Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (12 page)

Iliaria looked at me, desire and hunger in her gaze. She may not have wanted to be like Renata, but I saw in her the same dark craving. Chained to the wall, I was helpless, and something within her, I knew, enjoyed the sight of it.

And for the first time in the bedroom in what seemed ages, I felt a genuine flicker of fear.

It was not being shackled to the wall that brought about those stirrings. Renata would strip me of any guard I had before Iliaria, and I did not know how the Great Siren, who battled herself, would react. Was I afraid of Iliaria? In certain ways, I was afraid of them both.

Renata returned from the armoire with a dainty knife in her hand. She pressed the line of hard steel flat against my cheek.

“Do you remember this?”

I did, for it was the same blade that she used to cut me when we played even darker games, before she had cast me out for such a long time. Fear fluttered like tiny moths in my belly. She had cut me only once since I had returned to her bed. Once, and then only to erase the scar Lucrezia had carved into my flesh.

I shut my eyes, reminding myself that the game we were about to play was one of trust and consent. My voice trembled slightly, “Yes, my lady.”

Iliaria said, “She is afraid.”

“That is the point, Dracule.”

Renata turned the knife in her hand, the sharp point of it tracing an invisible line down my cheek and following the curve of my jaw.

“Why would you subject her to this if you know she is afraid?”

Renata leaned in close and her breath was hot against my cheek. Her knife continued its steady descent, whispering softly across my skin, down over the beat of my pulse and neck.

“Are you afraid, Epiphany?”

“Yes, my lady.”

It was true, I felt fear, but with it came the steady rush and hum of desire. The two feelings mingled inside of me, until I could not tell where one began and the other ended. They swam together in my veins like two leviathans in the deep, twisting and gliding, rippling and twining in an eternal dance.

Fear or desire? I could not discern which I felt more strongly.

Renata’s blade danced over my chest, pricking my skin and making my nipples taut. The tip of it bit into the tender skin on the side of my breast and I gasped, jerking my arms involuntarily and making the shackles above me clink and sway. The pain was immediate and stinging. The area flooded suddenly with warmth. She cut me slowly, carefully, assuring that I felt every parting of skin. Blood trickled steadily in a descent toward my navel.

The candlelight blurred like a flickering star in my vision. I did not fight the pain. I exhaled and gave myself to it. The mastery of pain is not in the fighting of it, but in the acceptance of it, the surrender.

“I suggest you watch carefully, Dracule. As hard as you may try to understand her, you do not.”

Renata took my nipple into her mouth. Her tongue played against me in lazy circles. She sucked gently, working me exquisitely and forcing my limbs and muscles to slacken as my body melted and surrendered to the pleasure she invoked. I felt the blade against my other breast. The flat steel slid back and forth to shadow the movement of her tongue.

“Please.”

In perfect synchronicity, Renata bit down, catching me between her teeth, and the tip of the knife pricked me again. I cried out, falling even deeper into the wet darkness she summoned.

Renata kissed me gently, her mouth sealed against the side of my breast as she licked the blood from my skin, tracing the already knitted wound with her tongue. Her mouth followed the path of my blood as she drank it, though not once did she forget the knife in her hand. Its tip cut lightly over my hip when I forgot it, and I startled, jerking on my bonds again.

I spread my legs and rested my head back against the hard wall.

Renata nipped at the skin below my navel. “Are you ready, cara mia?”

The sweet flow of desire weighed heavy within me. I no longer felt the flicker of fear or the awkward fluttering of it in my belly. I felt calm at last. The two leviathans no longer struggled but became one as desire swallowed fear.

“Yes.”

Renata did not ask me if I was sure. She took me at my word and began the game in earnest, cutting me over and over. At times, her blade was quick and dancing and I felt the pain after the initial cut. Other times, her hand was lingering and steady, so that I felt the creeping crawl of the blade as it parted my skin with aching sluggishness.

Always, she soothed me with her mouth, nursing and salving my wounds with her tongue and encouraging my desire to rise after its painful descent.

When she was done, I felt weightless and surreal, as if she had given me some sort of mind-altering drug. And I wanted her desperately.

“Her body is an instrument, Dracule, and like any instrument, you must learn to play it to truly hear the sweetest music it is capable of producing.”

I heard the knife fall to the floor and knew she was done with it. Renata would not stop to put anything away. She would not risk snapping me out of the pleasant state of mind she had put me.

The tips of her fingers brushed the skin between my knees and I opened to her. She caressed me tenderly, exploring me effortlessly before easing inside me. I moaned as every muscle within me tightened at the coaxing of her hand.

Renata raised my thigh to her hip, and I used the shackles at my wrists to raise myself and lock my legs around her waist. She pressed me back against the wall and kissed me, deep and unhurried. The taste of my blood was everywhere inside her mouth. The rhythm of her hand mirrored her tongue as she penetrated me. She pushed into me as deep as she could go and withdrew slowly.

She pulled back, pausing for only a second to find the angle she wanted. Her thumb slid across me while her fingers worked inside me.

Her silken lips met mine again and I opened to her, moaning her name. When she brought me, it was a gentle and luxurious thing. I hung loosely, barely able to keep my legs locked around her hips.

Renata laughed and took me down.

“Please,” I whispered.

“Please what, cara mia?”

I gave her a look to let her know I didn’t believe she hadn’t read my thoughts. She knew what I wanted.

“Very well, then,” she said. “But I think now it is time your Dracule joins us.”

Renata sat on the bed and held me in her lap. I kissed her neck, opening my mouth and sucking lightly. I felt more than saw Renata direct her attention to Iliaria.

