Infamous: (A Bad Boy Romantic Suspense) (28 page)

Later that night, while I was in bed and emphatically not sleeping, I thought I heard a strange snuffling sound outside my door. It was like a large dog was sniffing wetly. I cautiously got up and opened the door but…nothing. I locked it when I closed it again just to be safe.

Even later I heard a knock and then Dimitri’s voice, a little slurred. “Emma? Open up, please!”

I got up and let him in. He’d clearly been drinking a bit. He didn’t seem incredibly drunk but definitely not sober. He walked around the room at first, looking at everything that wasn’t me. I was tired and not really up for whatever weird confrontation he probably had in mind.

“What do you want, Dimitri? I was about ready to go to sleep.”

“You slept with him today, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. I crossed my arms.

“Yes, but you know that. And you also made it clear that we are free agents, so don’t get weird on me here,” I said.

“I don’t care that you slept with Robert,” he said loftily. I gave him my most skeptical look. “Okay, I care a little. Mostly about whether he’s better than me. What can I say, I’m shallow.” I rolled my eyes.

“He’s not better, Dimitri. He’s…different. And before you ask, I have no idea who’s bigger. I didn’t measure,” I said. He laughed a little at that, looking rueful.

“I know, I’m ridiculous. You’re not my girlfriend, you can sleep with who you want. Even him,” he said.

“That sounds like you giving me permission. This was my choice.” I sat on the bed, yawning. It was a relief he wasn’t going to have a big snit. I wasn’t up for a vampire temper tantrum.

Instead, he sat down on the bed next to me and looked me over with a knowing smile. His hand stroked my back and he placed a kiss on my neck.

“Up for another round? Just to make a real comparison?” he asked. Suddenly I was wide awake as his hand came up to cup my breast. Was this actually happening? Was I about to have sex with two men in one night? As Dimitri slid behind me, massaging my breasts, the answer was a clear yes. I was definitely going to sleep with two guys tonight.

My pajamas were off without a thought and I was on all fours. Dimitri stroked his hands down my back, over my spine, down to my buttocks. He pulled my hips back and guided himself home. It was a familiar sensation, him inside me. Full and hard. My body seemed more than happy to be having so much sex. The more I had, the more I wanted to have.

“I missed you, Emma,” Dimitri said from behind me, thrusting. I groaned. We moved together well, working each other, building, hitting all the right body notes. When he reached around and stroked me, I clenched down and we both came, shuddering.

I collapsed on the bed and Dimitri came down beside me, drawing me into his arms. I let him; it was nice to be held.

“I could love a girl like you, Emma. I really could,” he said so softly I wasn’t sure I heard him. Then I was asleep, dreaming about warm rain showers and strange snuffling sounds I could never quite find.

The next few days went by in a kind of endorphin haze. All the sex was clouding my brain and making me feel perpetually kind of high. It was hard to find a problem with it but there was no way it could last. Something was bound to go wrong.

While I waited for the other fang to drop, I spent a lot of time with Tina during the day, having mostly normal conversations about mundane things. I was starting to get a little stir-crazy, though. I was in Venice but I hadn’t seen any of it. Seemed a shame.

“I know, but it’s not safe right now. The other houses are gathering soon and we should be able to get this all sorted. Robert is very convincing. But until then, you’re vulnerable,” she said as we sat eating green-apple-flavored licorice.

“I guess. It’s just hard for me to know what the actual threat is. All I hear are vague allusions to it. It just seems so…unreal somehow,” I said. “Also, this candy is like crack. Where do you get it?”

“Oh, I get it flown in from Japan. Special order. Delicious, right? I could live on it. Literally,” she said happily.

“I mean, couldn’t you and I go for like…a walk or something? Just see the city a little?” I asked.

“Maybe. I can be pretty intimidating in some of my other shapes, but they can’t actually do much damage. When I shift, my mass is the same. I might look bigger and stronger, but I’m still me,” she said.

“Sort of like how some animals puff up a tail or their fur to look bigger and more threatening.”

“Exactly.”

It bummed me out that I was traveling like I’d always wanted, only not seeing anything. I mean, if it meant I stayed alive, it was worth it. But it still sucked.

