14. Rose #2
My swallow. “What do you mean?”
“There isn’t a person alive, vampire or human, who comes here who doesn’t know about the Book of Verimagiaa.”
“And that’s what you use the book for? Turning yourself into a bat? I thought you hated the fact that people called you Dracula?”
“Hated? No, that’s too strong a word,” he says with a shake of his head. “Let’s just say it got tiresome after a while.”
“And then after a while you decided to live in a castle and turn yourself into a bat. Is your life so boring these days?”
“These days?” he repeats, ice in his tone. His demeanor stiffens and I know I’m playing a risky game by getting him aggravated already, let alone on a balcony where he could easily toss me over the edge for fun. He’d probably laugh while I plunged the whole way down.
“People say you left Venice for the mountains because you were running away from something.” And yet, there I go, pushing my luck.
His eyes narrow into dark slits. “I wasn’t running away from anything. I was running to something.”
“And what was that? Salvation?”
He lets out an acidic laugh. “Salvation? Oh, dear girl, there is no saving me. Not anymore. Thankfully I have no wish to be saved.” He takes a step toward me, tilting his head as his gaze flicks over me. “Is that why you’re here? You think I need saving?”
That’s as good a reason as any. I decide to explore it, wondering how close I can get to the truth.
“I heard that you left because of a woman. Not just any woman either.”
His energy changes like a cold front has just blasted in.
“I will tell you this much,” he says, his tone knife sharp.
“There was a woman, but someone I went to great lengths to forget. As far as I’m concerned, the past has not only passed but it never existed in the first place.
And if you dare to mention this woman, any woman at all that you think had some impact on my life, I will feed you to the demon and watch as it tears you limb from limb.
You won’t be the first person who has made such a dire mistake. ”
I swallow uneasily, my chest growing tight at his words.
I never existed in the first place.
Fuck if that doesn’t hurt.
“Got it,” I tell him, my cheeks going hot. I tear my eyes away from his gaze and glance back at the windows into the house. “Where is Abe?”
“The doctor left this morning,” Valtu says, striding past me to the door.
“Already?” I cry out, following him inside. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye! Now I’m truly alone here.
“Hmmm,” Valtu muses, shutting the door behind me before shucking off his coat and laying it on the back of the couch. “I just got back. Decided to fly the way back up in case you got into any more trouble with my creature.” He glances over at me. “Did you?”
I shake my head and make my way over to the piano, my fingers trailing over the keys. “No. Thank god. No bad things, no babies.”
His gaze narrows. “Bad thing?”
Oh shit. That’s what Livia had called the demon back in Venice. Is this information I shouldn’t know?
“Yeah, bad thing,” I repeat idly, pressing down on the D, E, and F keys. “I decided to call it—”
In a flash Valtu is on me, grabbing my face between his fingers and flipping me around so I’m pressed against the piano, the keys all crying out at once in cacophony of sound.
“How did you know it was called that? Who are you? What do you want?” he hisses angrily, like a snake ready to strike. “Are you a witch?”
“I don’t think so,” I manage to say against his fingers.
His mahogany eyes search mine, his pupils angry little pin pricks. He blinks. “You don’t think so?”
I don’t say anything. It’s hard to when he’s holding me like he wants to snap my face in half. I keep staring at him, trying to figure out what I’m going to say, what my next move is.
He relents, just a little, moving his fingers down to my chin where he grips me hard. “What do you mean you don’t think you’re a witch?”
Does he know that Dahlia was a witch? Does he know the details of me?
“I don’t know,” I say again. “I know I’m a vampire, it’s just, when I turned I felt this change inside me, some kind of connection to the earth.”
He relaxes. “That’s why you think you’re a witch?”
“I made a lightning strike happen.”
His eyes slide over my face thoughtfully. “Were you able to do it again?”
I try to shake my head though he’s holding me in place. “No.”
“Did you try?”
“Not really.” That wasn’t true. I made a few half-hearted attempts but it was nothing like when the lightning struck our deck.
Finally he releases my chin and moves back slightly. “You’re not a witch, then. That just happens sometimes when you turn. You become more in tune with the natural world. It’s not unusual to hear of vampires having supernatural abilities connected to the elements.”
“Really?” I ask and I’m being genuine. This is the first I’ve heard of that.
“Really,” he says. He gives me a quick smile. “Though if you did end up being a witch, I suppose it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. You could help me decipher the rest of the book.”
Now is my chance to ask him about it. To find out more about it. To see it, maybe even hold it in my hands. To find out where Bellamy and Leif are. Maybe even see if his spell of erasure can be reversed. But I know he’s baiting me at the same time, and so I won’t rise to meet it.
Instead I push it out of my head and let my body take the lead. A change in subject, a change in activities. I’m here for a reason. I shouldn’t let him forget it.
And if using my lord had the power to bring back another phrase from the past, perhaps a musical instrument could do the same.
I let my body relax and gaze at him through my lashes, adjusting my body just enough for him to notice it.
He does. His eyes go to my breasts, then down to my thighs. If my tunic were any shorter, he’d be seeing everything. When he looks back up, heat has replaced everything that was cold and dark.
“You said you no longer play any musical instruments,” I say to him, my voice growing sweet. “That seems such a shame to have them around, getting no use.”
He raises a brow, trying to figure out where I’m going with this. “Sometimes it’s nice just to look at things and appreciate their beauty. I have a tendency to break the things I touch.”
I ignore the raw sensation in my throat, reminding me that I know firsthand what he means by that.
“You know, I play,” I tell him, clearing my throat. “I could teach you the things you’ve forgotten.”
