Chapter 19
As Oriel had expected, Cosette seemed terrified of the crowd. They stood in the town square of Barrow, a city approximately a hundred miles from the lodge, waiting for the show to begin. Her eyes widened as she clutched onto his arm with a grip bound to leave bruises. It was a good thing vampires healed fast.
He turned his attention away from her and inconspicuously sniffed the air as he caught a faint whiff of something that stood out from the human audience—the fresh scent of vampire.
He carefully scanned the crowd but failed to locate the source. At least not until someone leaped out from the small booth they called a mansion designed to look like the set of a throne room. He was dressed from head to toe in red while wearing a jester crown.
This was the vampire.
“Listen well!” the vampire actor cried over the heads of the crowd, and everyone fell into an immediate hush. Cosette’s grip tightened on his arm. “This is a tale of the bard and the king. My heart has broken. A tragedy awaits. But alas! Everything is not as it seems.”
A flutter of fabric moved in front of the jester in waves, and when the fabric dropped to the ground, he disappeared, a woman now in his place. Well, not quite a woman. It was a man dressed as a woman, but he had enough boyish features to look the part. He wore a long, blond wig, and his figure would have appeared all too flat if it hadn’t been for the front of the dress stuffed with straw.
The man-woman began his soliloquy. The words touched Oriel’s heart with emotion. He understood all too well of the loneliness the actor spoke of. If it hadn’t been for Cosette’s appearance in his life, he would resemble the character far more than he was comfortable with.
“That male is a vampire,” Cosette whispered, glancing up at him with concern in her eyes. “Should we be worried?”
“Not at all,” he murmured quietly as he patted her hand wrapped around his arm. “Outside of Ichor Knell, vampires live among humans. They’re safe as long as no one knows what they really are. If humans found out…”
“Humans would kill the vampire?”
Distress entered her eyes, and only then did he realize his mistake. They were vampires among humans.
“You don’t need to worry, dear,” he reassured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re quite safe with me.”
“Will you stop jabbering to your swain?” a man grumbled behind them. “I’m trying to listen.”
Cosette’s arm tightened, her distress only growing. Oriel offered the man an apologetic smile and steered her a little farther away to put distance between them. Biting his lip, he glanced down at her pale face. Her chest rose and fell rapidly on the verge of panic.
“I want to go home,” she whispered, casting her eyes about as if at any moment, someone might spring forward and attack them.
He frowned. “And what home do you refer to?”
Did she want to return to the Ichor Knell castle with her father? Did she wish to seek refuge in the comfort of her new home at his estate? Or did she simply refer to home as the lodge they had been staying at for a couple of weeks?
She didn’t get the chance to answer, as someone pulled a sword out, and she shrieked at the sound, burying her face into his chest. However, the sound had come from the stage—a blunt, harmless sword. It wasn’t even made of iron, but of steel. Although the weapon might hurt them if someone decided to use it, as vampires, the damage would heal quickly.
“You are safe with me,” he murmured as he stroked her hair, only hoping she felt safe at his side. “But if you truly wish to go home, I will take you. Come along now. We don’t want to attract any attention.”
With a protective arm around her shoulders, he steered her away from the crowd intently watching the play, none of whom gave them a second glance as they passed. He very nearly pulled them into the shadows to materialize them, but his eyes lit up with an idea.
He took her hand and guided her up the outside stairs of a nearby building and then up a second flight of stairs leading to the roof. They had a great view of the performance from up here, and with their vampire hearing, they could easily hear the words despite being so far away.
“Now, just give it a chance,” he said with a reassuring smile, hoping against hope she wouldn’t run away. “We are distanced from the crowd. No one can hurt us from up here. And we can hear just fine. Do you still wish to leave, or are you willing to give this a try?”
Fear remained in her eyes, but after long, hesitant contemplation, she finally nodded.
“All right.”
He sighed with relief. He loved her courage when she decided to face her fears. She certainly had come a long way since they’d met.
They sat beside each other on the roof, watching the play unfold in a collage of colors, unexpected scenes, and dialogue. Not a single word escaped Cosette’s mouth, but rather, she held her arms tight around herself, clearly withdrawing.
“Will you tell me what’s on your mind?” He turned his attention away from the play to look at his beautiful mate beside him. She truly looked ravishing in her red dress, which flattered her ivory complexion.
