The Key (Sanguinem Emere) (25 page)

The weirdness of it is that I know I should be feeling something right now. Joy perhaps. Or sorrow that my friend believes I abandoned her. But my impatience is overwhelming.

Why can’t she understand?

Because she’s never been separated from him for so long, that’s why.

“You’re just walking right back into his trap.” She focusses her shimmering gaze on me and her words give me pause. What can possibly have happened to make her so… Disillusioned? With him?

Whatever.

I think I know what’s going on here.

“I get it,” I let the smile that has been concealing itself within me since I first read his note this morning slip through. The one that speaks volumes of my devotion. The one that answers yes to his questions. Even though I haven’t admitted it to myself in a year.

Delilah’s beautiful brow furrows and one perfect line over her eye arches in a challenging manner.

“You’ve had him all to yourself for months now and it sickens you that you may have to consider me competition again.”

She barks a laugh, a strange, unnatural sound to come from her little, perfect form and then, “Seriously? That’s the best you can come up with?”

I ignore her attempt to rile me up and look her up and down, wondering why I am letting her waste my time like this. He gave her an order that I am backing up by following through on it and she’s trying to detain me.

Well, it won’t fly.

“I’m here to accept his invitation to dinner.”

And to prove I’m not the weak little girl he thought he could manipulate anymore.

And to find out what’s behind that damn door.

FRIDAY 06 November 2009… 20:42

The formalities of the evening were needless and thus, thankfully, brief. Not that I cared to be formal, but it’s his way. When my eyes found his, I wanted nothing more than to fall into him, to beg him to understand that none of what occurred was by any fault of mine. Even to insist that he send everyone else away so that we may be alone together.

But this is not his way. I could tell just by looking at his eyes – the eyes that I keep feeling in my mind, that have watched me in the half-light of morning, a potent portion of my mind already sold to him and incapable of pulling itself back from the precipice – that he wished to treat the preceding year as it was – a separation between us. Something that exposed the familiarity between us and moulded it into a perfect memory. One that could easily become ruined now if I am to view the world through the rose-tinted glass of being near him again.

Nothing seems to have changed. I study him as I sit across the table, now that we’re alone together, hiding bashfully behind my wine glass. So like my behaviour of that auspicious night at Delilah’s apartment.

I can see he’s thinking the same thing as he smiles gently at me and takes my wrist between his cold fingers, pulling the hand hiding me from my face so that I am forced to be looked at and studied. He curls my hand up in his and runs his thumb rhythmically over my pulse.

“You look charming, Eva.” His voice rumbles a baritone and the old blushes threaten to come back but I swallow them down. I have to remember to keep my cool on this one. If I don’t he’ll roll me again and I simply can’t have that. I’ve worked too hard to accomplish this vision of independence he is with now.

“Thank you.” I speak politely, forcing myself to override the stutter, the mumble, the old impressions of uncertainty, the feelings of inadequacy. They may be faint, but they still hint.

He clicks his tongue and graces me with such a smile that the heat crashes through me and settles at the base of my spine as my body automatically responds to the lust in his eyes, “There’s no need to be so formal with me. You’re my guest this evening, and I am your devoted…”

He leaves the last word hanging and his eyes trail down from my eyes to my lips and my neck and then settle themselves heatedly on my chest and the force of his will makes me feel as though his eyes are tearing at the clothing covering me already and laying me bare and naked before him. I feel like a platter served and admired, maddening an appetite, to be devoured slowly, with relish.

I tighten my fingers around his to pull his attention back to my face. “…Slave?” I finish for him. As much as I am wallowing in the affection, the abundant lust and the knowledge that I can still make him want me, he needs to do some explaining first. This is, of course, if what he says is true and I am here as a guest, not another servant. If he expects me to just fall back into the role of ‘girl’ he is sorely mistaken.

I am beyond that.

And hopefully I will have the courage to walk out of here if I must.

He smiles somewhat apologetically and the sight of his beard curling in the candle light makes my belly do odd things again, but I quash them. If this doesn’t go badly then later we can delve into that option. But not now.

“I’m sorry, My Lamb. I got caught up, as they say.”

He plays absent-mindedly with my fingers as I work up the courage to say what I must.

“Dimitri,” My voice quavers as he smiles me a signal to continue, “Is it true about the tonic?”

“What about it?”

“That it’s… You know.” He frowns and I breathe out steadily, closing my eyes for a moment to think without his visage distracting me. This is embarrassing, but it must be known. “Blood?”

Far from the scoff and glance of disapproval I expected, he smiles tenderly at me and lifts my hand to his lips. “This again? I thought we were beyond this level of accusation.”

“You said in your letter that you thought you were bad for me. Is this what you meant? And what about the little cuts and bumps and things? Those would have taken ages to heal normally. They healed almost immediately with your help.”

“Eva, Eva…”

My babbling stills itself as his voice hums to me and I stare into him, allowing myself this moment of happiness that he is here with me, that he would even look at me again, let alone talk to me is something I had not even begun to hope for.

The world stops in its tracks again in that hallmark card way that it does whenever I look into his eyes. For a brief pause, the most minute of moments, a frown crosses his beautiful face and he begins to pull back from me as everything goes quiet and a hum of fear erupts in goose-flesh across my skin.

