Books lined the walls of her mind, all falling open to different pages.
“There’s a position open at the library.”
A pair of vivid green eyes.
“What’s your real name?”
The taste of whiskey filled her mouth.
“That was for me.”
A thundering silence washed over her.
She heard nothing but his voice.
Her heart.
His voice.
“My name is Jacopo.”
Thump.
“I’m here for you.”
Thump.
“I will always come for you.”
Thump.
“Don’t you know how I adore you?”
Thump.
“You are my balance in this life.”
Thump.
“In every life.”
There came a force of wind in her ears.
“Forever.”
Thump.
Forever. Forever. Forever.
The wind grew louder, filling the room as she felt the first falter of her heart.
She dimly heard her father say something as Tenzin’s mouth pulled away. Her body was passed from one set of arms to another, more familiar, pair. The wind still roared through the room.
Forever.
Forever.
Forever.
The shriek grew. There was a banging and clamoring as the whirlwind took over, and she heard a door burst open. The roaring filled her ears as she felt the drip of blood at her lips.
Her eyelids fluttered closed.
Her heart fell silent.
His inhuman roar was the last thing she heard before the black void took her.
Mount Penglai, China
October 2010
Giovanni was engulfed in flames. His roar shook the room.
“
Beatrice
!”
Tenzin held his shoulders against the wall as the fire unfurled around him.
“No!” he raged as the smell of her blood filled the air.
He couldn’t hear her heart.
He couldn’t see her eyes.
Giovanni was trapped in Tenzin’s iron grasp as his lover’s blood flooded his friend’s body and turned her cheeks red. The blue fire burned his clothes and spread up the wall behind him as he continued to struggle.
“Let me go!”
He couldn’t hear her heart.
“No.”
The snarl ripped from his throat. “Release me, or I will kill you.”
“Her father is feeding her.”
Giovanni’s roar was inhuman. Stephen looked up in horror as he pressed his wrist to Beatrice’s mouth. Her lips weren’t moving.
He couldn’t see her eyes.
“You need to calm yourself.”
“I will kill you both!”
He heard another vampire enter the room, but his eyes never left Beatrice’s crumpled form. She lay lifeless on the cushions as her father forced his blood in her mouth.
He couldn’t hear her heart.
“Well, this was stupid.”
“Shut up, and help me hold him.”
He felt the pinch of a metal pike pierce his shoulder and the wall behind him, holding him as Tenzin’s wind forced the flames up the side of the practice room. The air was filled with smoke and fire.
“A little help with the flames, please.”
He saw Beatrice’s throat move once before Baojia blanketed him with a sheet of water drawn from the stream that cut through the room. He relaxed slightly when he saw her lips begin to move and latch onto Stephen’s wrist. Her father cradled her in his arms as Beatrice began to drink.
Giovanni slumped against the wall, Tenzin holding his shoulders while Baojia tugged the spear out of his flesh. He could not tear his eyes from her.
“Tenzin, let me go.”
“No.”
“I won’t kill Stephen.”
“I don’t really trust you right now.”
The flames flared again on his torso.
“Let me go!”
Baojia doused him again, but he still struggled against Tenzin’s hold.
“Calm down, my boy.”
“Let me go to her.”
“Her father is feeding her. Let him take care of her.”
“Tenzin!” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Please, bird-girl. Let me go.” When he opened his eyes, he stared into her grey ones, trying to ignore the flush of her cheeks, rich with Beatrice’s blood.
“Are you calm?”
He finally heard her heart give a faint thump, and a new trace of amnis began to drift across the room as Stephen’s blood entered her system. A familiar honeysuckle smell reached his nose.
“Please,” he begged. “Let me go, Tenzin. Let me go to my wife.”
She drew back in surprise. “What?”
“My wife,” he pleaded. “Let me go to Beatrice. I need to go to her.”
Her hands released him. “I did not see that.”
Giovanni rushed over, taking her limp hand and pressing it to his cheek as she continued to drink from her father’s wrist.
