Promise Me Anthology (20 page)

I chuckled aloud.
Maybe my soul was too
old and ragged to have any pieces left to spare for a song.

Be that as it may, I had only six days left
before I lost my bet with Nate. There was no time to try to
rediscover my own passion. It was time to pay a visit to David, and
call in some vampiric help.

* * * *

“You want a nocturne,” David said blithely,
as he sat at his electric piano, working on a small melody.

I watched the handsome former rock star from
a short distance, wondering why he’d chosen an electric version of
one of our shared favorite instruments instead of the real thing.
Yes, he had once used that same model keyboard in his mortal life,
but as a student of music, he had to know that the truest form of
notes could only come from a grand piano, or at the very least, an
upright. Electric keyboards played only recorded music at the touch
of a button.

This is not the time to critique, when you
have come seeking help. And he’s probably still clinging to the
vestiges of his mortal life.

“I want a song of the night, yes,” I agreed,
pacing back and forth. “Something to call to her, to evoke her
interest. I can take it from there. But I need something to
initiate first contact.”

“I’m glad you’re doing this,” he said,
changing the scale of the instrument. He hit a few keys, testing
the sound.

The new tones were too high-pitched, grating
on my already frayed nerves. “What do you mean?”

“That I’ve never known you to have someone
you really cared about, not since I’ve met you,” David replied
absently, still tweaking his instrument.

“What makes you think I care for her?” I said
scornfully. “This is not about love, David. It’s about seduction.
There’s an abject difference.”

David dropped his gaze, but not quick enough
that I didn’t see his disapproval.

“You object?” I said dangerously, moving
closer to him.

“I do,” he said very quietly.

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to
overcome my shock. David had always been loyal since the night I’d
saved him from himself and made him vampire. He had never refused
anything I asked of him. He certainly had never dared to sit in
judgment on any of my actions.

“This won’t make you happy, seducing this
woman you don’t even know,” he continued. Although soft, his voice
had doggedness. “You don’t want her. Why pretend you do, or that
claiming her will change anything about your life?”

“Who said I wanted anything about my life
changed?” I growled at him.

“You didn’t pick the word abject on
accident,” he replied. “Think about what you really want. That is
worth writing music for. You need to consider that your lack of
creativity may be due to lack of passion—”

“You know nothing,” I said wrathfully,
glaring at him with red eyes. “Come to me in two days with a
composition, David. And it had better be the best song you have
ever written.”

“I will not,” he said quietly. “You can
command anything else of me, my Lord. But not this.”

I sputtered my words, so livid I could barely
talk. “How dare you—”

“Songs must come from the heart,” he said,
talking over me. “Lies ring false, their dissonance magnified a
hundred times. Anything I make you will be garbage, do you
understand?”

He advanced on me. “Tell me her favorite
things, how her kisses would make you feel, how you long to make
love to her! Tell me her dreams, what you wish your future would be
like with her. Tell me you love her and mean it!” He slammed his
hand down on the keys, striking discordant notes. “This is all that
I can write for you, without that. Do you understand, Devlin
Dalcon, Lord of Vampires?”

I struck him then, barely restraining my
taloned hand so it didn’t take his head off in one swift blow.
David was thrown backward into his keyboard, both of them falling
to the floor with a crash. I stood over him threateningly, wanting
to kill him.

“Go ahead,” he said, spitting out some blood.
“Beat me. You will only hate yourself more than you already do.” He
looked up at me, his expression not so much angry, but instead sad.
“It will not change anything about what you are.”

I left the room rather than tear him to
pieces, knowing I’d regret it later. After teleporting home to
Hayden, I stormed into the ballroom, then slammed the wooden doors
and locked them. Sitting at the grand piano, I launched into the
Moonlight Sonata, doing my best to make it sound as mournful as
possible. I didn’t want light and love, happiness and life. I
wanted anger and somberness, hopelessness and death. Because I was
only those things, just as he’d accused. They were all I had been
now, for hundreds of years.

I felt tears on my cheeks, and hated them. I
hated myself. I hadn’t wanted this! Not any of it!

