Immanuel's Veins (18 page)

“No, Toma,” I heard Dasha say. “Your world is bending under the power of the blood.”

“I drank your blood?”

“Not mine.”

I walked to the fireplace and faced them, overwhelmed with emotion, tears wetting my cheeks. “But I love Lucine, Alek! And I haven't told her.”

He sprang to his feet, then rushed to me and wrapped his arms around me. “Don't worry, Toma!” My man was weeping with me. “All's well. She knows.”

“I have not told her!” I cried.

“She's seen it in your eyes!”

“I denied it.”

“She knows, Toma!”

“My heart breaks when I see her because I am bound by duty and I cannot tell her.”

I stood bellowing like a bull, forcefully convinced that I must return to her. That I had to confess my unabashed devotion to her.

“I love her, Alek!” Clever words failed me entirely. “I will die . . .”

Then I was moving, pushing him off me, striding for the door, through the library, into the tunnel and left, toward the entrance. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I strode in long steps. The hall was bent before me.

The others made no attempt to stop me, but they were beside me, behind me, like a pack of wolves. I could feel their breath and their eyes on me.

“Let it take you, Toma,” Sofia said. “Let his blood take you.”

I began to run, a stumbling gait that threatened to propel me to the floor or throw me against the wall. But I kept my legs and I ran, down that hall, into the atrium outside, through the outer door, up the curved stone stairs.

When I reached the main floor, this blood they talked about had reduced me to my most fundamental instincts.

“Where is the way out?” I cried, lost and directionless.

“Ahead, Toma. Through the doors.”

So I lunged forward, through those doors, into another room, the one that had been filled with others an hour earlier, now vacant.

But I only made it halfway through the room before my mind started to shut down and I forgot where I was going. I stopped by a couch and I wept.

Arms were around me. Whispers in my ear. “I love you, Toma.” I heard only Lucine, though I can tell you I knew it was not her. I knew it was Sofia.

I sat heavily, embraced by a warmth of love like I had never known. I felt fingers pulling at the ties on my shirt. Lips on my neck and face.

“I am here now, Toma.”

Then my sight faded and I let myself go.

The room went dark.

“Where are we going?” Lucine asked.

“To find your precious Toma,” Natasha said.

“You know where he is?”

“No. But he's here somewhere, that I can promise you.”

They walked through the grand ballroom, emptied of any human. The scope and beauty of this castle were enough to draw the interest of any architect, raise the eyebrow of any ruler, knowing that another ruler lived here.

“What if he's left?” Lucine asked.

“No one leaves so quickly. You fail to grasp how powerful Vlad is, Sister. How irresistible love can be.”

And you fail to grasp how strong Toma is, Sister
.

But she didn't say it. Instead she wondered what about Toma had convinced her of his strength. Perhaps because she was no fool and knew even by his side glances, by his running off to tend to frivolous tasks, by his silence in her presence, that he loved her. Which could only mean that his refusal to demonstrate that love was caused by his loyalty to duty.

But she could be mistaken.

“For all I know, he's in the tunnels with Sofia and Dasha,” Natasha said, leaning into a door that led out the back of the ballroom. She pushed it. “But he's here somewhere. I can promise . . .”

She stopped.

Lucine stepped up to her sister. “What is it?” And then she saw.

Toma.

She knew immediately it was him sprawled out there on the couch with his shirt half undone and his head in the lap of that whore, Sofia. She saw the truth, but she rejected it out of hand. The sight did not align with her understanding of him.

They were alone on the couch, washed by a low orange glow from the candles. Sofia looked up and stared at her as she ran delicate fingers through Toma's hair.

“He is mine,” she whispered.

Rage blazed through Lucine with those words. Insane jealousy. And utter shame.

She'd been wrong about him.

She'd held out a standard for Toma that now shattered like a crystal chandelier loosed from its chain. A thousand shards sliced through her.

She had been wrong! All of it, wrong.

Lucine spun from the doorway and ran, panicked by the confusion and pain swatting at her.

“Lucine!” Natasha cried.

Lucine veered toward the main entrance. Natasha had been right.

“Lucine! Where are you going?”

She couldn't find her voice. The door flew open beneath her hand. She staggered through the outer atrium and jerked the outer door wide.

“I tried to tell you, Sister!” Natasha cried.

Then Lucine fled into the night.

SIXTEEN

H
eat lay against my face. The hot tongue of a beast. Her breath on my neck, in my ear.

I love you, Toma
.

Fingers traced my chin, my mouth. Teeth delicately held my lips. Then a sting, just the smallest one that left me longing for a deeper cut.

The teeth clamped down. Pain stabbed.

My eyes snapped open.

There was no beast. No woman. And during that first heartbeat against my breast I felt a profound disappointment. Then it was gone and I jerked up.

I was in my bedchamber in the Cantemir estate. Hot sun rays stabbed the room. I was wet with sweat. That breath I had imagined was a warm breeze that drifted through an open door to the balcony.

My dream was feral and terrifying but I had already lost the details. And I had slept so late? A warm breeze meant the sun had already heated the air.

I threw my legs over the side of the bed only to discover that I was still dressed. My vest was gone and my shirt torn. Trousers and boots still on. I could not remember then how I had gotten into bed.

The last thing I remembered was . . .

Details of my night at the Castle Castile flooded my mind. The ballroom, Natasha's aerial leap, my descent into the dungeon. Dasha and Alek, smiling.

That sip of blood burning my mouth and throat. Or had it been some elixir distilled with wine?

