Darkfell Vampire Clan Boxset, page 35
Which meant he already knew what was behind the door. He was trying to protect me.
You mean protect his investment? I reminded myself. After all, I was his tool to remove Viktor from not only the throne, but from this Earth.
The one thing that remained unchanged was Deston’s unwavering hatred of Viktor. That, I could count on.
He was the master of manipulating a corrupt, jaded royal court. I was the neophyte who didn’t know what the court was, much less the rules.
But I didn’t need to know everything about the Darkfell Clan, I just had to learn to maneuver people as easily as Deston. That was power, and once I mastered the art of deception, Deston could shove it.
“Who’s going to shove what?” Cyrus strolled into the garden looking around with approval. “Hardly a flower out of place.” He only grinned when I indicated the ruined corner.
“Well, nobody’s perfect, and you’re getting much better, Seraphina. Are you hungry?”
“As a matter of fact”—I eyed his neck, saliva filling my mouth—“I am.” I stopped him with a hand in the middle of his chest, then pressed a kiss at the bottom of his throat. He was slightly salty, and there was a brief pressure-pain before my fangs elongated.
He slipped his arms around me, and just like that, everything melted away. “I do like your particular brand of magic, Cyrus. It’s kind of like taking a whole-body Xanax.”
“I don’t know what that is, but I’m glad you like it.” He led me out of the garden and pulled me into his lap beneath the newly restored oak tree.
“Drink, love, you were studying late last night,” he chided gently. “You have to get more sleep.” I ignored the twinge of guilt and pretended white lies didn’t matter.
There was something about being cradled in his lap, feeding, that was impossibly intimate. Almost more than sex, this bonded us together. I couldn’t believe I’d once found it distasteful. I licked the punctures closed and settled against Cyrus’s chest. I hadn’t lied; he was like a muscle relaxant, and my entire body was relaxed, my head logy from the feeding.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if this was our life?” I asked dreamily. Between the feeding and the fact that I hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours last night, I couldn’t have walked if I’d wanted to. “If we could just enjoy life without all this other bullshit?”
Cyrus tucked me in tighter. “That will be our life, after Viktor is gone. Removing him from our world will only make it a better place. You’ll be doing our kind a favor, Seraphina. Sires won’t have to worry about their daughters disappearing, revenants hunting them, the constant threats and cruelty. You have a chance very few of us have, to change things and actually make them better.”
He was right.
I wanted to do all these things, even killing Viktor.
There were people I’d never even met, depending on me to fix things.
“I’ll do everything I can to help them,” I promised, even though tears pricked my eyes. “It just seems like I’m at the bottom of a mountain, and somehow, I have to move the whole thing out of my way. Everything seems impossible when it’s so big, and I’m so small.”
“You’re the strongest person I know.” I felt Cyrus’s lips in my hair, his arm banded around my back. “You’ll change the world. Not many people can say that. Think of your bragging rights.”
“Put her down,” Deston snapped. “She should be practicing.” I blinked dreamily at him.
“I was practicing, and then I ate, and now I’m resting. That’s an accounting of the last three hours of my life. Hopefully, it’s satisfactory.”
Deston jerked his head at Cyrus. “Leave. Seraphina and I have matters to discuss.”
Cyrus’s body went loose, like he always did, right before he attacked. “That’s a bold statement coming from you, Cousin. Seraphina does whatever she wishes, and you are in no position to command her.”
Now Cyrus did set me aside, rising to face his cousin.
Cyrus was unrecognizable from the emaciated vampire I first met in the dungeons. He’d filled out, his smooth, golden skin stretched over bulging muscles. His legs were powerful, his abs perfectly cut. He’d embraced the internet and was dressed in the finest clothes money could buy.
His magic was far stronger now, as well. One touch of his fingers and every bone in my body went loose. If he wanted, I didn’t doubt he could do some serious damage with that power. But beyond all of that, he took the time to listen, he always supported me, and he never played games or lied to me.
Unlike Deston, who’d done both those things. And more.
Everybody needs a Cyrus in their life, I decided. Someone they could rely on forever.
“Speak to Seraphina again in that tone, Cousin, and I’ll rip your head right off, whether Luthor thinks we need you or not.” Cyrus was almost scary, with this casual air of menace about him. He never got angry, never raised his voice, but I knew from experience, he would have Deston flat on his back in a heartbeat.
I put my hand on his arm. “There will be no ripping off heads today, I’m afraid. Deston and I have some business to discuss. Once we’re done, I’ll come back inside. We can have dinner together.”
“Are you sure?” His green eyes measured me up, and then he stepped back. “Mind your manners, Cousin. Or you’ll answer to me.”
Then he shot me a lopsided grin, tucked his hands in his pockets, and strolled away.
“One of these days, I will teach him some manners.” Deston growled at Cyrus’s retreating back, just before he dematerialized back to the house.
“If anyone around here needs to learn manners, it’s you,” I countered harshly. “You’ve had time to think, what’s your decision?”
“Explain where you found that key. Then I will decide how much to tell you.”
