Velvet Shadows (The Crimson Court #2)

Chapter 12

RAFE

It doesn’t take Nate and Juliette long to grow bored of their conspiracy theories and flee back to their pledges, leaving me alone in the Pump Room.

I take another glass of water, wishing it was something significantly stronger, and feel my muscles unknot, the strength flood back to my limbs. For a moment, it slackens my tongue that sits awkwardly in my mouth, dry from hunger.

I have not yet fed from Elizabeth. After all she has endured, I have found it hard to inflict it upon her. I would be gentle, of course — as gentle as it is possible to be when ripping into the veins of another creature. But I do not want her to be reminded of Ambrose. And she will be, no matter how different we are.

I rub my fingers over my temples as the hunger pulses through me. I have a perfectly good pledge whose blood has called to me from the moment I laid eyes on her. I cannot shrivel to dust because of how my cousin treated her.

I need to pull myself together. And there are eyes on me who would tell me the same.

The feeling of being watched is familiar, particularly when you are a vampire of my stature, but it has been years since I felt the weight of his gaze.

When I turn and see him, a grin tugs at my mouth. I knew he would be here.

It does not take him long to catch my eye, to abandon the conversation he is holding in a dark corner and saunter over to me instead. “Rafe Blackwood, as I live and breathe.”

“I am not sure we have done either for centuries, Vespucci.” I raise an eyebrow at the only other vampire I know almost as well as my own kin, surveying his thick eyebrows and Roman nose. He is handsome — an unarguable fact that I refute at every opportunity. “Your face does not grow easier to look at, despite the years since I last saw it.”

Enzo scowls at me in mock-horror, then his face lights up as he claps his arm around my shoulder. “I have missed your charm, old boy. You should not have stayed away so long.”

“It was a mere curtesy to you, my friend. I thought you deserved a chance at carving your own path. It is difficult to achieve when you have lived so in my shadow.”

Enzo throws his head back, laughter booming through the hall. Several nearby vampires and a scattering of humans glance our way, their expressions a mix of curiosity and disapproval. Enzo pays them no mind, as usual. He’s never been one for subtlety, much to his sister Bianca’s dismay.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he says, grinning. “Still the same arrogant bastard I remember.”

“And you are the same insufferable peacock. I thought your taste in fashion might have changed in the years since we last saw each other. Although it is a relief to see you have finally done away with the doublet.”

Enzo glances down at his emerald green waistcoat, brushing his hand over the silk. “You wound me, Blackwood. This is the height of Italian style.”

“Perhaps in the 14th century.”

“A remarkable time to be alive.”

“And to die.”

I first met Enzo when we were thirsty younglings in London. Back then, our fangs were permanently dripping with blood and our breeches were barely fastened from all the fucking. It is the way of things in those early days that follow from our rebirth. We are ravenous, desperate for blood, and all our mortal passions for flesh are quadrupled.

I staggered through the first days of eternity by throwing coins at women in dark alleyways, then ripping their throats out. More often than not, their corpses sagged at my feet and my brother — tasked with bestowing on me the lessons of restraint and moderation — followed me around the city picking up corpses and tossing them into the Thames.

By the time my appetites were under control and I was considered grown enough to be welcomed into Bath’s glittering society, Enzo had extracted himself from the nest of gutterfangs he had become entangled with, and found himself in the city too. He was always two steps ahead of me, but in all the years I have known him, restraint has never been something he is particularly well-versed in.

“Come, let us drink and toast to the Tournament.” Enzo nods towards the door. “I’ve had quite enough rejuvenation for one evening. I am ready for some debauchery.”

We pass through the hall, leaving the buzz of conversation behind us, and down a corridor lined with heavy oak doors. This is the Bath I know and love — one where fortunes are won and lost, secrets are traded, and alliances are forged, all in the back rooms and shadowy spots behind the springs.

Enzo strides ahead of me into the dimly lit room, taking a seat in one of the plush armchairs and gesturing to a server to bring us a decanter of whiskey. “If I succeed in the Tournament, do you think your sister will finally marry me?” He grins. “It is the only way for us to be brothers other than for you to marry Bianca, which — let’s be true — will never happen.”

“You expect me to allow you to marry my sister when you would not permit the same in return?”

“No one has ever told Bianca what to do, old friend. Least of all me.” Enzo pours us each a drink and quickly throws his down his throat.

“You clearly know nothing of Juliette if you think I would hold sway with her decisions.”

“She will have to notice me this year. Now Bianca is matriarch, is there any family more powerful, more desirable than ours?”

The Vespuccis have, in the years since we last saw each other, risen to a prominent position at astronomical speed. They have Bianca to thank for that — Enzo’s ruthless, brilliant twin sister who has had her eyes set on the prize of a seat at Court since she was a youngling. But despite their rising star, they are still considered the thirteenth House. Bianca will be seeking a strong match to ensure she continues her ascent.

“You are assuming you understand my sister’s appetites. It may not be a husband she seeks,” I say.

Enzo’s eyebrows tweak upwards. “I know enough about Lady Juliette to be certain that she will marry whomsoever is the most advantageous match. She and Bianca have that in common.”

“Perhaps it is their wedding we will attend. We may yet be family, after all.” I drain my own drink, knowing full well that both Juliette and Bianca will have schemes and plans the likes of which Enzo and I cannot even begin to fathom.

“If rumour is to be believed, I am not sure you will have many willing to join your great House after recent events at Nighthaven. Juliette may marry me yet.”

