Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (45 page)

I slid beneath the sheet without pressing her, though I spared a glance to find she had set aside the book of Draculian verses she had been reading. She leaned forward in her chair and gazed at nothing in particular.

If she wanted to talk, I told myself, she would. I must admit, a part of me found it exasperating the way she attempted to strike conversation by making an idle comment, only to let it die off again.

I felt the mattress dip beneath her weight when she climbed in beside me. Darkness unfolded as she extinguished the bedside lantern. The heavy silence between us pressed against my chest and made it feel tight.

What did she want from me? I couldn’t discern it. If she disliked me so, why did she offer to be my escort? Why did she swear on her life to protect mine after everything she’d done to me in her pursuit of vengeance? Did she only offer her aid because she finally realized Andrella’s death was Damokles’s doing and then only to get even with him? Or because she was so desperate to see Andrella just one more time?

I found myself drowning in the well of my emotions. I longed for Renata and Iliaria, to be nestled sweetly between them, to feel the line of their tall bodies against mine and their arms around me again. How was it that I felt more alone with Morina than I would have without her?

I choked back a sob, shut my eyes tightly, and buried my face in my pillow. I would not cry, not over this, not over Morina’s mind games.

Her words were soft beside me. “I do not know how to talk to you.”

“You do well enough around the othersss.”

“That is different.”

“I know,” I said bitterly. “It’sss jussst pretend.”

“No,” she said, “it’s more than that.”

I raised enough to find her pale outline in the dark. She’d removed the patch from her eye and left it on the bedside table. “Then what isss it?”

“I don’t know,” she said and it seemed to me that she did know. She just evaded telling me the truth.

I rolled back onto my side, intent on ignoring her.

Morina growled lightly and whispered harshly into the dark. “You are so frustrating.”

I shot up then. “I’m frussstrating?” I leaned into her and hissed. “
I’m the one that’sss frussstrating here?
You can’t even follow through and have a complete conversssation with me!”

“Keep your voice down,” she said. “We may not have spies trailing us about, but I’d rather not wake and rouse anyone’s interest.”

I let out a huff and narrowed my eyes. How dare she call me frustrating? I wasn’t the one constantly dancing from foot to foot, trying to hide behind an invisible stone wall, and skirting subjects.

“If you remember, lady,” I kept my voice down, as requested, “you took me. You ssstarted thisss.”

“And are you ever going to let that go?” she whispered in exasperation. “I’m here with you now. I’m sticking my neck out for
you
.”

“Oh, ssso you can ssstick your neck out but not the ressst of you?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said heatedly. “You claim to be risssking your life for mine, you make your promisssesss and give your oathsss, and yet, look at how you treat me, Morina. You act asss though you really couldn’t be bothered to hold even one sssimple bloody conver—”

Her hand slapped over my mouth to silence me and I glowered, heat rising to my cheeks beneath my fur.

“I told you to keep your voice down,” she said without bothering to remove her hand. “Do you want everyone to hear us? What you think of me, I cannot help or change. If the fact that I’m here with you now isn’t enough proof, I don’t know what else to do.”

“Proof of what?” I grumbled, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

She lowered her hand and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Go to sleep.”

“No.” I rolled on top of her without thinking and caught her hands.

Morina’s attention snapped back to me and I heard the breath hitch in her throat. A warm sensation built low in my belly as we gazed at one another. Her eye was wide, showing a bit too much white. I knew I had surprised her as much as I had myself.

“I’m sssorry,” I murmured and began to draw away.

Morina’s hands tightened on mine and I hesitated. “Wait,” she said, her voice drawn tight as if she were choking.

“Why?”

“I want you.”

An emotion that I’d tried to bury somewhere deep inside me came unfurled like a dragon rousing from its slumber. I was suddenly very aware of Morina’s body beneath mine, conscious of the rise and fall of her chest beneath the silk sleep shirt.

“I don’t know how to seduce you or win your favor,” she whispered, and the fluttering in my chest increased. “I don’t know how to gain your forgiveness for what I’ve done to you and yours when I’m
not
sorry. If I apologized to you, it would be a lie. I’m not sorry I took you as my prisoner,
Elpis
.” Morina touched my face uncertainly. Her expression of confusion and want nearly undid me. Unthinkingly, I leaned into her touch, into the tenderness of the hand she offered. I covered her hand with one of my own and turned my mouth into her open palm, parting my lips and dragging my skin across hers.

Morina trembled almost unnoticeably beneath me. “You frighten me.”

“Why?”

“Because you were right,” she touched my thigh tentatively while keeping her eye closed. “You remind me of her.”

“But I’m not her, Morina. I never will be,” I said, trying to keep my tone tender but honest. If what she looked for in me was Andrella, she wouldn’t find her. I couldn’t replace her and I wouldn’t try to.

Morina rose and buried her hands in the fur of my neck. She brought my face down to hers and slid her cheek across mine until her face was buried in the bend of my shoulder.

I stiffened uncertainly, a thousand battles warring inside me as my emotional and logical self conflicted. A part of me remembered the woman who would have done anything to hurt Iliaria and harm anyone that got in her way.

Morina drew back, her voice small, “Do I repulse you?”

I shook my head, lightly. She didn’t. And yet…

I didn’t know what to do. A part of me wanted to draw away from her, to not let any sense of closeness happen between us, to not forge any more intimate ties or bonds with her. What had she really done to redeem herself and gain my trust? At any moment, she could still turn against me.

I remembered Cuinn’s words,
“Ye’ve already got two women in your bed. Do ye really want to add a third? Especially that one?”