I spent some of my time reading. The library in the Ellory Estate was impressive. Robert seemed to be a modern mystery buff, which was amusing. I was tempted to just turn off my brain but decided I should use my time a little more productively. So I read up on vampires.

Some of the books were so old they were practically in Chaucerian code, so I didn’t bother. I also obviously couldn’t read the books in anything other than English. There were a LOT of those, especially in German. Which just reminded me of what happened in Hamburg, so I put those aside pretty fast.

The history was pretty dry and mostly concentrated on medieval times. Vampires had been a lot wilder then, sometimes decimating whole villages and no one really noticed. It seemed that quite a few “plagues” were actually vampires run amok. Easier to explain away cholera than an entire town of people with drained corpses that sometimes got back up, I guess.

After that, they got a little more careful because people had begun to catch on. They’d figured out how to actually hurt vampires, and the vampires weren’t really keen on being burned or stabbed or beheaded even when it didn’t kill them. And sometimes it did, and that put a real cramp in the whole eternity thing.

I found some first-person vampire accounts that were pretty harrowing. Some of them clearly enjoyed killing, while others had more of a Louis from
Interview with the Vampire
brooding thing going on. They actually felt guilty about feeding. Which was sort of worse. Purely predatory vamps were scary, of course, and did some horrible things. Like the one that had deliberately wiped out an entire orphanage because he could, or the one who had gone around the ditches after World War One and fed on the wounded who might have otherwise lived. They simply had no remorse or empathy. They were true monsters and I could kind of accept that.

But the ones who cared…their accounts were even more harrowing. Some of them had eaten family when they were too new and untrained to help themselves. Some of them had gotten desperate and done vile things, only to hate themselves after and go insane. There had been one mad vampire who had actually torched herself in a hotel, burning it down in her madness with several other people trapped inside.

Yet there were stories that amazed me, too. The things they’d seen, their perspective on human events they were on the outside of.

One afternoon I found myself crying after reading a particular account about a mother who had been turned and had come back to find her family killed by the local magistrate. They’d believed her whole family was vampires and not just her. Heartbroken, she had waited until the sun dawned and been burned to ash. Reading the letter she’d written to her father before the deed was like a stab in the heart.

I walked to the window, wiping the tears away, and looked out over the lawns. It had been a quiet day. Tina was off on some errands, while Robert and Dimitri were asleep or doing whatever it was they did during the day. The sun was starting to set in a hot ball of bright orange.

Which was when I saw the strange figure out by the hedges. It was backlit, tall, but bent at a strange angle, head cocked as though listening. It seemed to be looking at the house. Its limbs were spindly thin, almost spiderlike.

Then it hunched down, legs bending up like a bug, and I jumped back. Its head twisted all around and moved up and down. Then it leaped off at a great speed, insectile legs moving in a blur.

I stared after it for a while, terrified. It was the most inhuman thing I’d seen so far, and it hadn’t occurred to me that vampires, changelings, and even werewolves at least looked like people most of the time. I couldn’t even imagine what that thing had been. A changeling, maybe, in a shape somewhere between human and arachnid? It was deeply unsettling. My mind shied away from remembering the way it had moved, the way its legs had bent and steepled.

Were there others? Was the house surrounded? Did the others know about this? They’d been warning me for weeks it wasn’t safe and I’d trusted them, though I’d been frustrated and tired of being treated like a child who couldn’t go outside to play.

As I looked, a familiar tall gray figure moved from behind one of the hedges towards where the creature had been. It seemed to glide rather than walk, filmy robes moving delicately as it did. It stooped by the ground where the creature had been and picked something up. It looked at it, then towards the house. Toward me. I could have sworn it saw me in the window. Whatever it had picked up glinted briefly in the dying sun, and then it put it in the folds of its robe. It then faded back into the hedges like a mirage.

My head suddenly started to hurt and my stomach felt off. I sat down on a chair and tried to calm myself, I was breathing hard and fast. I didn’t doubt that Robert and Dimitri would try to protect me, but I suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. I realized that there wasn’t much two vampires could do during the day, and Tina, who meant well, wasn’t exactly a bodyguard.

Was the gray figure out there to help, or was it working for the council? What the hell was the other figure and what did it want?