And then…

“This talk is nonsense, Sweetheart.” He kisses my wrist tenderly and my skin is set aglow with that sudden pleasure that being in his company has always brought me too. “You think I’m a what?”

“You know what.”

“Don’t tease, let me here what’s on your mind.”

I breathe shudderingly, watching his eyes, “A vampire.”

He raises an eyebrow and opens his lips over my wrist to press them softly to the tender skin before pulling back. A smile lurks upon his mouth and broadens as he laughs heartily and a flash of tooth makes my abdominal muscles clench.

A fang? Could it be? Just like Cecily’s though much less obvious.

I expected this.

My heart skips. And then starts to thunder painfully.

“And if I were a vampire, Eva. What would that mean?” He trails his finger from my wrist down my arm as he opens his mouth over my pulse again and this time I wait for it. The tender sting of pain followed by the well of pleasure, the sudden free-fall from steadfast surety to wanton desire.

I try to speak through the sensation, but the words barrel through me like motes of air in a storm, soft. But he hears me anyway. “That you tricked me. That you drugged me and practically took me against my will. That you’re a beautiful, terrifying, monster, that has deviously fucked with my head.”

“And?” He whispers as runs his lower lip over my wrist which tingles with an irritating burn.

“And that you enslaved me.”

He pauses to glance at me with a familiar sadness in his eyes and something else that I just can’t fathom.

“But what if this monster, this beautiful, terrifying, monster that deviously fucked with your head,” He smiles wistfully as he mocks my tone, “Is sorry for what he’s done to you? Is so very sorry for hurting you?”

He lets my wrist go and lifts his wine glass, sipping lightly. A smear of red, darker than the shades of liquid within, mars the edge of the glass. “You know, Eva. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you. This time without you has made me realise things I really wish I hadn’t.”

“Like what?” My voice trembles, not with insecurity, but with excitement. It’s different now. He’s different.

His eyes bore into mine as he looks up with that glance that has always made me quake, “I love you.”

Mechanically, pulling myself from my own need to think, I stand and skirt the table, bending down to my knees beside him, unwilling to let this slide out from under me. I look up into his face and the full force of his loveliness strikes me once more. The dichotomy of him, the strange culmination of handsome and beautiful.

He smiles sweetly down at me, and places a small, midnight blue, velvet box on the table just within reach of the tips of my fingers. “So what if I am sorry for it all, my Lamb? What then?”

“Then,” My voice is only minutely broken even though the emotion that his words evince makes my hair stand on end, “I would have to accept your apology and say that if I had to choose enslavement – I would not hesitate to choose you again.”

I lean up and kiss him and he takes me bodily at the hips, pulling me onto his lap so that our roles are reversed.

I, the towering deity, and he, the pleading supplicant, gazing up into my eyes.

This close to him now, I’m in power. I have the control.

And the thrill. Being with him… Whatever the hell he is.

I still love him.

MONDAY 9 November 2009… 23:03

The arrangements were made so quickly. He wouldn’t let me do anything, he wouldn’t allow me to take part. He kept saying he owed me this.

And here it is.

I can’t recall ever being this happy. It’s like my cycle has closed. Like everything is brighter, everything smells so much sweeter. I’ve been weepy with exquisite happiness for three days now, with a beautiful ring on my finger and a promise from a man that I always knew I loved.

Somehow I always did.

It doesn’t matter what he is. It should never have mattered, is what I actually mean.

And all the crap between us is nothing now. He’s perfect and I’m perfect with him. Without him too, but this is sublime.

The room is quiet but for the gentle hush of Delilah’s brush through my hair. I wanted it loose. The bristles are softly separating my curls, making them bounce. The make-ups already done and the dress on. And everything is exactly like it should be, though I don’t recognise myself in the mirror. I’m too different now.

And so is my friend.

My poor Delilah. Saving her tears for when she needs to be standing next to me at the altar, there to catch my happiness as I fall into Dimitri’s arms. The hint of moisture in her perfect eyes now is all that could kill this high I’m flying on.

Without a word or a smile she takes my hand and helps me to stand in my silly heels. But he likes me in heels.

And I like that he likes it.

The music’s already starting! I’m almost late.

I giggle. Bells, he got us bells too. Loud, church-ish sounding ones. It’s almost like being in a Disney movie.

Only I think they all got married on bright sunny mornings. This is so much more appropriate.

Everyone’s here. Everyone. Society as a whole and my family.

My daddy holds out his arm for me as he smiles. It’s a bit wan. He always loved Bram. But he’s here and he hasn’t said anything to spoil this day. Mom’s stern as always in the front row, looking back at me. Probably thinking she’s losing me.

They didn’t say much about Cess. Everyone seems to think she’s run off with a strange man and that she’ll call us any day now. But I know.

I know she’s dead.

No.

No.

I won’t let that ruin this! He could never have hurt her.

Just look at him.

Dimitri stands waiting for me. A white tux.

He is so beautiful.

The tears are already forming. My daddy reaches around to wipe them from my cheek, “No smudges, Silly.”

The music slows as he takes my hand and places it in Dimitri’s; cold and soft.

The music stops.

The priest is talking, but I can’t really hear him, I don’t listen. Dimitri’s eyes drink me in, swallow me until there’s nothing left. Every curve of his face is a promise, a testament to his vows.