Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6 (3 page)

I jerked back automatically as she reached out to touch my shoulder.

She laughed again and cradled her belly. “And who knows? Soon enough, you’ll have little ones of your own to think about.”

With that, she sashayed off, the men sauntering in her wake.

“Are they really both—” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said shortly. “But it’s considered very poor form.”

I reached for another flute of champagne as a waiter passed by, but no sooner had I grasped it than Dorian plucked it from my fingers and placed it back on the tray, then took my free hand in his for a brief squeeze.

“You’ve had quite enough, Cora,” he said. “You’re doing fine. You don’t need that.”

His reassurance wrapped around me with almost a physical force, warm and muffling, and I sensed a distant twinge of panic that I could not properly feel.

My head was spinning with all the people and the champagne by the time the orchestra stopped and a bell rang deep in the recesses of the house. The sea of guests began to flow, slowly but steadily, toward the stairs, the buzz of conversation continuing unabated.

Dorian stepped along with them, and I bobbed at his side, anchored to his strength.

“Is it over?” I asked, not quite daring to hope that it was.

“Only the introductions.” Dorian looked down at me, studying me closely for the first time since he had stepped down from the top of the stairs. The hard light of victory faded slightly from his eyes, replaced with a hint of pity.

I didn’t want his pity. I wanted to escape.

“This is horrible,” I said, putting all the force of my feeling in those words. “I want it to be done.”

Except it wouldn’t ever be done, not really. This was my life with Dorian, in one form or another, forever.

His arm tightened infinitesimally against mine. “I know. I’m sorry. Only dinner and dancing are left. That will likely last until dawn, but we will not be obligated to stay that long.”

As we reached the grand staircase and headed down toward the ballroom, I looked at all the beautiful, ageless faces around us and realized that except for the children, I could very well be the youngest person in the room by a hundred years.

“Dancing,” I said. “I don’t think I can do the kind of dancing that you’re talking about.”

“But I can,” he said. “Have no fear, Cora. You will only be expected to watch the grand march with me and take the first dance, and then you can sit in a quiet corner near the buffet until it is over.”

And then I could be put back on the shelf with the other playthings. I knew he had meant to be comforting, but it was anything but. My stomach turned. My place in his world as his cognate seemed to tighten around my throat like a noose. I’d had a future planned, before I’d gotten sick. But the future I wanted and the future demanded of me as Dorian’s cognate couldn’t both survive.

I braced myself to enter the ballroom.

T
he back of my neck prickled as we reached the lower level, the memory of the proving that had been held there two nights before bright in my mind. But the tables that had been set up to test Dorian’s staff for loyalty were gone now. Every light in the room now shone, even the candelabra on the mirrored walls, and great, thick garlands of roses and lilies hung from them, perfuming the air.

Love and death. How absurdly appropriate.

Another orchestra occupied a raised dais at the far end of the room, now sitting at rest as the agnates and their cognates poured in around us, gathering at the vestibule in front of the dance floor. Four different buffets were set behind the columns that ringed the room, servers standing to attention behind the tables, with golden chairs against the walls in between.

Dorian ignored his guests even as they made way for us, moving aside as we stepped from the marble entry onto the parquet of the ballroom proper.

On cue, the orchestra struck up a stately march. My death grip on Dorian’s arm grew even tighter.

“What do I do?” I whispered urgently.

His smile did nothing to put me at ease even as my heart did a little hiccup in my chest. “You walk with me to the viewing platform.”

He led the way down the length of the room to a small, elevated stage just below the orchestra’s dais. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement, but I didn’t dare look aside as Dorian stepped up onto the platform. I stumbled after and turned with him to face the assembly.

The guests had paired up down to the smallest of the children and were executing an elaborate choreography in intricate, shifting geometries across the floor, as if there were some giant puppeteer pulling strings above. Every movement was exactly synchronized and so beautiful in its studied grace that it almost hurt to watch.

