Flesh And Blood: House of Comarre: Book Two (House of Comarre 2) (30 page)

‘She’s right. Bed is
exactly
where you need to be.’ The silver in his eyes added layers of meaning to his words.

She laughed to cover the surge of heat that must be coloring her skin and tried to make light of what he’d said. ‘Did I just hear you side with the wysper? Suddenly up is down and black is white.’

He shook his head, grinning. His teeth gleamed feral and hungry. She swallowed and her hand strayed to her throat. ‘Go ahead, make fun. I can take it. I have broad shoulders.’

Yes, he did. Among other things. Holy mother, that smile might be her undoing. Just the sight of his fangs revved her heart. Which he undoubtedly heard. ‘Why can’t we be this way with each other all the time?’

He went still. The smile vanished and his eyes focused on the balcony’s tile flooring. ‘You realize you’re asking that of someone who hasn’t had substantial human contact in over fifty years. Before that, well, we both know how my contact with humans ended up. I’ve never been a people person. Even when I was human.’

She sensed they were approaching rare ground. She had to tread carefully or the conversation would be over before it started. ‘Is it that hard? To connect with people?’

‘It is when your idea of connecting means sucking the life out of them. I’m never going to be normal. Even by vampire standards. Whatever that means.’ He pushed off the balcony and walked toward her. ‘I just came to check on you before I leave. I had an idea.’ He shoved his hand through his hair and turned away, inches from the invisible barrier her lack of invitation put between them. ‘On second thought, never mind. I should go.’

Dawn was an hour away. He had time. ‘Tell me the idea.’

He stayed facing away long enough that she assumed he wasn’t going to share. At last he turned back. ‘I know you’re hurting. Nothos poison isn’t something to mess around with. If you gave me some of your blood and I kissed you, it would give you a little extra healing power. It would help.’

A delicious shiver went through her. She refused to acknowledge what that meant, because she certainly couldn’t deny how it made her feel. Nor could she deny how much she wanted what he was proposing. She struggled to keep those emotions off her face. ‘Yes, it would.’

‘Just a little blood,’ he qualified. ‘I know you don’t have much to spare after what you must have lost from the injury.’

She gave him a little smirk. ‘I’m comarré. Blood production isn’t something I have trouble with. I’ll be right back.’

Leaving the door open, she slipped into the bedroom, put on her robe, then went through to the sitting room and took a glass from the morning kitchen. When she returned, Mal was back against the rail.

She walked out into the night air and eased onto the all-weather couch, mindful of her injury. The balmy air almost made her thin robe too warm, but somehow two layers of silk seemed better than one between her and the vampire who switched gravity off every time he touched her. She put the glass on the coffee table and held her wrist over the goblet’s mouth. Mal turned away and planted his hands on the carved marble railing.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said softly. She almost wanted him to watch.

‘I do.’

She nodded, knowing he couldn’t see her. She flicked the blade out of her ring and pierced her vein. The pain was brief. As the first trickle of blood filled the glass, Mal groaned. The scent must be overwhelming. Or maybe it was the knowledge that he was about to partake of her blood.

At the sound of stone cracking, he yanked his hands off the railing and crossed his arms over his chest. It would be a lie to say her power over him didn’t hold a certain appeal, but that seemed such a base emotion, she didn’t want to own it.

Glass filled, she pressed her thumb to the small wound and held her wrist up. ‘I’m done.’

Mal flashed to her side a second later, eyes silver, face fully
vampire, fangs extended. There was no cajoling to get him to drink, no arguing on his part. Without delay, he lifted the glass and drained it, then set it down and settled back against the cushions as the blood visibly worked its power through him.

His eyes closed, but his mouth hung open like he was panting. Soon, he was, his chest rising and falling as his lungs expanded. His muscles tightened, and he shuddered, jaw clenched with what looked like pain. A few moments later, he relaxed and his hand strayed to his chest. He pressed his fingers there and opened his eyes. ‘Never fails to amaze me.’ He sat up, took her hand, and placed it over his now-beating heart.

His body was warm beneath her palm, another effect of her blood. She ached to feel his skin against hers, but the act of touching his black-inked body still shocked her. Wicked, wicked comarré. ‘It must really be something to feel when you’re not used to it.’

‘It is.’ Still holding her palm to his chest, he moved closer until their thighs touched. Heat penetrated the layers of silk. Such closeness was dangerous. Like him. The heat seeped into other parts of her body, and his scent surrounded her in a haze of spice and earth and possibility. ‘Now your turn.’

She twisted toward him and winced. She pulled her hand out of his and pressed it to her stomach. ‘Moved too fast.’

‘That won’t do.’ He slid his arms beneath her legs and around her back and just like that she was on his lap. His hands dropped to the small of her back and her knee, but his touch reverberated through her entire body.

The contact made her foolish and eager. And vulnerable. By now she should be used to feeling that way around Mal, but this was something more than just the defenselessness born of his being a vampire. It came from his being a man.

They were at eye level. And for some reason, he was still smiling.

‘Better?’

Oh,
better
was one word to describe it, but there were a few others she could come up with in her vampire-addled brain. Breathless. Electrifying. Frightening. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’
Fine.
Because why not use a word that in no way scratched the surface of her emotion? She was as stunted as Mal when it came to relationships. Although the patron–comarré relationship was something she’d had plenty of experience with, this was nothing like that. Nothing. At. All.