His mouth twists into a crooked grin. “You think you could teach me things? Weren’t you a virgin until last night?”
I bite my lip coyly, something I know used to get him all worked up in the past. From the flash of heat in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils, I know it still works the same. “I’m not talking about sex.” I give him a cunning smile and slide off the piano, walking over to the organ.
I sit down at the bench and I’m caught by feelings of reverence and joy all at once.
It feels good to slide my bare feet over the pedals, for my fingers to graze over the keys.
I stare up at the pipes, the way they go in and out of the stone, and I can only hope that I remember to play as well as I think I do.
“You look like a natural,” Valtu says, his voice low. He’s not coming any closer though, just observing me where he is.
I shrug. “I’m sure I look like a lot of things to you.”
Then I start to play.
The notes sing and come back to me as easy as breathing.
I close my eyes and I slip back into being Dahlia, back to the time spent learning how to play, then my time at music school in Venice, Valtu being my teacher.
Because magic had influenced so much of my ability, I feared that I would lose all my talent if I ceased to be a witch.
But now that I’m here and I’m a vampire and I’m Rose and I’m playing, I realize that either the magic or the talent has survived death.
I’m playing Moonlight Sonata, a piece usually meant for the piano, and the stone walls vibrate with Mozart’s moody sounds, sounding all the more Gothic and deep when played through the organ.
My feet know where to go, my fingers find their way, and I keep my eyes closed as I go.
It feels like being swept along a sonic river, an experience that elevates me higher and higher until I’m one with the music itself.
When I finish the piece, I feel so unbearably alive that a tear is rolling down my cheek. My hands and feet are tingling, my chest feels effervescent, like champagne. The whole room seems to reverberate with the last notes, unable to let the song go.
Then I hear a slow clap.
I twist on the bench to look at Valtu with his hands together and he’s staring at me with such awe and respect that I want to burst into tears. It takes everything in me not to leap to my feet, run over to him and kiss him, tell him that I love him and that I need him back. God, I need him back.
But that feeling of love stays in the back of my throat and I have to choke it down until I can breathe again.
“Did you like it?” I manage to say, my voice coming out in a whisper.
His eyes widen appreciatively as he walks over to me. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since I know nothing about you, but yes. I liked it very much.”
“Did you used to play the organ? When you were a teacher?”
He nods and slowly walks over to me, seeming to think as he goes. “Yes. I did. It was one of the classes I taught in Venice. Not always the most popular class, mind you.”
“Perhaps you could teach me,” I tell him.
He laughs and comes over to the bench. I scoot over and he sits down beside me, and I breathe him in deeply, the scent of him, of smoke and oranges, giving me goosebumps. “Teach you? Looks like you could teach me a thing or two. I wasn’t kidding when I said I haven’t played for a very long time.”
“How long?”
His brows come together and he stares blankly at the keys. “Nineteen years ago, maybe.”
This surprises me. I would have thought Valtu would have played long after I departed this realm. “And yet you put an organ in here? In the rock?”
“Oh, I didn’t do that,” he says, staring up at the pipes. “This place used to be a monastery before I bought it.”
“A monastery?”
He nods. “Believe it or not, they had a hard time attracting disciples. Something about the location…”
I can’t help but laugh. “You don’t say.”
He returns my smile, his eyes lighting up, and my heart does cartwheels at the sight.
God, he is so fucking beautiful.
Please, please be mine again.
I feel the wish so acutely that for a moment I fear I projected it into his head.
But his attention is back to the organ again.
He tentatively sticks out his hands and presses down on a few keys, notes ringing out.
The organ comes to life, as if it’s been waiting forever to be touched by him. I have to say I can relate.
Then he snatches his hands back as if the keys burned his skin.
“I don’t think I have it in me,” he says, trepidation in his voice. “I don’t remember.”
“Sure you do,” I assure him. “You just need a little practice, that’s all.”
I reach over and grab his hands, gently placing them back on the keys, putting my fingers over his in the correct formation. The feeling of his large, strong, cool hands below mine makes me feel dizzy and I have to close my eyes. “You can manage your feet,” I whisper. “My legs aren’t long enough.”
He adjusts himself beside me on the bench, putting his feet on the pedals, and then I move his hands across the keys to the beginning position of Moonlight Sonata.
I push down slightly, the keys depressed, and the pipes belt out with the moody tones.
It feels so powerful to be able to make this instrument sing like this, like I’m some kind of god.
I want him to have that feeling too. I guide his hands and fingers from one set of keys to the other, and we’re playing together, the song slow at first as we find our footing together, a few wrong notes here and there, but then it’s gliding along.
Eventually I take my hands off his and I just sit beside him, watching him play.
My jaw tightens and my eyes burn and I have to keep breathing long and deep through my nose in order to hold it together, a deep ache forming in my chest. It sounds perfect and he looks perfect and everything about this makes sense and yet none of it makes any sense at all.
I pray, hope, wish that somehow music can reach him, that it can travel somewhere deep inside, to wherever he harbors that trauma that Abe talked about, the one Valtu doesn’t know is buried in his soul, and that it can bring him back to life, bring him back to me.
Please, please, please , I think, and the music continues to sweep us both away until the song is done and the room is so full of this wild, beautiful energy, you can feel it on your skin like melting snow.
Valtu closes his eyes and exhales.
I hold my breath and hope and wait.
“Thank you,” he whispers, before rubbing his lips together. “Thank you.” He breathes in deeply through his nose and straightens his shoulders before looking at me. “That took me back.”
But from the way he’s looking at me, like I’m some woman he still doesn’t really know, I know it didn’t take him back far enough.