Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) (4 page)

“I will try,” Snow said and allowed Antoine to pour a little more blood into his mouth. It was cold on his tongue and he swallowed it quickly. A sense of calm returned as it flowed into him, making him sleepy. “Prince. Snow. Winter skies.”

It swam around his head, the melody haunting him and chasing sleep away.

“I am sure it will come to you, Brother.” Antoine set the glass down again and sat beside him, his closeness comforting Snow and easing him. “Do not push yourself.”

“Stay a while,” Snow mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open. He didn’t want to be alone. “Will you?”

“Of course,” Antoine said.

Sleep tried to overcome Snow but he fought it, not wanting to waste this precious time with his brother. He didn’t know when the bloodlust would win and grip him again, and right now he feared next time it wouldn’t let go. Right now, he wanted to be normal again.

“How long was I out?” he whispered and blinked rapidly, trying to keep sleep at bay a little longer. He should have refused the blood. It always made him sleepy when he was recovering. “You look like shit.”

Antoine smiled but it didn’t lift the darkness from under his eyes. “It was over three weeks ago that Chica took you down.”

Twenty-one days. It scared the hell out of Snow.

Antoine’s voice was hoarse, strained as he spoke. “I thought I had lost you this time.”

Tears rose into Snow’s eyes, mirrored in Antoine’s, and he fought to stop them from falling. He didn’t know what to tell his brother. He wanted to tell him that if he had known that he had been scaring him, he would have battled his bloodlust and overcome it to take away his fear and his pain, but it would be a lie. How many times had he lied to his brother?

Too many times, and always about the same thing.

He had promised Antoine that he would fight and he would live, and he would never succumb to the temptation death presented.

It was becoming impossible to keep that promise.

“I am back now,” Snow said, voice thick with emotions that felt more like a burden each day longer that he lived.

Snow wished he could offer his brother more comfort. He wasn’t sure if he would come back from the next bout of bloodlust. He was surprised he had come back from this one. He glanced at his wrists again. The blood on them had been fresh when he had woken, no more than an hour old, yet all the cuts had been nothing but scars.

Snow fell quiet, allowing Antoine to talk to him, his mind elsewhere. The healed cuts and the sleep. The sanity. Someone had been with him and whoever they were, they knew how to calm him.

They had sung to him in the old language.

That was why he had spoken it to Antoine.

Snow couldn’t recall the last time he had spoken it before today. It had been centuries or possibly more. Had he spoken it since Antoine was born? He didn’t think he had.

It hadn’t been a dream.

Someone had been here in this room with him.

A female who smelled of lily of the valley and snow.

A woman who had sung in the language of his homeland.

A song for a prince and an angel.

He sung fragments of it in his head, trying to recall it all. The more he tried to remember, the harder it became to keep his eyes open. His eyelids dropped once, twice, his vision swimming whenever he managed to get them open again, and then fell and darkness claimed him.

S
now wasn’t sure how long he slept. When he came around, Antoine was gone and Lilah was there in the wooden chair to the right of his four-poster bed, her greeting smile bright and cheerful. His gaze flickered to the mahogany panelled door beyond her.

“He hasn’t been gone long,” she said as though reading his thoughts and leaned to her left, towards the ebony nightstand. The action caused the loose lower half of her black empire-line camisole top to sway with her, brushing the waist of her dark blue jeans. She picked up the tattered book from on top of the small cupboard and settled back in her chair. “Would you like me to read to you?”

Snow shook his head and she set the book back down but made no move to leave. “I do not require a babysitter, Lilah.”

Her pretty face darkened into a frown, turning her golden eyes the colour of rich amber, and he silently apologised for his harsh words. He normally enjoyed Lilah’s company, even when chained to his bed as he was now, a situation that would have embarrassed him once but no longer bothered him.

At least Antoine had pulled the covers up over his chest, giving him some dignity, and had cleaned the blood from his arms and torso. Or perhaps Lilah had.

She had taken to him shortly after her turning and it had been nice to have someone else to talk to and spend time with in his room, but he wasn’t in the mood for company tonight.

