Rites of Blood: Cora's Choice Bunble 4-6 (31 page)

“I was terrified that it would be old Bermudo Barrientes, who would give me saucy looks every time my ama took me to church,” Paquita continued. “Raymond was young and handsome—which Señor Barrientes most certainly was not. And Raymond didn’t have foul breath or indigestion. And he was kind and generous beyond every expectation. And most of all...he loved me, and I could love him. I wasn’t afraid of whether I
should
love him. He is my husband. Of course I should love him. I was afraid that I would be married to someone I couldn’t love.”

“It was easier for you, Paquita. You’re a woman,” said Oleg with cheerful chauvinism. I wondered why his agnate had such a heavy accent when he did not. “Now me... I was in a carriage accident. Leg crushed, turned to gangrene, not expected to survive. This amazing woman comes to the room in the inn where I’m put up, and the next thing I know—well, there are certain things you don’t think you’d be doing at death’s door with a crushed leg, but let me tell you, I do my best. I wake up days later, and my bachelor life was over. It’s in the worst taste to be devoted to one’s wife, and yet I found myself driven to satisfy her—and only her. It was a shock to my system, as the phrase now goes.”

The phlebotomist approached Marie.

“But you were okay with it?” I asked. “I mean, with her changing you?”

Oleg shrugged. “Well, I would not say that it was easy at first. And she had to keep the chambermaids away from me for a year or two. But I realized that I was happy with her, and that’s what really matters.”

“But are you really happy?” I asked. “Or is she just making you think that you are? She could erase your mind, twist your desires, change who you are inside.”

Marie cleared her throat, and everyone turned to look at her. She was a slender, pale woman with a froth of red-gold hair, as insubstantial-looking as her soft voice. “I was married before...before Dalton. It was not a happy union. Any husband could beat me, insult me, practically imprison me, if he were so inclined. How could I hope to challenge a man’s strength?”

Her liquid eyes were dark with remembered pain. “When I was young, a husband would have the strength of law behind him, too, to do most of those things. But just because Dalton could do terrible things to me doesn’t mean that he will. There are good agnates and bad ones, just like human men. I have a good one, so I don’t concern myself with what he is capable of. I care about what he actually does, and he is good and true.”

The room went silent, and Marie dropped her gaze to the spot just above the crook of her arm, where a bond-mark in the shape of a tiny, lopsided heart lay.

The phlebotomist was at my side now. I rolled up my sleeve, half-stunned by Marie’s words. I had never really considered what Geoff was capable of doing to me if he wanted to. I knew he wasn’t abusive, so I’d hardly considered that his athletic height meant that he could hurt or kill me, and I would be defenseless against him. It just wasn’t something that I worried about, because I knew it wasn’t in his nature.

So why did I fear Dorian? Was that any less far-fetched, really?

Except that I could sense the darkness in Dorian, could feel how badly he wanted to change me—and I knew how much easier it would be if he did. Geoff could hardly accidentally beat me, but Dorian was capable of making profound changes while not even fully recognizing what he had done. Dorian always seemed to be at the edge of the night, while Geoff stood squarely, safely in the sunlight.

I winced and looked away as the needle slid in. The phlebotomist taped it and moved on to Oleg.

“So none of you ever wanted to break the bond,” I said, risking the words.

“Well, I told you about the chambermaids,” Oleg said, waggling his bushy eyebrows suggestively. “But that was long ago.”

“No,” said Paquita firmly.

Marie shook her head.

“No,” said Will. “I would not commit adultery for any reason, much less to be free of a bond that is no burden to me.”

“I would not be faithless,” Hattie agreed.

I looked at them all, feeling painfully alone. “You could be human again, couldn’t you? Live a normal life. And nothing would happen to your agnates, would it?”

“A normal life would have had me making babies for Señor Barrientes until I was old and fat,” Paquita said. “And I would have died many years ago.”

“There is much happiness I never would have seen. Besides, he is my husband, and a good one. Why would I throw all that away?” Marie asked in her small voice.

“But he really isn’t your husband,” I said. “I mean, you weren’t married.”

