Shadowflame (5 page)

Miranda took off her coat and hung it and her bag on the rack by the door. She approached the piano, as always, as if walking into a church.

Then she laid her hands on the piano’s lid, exposed the keys, and sat down, leaning her head sideways on the keys for a moment, closing her eyes.

With her eyes shut she felt along the keys with one hand and gently touched a few, the barest hint of a melody almost too quiet to be heard. She hummed with the notes, letting her energy sync with the piano’s; it wasn’t alive by any stretch, but it sort of reminded her of the Signets in the way it responded to her. The stones’ light flared or dimmed to match the bearer’s emotional state, and it felt like the piano’s strength rose up to meet her own, or lay down beneath her sorrows. She couldn’t believe she had ever lived without it.

On the far wall hung a portrait of the woman who had bought the Bösendorfer and set aside this room for it: the seventh Queen of the South, Elizabeth Jensen, who had been murdered, with her Prime, by Auren in 1914. Bess, as she’d been known, was the first African-American Queen in the South, and had been a slave in her human life. She was known all over the territory as a wildly intelligent woman who spent her immortality becoming as educated as she could, studying music, medicine, history, art, and several languages. And though like most Queens she’d taken a backseat in Signet politics and had been the subject of scorn and derision from several other Pairs, she had been a noble woman, greatly respected by many.

Miranda wished she could have met Bess, if for no other reason than to thank her for her devotion to music. Bess was the only Queen so far to whom Miranda felt any kind of real connection, and she wasn’t even alive.

Gradually Miranda applied more pressure to the keys and more notes to the melody, raising her head until it leaned against the piano’s lid. She let her fingers find their own way, channeling the pile of confused emotions in her heart into sound where they could be lifted up and turned into something beautiful.

The Prime tended horses and worked equations. She made music.

Sometimes she played songs that she already knew, and sometimes she just improvised or combined both—without even thinking, it always ended up dark and complex, the lines of melody doubling back and twisting around themselves like Celtic knotwork. Certain themes repeated on certain days.

More than once she’d woken up here with David sitting nearby keeping watch over her as she played in her sleep. Her arms would ache for hours afterward, but it was better than having nightmares.

As if the thought had summoned him, she felt a warm presence flood through her mind, and she knew without looking that David was there, taking up his usual seat in the small audience section of the room. She still remembered the first time she’d seen him there, back when she was human, back before either of them had been ready to admit what they had, deep down, already known about the connection they shared. He’d be sitting with his hands folded, elbows on the chair’s arms, carelessly regal and infernally attractive. She could feel the comfortable weight of his gaze.

She reached along their bond, drawing the gentle surety of its power into the music, creating two streams of melody and twisting them around each other so that the chord was stronger than the sum of its notes. Together they were a natural harmony, and she followed it deeper until the room and the Haven and the world disappeared and there was nothing but one song, breathtakingly beautiful and intense beyond words.

She brought the piece to a winding conclusion, and by the time the last chords rang into the air, pain had begun to assert itself in her hands. She lifted her eyes to the clock and realized with some surprise that she’d been playing for almost two hours.

When she lowered her eyes, David was beside her, sitting down on the bench and taking her hands in his. “Silly woman,” he chided affectionately. “You could burn yourself out doing that.”

She leaned against his shoulder, all the tension gone from her body. The piano wasn’t quite as good as sex, but it came damn close. “Only way to fly,” she murmured.

He was smiling, and she felt the heat of healing energy pass between them again, soothing the cramps in her fingers. It was a handy thing in some ways, being Paired; they could heal each other of anything short of a mortal wound almost instantly, even faster than a vampire’s natural regenerative speed. Either of them could draw from their combined power, and there were supposedly ways they could work together to become even stronger, but David had said that must wait until she wasn’t so new.

She was dimly aware that he threaded his arms around her and picked her up. She heard the faint clunk of the piano lid closing, followed by the sound of the lights clicking off, and turned her face happily into his chest, inhaling the scent of his shirt. There was something in the way he smelled—some undertone of great age that would never have registered to her mortal senses—that she found deeply comforting, like leaning against a mountain or red-wood or some other nearly eternal thing.

Doors opened, doors closed; the guards at the suite door gave their greetings. Inside the suite was warm from the hearth that Esther had stoked before they arrived.

David deposited her on the bed and sat down, taking one of her legs and removing her boot, unconsciously running his hand along her shin as he had Osiris’s. She chuckled.

“I’m not a horse,” she said without looking up.

