Authors: Elizabeth Hunter
Andros only glanced at him. “We did.”
Jacopo waited. He had known for years that his uncle’s friend, Poliziano, had died only a few months after Giovanni Pico. Savaranola had met a gruesome end, along with most of his uncle’s collection of books and papers, during Florence’s descent into madness six years before. The only survivor of the four men who had raised him was the poet, Benivieni. But Andros was always careful to dole out only the information he wanted Jacopo to have.
“Benivieni is in good health, from what I heard.”
Jacopo kept his face carefully blank. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Andros began to unpack books and papers from the trunk Paulo had carried in.
“I have more translations for you to do if your current work is up to standard.”
“It is.”
He heard Andros chuckle. “Your confidence pleases me. And your Arabic is quite good. After you have turned, you will start your study of Sanskrit.”
Jacopo’s head jerked up. “After I have turned?”
Though Jacopo had known of his father’s intentions for years, he rarely mentioned it and never referred to it directly. It was implied—an eternal sentence that hung over Jacopo’s shoulders.
“Yes, you have been with me for ten years now. I have started to note some mild deterioration of your physical form. It is time.”
Jacopo’s heart raced, and he cursed internally, knowing that Andros could hear it. The old vampire looked up.
“Have you changed your mind? Would you prefer that I kill you, instead?”
Jacopo looked over Andros’s shoulder and saw the pathetic hope flair on Paulo’s face. He knew the young man wanted immortality in a desperate and hungry way. He also knew that Andros would never turn the young man, whom he considered “defective.” Jacopo forced himself to smile.
“And waste the fine education you have given me, Father? That would be a mistake, would it not?”
Andros watched him with careful eyes. “It would. But, I suppose, I could always find another student.”
Jacopo rose to his feet. In his late twenties, he was taller than his uncle had been, taller than Andros, and far taller than was common for most men of fifteenth century Italy. His shoulders had filled out, and the strict exercise regimen that Andros had forced on him had molded his body into perfect form. Jacopo looked at the ancient statues of demigods that Andros used to decorate the stone fortress where he resided, and he saw a mirror image of himself.
He gave his father an arrogant smile. “You could find another student, Father?” A cold smirk flicked across Andros’s lips as Jacopo continued, “You would never find another like me.”
Castello Furio
Rome, 2012
Giovanni’s eyes opened. For a moment, he was in his father’s fortress in Crotone, the cold, stone walls echoing the damp room he had woken in his last days as a human. He sat up into a crouch and eyed his surroundings.
The room where Livia’s guards had thrown him was surrounded by a thin fall of water, an effective counter to any of his elemental power, which also filled the underground chamber with a pervasive chill. He could heat his skin, but could do nothing to create a spark. The door had no handle, and the walls mimicked the diameter and shape of the tower where he had slept in apparent safety so many years before. In the back of his mind, he wondered if his current prison was built under the very tower that had sheltered him in Livia’s castle. He did not find it hard to imagine.
Though he could not use fire to escape the chamber, he had immediately tested the walls when he had been thrown in the night before. He sensed no weakness and no nearby energy signatures. Giovanni was completely isolated in the cold room. He could hear the rushing of an underground river somewhere close. No doubt, it fed the waterfall that trickled down the walls.
He wished he had fed the night before. He and Beatrice had planned to feed once they returned to Rome after the party, not trusting any of the blood that Livia would provide. Thinking about his wife made his blood rush, and he was more grateful than ever that Carwyn had accompanied them the night before. His friend would protect Beatrice. His mate would be safe.
He detected a familiar signature approaching, so he stood and braced himself against a stone pillar.
The door opened, and Livia strode in, tailed by two guards dressed in the same clothing that he remembered the vampires at the monastery wearing on the night they had slaughtered the monks and ransacked the library with Lorenzo. At least Giovanni finally knew who was backing his son.
She stood in front of him. Gone was any pleasant facade; her disgust lay plain on her face.
“I suppose you think you are quite safe because I was forced to take you in front of witnesses.”