I was struck with the thought of how deadly those lovely creatures were, the danger in every perfect turn and nod, and I felt like a small, furry animal, mesmerized by the swaying of a snake.

The music swelled and came to a clashing finale just as the entire company turned to face us and bowed.

“And now it is our turn,” Dorian murmured. He returned the bow, his gesture low, sweeping, almost exaggerated. Caught off guard, I ducked my head and made a wobbly curtsey at his side.

He straightened and stepped down onto the floor as the assembly faded back. I was pulled along on his arm toward the center of the floor.

“The first dance,” I said, a tremor of panic rising in my voice.

“Indeed,” he said.

The orchestra began to play a slow, swinging jazz. Not quite what I had expected, but I didn’t know what to do with it one bit more than if it had been a waltz. Around us, the couples scattered outward and began to dance around the floor. Even as they whirled past us, I could sense their eyes on us, watching, judging.

Now what?

Dorian shifted the arm I was still holding so that he cupped my shoulder blade, loosening my grip gently and transferring my hand to his shoulder.

“Foxtrot,” he said. “My request. It’s simplicity itself to follow.”

He took my other hand in his free one and raised it, pulling me against him from chest to hip. I closed my eyes at the contact, clinging to the sensation of the hard length of his body against mine—despite everything. The intimacy of it shot through me, bringing a flush of heat to my cheeks and a welcoming blossom of heat deep in my center.

He was the cause of the chaos in my world—and the only still point in it.

Dorian shifted his weight to one foot, pulling me with him, and my eyes flew open again.

“Just feel what I do, Cora,” he said, and he stepped out.

I panicked, clenching his arm and stumbling.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I hissed.

He ducked his head to my ear and murmured, “Don’t be afraid. I have you.”

The words carried the force of all his persuasion with them, and my anxiety evaporated. I stepped easily with him, his body guiding my own as effortlessly as breathing.

I had been changed again. Panic welled up inside me, churning in my guts, sending my heart lurching sideways. He held me pinned in his arms.

“Don’t,” I whispered. “Please, don’t.”

A small frown marred his perfect forehead. “I was trying to help.”

“I know,” I said as we weaved between other swaying couples. “But stop doing it. I want to be myself. If I’m afraid, then I want to deal with it. I don’t want to have it all wiped away for me. That’s only one step away from turning me into—into an Isabella.”

His arms tightened around me. “I would never do that.”

The promise, however treacherous it might be, gave me an infinitesimal reassurance, and the frantic drumming of my heart slowed fractionally. Somehow, my feet never tangled in his, and we never collided with any of the other dancers. The song ended, and he took me on his arm again and led me under the colonnade that encircled the room, heading toward the nearest buffet.

“I have duties as the host to attend to,” he said. “But you can have some peace. Nothing will happen to you here.”

“How much longer will it be?” I asked. My hand ached from clinging to him.

“Two hours, maybe three. I must make a few rounds of the room—speak to the right people, dance with the right people.” He looked down at me, his expression graver than his light words. “I will come for you when I can.”

I didn’t want to be left alone in a roomful of vampires, even though the irony of clinging to Dorian for defense left a bitter taste in my mouth. Right now, he might very well be more dangerous to me than any of the other agnates.

But I said, “Okay. I’ll be here. But if anyone else asks me to dance, I’m refusing.”

A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “Just tell them you’re tired. A cognate’s prerogative.”

A boyish-looking agnate with an unruly mop of yellow hair came up to us. I tried to retrieve his name from the long list of introductions but failed.

“Here I am, Dorian, as promised,” he said. Behind him were two uniformed servants.

Dorian shook his hand warmly. “Cora, you remember Tiberius. He’ll chase any unwanted attention away.” He nodded to the staff. “And if you need anything, send one of them to get me.”

“I will,” I said. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

“As soon as we can politely leave, I will come for you,” Dorian promised, and I detected something in his eyes.

Was it reluctance? Or regret?