“Some of us are,” said Will. He held up his left hand, displaying the ring on his finger. “And those who aren’t—well, ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ are the human terms, so they still do well enough.”

I shrugged uncomfortably. I certainly didn’t feel married. Bonded—yes, that I definitely felt, far more keenly than to my liking. But it was a world away from what I imagined when I thought of the word marriage. I had always expected an egalitarian relationship, the kind that most of my friends’ parents had and I imagined my Gramma and grandfather, my mother and father had enjoyed, too.

But this—there was never any doubt in this relationship where the power lay. The bond was both more complete and more terrible than I ever imagined a marriage could be, a true joining that blurred my edges while his remained bright and distinct. If two people had become one, it was perfectly clear that the “one” would have to be him.

I watched the collection bag fill slowly with blood and wondered how many of those cognates could even make the decision to break their bond—how many were left with the ability to want to. And if they couldn’t, was it really love? Or was their contentment merely a reflection of what their agnates wanted them to feel?

Was there ever an end to the circle?

“Have other cognates done it?” I asked. “Broken the bond, I mean.”

Hattie and Paquita exchanged long looks.

“There was Sarah,” Hattie said after a moment. “She was married when she was converted. She had children, too, young ones. And she wouldn’t give them up. Like you, she had been dying—tuberculosis, which wasn’t treatable back then—but she returned home the moment she had a chance and pulled her husband into their bed...and that was it. She gave it all up.”

“And there was Johann Bauer, too,” Oleg put in. “Two hundred years, he’d had, and then, when he was as drunk as a pig, for a moment’s lust for a bit of skirt at a tavern.... I don’t know whether Madeline was more devastated or infuriated by his betrayal.”

“It happens,” Marie put in. “Not often, but it happens.”

“Do they regret it?” I asked.

“It hardly matters if they do,” said Will. “Once converted and returned to humanity, there is no going back again.”

But it did matter. I needed to know. Had Sarah cried over her agnate? Or had she rejoiced to be free of him and his demands?

But the cognates had grown frosty with my questions, and I didn’t want to push any harder, so I led the conversation to a safe topic—other boats they had traveled on at other times—and the cognates relaxed again.

After the collection bags had been filled and taken away, the agnates rejoined us, and everyone wrapped up against the cold and scattered across the deck of the yacht, going through permutations of conversational groupings to the backdrop of the shores of the Potomac. I watched the groups change and noticed how the couples seemed to gravitate back towards one another, connecting, if only for a moment, before shifting into new social constellations.

I stayed at Dorian’s side. I couldn’t tear myself away. My thoughts of bonds and breaking them had frightened me again, reminding me how close I’d come to doing just that. Even though I still wasn’t sure that breaking the bond wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, any thought of losing Dorian was like a physical pain only his presence could soothe.

Did I fear losing him only because the bond was still in place? Or would something of what I felt now linger, a canker of regret, for the rest of my life?

Or did it even matter how I would feel if breaking the bond meant giving up so much, here and now?

From the rail, I watched D.C. slip by—all the hurry and bustle and intensity of the capital seeming at once very immediate and far removed from the lazy progress of the yacht on the river. The afternoon turned to evening, and the shapes of the buildings grew more shadowy as the lights began to twinkle on the shore. The sunglasses came off the guests’ faces all around the deck, and lights strung on the railing and various parts of the superstructure of the ship came on. Music began to play, and I looked up a stair to the upper deck to see a band there, under a canopy of tiny lights. More hors d’oeuvres were passed on silver trays, and the drinks flowed freely.

I’d been too distracted to notice when we turned around, but several hours after dusk had drawn on, we arrived back at the dock and the gangway was lowered.

I looked up at Dorian. “That’s the party?”

It certainly seemed understated for a vampire bash, not that I had much to compare it to.

“Oh, no, it’s just beginning,” he said. “But we are going somewhere else.”

He took my unresisting arm and wrapped it over his. The cold air already frosted from our breath and bit at my nose and cheeks, and it was still hours before midnight. As long as our destination was warmer than the open river, I wasn’t going to protest.

“So you’re ditching your own party?” I prompted, walking with him down the gangway to the dock.

