How could that be?
“Is something amusing?” Angelica asked. Despite the sensual disarray of her hair, she managed to look and sound very proper. Even her bare hands were folded neatly in her lap.
A knock at the door interrupted any reply he might have made, and Voss went to slide open its small, inset panel. He ordered food and drink for Angelica, and then closed the sliding door.
“I neglected to ask earlier,” Voss said, resisting the urge to pace, and firmly ignoring the painful nudge at the back of his shoulder, “if you were hurt. Other than your…foot.”
“Hurt? No, ’tis only a little ache. But frightened?” She lifted her chin and fastened him with her gaze. “Yes, I am quite frightened, Dewhurst. Frightened and confused.”
“I prefer you to call me Voss,” he said, taking care to allow a bit of huskiness into his voice.
She merely looked at him, and again, he felt as if the ground was falling away beneath his feet. This was a woman he couldn’t quite understand…and couldn’t control. She didn’t make demands, she didn’t throw her delicious body at him—but nor was she a shy and retiring virgin, exactly. And she was a woman who saw, and lived, death every day.
How could she bear it? How could she have such peace in her eyes?
Voss would never understand what made him speak at that moment, to ask the question that suddenly, unexpectedly, jumped into his mind. But he did, and later, he found that he didn’t regret it. “Do you know whenyouare to die?”
Her eyes widened a fraction and he heard the subtle intake of her breath. He thought she might ignore the question, as she haddone earlier when he asked if she’d known about her parents’ death before it happened.
“No,” she said softly, rising from the becloaked chair. “I attempted it once, holding one of my gloves and concentrating upon it…but I could see nothing. Perhaps it is for the best.” She’d taken a few steps and the hem of her dress dragged on the floor. It pulled the neckline of her gown awry and he couldn’t help but notice. “I know enough.”
“Did it make your childhood very difficult?” he asked, wondering why he didn’t simply grab her and drag her up against him, sink inside her. Everything about her filled the room.
But…she was different. Everything was different with Angelica.
He turned away and opened the whisky. A quick sniff told him it was only marginally better than the rotgut he’d had during a brief trip to some primitive place called Kentucky, but it was something.
He poured a glass and sipped. No, it was even worse than the Kentuckian drink they called moonshine. He managed another sip and restrained a grimace. Perhaps the wine he’d ordered would be better.
“Granny Grapes wouldn’t allow me to dwell on it. She helped me learn how to set things aside. How to accept.” Her slippered toe dug into a hole in the rug braided of rags. “I have no doubt I’d be a different person if it weren’t for her wisdom.” She hesitated, digging her toe deeper. “May I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?”
Yes.But…why? Why him? Something inside his chest swelled, warming him. The Mark burned in warning. “I would be honored,” he said, ignoring it, “Angelica.” He set the glass down.
She gave him that odd look again, a wry sort of expression. “So itisback to Angelica once more. What has happened to ‘MissWoodmore’? Or is she about only when we are in the presence of your Cyprians?”
The layers of meaning in her words assaulted him, but Voss was a master at paring through to the core of a woman’s speech, whether it be murmured pillow talk or screamed demands. “In truth, Ithinkof you as Angelica, regardless of what I might say. Angelica…” He said her name, drawing it out slowly like a verbal caress.
“Is that so?” she said. But her voice was rough and he saw her cheeks were flushed tawny pink. Then she drew herself up and he recognized tension settle over her. “Were you with Rubey when those…vampirsattacked us?”
Once again, he understood what she was truly asking. He couldn’t find it odd or even flattering she should assume that he and Rubey had been intimately engaged. Not only was it a logical assumption, even for a sheltered young woman and especially after what she’d been exposed to, but Angelica had already proven she had a facile mind.
“We had left to go to her place of business. To settle my accounts. My pocket is now that much lighter.” The light tone he’d adopted faded. And Rubey, whom he had considered a friend, had all but exiled him from her place. “If I’d had a glimmer of suspicion Belial’s men would have found us and attacked in the daylight, I would never have left. But neither Rubey nor I had fathomed she might be betrayed by one of her closest employees.”
“The daylight. So that part is true? They cannot go about in the sun?”
Voss nodded, wishing he’d left out that bit of detail. She seemed to know too much already. “I’m relieved we returned in time to keep anything worse from happening to you. One of the chambermaids managed to get out of the house and to come after us.”
“But you weren’t in time to save Ella.” There was reproach in her voice, and Voss realized he’d forgotten about the dead girl.
“No,” he said. Although it had been more than a century since he’d been the cause of a mortal’s death—from reckless feeding—he’d also come to accept it was a casualty of the Draculia and its need to feed on mortal blood. One could learn to control the blind need and leave the victim alive, as Voss had learned to do early on, but many of the Draculia had no concern about doing so. They had no reason to care any more about the lives of the mortals upon which they feasted than a butcher was concerned with the slaughtering of his cow or pig.
This was by design of Lucifer, of course.
Yet Ella had been the victim of a particularly viciousvampir,and Voss had seen tendons and torn muscle beneath the ravaged skin of her shoulders and bosom. And blood, so dark and plentiful that it was nearly purple. The snapped and protruding collarbone and the awkward angle of her neck. He went still.
It could have been Angelica.
“How much longer am I going to be hunted by them?” she said. Her voice was thin. “When will it stop?”