I started leafing through books, trying to find any reference to either creature. No luck. While there were plenty of entries on changelings and werewolves, it was almost like anything else was deliberately missing. Sometimes there were mentions of “shadow” creatures, but specifics were omitted. Like they were something even vampires were afraid of.

Which definitely made me nervous. What scares a vampire? And what would something that did want with me? A wave of terror hit me and I panicked, running up to my room, packing my bag, wondering if I could run somewhere, anywhere, maybe find a train or a bus or, hell, hitch a ride. Anything that got me the hell away from there. But then I sat down, realizing that, as unsafe as I suddenly felt, I was better off here, where at least there were people around who knew what to do. Hopefully.

It was beginning to seem like a lot more was going on than just some inconvenient human wandering around they couldn’t control if they wanted to. It suddenly occurred to me that in a world full of creatures with supernatural abilities, a human who could walk away from them could be a massive liability. Or an advantage.

As I sat there, I thought about my mom again and desperately wished I was home. I even wished I was in the funky old hostel in Hamburg having a miserable time, but not knowing about everything that was actually out in the world, just waiting to get at you. Waiting to eat you.

It was going to be a long night.

I waited for the sun to set, sitting in a high-backed chair with a blanket over me, staring into the mouth of the fireplace, until I heard the distinct sound of heavy stone grating on stone.

Robert came up first, looking immaculate. If only I could look like that first thing. Especially if I’d just spent about twelve hours underground in a crypt. I hadn’t ventured down there yet; it just seemed too weird. And private. Like walking in on someone in the bathroom or something.

“Emma,” he said, smiling. Then he looked closer at my face and his smile died. “What is it?”

“We had a visitor. Or visitors, I’m not sure. Someone or something was watching the house. Like a spider person. And then one of those creatures in gray scared it off. You need to tell me what’s going on. Now.”

He sat across from me and leaned his arms on his knees. He looked at me for a while without saying anything. Finally, he sighed.

“I wanted to avoid scaring you, but there have been some developments recently. Since the council meeting, certain…interested parties have become aware of you. And that we are guarding you,” he said.

“Terrific,” I said, sitting up and wrapping the blanket around myself tighter. It was warm in the room but I shivered.

“The creature in gray is here as protection. It works for me,” he added.

“Ah. And what kind of creature is it?” I asked. He looked away, then back.

“It’s difficult to explain.” He sat back in his chair and stared at the fire.

“Why, doesn’t it have a name?” I said. “I already know about changelings,” I added. He looked at me sharply, then sighed again.

“Tina. I told her not to tell you about her lineage,” he muttered.

“Yeah, well, she’s a lot smarter than you and Dimitri. I can take it. So cough it up,” I said.

“It’s a sylph. Well, she is a sylph. Her name is Solosha. You met her at the council. We’ve known each other a long time,” Robert said, then brought his chair over to me and sat again. He took my hand.

“Solosha is more than capable of protecting the house. Whoever was out there would not have been able to get in. Not just because of Solosha, but because of the wards I have built into the foundation,” he said, stroking my palm with his long fingers. I looked at his strong profile and tried to will myself to feel reassured.

“So now there are air spirits. And changelings. And vampires. The world is pretty weird, I have to say. But also profoundly more magical than I ever thought,” I said.

“Come here,” he said. I got up with the blanket and sat on his lap. He put his arms around me and stroked my back. I lay my head on his shoulder.

“So, the weird spider thing? Am I right in thinking that was some kind of changeling?” I asked. I could feel him nod.

“Yes. Not many can change into arachnid forms and those that do tend to be…employed in a particular way. It narrows down who it may have been and what family we’re dealing with,” he said.

“Family? You mean one of the other vampire houses sent…it?” I asked. He was rubbing the back of my neck, which was undeniably soothing, but the idea that other vampires were interested in me was not.

“Yes, although I’m not sure which one. I have my suspicions. We’ll have to wait until Dimitri is up but I think we can take steps to mitigate any…unpleasantness,” he said.

“Great,” I said, not particularly reassured. “The thing I’m not clear on is why it ultimately matters. I mean, okay, you guys can’t influence me. But it’s not like that’s contagious. It can’t spread,” I said.