‘Good.’ He lifted his hands to cup her face as his own shifted back to human, his fangs neatly out of the way. His thumbs smoothed her cheekbones. ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered. His eyes glittered as if something inside longed to be free, but he said nothing, just brought his mouth to hers.

She closed her eyes, shut out the weight of her past telling her not to enjoy it, and did exactly that. She reveled in the pressure and softness of his mouth. The tenderness with which he caressed her face. One of his hands went to the nape of her neck, gently massaging, then his fingers threaded into her hair. She shivered with the overload of sensation.

No wonder Maris had given up everything for Dominic. At that moment, Chrysabelle understood her mother. She sighed with contented pleasure, allowing herself to feel the bliss in the joining, and wondered what his bite would feel like. The question aroused an ache in her that nearly made her cry out.

She forced the thought away and concentrated on the kiss, because that was all they would ever share. A kiss. Just like the last one she’d had. Except that kiss hadn’t been with Mal. It had been with Creek.

Suddenly, guilt stung her, the memory of another man’s mouth on hers as sharp and hot as the signumist’s needle. She pulled away, her heart pounding. She hoped Mal thought it was because of the kiss and not because there was something unconfessed between them. He would be furious if he knew. Enough to harm Creek.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Why do you … like me?’ The question came out before she could stop it, but she was glad it had. She wanted to know. With Creek now in her life, she needed to know what kept Mal coming back to her. ‘Is it just the blood?’

His face darkened. ‘No.’

‘Then what?’

He stared into her eyes, his lips parting, then closing again like he’d changed his mind about what he was going to say. ‘The voices tell me not to. That’s reason enough for me.’

She dropped her head, nodding.

‘And,’ he continued, ‘I’ve never known anyone like you. You’re … good. And yet you still like
me
.’

She lifted her head to look at him again, but he turned away so she couldn’t see his eyes.

He wasn’t a bad man, no matter what his curse had made him do. She caressed his hand. ‘Thank you for the kiss. I’m sure that was enough.’

He turned back to her, eyes blazing silver. ‘I’m not.’ He retook her mouth like he had a right to it.

Another full minute passed before the guilt ate its way back into her brain. She broke the kiss for good. Tried to breathe. ‘Thank you for helping me.’

He laughed softly, his face very close to hers. ‘Yes, clearly that was all about helping you.’ He tucked a strand of hair behind
her ear. ‘It’s okay to take pleasure from life. There’s far too little of it for most. You and I especially. Don’t deny what comes your way.’

Denying pleasure was not her problem, but he didn’t know that. She sighed.

He raised his brows. ‘Or perhaps you found no pleasure in that kiss? If so, you should have been an actress, because it certainly seemed you did.’

‘No, it’s not that. Kissing you’ – the very words heated her skin – ‘is definitely pleasurable. At least when you intend it that way, it is.’

He sat back. ‘Ah, so I’m to be punished for past transgressions?’

‘Just making a comparison is all.’ Because she was
not
comparing Mal to Creek. Not in any way.

‘Then what is it?’

She’d wanted the kiss. Now she must deal with the emotions it had created. She eased off his lap and onto her feet. Already her senses sharpened and the tightness of her wounds lessened. ‘It’s my past, the last century of my life, lived in a very different way. It weighs on me. Colors my actions. I am still very much comarré at heart, despite the new circumstances of my life. Those rules are hard to discard.’ If that was what she even chose to do. Sometimes those rules made more sense than anything else she knew. Having no man was infinitely simpler than having two. She shook her head and walked around the couch to the door. ‘Am I comarré? Am I human? What rules do I live by? I’m not making excuses. Or maybe I am.’ She rested her hand on the door frame and turned. He stood on the other side of the couch, staring at her. ‘I just need time.’

‘And as long as you need me, time is all I have.’

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she liked the sound of it. ‘Give me a couple of days to recover, then come back and we’ll talk about what it’s going to take to get to the Aurelian.’ She’d tell him everything, including the fact that she had a brother.

He nodded, a smile lighting his eyes. ‘Two days. I’ll be back.’

‘Good night, Mal.’

‘Good night, Chrysabelle.’ And he was gone, disappearing over the railing in a soundless blur.

She closed the door, confident of only one thing. She wanted Mal
and
Creek in her life. How she would accomplish that without destroying them both remained to be seen.

D
aysleep. Laudanum. Colloidal silver.

Each blanketed Dominic in a thick, numbing fog. His struggle against them had been short-lived. Giving in was so easy. Too easy. The only choice.

And so he had let go of consciousness and fallen into a bottomless abyss of anesthetic blackness. It was peaceful here, like daysleep, but darker and thicker and adrift with strange dreams.

Now something tugged at him from the other side. It pulled at him. Lifted his limbs. Shook him. Slapped his face.

‘Dominic.’ The voice came and went in the miasma. It flitted in and out, like a tiny white
farfalle
among the lemon blossoms of his mamma’s orchard. Again the voice called him. ‘Dominic.’

‘Mamma,’
he answered, unsure if the word left his throat.

‘Dominic, wake up.’ That voice didn’t belong to his dear sainted mother, may she rest in peace. It belonged to … someone else. His mother’s apron was muslin, bleached by the sun when she hung it to dry. He watched it flap in the breeze. Felt the sun on his face.

‘Dominic, please.’