Chapter 2
CHRISTOPHER SEPHTIS
R egret was a feeling long ingrained in my bones, its dense weight carried by blood and flesh. The first time I’d ever felt its tug was after our mother’s passing, when silence had consumed my thoughts in the darkness of night. At the time, it was a pinch behind my eyes, a slight heaviness in my chest. Although such remnants persisted, throughout the years, it twined itself into a cord that always dangled, clutching my presence erratically. Its shadow was a figure I’d become too familiar with, habituated with, and in turn, mastered how to subdue it.
Yet, on the occasion I stepped into Le Maudit, regret was more than an acquaintance. It was a vexatious nightmare.
Wednesday, particularly in the early autumn season, was the feeding parlor’s liveliest night as the freshest selections of pure, human blood wines were supplied. The domestic powerful and wealthy visited to indulge even if the parlor enacted an intake limitation of a goblet per patronage. It was all one needed when mingled with bane, our kind’s concoction of pure ethanol and inland taipan venom.
This sort of intoxication dulled our main senses while collectively increasing a vampire's libido. The scale of what amplified and diminished varied on the individual, but one common aspect in all was the mindless blathering that seized them. And in the presence of Anabella Ambrogio, it evolved.
All seven Ambrogio sisters possessed a gravity that could never be mirrored by outsiders, their beauty the pull and their disposition the trap. Yet, Anabella sustained a potency only she embodied, one that blindly led her chase exactly where she desired them.
In the past, it never failed. In the present, it seemed to crumble.
Boundless, obsidian eyes held mine as she leaned deeper into her choice of man for the night. Uncertainty wavered in his reluctant hands, each clammy stroke along her back unmeasured. It amplified the looming withdrawal in their rigid kiss.
If I noticed it, Anabella surely did, as well.
Her pull was swift, not a single strand of platinum blonde hair out of place as she stood and strode to my side outside the dens’ entrance. She shut the French doors, tucking away her choice in abandon.
“Not to your liking?” With the years of frequenting feeding parlors alongside her, Anabella’s taste in men was particular. Tall, broad-shouldered with a deep complexion and high cheekbones. Their similarity to a guardian back at the manor was uncanny, but I kept it to myself.
She smirked, her icy presence surging as a drop of humor gleamed in her dark eyes, her bloodless fangs flashing. “He was too tense.”
I extended a hand, her cool palm caressing mine as she realigned her plunged neckline with her left hand, neatly tucking misty pink nipples. Within the floor-length, pale blue, silk dress, her silvery-fawn complexion glimmered like a jewel and emphasized her sharp curves. Flared sleeves cascaded beside her once she straightened her posture.
“The night is still young,” I murmured as we slithered from the den and into the main floor. “Your fling must be hidden in the shadows.”
She hooked an arm around mine and scoffed. “Or lodged in their partner’s genitalia.”
“As if you wouldn’t join.”
“Surely, but tonight isn’t for too much pleasure.” Her gaze narrowed as she studied our surroundings, halting before the rounded bar and collecting two liquor-filled goblets. “Did you find Mal?”
Sylvester, or Mal, which Anabella preferred to informally call him, was the reasoning behind tonight’s visit. Anabella’s sudden invitation for a relay of information had come during noontime, and Sonia, the Sephtis Senior Guardian, wasted no time admonishing my sudden departure. The berating questions would come afterward, though, an inkling bled in my chest between Anabella’s supposed discovery and Sonia’s dry yet evident unsettlement.
Especially as we were to have the pleasure of an Ambrogio visit tomorrow after quite some time.
“No.” My head followed her sight, each den preoccupied by plastered patronages. Despite being the heirs of Regal Families, not a single soul batted an eye at us. How could they when their intoxication blurred their vision and muddled presences amongst them?
Except one .
I glanced at a particular stool down the bar, the seat empty. The man from minutes ago was absent, his broad stature and possessive bronze eyes plastered in my mind. Though my search across the first level for Sylvester continued, my intentions altered after a realization dawned on me: I hadn’t probed the man’s presence. Upon failing to find either, I returned to Anabella, in hopes these whirling feelings within me ceased.
Regret was no longer a caving pit. Instead, it twisted and blossomed into a foreign craving
“If we split, we could cover more ground, don’t you think?”
“We could, but I was under the impression that we’d share a drink over conversation, not haul the poor man.” On the occasion we met with Sylvester, life seemed to drain from his eyes more and more. Anabella blamed his leftover career; I believed it was his raging alcoholism.
“Christopher, you know how unbecoming he gets,” she remarked. “If he amounts his liquor to his body weight, a word won’t escape him. We just need to pull him aside before he slumbers, or worse, is swept into an orgy.” Her eyebrows slightly rose as she examined a barkeeper with short waves. “I’ll do the second level.”
“And reexamine the first level?”