“I’m well aware of that,” David answered wryly. “Horses are far less stubborn than you.”

“That’s why you love me.”

She could hear him smiling. “As a matter of fact, it is.” He pulled off her other boot and then set to removing the rest of her clothes with deft, practiced hands. “That, and about a thousand other reasons.”

“Such as?”

“You’re willful, smart as hell, courageous, and you look good in red,” he said, touching a finger to her Signet, then lifting a tendril of her hair from her forehead. “You also have a tremendous heart, and, if I may be so bold, absolutely perfect breasts.”

Miranda’s eyes popped open, and she saw the wicked glint in his. “Flattery will get you seriously laid, Lord Prime,” she said.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

She sat up long enough to put her hand around his neck and pull his mouth to hers, and then she rolled back, hauling him onto her with a growl. He braced himself on his hands to keep from knocking the wind out of her, then tore his lips away and leaned down to kiss a slow line from her throat to her breasts, still bound in black lace.

She arched her back to let him unhook the offending garment, then shifted her shoulders from side to side to strip it off and toss it aside. Meanwhile her fingers ventured in between the buttons of his shirt to find the muscle underneath and, with only a little fumbling, managed to push the shirt off. She moved her hands up his back, feeling the slightly raised lines of the hawk etched into his shoulders.

She loved the sensation of sliding her hands down into the waistband of his jeans and around to the front to unzip them. His skin was like silk over stone and warmed under her palms and lips.

She would never have expected in a thousand years to
want
so much, to crave both the taste of his blood and the deep aching pleasure of their bodies wrapping around each other and joining. That first second of contact when they could finally touch without barriers of space or fabric was the same every time: a shock to her system, like coming in from freezing rain to the edge of a volcano. Her body was still surprised at how badly it needed his.

The first time after the battle had frightened her. She hadn’t realized just how much he’d been holding back that night in her apartment. A human body was so easy to break . . . and two vampires without restraint could easily break furniture, her screams practically peeling the paint off the walls. The intensity of it had been almost too much, but the trust between them was so complete, and the joy of being reunited so overwhelming, that her fear had evaporated.

He alone could touch her. In all of eternity, all the world, there would never be another. She had no desire to ever look at another man—she didn’t even feed on them. Her time in hell had made sure of it, and the amulet around her neck sealed it. He alone . . . he alone.

Forever.

Three

Tuesday evening began with the arrival of a blustery cold front that swept through central Texas leaving frost in its wake . . . followed by the arrival of a black stretch limousine and a black van.

Because Faith was Second in Command, it was her job to show the visiting Prime to his rooms, see that he was comfortably installed, then come and let the Pair know when it was time for the formal introduction. Meanwhile David and Miranda waited in David’s workroom, where he was taking apart the newest-generation Apple gadget to see how it worked. He had an abiding love for the technical poetry of circuits and chips, and elegant design, whether in a phone or a beehive, was his idea of porn.

Miranda knew by how intent he was upon the task that he was, if not nervous, deeply uneasy about the meeting.

She sat with her feet up on an empty chair, trying not to let his emotions affect her. That was a consequence of their connection: She could not shield herself completely from him, ever, and the best she could do was learn to gently nudge his presence to the back of her mind, where it wouldn’t overtake her own. Most of the time she liked having him there. There were times, however, when the whole thing was a pain in the ass.

“It’s been over an hour,” she said. “This is getting ridiculous.”

David made an irritated noise. “He’s doing it on purpose. Throwing us off schedule asserts his control over the situation.”

“I’m supposed to be in town in two hours. Why don’t we just go meet him now?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “Because that’s not how we do it, beloved. I know, I know—to hell with custom and rules—but these protocols have been in place a lot longer than you have. These silly little niceties keep order among the Signets. Besides, watching the way someone navigates the system teaches you a lot about him.”

“If this guy is as big a dick as everyone says, I don’t think I want to know more about him,” Miranda pointed out, but he did have something when it came to the value of observing others; she had been watching her husband since the onset of the Magnificent Bastard Parade and had learned quite a bit about him that she hadn’t been aware of before. There were areas where he was perfectly happy to flout custom and others where he was a stickler; if he felt the Shadow World was better served by following the rules he did so, but if he believed something was hampering their evolution as a society he ignored it, taking the flak from the others without batting an eye.

“You mentioned you’d met Hart once before,” Miranda said. “What happened then?”

David set aside his toy and sat back, crossing his arms. “I dropped a dead deer on his head.”

