Chapter 9
ROSA
Ispend the rest of the day in a kind of limbo, lurching from thinking too much to not thinking at all as I sprint around Grant Park and lock myself in my gym to kick the shit out of inanimate objects. I speak briefly to Donatella and find out that there is no change in Paola’s condition.
I don’t mention the baby, and neither does she. I am tormented by the image of Paola, vulnerable and weak when she has always been so vital and strong. She would have been a great mother, and the world is a sadder place for the loss of her child, Seer blood or no.
Donna says the family is devastated, not thinking clearly, too bound up in their grief to answer questions.
Nobody knows what she faced in Cairo or why it all went so wrong.
Too much time has elapsed to have a hope in hell of tracking them, and Paola doesn’t look like she’s going to wake up and tell us the whole story anytime soon.
Apparently she’s hooked up to a million tubes, and a vent is doing her breathing for her. The Vecchissime’s best Healers have been sent to her, but there’s still no change.
For now though, if she’s aware of what’s going on, she’s in a world of hurt. I hope she doesn’t. I hope that for now, as she physically recovers, she is blissfully ignorant of what is happening to her. Of what happened to her precious baby.
I spend some time doing light research on the Coscas, surfing sites on the dark web and discovering that basically nobody knows much at all.
They’re doing a bang-up job of keeping a low profile, and Luca da Firenze as an individual simply doesn’t exist. I expected nothing more, but I’m still disappointed.
I run myself a bubble bath and rest my weary body in the hot water, looking for respite.
I would like to talk to him again. I have questions—like, a million of them—and nobody to ask.
If I were more sociable, more open to the other families and to our culture, I’d have resources—wise friends I could call or elders to pump for information.
If I were more like Donatella and less like, well, me, then I wouldn’t be so alone in this.
I should have asked for his number, I think as I swirl the bubbles around with my toes.
Followed him on Insta. The ridiculous concept of Luca having Instagram amuses me, and I take the opportunity to force my thoughts away from the multitude of stressors in my life.
I’ve been around for long enough to know that no matter what’s going on in the world, the brain is like any other muscle—overusing it causes pain and injury.
What I could really do with is sex. Toe-curling, spine-tinglingly good sex.
As I towel myself dry, I toy with the idea of scrolling through one of the hookup apps I subscribe to, but it won’t help.
The only person my body seems to associate with sex right now is him.
He is gone, but not forgotten. I still have faint bruises around my jaw from where he grabbed me, visible now that my makeup is cleaned off.
My hand goes to my face, touches the tender spots. How can I want to screw someone who did this to me? It goes against every instinct and principle I have, yet I can’t deny that it’s true. He marked not only my face, but my soul, and I don’t understand it.
I clamber into bed and flick on the TV to reruns of True Blood. The irony is not lost on me. It’s an entertaining if misleading show. Few vampires are as hot as Eric and Bill. Although he blows them both out of the water.
Sometime later—I have no idea exactly when—I wake up. While I’m still asleep. Yeah, it’s complicated.
I can feel the sheets on my body and know that I physically remain cocooned in the safety of my own home. No light is filtering through the blinds, so it is still nighttime.
But my senses tell me that I am also somewhere else. Part of me is walking down a plushly carpeted hotel corridor. I get into an elevator and know which button to press.
The other me blinks and emerges from the elevator. Stands in front of a door, staring at the white wood, deciding whether to knock.
I am in both places at once, perfectly balanced between the two—it is like the visions I get when I’m being Called, but without the usual danger flare of heat from my amulet. Sleeping me reaches up to touch the gold heart-shaped charm. It is still there, and it is cool.
So, I process calmly, I am having a vision.
A different kind of vision. I’m usually hitching a ride in the mind of a vamp, seeing what they see, using those visual prompts to find them, looking for road signs and landmarks.
But this time, I seem to be hitching a ride in my own mind.
It’s odd. I glance down from the white door, see the yoga pants and tank top I fell asleep in.
Yep. I’m definitely having a vision of … me? What the fuck?
I breathe in, expecting nothing—my visions don’t expand beyond sight and sound.
