Dark Rapture (65 page)

“Farewell, my friend.” Federico appeared in the hallway outside Catrina’s doorway. “Perhaps we shall meet again some day. But for now, you understand that I must keep you away from Venice. It is best for you, and your mother. You know how rumors fly.”

Sebastian stopped in the hallway. He bit down hard on his lip in an attempt to control his rage.

“How do I know you will not seek out Angelique?”

Rico waving a dismissing hand through the air. “Why? You’ve already given us what we desire. I live for the game, Bastian, but I am not a vindictive man.”

The game.
Sebastian glared at Rico. How snide he was.

“I shall promise to keep as far from your mother as possible. You have my word. Think of it as a thank you for the eternity of life and power you have granted my sister and I,” Rico added, so casually, as if Sebastian had merely brought them a boxed gift for a wedding or birthday, instead of working the curse of immortality on his sister. “
Addio
.”

Sebastian turned slowly, feeling for the moment relief. Perhaps it would be good to get away from Venice and the Bellange twins after all. But the relief was only momentary.

“I wish you only the hell I have endured thus far, Federico. You deserve that much and more. But I am sure it will come to one who has danced with the devil for most of his incestuous life.”

He lowered his voice to a wicked whisper. “When you kiss your sister tonight, Federico, remember that it is
my
blood that rushes through her veins now. She is no longer completely yours.”

Sebastian smiled and turned away

Part Three

Chapter Nineteen

Spain, 13
^th
century

Esmarelda stepped back down into the bowels of the fire’s remains after retrieving the tiny red vial Paquita had once used for medicinal powders.

Adriano’s ashes were mixed with the charred remains of his coffin. Her heart gulped for blood as she touched the soft grayness that was her husband’s remains. Esmarelda swallowed to dispel the uneasy lurk in her throat. She could not cry. Her tears had flowed freely through the night and day. When she had woke this evening she touched her face to find salted tears had dried in twisting trails across and down her cheeks. She was depleted of physical emotion.

“Adriano, my love. I will carry your memory with me forever.”

Carefully she funneled his ashes through her cupped fingers and into the vial. She scooped from the center of the pile where the ashes were the thickest and darkest in color. His heart.

“I live because of you, my tormented love. May god have mercy on your soul and welcome you into his arms as I had once held you.”

Esmarelda pushed the cork stopper into the vial and stood.

“Adios, my vampire lover. I promise you I shall never let the sun quiet my day without a thought of you.” She pressed a hand to her stomach, knowing with a woman’s intuition of the new life that had begun inside her. “You shall have your immortality, Adriano.”

***

Los Angeles, present

Sebastian spread his arms out from his sides. He lay on the bed, exhausted from his tale.

When all was told he had come to a realization. All those he had ever loved and trusted had betrayed him. All…except Angelique, who had gone to her grave completely unaware of his secret. And of this, he was still glad.

But how he could keep winding up in the company of people who would play false against him was beyond his own comprehension. Over the centuries, he had had but a handful of good friends. Mortal and immortal. Francesco, Federico and Catrina, Angelo, Rosita—
dear Rosita
—Herb, his manager, and Gary and Scarlet.

Why did I never become a recluse? Sebastian wondered.

“You never told me this before,” Scarlet said from her perch on the windowsill. She had sat in silence for almost five solid minutes before speaking. Obviously brooding over the things he had revealed.

“You’ve shared so little with me, Sebastian. I thought
I
was your only blood child. And then I found out about Francesco, and now…Catrina and Federico.”

“Just Catrina.”

“Excuse my mistake,” she snapped.

The tension stretching Sebastian’s brows exceeded tightness. Had she heard nothing of his pain? They had sat here all day as he’d poured out his soul. And this had only been a small portion of his life. Scarlet wondered why he never told her of his life? It was just too damn hard remembering the pain!

“Did-did you love her?”

Sebastian sighed and closed his eyes. No matter how the story ended, he
had
fallen in love with Catrina Bellange. And Federico. Though, looking back, he wondered if what he had felt for the beautiful multi-color-eyed woman hadn’t been more lust than love.