He was tired, cranky, and hungry.

If he requested blood, Antoine would come running, fretting that he needed more. He would have to admit that he had been thirsting again, drinking more than a normal vampire should, let alone one affected by a vicious affliction like the one that constantly rode him.

Antoine would be disappointed.

Snow didn’t want to be something like that to his brother.

Lilah bounced back with a smile and a flick of her long chestnut hair over her shoulder. “I know who does need a babysitter.”

Snow raised a single eyebrow, intrigued by her statement. “Who?”

“Callum and Kristina.”

Both eyebrows shot up now. “The babies came?”

God damn it. He had wanted to be sane when they had arrived so he could celebrate the births with everyone. Had they celebrated the arrival of the twins without him?

Snow paused and derailed that thought. No good would come of it. He was already too attached to those at the theatre and had come to depend upon them. Part of him actually wanted to recover and defeat his bloodlust, hoping he would then be able to spend more time with them and become a more active member of the theatre staff. He wasn’t even sure when he had begun to desire such a thing.

It had come on slowly, sneaking up on him, and then Javier had got himself into trouble with Lord Ashville, a vicious bastard of an aristocrat vampire, over Lilah and Snow had instinctively come to their defence.

He had even tried to take Javier’s punishment on his own shoulders, but had come away from the meeting with their elders unscathed.

Snow had often wondered since then whether the elders knew of his affliction and that it would be extremely dangerous for them to attempt to execute him. Getting him chained up for it would likely end in a bloodbath, let alone carrying out the decapitation. Whenever he felt threatened, he had a tendency to lose control and turn on everyone near him.

“We were waiting for you to wake up before we had a big celebration.” Those words snapped him back to Lilah and he stared at her, his dark silver eyebrows pinned high up his forehead.

“You were?” He couldn’t believe that, but her wide smile and the warm affection in her eyes told him that she wasn’t lying, and that Antoine hadn’t been the only one spending time with him while he had been in the throes of his bloodlust. “Javier didn’t let you come here to see me when I was… tell me that he didn’t.”

Her expression turned sheepish and her honey-coloured eyes sparkled with something akin to mischief. He had. Her mate and sire had actually allowed her to come and see him while he had been lost to his demon, crazed and dangerous.

“What the hell was he thinking?” Snow barked at her and had half a mind to shout for Javier and ask him too. If he hadn’t been cuffed to the bed, he would have been out of the door, down the hall to Javier’s room, and shaking the elite vampire male by his throat until Javier cursed him in his native Catalan tongue.

Lilah raised an eyebrow at him this time. “He didn’t have a choice, but he didn’t let me come here alone. I was perfectly safe. I know you would never hurt me, Snow.”

Snow scoffed at that. Hurt was putting it mildly. If he had escaped his restraints, he would have killed her, and Javier would have just been a warm up for the bloody main attraction.

The door opened before he could reprimand her and Javier entered with Antoine, deep in discussion. Next year’s shows seemed to be the topic of conversation for the two tall slender males and both were dressed for business in sharp black tailored shirts and crisp pressed trousers. Was it the closed season already?

Antoine smiled at Snow and relief coursed through him when he saw that some of the fatigue had lifted from his face and he looked more refreshed and rested. He must have taken the opportunity to sleep while Snow had.

Javier crossed the room in a handful of long-legged strides and dropped a kiss on Lilah’s dark hair. She smiled up at him and took his hand, clutching it tightly. Matching gold bands encircled one finger on their left hands and Snow regretted missing something else too.

While they had married at Vampirerotique so Javier’s younger brother, Andreu, could attend the ceremony, they had celebrated the wedding at the family estate in northern Spain. Andreu had remained at the theatre to stay with Chica, his mate, who had been trapped within its boundaries at the time, and Antoine had decided to stay in London too. Callum hadn’t been able to travel because of Kristina’s pregnancy.

It had meant that none of Javier’s friends here at the theatre had attended the endless parties they must have held in Spain. Snow would have liked to have been there.

He had a feeling that Lilah and Javier would have liked it too.

