Chapter 27
RAFE
The room is in chaos. Genevieve’s words hang in the air and I swallow down the urge to roar about Camilla, to tell every last one of the gawking crowd exactly why I want my cousin dead.
I cannot bear to be in the same room as him any longer whilst he is still breathing, so I push my way through the sea of vampires and debris, blood dripping down my knuckles. My veins are still fizzing with rage; my fingers itching to wrap around my cousin’s throat and feel his windpipe crunch beneath my hands.
I should have torn him apart tonight. To hell with the consequences, for there were none when he killed Camilla. He ran off into the night like the coward he is and only shows his face now when he has an army of rodents from House Vossler at his side.
“Rafe.” I hear Lizzie behind me.
She is glamoured, so of course she will come. But her voice has cut through the red haze of my fury — a singular beam of light through blackened clouds.
“You’re hurt.” She says it simply, reaching me and resting her hand on my arm, below the tear in my sleeve. She doesn’t wince at the sluggish ooze of blood pooling lazily beneath my shirt.
I meet her gaze. “It’s nothing.”
“It needs attending to. And I think everyone here has been given enough to gossip about for one evening.” She offers me a tight-lipped smile and then strides ahead of me.
I follow, allowing her to lead me out of the ballroom, barely feeling the weight of the hundreds of heavy stares on my back. Let them gossip and scheme. Benjamin will meet his end soon enough.
We walk through Bath at Lizzie’s pace. If any humans were to spot me now, they would not think me a lord. I look like a ruffian who has spent his evening bare-knuckle fighting after one too many ales.
Despite my humble beginnings, I was never much one for brawling. Now, when I fight, I do so with only one aim. Death for them and victory for me. Benjamin will learn as much in the Tournament. He showed no mercy for Camilla and there will be none for him now that he wants to live.
“I will ask Mrs Hawley for something to clean your wounds,” Lizzie says when we reach the house.
I grunt in reply, going to sit in a chair by the hearth in the drawing room, knowing Mrs Hawley will curse me for the blood that trails after me and drips onto the furniture.
“Drink this.” Lizzie returns, setting down a pile of clean linen and a basin of water at my feet, then hands me a glass of whiskey.
I knock it down.
She comes to stand next to me, reaching for the torn fabric of my sleeve, and peels it back with careful fingers. I watch her work; her brow furrowed in concentration, her pink lips parted as she studies the wound underneath my shirt.
“I think we might need to take this off.” She says it seriously, not looking directly at me.
“I thought you’d never ask.” I might be bruised and bleeding, but if there is an opportunity to flirt, I’ll take it.
I undo the remaining buttons that clung on by a thread during the fight with Benjamin, and throw my shirt on the floor. It is ripped and bloodied beyond repair. Another reason for Mrs Hawley to curse me.
Lizzie clears her throat. Her eyes have trailed from my wound, to my shoulders, my chest, my torso, growing wide with each inch of my skin she takes in before our eyes lock together
Quickly, she looks back down, taking a fresh cloth and dabbing at the wound on my upper arm.
“I’m sorry for what happened tonight,” she murmurs as she works. “It must have been painful to see Benjamin. And for him to betray your family like that?” She shakes her head. “You were within your rights to challenge him.”
A harsh laugh scrapes my throat. “Betrayal is the Beaumont way, it seems. They have a grand tradition of it.”
She sighs. “Families are difficult.”
“I can’t imagine you have tried to kill any of yours.”
“You would be surprised.” A wry smile tugs at her lips. “When my mother remarried, there was a great deal of tension. My step-father had older children from his first marriage and they did not want the Ackleys being given the Fairfax name. It was all resolved in time, but it was far from a happy home.”
I watch her fingers, feel the warmth of them against my flesh. “Being younglings with other vampires is like adolescence all over again. There are tussles and scrapes and fights at every turn. But Benjamin and I barely acknowledged each other, even then. Stupid really, when we’re not so different.” I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking of the blood maids I decimated after Juliette died. “We have both known loss. And we both begged for this life.”