This time, I scent everything: an empty wine bottle left outside one of the rooms, flowers in a vase at the end of the hallway, the leftover trace of perfume. And under all of that—underlying it all—is him. Old wood, dark spice, all male.
I look around, confused. Is this a good old-fashioned sex dream? If so, I am totally up for it. I’ve been like a bitch in heat since I met him, and maybe this is my mind’s way of letting me have my cake and fuck it. All of the fun without any of the danger or moral ambiguity? Yes, please.
Except … This doesn’t feel like a dream.
Everything is too real, too in the moment.
The sign on the wall behind me details the fire safety plan.
The rallying point is outside, opposite the lobby of the Grand Bellway Hotel.
That’s where I am—or where part of me is, anyway.
I’m outside room 809 of the Grand. And every particle of my body tells me that he is inside room 809 of the Grand.
Don’t be shy. The voice speaks directly into my mind. Come on in, bella. Or are you too scared?
It’s his voice—kind of hazy, but still perfectly clear. Nobody ever speaks to me in my visions. I see them, but they don’t see me. It’s a one-way street, and that’s how I like it.
What does this mean? How is he doing this? Is it some kind of Old World vamp trick nobody ever told me about? And did he just call me scared?
To my surprise, I meet no resistance when I twist the handle and open the door.
The suite is all traditional charm and chintz, with floral drapes and an over-stuffed couch, a little wooden table holding a delicate teacup and sugar lumps in a tiny bowl.
There’s a shard of porcelain on the floor, and I assume that once upon a time there was more than one teacup.
I stroll toward the door that will lead to the bedroom, senses on full alert but amulet still inactive. So either the damn thing is due for service, or I’m not in any danger.
I have the strangest split second as I hover there, caught between the two worlds, safe in my own bed and on the verge of seeing his. In both worlds, I am gripped by a driving curiosity that tells me there is only one way forward.
I open the door.
He is lying on the bed, white sheets tugged down to his hips, covering the bare essentials but showing enough to make my breath hiss.
Golden tattooed skin, a ripped torso covered with dark hair that trails in a downward arrow.
He stretches languorously, flexing his biceps toward the ceiling with his arms cradling his head.
There’s a knowing smile on his face as he watches my reaction.
He will have picked up on it all—the sudden spike in my pulse, the throb of need between my legs.
He can see me as well as speak to me. All the rules are being broken, and I feel a heady mix of fear and liberation. This is completely wrong, but it feels perfectly right.
He could have been waiting for me by the door and ambushed me. He could have me pinned down, helpless. He could have killed me. Like I said, all the rules are being broken—if he hurt me here, would it hurt my physical form too?
He hasn’t done any of those things, though. The fact that he is lying there, displaying himself to me, giving me a choice, is a complete mind-fuck. He knows I want him, and he’s giving me the chance to take him. Or is this all some kind of trick? Some kind of power game?
I stay by the doorway, keeping my distance.
“What’s going on? How are you in my head?” I ask, proud that I don’t stumble over my words.
“Wake up. Find me. Then I’ll tell you. Or come to bed, and I’ll show you.” He runs a large hand down his chest, then lower, down toward the sheets. The fabric slides lower. Lower. I am pulled forward, desperate to feel his skin beneath my fingers, burning with an emptiness that I need him to fill.
I sit on the side of the bed and drink in the bulk of his shoulders, the curve of his lips, the look in his silver-ringed eyes. The look that tells me exactly what he wants to do to me.
He sits up, and the sheets pooled in his lap do nothing to hide his arousal. “Touch me,” he commands, his gaze never leaving mine. “Take hold of my cock and feel how hard I am for you.”
Fuck. That body. Those eyes. Is this some kind of charm?
Is it even real? I don’t think I care, not when he talks to me in that tone.
My life is complicated. Exhausting. I face a million life-and-death decisions every damn day.
How good would it feel to let go and do as I’m told for a change?
Especially when he’s telling me to do something I already want.
I reach out and lay my hand on the sheets.
Hesitant at first, but then I really feel it.
God, he’s enormous. Thick and swollen and long.
And perfect. My fingers move up and down, and he lets out a puff of breath.
I can see the effort it takes for him to stay still as I explore him, his cock getting harder beneath my touch.