Lilah had asked him to give her away after all.

Antoine had baulked at the request. Javier had been more than a little wary too.

Snow had been proud. He had walked her down the middle aisle of the theatre towards the stage with her arm draped over his and all eyes on them, and he hadn’t made one mistake or suffered even a momentary flicker of bloodlust.

Of course, Antoine hadn’t shut up then. He had spent the night saying how Snow was recovering and would be free of his bloodlust before long. The bloodlust already drove him mad. He didn’t need his brother’s repetitive nonsense relentlessly shoving him towards insanity too.

Lilah rose, led Javier across the room and whispered something to Antoine as though a two thousand year old vampire such as himself wouldn’t be able to hear it. She wanted Callum to come with the babies.

Snow wasn’t sure how he felt about meeting squalling babes while chained to a bed, but he had helped raise Antoine around a thousand years ago. He wasn’t averse to small people. They were often amusing. Antoine had always been doing something ridiculously stupid.

Snow smiled at that.

Everyone looked at him as though he had gone insane again and he noted with a frown that they were all holding their breath. He scowled at them.

“I was recalling the time Antoine wet—” Snow flinched when Antoine’s hand slammed over his mouth and his fangs cut into his lower lip.

“Play nice.” Antoine glared at him, looking for all the world as though he wished Snow was mad with bloodlust again and unable to resume his normal duty of driving him crazy or embarrassing him.

Antoine slowly removed his hand, giving him a pointed look that warned he would have him gagged again in a millisecond if he attempted to mention all the times he had wet the bed as a child.

Snow grinned, flashing fangs. Antoine’s face fell.

“I did not mean to hurt you,” Antoine said.

Snow shrugged it off and licked his fangs clean. It wasn’t the first time his fangs had ended up a little bloodied because of Antoine, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Javier led Lilah from the room and Snow tracked them with his senses. They were heading towards the end of the black and gold corridor at his back. A knock sounded. A door opened. A baby wailed.

“You used to sound like that.” Snow smiled at Antoine when he looked displeased. “You would cry like a wild thing all day long. I used to have to bring you to my room and into my bed if I wanted to get any sleep.”

“You are certainly talkative tonight.” Antoine smiled at last and Snow nodded. He was feeling brighter. The sleep and blood had done him good, but the darkness was still pushing inside him, trying to break free and consume him again.

And the scent of lily of the valley and snow still haunted him.

“You are certain no one else visited me?” Snow couldn’t shake the feeling that a stranger had been with him, singing to him in his native language, soothing him out of his bloodlust and into sleep.

Antoine nodded and a flicker of concern lit his blue eyes. He opened his mouth and an almighty wail cut him off. It seemed the twins had voices and wanted to make themselves known.

Callum appeared in the doorway, wearing a rumpled black t-shirt, creased black trousers and no shoes.

Fatigue dulled Callum’s green eyes, the dark crescents beneath them making Antoine look as though he had been catching twelve hours sleep a day, and his short black hair was wild on top, as though he had shoved his fingers through it every second of the night. His lips compressed into a thin line and he struggled with the writhing babies. Both of them sported a head of dark hair and matching deep crimson romper suits that covered them from toe to wrist.

Snow flinched when one of them hit a high note, screaming it at the top of their little lungs, driving the noise like a spear through his ears and into his brain.

Delightful.

He couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the twin bundles of fury though, and the fact that Callum had to battle to keep them both in his arms. Little demons. They needed a pointed tail on those red suits and a pair of horns each.

Callum made a beeline for the chair near Snow and sat on it swiftly, a degree of his tension leaving him the moment his backside hit the wood. Snow agreed with his move. The way the babes were wriggling, there was a likelihood that Callum would drop one at some point. A fall from chair height was better than a fall from over five foot. At their tender age, they were vulnerable and weak, and could break bones as easily as a mortal babe could.

“They seem… rambunctious.” Snow grinned at Callum, feeling genuinely amused by the tiny terrors and their father’s dire efforts to contain and calm them, until Callum moved them so Snow could see them fully.