’s bird. And a big stone fireplace belching out enough heat to warm him, even now . . .

Mircea liked the kitchen.

He liked it better a few seconds later, when something appeared under his nose. Something that smelled better than . . . than . . . oh,
God
. His fangs broke through fresh young skin, sliding in cleanly, but still wrenching a gasp from whoever was providing such wonderful, such amazing, such—

His brain shut down, and for a few moments, he just fed.

At some point, the lovely arm went away, to be replaced by another, hairier version. It didn’t matter; it was wonderful, too. And slowly, he managed to identify the little things he was sitting on.

Of course.

They were peas, dried ones. Which had been in a bowl, being prepped for someone’s dinner. But which were now mostly squashed. He sat there and blinked at them for a minute. Until someone burst in through the doorway and jerked him up. Someone with angry blue eyes and a familiar face that he couldn’t quite—

Oh, yes.

Paulo.

“Damn it! I knew we should have sent someone to get you!” the blond said, shaking him.

“Why didn’t you?” a harsher voice asked. It was the one that had been swearing earlier.

Bezio,
Mircea thought vaguely.

“Martina said he’d be fine!”

“Martina seems to take a lot of liberties with other people’s lives!”

“Master?” Paulo reminded him tightly.

“That doesn’t give her the right—”

“It gives her every right,” Paulo snapped. “Will you stop thinking like a human?”

“So she bought him just to kill him?”

“No. Something must have gone wrong, gotten out of hand—”

“Out of hand, he says!” Bezio made a disgusted sound. And then somebody stuffed Mircea into a spare chair.

He thought that was a bad idea, considering the magnetic quality of the floor. But surprisingly, he stayed put, although he didn’t feel any of the strength that usually came from feeding. He felt more like he might just float away at any moment.

He felt odd.

He must have looked it, too, because suddenly, there were two concerned faces peering into his own, looking strangely funny this close.

“Are you all right?” Bezio asked.

“Yes,” Mircea said, trying to swat him away. And failing, because his arm didn’t seem to work. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“And tonight?” Paulo added. “How did it go?”

“She said I should come again,” Mircea told him proudly. “And then . . . and then I asked . . . I asked her—” he broke off, gasping in memory.

“You asked her what?” Bezio looked concerned.

“I asked . . . do you mean now?” He broke into peals of laughter.

Bezio let out a grunt that might have been exasperation or relief. “I worry about you,” he said, shaking his head.

“I don’t,” Mircea said, and for the first time in a long time, it was true. He didn’t know what had happened tonight, but something had. Something important. Something that had left him feeling lighter, although he supposed that could be from the blood loss.

“They bit me,” he told them.

“We noticed,” Paulo said dryly.

“I think they might have taken too much.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Do we have anyone else?” Bezio demanded, while Mircea was still trying to come up with an answer to that.

“No. And he couldn’t usefully absorb anymore right now anyway. Not at his age.”

“You’d think they’d have damned well thought about that, before they all but drained him!”

“They’re nobles. Just be glad they didn’t kill him.”

“That’s yet to be determined,” Bezio said darkly.

And the next thing Mircea knew, he was being slung over a brawny shoulder and carted up the back stairs. Which were a good deal narrower and shorter than the ones in front, which probably explained why his head kept hitting the ceiling. Or maybe that was him.

“Stop trying to get up,” Bezio told him irritably. “We’re not there yet.”

“Where?” he asked, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth.

And then he had his answer, when he was flopped down on his own bed, so soft, so comfortable, so . . .

“What’re you doing?” Mircea asked, not wanting to open his eyes to find out why Bezio was tugging on him.

“Getting your boots off!”

“Damn,” Paulo added. “The color has run all over his shirt—”

“Would you stop worrying about his damned clothes?”

“I’m not worried about them! But that crook of a tailor assured me that the color was fixed—”

There was some more swearing, and some more conversation Mircea couldn’t manage to follow. They talked so fast. It all became a blur of sound, a ribbon spiraling off into . . . into . . .

Someone slapped him. Hard. Mircea’s eyes flew open to see Bezio kneeling over him, hand raised. “What—”

And then he hit him again.

Mircea tried to put an arm up to block the assault, but it didn’t work. “Stop it,” he slurred.

“Then stay awake,” Bezio said harshly.

“It’s almost dawn—”

“It won’t be dawn for another two hours.”

“Don’t care. Want to—”

“Go to sleep; I know. But you can’t.”

Mircea stared at him, the waves of exhaustion pulling at him, threatening to drag him under. “Why not?”

“Because you’re a vampire!”

“If a human falls asleep hungry, their body just uses some of their stored fat,” Paulo explained. “They wake up the next morning a bit thinner, that’s all. But if a vampire goes to sleep without enough reserves to make it through the day, he doesn’t wake up at all. Understand?”

Mircea blinked, both at the candle Paulo was holding, which seemed impossibly bright in the darkened room, and at the implication. “I’ve been hungry before—”

“Yes, which was your body trying to force you to feed. It’s too weak to do that now. But you have to—”

He stopped abruptly, Mircea didn’t know why. Until someone else bent over him, golden nails sliding down his cheek to cup his chin. Martina.

She looked like she’d just come from a client. Dark hair down and reaching almost to her feet, makeup slightly smeared, embroidered silk robe loosely tied, revealing a vee of smooth olive skin going all the way down to her naval. Dark eyes assessing as she looked him over.

Mircea stared up into them, wondering what they reminded him of. And then the shiny black eyes of the senator’s living armbands came to mind. It really was alarming how similar they were, he thought, more than a little disturbed.