He said nothing, but a small smile touched his lips.
“Your son changed my plans, but did not ruin them, you know. I will still kill you.”
Giovanni still said nothing. Livia smiled back at him and approached.
“You see, Giovanni, I will be very, very fair.” She reached up and ran a finger along his jaw. “I have spent two thousand years manipulating this city into thinking of me as its queen. I know exactly the words to use.” Her hand ran back and tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck.
“There may be some objections, at first. You have plenty of your own allies and a very honorable reputation. But by the time I cut your head off and throw it in the river that flows under this castle, all will think of you as a murderer and a liar. A thief of one of the greatest collections of knowledge our world has ever seen. A greedy vampire who would keep the best interest of our kind for his own profit.”
He opened his mouth to speak and saw her pause, waiting for the words of protest to leave his lips. She was waiting for him to object or defend himself.
Giovanni asked, “How is my wife?”
The flash of fury confirmed that Beatrice was, as he suspected, quite safe from the she-demon in front of him. Giovanni’s smile grew.
“I have no interest in your common wife. She may be seen by some as extraordinary, but it is not evident to me. A human of questionable breeding with little to no grace? I’m still wondering what you see in her.”
The impassive expression blanketed his face again.
“Lorenzo has expressed an interest in using her as a plaything once our plans are complete. I’ll most likely give her to him. She won’t be any use to me.”
Still, he let no expression flicker over his face.
Livia forced his head down and whispered in his ear.
“Let this all be a misunderstanding, my darling boy. Show me your contrition and I will let you live.” He felt her fangs flick along his earlobe. Giovanni reached back to his earliest memories and emptied himself of all emotion, as he had under his father’s sword.
“I would bear you no ill will. I, of all people, understood his temperament. His particular foibles were my friends for a thousand years. Let me free you of him once and for all. Confess to me, my Giovanni.”
He closed his eyes and pulled away, opening them to meet her gaze. Finally, he spoke in a soft voice. “Livia?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what my father called you?”
Her eyes frosted over. Livia stepped back and pulled the sword from the belt of one of her guards. She ran it into Giovanni’s gut, but he only smiled. Even as the blood spilled out, he smiled.
“He called you the Roman whore, Livia.”
She reached back and pulled the other guard’s sword from his waist. He felt it pierce higher, closer to his heart as she ran the thin blade between his ribs. As his father taught him, he did not even flinch.
“The Roman whore,” he said again, feeling the pull of the blades against his skin and muscle. “That is what your dear husband called you in the privacy of our home.”
“I will kill you, Giovanni di Spada.”
He smiled. “My name is Giovanni Vecchio, son of Niccolo Andros. Mate of Beatrice De Novo. And you will not kill me.”
“Dead man.”
“Whore.”
She raised her hand and slapped him before grabbing a blade from his body and ramming it in again. Giovanni smiled, but said nothing more. She turned on her heel and strode from the room. The silent guards walked over, drew their weapons from his body, and left behind her.
He heard the heavy clanks of metal as the unseen locks fell into place. Livia knew almost as well as his father how easily he could escape most places. As he looked around the room, Giovanni realized that she had constructed this dungeon with him in mind. He also noted it did not look new.
He reassessed his options. He would not underestimate Livia’s intelligence; he would not be able to escape on his own. Luckily, he was not alone. Carwyn was in Rome. Beatrice was stronger by the day. Tenzin would arrive soon, if she hadn’t already.
Giovanni tore off strips of cloth to stuff into the stab wounds. With no blood and no ability to manifest his fire, he knew he would heal slowly. He took a deep breath of the damp air, pictured his wife’s laughing face in his mind, and closed his eyes to wait.
Chapter Eleven
Residenza di Spada, Rome
June 2012
Beatrice was meditating to the strains of a Bach concerto when Tenzin came in her room. The wind vampire looked at Ben, stretched out at Beatrice’s feet, sleeping in the late afternoon. The boy had refused to leave his aunt, even when he needed to rest.
“Get up. Get dressed. We’re going to Livia’s castle.”