“I find it hard to imagine you begging for anything.” Lizzie fixes the bandage in place — wrapping the strip of linen tightly to stem the blood flow.
When she is finished, she looks up at me. I feel her gaze on me and open my eyes to look back into hers. They are particularly beautiful tonight; a green and gold so deep that I could fall into them.
“From what I have seen, when there is something you want, you take it.”
My tongue suddenly feels dry and heavy in my mouth. “A skill I have learned as a vampire. I was not always…” I gesture up and down my body with my free hand. “This.”
Lizzie looks away. “Did you and Benjamin know each other? Before you were turned, I mean?”
“Oh, no — I was from the country. Nate, Juliette and I all were. The Beaumonts sired in London.”
“And your upbringing was similar to Nate and Juliette’s?”
“Nate had a family of his own when he was turned. Juliette and I didn’t. But we’d all known our share of pain. That’s what vampires look for when siring. Of course, the glamour ensures we can take what we want, but it helps if the human in question is already somewhat downtrodden. This life holds a particular allure when faced with the alternative.”
I see Lizzie swallow a large lump in her throat. She has not had an easy life; I know that much. I wonder if she has considered whether joining us might be the better future than going back to her life in London.
Because I have certainly considered it. She would make a fine vampire. But one I have no interest in siring. I would not want to spend eternity as the father to such a creature as Elizabeth Fairfax.
“What was it that Benjamin was running from?” Lizzie moves her attention from my arm and over to a scrape across my chest. It has stopped bleeding, but she takes the cloth and rubs it over the muscles covering my heart. I watch as the dark smears turn watery and drip down my abdomen, wondering if Lizzie will capture them with the cloth.
She lets them drip.
“Benjamin was blind. Life was difficult for him in the city.”
“And vampirism gave him back his sight?”
“Yes. He was born with the affliction, so his rebirth healed him. Another point in the favour of this immortal life — almost all known human ailments are healed. There is typically a great influx of siring whenever there are plagues and diseases sweeping the country.”
“Incredible,” Lizzie says under her breath.
“It doesn’t make for brilliant vampires if the humans are too troubled, so it is a delicate balance. Dying from the pox? Welcome, join us.” I shake my head. “The deeply tortured souls are the ones who become uncontrollable younglings and end up being staked within a month of their rebirth.”
“So you would take the plague over madness?”
“Any day.”
“And what else do you look for? Other than preying on the vulnerable.”
“We are vain creatures,” I say, watching as Lizzie’s fingers snake across my ribs. The blood is all but cleared, yet her hands linger. “We target statuesque, strong, typically attractive humans. Those that aren’t so appealing are usually gutterfangs — sired because the vampire lost control.”
“Easy to cast them as the villains, then,” Lizzie says quietly. “The undesirable.”
“Ugly and wild. Yes.”
“And what was your weakness? Why were you drawn to the darkness?”
“I needed to feel powerful.” I regret it the moment I say it, dreading Lizzie’s questions.
But she says nothing.
She looks up at me again, holding the silence. Silence that encourages me to speak — to give something of myself to her.
“I had a human brother. Michael.” His name feels heavy on my tongue; rusted from centuries of disuse. “We were the only surviving children. My mother birthed twelve babes before the last pregnancy killed her.” An old, familiar ache begins unfurling in my chest. It is one I stamp down; one I never release unless I am alone. “The relationship I had with Michael was nothing like the one I have with Nate. He was eight years my senior, and I idolised him. He was everything I aspired to be. Strong. Brave. Women swooned over him.” My voice grows smaller. “But he was cruel. He could have had anyone, but set his intention to marry the girl I loved, just to hurt me. There was nothing I could do. Of course she would choose him over me. And if she was happy, then I told myself that it was a price I was willing to pay.”
Lizzie’s hands still for a moment, then find a new square of my flesh to wipe clean of Benjamin’s blood. “They married?”
“Yes. And they were happy for a time, but it wasn’t long before he turned his violence onto her. He would rage and shout and Mara would show up to supper with fresh bruises blooming on her skin. It became worse when she was with child.” I swallow hard against the bitter tang of old grief. “I tried to stop it. I tried to protect her and reason with him. But I wasn’t strong enough when it came to Michael. I was powerless.”