“That’s a pretty shitty deal. There’s no way I’m going first.”
Deston looked skyward. “I swear on my life, if you tell me where you got the key, I will tell you what it goes to.” I peeked at his fingers, which weren’t crossed.
“And what’s behind it, and where it’s located,” I added, well aware of the dangers of making deals with supernatural beings. At least, that’s what I’d read in books.
“That only works on the Fae, and we are the same kind. Since you are not a human making a bargain with a superior being, this is an agreement between equals.” His face twitched, as if he was trying not to roll his eyes.
“The key came from my mother, that’s all I know.”
“After you master your magic, we shall work on your lying. Somehow, I fear that will take you longer to figure out.”
“All right, Mom left me the key and a note. Which doesn’t tell me anything except the key unlocks a very dangerous secret.”
“I need to see that note.”
“I’ve read it like a hundred times, and there’s nothing that’s helpful.”
“You’ve had this key all along?” he asked, not a hint of emotion in his voice.
“No, I just found it three days ago.”
“Where exactly did you find it?”
He moved closer until we were touching, and I resisted the urge to take a step back.
“It was hidden in the back of one of her paintings. I accidentally broke it the other day and found the key and her note.”
“How long has this painting been in your possession?
“My entire life, I guess. As far back as I can remember, it always hung on the wall of whatever bedroom of whatever rundown house we lived in.”
“And you never noticed it before a couple days ago?”
“No, I did not,” I insisted, confused to why he was so hung up on this. “If you don’t believe me, I can show you. Would that convince you I’m telling the truth?”
“You’re the one who’s always yammering on about hard evidence. Perhaps I would like to see the same.” Since I still didn’t know how to materialize and refused to get toted through the air like a sack of garbage, we walked to the castle. Deston lingered awkwardly in the doorway of our disorganized bedroom while I retrieved the picture.
“This is it.” I handed him the painting. “The painting was ruined when I broke the mirror. Try not to destroy it any more than it already is.”
“This is your mother’s hiding spot? Unbelievable.”
I ground my teeth at his feigned outrage. He was such a sanctimonious bastard.
“It could’ve been lost so easily.”
“Well, not really, since that painting is my most valuable possession in the entire world, and I take it everywhere I go.” I didn’t know why Mom hid the key there either, but that painting had kept the secret for all those years, right under my nose.
He straightened it, stared hard at the seascape, then at Mom’s signature on the back. He ran a finger across the bold strokes of the cliffs. “Where did your mother get this?” His voice went from benign to dangerously soft.
“She painted it.” I surveyed the mess of canvas and wood that had once been lovely. “I can’t believe I ruined the only thing I have left of her.”
His voice gentled, lost a bit of the arrogance. “When… do you know when this was painted, by chance?”
“I don’t.” There was no year on the back, only the month and day. “Gram once said Mom went to art school in Paris, but Mom never talked much about her past. Even though I asked.”
I should have asked more. I should have pushed harder, made her talk about her childhood, learned more about her. Instead, everything had always been about me.
“No, I suppose Isabelle would want to forget that part of her past,” Deston said thoughtfully, running his fingers around the edge of the painting.
Before my eyes the frame straightened out, the painting once again taut. I flipped it over, and even the torn paper with her ripped signature was flawlessly mended.
Emotion welled up inside of me hard and fast, catching me by surprise. Everything went blurry. “Thank you.” The words sounded hoarse, so I reached out, brushed his arm. “You don’t know how much I…”
I shook my head to clear it before I made a complete fool out of myself. “Anyways, thank you. This is the only thing I have that belonged to her. Everything else was lost when Gram’s house burned down.”
Deston rubbed his arm where I’d touched him. Probably to scrub away the feel of me.
“That’s not exactly true,” Deston murmured. Then his hand slid around mine, and before I knew it, he was pulling me down the hallway, into a section of the house I’d never been in before. We ended up in a miniature art gallery, with paintings hung on every wall, from the chair rail up to the ceiling. Some of them I recognized. “Is that a Gauguin?”
“From one of his first shows.” I could only stare as Deston shrugged. “I liked to get in on the ground floor, and the late 1800s were a thrilling time in the art world.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
Now that I was really looking, most of them were impressionistic, and while I didn’t recognize every piece, they were all beautiful. I leaned in to get a closer look at a tiny watercolor. It was signed Degas.
“Come. This is what I want you to see, Seraphina.” Deston’s hands were featherlight on my shoulders, turning me until I faced a beautifully rugged seascape, infused with chaos. There is no doubt in my mind who had painted it.
“How did you get this?” I wanted to scream the words, but they came out a whisper.
I swept his hands off my shoulders and spun around. “Where did you get this?”
Had Deston known my mother? He lied about everything. Was this simply another way to manipulate me?
“Your mother was the most promising painter the Beaux-Arts de Paris had ever produced.” His voice was nearly as rough as mine, his expression every bit as emotional as I felt right now. “From what I know, your mother hung her final show, and that was the last anyone ever saw of Isabelle Smith.”
He had our family alias right, which lent some credence to the rest of his story.