How would Renata and Iliaria feel if I took Morina to my bed, if I let passion come between us? Was it fair to them? Iliaria had already made it abundantly clear that I was
hers
.

“What is it?” Morina asked.

“I can’t, Morina. Not yet.”

At first, it appeared as though she would protest, but then that guard settled once more between us.

I touched her face, tracing the starburst of scar tissue just below her eye with my thumb. “No,” I said, “don’t withdraw. I’m not rejecting you entirely.”

“
Entirely
,” she said and snorted. “That’s good to know.”

“If thisss isss what you want…” I pressed my hips to hers, and even through our attire felt her sex kindle against mine. “I can’t give it to you yet, not completely.”

Morina’s hips moved against me as if she could not help herself. A shuddering sigh fell from me at the contact. The slight friction of her body against mine sparked heat between my thighs and I cursed the passionate Draculian nature that encouraged me to release all thoughts and caution and to surrender to the call of flesh.

Morina kept moving against me, and though the request was on the tip of my tongue, I didn’t say it. I didn’t ask her to stop. Her hands moved to my hips and when I looked down at her, her expression was pained. Her hand moved from my hips and fumbled with the clasp of my shorts. The muscles of my stomach jumped at the nearness of her touch. If she got her hand past the material and touched me, in truth, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

Summoning all my willpower, I caught her hand in mine and drew it away from my groin. “I can’t.”

She recoiled and turned away from me as if I’d hit her. I shut my eyes and focused on changing my form. We had spent enough nights under Damokles’s nose that I was certain we wouldn’t be interrupted if I didn’t stay in it too long.

Morina turned back to me when she felt me change. She gazed up at my naked torso with hunger in her eye.

“And so you seek to torment me?” she asked.

“No,” I said, and when she reached up to touch my breasts, I caught her wrists to stop her. “No, I’m not trying to torment you.” I slid down her body and between her thighs. “I can’t give myself to you just yet, Morina. I hope you understand, but this…” I worked the laces of her breeches open. “This I can give to you.”

Comprehension dawned on her features and her lips parted as I drew her breeches down her thighs to expose her sex. I couldn’t give all of myself to her, for so many reasons, but there was one thing I could do.

I ran my lips down the shield of snowy fur at her mound. I moved lower, angling my head and pressing a feather-soft kiss against the tip of her sex. Her sex and the rest of her body responded immediately at that small touch, stiffening in arousal as she raised her arms above her head and caught hold of the headboard.

I gazed up at her and asked, “Do you mind?” I recalled how adamantly against such an act Iliaria had initially been.

Morina shook her head, apparently not sharing the same qualms. “No.”

I settled comfortably between her thighs and explored the folds of her heated flesh with my fingertips. I traced her Nod Dragoste and admired how her body reacted to my touch, how her muscles constricted as the pleasure echoed and unraveled through her limbs.

“How long has it been, Morina?” I whispered against her sex and the muscles in her stomach rippled beneath her shirt.

“Since Andrella.”

I traced a finger against the underside of her sex and her hips rocked slightly. Her sex glistened in the dark with the dew of her desire, and I eased my fingers through that sacred honey and inside her.

Morina groaned and rose slightly off the bed, her hips pressing against me. I slid another finger inside, and her muscles constricted and fluttered against me, kindling a fire that burned low in my own body. I felt myself stiffen against the mattress and resisted the urge to grind my lower body into the bed.

I parted my lips against her and traced her with my tongue. Morina moaned for me, her grip tightening on the headboard.

“May this be worthy of breaking your long fast,” I said and closed my mouth around her.

The wood of the headboard creaked under her hands and I sucked lightly, licking the length of her sex in long, sure strokes. I curled my fingers inside her and used them to mimic the broad strokes of my tongue against her sex.

Morina raised her hips and I sucked her. Every muscle in her body tensed as she clasped around me. Her back arched and I had to lower my face to keep her sex sheltered in my mouth. I drew back with her between my lips and she cried out as I submitted my mouth and hands to her pleasure. I coaxed her body with gentle strokes and soft sucking until her legs began to tremble. Her climax built and quaked through her, and when she spent herself, she came with a closed-mouth moan.

I withdrew from her and got to my hands and knees to crawl from between her thighs. I didn’t know what to do afterward and so I lay down in the empty spot where I slept and slid my arm beneath the pillow, remembering to focus on calling the Draculian form back to my mind. The shorts I wore were suddenly snug again and I drew my ears back against my skull. I heard Morina lace her breeches before I felt her against my back.

“May I hold you?” she asked, stroking her hand down the bend of my neck, across my shoulder, and down my spine.

“Yes,” I said, trying to ignore the pulse that throbbed between my legs.

Morina curled her body against mine and draped her arm loosely over my waist, as if she wasn’t certain if I would let her leave it there.

I did, and it seemed as soon as I closed my eyes, the sexual tension drifted away as sleep welcomed me in her embrace.

*

An ear-splitting sound echoed throughout our chambers. Morina threw back the blankets with a curse and stumbled out of bed quickly to don her attire. Groggily, I sat up, swiveling my ears in the direction of the sound. It came again, a loud, piercing blow that bounced off the walls. The air vibrated with its burst.

“What isss that?”

“An alarm,” Morina said as she tugged on her boots. She spared a hurried glance toward the door. “Get up.”

Another sound rode the air, the familiar clang of steel on steel. I climbed quickly out of bed and pulled on my tunic, tying the ribbons beneath my wings and trembling as the adrenaline started to rush through me.

“What’sss happening?”

“I don’t know,” Morina said. “But one of Damokles’s men has sounded an alarm.”

The door burst open and my heart leapt into my throat.