The Dark Arts of Blood (71 page)

They promised each other.

“An easy vow to make, while we’re still full of passion for life,” he murmured, “but I don’t make it lightly, beloved. We may have a hundred years left, a thousand, or a single day. What a blessing that we don’t know.”

“Well, one day or centuries: we’ve made a binding pact,” she answered.

Fresh air scented with melting snow blew into their faces as they turned and began to stroll arm in arm towards the town.

* * *

Talk of death made them hungry for life.

Now they lay together in a bath tub filled with steaming, rose-perfumed water. Karl was underneath, Charlotte lying back in his arms with her hair spread out and drifting on the water. Candlelight shimmered around them. There was no sweeter distraction than Karl’s fingers stroking her, his lips moving over her shoulders. His hands left trails of warm ecstatic sensation everywhere they touched until she was trembling from head to toe, hardly able to catch a breath. Not trembling outwardly, but with internal waves of heart-stopping sensation.

Their bodies gleamed under the rippling surface. However gently they moved, the water kept threatening to overflow on to the tiled floor.

“We shall be in trouble if we cause a flood,” Charlotte whispered.

“At this moment, I don’t care,” said Karl, barely coherent. “You look like a moon goddess, and this waterfall of golden hair… Ah, I shall drown in you.”

“In each other,” she echoed. “I have been drowning in you since the first moment you looked at me.”

She rotated to face him, her spine arching as the water buoyed up her outstretched legs. He drew her down hard against him, causing a small tide to lap over the rim of the bath.

Karl’s long, sleekly muscled body shone – all she could see of him that wasn’t covered by her own. The rest, she felt moulded to her. His slender, strong thighs. The very warm, firm evidence of his desire left her thrilled and breathless: her source of eternal, sensual delight.

He was pressing raptly against her, moving, teasing, but she needed him inside her now. Where they both belonged. Joined.

His eyes were half closed, gleaming and sultry. His head tipped back as she enclosed him within herself… or tried. A bathtub was not the easiest place to do this – she slipped, and he caught her arms, but she was slippery with rose oil and fell forward, went right under with her face on his chest, then righted herself, spluttering. They wrestled, laughing and groaning, until they found their way.

Then the world went scarlet behind her eyelids. Exquisitely subtle and slow at first, barely causing a ripple… and after a time – not long, for the water was still hot – writhing together in uncontrollable spasms of ecstasy.

Blood swirled in the water as they bit and fed on each other. A rose-coloured tide splashed over the rim of the bath tub, pattering on to the tiles. Waves tilted back and forth as they subsided, spent, lying lazily against each other with their limbs intertwined.

Karl’s lips rested on her hair. She ran her tongue along his collarbone, taking the last drops of blood.

Desire is never about a single encounter, a single explosion of pleasure
, she thought.
It’s a hunger that burns and burns. Makes us insane with the need to consume each other over and over again, to be joined constantly, because this is where we belong.

“Would you really have killed me?” he asked. His wry but serious tone ambushed her. “When I tried to end Stefan’s life?”

“Oh, don’t ask that now.”

“When better? Whatever you say, I shall be content. I’m just curious.”

She believed him, only because she knew him so well.

“Would you have killed
him
?” she riposted. “I meant it in the heat of the moment, but… I think I would have thrown myself over Stefan like a shield and felt the cleaver bite into my own back, rather than harm you.”

“We were all unhinged at the time,” Karl said thoughtfully. “Despite that, we each did what was necessary to avoid the worst outcome.”

“Sense prevailed.”

“And love.”

“Karl, the vow we made… I should feel anguish at the very thought, and I do, but it’s awe-inspiring. Terrifying yet full of wonder. All the same, is it right to decide how our story will end?”

“We can make all the pacts we want,” said Karl. “The universe may have other plans.”

“The universe can do what it likes. I don’t care, because this moment matters more than eternity, more than any supposed afterlife.
This moment
.”

She bit into his throat again, tasting the compelling richness of his blood. Karl gasped. She kissed him with his blood on her lips. The water swirled red, pooling on the floor and staining the white towels. Someone entering might think they’d walked into a murder scene.

“
This
is heaven,” she said.

“Paradise,” he echoed. “This is why we live.”

F
or all their help with inspiration, feedback and general support, I would like to thank Aliette de Bodard, Kari Sperring, Keren Gilfoyle, Jenny Gordon, Tricia Sullivan, Anne and Stan Nicholls, Storm Constantine, Jane Johnson, Juliet McKenna, Ian Whates, Sam Stone and David Howe, Chelle and Kevin Bullock, and my American namesake, the “other” Freda Warrington.

And of course, always, my husband Mike.