My grip on my glass tightens.

“Which gossip shall we begin with?” Enzo grins, the scar that runs from the edge of his lips to his ear shining in the dim light. “The farce of your pledging experiment, or the fact hunters infiltrated your little party? One I wasn’t invited to, I might add. Or should we discuss the fact your brother staked his own cousin to protect a human?”

“How is it that such gossip has beaten us to Bath?”

“The Court has spies everywhere. Surely you know that by now?” Enzo leans back in his chair. “So tell me, how many of them are dead besides Ambrose?”

“Two. The Ridgefield siblings.”

“Ridgefield…” Enzo mulls the name over. “Redheads? I think I recall them from last Season. Pity. The girl was quite pretty.”

I crack my neck from side to side. “Miss Ridgefield was my pledge.”

“Ah, I can see how you might have struggled to temper your appetite?—”

“No,” I mutter, keeping my fangs in check. “It was during the hunt. Benjamin was swept into a fit of madness or grief… or perhaps it was just sheer idiocy.”

“Beaumont?” A laugh booms out of Enzo and he slaps his hand down on the arm of his chair. “I can well imagine it of Ambrose, that twisted bastard, but surely not Benjamin? When we were all younglings, do you remember how he wept after he took too much from some peasant he found in the streets? How did your aunt and uncle ever see potential in such a pathetic specimen?”

“They pitied him.” I look away, remembering the day Benjamin was introduced to our ranks. The way Charlotte and Ambrose laughed at him. How Grandmother did not so much as acknowledge he was in the room before she lectured my aunt and uncle on their impropriety. “Benjamin begged for this life, but he was not good at it.”

“It sounds that he has become better if he could kill your pledge during the hunt?”

“I am not sure a descent into madness means he is a more reputable vampire.” I finish my drink. “Besides, it matters little. We will not see him again. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to return when I have made it very clear he will meet the same fate as his brother if I have the misfortune of looking upon his face again.”

“Oh, he had a charming enough face, Rafe. I mean, there were a few occasions when I could, objectively speaking, see the appeal he might have. In bone-structure alone, you understand. Because he would then do something dreary, like crying into a whore’s skirts and the illusion was shattered.”

“There is nothing dreary about him now. He ripped apart my pledge. Left her body floating in the lake. Nate had to pull her out.” I knock back my whiskey.

“So you’re without a pledge, thanks to him?”

“I have taken Ambrose’s.”

Enzo studies my face. “And you are displeased with her?”

“No, nothing of the sort. I intended her to be mine when I first met her in Mayfair, but Ambrose beat me to it.”

“What is it then? Is she not satisfying you?” Enzo frowns, cocking his head to one side as he looks at me. “Come on, Blackwood. We have known each other long enough for me to tell there is something on your mind. I can feel the hunger radiating off you.”

I slam the glass down on the small table between us. “She suffered at Ambrose’s hand. I am loath to have her endure the same.”

“She’s glamoured, isn’t she? She’ll do whatever you want. Willingly.” A wicked grin creeps over Enzo’s face. “There have got to be some benefits to the pledging. You can’t go soft just because your cousin was a disaster. To have such a supply on tap… other vampires would kill for the opportunity.”

“What have the other families been doing?” I signal to a server nearby for a second decanter, keen to change the subject. “How are they to feed? With so many of our kind in the city, it could spell disaster for the humans.”

“Bianca says there is to be a discussion at the opening of court, but the truth of it is that the blood houses will thrive as always.”

I am no stranger to a blood house. They are an open secret amongst our kind, one that the Court turns a blind eye to. Where humans go to brothels to get their needs met, we go to blood houses. It is this setup that the Court wants to change. In their eyes, such a common indulgence makes us no better than the gutterfangs.

“If the Court wants anything to change, they will need to move forward with the pledging — regardless of the hash my family made of it.”

“Was it truly so bad?” Enzo takes his newly filled drink and slugs it back. “Whatever happened with Vossler? I heard rumours, of course. And however did those vermin got an invite to your soiree and not me?”

“Charlotte issued the invitations. And you should count your blessings you were not there, or it may have been you coughing your lungs up on the ballroom floor.”

For a moment, Enzo’s face falls to seriousness. “It is true then? I hold the Vosslers in no high regard, but that is nasty business indeed.”

“Yes. And we have no answers for any of it. The Court is dragging their heels. Has Bianca not spoken of the matter to you?”

“Communication is not so open between us now,” Enzo mutters.

I nod. I understand it. Juliette does not serve on the Court itself like Bianca, and there are a thousand things she cannot tell us. It will be worse still for Bianca.

“There will be a reason they are not acting on it. And all I can put it down to is that the hunters who infiltrated the ball are the very same creatures behind the attack on my brother.”

Enzo blinks at me. “Your brother was harmed?”

“You did not hear of it? He was ambushed by an entire pack of hunters.” I lower my voice. “He was lucky to make it out alive. Someone is behind it. And with the gutterfang slayings in London…” I lean over my knees, knowing that if another vampire is listening in on our conversation, there is little I can do to stop them. “They are being slaughtered, and the Court is doing nothing.”

“But that has to differ from the attacks your family has faced. I mean, hunters will always kill vampires. That is their directive. But to infiltrate a ball, to track a noble family…”

“Exactly. There is a puppet master pulling the strings. And I need your help to find out who it is.”