Tonight was the celebration of the triumph of his work—work that would have taken a human’s entire career. It was an event that starkly marked his victory and portended the failure of his enemies. And he was willing to cut that short. For me. Because I was sick and frightened and miserable, he was willing to bow out of his own victory fête.

But I was only here in the first place because he had forced me to attend. How big was the concession, really, when I was giving my life? And how desperate was I, to give him as much credit as I could?

He cupped my cheek briefly, flashed a smile that was edged with possessiveness and a hard triumph, and then he turned away and disappeared into the crowd.

I stood rooted at the edge of the dance floor, hugging myself, feeling more alone in the magnificent crowd than I had all those nights I’d cried myself to sleep in my bedroom after my Gramma died.

Etienne whirled by, Isabella in his arms. Her expression was ecstatic—his was fierce and adoring. I shuddered. How could he look at the mindless doll-woman like that?

“Would you care for some dinner?” Tiberius asked, dragging my attention away from the floor.

The smell of food from the buffet hit me at his words, and I realized that I was hungry. My oversized lunch seemed a very long time ago. I wondered if there was some kind of
Gone with the Wind
-like expectation that ladies would eat delicately. I decided I didn’t care.

“Absolutely,” I said.

Tiberius held out his arm, radiating charm, and hesitantly, I took it. No reaction went through me at his touch; it appeared that I truly was immune to other agnates. Everyone except Dorian. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Just sit here,” he said, escorting me to one of the armless side chairs against the wall a short distance from the buffet. “I shall bring you a plate.”

“How will you know what I like?” I challenged.

His grin was infectious. “I’ll get you a little of everything.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. I sat, the staff members taking positions a short distance away, and Tiberius went off to the far end of the table where the buffet plates were stacked.

My attention was captured by a woman at the buffet whose unkempt hair was haphazardly scraped into a twist. Her ball gown was faded and bedraggled, and she moved with small, jerky motions, muttering continually to herself as she loaded her plate. She was filthy, and my nose burned with her smell as she reached the near end of the table, but her skin shared the peculiarly flawless quality of all the guests, and she had the cast of an agnate about her. Her eyes, when they briefly met mine, were unfocused and confused.

Abruptly, she dropped the fork that she was holding and scuttled away, looking around wildly and clutching her plate with both hands. I shrank back as she passed my chair, so preoccupied that I didn’t notice the guest next to me until she spoke.

“Lucky me. I get to sit next to the newest cognate.”

I
jumped slightly at the voice so near my ear. A woman had taken the chair next to me, a person I didn’t remember being introduced to. Human, I decided—or rather, cognate. She had heavy blonde hair piled on top of her head with tendrils artfully escaping to frame her face. There was something peculiar about her, something unsettling, but I couldn’t decide what it was.

“Good evening,” I said neutrally, casting a glance at Tiberius.

“I remember my own conversion like it was yesterday,” the woman continued. “
God
, I was so naïve! Fifty years old, and yet I knew nothing.”

“You don’t look fifty,” I ventured. In fact, like all the cognates I’d met, she had the same slightly false, plasticky look of youth as the agnates.

She let out a crow of laughter. “No one does unless they want to, sweetie. We look as old as we wish. Eventually, at least. It took thirty years for me to grow young enough for my tastes.” She gave a negligent shrug. “Or my master’s tastes. I can’t remember which.”

“So, what, I could be whatever age I wished?” I asked. “Eighty? Or even eight?”

“You can
look
whatever age, within limits,” she said. “I believe the youngest cognate I ever met appeared to be approximately fourteen—really, you can’t reverse adolescence entirely. The oldest....” She nodded to the floor. “Sixty seems to be as old as most people can manage. A well-preserved, handsome sixty, of course. Wrinkles are hard to maintain, though, so most of them are just showing off for a while. When they get tired of all the effort, they’ll go younger again, too. Maybe keep some silver streaks in their hair to look distinguished.”

“Oh,” I said, not really sure what the proper response was.