Chapter 19 Diantha #2
“So we’ll table that for now. Let’s just…let Alfo know I want to work with him.”
“I’ll let him know you’re, uh, ready to cast the spell.
” Leo adds heavy air quotes around the end of his sentence, and it hits me how gentle he seems in comparison to the first night I spied on him.
Almost like his instinct is at odds with his physical appearance.
He tears his hand away from his jaw and pushes it through his golden curls, pulling them out of their shape.
“Once we set a date, we can begin the planning from there.”
Orfeo nods. “Diantha, you will need to stay here until we are ready to execute the plan. We will need to do everything to protect you and this knowledge. Leo, any guards you can spare?”
“Her,” he says at the same time Misha says, “Me.”
“Perfect.” Orfeo presses another cigarette between his lips. He hasn’t stopped smoking, I realize.
What are you thinking? What are you afraid of? I wish I could unscrew the top of his dark head of hair and root around in his brain. I wish I could find out if he has the same fear as me: that I’m a fraud.
“Guys, what if…” I shake my head. “What if she got something wrong or…or was lying? What if I’m not anything at all, and this is all a trick?”
Misha and Leo trade a knowing look. “There’s one way for you to find out.” She smirks. “For you both to find out, actually. Leo, shall we go?”
Leo smiles for the first time, maybe ever, in my presence. “I think we shall.”
“Enough, you filthy children.” Orfeo rolls his eyes. “Exit my home at once.”
Misha stands almost mechanically, grabs her purse, and strides toward the door, turning her head at an unnatural angle to call out, “You know how much I fucking hate when you do that, right?”
Even Leo chuckles. “Wait for me, Meesh.”
After Orfeo watches them safely disappear into the dense, dark forest that surrounds the carriage house, he pushes the door shut, bolts it, and then turns back to me. “Please excuse their vulgarity.”
I laugh, getting up from the couch. “I think I might be missing something. I need a little explanation—”
“Wine?”
“Uh, sure, I guess.”
“And you need something to eat now, no?”
“Orfeo.” I slide on my socked feet into his path, flattening one hand against his fridge and the other atop the shiny kitchen island. “What the hell?”
His quirks a brow. “You need to be more specific.”
“What the hell did I miss?”
He clears his throat, fixing me with a look down his nose. It’s almost professorial. “When a vampire drinks a god or goddess’s blood, their bond becomes supercharged. Both in the moment and after.”
“Supercharged?”
He rolls his eyes, settling his gaze on the light fixture behind me. “When a vampire and a human swap blood, they become connected. If they are in love, it can intensify that bond—almost codify it—but when a vampire drinks the blood of a creature that is its natural superior—”
“Like a goddess,” I offer meekly. Calling myself that feels absolutely ridiculous. Like I should be sipping down colloidal silver and braiding hemp into my hair.
He nods. “There is no need for blood to be swapped. Once the vampire drinks the blood of the goddess, their connection becomes a pact. It is not like an oath of servitude, it’s more carnal.
It is like lust, love, infatuation, all after smoking…
how do you say?” His mouth turns down into a compact little frown. “Crystal meth?”
“Oh.” I grimace. “Fun.”
“This is all alleged, eh. I’ve never…” He flutters his lashes. “Indulged.”
“And if a goddess drinks a vampire’s blood?”
“I can only assume that it would further solidify their bond. It might bring their spirits closer together.”
“Got it.” I get out of his way and head back to the living room area, tidying up my makeshift bed by the fire, folding the blanket and putting the pillows back on the couch. I sense that Orfeo still has something else he wants to say so I lift my eyes and offer him a tense smile.
He’s fidgeting with a corkscrew. “You like the Sardinian white, sì? Or would you like to try a red? I have something called Jesus’s Tears—”
“Just say the thing you actually want to say.” I cross my arms over my chest, making my way back toward him. “I don’t know why you’re being so cagey.” I stop myself from adding: You ate me out in public, dummy, I thought we were past being shy.
“Your blood when in contact with my skin would take on a sort of…dazzling quality. Like gold.”
“So, if you drank from me right now, we would know immediately…”
“Hence their vulgarity.”
“Right.” Heat prickles at the tips of my ears. “Because when a vampire drinks someone’s blood, things usually turn sexual.”
“Turn?” He fixes me with a dry look. “They are, inherently. There’s a reason we like the term bloodlust so much.
” I shift closer to him, watching his Adam’s apple move up and down the column of his throat as he wets his lips and swallows.