“Actually, it could. If you were to have children they might inherit that trait. And it means that should you be turned you could be a powerful asset. It’s likely you’d retain that ability and become something much more. Usually those who are “made” are influenced by their maker in some way, forever. But you, you could be an entirely free agent,” he said.

“And that matters?”

“In theory, anything that is unique matters. And has value.” He started to kiss my neck, nuzzling gently.

“Is that why you and Dimitri are part of your houses? Because they made you?” I asked, feeling suddenly much warmer and, while not calm, certainly more predisposed to be anxious in a different way.

“Precisely. We were made by heads of our houses and are beholden to them. To resist would be…painful.” His hands roved over my breasts, kneading gently.

“But what if your houses were led by, like, horrible people? You’d have to follow them?” I asked, trying to delay what was clearly going to be inevitable. I could feel his hardness against my bottom already.

“We’re monsters, Emma. Until fairly recently, awful was what we were.”

“And now?”

“Now some of us make amends, or at least an effort. But mostly we are with our houses forever. Although some have taken matters in their own hands and killed their makers. They usually become pariahs.” This was not the most romantic talk but his hands slid up under my shirt, cupped my breasts, and suddenly everything seemed sexier. Even talk about vamps killing vamps.

“Ah,” I said, no longer able to really care that much about vampire politics. His hands were stroking over my belly and I wanted them lower.

I put my face to his neck and gently bit. He pulled me up and kissed me thoroughly, darting his tongue against my lips until I parted them. We were still under the blanket and he undressed me as we kissed. Then he unbuttoned his pants and I felt his hardness. I was too excited to think about how we were doing this in a public room and Dimitri or Tina might walk in.

He entered me as I sat on his lap, my breath catching at the fullness of him, stretching me deliciously. We moved together slowly, building up the passion and heat, rocking together. This position felt unbelievably good, hitting spots I hadn’t felt before, filling me and pushing me towards an incredible pleasure.

He rocked me like that, taking his time, until I was sobbing with the feeling and desperately working towards release. He slid a hand down to circle my bud and I finally crashed, shuddering, back arched, head back on a high cry. A moment later he was groaning, pumping into me, sending me off again with his powerful thrusts. He spilled himself inside me with a low sigh.

This whole having-sex-with-two-vampires thing was going to kill me. But I’d die happy.

Dimitri didn’t get up for another hour, so I felt like I’d dodged a romantic bullet. He was clearly jealous of me and Robert, and frankly I felt a little weird about this whole “multiple lovers” thing, but he seemed to keep it in check as long as he didn’t have to see it.

Robert was not much on PDA so that wasn’t much of a problem. He could even be downright cold towards me when Dimitri was around.

For some reason we all decided to have dinner, or I guess their breakfast, together. Since we all had to deal with one another until this situation was settled, it seemed like a good idea to try and get along.

At first this “getting along” meant stony silence around the table. Which was super fun. Especially in the cavernous dining room, where all I could think about was how I’d had sex with Robert on the table. At that moment I was grateful that reading thoughts was not a vampiric power.

Robert had briefed Dimitri on the spider thing situation; he’d clearly known about the sylph, Solosha. I didn’t see her at all, though sometimes I felt like the air was somehow…more aware around me at different times. I tried not to think about it, although I was extremely curious. I couldn’t decide whether changelings or sylphs had cooler abilities. In comparison, being undead and drinking blood seemed like kind of a drag. They didn’t get to turn into anything cool or float around like a breeze.

It was weird to think about these kinds of creatures always being around in the world, but never noticing them. Was I unobservant or were they that good at hiding? Probably both. I won’t act like I’m not as self-centered as the next person, but I liked to think I would have noticed any obvious supernatural elements around. But maybe not. Maybe I’d met all kinds of things before. Maybe the checkout girl back home was actually a changeling. At this point I wasn’t really sure of anything or anyone anymore.

“What did you do today, Emma?” Dimitri, cutting into my thoughts.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Jet-setting. Demon slaying. Creature taming,” I said, flourishing my fork.

“I hope you’ve availed yourself of the library and any other comforts. Tina can help you with anything you need during the day. There’s also an interior garden,” Robert said. He and Dimitri were sitting opposite each other while I sat at the head of the table.

