Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (25 page)

Andrella gave a wistful smile before she leaned forward, touching her forehead to mine. Her hand sifted through my hair, setting goose bumps over every inch of my flesh.

“
Through
.
The only way out, dear girl, is through.
”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but before I could, a key turned in the lock. The door opened and torchlight spilled into the room, shattering my vision and piercing my skull with its brightness.

When I could open my eyes without wincing, I made out Morina’s outline in the doorway. For what seemed several minutes, she simply stood there with the chalice in her hand.

She glared at me with unfeigned intensity, as if I had done something terrible and vile to her. She growled and threw the chalice against the wall in a fit. The blood spattered on the wall and the smell of it permeated throughout the small room and roused my hunger. I fought my bonds as the razors in my belly threatened to tear me apart from the inside out. Morina slammed the dungeon door behind her and I cried out in desperation.

I let my head fall forward, willing myself not to waste energy fighting. If the bonds were enough to have held Andrella, a witch, I knew they were enough to hold a vampire.

“There goes my only means of feeding, Andrella,” I grumbled and hoped somewhere on the other side, she heard me and knew my displeasure.

Cuinn certainly did.

I told you, you’re playing a dangerous game.

I ignored him and instead, wondered what would happen the longer I went without sustenance. Which would happen first, would I go mad or would I lose consciousness? Madness, it seemed, wasn’t so terribly difficult to come by.

*

The hunger pains were excruciating. They started low in my abdomen and began to spread outward, outward through my limbs, through the branches of my veins. Every muscle in my body constricted in agony until I was vaguely aware of aught else. The muscles in my legs trembled weakly as I tried to keep my feet under me. The metal clamped at my wrists bit into my skin in a cold, unyielding embrace. My head lulled forward and I groaned, unable to keep it up any longer.

Somewhere above, I knew Morina sensed my plight. But she didn’t return.

Starvation was its own particular brand of torment. Cuinn tried to keep me focused, to keep me from fading away from reality.

Piph, ye must contact Iliaria
, he said. With my eyes closed, he loomed behind my lids.
If ye don’t, there’s no telling what could happen.

She won’t let me die
, I thought.
If I die, she dies.

Piph,
he said, clearly trying to talk some sense into me,
I don’t think the Great Siren cares if you drag her down with you. I think she’s been there for a very long time already.

You think Morina’s trying to commit suicide?

What do ye think, lass? You’re the lover and Inamorata of the Queen of the Rosso Lussuria and of a Great Siren. Ye’ve got the entire Rosso behind your back and their allies as well as your Draculian lover. For Morina, it’s been a swan song from the start.

If I contact Iliaria, she’ll try to kill her.

Then let her try. You don’t think ol’ bat wings can hold her own?

My lids felt too heavy to open, but a certain peacefulness washed over me, a calm acceptance.

NO! Damn you! No!
Cuinn’s voice rang in my head, making my skull pound again.

Cuinn, please, just let it be,
I begged.

I will not
. He was angry now.
You’re really going to give it all up? If you die, Piph, I die! I’ll be lost forever
, he said, and this time his voice was soft.
I don’t want that. I don’t want it for either of us, Piph, and sinking on Morina’s ship isn’t worth it. You’ll never see Renata again, never see Iliaria, or Vasco.

And if I contact Iliaria and Morina gets here before she does? I’m probably better off.

Bundle o’ shite!

A rumble of thunder sounded from above the dungeon.

Piph, that’s not thunder…

The wall at my back shook and I rolled my head back against it, listening. The ground trembled again and rippled beneath the soles of my feet.

Starved and confused, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Was it an earthquake? Was Morina doing something up above? Was the ivy outside finally pulling the castle to ground for good?

I heard the door open, heard the tumble in the lock, but the light blinded me and I couldn’t see who it was. I didn’t have to.

“Cara mia.”

I felt her familiar touch against my cheek and wept like a child. Renata took me down gently. I wondered if it was another delusional vision prancing about in my head. But if it was, I didn’t care. If I sank into oblivion with Renata’s vision in my head, at least I saw her once more before the hunger broke my mind completely.

She scooped me into her arms and stroked the hair at my temple. I saw her beautiful face through the slits of my eyelashes and sighed, trying to hold my eyes open, to hold on to the vision.

And then pain, fiery and real, seared to life in my chest and I screamed with the last bit of strength I had left. Which was considerably a great deal more than I reckoned, for once I started screaming, I couldn’t stop.

Renata touched the place just beneath my ribs that hurt. Her hands slid through something warm and wet coating my skin.

“Vasco!” she yelled, her voice unstrung and high, carrying through the prison like a great bell ringing. “Vasco!”

The pain traveled higher, higher up in my chest, burning my organs and sending quills of fire through my body. It felt as though I was being torn apart from the inside out. I tried to scream again, and this time, I didn’t have the breath for it.

“Sì, my lady?”

“Order them to stop, now! All of them!”

I didn’t know what was happening, but something was wrong, terribly wrong. Renata moved my arm, and that one little movement stole an empty scream from my mouth. She whispered my name over and over, until I focused on her face again.

“I am sorry, cara mia, but you must feed,” she said and pulled me upright none too gently.

I tried to scream again as she pressed my face toward her neck. I bit down with as much strength as I could muster, trying to drink like she told me to. But the pain was too much, too excruciating to even draw a breath, it felt as though every rib had been broken and turned inward to pierce me. I was too weak and wounded to take hold and my lips slipped off her skin.

“Can’t,” I murmured.