“I…” she started but then stopped. She bit her plump, pink lip.
“Yes?” he asked softly, hoping to coax words out.
“I am just ashamed of myself, is all,” she whispered, hanging her head. “I am not brave like you. You…you deserve better than me.”
He shook his head. “What an absurd thing to say. If anything, I do not deserve you.” He wasn’t sure how to explain how he felt. At least not without scaring her away. “I am rather…enamored with you.”
“With me?” She raised a dubious eyebrow. “Even though I’ve spent the better part of our union hiding from you?”
“So you are admitting it now? I am really terrifying?”
“Yes,” she breathed all too quickly.
His stomach dropped unpleasantly, and he turned away from her to steel his emotions. He pulled a leg to his chest and rested his chin on his knee while allowing the other leg to dangle over the side of the roof. In all his life, he had never been called terrifying. Did she think he would hurt her?
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he replied quietly when he trusted his voice enough not to waver.
To his surprise, she leaned closer to him, resting her hand on his knee, her gaze penetrating. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she replied earnestly. “All my courting attempts have ended up as incredible failures. You scare me because this is working, and I don’t understand why. I don’t know why you have tried so hard. I don’t know why you decided I was worth the effort. No one else has ever thought as much.”
His heart lightened considerably, and he placed his hand on top of hers where it rested on his knee. “I like your explanation much better than my imaginings.” He chuckled. “I am feeling selfish right now when I say I am glad your courting endeavors didn’t work out. Otherwise, I would never have had the chance to be here with you. And you, my dear Cosette, are most certainly worth the effort. I think our union was the best decision I have ever made.”
She stared back at him with wide eyes, and for several long moments, she said nothing. He started to wonder if he had said something wrong when she closed the distance between them in a flash of movement. She kissed him forcibly enough to startle him, but he quickly recovered and melted into the kiss, wrapping his arms around her waist and returning her affection with soft kisses of his own. A passion sparked inside him as he tangled his fingers in her hair. Oh, how he loved this female. There wasn’t anything in the world he wouldn’t do for her.
Cosette ended the kiss, much to his dismay. He threw a bucket of cold water over the hot coals in his belly to dampen his passion.
“If you’re trying to make me wish I chose someone else, you’re doing an awful job at it,” he teased as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I’m quite content to be spending my days with you.”
“Me too,” she murmured.
They continued to watch the theater below. Oriel had already missed most of it, and he found it difficult to piece together as it continued on.
The same man-woman from earlier entered the stage and fell to his knees, weeping. The king was dead, and she believed him to be poisoned. Enter the bard who strummed on his lute because he had been cursed to sing the rest of his days, and he sang to the fair—or not so fair—maiden, a tune telling her the king had been murdered, and only she could find out who the perpetrator was.
As the play wore on, it devoured his interest, and he found himself leaning forward as he drank the story in. The maiden was consumed with revenge, compelled by the bard to kill those who she suspected of killing her lover, the king. Until she was more alone than she had ever been. Only then did she manage to lift the bard’s curse and found by doing so, she had made a grave error. The bard had actually been a demon, and by lifting his curse, the maiden had set him free. She was the last to die, and now the stage was littered with bodies.
Oriel held his breath when the king—who was supposed to have been dead—stirred, and it was only because of Cosette holding him back that he didn’t fall right off the roof in his excitement.
“You foul beast!” the king cried to the demon when he took in the bodies surrounding him. “What have you done to my subjects? What have you done to my love?”
The king knelt beside the maiden, holding her limp body in his arms.
“You have done this yourself.” The demon laughed.
In the end, the king vanquished the beast, and although he restored peace to his kingdom, he could never bring back his lady love. The scene pricked his heart. He had been so engrossed in the play that it came as a momentary shock to remember he watched actors and the story wasn’t actually real.
A sniff beside him shocked him back to the present even more. Cosette was crying.
“Cosette? What’s the matter?” he asked, quick to wipe her red-tinted vampire tears away.
“I’ve never been to the theater before.” She hastily wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks. “I enjoyed it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really? What a pleasant surprise. I would love for you to join Laurel and me on our next outing.”
“You would want me to accompany you?”
“Most definitely.”
She smiled and then nodded. “Perhaps. I am not fond of crowds.”
