Chapter 30 #2
A full head taller than Lord Aengus, instead of spun gold, his hair has a copper sheen.
He’s shirtless, his chest smeared with red lipstick marks, and wears, like most of the men here, crisp black trousers.
He leans down to give Mémère the customary three bisous.
Her cheeks pink and I stare. I’m sure she hasn’t fed from him.
Mémère giggles and excuses herself, but not before giving me a saucy wink.
Marianne watches her grandmother go with an odd expression. Not quite disapproval, but not approval either. She turns to me. ‘This is Olivier, Lady Jing.’
‘It’s my pleasure to meet such a fragrant flower,’ Olivier says in Mandarin.
He bends forward in a bow, but he doesn’t break eye contact. This close, his scent is overwhelming, making it hard to think. Did he really speak in Mandarin or am I so drunk I imagined it?
Olivier tilts his head, contemplates me with an expectant smirk. Inexplicably my face heats. He chuckles. The sound is a low rumble that I feel right in the pit of my stomach. It tickles.
‘Is my Mandarin so rusty, Marianne?’
‘Oh,’ I say, a wholly inadequate answer. I clear my throat. ‘How do you speak so well?’
‘I’ve travelled here and there,’ he says, his smile growing wider until it’s all teeth.
He’s mortal. I’m vampire yet I’m behaving like a nervous lamb. My head is all muddled. All I can focus on is his scent. I tip forward until my nose presses against his chest. I inhale long and deep.
A part of me is aware that I have my face pressed into the naked chest of a stranger and I have a nagging sense I ought to remember something, but my thoughts are half-formed and flit away like startled sparrows.
The blood rush, the absinthe-induced euphoria, the rhythm of the music, the mortal’s beating heart and his delectable scent, all swirl into a single, potent cocktail.
A thrill shimmies through my body. ‘I wanna daaaaance!’ I say. Someone laughs – was it me?
Smears of flesh-coloured movement surround me.
If I stay very still and focus hard, I catch glimpses of coupled bodies – curves and planes and glistening skin, tensed fingers pressed into soft flesh, faces surfacing from a sea of limbs, shifting expressions of pain, ecstasy, surrender.
More laughter. I touch my mouth. Closed.
Tickled that it wasn’t me, I giggle, my breath warm against my hand, the sound high-pitched and strange.
The rapture of the music and that caramel-like scent of sangue touches my waist, squeezes my fingers. Golden eyes float in the air. I met someone with eyes like that. Oscar? Orlando?
The room spins and the floor tips but my feet don’t stop dancing.
Someone’s bare chest supports my face. I inhale deeply, delighted at the deep caramel scent.
A shrill giggle interrupts my inhale. I’m about to tell whoever that is to rethink their giggle because they sound demented but I can’t seem to make my mouth work or move my head but it’s okay because my face is clearly pressed into a huge caramel.
I sneakily take a lick and grimace. Salty.
I spin away from the caramel. Faces streak past me. I see Ah Lang bent over his double bass, eyes shut, lips pursed, plucking at the strings. I try to wave but I’m pulled away and once again enveloped by the sweet caramel sangue.
Marianne whispers in my ear from somewhere, I’m not sure where. ‘Try tasting him.’
I shrug, wondering why in Tian I was ever shy about feeding. Bleary-eyed, I squint up at Mr Caramel. Smooth chest, if a little salty, excellent smell, and a sexy smile. I give him ten out of ten. Plus a bonus point for nice teeth.
Without any preamble, I sink my teeth into flesh. I barely register his gasp as blood flows warm and thick over my tongue. He really does taste like a salted caramel, but singed and smoky. It’s so good.
‘Jing, enough now.’ Marianne’s voice, coupled with the sharp pain of someone twisting my ear, cuts through the haze.
A soft pop as I disengage my fangs and look up.
The mortal – Olivier – smiles down at me, a faint flush to his cheeks. I blink at his chest – blood oozes from two puncture wounds just above his heart.
A startled laugh escapes me. ‘I did it,’ I whisper. ‘I fed from a mortal for the first time ever!’
There’s a crash of glass behind me. Through a gap in the crush of bodies is Tony, staring at me, the remnants of his drink in glittering shards at his feet. Before I can say anything, he spins on his heel and stalks away.
My stomach drops. I finally fed, without shame. How could he judge me?
Gigi appears from nowhere, grabs my wrist and drags me from the dancing crowd of naked, sweaty bodies, across the room to a darkened corner.
‘What were you thinking?’ Gigi hisses.
I try to break her grip, but she won’t let go. I twist away, glimpsing Marianne with Tony, speaking softly and urgently. I can tell by the set of his shoulders that he’s furious and that stokes my own rage. How dare he?
‘Jing, I’m talking to you.’ Gigi’s mouth twists in disgust. ‘What in Tian were you thinking?’
‘I was practising. They’re teaching me how to feed—’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ she snaps. ‘Do you never stop and consider your actions? Was here really the best place?’
‘Can’t you be happy for me? That was hard. It was my first time.’
She claps her hands, slowly, mockingly. ‘Better?’
‘What is wrong with you?’ I hiss.
‘I think the question is what is wrong with you? Have you no feelings at all?’
‘They’re here willingly!’
Gigi glares at me, like I’m no longer speaking Mandarin but some form of gobbledygook. ‘You really are that clueless. Tian.’
I turn to leave, but she grabs my wrist again and spins me back to face her, none too gently. ‘I don’t care what you eat. None of us care what you eat. But I care that you didn’t warn us. You could have given us a heads-up, so we’d know what to expect.’