I also wish to thank my agent John Berlyne, my editor Natalie Laverick and all at Titan Books and Forbidden Planet, for being wonderful. I can’t express how delighted I am – twenty years after
A Taste of Blood Wine
was first published – to be given the chance to write a brand-new book in the series. Karl, Charlotte, Violette et al. have long been my favourite characters and always will be. I’m determined this won’t be the last you see of them!

As you’ll know from my previous Blood Wine books, I’ve long found inspiration in the music of Stevie Nicks and the romantic, eerie, gothic atmosphere she creates, particularly with songs such as “Sisters of the Moon” and “Outside the Rain”. In continued tribute, many of the chapter titles were inspired by snatches of her lyrics. I doubt she will ever know it – but thank you, Stevie!

My usual modus operandi, when setting scenes, is to use real places and then play with them, inserting locations that aren’t really there but could be, even to play fast and loose with the terrain and with snatches of fictionalised history that
could
have happened.

(For example, dissenters really did try to shoot Mussolini…)

So before you write to tell me there are no such buildings as Bergwerkstatt or the Ballet Lenoir in Lucerne, no Hotel Blauensee, no such cinema or beer hall, no house in Algiers as Bayt-al-Zuhur, and so on… I know! While I’ve done my best to be historically accurate, any mistakes are mine so please forgive my use, or misuse, of artistic licence.

If you’d like to learn more about my work, please visit
www.fredawarrington.com
. From there you can read all about my other novels, contact me, reach my blog and find me on Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

Oh, and as the saying goes: “Save an author. Write a review!”

F
reda Warrington
was born in Leicestershire, UK, where she now lives with her husband and mother. She has worked in medical illustration and graphic design, but her first love has always been writing. Her first novel
A Blackbird in Silver
was published in 1986, to be followed by many more, including
A Taste of Blood Wine, Dark Cathedral, The Amber Citadel
, and
The Court of the Midnight King
– a fantasy based on the life of the controversial King Richard III. As well as the
Blood Wine Sequence
for Titan Books, she writes the
Aetherial Tales
series for Tor. Her novel
Elfland
won a Romantic Times award for Best Fantasy Novel. She can be found online at
www.fredawarrington.com
and on Twitter
@FredaWarrington
.

1918. A First World War battlefield becomes the cosmic battleground for two vampires, as Karl von Wultendorf struggles to free himself from his domineering maker, Kristian.

1923. Charlotte Neville watches as her father, a Cambridge professor, fills Parkland Hall with guests for her sister Madeleine’s 18th birthday party. Among them is his handsome new research assistant Karl – the man Madeleine has instantly decided will be her husband. Charlotte, shy and retiring, is happy to devote her life to her father and her dull fiance Henry – until she sees Karl…

For Charlotte, it is the beginning of a deadly obsession that sunders her from her sisters, her father and even her dearest friend. As their feverish passion grows, Karl faces the dilemma he fears the most. Only by deserting Charlotte can his passion for her blood be conquered. Only by betraying her can he protect her from the terrifying attentions of Kristian – for Kristian has decided to teach Karl a lesson in power, by devouring Charlotte.

TITAN
BOOKS.COM

For the love of her vampire suitor, Karl, Charlotte has forsaken her human life. Now her only contact with people is when she hunts them down to feed. Her thirst for blood repulses her but its fulfilment brings ecstasy.

The one light in the shadows is the passion that burns between her and Karl. A love that it seems will last for eternity – until Karl’s former lover, the seductively beautiful Katerina, is rescued from the Crystal Ring. For nearly fifty years she has lain, as dead, in the icy depths of the Weisskalt. Now she wants to reclaim her life… and Karl.

In despair, Charlotte turns to the prima ballerina Violette Lenoir, an ice maiden who only thaws when she dances. Charlotte is fascinated as she has been by no other human, longing to bring joy to the dancer. But her obsession opens the floodgates to a far darker threat than the vampires could ever have imagined. For Violette is more than human and if she succumbs to the vampire’s kiss, it could unleash a new terror…

TITAN
BOOKS.COM

The ballerina Violette Lenoir has fallen victim to the bite of the vampire Charlotte. Her fire and energy have fuelled a terrifying change and a dreadful realisation; that Violette has become Lilith, the demon mother of all vampires.

Haunted both by what she has done and by Violette’s dark sensuality, Charlotte and her immortal lover Karl are drawn towards the dancer and the terrible destiny that has fallen on her shoulders. But other, far more dangerous shadows are gathering around Violette. To the vampire Sebastian and to the dark heirs of Kristian, she threatens to wreak havoc with their plans to bring all of mankind under their dark wings.

Innocently embroiled in the endgame, courtesan extraordinaire Robyn Stafford finally meets her match as she is torn between the two ultimate lovers: Sebastian, and Violette…

TITAN
BOOKS.COM

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