“Believe me when I say neither is Laurel.” He laughed. “If anyone so much as gets within her personal space, she throws a fit. You two will get along splendidly. In fact, I’m sure she will have you throwing a fit as well.”
Her eyes lit up as she laughed. “I don’t throw fits. But I would be thoroughly entertained to see Laurel do such a thing.”
He didn’t get the chance to respond because down below, the vampire they had seen earlier looked up at them expectantly and gave a brief bow. It seemed as if he wanted an audience.
Thankfully, Cosette followed him as he led her down the stairs and toward the waiting vampire. The man looked ridiculous in his jester costume, with overexaggerated makeup, but it made his face easier to see at farther distances from the stage.
“Your Lordship,” he said with a nod of his head. “Your Ladyship. I recognize a Dragomir and a Covaci when I see one.” The vampire gave a dramatic bow, finishing with a flourish of his feathered hat. “Gavin, at your service. I am honored you darkened the stage tonight with your presence.”
Oriel eyed the man suspiciously. “You came from the Homeland?”
“A long time ago, yes. I was there when Dracula cut your mother from the womb.”
At the mention of his mother, he clenched his jaw. Although he knew the vampire meant no disrespect, his mother was a sensitive topic for the Covaci family.
“You must be my elder, then,” he said as he tried to push his negative feelings inside.
“By much, yes. Happier times now, they are. Dracula has been a good shah. Very good. Peace in the land. If only there could be peace for our kind elsewhere as well. No matter.” Gavin bowed again, his red-painted lips pulling wide as he smiled. “A pleasure to meet you. I must be off.”
Gavin disappeared, leaving Oriel staring after him. The vampire must have been at least eight hundred years old. Had he involved himself with the theater all this time?
“What did he mean?” Cosette asked quietly.
“Not here,” he replied with a frown. He worried about what she might think of the tale. Perhaps he could try avoiding the topic altogether.
When he found a secluded spot, away from prying eyes, he materialized them, and they found themselves back in the room at the lodge. The dark curtain of night had already fallen this far north. He grabbed the book they’d been reading nightly together, and they made their way downstairs. They passed by Henry who nodded to them, and Oriel’s eyebrows furrowed as he studied the man. His scent… It was different today. Last time it had been overbearingly human, but today…
Today Henry smelled like a…like a vampire. It was faint. But he swore it was there. It was possible the man was sharing his bed with multiple women. It was the only explanation of why his scent changed so drastically.
He tried to shake off the thought, but it did nothing to calm his uneasiness.
If Henry was sharing a bed with a vampire, where was the vampire? Oriel hadn’t noticed any vampire presence in the town thus far.
Again, he tried to push away his uneasy feelings as he led Cosette to the commons, grateful when she hadn’t seemed to notice Henry’s change of scent. He didn’t want to scare her unnecessarily if it proved to be nothing. Besides, they only had one more day in town before they left for Ichor Knell. And they could leave sooner if the situation demanded it.
No one else lingered in the commons tonight, for which he was grateful. He wanted to spend time with Cosette alone as much as possible.
Wanting to avoid the conversation about his mother, he opened the book and began to read. “Chapter ten—”
“Oriel,” she said with a warning look. “Don’t read just yet. What did Gavin mean?”
He sighed and set his book aside, running a suddenly fatigued hand down his face. “Nicolae’s mate, my grandmother, didn’t survive the vampire civil war a thousand years ago. She was with child when she was struck down by an iron weapon. Or so I’ve been told. Dracula saved the child’s life by cutting her, my mother, out of my grandmother’s belly.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t realize. I apologize. I should never have asked.”
He gave her an exhausted smile to reassure her. “You are my mate now. You should be privy to such information. This is where I believe the Covaci bad luck started. Or perhaps I am only superstitious. My father had grown tired of life in Ichor Knell. He had grown weary of my mother, of his children. He left her in search of a new life. My mother never recovered. She…”
The heavy topic pressed on his shoulders, a difficult burden to bear. He paused to give himself a moment to weld the pieces of himself together before he fell apart.
“She took her own life,” he finally said, grateful when Cosette put a comforting hand on his arm. “Though, I’m sure you’ve already heard the tale. I began to believe luck was not on our side of the family, seemingly down the female line. I was terrified Laurel would inherit the bad luck, but there are times when I believe it was me instead. Honestly, I would gladly take it for her if it meant she would live a happy life.”