“What happened to Mara?”
“She was miserable,” I rasp. “And I knew if I didn’t do something, he would kill her in the end and the child with her. It was then that Lucienne and Harriet found me. They offered me this new life, and I leapt at the chance. I could save Mara and never be helpless again.” I shake my head. “I killed my own brother and had foolish notions that Mara would be grateful. That she would love me for it and I would provide for her and the child. But all she saw was the monster.”
“So you left?”
I nod. “I went with Lucienne and Harriet; met Juliette and Nate, and Valeria. Moved to London.”
“You don’t know what became of her and the child?”
“Mara remarried. She was loved and well-cared for. I would go back and watch from afar sometimes. But when I knew they were okay, I stopped going. It was too painful.”
Lizzie straightens up and turns her attention to the blood matting my hair and streaking across my forehead. Her fingers move the darkened waves out of my eyes and I can feel her warm, sweet breath on my cheek.
“It is why you hate Benjamin,” she says matter-of-factly. “You cared for Camilla and he took her away from you. Just as Michael did with Mara.”
“I suppose it reopened an old wound, yes.”
Her lips are so close to mine that I would only have to turn my head to capture them against my own. To kiss her and forget the lifetime of pain that churns in my gut, yet seems easier to carry when I am with her.
“My affections for Camilla were not the same as the love I felt for Mara,” I say.
“You were protective of her, I understand. If you had been in love with her, you would not have shown Benjamin any mercy that night. Like Nate with Ambrose.” Lizzie brushes another lock of my hair out of the way, tucking it behind my ear, and her hand lingers there. “I suppose it is a blessing that your emotions cannot run so deep now.”
“For what it is worth, I feel more now than I have ever felt as a human.” I glance down at her lips, licking my own. “I have never subscribed to Nate’s idea that we are loveless creatures. It is a falsity, at least for me.”
The ache to feed is a constant, distant throb, but one that is now drowned out by the need to press my mouth to Lizzie’s and feel her full lips between my teeth.
From what I have seen, when there is something you want, you take it.
Those words hang between us, echoing in my head.
I take whatever I want when it doesn’t matter. But this feels like it does.
“Is there a reason you haven’t fed from me?” Lizzie asks it quietly, sinking down to her heels and tidying the bloodied cloths into a pile so she does not have to look at me. “Do I possess some quality that does not appeal to you?”
The question hits me like another of Benjamin’s punches. “You appeal to me very much. That is the problem.”
She freezes and in that moment, I sink onto the floor next to her.
In the chair, I was contained — stuffed in by the shaped of the winged back. Lizzie could not see the expanse of my shoulders or the true extent of my muscles. But now, I want her to see all of me.
“You wouldn’t harm me.” She sets down the cloths and faces me, one palm resting on the floor.
There is a fizz in my fingertips as they itch to reach out to her. “I usually enjoy surrendering to the depths, but with you, I am terrified of losing control.” My voice is quiet, low.
“I do not believe you would.”
“It’s ridiculous, really.” I look at the space between our hands. “I would hate for you to look at me and see a monster, yet it is exactly what I am.”
“No. Ambrose was a monster. You are...” she trails off as our eyes meet. “You are quite different, my lord.”
“Please. Let me just be Rafe.” I lean in towards her, slowly, so she can stop what is about to unfold if it is not what she wants. But she leans in, too.
My hand cups one side of her face, my thumb resting between her jaw and ear. She is so small compared to me, fitting effortlessly in my palm.
I stare into her eyes, wondering if I might lose myself in them completely, and then bridge the final breath of distance between us as hers flutter closed.
I feel her brace for the bite, but it is not her blood I want. Not yet.
I press her lips to mine and we kiss, slowly at first, my tongue reaching for hers and finding it welcomed, encouraged deeper. She tastes sweet; notes of champagne from the ball still lingering.