Hope flared in Beatrice’s eyes. “We’re going to get him?”
“No. Not yet, anyway. But she doesn’t know I’m here, and she needs to.”
“Why?”
The small vampire smiled. “Because I scare the shit out of Livia. I always have. She hates me.” Then the smile fell. “Plus, she has Lorenzo with her. I have a few things to say.”
Beatrice stood and looked over her wrinkled clothes. She was still wearing the loose shirt and leggings from the party. “What should I wear?”
“Whatever you want. Whatever you think she’ll hate. And bring your
shuang gou
. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to kill something.”
She hopped to her feet. “Hell, yes.”
Beatrice ran to the bathroom to take a shower. As she reached down to untie the drawstring on her leggings, her fingers twisted in the knot. For a moment, she clutched it, remembering Giovanni’s hands tugging at the drawstring in the tower room. She lifted the front of her shirt and inhaled the sweet and heady fragrance of their combined scents. Then she stripped off her clothes, stepping into the shower as she locked her sorrow away.
A few minutes later, she poked her head out the door. Ben was gone, and Tenzin sat at the desk in the corner of the room, poking through Geber’s journals.
“We should give these to Lucien to look through. He’ll be able to read them.”
Beatrice went to the closet and began to dress in a pair of black jeans and a skin-tight black T-shirt. She slipped on the leather boots she’d worn to the party. “I doubt it. It took me months to wrap my head around Geber’s writing.”
“Trust me, he’ll be able to read them.”
“Is he awake yet?”
Tenzin shook her head. “He probably won’t wake until well after sundown, and we’ll already be in the air.”
“Oh, right, you can fly us. Much better,” Beatrice muttered as she tied her hair back and strapped on the scabbard Baojia had made for her to carry the twin hook-swords that had become her weapon of choice. She slid the two blades into the black leather sheaths and stretched back over her shoulders to make sure she could draw them easily. She thanked her vampire strength and flexibility that she was able to wield them at all.
“Ready?”
Beatrice nodded. “We have a few minutes before sundown. What are we expecting to happen?”
“We’ll fly up there. Scare her. If we’re lucky, some of her guards will attack us and we’ll get to kill some of them.”
Beatrice hesitated as she remembered Carwyn’s admonition to be patient. “As much as I’m looking forward to killing something, are you sure this is a good idea?”
“If they attack us, we can defend ourselves. No one will question it, particularly since you have been put on the defensive, and I am a known ally of Giovanni’s.”
“And you’re sure going there is the right move?”
“It’s the only move. Currently, Livia has all the bargaining power. We need to shift the balance and throw her off her plan. Making her appear weak is our main objective.”
They left the bedroom and walked down the stairs.
Beatrice asked, “So how are we going to do that?”
“When we get there, let me do the talking. I may hate politics, but I know how to play the game when I must.”
“What do I do?”
“You’ll stand behind me and look pissed off and menacing. Like I said, if anyone threatens you, kill them.”
“Even Lorenzo?”
Tenzin cut her eyes to the side. “He’s not that stupid. He might not even be there. It depends on how much attention he’s looking for.”
Beatrice paused at the base of the stairs. “Tenzin, why are we
really
going?”
The small woman looked up at Beatrice with furious eyes. “For almost a thousand years, the Eastern immortals have left her to her pretense of an empire. She kept to herself. We had no interest in her. Lorenzo changed that. Livia needs to realize that as long as she harbors a vampire who killed my mate and defied my father’s court, she has lost any pretense of disinterest.”
“She’s powerful.”
Tenzin gave a wicked smile, baring her curved fangs. “Never forget, Livia has tasted defeat in the past. She’s vicious, but she’s become soft on her cushioned throne.”
Beatrice nodded, feeling nervous and elated at the same time. She watched as Tenzin strapped her ancient scimitar to her waist and opened the door to the garden. Twilight had fallen.
Tenzin held out her hand for Beatrice to grasp as they took to the air with a quick jerk. “My girl,” she called out. “I believe we should remind her what it is to fear.”