“I’ve got it,” I rasp, getting to my feet.I don’t wobble or fall over, so both men seem content to let their hands drop.For now.But they take other precautions, caging me in on either side as we walk up the rest of the long driveway, then a gravel path, towards the huge, solid-wood front door of the mansion.Every step makes the tender place between my legs sting with the memory of what Curse and I have done.It feels like it happened a lifetime ago.To someone else entirely.
At the front door, Severu remains close at my side while Luca moves a bit ahead, using a security code on a pad and a set of keys to unlock, then open, the door.The breathless quiet of Severu’s wealthy neighbourhood at night gets punctured, like a pen driven through a balloon.Noise crashes over me in layers it takes me a few seconds to fully untangle.There’s music, voices, laughter, clinking glasses, and a clattering sound that has to be billiard balls.
Two tall men are stationed immediately inside the door, and they nod deferentially to Severu and Luca before their gazes snag on me.
“We’ve got a guest tonight,” Severu drawls, unbuttoning his exquisitely-tailored jacket and handing it to one of the waiting men.“Everybody must be on their best behaviour.”
“Everybody” consists of more men than just these two by the door.Ahead and slightly to the left, there’s a huge open room with chairs, a bar, and a pool table.Gathered there are about ten or maybe twelve more people – some holding drinks, some holding lit cigars, some holding pool cue sticks.Scents of scotch and smoke and cologne and sweat drift through the air.There’s not a single woman here besides myself.
I prickle with anxious awareness at that, like vastly outnumbered prey, but after the men give me the once over and share a few whispered words among themselves, they seem happy enough to return to their previous raucous activities.Severu is clearly the leader among them.No one has questioned him about who I am.And I have a feeling – or I hope, at least – that no one will truly bother me while I am here.Not with Curse Titone’s name attached to me, anyway.
As if to prove how little my appearance here matters, one of the men in the room ahead sends billiard balls scattering fantastically across the velvet surface of the pool table, causing a commotion of cheering, jeering, and swearing to break out among the group.
“Excuse me!”A high, feminine voice drags my gaze from the men to an ornately carved wooden staircase beyond.I was wrong about being the only woman here.Because I see one now.She hustles down the steps, clutching a long white skirt with one hand, bare toes peeking out from beneath its lacy hem.In her other hand is a small hardcover book.
“Excuse me!”she says again, louder this time.She doesn’t stop when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, continuing onward resolutely, holding her book aloft, her skirt – which I now see is part of a long white nightgown – rippling with her movements.
“I am trying to read!”she snaps at the men in the room.She holds her book up even higher, sending light skittering across the spidery typeface of the title on the cover.The Castle of Otranto.I’ve studied books and worked in the Buffalo Library system long enough to recognize it at once.It’s considered by most to have been the first gothic novel ever written.A sordid story of unburied bones and ghosts, marriage trysts and mayhem.Strangely, the woman holding the book appears as if she’s pulled herself right out of its pages.She looks like some ancient Italian princess with her bizarrely old-fashioned nightgown and thick chestnut waves that fall all the way to her waist.
“Good, Fia, you’re awake,” Severu says.“Fiametta is my younger sister,” he explains to me.“She can keep you comfortable here while we wait for you fiancé’s arrival.”
At the sound of Severu’s voice, Fiametta turns towards us, lowering the book.Getting a good look at her from the front does nothing to dispel the anachronistic nature of her appearance.If anything, she just seems even more misplaced in time.Her oval face is pale and pretty, with a small, heart-shaped pink mouth and absorbing dark eyes that seem to gaze out at me as if from some masterful painting.Her hair is parted in the centre, falling in heavy lines about her shoulders and down her back, and the nightgown is ruffled and lacy, the neckline buttoned all the way up to her chin.The only bright colour in her outfit is a thin scarlet ribbon neatly tied around her throat, the bow of it a bloodied butterfly.
“Your sister?”I echo.She doesn’t look much like Severu.And she’s much younger – maybe even two decades younger than him.She can’t be out of her early twenties, if that.
“Yes,” Severu responds.He faces Fiametta and gestures to me.“This is…” Hesitating, he tilts his head.In the light of the house, I can see the shape and structure of his face so much more clearly.He’s sinfully handsome.But his beauty leaves me cold.“Well, I haven’t had the pleasure of learning your name quite yet, have I?”He tries again.“This is Curse Titone’s fiancé.”
Fiametta’s eyebrows dart upwards, and the men in the other room go still once more.
“Oh,nowyou’re quiet,” Fiametta tosses at them over her shoulder as she pads across the floor to us, soundless on her sockless, shoeless feet.“Curse Titone’s fiancé,” she murmurs, coming to a stop before me.While she doesn’t bear much of a resemblance to her vastly older brother, when she tilts her head, it’s eerily similar to the gesture I just saw from him.
“Is that your real hair colour?”she asks somewhat abruptly.
I blink.Is this for real?
I lost my virginity tonight, watched the man who took it almost die in front of me, and was abducted, all in the span of a few hours.And now I’m here, with this strange girl who looks like she’s stepped out of another century, talking about hair colours?I’m so shocked by the mundane question that all I can think to do is answer it honestly.
“Yes,” I say.
Her lips curve in a satisfied sort of smile.“I thought so,” she replies.“What an extraordinary shade.Like a moonbeam.”She raises her free hand, and for a second I think she’s about to grasp at some of the stray strands that have escaped my ruined bun.But instead, she takes my hand, her skin smooth and cool.“Come up to my room,” she says, tugging me towards the stairs.
“Oh, no,” I say, twisting to keep the door in my sights.I have this ominous dread working its way through my bones.Dread that tells me, if I step away from the door now, then Curse won’t walk through it.That if I go too far into this house, he will never find me.
Maybe he won’t find me at all tonight.Just because he’s still alive now doesn’t mean he’s well enough to come for me.He could still be unconscious.
He could still be dying.
“No,” I say again, more harshly this time, my voice scraping my windpipe.
“You can stay down here if you like,” Severu says with a shrug, as if it truly means nothing to him.“If you wish to stand at the door like a dog, waiting for your man to walk through it.”
“What?”
His words slap me, so stinging I nearly raise my fingertips to my face to check for swelling.Like a dog?
Maybe the words hurt because some part of me thinks they might be true.That the monster Curse Titone has become does not deserve my devotion, and that by continuing to care about him like this, practically panting after him, I am somehow debasing myself.
“There’s a window in my room,” Fiametta says quietly, giving my hand a slight squeeze.“You’ll be able to watch the road and see the vehicle the moment it arrives.”