It was cold. The human warmth gone from her forever.
He pushed down the instinctive rage and grief to focus on Beatrice.
The new whisper of her energy comforted him, and he put his hands to her temples, searching for the familiar signature of her mind. Her scent was the same; fainter, as he knew it would be. Giovanni brushed her cheek with soft fingers as her father took his wrist away, biting it open again before he put it back to her mouth. Beatrice’s lips were stained with blood and rivulets dripped down her neck, mingling with Tenzin’s angry bite marks. He resisted the urge to heal her, knowing that any of his blood mingling with her own before she was fully turned could be tragic.
Stephen looked at him cautiously. “Did you say ‘my wife?’”
“Yes.” He brushed the hair away from her face. She was deathly pale.
“When?”
“We were married in Santiago months ago.”
Silence blanketed the room. The only sounds came from the new vampire suckling at her father’s wrist. Giovanni watched her with a single-minded focus, memorizing the rhythm of her lips and throat as she drank.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Tenzin asked.
He shook his head, continuing to stare at Beatrice. “Her idea. She wanted a more formal ceremony after all this was over. I thought it was silly, but she insisted. Why are we talking about this?”
“Because they are waiting for you to erupt again.” He heard Baojia’s stiff voice from the edge of the room. He could feel the vampire leave, but Tenzin remained, moving closer to him and placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m very, very angry with you both, but now is not the time for that.” He continued to stroke Beatrice’s hair, tucking it behind her ear so it wouldn’t fall in her face.
“It was her idea.”
He whispered, “I’m angry with her, as well.”
No one said anything. All three were focused on Beatrice as she drank. He could feel her amnis begin to pulse, and he knew she was almost finished feeding. She would not wake until nightfall the next day. He finally tore his eyes from her and looked at Tenzin.
“Have you informed your father?”
“Stephen and I told him months ago.”
He just shook his head, stunned by her audacity. He shoved her hand from his shoulder.
“Get away from me.”
“You need to leave her with us and go to your room.”
“I’m not leaving her,” he scoffed.
“Giovanni.” She sat next to him, but he refused to look at her. “You know what changes her body will be going through as she turns. She didn’t want you to see that. You know this. There is a reason a sire takes care of his child.”
He swallowed once. “Don’t ask me to leave her.”
“I didn’t ask it. She did.”
A new ache pierced his heart, and Giovanni looked at Stephen, who only nodded before he returned to watching his daughter, cradling her as if she was an infant. As much as he wanted to stay with Beatrice, he knew her father was probably telling the truth. He would honor Beatrice’s wishes, even if she hadn’t honored his.
Watching Stephen hold her, he realized he felt more at ease leaving Beatrice in the care of her father than with his oldest friend. Tenzin tried to touch his bare shoulder again, but he brushed her off.
“My boy—”
“I’ll go,” he whispered. “Bring her to me before dawn. I don’t want her waking with anyone but me.”
Stephen nodded. “Fine.”
Beatrice stopped drinking and curled instinctively into her father’s arms. Giovanni gave one last brush to her cheek, leaned over to kiss her temple, then stood to go with clenched fists. He turned at the door to watch Tenzin crouch beside Stephen and Beatrice, guarding the room with watchful eyes. Then, he forced himself to walk back to their room and wait.
T
enzin knocked on the door hours later, and, without a word, Giovanni took Beatrice’s sleeping form from Stephen’s arms. They had bathed her, but a faint human smell still clung to her body. She seemed lighter than normal, and he was reminded how small she was beneath her bravado. He kicked the door closed before he walked to the bed and nestled her in the silk sheets. He secured the room, double-checking every safety measure, before he lay down with her. He took the sheet from her body and wrapped her in his arms, pressing her cold skin to warm her.
When Giovanni touched her, her energy twined with his, reaching out even in the black void of the deepest sleep. The touch of her amnis flooded him, and it was as if he could feel the brush of her small hands over his body. He lay utterly still, closed his eyes, and waited for her to rise.