“You truly care for your sister, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
Silence fell between them, but a comfortable silence, one he never imagined would be possible with her. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who had come a long way since their ceremony.
“At any rate,” he began as he braved looking into her eyes once more. “I’m beginning to think my bad luck has run out.”
She blushed and looked away. Their kiss earlier on the rooftop came to the forefront of his mind, bringing a wave of desire with it. He forced himself to tear his gaze away from her and opened the book once more, hoping his desire would flee if he diverted his attention.
It didn’t help much.
Clearing his throat, he started reading.
“‘Chapter ten. The forest was a beautiful array of greens and reds when she arrived, yet she ran right past, hardly taking in the scenery. There was only one thing she was looking for. And she found him beside the river. Waiting for her.’” He paused and grinned as he cast a sly glance toward Cosette. “It looks like there will be a bit of romance. Shall I continue?” She nodded, and he chuckled as he continued reading. “‘He turned at the sound of her footsteps, a rather ravenous glint in his eye. No words needed to be spoken. He took her in his arms and…’” He trailed off with wide eyes.
“Oh, Laurel,” he growled, frowning as he continued to flip through the pages while trying to find where the promiscuous scene ended. It kept on going. And going.
And going.
“What is it?” she asked as she leaned toward him as if trying to glimpse the pages. He held it just out of her view.
“Nothing a lady should ever hear. I can’t believe my sister would let me read this to you.” He silently skimmed ahead himself, flipping the page. And exasperatedly flipping another. “Now that I think about it, Laurel gave me this book with a rather mischievous glint in her eye. I’m beginning to understand why. She must be getting back at me for embarrassing her in the library.”
She laughed, hugging his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder. “Are you two always at odds with one another?”
“Most definitely,” he replied, closing the book. He wasn’t going to give Laurel the satisfaction of finishing it. “But at the end of the day, we’re family. I love her dearly, and once in a while, she’ll admit to loving me too.”
“Your relationship sounds like mine and Luca’s. He’s always teasing me. I’ll admit I’m afraid to open his ceremony gift. I don’t know what kind of scandalous thing he’s given us, but I know him well enough to be afraid.”
“Oh, really?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Shall I go fetch it, and we can open it together?”
“Oriel!” She laughed, smacking him good-naturedly in the arm. “Don’t you even think about it.”
“What?” he asked innocently. “I was only making a suggestion. I suppose we will just have to get back at our siblings. What they don’t realize is they’ve started a war.”
“A war you say? I am intrigued. Go on.”
He chuckled, holding her closer. “Zachariah is easy to fluster. All it would take is a few well-placed words, and both he and Laurel will light up with blushes brighter than the sun. Perhaps at the next dinner party.”
“I tend to avoid dinner parties.”
“And miss this? Cosette, you simply can’t miss out on such fun.”
“Fine.” She smiled. “You have convinced me. But I refuse to take the blame.”
A chuckle escaped him at the thought. No one would ever suspect Cosette of causing mischief. She was far too quiet for people to point fingers at her. Her seemingly innocent nature would be a great asset in the future if he could coax her out of her shell just a bit more.
Comfortable silence fell between them, and little by little, he felt her lean against him until her breathing came deeper as she fell asleep. His heart beat all too quickly as he glanced at her. This was something she had never done, yet another barrier breaking between them. Surely, she must feel safe in his presence if she would fall asleep on his shoulder.
“I hope so with all my heart,” he whispered to himself.
Cosette looked peaceful in her sleep, and even more beautiful, if it was possible. How had such a beauty managed to hide away for so long? He was lucky in so many ways. Perhaps his bad luck truly had run out.
Careful not to disturb his sleeping mate, he lifted her in his arms and made his way up the stairs and into their room. He set her down on the bed and worked to untie the laces on her boots. She didn’t stir as he pulled both boots off and pulled the sheets up to cover her.
“Good night, my dear,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
His bad luck definitely ran out, for how could he be with Cosette and ever feel unlucky?
He smiled softly and realized the loneliness inside of him had disappeared completely and he was the happiest he had ever been. If this wasn’t good luck, he didn’t know what was.