Our bodies edge closer and Lizzie’s hands find my torso again, running over the planes of my muscles as I pull her into me.
My own hands go to her shoulders, pushing away the fabric of her sleeves. The diamonds I gave her glisten around her throat. “Is this okay?”
She nods against my mouth, dragging me back in for another searing kiss.
I want nothing more than to feel her bare skin against mine, to hold her in my arms and run my tongue down her throat, over her breasts and lower, lower, lower, until I can taste every inch of her honeyed flesh.
I shimmy her out of her gown, feeling her smile as she experiences my talent at getting a young lady out of a corset. But none of the experiences that have come before are like this.
I find that with her pressed to me, I can hold back the hunger for her blood, but the desperation for her body is something else. It has never been this intense before, and I am a slave to it.
Our kisses become more feverish, more desperate until I have her laid in my lap in nothing more than her chemise. I unlace the necklace, discarding it so I have a clear view of her throat and pull down the shift, exposing her breasts, showering them with the attentions of my tongue.
I want to gather her in my arms and fly to my bedchamber — to lay her down and move inside her and watch as her skin flushes and heats.
But then, as I focus on her chest, I see the scars. I felt something as I kissed her, ribbons of skin that were silk beneath my tongue, and now I see what they are.
She has been cut. Carved. Butchered.
I push her chemise down gently until it concertinas at her hips.
The scars trail the centre of her body. All the way to…
“Lizzie.” I press her to me, fighting back fury.
She looks up at me, eyes round and vulnerable.
“Who did this to you?”
“I think you know.” She says it so quietly that I feel my heart break.
I knew there was a reason I did not take things further between us. This is what she thinks vampires do.
“I…” The words don’t come. They catch in my chest and, inexplicably, I feel as if I am the one exposed. Rage and hate and shame boil in my gut.
“It’s okay. Truly.” She takes my hand and presses it to the space between her breasts, encouraging me to feel the scars as she runs my palm down the length of her body.
“I wish he were still alive, so I might be the one to tear him apart.” My voice trembles. “His brother will pay the price when we meet.”
“You are nothing like him, Rafe.” She squeezes my fingers. “You would not do this to me. You would not take too much.”
I draw her closer, pressing our foreheads together.
“You need your strength to face Benjamin. Please don’t let this stop you from taking what you need.”
The hunger rears its head. My fangs itch to descend, but I hold them back. “I can regain strength elsewhere. You have been through enough. I will not make you suffer more.”
“I have been suffering whenever I think of you doing this with someone else. Taking from a blood maid when I should be the one to sustain you. Please.” She holds the side of my face, mumbling against my lips. “Ambrose never fed from me. He sliced me open and drained me. He did not press his teeth into my skin. And I am grateful that he didn’t, because I find that I only want to experience that with you.” She kisses me hungrily. “I am yours, Rafe. Your pledge. Yours to serve.”
My defences crumble. Lizzie will not see blue eyes when she looks at me, but the darkest sapphires blown black with lust and hunger. My fangs lengthen and I feel her pulse quicken, her chest heaving.
I reposition her in my arms, her naked chest pressed against mine. She nods, encouraging me, and I sink my teeth into her neck.
Immediately, colour explodes behind my eyelids. I lick and suck, trailing every droplet of blood with my tongue and drinking it down greedily, as Lizzie’s body arches into me.
My fingers clench with the need to part her thighs, but I keep them still. He may not have bitten her, but he hurt her during the hunt. He violated her. And I will not be responsible for making her remember such things, no matter how desperate I am to take her.
I feed ravenously, but stay attuned to the first sign of unconsciousness we vampires usually ignore — the loosening of the grip that tells us blurred vision will follow.
As soon as I feel it, I pull away.
It is painful. I want her. I want all of her.
“Are you well?”
“Yes.” She breathes heavily in my arms, her chest still rising and falling rapidly. “Quite well.” Her fingers trace small patterns on my back, her touch soothing me as I lap up the last of the sweet blood that has dripped between her breasts.
I didn’t hurt her or take too much.
She is fine.
But I am not sure that I ever will be again.