“You knew my mother.” I jabbed my finger in his chest. “You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you?”
“I swear to you, Seraphina, I am not.” There was a kind of intense desperation to him, as if me believing him meant everything right now. Which only made me distrust him even more.
“Then why didn’t you ever say you knew my mother?”
“Because I never met Isabelle. And before you accuse me of hiding things from you, I recognized this by the signature.” He rubbed his chest in circles, as if it hurt.
“I bought these paintings years after your mother disappeared. The Beaux-Arts director at the time had held on to her work. I bought everything he had, and have twenty of her pieces in storage. But this one…” His voice trailed off, and he looked at the painting, his face softening. “This one was my favorite.”
I snuck a glance.
Deston didn’t look like someone who was playing me, but then again, did he ever?
“I don’t know what magic your mother had, but every time I look at this, I feel… transported.”
“Yeah.” I settled down a little, staring at her canvas, the vastness of emotion contained in such a tiny square. She’d really been a painter in Paris, I thought, caught between amazement and awe. “I just never thought there might be more artwork out there. I thought Mom only painted one thing.”
“This is yours, Seraphina. All of them are yours. When you become Queen, you can decorate the walls of the palace with your mother’s magic, so you’ll see her, everywhere you look.” He brushed a finger against my hand, and I reached out and brushed mine against his.
His dark gaze never left the painting, and there was so much emotion in his voice—in me—that I let myself relax, lay my head against his arm, wondering if maybe, he saw the same things I did.
“She was really good, wasn’t she?” I leaned closer to inspect an aggressive brush stroke. “Thank you for this. It’s the best gift anyone’s given me… in forever.”
He stepped away, and the air in the room changed.
“I will take you to the palace. I will show you what’s behind the door.”
“Why the change in attitude?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because we both deserve to know the truth.”
I mulled that reason over and found it acceptable.
“You broke the first key trying to unlock that door,” I pointed out. “What makes you think mine will work?”
“The last time I was careless. Clearly, I did not remove all the layers of magic, which meant the key did not work as designed, and yes, I had to rip it out of the lock before I was discovered.”
“That’s a pretty defensive-sounding explanation.”
“The stakes were high. It was not my finest moment.”
“Deston de Rayne, willing to show a little weakness. May miracles never cease.”
Besides the mystery of the whole thing, there was something else at play—an idea—that had been growing larger in my mind, ever since I’d found the key. This idea didn’t make sense on a logical level, and I’d spent as much time trying to talk myself out of it as imagining it might be true.
The Idea was the impetus behind my seemingly mad obsession with finding the door, uncovering the secret that lay behind it. Call it madness, but in my defense, I liked to call it hope.
Finding these paintings… I took this as a sign I was on the right path.
Mom hadn’t been what you’d call a proper vampire. She’d been, by all accounts, human.
No magic, no fangs, and a helluva lot of artistic ability.
But there was one thing that held true. Isabelle had been a Marvelle by blood. And even though I’d watched her die in front of my horrified, teenage eyes…
Marvelles could rise from the dead.
So, despite all logic, every time I imagined myself unlocking that door and revealing what lay behind it… I always saw my mother waiting.
My head knew this was a ridiculous fantasy, but my heart hoped I’d get her back, and I wouldn’t be so alone anymore.
Or maybe I just wanted to stop feeling so guilty about my part in her death.
16
SERAPHINA
Two nights later, I stepped out of Deston’s embrace and realized, for once, he hadn’t lied about a single thing.
We’d landed in the middle of nowhere, an unsettled tract of wild Louisiana that was nothing but boggy bayou and tangled brush. The moon was bright, but my breath turned to fog.
A wall of shimmering magic stretched up as high as I could see, turning everything behind it wavy with illusion. The only thing beyond it was more bayou, the dank water reflecting cypresses dripping in moss. I wondered if we were in the right place.
“The royal ward has been keyed to my magic,” Deston explained quietly. “I can neutralize the magical protections long enough to get you through, but it will only work for a few seconds each time. Any more and I’ll trigger the spell and alert the Knightsguard.”
Despite the cold and the fact that we were walking straight into danger, I squared my shoulders. “Just get me inside. Then we’ll worry about the rest.”
In truth, I was plenty worried, and feeling more than a little guilty. Luthor and Cyrus were fast asleep, a bottle of wine and a big dinner taking their toll. I was supposed to be in the library. Studying.
Nonsense, I reassured myself, I’ll be back in an hour and they’ll be none the wiser.
I’d decided to strip this quest of mine down to a one-step-at-a-time approach. I figured every little victory put me one step closer to discovering the truth, and I wouldn’t allow myself to get caught up on all the ways this little adventure could go wrong.
Easier said than done, especially looking at the wards.
Deston held his hand out to me, and I took it reluctantly. I’d just spent five minutes wrapped in his arms, and just that small period left me feeling strangely off-balance.
“This ward is infused with enough black magic to kill any intruders. It will not behave like the wards around my castle,” he warned, searching my face before his hand tightened around mine. “Passing through this one… it will hurt, Seraphina.”
