Page 1 of Besieger
PART I: EULOGY FOR A GLUTTON
CHAPTER ONE
SILVIO, 2017
COUNTESS DI FLAVIARI INSISTED on being addressed as his wife, yet publicly Silvio called her Mother.
Silvio had never known his human mother—not even her name—and he hated his vampire one… Dulior di Flaviari had been married to a count, a man she forced Silvio to kill and impersonate.One mortal’s life for another, she had said, leaving Silvio no choice. They took over his estate and hypnotized his servants to abide by their charade. They had been married since, Silvio and Dulior. Changing their names, taking on new identities, traveling first through France, then Europe. Silvio renewed the vows he had never made to her, allowed her to hold tight to the crook of his elbow as she paraded him across church altars, ballrooms and courts. Dulior picked their victims among nobles grand and low, collecting them like dowries of blood. Rarely did Silvio enjoy it, and rarer still did he spend a night inthe marriage bed—his numerous marriages to Dulior through the ages remained unconsummated, undesired, and burdensome.
Silvio had clung to a small part of himself—a name, a memory—as a reminder of his mortality. Bracci had been his father’s name—a man born into service to the Gabrielli family, a future Silvio was destined for but managed to escape when he travelled to France. But Dulior allowed him only the names she had chosen—the ones he signed in marriage.
Emerick Gabrielli was the single token of his human life Silvio was permitted to keep.
He followed Silvio and Dulior as a silent shadow, accompanying them to balls and feasts. Emerick was the very man whose ambitions brought Silvio to the godless deserts of Asia Minor and cost them both their lives. As Silvio had been the last heir of his mortal family, so was Emerick—the only remaining son of Stefano Gabrielli. They were the last of their respective families, carrying their names into eternity. In a way, Emerick had fulfilled his grandfather’s greatest ambition—the name Gabrielli would live on forever. Though, now it was only known to the vampires who resented it.
Thoughts of Silvio’s past—of his making—followed him everywhere, like the ashes and the stench of the pyre that clung to his skin and clothes. Silvio wrinkled his nose in distaste and brushed at his sleeve, smearing soot over his palm. A presence scratched at the back of his mind, urging him to return to the room where they had found the body. The servants had made quick work of cleaning the mess and the broken glass.
Silvio kept replaying the scene in his mind: Ingenuar’s body on the floor, his throat and jaw torn open. The preternatural skin had tried to heal itself and patch together before stopping abruptly. Without the Blood the flesh could not sustain itself.
Was this how they would all look one day, when Death caught up to them? Shrivelling, slowly turning into dust—pieces of skin peeling and disintegrating on the floor. Hair raining down from the scalp in a slow, fetid drizzle. Ingenuar’s body was fallingapart like a crumbling statue from Antiquity—not a drop of Blood left in him.
The door to Ingenuar’s study had been unlocked. Doors in a vampire coven rarely needed to be locked, not when its inhabitants could easily break it with the power of their minds. There were no traces of a fight or items amiss, except for the broken mirrors. Every mirror and piece of glass in the study lay shattered, their frames hollowed out like the body of their Father.
And the Blood… where had the Blood gone?
Silvio tried to swallow, his throat tight. He could tastethatblood.
It had been centuries since he last drank from Ingenuar. His ascension to Regent was not a pleasant memory. When Ingenuar had opened his wrist, the liquid had beaded around the cut, enticing Silvio to take the offered hand and lift it to his lips. It reminded Silvio too much of how he had been made—on his knees, on the ground, reaching towards something he did not understand or want, letting it fill his mouth. It had not felt like a choice.
Unlike Dulior’s blood, Ingenuar’s tasted old and left a vile aftertaste. Back then, Silvio was allowed this little drink as a gift—the price for a partnership only the Master Vampire could offer—to become Regent, establish himself in France, and help rule the damned.
After they had burned the body, the oldest among them gathered in the ballroom to decide what to do next. They would either appoint Ingenuar’s widow Scarlett as successor or they would choose one of their own.
Silvio did not care either way. He was finding it hard to focus. They were supposed to leave and go back to France. With Ingenuar gone, there was no one left who could summon Silvio to the Coven. He was free to do as he wished.
Pulling the curtains aside, Silvio stared out the window into the courtyard. He could not glimpse the pyre from here, but the smoke lingered in the air. The stench of burnt flesh and clotheswould haunt him for the rest of the night along with the echo of bones cracking in the flames like dry twigs. Someone out there was stalking the halls of the Coven filled to the brim with the blood of the All Father, the first of their kind, and they were not even looking for him.
Who will the Council choose as the new Master?Silvio mulled over the question; the question on everyone’s mind.
Silvio turned away from the window, letting the curtain fall back in place. Emerick lounged on a fainting couch with his legs crossed, one arm draped over the high back. A fine film of cinder dusted his long hair, staining his shoulders and shirt front. There was a trail of soot on his chin and cheekbone from where Silvio’s fingertips had touched him earlier. They would carry the embers of Ingenuar’s death around with them—fading traces of him on their clothes, their skin, their mouths.
Instead of going to his lover, Silvio closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, tilting his head back, recalling the events of the previous night. Before the murder, before broken bloodlines and broken mirrors, Silvio and Emerick had been in this very room, no less than a day in Berlin, reluctantly getting out of bed. They grumbled in vulgar Latin about etiquette, and how strange it was that Silvio admired Ingenuar but stranger still that Ingenuar appeared to feel the same towards Silvio.
“Do you seriously admire a man who turned a teenager into a vampire and then lost her somewhere in Eastern Europe?” Emerick had laughed at him back then, his tone teasing. “I have always wondered why you are so quick to answer the Coven’s call. Or are you secretly in love with another—isthatwhat draws you to this wretched place, Sil? You have found another lover, haven’t you?”
“Are you quite through?” Silvio tried to keep a straight face, but his mouth ached from holding back a smile.
“Amortal, then!” Emerick circled him, his voice rising; the whole mansion could probably hear them. Silvio knew Dulior was in a room close by just down the hall. She rarely allowedthem out of her sight. “You have been bewitched by a mortal! You are going to turn them into a vampire and leave me!”
“Oh, no. No, no...” Unable to restrain himself, Silvio burst out laughing. His laugh mixed beautifully with Emerick’s cackling. “One vampire is all I can take. I am not making more. Not after how you turned out.”
“Me?” Emerick lifted his chin, gloating, his cheeks flushed. “You couldn’t allow someone as perfect and beautiful as me to die, so you gave me this cursed blood.”
“You—”
Silvio dropped his sepia polo on the bed, and turned to grab his lover by the hand. Emerick spun out of his reach. He wagged one long finger and tsk-ing at Silvio, mouthedwe are latebefore grinning wide. He had not even bothered to start dressing.
“You will be the death of me, Rico.” Silvio puffed, raking a hand through his hair.