No. Truly, he had loved them both.

And now Catrina lay imprisoned in some dusty old coffin behind a room of rotting corpses. Forgotten and unloved. No matter what lies Rico told Vince about his love for his sister, there was one thing Sebastian was sure of, if a man loved a woman he could never do that to her.

“Yes, I did love Catrina. And Federico.”

“So you’ve been in love many times before?”

She
was angry at
him
now! The tables of betrayal were beginning to turn.

Sebastian sat up on his elbows and blasted her with a look that would have frozen the Pacific. “Scarlet, I have lived for almost three centuries. Do you expect a man can live that long without ever falling in love? Albeit, my love for Catrina was a lesser love than I have for you. The love I hold for you runs through my very veins.” He clenched his fist in the air, demanding she heed his words. “It is not the false, lustful love that a man falls into many times in his lifetime. Do you understand?”

He awaited her reply but she could only stare absently at him.

“Ahh…” He fell back across the bed, feeling any argument he gave her would be futile. “I am a man, I do have feelings. You cannot reasonably expect anyone to live for centuries without satisfying the carnal desires.”

“But—” Scarlet stopped abruptly.

“But what?” He sprang from the bed and stood before her. “You, my lady, are in no position to judge.”

“I-I know. I’m sorry, Sebastian. I don’t know what to say. What this information does to me—”

“What you did to
me
!” He knelt below her, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You allowed Vince to touch you!”

Scarlet winced.

“He touched you as only I should! Me, the man who is your soul, and who cherishes you. Do you know by giving your body to Vince you let him feel your strengths and your weaknesses as only I have?”

“He didn’t have me, Sebastian. We just—”

“He touched you, did he not?”

She nodded.

Sebastian’s voice threatened to give way, but he swallowed and went on. “You let him hold you in his arms. He
knows
you now, Scarlet. As I do! I…I cannot understand…”

Scarlet bit her lip as Sebastian hung his head before her in resignation. She reached to touch his hair, stopping inches away, afraid to feel the
shimmer
this time. Afraid to feel the ties that bound them together for eternity. Ties that had been tangled and frayed by both of them.
He had loved before. He has always told me I was the only one.

Sebastian dashed away from her and strode across the room. “We must get her out.”

“What? Who? Catrina?” Scarlet took no precautions in hiding the blatant shock on her face. “No! There has to be a good reason Rico locked her inside that coffin.”

He paced away, nodding negatively as he did. “Possibly, but I don’t know. No one deserves to be locked away like that. Not even Cat…”

“So it’s Cat now, is it?”

Sebastian swung around. His cool glance instantly doused Scarlet’s angry grimace.

“Sebastian, I-I never wanted things to happen the way they did with Vince,” she blurt out. “But things did not happen as you think. You must believe me. It’s just I’m so confused about myself right now.”

He shook away her outstretched hand. “I shall concern myself with you and Mr. Lyons later. For now, I must overlook your infidelities if you are to help me.”

“Help you? With what?”

“I must go to Catrina.” Sebastian drew himself straight and thrust his chin valiantly. “Even though she is damned and evil she has no right to be kept locked away. I did love her once.” He pounded his fist against his open palm. “I must find out what is going on with Federico and Cat.”

***

They drove in total silence, save for the radio, which Sebastian turned up to blasting level. A bubblegum pop tune that was too upbeat for the heavy mood. The music gnawed at Scarlet’s brain and she had taken to chewing on her thumbnail. She was thankful when they pulled onto Rico’s estate.

I do still love you, Sebastian.

She wondered if he could hear her mental thoughts. Hoped and prayed he could, for she did not know how to speak them at the moment.

All lights were out in the mansion, which didn’t mean much to either of them. Darkness was a comfort in a vampire’s lair, and most of the rooms occupied by Rico and his family were inner rooms which meant no visible light from the outside. But the van normally parked out front was not and neither was Vince’s Monte Carlo, so Scarlet felt confidant the house was empty.

Sebastian assumed the place had an alarm, and looked to Scarlet for a possible entrance. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and shrugged. She couldn’t think of one until she remembered the iron bars in the room where Catrina’s coffin rested.