“Grand idea.” In the blink of an eye, she stood beside her new choice of the night, a bright grin uplifting her chiseled features as they fell into conversation. Her gravity magnetized, drawing attention from all corners, yet my own deviated.
Since our youth, That Man had engrained our pairing, alongside my brothers and her sisters. A pair were to wed, Anabella and I the best fit when compared to our siblings who were of age. Yet, we still tethered for reasons we’d unveiled years ago, interred alongside our agreement.
In the public’s eye, we upheld the facade of a pair, feeding the expectations and desires of High Parliament. But in private, we took pleasure in whomever. Anabella’s wish to please her family was embedded flesh deep, but her care for me ran just as vast.
As expected, tart muskiness stroked my nose, slicked bodies ravishing each other across the open-door den before the staircase. While liquor had the ability to diminish a vampire's presence, Sylvester’s still overhung. His tolerance proved to persist as his muted presence lingered in the suspended air. Faint, but ample enough to steer me onto the fourth level.
Music was one with Le Maudit, eerie chords pulsating from the walls, sealing empty crevices. No tampering had been made to the volume, yet the usurped melody diminished in my ears. I halted on the last few steps, concealed by thickset balusters. Within the angle I stood, I possessed ample sight of the fourth level’s right side, where the man hid in the shadows across from me.
Standing, his towering height swallowed his surroundings. As he leaned against the end wall, his build underneath the leather trench coat doubled in size, squared shoulders enhancing the definition of his bulky arms underneath the sleeves. Narrowed eyes focused on the door left of him, bronze irises gleaming along deep, copper flesh.
He was impassive and rugged at a standstill. However, that shifted the moment Sylvester staggered out of the lavatory.
The man seized Sylvester in a wink, the ends of his trench coat flaring in the air as a veined hand hauled him by the neck into an empty den. His steps trembled against the carpeted floors beneath him. My feet followed without command, entering the joining room parallel to the den where French doors hid my figure.
Sylvester’s muddled presence faintly heightened in the fraught air. It was a string, calling to be pulled at. Urgency to step in rushed through my veins, to assist who Anabella and I came for, yet I remained plastered, awe-stricken.
The man shoved him against a wall, his tilted face giving away his hardened features that slowly contoured into that of a beast underneath the dark. Confusion knotted in my chest at the familiar sight. Mother would recount stories during the late night of vampires in the olden days who possessed such ability, one that churned fear, yet there was no trace of such within me.
However, this appearance was far from her words. It was a vision that lured with its feral form—an allurement that beckoned my existence.
White, patchy strands swept Sylvester’s jaw as sunken, silver eyes leveled. Recognition flickered in his gaze. Gone was the murkiness that swam in intoxication; assumed was a flare that altered his complete demeanor with refined awareness.
“Hound.” Sylvester’s voice was firm, assertive. For a man who was meek and disdained for it in our society, there was no trace of it. “You were overdue.”
“Mallory, either you pay me too much mind,” a hint of jest coated the man’s voice, “or you don’t care about your life very much.”
His hands pocketed themselves into his thick fur jacket as the man’s grip tightened around his throat, constricting his airways as he wheezed, “I pay you mind due to caring for my life.”
“Your death sentence says otherwise.”
“Purely existing warrants death.”
The man snickered, the humor gone. “Existing grants you leeway, the information you possess guarantees you a spot six feet under.”
Sylvester’s eyebrow arched. “I didn’t think a hound sustained such hostility, especially to a man deemed mad by his own society overnight.”
“And you think that’ll stop you from talking?”
“You believe you will?”
“Wouldn’t you prefer being silenced and alive instead of silent and dead?” The man took a step forward and closed what little gap remained between the two. “Tell me, Mallory, before I rip you to shreds .”
His words curled into a snarl and reverberated in the space, muffling the drumming dark melody.
“Threats pummel my every move. One more won’t alter my ultimate goal.” A sneer sliced across Sylvester’s face, fangs glinting underneath the low lighting as they stretched to their full capacity. They hollowed his bottom lip and emphasized the missing canines next to them. “The Forgotten Wave will rise. There’s no stopping it. Not even me.”
The man’s shoulders expanded while his neck rolled. A resounding growl escaped his lips as he lifted Sylvester off the ground, back pounding past wood. Crackling bones interlaced with the music that seemed to vanish beyond my ears. Murder coated the air. Though I never witnessed such a thing in action, I recognized its tight bind around my flesh. The swallowing force that kept me immobile. The very shadow married to my presence.
Sylvester kneed the man’s chest and chin. His body gave no response, yet his fingers betrayed him as they loosened around Sylvester’s throat. The man waited a second too long. The advantage was no longer his. Sylvester swiped it.
Sloppy but calculative, Sylvester threw his punches, the weight of them thrusting the man’s bulking figure deeper into the room. Within the cloak of night, darkness wrapped around the man, eyes burning with a fire that blazed the room.