I wanted Anna. I wanted to be loved. I
wanted all of the horror of the last two hundred years to be washed
away in music and the slate set clean. Why hadn’t the years blurred
some of the terrible times, or mellowed the anguish over her loss?
Why couldn’t I remember our love as clearly as I remembered her
death? I wanted to feel hope again. I wanted to feel warmth again.
I wanted to unthaw from the dead thing I’d become and live
again.

The sound of clapping startled me. I struck a
discordant note, then turned to see one of my werebear guards,
Nick, behind me. “That was beautiful,” he said, looking apologetic.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but you have a call from Nate on line one.
He—”

I resisted the sudden urge to rise from my
seat and tear his hands off. “Tell him I’ll call him back
tomorrow,” I said sharply, turning back to the piano. “And don’t
disturb me again tonight, please.”

As the door closed, I was already losing
myself again in my emotion, hearing the new haunting and plaintive
music pouring out of me. I stopped briefly to set up some recording
equipment to capture it, then resumed. Over and over I put all my
anger, all my hate, all my hope and all my despair over my lost
love into musical verse that swelled and grew greater and deeper,
encompassing me in oblivion where only I existed in its void of
true singular passion.

By daybreak, I had a breath-taking melody,
one filled not only with anguish but also fresh yearning.
Carefully, I closed the piano keyboard and burned a compact disc of
the music, titling it “Yearning.”

I sent one of my guards to leave my
composition on her doorstep with a quick note that said only, “For
you. Please meet me at seven if you would be so kind.” I named a
public restaurant, one within walking distance for her. I, of
course, would teleport in via my demon, Titus.

Excited but exhausted, I headed to my bedroom
for a good day’s sleep, congratulating myself on reawakening my
thirst for adventure. My wellspring of passion was flowing once
more. “Yearning” was one of my best efforts. I would soon discover
whether it would be enough to ensnare Mary Ann.

* * * *

Waiting at the restaurant that night, I
wasn’t sure if she would show. I had been proud and satisfied with
my efforts in the wee hours. But in the dusk of evening, now rested
and refreshed, I worried that my song wasn’t good enough. I was out
of practice, after all.
What if she didn’t like “Yearning”? What
if she stood me up? I was going to be mortified. I’d have to
pretend to Nate that some crisis had come up elsewhere that had
needed my attention, so I’d never have to admit what
happened...

To my abject relief, Mary Ann walked in that
very moment, scanning the crowd anxiously. Catching her eye, I
beckoned to her. She came over, drinking me in with her eyes, and
sat down.

“You wrote the song?” she said in disbelief.
Her tone was heavy with ill-concealed lust.

I nodded, pleased that she was clearly
enraptured.

“It was beautiful.”

I smiled.

She looked at me oddly, clearly wondering why
I hadn’t said the expected thank you for her accolades.

Nate would never know. And this is still
my first sentence, technically.
“I’m glad you liked it, Mary
Ann.”

“Your voice is beautiful,” she said,
enraptured. “But what’s your name? How do you know me? Have we met
before?”

Answering just her questions would lose me
the bet easily. I had one chance. “Then would you like a private
serenade?” I said meaningfully, standing and offering my hand.

At first, I was sure she was going to refuse
me. He eyes narrowed slightly, obviously thinking that I had done
this merely for sex. Then she put her hand in mine, and rose from
her chair.

“Yes.”

* * * *

Mary Ann was not an easy conquest. While I
told her only my name, she gave me a long speech as she drove us to
my home about how she was not the kind of woman who usually did
things like this, that she was engaged, etc. etc. I nodded and
squeezed her hand where appropriate, but otherwise said nothing. I
was sorely tempted to ease her mind, to tell her that she owed her
dolt of a fiancé nothing, that no one would know of her dalliance
with me save Nate, unless she wished it otherwise. But my silence
seemed to oddly be more of a comfort to her than any words would
have been.

That night, I loved her. But while her flesh
yielded its own pleasures, I found greater ones in playing for her,
in hearing both the song I had written and also others flow through
my fingers and into the piano. Her enthusiasm for my art—and my
body—was nothing short of exhausting. When she finally slept, I
wearily rose from the guest bed where we’d frittered away most of
the night and made a call to Nate, telling him that one half of the
bet had been completed.

