Page 64 of Besieger
Emerick’s expression turned sour. They had only just arrived, and the thought of travelling back and forth between France and Germany seemed to displease him. Seeing him make such a grimace, the Coven Master laughed. He leaned in, their faces so close their mouths almost touched. Scarlett felt like she was intruding, but did not dare move.
“MyMarquis.” Silvio repeated, his voice a low and eager growl. “I know how you loathe these titles. You can choose a new one. You wanted something Roman last time.”
Emerick pressed a hand against Silvio’s chest to stop him from moving any closer. Silvio tsked with his tongue in disapproval.
“What about you? Will you choose a new title for yourself?”
He meant it as a tease—Scarlett could tell.
“Dryhten,” Silvio answered without hesitation. “And you will be myeinvala, my chosen one.”
“I will go withMarquis…for now. What am I to tell the staff back home? When can they expect their master—you?” Emerick clarified, arching an eyebrow.
“Let my secretary handle things for a while. Keep the vineyard running as usual. You can explain my absence with some business overseas. Though perhaps there is no point in lying, he is used to us being away for stretches of time. But once everything is taken care of, come back to me.”
“What about the vampires?”
“What about them?”
“If both of us are here, we are leaving a tower full of mortals and a few dozen vampires, all alone. Unattended. I will have to appoint someone to look after them in my stead. AComte.”
A muscle twitched in Silvio’s jaw. Scarlett remembered how blatantly he had answered Nhalme’s questions earlier. The newMarquiscould appoint aComteif he so chose. Asking Emerick to leave Béziers so he could reside with his master in Berlin, made the appointment of aComtea pressing necessity—sooner than anyone had expected.That, or Silvio would have to abstain from his lover’s company,Scarlett thought.
“Oh,” Emerick suddenly remembered, his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Perhaps I can turn Klaus and have him as myComte.”
At the words Silvio let go of him and forced some distance between them. He looked from Emerick to Scarlett, and then his eyes swept across the others in the room.
“Your criteria for what constitutes good companionship continues to be rather predictable… and of poor taste,” Silvio said in a low voice, and there was a hint of a warning in the remark. Scarlett recognised it as the same tone Silvio had used when Penelope questioned him about sailing across the Mediterranean. “I do not think your riding instructor would make a good vampire.”
“He certainly makes me work for my lessons. He could easily run a household. Either way,” the newMarquisran a hand through his hair and bowed at Scarlett and Silvio, the familiar leer rang in his voice, his smile daring. “Try to behave while I am gone. I would hate to return to another pyre.”
Interlude
IN AGES PAST…
“SUCH A SIMPLE THING…to always have a body…and yet—”
The man’s voice carried; the wind picked it up and melted it like the snow in spring. Ingenuar lay with his face pressed against the moist ground, the grass tickled his chin. The earth was still warm from the afternoon sun. He tried to lift his head, to turn it towards the voice. Every time he moved, pain throbbed at the back of his neck, his vision blurred. The man’s face was out of focus—an undistinguishable shape that stood and spoke to him, always close and vile.
“—a mass of flesh that moves and breathes, that can feel and be felt. One that pulses with life and is meant to be seen.” The man croaked with laughter. “A woman almost saw me once, this petty thing that I am. Sanun was her name. She was plump and ripe, hungry for me, as I was hungry for her. I fed and filled her to the brim, and still she died.”
Ingenuar knew that name. Sanun. It was the woman from his village who had disappeared one autumn eve, leaving her family to wallow in despair. So the creature had been here before. It had fed on and butchered his brethren until it was finally time to come to his door.
But Ingenuar had not been home; he had gone deep into the woods, searching for a herb, a flower, anything, to ease his wife’s fever.
“I fed from others; watched them grow sick and wither like babies.”
Babies… his daughter. Ingenuar had no time to spare for this stranger and his disturbing confessions. His family was waiting.
Once more he tried to will his body to move, for the limbs to lift him and for his eyes to see. He arched his back and caught the man’s profile, only a fraction of a face. Instantly he averted his gaze, as though his mind could not handle the vision, as if he would go blind if he stared for long enough to make out the features. Was this man…this thing…capable of any features resembling a human’s? Had he eyes and a mouth, hands with which to hold on and feel? Surely the stranger had limbs, for how else had he seized and hurled Ingenuar to the ground and pinned him there now.
“You are sick,” the voice said, cold and creeping closer. “Not as sick as your wife and child, but the sores will spread, and your fingers will blacken, and your mouth will rot.”
Icy talons dug into Ingenuar’s hair and yanked his head up, exposing his neck; and he heard the sound of fabric tearing. The figure loomed over him, threatening Ingenuar’s eyes to burn and bleed out from the vision,fromthe pain. If he did not get up now and run, he would never make it home.
“Do not worry,” the voice said. Something warm trickled down Ingenuar’s face. It dribbled into his mouth, making him gag. “We will make more. You will have other children.”
*