Sylvester retreated, each step slower than the last until he reached the den’s entrance. Defeat lined his muscles as a pocketed hand lifted and pressed against a small machine hidden between his index and thumb. The man shrieked as he tumbled to the ground, his form withering until it became one with the carpet. The device tumbled onto the carpet as Sylvester sprinted to the staircase and vanished.
Anabella is expecting you. You must return.
Yet my feet gravitated toward the man, everything around me ceasing to exist once I stood before him.
At my feet, he curved into himself, his trembling fingers extending to the device. Instinct told me to let it be, but something else nibbled. A force led my hand to retrieve it before he could.
Heated flesh wrapped around my left wrist with the restraint of a chain as my right hand tucked away the device.
The pit in my stomach returned tenfold, further interwoven with the craving, as the man lifted his head. Burning bronze eyes stole what little breath I held, but viper-like slits held my gaze.
“ You ,” he exhaled, his gruff voice sharpened by pain, “you’re the?—”
Low pitched sirens wailed beneath the window. They weren’t meant for human ears to hear; but rather, vampires.
Vampire authorities had routine inspections on feeding parlors to assure law-abiding customs. Never did they visit spontaneously—unless one reported disruption.
“Bloody hell.”
A shadow unfolded as the man wavered onto his feet. Pure impulse rushed through my veins as I caught his build, his solid weight faltering my balance.
There was no possibility of making it to Anabella before I was discovered. Where was Sylvester? If he remained within these walls, who’s to say another fight wouldn’t recur? It was a risk I couldn’t sustain, especially when our visit regarded the Mubaraks?—
A groan vibrated next to me, the man’s footing finding itself. Though he still appeared bewildered, I dragged him away with every muscle I could exhaust until I tucked us into a secluded, tight repository.
Every sharp and muscular angle he possessed molded into me within the tight space. His heat consumed me. Every crevice in his face chiseled. Plump lips pursed. Smooth flesh glistened, particularly along the slash along his right eyebrow. On a flawless canvas, it would disrupt the beauty, but this added to his.
Electricity charged between us. His nostrils flared as they inhaled me, his soft caress trailing from the crown of my head to my cheek. A bronze, soft gaze hid away as heavy eyelids concealed them, the man’s lips meeting mine. First careful, studying with wonder, then, it flickered, and each stroke of his possessive tongue searched for more . Hands held me as if I were attached to his grip, as if I were never meant to be away from this moment. My grip followed suit, clutching firm muscles underneath the trench coat.
This wasn’t impulse or instinct. It was a potent carnality and I was a moth intoxicated by the light.
Suddenly, he inhaled a heavy breath and pulled away with furrowed eyebrows, fire burning fiercely within those widened eyes, the dark hue melting into a frenzied medallion yellow.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he spat with a contorted expression that leaned toward disgust.
“Me?” I scoffed. “ I was the one who helped you hide before the authorities could pull you away.”
He tried to retract, his heat ever-growing, but the small gap between our chests was all the tight space allowed. “By kissing me?”
Warmth flushed my cheeks. “That was your doing, you imbecile.”
“Sure.” He tugged at the knob beside him and stepped away, his feet resounding against the carpeted floors.
I followed with fury coating my vision. “You owe me a debt.”
“A debt that can only be redeemed with a name, Doll.” A sharp grin tore across his face. “And I don’t kiss and tell.”
“I’ll uncover it,” the words slipped before I could bite at them. The desire to know the name of the man who kissed me grew as he gave no response.
The man exited the den, evading the unraveling new presences by disappearing into the opposite end of Le Maudit. Every fiber of my being ached to follow him. This was unlike myself. To rectify such, I stood still and collected what little apparent dignity I possessed for the night.
Authorities embedded each corner. By the time I reached the first floor, uniformed bodies infiltrated the space I’d shared with the man who’d slipped from my grasp.
I pulled my gaze away and focused on the familiar beings deep in the parlor.
Sylvester’s focus flickered onto me, no sense of recognition filling his murky eyes, and fell back on the drink before him. Anabella followed his gaze. “Christopher!”
His body was languid, his presence muted. This was the Sylvester I’d interacted with. The Sylvester our society was accustomed to.
“I found him! Well, in truth, Mal discovered me before I could track him. But no matter! Sit. We can’t waste no more,” Anabella chirped as she pulled me to them.
Had I imagined it all? Impossible when the device met my hand within my pocket.
Sylvester staggered as he turned to us, a hiccup trailing between his words as he said, “With the disappearance of the Mubarak lineage, Heads of Ministry are preparing for the worst-case scenario.”
“Which is?” Panic clipped Anabella’s tone.
My attention was caged by the man who’d stolen a kiss, whose lips shadowed my own, further detaching me from the conversation at hand. I had failed to realize it then. It scarcely registered now.
The man had possessed no presence.
“War,” Sylvester muffled as he threw his head back and swallowed a mouthful of bane. “This is my warning to you both. Prepare yourselves.”