“What say you?”

Iliaria echoed Renata’s response to me. “Very well.”

I felt Iliaria move up behind me before she drew aside my hair and her mouth moved at my shoulder, persuading me to moan against Renata’s neck. Renata handed me off to Iliaria while she rose from the bed to remove her gown.

I touched Iliaria’s face and pulled her mouth down to mine. She returned the kiss briefly, letting me feel the sweet drag of her fangs before drawing away from me completely.

“You will not hurt me.” I searched her face, trying to understand why she had pulled away.

Iliaria gave no response aside from a blinking stare. Renata came to us, and for what seemed like several minutes, they stood, facing each other. Strangely, there was no tension between them, only a quiet knowing.

Renata trapped me between the two of them. She touched a dark lock of Iliaria’s hair, and for a moment, I thought she would lean over me and kiss her.

Renata must’ve caught the image, for she startled and looked down at me with an expression of surprise. She laughed and placed her hand against the side of my face. “Cara mia, cara mia,” she chided.

Iliaria may not have read my mind, but it wasn’t hard to guess what I’d been thinking. She shook her head at me. “That would be a very bad idea.” She held me against her as she moved toward the bed and crawled across it on her knees toward the middle.

Renata laughed again as she lay down beside me. She reclined on her side and propped her chin on her fist. “You do me an injustice, I think,” she said to Iliaria.

“I am going to pretend you did not just say that.”

“You do not believe that I could bring you pleasure?” Renata asked.

Iliaria’s tail twitched and swayed.

“Renata…” I said.

Renata grinned widely enough to reveal her fangs. “Hush, dolce mia. If she was not so easy to tease, I would not do it.”

Iliaria was a blur of movement. She straddled Renata and pinned her wrists to the bed with a victorious smirk.

Renata’s eyes narrowed as she frowned and pushed against the hands that held her wrists. Iliaria used her upper body to apply more weight. “Do you really want to test your strength against mine?” Iliaria asked.

Renata pushed her arms up again and still only managed to gain a modicum of ground before Iliaria shoved her back down.

“You will lose,” Iliaria said, “and I do not think you will enjoy that. You both wonder why I hold back. Do it,” she said to Renata, “put your strength against mine. All of it.”

Renata said, “No.”

“Perhaps I should dominate you then, just to prove my point.”

“You are more than welcome to try,” Renata said. “But proving your physical prowess and strength does not mean you will dominate me.”

Iliaria leaned in close and whispered, “Then perhaps I should seek your lover’s aid, hmm?”

Renata laughed. “What makes you think, Great Siren, that Epiphany will help you?”

“Epiphany?”

“Eh?”

“What do you think?”

“Yes, what do you think, cara mia?”

What did I think? I wasn’t sure.

“She is unsure, Dracule.”

“And I think you underestimate her.”

“I’m not quite sure what either of you are talking about,” I admitted, aroused but aware of a dangerous undercurrent.

“It’s a very simple question, my sweet.”

“Well, I don’t get it.”

Renata gave Iliaria a look that said, “see, I told you so.”

She tried to get up and Iliaria shoved her back down again.

“Do not be hasty. She has given neither of us an answer, unless, you are scared?”

“I am not scared of you, Dracule. Epiphany is not a dominant by nature. You cannot expect her to be what she is not.”

“Give the girl a chance to speak for herself. What is your answer, Epiphany?”

“Let me see if I’m following you; you’re asking me to dominate Renata? To help you dominate Renata?”

“Yes.”

“I…” I looked at Renata. “What do you want, my lady?”

At my response, Iliaria stared at me with something close to exasperation.

“You really do not have any desire to be in control?”

“I’m not sure what you mean…to dominate? No, not really.”

“You have no desire to have your wicked way with her while I hold her down?”

“Is that what you felt when I was chained to the wall?”

Iliaria’s eyes darkened and her lashes fluttered as if the memory played inside her mind. “Yes.”

“Very much so,” Renata mumbled.

I looked at her then and thought on their words. With her arms stretched above her head, she was beautiful, but Renata was beautiful anyway.

I crawled to them both and knelt, sitting back on my heels. I touched Renata’s stomach and her muscles twitched against my hand. I traced the hourglass curve of her figure.

“What do you want?”

Renata smiled softly at me and said, “Discern it.”

“Iliaria?”

“Yes.”

“Release her.”

Iliaria let go of Renata’s wrists. She sat back and folded her wings behind her.

Renata watched her with a heated stare, taking in every inch of the Draculian flesh in front of her.

“Contrary to what you may assume, I am not repulsed by you, Dracule.”

“I will not let you dominate me.”

I felt something then, a tendril of emotion from Renata.

“I don’t think she wants to dominate you, Iliaria. I think she’s curious about you,” I said.

“Does that bother you, cara mia?”

I blinked. “Why would it?”

Iliaria looked very suspicious. “Curious…in what way?”

“Not in a way so bad as you seem to be thinking,” Renata said.

“Now I am confused,” Iliaria said.

I touched her arm. “You know how you make love to me?”

“Yes…”

“Will it bother you to stay where you are?”

I wasn’t sure how to put the request any more mildly than that, and I didn’t think Renata would approve of me just blurting it out.

“Aside from your strength, there are other things I’d rather you prove to me, Great Siren.”

Iliaria looked as though Renata had hit her over the head with something, the surprise was so blatantly written across her features. Was it really that difficult for her to imagine that Renata was
sexually
intrigued by her?