She blinked, sure she’d misheard.
“What?”

A nod. “It was his state visit after Deven and Jonathan Paired. He waited nearly a year to come, then proceeded to abuse the Haven staff, belittle the Elite, and treat the Prime like a cockroach. He didn’t say anything to Jonathan because Jonathan would have cheerfully crushed his skull, but I heard him in the hallway calling Deven a degenerate faggot, and lo and behold this hideous old deer head that had been hanging on the wall for seventy years fell down. The antlers almost put his eye out.”

Miranda laughed so hard she nearly cried.

It was widely known that David was powerful; he had almost all of the higher abilities attributed to the most powerful of their kind, including the power to Mist, basically a form of teleportation that could be performed only by a Signet bearer. His telekinesis, however, wasn’t common knowledge. It was entirely possible Hart had no idea there was any malicious aforethought in Bambi’s suicidal leap.

Before she could compose herself completely there came a knock at the door, and Faith joined them, looking more agitated than Miranda had ever seen her.

The Queen sobered immediately. “Faith, what happened?”

The Second shook her head, her mouth set in a tight line. “Your guest is ready for you,” she said.

Queen and Prime exchanged a look. “Faith, tell me,” David said. “I want to know exactly how that bastard behaves while he’s here.”

Faith’s eyes were like two slivers of flint ready to spark off any available tinder. “He brought his women,” she replied. “Four of them. They’re . . . the rumors are true, Sire.”

David closed his eyes and sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

Miranda looked from him to Faith. “What rumors?”

“Everyone knows Hart has a harem,” Faith told her. “There’s been speculation for years over whether the women he keeps are there of their own free will, and over how he treats them. The prevailing thought is that he turns them himself and keeps them weak, nearly starving, so they can’t fight him.”

Miranda felt the first stirrings of molten wrath forming in her stomach. “And it’s true?”

“Apparently. You should see them . . . they’re skin and bone. None of them make eye contact. They just shuffled into their room and one of his Elite shut the door and stood guard.”

The Prime rarely displayed anger, even to his Queen, but she felt it flare up inside him and saw the subtle change in his expression that few other people would recognize as carefully controlled fury. When he spoke he was deadly calm. “All right. So he brought them into my Haven knowing perfectly well how I would feel about it. I think it’s safe to assume his intentions in coming here are not pure.”

David stood, straightening his shirt and reaching for the suit jacket he had hung over the back of his chair. They always dressed to the nines for these things, and although some Primes reinforced their reputations with old-fashioned wardrobes or stereotypical Goth-esque vampire attire, David opted for impeccable hand tailoring from the finest local shops so that everything fit him perfectly and only added to his allure.

Miranda was still working out her own style as far as that went. She had her stage clothes, lots of leather and jewelry, and a variation thereof that she wore into town when her presence was required. So far she’d had the most success with what she called “neo-bitch goddess,” and tonight she’d worn black pants and heeled boots, a long coat, and a bloodred lace-trimmed top that perfectly matched the stone of her Signet. It was definitely not casual wear, but still wasn’t a frilly cocktail dress or Hillary Clinton pantsuit. She wanted to look impressive but be able to breathe, fight, and slouch when necessary.

“Let’s go, beloved, and get this over with,” David said. He turned to her, arms out slightly in the universal vampire gesture of
I have no idea how I look—what do you think?

Miranda ran her hand down the front of his jacket, resting her palm over his heart. “Gorgeous as always,” she said fondly.

“You, too,” he replied, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead before taking her arm.

Faith looked like she’d rather eat a live scorpion than go anywhere near Hart again, but she was nothing if not a professional; she held the door open for them, but as Miranda passed she heard Faith mutter, “We’re going to need another deer head.”

David was immensely proud of Miranda for not drawing her sword and decapitating Prime Hart five seconds after meeting him.

In fact, his fears about her reaction were completely overblown; he realized she had been observing him the last three months, and though she was friendly and somewhat relaxed with the first three Pairs who came to visit, when confronted with a notorious man like Hart she did the same thing David did and slipped on a mask of cordiality coupled with professional disinterest.

He loved it when she surprised him. It reminded him that though she was young and a little rash, the Signet never chose wrong. He could only imagine her in twenty or so years when she had stepped fully into her power and authority and was every inch the Queen . . . no one, not even Hart, would dare cross her then.

Or, it seemed, today.

“Welcome to our Haven, Prime Hart,” David said, bowing, extending his hand. “Our home is your own.”