“I didn’t know that. Are there flowers?” I asked.

“All kinds, a lot of them tropical since we have a hothouse. And there’s a koi pond,” he said.

“Well, that’s something. Since I can’t go outside. I’m getting kind of stir-crazy,” I said, drinking more wine. I realized I’d been drinking more than usual and wasn’t sure that was a good thing. I pushed the glass away from me.

“We’ll have this sorted in no time. Then I can take you out on the town. And probably down to Amalfi after that,” said Dimitri, sitting back, eyeing Robert with a glint. It was difficult to tell if he was suggesting the trip for me or to make Robert jealous. It didn’t get a rise out of the older vampire either way.

“It’s a little early to be planning vacations,” Robert said.

“You’ll sort it out. You’ve always been good at fixing things,” Dimitri said with a smile. It wasn’t really friendly.

“Mm. And you’ve always been good at wrecking them. We’re quite a team.”

“Oh, god, not this again. Look, if all you two can talk about is how much the other one sucks, I’m going elsewhere. I have reached my limit on vampire testosterone poisoning,” I said, starting to get up. Robert put his hand on mine.

“I apologize, Emma. We’ll be more mindful of our…personal issues,” he said. Dimitri just snorted.

Then there was more awkward silence. I guess if they couldn’t say anything nasty, they couldn’t say anything. At that point it was preferable.

I excused myself after a while and went up to my room. I looked out the window over the grounds, convinced I’d see a crouching, spidery shape. But I didn’t. If it was out there, it was being more careful now.

Then a gray shape drifted into view at the height of the balcony and I fell back with a little yelp. It floated over the railing and knocked on the glass, the fabric of its robes ruffling softly.

I got up with as much dignity as I could manage and opened it. Solosha glided in, tall and willowy, those yellow eyes all that were visible through the rectangular cutout in her robe.

“Er, hi,” I said.

“Hello.” Her voice was soft, not as quiet as a whisper, but with a similar
shhhh
sound around the letters as though everything was spoken on a sigh.

“Robert tells me you’ve been watching the house, protecting me. Thank you,” I said, not sure what else to offer.

“You are most welcome. I owe Robert my life, and he likes you,” she said, drifting around in a circle. She didn’t seem to have feet but it was impossible to really tell under the floor-length layers of fabric. Up close, the gray was in shimmering shades, layer upon layer, some raw-edged, others smooth. It draped smoothly, as though her body beneath was only straight lines.

“That’s…nice. I guess I owe him my life, too,” I said, just realizing it as I said it. He’d stood up for me at the council, taken on the responsibility of watching over me. Who knew what kind of consequences he was risking? The council hadn’t seemed all that forgiving or inclined to be merciful about much. That they’d let me go at all seemed like an anomaly.

“Yes, you do,” she said.

“Ah. Well, I have no idea how I’ll make it up to him, but I’ll do my best. I hope I don’t have to save his life to do it. Anything that would attack him would probably tear me into little pieces,” I said. I smiled at first, then realized that was extremely accurate. Solosha cocked her head to one side, looking at me.

“You are strange, for a human. You talk to me like I am not an elemental. Like I am just like you,” she said.

“Well, we’re all people, right? Or…beings, I guess. We’re all beings. Just trying to get through,” I said. It was the best I could do. The only way I could process all of this was by treating everyone, human or other, the way I wanted to be treated. I assumed they all had feelings, wishes, lives of some kind, like I did.

“I suppose. Mostly people just deny we are there at all,” she said. I nodded.

“Yeah, well, we decided beings like all of you were myths years ago. From what I gather, that’s been something many of you wanted,” I said.

“This is true. It is easier if humans do not know of us. They are too suspicious. We scare them. Best if we remain secret,” she said, gently wafting towards the fireplace. I noticed that her robes were constantly in motion as though ruffled by a perpetual breeze. Which made a lot of sense, really.

“I guess you’ve probably had some run-ins with bad humans.”

“Yes. But also bad vampires, changelings, werewolves. Badness is not species specific. Alas,” she said. Her tall silhouette against the warm fire was striking in its towering slimness.

“Yeah, I guess it would be easier if just one species was terrible and everyone else was fine.” This seemed like the most obvious statement I could make, but there it was.