And then his mistress smiled. “You did well tonight. I’ve already been informed, she wishes to see you again.”

“That might be hard,” Bezio rasped. “If he’s dead.”

“Bezio,” Paulo said warningly, but Martina didn’t look angry.

“He will live,” she said, dropping Mircea’s chin.

“He’s not even hungry,” Bezio protested. “He should be starved, crazed even—”

“He was fed, was he not?” Martina’s dark eyes slid to Paulo.

He nodded hastily. “Yes. As soon as he returned. As much as he could take, that is. But at

his age—”

“See that he feeds again before morning.”

“Yes, of course. That is, we’ll try. I’ve already sent for Roberto. He was off today, for his sister’s wedding, but we should be able to—”

“It won’t matter how many humans you bring in, if he can’t absorb the blood,” Bezio argued.

“What’s the alternative?” Paulo demanded. “I’d feed him myself, but it wouldn’t help. My blood isn’t that much stronger than—”

“But yours is,” Bezio said, cutting him off and looking at Martina. “You could feed him.”

For a moment, there was silence.

“It . . . it might be wise,” Paulo said, tentatively. “He won’t be able to absorb that much more tonight; there’s not enough time. But yours, being so much richer—”

“No.”

“But it wouldn’t take much,” Bezio argued. “And it could save him!”

“He doesn’t need saving. He will live.”

“But you could ensure that, with nothing more than—”

Bezio cut off because his audience suddenly wasn’t there anymore. Martina had turned and left, as abruptly as she’d come. Leaving the bearded vampire staring after her.

“And you could ensure a longer life if you learn to hold your tongue,” Paulo hissed, grabbing Bezio’s arm as he started after Martina.

“But a couple of drops might—”

“She said no.”

“Why? What on earth—”

“It doesn’t matter why.”

“You didn’t expect her to agree, did you?” Bezio accused, scanning his expression. “You knew she’d refuse!”

Paulo closed his eyes, looking stressed. But he didn’t let go of Bezio’s arm. “She doesn’t feed anyone.”

“Why not?” Bezio persisted. “She doesn’t have to bind them. She isn’t taking on any responsibility. She’s giving away a little power, that’s all. And it isn’t as if she can’t spare it!”

He rubbed his arms, as if the electric flow of Martina’s power was still coursing over them. Mircea could feel it, too, where she’d gripped his chin. It felt like the indentation of her fingers was still there, as if she’d painted him with some kind of indelible ink.

But it wasn’t enough to shut Bezio up.

“A human won’t be enough!” he argued. “You know that. He’s too far gone—”

“I don’t know that—”

“Look at him!”

Harassed blue eyes slid his way. Mircea didn’t know what Paulo saw, but when he spoke again, it was harsh. “Martina won’t. We’ll have to come up with something else.”

“Then who else do we have? You said Auria—”

“She’s out with a client.”

“Then call her back!”

“She isn’t Roberto! And she’s with someone important. I can’t just—”

They kept talking, but Mircea couldn’t seem to follow it anymore. The brief euphoria from downstairs was gone. His chest felt heavy, as if someone was sitting on it. His limbs were like iron, impossible to raise. If he’d been breathing, it would have been labored. He just needed . . . he needed . . . he . . .

Someone slapped him again. His eyes flew open, but he didn’t see who it was. But a soft, dimpled, perfumed arm slid under his nose. It didn’t look like Martina’s. It didn’t smell like hers, either. She used neroli, a musky, bitter orange scent that complemented her exotic good looks. This was lighter, fresher, sweeter . . .

If laughter had a scent,
Mircea thought, his head swimming,
it might be something like this.

“Are you going to drink,” someone asked, amused. “Or sniff me all night?”

He knew that voice, but he couldn’t place it. Didn’t try. He did try to feed, but couldn’t seem to raise his head enough, couldn’t even seem to remember—

“Help him!” Someone said harshly, and then he was being pulled up, and held to a neck too short to be Martina’s, next to tinsel earrings that were swept aside along with a wealth of dark curls. And then—

And then Mircea stopped caring about anything, because blood was coursing down a sweetly scented neck, as a perfectly manicured nail broke the surface for him. He watched it, mesmerized, until the first drop touched his lips, slid over his tongue, found its way into his starved body. And then he was gripping her, harder than he’d thought he was able, harder than could have been comfortable, because she let out a surprised “oh!” But he barely noticed with sparkling, wonderful, life-giving power bursting on his tongue.

And then everywhere else. He could feel it coursing through his veins, filling him in a way he’d never been able to define, but which was unmistakable. Nothing else felt like taking blood, nothing else came close. Alcohol, drugs, even sex paled in comparison when he was this starved. Blood was everything; blood was life. Without it, there was nothing else. But with it, oh, with it, oh, with it . . .

The dark room suddenly flooded with color. The scent of the woman’s cologne became richer, more enticing. The sounds of the old house—creaks and groans and sighs of the wind outside—had a depth and resonance unknown to mortal ears. The whole world was suddenly vibrant and alive. And so was he.

Mircea drank, and drank and drank, until his body could stand no more, until he was laughing, no, giggling, against a perfect set of breasts, beneath a fine linen shift that was never, ever coming clean after this.

“You owe me a chemise,” someone agreed, as he was lowered back into bed.

Someone threw a blanket over him, and someone else tucked it in, as if he was a child needing tending. Mircea scowled, and started to protest. But then he noticed how cozy everything was, with the rain pattering on the roof just above his head, and the wool covering warm, and the bed so, so soft . . . like the lips that found his forehead.