“This way,” she said, and ran around to the side of the house, scanning the ground level.

There were no bars or windows around the base of the mansion, the entire structure was solid brick.

“Did you even see a coffin? Or was that all imagined, too?”

Ignoring his petulance, Scarlet stalked past him in the grass. Her feet fell upon a red-stone path that led up to a utility shed across the lawn. Of course! The shed seemed about the right distance when she thought of the length she had walked the underground hallway. Racing ahead, she quickly circled the small structure. Three iron bars were set into the brick near the ground. She slipped her fingers between the bars and glass and tried them, but they gave little.

Sebastian came up behind her, roughly pushing her aside. Scarlet landed on the grass. His manners regarding her had taken a full circle in the opposite direction since her confession. Or else, he was very excited about getting to his old lover.

Dusting the grass blades from her elbows, she stood and watched Sebastian wrestle with the iron bars. “Pretty eager to get your hands on her, aren’t you?”

One thick bar gave, sending Sebastian flying onto his back in a spray of shattered glass. “As you were to Vince?”

Why bother trying to vindicate herself by explaining nothing had even happened
? Nothing except kissing and groping and getting as close to naked as possible.
Sebastian had already decided her guilty before the trial. And his eagerness to get to Catrina sickened her. He didn’t deserve an explanation. If he could so much as think she would betray him by making love to another man then so be it. He didn’t deserve her trust.

He succeeded in removing the other bars and carefully broke away the remaining glass. The two of them slipped inside the two foot wide space into the darkened room, landing with a crackling crunch on the broken glass. The stench immediately overwhelmed, causing Sebastian to gag while Scarlet held her hand over her mouth and nose.

“Should have brought a flashlight,” he choked.

Scarlet still had the lighter in her coat pocket. The tiny flame brightened the air around them in a circle about five feet wide.

She plugged her nose and spoke,” You still think I’m lying about the dead bodies? Have a look over here.” She thrust the lighter through the door hole and Sebastian gazed across the carnage.

“It does not surprise me at all,” he said, clearing his throat.

“It’s running out of butane,” she said.

“Yes, I noticed. Flick it quickly so I can see what I’m working with and then leave me to take care of things.”

“Certainly, your highness.” She caught his jarring glare as the light flashed over his face and then flickered out.

Standing in the center of the room, Scarlet listened as Sebastian’s hand ran over the cold chains and his boots stepped from one end of the coffin to the other, crackling over bits of glass and debris. She heard a buzzing and jumped when the wings of a corpse fly passed over her nose. Her aversions lurched to her throat and she reached out, feeling Sebastian’s shoulder.

“Hurry up, or I promise you, I’ll puke.”

“So eloquent you are, my lady.” He shrugged off her touch. “Are these the charms that attracted your lover?”

But I didn’t make love to Vince!

But why should he believe her when he already assumed the opposite? If only he would have let her tell him everything. If only she felt compelled to tell him. For some reason it didn’t matter at the moment. Defiance rushed through her veins.

“Well…at least Vince lets me do as I please.”

“And that would be killing innocent mortals and leaving them to lie in a putrid pit of hell?”

“I did not partake in anything that lies in that stinking room! Though it burns me to admit that I wish I
had
just for the chance at forsaking you and your stupid rules.”

Sebastian’s hand lashed through the air, catching Scarlet’s wrist in his iron grip. “I have never forced you to do a thing, Madame, that would cause you harm, or irrevocable damage such as what I witnessed last night. You were mad when you came home.

“Vincent Lyons, on the other hand, is a miserable excuse for a vampire, as is his fiendish friend, Federico Bellange. They prey on the weakness and fear of mortals. They have no respect for the human condition and I shall never consider them to be a part of my race. They are animals! As you would plainly see should I thrust you into the next room.”

His breath hissed across her face. Scarlet tugged back, but Sebastian clutched her tightly and pulled her to his chest. “Can you not see what you have done to me by taking up with these men? You are my soul, Scarlet. I trusted you!”