When he opened his eyes an hour before dusk, Beatrice was pulsing with amnis, her senses already heightened though she wasn’t yet conscious. The hairs on her body stood on end and her skin was damp, the water in the air drawn to her as she rested. There was no question, she was most definitely her father’s daughter. And with Stephen drinking as much of Tenzin’s blood as he had been, she was going to be very, very powerful. He could read her energy signature already.
He rose, threw on a robe, and went to open the door. Nima was sitting on a bench outside.
“Nima?”
She looked up. “Yes, Gio?”
He paused, unsure of what to say.
“Has Tenzin informed you—”
“I know. I talked to Beatrice yesterday morning.”
He blinked. “You did?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “She was very peaceful about her decision. Only a little worried how you would react.”
“Of course.” He didn’t know how to respond to her. He was angry. Relieved. Furious. Unavoidably excited. He shook his head. “Is there blood available?”
“Tenzin has already arranged fresh donors. Beatrice was quite concerned about not draining anyone.”
“She would be.”
“It’s taken care of. We will keep it warm for her.” She motioned to one of Zhang’s younger vampires who he saw standing at the end of the hall. “Send for someone when it is needed.”
“Thank you, Nima.”
For the first time, he was grateful he was in Penglai, that she had made her change there. No other place in the world was more of an island for immortals. Everything in the palace revolved around their particular needs and foibles.
“And please let Beatrice know that all the human staff has been moved to another part of the quarters, so she doesn’t need to worry about them. I’m leaving now. I just wanted to speak to you before I left.”
“Thank you again.”
“We are at your disposal. It is our honor to help.” She gave a nod and walked down the hall, giving quiet instructions to the young vampire at the end of the hall.
Giovanni shut the door and checked the clock on the wall, before he walked back to the bedroom. He paced for a few minutes, determined to push back his anger and frustration. It was not something she could deal with her first night. Taking a deep breath, he peeled the sheets back to really look at her for the first time since her change.
He had been right. She was stunning.
Her skin was smooth and pale, a luminescent pearl that glowed in the lamplight. Her hair was the same, a thick, shining wave of brown that would hopefully still match her eyes. It wasn’t uncommon for eyes to change, but her father’s had not, so he hoped Beatrice’s wouldn’t, either.
He pulled her lip up to see the delicate fangs peeking at him. For the first time in days, he smiled. They weren’t fully extended yet, but he could imagine them gleaming in her mouth, and he shuddered in anticipation.
Her body was the same, preserved for all eternity as it had been on her last day of human life. The marks in her neck from Tenzin’s bite had healed, but he could still see the tiny scars left on the rise of her right breast where he had bitten her while they made love on their wedding night. She had asked him not to heal that bite, wanting the tiny reminder that only they would see.
The small scar on her knee remained, a token of childhood that he kissed, along with the small, sad scars that marked her thigh. She could have had them removed, but she had chosen not to. He traced over each mark on her body that remained unchanged.
“
Tesoro mio
,” he murmured as he stroked her face. “So stubborn. How I love you.”
If there was one thing he remembered from waking, it was the pain along his sensitive skin. Every nerve ending was heightened in a vampire, particularly a new one who hadn’t fully mastered their amnis and the shield it could provide. It was that sharp, overwhelming pain that had first caused the fire to bloom on Giovanni’s skin as a newborn vampire. He would never forget the look of fascination and glee in Andros’s eyes when he saw it.
He knew she would be most comfortable surrounded by her element, so he left her in bed and drew a warm bath in the large, marble tub. Then he walked back to the bedroom and gathered her up to wait.
He could feel it in her skin first, the twitching, shuddering sensation that rippled wherever his fingers touched. It started on her arms, then traveled down to her fingers, which twitched under the warm water. His arms encircled her as she lay against his chest. He felt her rouse, and she took a deep, gasping breath.