“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I thought we could kiss better without it.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
The magic is broken, the madness halted for now. When he releases me, I get up, putting distance between us.
We stand there, tense and panting like two animals, each waiting for the other to pounce, uncertain if the result will be a mating frenzy or a fight to the death.
“You promised you would answer my questions,” I say at last. “About the voice thing and your other tricks.”
“I can throw my voice.” His words seem to come from behind me, though he’s standing in exactly the same spot. “I can also mimic the voices of others reasonably well. I can wield the mists and shadows of the Afterworld, and I can command the spirits of the dead, those who have not yet found rest. In a previous existence, I could do far more. I could take other forms, grow entire forests in a single night, cloak the sun in darkness, and raise great armies of shadow beasts. I could even bring the dead to life. I was the king of all phantoms, the seducer of Fate herself, herald of destruction. I was Cernunnos, the god of death.”
He says it calmly, almost casually. My brain short-circuits when he says “bring the dead to life,” and I have to hold in a hysterical laugh because if I laugh, I think I might also start to scream.
“God of death?” I say faintly. “That’s why you taste so good. It’s like drinking pure liquid power.”
“You can taste me again,” he offers, a hint of eagerness in his gaze.
“You’ll tell me all that, but you won’t let me take off your mask?”
“It’s one thing to know what I am, quite another to see it. The part I conceal is the side of me I can’t control.” He seats himself backward on the piano bench. “Oddly enough, it was a vampire who locked away the majority of my power. She has the abilities of aleannán sídhe—a voice so dominant I can still hear its echoes in my head.” He looks down at his hands.
“Was she one of the Progeny?” I ask.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a vampire cult, led by a first-generation vampire named Wolfsheim. My parents were absurdly loyal to him and his philosophy. They died fighting his battles, and they left their money and our family home to the Progeny cult. I got nothing. If I’d become part of the cult myself and followed their rules, I could have kept living there, but I don’t play well with other vampires.”
I don’t tell him why I hate the Progeny so deeply. That agony goes back too far, and the loss is still too painful.
I settle into the chair again. “How did you end up here?”
He explains more of his origins to me, along with the fact that his memories of the past are blurred in places. I confess a few things about my parents and the Progeny, but I don’t venture too close to my worst memory. I’m not ready to talk about that. And I sense he’s holding a few things back as well. Of course he is. He’s a literal god.
I believe him, I do. His story explains so much about him that was mystifying to me. But at the same time, he’s so personable right now, and this conversation feels so intimate. It’s hard to grasp the fact that I’m speaking with an actual deity—or more correctly, one of the powerful supernatural beings known as the Tuatha Dé Danann.
I think I need time to process all of it, to really let it sink in. As much as part of me would like to stay and explore other intimate things with him, it’s probably wiser for us both to take some space right now and acclimate to this new phase of our relationship.
With a sigh, I stand up, stretching. “I should go back to my room and go to bed. It’s late.”
He rises, tall and broad, towering over me. “You won’t be goingback. Not yet. You need some time away from Raoul. Time to clear your head and understand what you really want.”
Alarm flickers in my chest. Yes, I need time away, but not from Raoul. “Angel, I’m going to my room.”
“You can have my bed. It’s very comfortable. I have all the cosmetics you prefer in the bathroom, in a basket under the sink. There are clothes for you, too, in there.” He points to a wardrobe I didn’t notice before. “All your size.”
My hand goes to my thigh, to the pocket of my leggings where I usually tuck my phone. But it’s not there. I must have left it in Carlotta’s dressing room or on my bed.Shit.
“Angel,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “I can’t stay here tonight.”
“I told you I would never hurt you, nor would I allow any harm to come to you,” he says. “Do you not trust me?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. This is about me making my own choices.”
“And you will, but Raoul has been confusing you, clouding your mind and your desires. It is time to let him go. He is the writer of a decent musical, nothing more. You need some distance from him so you can understand your true destiny.”
A voice echoes from the darkness, and footsteps sound on the concrete beside the canal. “Decent, and nothing more?”