“I have a more important place to go,” he said. “And even though these guests are my friends and allies, I don’t think you’ll enjoy an evening among even more strangers.”

As we headed up the dock toward the parking lot, we passed several knots of revelers going the other way, toward the yacht. Several of them had the unmistakable agnatic force around them, but most did not.

One group, already tipsy, roared out a greeting to Dorian. He raised a gloved hand in acknowledgement.

“They’re not vampires,” I whispered after they had passed.

Dorian looked amused. “Whatever made you think that they all would be?”

At that, I was somewhat stumped. “Well, only agnates and cognates came to my introduction.”

“That was different. This party is one of the premier New Year’s Eve social occasions in the city. People fight tooth and nail for invitations. Agnates, senators, lobbyists and various hangers-on, captains of industry—you’ll find them all here.”

I had a sudden suspicion. “And how many of them are under your thrall?”

The corner of his lip twitched. “Before tonight or after?”

I shuddered. “That’s not a funny joke.”

“Who said I was joking?”

“Where are we going, then?” I asked, changing the subject as we reached the parking lot. “Home?”

He smiled down at me. “You’ll see.”

A familiar low-slung yellow car rolled up, interrupting my retort. The driver’s door opened before I could react, and Cosimo stepped out, sporting a flamboyant designer suit.

“Ah, Dorian, Cora, my dear,” he said.

My hand tightened reflexively on Dorian’s arm. At least his awful cognate Lucretia was nowhere in sight. She and Cosimo had tried to scare me into breaking the bond with Dorian and so discredit him.

But whatever I chose, it wouldn’t be because of them. I could only choose what was best for me, for my own life. Whatever meaning others chose to attach to it was not a concern of mine.

“I don’t remember your name on the guest list,” Dorian said coldly.

“Oh, if I waited for invitations from you....” Cosimo waved airily. “I was so looking forward to the evening with you. But it looks like you aren’t staying. What a shame.”

“Isn’t it?” Dorian said, walking right past him to where his Bentley idled, waiting for us. I held too hard to his arm. “Good evening, Cosimo.”

“Good night,” Cosimo called out after us.

I looked back. He was smiling. I didn’t like that at all.

T
he chauffeur pulled out of the parking lot, turning onto the street with no orders from Dorian.

“One side has to win, Cora,” Dorian said quietly. “The Kyrioi or the Adelphoi. Perhaps not forever, but this century will be shaped by one force or the other.”

I hugged myself despite the warmth of the leather seat. Whatever the outcome, I told myself, it wasn’t my responsibility. I had to make a good decision for myself. And Dorian’s hand-picked friends were one thing, but I’d seen plenty of Adelphoi who frightened me every bit as much as Cosimo and Lucretia did—perhaps more.

“You’re important to us,” Dorian continued, his piercing eyes fixed on me. “I know it’s hard for you to believe how important symbols are to agnates.”

“To us,” I repeated. “To you, as an Adelphoi.”

“To me, as myself, as well. I have never hidden how I feel from you, Cora.”

No, he certainly hadn’t.

He reached across to stroke my cheek. My skin heated at his touch, and I leaned into his hand reflexively.

“You looked so small and sad and so terribly young all alone in that bed when you first woke from your conversion.” His voice was a low murmur, and it sent little prickles of awareness down my spine. “And so alive. Like holding fire in my hands. I could hardly remember such a feeling, and it went to my head like a madness. I didn’t want to frighten you. I almost frightened myself.”

“It was the bond,” I protested automatically.

He caught my chin, tilted it so he could look directly into my eyes. “It was you. It was always you.”

And then he kissed me for a very long time, and I clung to him as my body answered to his demand, need pooling low inside me until I throbbed between my legs, chafing against my naked thighs.

Finally, the car stopped, and he pulled back. I looked up, bemused, to discover that we were in front of the W Hotel. Doormen jumped forward to swing the Bentley’s doors open. Still drunk on Dorian’s kisses, I stepped out onto the sidewalk under the covered awning, feeling heavy and light all at once.

Dorian came around to my side and offered his hand. I took it, leaning slightly into his strength, wanting him against me.