What? ‘Why would I warn you? If you don’t care, then why would you need a heads-up?’
She closes her eyes, exhaling long and hard. When she opens then again, she speaks to me slowly, like I’m a child. ‘How do you think Tony felt, seeing you—’
‘It’s part of me! He has to accept th—’ Gigi slaps her hand over my mouth.
‘How do you think Tony felt,’ she repeats, ‘seeing you’ – I protest again but she presses harder to keep me from speaking – ‘suddenly giving him a front-row view of you laughing like you’re having the best time of your life, dancing and cosying into a half-naked man’s arms?’
Her words sink through the haze of my rage. Understanding hits with the sudden shock of ice water. It’s my turn to close my eyes, wishing I could go back in time and undo my thoughtlessness.
‘I see you understand now.’ Gigi drops her hand. ‘All the naked cavorting doesn’t help. You need to explain to him what really happened.’
I nod. But my feet won’t move. What if he doesn’t forgive me?
‘Jing, don’t cry. I’ll take you to him.’
Gigi takes my hand and leads me across the bar to a small table by the wall where Marianne sits across from a stony-faced Tony. Marianne stands, stepping away with Gigi, and I slide into her seat, hanging my head in shame.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was doing,’ I say to the table, unable to meet his eye. ‘It was thoughtless and selfish. Please, forgive me?’
He doesn’t answer for the longest time. I look up to find he’s glaring over my shoulder.
That heady scent of singed caramel hits me and my brain screams for me to run.
Before I can escape, Olivier positions himself protectively at my side, blocking me in.
I want to tell him to go away, but my gaze catches on the puncture wounds on his chest. My face goes hot and I drop my gaze. Tian, I fed from this man.
‘Are you alright? Is this man upsetting you?’ Olivier asks.
‘She’s fine,’ Tony snarls through clenched teeth.
Olivier ignores him. ‘Lady Jing, are you alright?’
‘I’m fine,’ I mumble to the table.
‘Are you sure? Look at me please and tell me you’re okay.’ He tries to lift my chin.
Tony grabs his wrist, yanks Olivier so he’s nose to nose. ‘Get your hands off her.’
I don’t dare say anything lest Tony misconstrue my meaning, so I whisper to the table, hoping she’ll hear, ‘Marianne, I need your help!’
Almost immediately, Marianne appears behind Tony. ‘Olivier! Mémère would love to hear about your recent travels.’
‘But – Lady Jing,’ Olivier persists.
I mumble, ‘I’m feeling a bit dizzy, that’s all. Abundant gratitude for your concern.’ And then I drop my forehead to the table and keep it there until he leaves.
‘He’s gone.’ Tony’s voice is flat, devoid of emotion.
I search his face for a flicker of understanding, but find none. The purple smudges under his eyes have bloomed into bruises.
Only once before have I experienced Tony’s anger. When I lied to him. While his words were harsh, there was a softness in his gaze. His forgiveness was quick. But now, his gaze is cold and distant.
Fear pinches my throat, makes my words clumsy. ‘It’s not what you think.’ Afraid he might leave, I hurry to explain. ‘Mémère said I should try to feed from one of the pursuivants and found Olivier for me.’
‘Feeding is one thing but you were out there—’ His lips flatten. Anger twists his handsome face until he is unrecognisable. ‘Out there rubbing against another man. You want someone new, is that it?’
I flinch at the hard tone, the ugly accusation, so unlike Tony.
‘That’s not true.’ My voice is little more than a croak.
Though his expression is still scary, he doesn’t say anything else, so I keep talking.
I have to make him understand. ‘I admit I find his blood intoxicating, but only his blood. It’s like being drunk and smelling a favourite food you haven’t had in a long time.
You know how blood rush affects me. With the added intoxication from absinthe, I lost control. ’
‘You wanted to bed him.’ He hurls the words like venom-tipped daggers. I’m too stunned to say anything.
Marianne strides over to us. ‘言既出，駟馬難追.’ Words once spoken cannot be unsaid.
Tony flushes at her rebuke. He gives a short sharp bow of his head. ‘Contain my outburst. Allow me to take my words back.’
Marianne squeezes my shoulder before leaving once more.
‘I wanted only blood, nothing more. Please believe me, Tony.’
He studies me, expression stony. Only a small table divides us but right now the distance feels like a yawning chasm. ‘Is there truly a distinction between hunger and desire?’
‘I hunger for blood, all blood, because I am vampire. Blood sustains me. I won’t deny some blood is tastier than others.
But desire? That’s only for you. I don’t want to kiss anyone but you.
’ I search his face for any signs of softening, of understanding, of forgiveness and find none.
‘The person I want to bed? Well that would be you. Except you won’t let yourself want me.
As far as I can tell, you think desire, lust, sex, is something bad.
Something wrong. That I should be ashamed of having these feelings for you.
That . . . that you don’t have those feelings about me. ’
Remorse flashes across his face, but he shutters his expression. ‘I’m sorry for making you feel that way. You shouldn’t be ashamed. And I do, I do feel those things for you.’ Abruptly, he stands. ‘I think I need some air,’ he says.
‘Of course.’ I hurry to his side and slip my hand in his, like I’ve done countless times before.
He flinches. My heart drops, thinking he’s still angry. But I meet his gaze and it sends an ominous prickle down my spine. He looks at me like I’m a stranger.
‘Tony?’
He stares back at me. Recognition slowly bleeds back into his gaze. His fingers close tight over my hand. ‘Sorry, I don’t feel well. Let’s go home.’