I can’t see if his fangs have extended, but I feel my body reacting to him and his words.
My nipples tighten under my sweater, a distant ache flares deep and low in my belly.
“How is it you seem so…in control of yourself?” I ask. “Compared to other vampires, I mean. Is that offensive? Sorry.”
“I choose to be this way,” he says quietly, stepping closer to me. “Because I respect humans and their culture. I long for my humanity, for all the small things that made my heart pound.”
“Oh.” It escapes me, more a noise than a full word. “That’s why you’re so…” I swallow. The last time we were this close, the situation unraveled. Got out of control, frankly. “Generous.”
“Yes,” he rasps. “I am a giver.”
Memories of my dream come flooding back to me. Of Orfeo’s body underneath mine, of him between my hands, in my mouth, on my lips…
My face and neck are hot. Maybe from his proximity—but I know I’m blushing. “Me too, I think.”
He hesitates then lifts a hand, splaying his fingers over my collarbone, pulling a gasp from me.
Slowly, he grazes the back of his hand up the length of my neck.
I tremble under his touch, eyes fluttering shut.
I tilt my head to the side and he drags his knuckles back down, over my throat.
When his touch skims my pulse, I sink my teeth into my bottom lip.
“I think so,” he says. “As far as I know, Diantha, you are very generous.”
His voice, his touch—it all pulls me to him like a cat to a sunbeam. I find my feet moving one over the other until we’re nearly chest to chest. I’ve missed this—him. It’s the only thought that pulses through me at this moment. Everything else, all that static noise, turned down to nothing.
But we just can’t. Not again. Not right now.
I force myself to open my eyes and take a step back. “Can I try the…uh, the Jesus tears?”
Orfeo pulls a bottle from the depths of one of his empty kitchen cabinets and pours me a healthy splash into a fishbowl-sized glass.
“Let it breathe for a moment,” he advises. “Really should let it breathe for a few hours.”
I snort. “Is that a metaphor?”
“Mmm.” He pours himself a smaller glass. “There are many parallels between human blood and wine.” His eyes jump from his glass to catch my gaze, and he smirks. “I certainly see the appeal in both.”
“They both stain horribly,” I reply, taking my glass as he hands it over. The wine’s tears trail down the sides, heavy and viscous, a rich shade of vibrant red-purple.
I stare at the wine and try to pull forward some sort of standout feeling from the chaos in my chest. Am I sad? Scared? Anxious? I try to identify something, but right now I am totally, completely blank.
“Perhaps this is a banal question,” Orfeo says, leaning forward onto the counter. “But are you okay?”
I let out a little laugh. “Not banal at all. I was just thinking about how I can’t really…” I take a quick sip of my wine. “How do I even vanquish a demon? Or many demons? How do I…lead you all? How do I become whatever it is I need to become? What if someone gets hurt because of me? How do I—”
“Diantha.” He cuts me off. “You are not alone in this. This is not a matter of becoming. This is who you are. All of what you need is inside you.”
“That’s it?” I whisper. “It’s just inside me? I’ll know how to vanquish a demon because of what I am?”
He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip, then lifts his glass and empties the contents in a single, smooth sip.
“Our world is a simple one. Hierarchy is innate. Skill is acquired through transformation. Power and death are neither rare nor permanent. I know it’s all very different, but you’ll adjust.” He reaches across the island and pulls gently at a loose thread hanging from my sleeve.
“You will learn to embrace these parts of yourself, and we will help you along the way.”
“It feels impossible.”
He fixes me with a stern look as his fingers trace the ridges of my knuckles. “Give yourself time.”
I nod. “Time. Yeah, okay.”
“Are you hungry?” he asks. “You must be famished.” His fingers still lay over mine.
I turn my hand over and he lingers, a soft pressure on my palm. I notice for the first time that his hands are scarred. Covered in a crosshatching of fine white lines that travel all the way up, disappearing into the ink that wraps around his wrists. “I think so.”
“What do you like?” He traces the faint lines etched in my skin.
He finds my love line, which is short and squiggly.
Something my mother always pointed to as the reason I preferred solitude over play dates with other kids from our building or going to the diner with her and her loud-mouthed, psychic girlfriends.
“What do I like,” I repeat. I did like going to the diner sometimes. When no one commented on how frizzy my hair was or how I shouldn’t be having ice cream for dinner. I always ordered the same thing: a Neapolitan sundae with wet walnuts, no whipped cream.