Venice Vampyr - The Beginning (11 page)

The cold blast suddenly blowing against her neck did nothing to assuage her sudden fear of him. Trying to stamp out the uncomfortable silence between them, she added hastily, “It was my late husband’s. I inherited it.”

He appeared to relax at her words. “May I look at it?”

She nodded and watched him take the ring out of the box and examine it. “It’s unusual. Is this the family seal?”

“No. I don’t think it was his favorite ring either. He rarely wore it. And then he stopped wearing it completely.” She’d always wondered what Giovanni had liked about the odd piece of jewelry. She’d certainly never liked the ugly thing. But what intrigued her more was why Raphael seemed so interested in it. Did it have anything to do with his interest in Massimo and her husband’s family? “Why are you asking?”

“Just curious since it seems to be such a gaudy piece. So you said he stopped wearing it. When was that?”

“The month before his death. He was different then.” Isabella remembered how her husband had suddenly seemed changed. He’d been distant and unapproachable. And he’d started avoiding her. She’d wondered at the time whether he’d taken a mistress. He’d stayed away most nights.

“... Isabella?”

Raphael’s voice pulled her out of the depressing thoughts. “I’m sorry, what were you asking?” She met his gaze in the mirror and noticed how intense it was. It reminded her again of how he wanted to use her. His questions about her late husband only cemented the suspicion that not everything was like it seemed with her new husband.

How she could have allowed him to take her so fiercely in the study only a short hour earlier and to explore her in the most debauched way, was unfathomable to her. But her body had reacted to him in the only way it seemed to know: with unquenchable lust. She felt her face flush with embarrassment as she relived the memory of his possession. Her nipples beaded, and she felt her skin turn into gooseflesh.

When Raphael’s fingers suddenly grazed her nape, she flinched. He pulled away and met her with a surprised look in the mirror. Then he cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you could tell me more about him, about your late husband.”

“Why?” Her spine tingled with the unpleasant feeling of being interrogated.

He smiled at her now. “Because I don’t want to make the same mistakes in our marriage as he did.”

Isabella turned her head to him. She hadn’t expected his answer. “Mistakes? What makes you think he made mistakes? We had a perfectly agreeable marriage.”

“Agreeable,” he snorted. “I don’t want an agreeable marriage. I want a happy one.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No, my angel. Now tell me, what was he like?” He took the hairbrush out of her hand and started brushing her hair with it. She was startled by the intimate action.

“Well, if you must.” Then she sighed. “He never brushed my hair.”

Raphael’s smile was warm, and it extended to his eyes. The almost predatory, tense way with which he’d questioned her about Giovanni’s ring was gone. Maybe she had just imagined it.

“He was a good man. He provided for me, taught me how to help him run the business. I learned much from him. He was kind.” She paused, not knowing what else to say about him.

“Yet he never licked your pussy,” Raphael whispered close to her ear.

She dropped her lids. “He wasn’t that type of man.”

“What type, Isabella?” His breath ghosted over her shoulder.

“That … that,” she stammered, unable to concentrate when he was deliberately trying to make her body react to him.

“Passionate?” he helped.

“He was a measured man. Everything had its time and place. That’s why it was so strange …” So strange when he changed.

“What was strange?” Raphael continued brushing her hair with long and gentle strokes.

“Before his death. He was not the same man anymore.”

“In what way?”

“I’m not sure, but he was different. He avoided being alone with me. He had terrible mood swings, outbursts of temper. And he would stay away all night, then shut himself away all day. It wasn’t normal. He even shunned Massimo, and they’d always been as close as brothers. One day he tossed the onyx ring in the corner as if it was worth nothing. It was his temper.”

The smooth strokes with which Raphael brushed her hair soothed her memories. But something else still bothered her. “I think he took a mistress. He wouldn’t bed me anymore. Maybe that’s what happens to men when they are married for a few years. They lose interest in their wives.”

Raphael set the brush on the table and turned her body to him. “Is that what you’re afraid of? That I’ll lose interest in you?”

She didn’t want to answer him. What would it serve? Only to expose her heart. He would break it one day—one day soon when she discovered his true motives for marrying her. She didn’t want to meet his eye, but he shelved her chin on his hand and tilted her face up.

“I’ll never lose interest in you. How could I? You’re the most engaging and passionate woman I’ve ever met.”

His kiss was tender, but within seconds it turned heated and consuming. Despite her reservations about him, her uncertainty of what he wanted from her and from this marriage, she melted into him.

Raphael lifted her into his arms and carried her to their bed, where he covered her with his own body. “Now, my sweet wife, let me show you how much you interest me.”

Chapter Sixteen

This was the third night that Isabella had awoken and found herself alone. Raphael was nowhere to be found. Just like the two nights before: he’d come to bed and made love to her, only to disappear sometime when she slept. At first she’d thought she would find him downstairs in the study or the parlor having a glass of grappa or reading a book, but the house was empty save for the servants.

Yet, every morning he was by her side again, sleeping, his body pressed closely to hers as if he’d never been away. Despite his assurances that he wouldn’t lose interest in her like Giovanni had, she couldn’t help but speculate where he went in the middle of the night.

But she wouldn’t make the same mistake she’d made with Giovanni. She wouldn’t allow him to treat her like this. If he disappeared again, she would follow him and find out what he was hiding from her.