“Istania,” I heard Renata say before the darkness descended again, “fetch Emilio.”

*

My head pounded. I sat up in the bed and reached up to rub my temples. Why on earth did I have a headache?

“Cara mia, you’re awake.” Renata rose from a nearby chair.

“And I’m still in this forsaken place,” I said, noting the familiar surroundings. The same dark drapes with the same fireplace burning.

“Yes. We did not think it would be wise to move you so soon.”

I reclined against the pillows. “What happened? Where’s Morina?”

“She’s in our custody.” Renata sat beside me. I took her hand and pulled her closer, relishing the feel of her and breathing out a sigh of relief.

“Is this real?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’ve been losing my mind in this place.”

“You were starved when I found you.” She held me close to her, close enough that I could feel her heart beating against my chest. “I’d feared I’d nearly lost you, cara mia. Trust me, it was very real and very harrowing.” Her arms tightened around me. “This is very real,” she murmured against my hair.

I wept, the tears sliding freely down my cheeks. I wept, and while I did, Renata held me. The door opened while I was crying and the sigil on my right wrist tingled slightly.

Iliaria crossed the room and came to us, to me. Her body pressed against my back and I wept while they both held me.

When I was done and my tears had passed, Iliaria touched my shoulder. I turned my face and brushed my lips across her hand. I didn’t know what to say but I found myself unable to stop touching them both. I had to touch them to convince myself they were real.

“There is someone else that wishes to see you,” Iliaria said, rising slowly. I let her draw away as she went to the door to let someone in.

Vasco’s face lit up despite his tears and my heart felt lighter, more sure.

“Vasco,” I said, my voice choked.

“Save your words, sorella. We have much to discuss. I only wanted to see for myself that you are alive and well.”

He walked around to Renata’s side and she got up to give him room to embrace me. Vasco bent over and I got to my knees to meet him halfway. His arms encircled me, strong and firm, brotherly and affectionate. He placed a kiss atop my head.

“Sorella, the next time you think to play nice, a little advance warning would be appreciated.”

That old familiar Cheshire cat grin spread across his features when he stepped away.

“Aye,” I said. “It really wasn’t the greatest idea, was it?”

“No,” he said. “How do you feel, sorella? Do you feel well enough for more visitors?”

I blinked. “Who else is there?”

“Queen Helamina is very interested in meeting you, cara mia.” The corner of Renata’s mouth twitched, and I reached out to touch her. She took my hand, twining her fingers with mine.

“It sounds as though there’s a story to be told. Why did it take so long for you to find me?”

“Ah, that,” Vasco said, “that was unfortunately Damokles’s doing. He apparently decided to turn around and start picking on the clan of Bull Shoals. King Augusten didn’t take kindly to it.”

“Damokles followed our trail to them?”

“It is more than likely so,” Renata said. “He heard that the Rosso Lussuria were seeking to make alliances. The reason Queen Helamina and the others were not waiting for us was due to an intrusion.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Vasco answered. “Damokles has been assembling an army of sorts, recruiting Dracule and vampires alike. They attacked the clan of Bull Shoals as soon as we had left it and Queen Helamina’s realm as soon as we arrived. But,” Vasco said, grinning again. “Queen Helamina already knew he would attack and established a perimeter around her clan with her guards, giving us safe passage.”

“But what about Morina? How did she slip past the guards and how did we not hear anyone?”

“The clan of Ravenden is a large one, too large even for us to hear everything within its walls. Helamina only appointed guards to the places where she had seen in vision that Damokles’s party would attack.”

“In vision?”

“Queen Helamina’s powers are precognitive,” Renata said. “She can see certain events before they happen. And though she saw the attack that would unfold, she did not foresee your abduction, cara mia.” She touched my cheek as if in apology.

“Sì,” Vasco said, “and any time she tried to find you, she could not. We tried everything. Iliaria tried to sense you. Renata tried to sense you. Queen Helamina tried to see you. Nothing. The only knowledge we could gather was that you were safe, as neither Iliaria nor Renata felt your death.”

“Then how did you find me?”

Again, he grinned. “This, colombina, you are going to love.” Vasco went to the corner of the room and returned with something cupped in his palms.

“King Augusten’s bat?”

“Sì,” he said. “Renata noticed it was acting unusual.”

“Vasco, I don’t even know where I am or what country I’m in. How could the bat have found me?”

“It was a group effort,” he said. “Renata and Iliaria sensed you last night, sensed the life slipping out of you.” The bat tried to crawl out of Vasco’s hands and he let it down. It wobbled across the bed to me, crawling up and stopping in my lap as if it were quite content to be there. I stroked the back of its head between its ears and it chittered lazily. “My son, Emilio, is the one who figured out that the bat was trying to tell us something.”

“Did he teach it to talk?” I asked.

“No,” Emilio spoke from the doorway. “I entered its mind. It’s a relatively simple spell, once you get the hang of it.”

“And the bat knew?”

“Sì.”

“How?”

Vasco shrugged and looked to his son. Emilio mirrored him. “At a guess, it’s forged some sort of telepathic bond with you that you are not aware of.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said, gazing down at the bat. “If it’s forged a telepathic bond with me, wouldn’t I know?”

“Not necessarily,” Emilio said. “A lot of animals are highly intuitive, naturally gifted with psychic ability. It doesn’t mean it’s a personal bond, I suppose, but given the way it was behaving, I’d say it will forge a personal bond with you, if you allow it.”

“Hmm, I suppose, either way, that I owe you my thanks, Emilio. Thank you.”