He, of course, would not believe me without
seeing her with his own eyes.

A few minutes later, with a little demon
assistance, Nate was staring enviously down at Mary Ann’s sleeping,
satiated form. “You son of a devil,” he said darkly. He looked up
at me. “You must have gone over the word limit.”

“Only two sentences written, and two spoken,”
I said proudly with a satisfied smirk.

“But how do you propose to complete your
success?” he challenged. “You have only one more sentence worth of
words, Dev.”

I had no idea. Actually, I was somewhat
surprised I had gotten this far. “In good time, my friend. Come.
She may wake if we stay here.”

I led him to the ballroom, then played him my
composition. “You should have written her poetry instead of giving
her the standard gifts.” I smirked at him again. “I needed only a
song and an invitation to snare her, plus my name.” I laughed. “All
women are not seduced the same way, my friend. You must tailor the
lure to the woman.”

Nathan grimaced at me. “Point taken. Now how
do you propose to get her to agree to be my lover as well as
yours?”

“I suggest that you meet us at a social
outing,” I said, thinking quickly. “I can introduce you as a
friend, then quickly excuse myself. She likes the arts, so give her
an example of your talents. You aren’t bound by your own rules, so
you can take all night discussing—”

Nate looked disgruntled. “I have none, Dev.
My expertise is in business dealings only.” Old pain and rage
flashed across his features. “You know that slaves of the original
America did not often enjoy free time to learn the luxuries of
life, only the basest toils.”

“I know that you’ve had close to a century
and a half to accommodate yourself with the luxuries of life, as
you call them,” I countered. “Yes, most everyone you deal with in
today’s world remembers you for your ruthlessness alone. But what
about Colette? Do you not show your sister another side, when you
two are alone together? That of the doting brother who never raises
his voice, who buys her every new book of poetry her heart desires?
You must have talked to her at length about her interests—”

“But I have never composed something myself!”
Nate said stridently, a trace of panic etching itself momentarily
on his features.

“There must be something you can come up
with,” I persisted. “Some instrument you have familiarity with,
some form of creative enterprise you could exploit—”

Nathan snorted. “I know how to play the
harmonica, and the knowledge of several bawdy songs the other
slaves used to work to. And I have not played in close to eighty
years. ”

I gave him a baleful look. “That is not going
to do it, Nate. This woman is genteel. She will not appreciate
crudeness in any form.”

Nate grumbled something, then sat down beside
me on the piano stool.

“Why is it you want her?” I asked softly.
“Knowing the both of you, I’d say you were an ill match, no offense
meant.”

Nathan slumped slightly. “Because she refused
me for the exact reason you mention,” he admitted. “She said I was
crude, that I couldn’t buy her. And that just made me want her
more.”

You don’t want her. Why pretend you do, or
that claiming her will change anything about your life?
David’s
words were not only true for me, but also for Nate. Both of us
wanted to unmake the past, an impossibility for us. That feat was
only more so for a human woman to attempt, even if she wanted the
task anyway, which was unlikely. But I didn’t give voice to my
convictions. Nate and I were much alike; his reaction would be just
as furious as mine had been with David, if I were to say those
words to him and ask him to let Mary Ann alone. No, a more nimble
touch was called for here.

“If you want her just to have her, the
easiest way now is to take a potion to take on my physical form,” I
suggested. “She’ll accept your lovemaking when she wakes without
reservation.”

“That is not her accepting me,” Nate said
testily. “That is just her accepting you.”

I grated my fangs together slightly, my mind
sifting through suggestions, trying to think of what would be
honest and also cause the least hurt in my friend. “You want Mary
Ann to admit that she was wrong about you,” I said delicately,
after some minutes. “To get her to do that, you’re going to have to
show her the gallant side of yourself, the one you show Colette
alone. You have to give her a reason to care for you.” I made my
tone sterner. “And you must admit right now, this bet was somewhat
of a lie, on your part. Mary Ann’s refusal of you was never about
the differing color of your skins, Nate. This was about your
difference of propensities and aptitudes.”