***

Raphael entered the parlor in his own home and noticed that he had a visitor. Lorenzo, one of his closest friends, was sprawled in one corner of the sofa.

“Lorenzo, it’s good to see you.”

Lorenzo gave him a crooked grin, mischief twinkling in his blue eyes. His loose, shoulder-length hair and open shirt attested to the fact that he’d been waiting for a while, and the drops of blood on his chest indicated he’d fed recently. Very recently.

“Likewise. I hear congratulations are in order.”

Raphael’s nostril’s flared as he scented the fresh blood. In fact, it was very intense. He glanced around the room and found Dante in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace, a young woman in his lap. Her gown was open in the front, exposing her small but firm breasts, which Dante fondled while he suckled from her neck.

Drops of blood ran down Dante’s cheek, evidence of how greedily he drank from the woman. Her soft moans drifted to his ears. She was under Dante’s thrall. Raphael knew that she wouldn’t remember anything his brother did to her. The persuasion skill his brother used was what had helped him and his fellow vampires avoid detection over centuries. Every vampire used it when feeding.

 He felt his trousers tightening at the thought of feeding from a woman. Not any woman. Isabella. With a grunt, he pulled himself away from the sight and embraced Lorenzo who’d risen from the sofa.

“Thank you, my friend.”

Lorenzo made a sideway’s glance at Dante. “Would you like some? I brought her for Dante, but as we both know, he doesn’t mind sharing. Do you, Dante?”

As much as he would have liked to accept the offer, he’d decided to only feed from men now that he was married to Isabella. He didn’t feel that it was right to touch another woman.

“No, thank you.”

“My brother is smitten with his wife, you must understand, Lorenzo,” Dante drawled, having dislodged his fangs from the woman’s neck. “It appears he doesn’t want to give into temptation by touching another woman.”

“And Dante seems to stick his nose into things that don’t concern him. Who I feed from is entirely my business,” Raphael shot back. “Now, if you’re quite done with feeding, can we get down to business? What did you find out about Giovanni Tenderini?”

Dante licked the puncture wounds on the woman’s neck, got up and carried her to the sofa where he laid her down. Then he wiped his mouth and looked back at Raphael, his face serious now. “He was a Guardian alright. But I’ll let Lorenzo tell you the story. It’s quite interesting, by the way.”

“Yes,” Lorenzo confirmed. “A Guardian turned Vampire.”

Shock coursed through Raphael. “What?”

“You heard right. He was chasing a group of us together with a couple of other Guardians, but we managed to separate him from his brethren. We cornered him in a dead end. There was no way out for him. Nico had the brilliant idea of handing out the ultimate punishment.”

Raphael held his breath, guessing what was coming.

“And what fitting punishment it was for a Guardian to become the very creature he hunts, don’t you think? Nico turned him. He struggled, he fought—a very brave man, if I may add. But to no avail. In the end, the deed was done. He’d made him one of us. We heard of his death a month later. I wonder whether he took his own life. He must have known he would drown.”

“It all makes sense now.” Raphael ran his hand through his hair.

“What makes sense?” Dante asked.

“Isabella noticed a change in him in the month before his death. And he never wore his Guardian ring again. But I don’t believe that he committed suicide. More like somebody close to him hastened along his end.”

“His wife?” Lorenzo asked.

Raphael gave his friend a scolding look. Isabella wouldn’t harm a fly. “No. Isabella would never hurt a soul.”

“You seem so sure, my brother. Didn’t I tell you not to trust your wife? Watch out or you might end up like her first husband.”

Raphael glared at his brother. “Isabella has nothing to do with this. I rather suspect that his cousin Massimo is involved in his demise. Have you had somebody follow him?”

Dante nodded. “He’s careful. No suspicious meetings with anybody so far. And we haven’t spotted the ring on anybody else. I suspect the Guardians only wear it in private or when they meet with each other.”

“We’ll just have to be patient.” Raphael glanced at the clock over the mantle. “I have to get back before she wakes.”

Dante
tsk
ed. “I think you should leave her. We don’t need her to get to Massimo. Now that we know his name and whereabouts, you shackling yourself to her isn’t necessary. She’ll only become a liability and put you in danger.”

Raphael snarled. “She’s mine. And she’ll remain mine.”

Chapter Seventeen

Knowing he had to feed again, Raphael peeled himself out of the arms of his sleeping wife and slid out of bed. Maybe he should have accepted her offer to take Giovanni’s bedchamber, but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep without her and only visit her to make love. He liked having her in his arms at night when she slept. It soothed him.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, he snatched his clothes from the chair and left the chamber, closing the door behind him without a sound. He felt like a thief as he got dressed in the corridor, but he knew if he didn’t leave now, he was liable to attack his wife.

Lorenzo’s offer to feed from his female victim the night before had had a certain appeal, but the thought of putting his hands on another woman had actually disgusted him. It was better to sink his fang into a man. It felt less like a betrayal. The fact that he was thinking in these terms scared him. He’d never been a one-woman man, but it was important to him to be faithful to Isabella. She deserved it. He wanted this marriage to work.

Raphael was quiet when he left the house and pulled the side door shut behind him. He looked up at the full moon, which flooded the narrow alleys with light. Too much light for his liking. He preferred it darker so it was easier for him to hide. But he didn’t have much choice. His hunger dictated his actions.