Dasha's soft voice whispered through my mind.
“Do you know why blood had to be drawn from the veins to cleanse the guilty stains of even the most righteous, Toma?”

None of it made sense. But there was more. I had blurted my love for Lucine.

Lucine.

Heart now pounding, I rushed about the room, pulling on a clean shirt and a vest. The trousers would have to do. It could all have been a dream, I thought. I might well have conjured up the whole business in my sleep, driven by my shame for loving Lucine and not confessing it to the world.

But if it was all real, then I had to make a change to my thinking. Royalty or not, surely Vlad was a beast who would harm Lucine. My love for her had found a new path—I would confess all to her and make sure she did not fall into the claws of that monster. The empress would have to either understand my actions or punish me for them, but I could no longer stand by without following my heart.

The sun outside was already past the noon hour!

I flew down to Alek's room, still tucking in my shirt. His door was cracked open so I barged in without a knock. “Alek!”

His bed was made. The chambermaid may have cleaned up already. Or he may not have slept here.

I spun and ran through the estate in long strides. They had to be in the main room, Lucine, Natasha, Alek, and Kesia. But they weren't. Only a maid was there, dusting the paintings.

The dining room then.

“Where are they?” I thundered. My voice was strong enough to shock the maid, so I ran into the dining room to see for myself.

Kesia was pouring herself a cup of tea at the table, humming. Sweet relief! Her eyes lifted and she smiled.

“Well, well. Look who's dragged himself from sleep. I was just going to check to make sure you hadn't run off to Russia with your man.”

“Where are they?”

She poured a second cup. “Sit, Toma. Relax.”

I crossed to the table. “Where are the others?”

“Tea?”

“Madam, please, I must know. Where is Lucine?”

“Ah. Lucine.” By her condescending smile I knew all could not be well. “Always Lucine. Please, sit, my strapping warrior.”

I did not like her tone. But she was still my duty and I couldn't dismiss her. So I forced myself to sit and tried to take a sip from the cup she'd poured me. My fingers weren't entirely steady. I withdrew my hand.

“I should find Alek,” I said.

“You should. But I doubt you'll find him here. I'm told that both he and Natasha spent the night at the Castle Castile.”

So then, at least that part of my memory wasn't a dream. I had to return there immediately and fetch my man. He had been bewitched by the blood wine that I had tasted, surely.

“This doesn't bother you, that your daughter spends the night in a stranger's home against our strongest urgings? Please, madam, you must allow me to do my job. Tell me how you know this?”

“Vlad told me.”

“Vlad.”

“Yes. That royal who just left an hour ago.”

“He was here?” I was shocked.

“All morning. He and Lucine left for a picnic in the carriage.”

I stood abruptly. “Lucine went with him?”

She eyed me with a raised brow. “Am I stuttering, Toma?”

“She . . . Lucine is a
party
to this?”

“Of course she is. The duke seems to be set on her. And it appears that Lucine has had a change of heart. She granted him the right to court her.” She sipped from her cup. “So now she will be in his charge, not yours. I think the empress would approve, don't you?”

“But he's a dangerous man!” I paced, torn by this terrible news. “Have you all lost your minds here?”

“He's a perfectly respectable gentleman, sir. Clearly far out of your league. And Lucine is not yours. She belongs to her mother and herself. Please remember that before you berate us.”

She could not know what I knew, and I didn't have the patience to persuade her of the danger. I turned and marched from the dining room.

“Where are you going, Toma?” Kesia asked entirely too casually.

“To see to my duty,” I said.

It took me only minutes to learn from the guards which direction the carriage had gone, and I took after it on my stallion. I realized I had left my pistol behind—indeed, I wasn't sure where it was—but I didn't have the patience to go back for a weapon. I didn't think violence was the worry here.

The true concern was rightness of mind. When one lost his mind, he lost his way, as I myself had almost done, if only for a night. So long as Lucine was in my charge, I could not allow her to be put in harm's way.

On the other hand, the duke presented no direct threat to Lucine. And there was the letter from the empress, which might be read for or against him. Perhaps the only danger was a threat to her virtue.

Or to my own love for her.

I pushed the thought from my head and rode hard because I didn't care any longer. In confessing my love for Lucine to the Russians last night, I had learned how much I needed to admit the same to Lucine herself.

Now she was with this royal! Without knowing of my love for her! How I hated myself.

I found the carriage under a grove beside the road soon enough, and I pulled back on my animal's reins. There was no sign of Lucine or Valerik, only the driver. They must have brought horses.

I veered off the road and circled around to the south, keeping my eyes to the trees, where he had surely taken Lucine to be alone with her. The thought of it . . .

They've gone to the clearing
, I thought. I'd seen it during my wanderings through this wood as I scoped out possible approaches for an invisible enemy, never imagining that the enemy had already been in the house on the night we first arrived.

I rode straight there, far too noisily for my own good, but I wasn't determined to go in like a ghost. I had been a ghost in her world for too many days already.

But then I heard that low rolling laughter and I changed my mind. They were indeed ahead in that clearing. And at least Valerik was enjoying himself.

What if I was wrong about her? I couldn't storm in and pronounce my love if she was laughing with him. I had to first determine her disposition, then step in when Valerik showed his true nature.

I tied my horse to a stump and crept up from tree to tree. My vantage of the clearing opened up when I rounded a particularly large trunk, and I pulled back into the shadow of that tree then slowly peered around.

The horses grazed in the grass nearby. Valerik, in black, walked by her side with his hands behind his back, the perfect illusion of a gentleman.