Hart gave a slight bow. “I bring you greetings from the Northeastern United States,” he said smoothly, and reached out to shake David’s hand.

Hart was a handsome man; he had a polished look and demeanor that would not have been out of place debating on the Senate floor and appeared to have been in his early forties when he came across. He had silver hair and iceblue eyes; the overall effect was that of a man who presumably would have had no trouble landing women . . . willing ones. If David hadn’t known about the actions behind the suave façade, he might even have called him charming.

David turned to Miranda. “Allow me to introduce Miranda Grey-Solomon, Ninth Queen of the Southern United States.”

Hart looked Miranda up and down, then bowed a bit less than he had to David. Still, he smiled when he said, “A pleasure. Prime James Hart.”

Miranda bowed. “Welcome to our Haven, Lord Prime. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

Hart had already returned his attention to David. “I look forward to the next three days,” he said. “I think it’s time the Northeast and the South renew their friendship, with a Council meeting coming up soon.”

Having fulfilled the requirements of Signet formality, David nodded. “Perhaps we could retire to the study to discuss matters of state.”

Hart nodded curtly, then gave Miranda a faintly dismissive look. “I’m sure your young wife has other matters to attend to and is quite busy with her household duties.”

David wasn’t quite quick enough to change the subject.

“I am neither a housewife nor a servant,” Miranda said coldly, staring daggers at Hart. “I am Queen of this territory and I don’t require a man’s permission to stay or go.”

Before Hart could reply, David interjected, “She does, however, have a performance in town tonight, which I’m sure she would much rather attend.”

Silently he willed Miranda to let it go this time—he wanted to know what Hart was up to, and if he stormed out now in a fit of pique they might never find out.

Miranda shot David a poisonous look but merely turned on her heel and walked away.

David gestured down the hall. “This way, please, my Lord Prime.”

The study David had chosen for their meeting was not in the Signet wing; he wasn’t going to let Hart anywhere near their private residence. It was a somewhat neutral venue with a square of identical love seats that put no one more in the spotlight than any other and was tastefully decorated to show off the Haven’s wealth without ostentation. There was a map of the U.S. Signet territories on the wall in their current configuration with Kentucky firmly in David’s grasp . . . just as a little reminder.

As they sat, one of the servants came forward to pour their first glass of whiskey. David hoped they’d brought up a very large bottle.

“Ice,” Hart said shortly to the servant without looking at her.

David felt himself bristle at Hart’s officious tone but said nothing. He couldn’t let every little thing Hart did aggravate him, or they’d be at war before the hour was up. Hart came from a different world and time than David; the rumor was he’d been a Crusader, son of a noble family somewhere in Europe. He’d been ordering people around his entire life. David had spent his childhood covered in soot at his father’s side, and as a vampire he had worked his way up through the ranks of the Western Elite. Plenty of Primes were disdainful and dismissive of their servants. He couldn’t let it get further under his skin just because it was Hart.

Not to mention it would be hypocritical to lecture Miranda about diplomacy and then start trouble himself.

“Why don’t we get down to business,” David said.

Hart actually smiled, though it wasn’t a particularly friendly expression. “And what business is that, Lord Prime?”

“Cut the crap, Hart. What are you doing here?”

Hart regarded him silently for a moment before saying offhandedly, “You’re going to have your hands full with that woman.”

“She has a name.”

Hart lifted his hands. “All right. Pardon my tone. I’m just saying, you know how the others talk. You have a reputation to protect—my advice would be to rein her in before that shrewish tongue gets you in trouble.”

David didn’t bat an eye. “The only person in this building about to be in trouble is you. And if you think I don’t notice that you’re dissembling, you’re a fool.” He took a sip of his whiskey, then asked, “Are you after Kentucky again, James? Because you’re not going to get it.”

The Prime made a noise something like a snort of derision. “I have more important things to worry about than a state full of vampires swilling home brew and fucking their sisters, David.”

“Then what do you want?”

His pale eyes narrowed and he said, “You’re telling me you don’t know?”

“If I did, trust me, you would be on the first plane back to New York.”

Hart’s gaze turned speculative, and for just a moment David saw something in his face—not quite fear, but very close, and equally astonishing. Then, even more surprisingly, Hart was perfectly honest.

“You and I aren’t friends,” Hart said, his tone almost becoming amiable; it wasn’t as if how he felt about David—or vice versa—were any big secret. “I’ve opposed you at every turn, and frankly I think you’re a limp-wristed, bleeding-heart child with no business playing at the grownups’ table.”