Page 83 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
Valentina’s smile broadens. “I’m excited to meet the last of the original sirens. It’s an honor to host you at our house. Please, come in.”
The couple turns and we follow them inside the foyer. The high walls are lined with ancient armor and tapestries, the floor with worn Persian rugs. Valentina brims with pride as she explains the layout of the house. We progress down a corridor past a formal sitting room and library toward a warmer, more welcoming living room where Cole and Eryx sit next to a fire, drinking red wine over a game of chess. They both look relieved to see us as they rise to greet us warmly, but I can feel the weight of the day resting in all of us. So we don’t linger. Florin and Ediye remain in the living room as Ashen and I continue on with Valentina toward the bedrooms.
“I’m sure you probably know already that we can’t stay here long,” I say to Valentina as we follow her up the spiraling stairs of a tower. “I’m sorry to bring more trouble to your door, but I can assure you, it was already on its way. They need the oldest of us to make hybrids.”
Valentina looks over her shoulder at me and smiles. She looks like the kind of vampire you’d imagine from a movie. She’s graceful yet severe. Beautiful and mysterious and unsettling. “Don’t apologize. My home has weathered attacks before. We are well protected.”
“Not if a contingent of Reapers descends at the same time as a pack of werewolves,” I say. I see her smile falter a fraction before she turns her attention ahead. “We need to discuss our next moves and be ready to leave as soon as possible. If Semyon is already in the area, we don’t have the upper hand. We’re going to have to find a way to get out and regroup with something he won’t expect.”
We arrive at a landing and stop next to a door. Valentina turns and looks at us both with that tight smile. I feel the dismay of needing to wrench her away from a place she’s obviously fond of, but no amount of security will really be enough. I wonder for a moment if I can pull some kind of vampire seniority over her, but then I’m dressed like a parachute and I smell like sex and blood, so… probably not.
“Let’s discuss it more in the morning. For now, I’m sure you need to rest,” she says as she pushes the door open to a large bedroom suite. And honestly, she’s right. I’m fucking exhausted. Valentina takes in my expression of longing when I look at that plush bed with its one thousand pillows and her smile warms. “There are clothes in the wardrobe, please help yourselves to whatever you need. We will talk more tomorrow.”
Ashen and I slip into the room and the weariness hits me even harder when the door is closed behind us. We stand in silence for a moment before setting down our limited possessions, our weapons next to the bed and my pouch of elixir on one of the side tables. My headache is starting to spike with the exhaustion, so I take a vial with me as I search the wardrobe and pull out a black satin and lace nightgown with thin spaghetti straps. I throw my angel’s dress into the fire and watch it roar into flame before climbing onto the massive bed. Ashen is showering in the ensuite as I lay down, and he hums an unfamiliar tune in his deep, rich voice. Something haunting in a dark melody of minor notes. Maybe something he heard once inBit Akalum. Maybe a Reaper lullaby.
I close my eyes and fall asleep.
CHAPTER32
Ihave strange dreams about snow and snakes and incantations. Sometimes I know I’m dreaming and I come so close to waking that I feel Ashen’s grip tighten around me. I hear him whisper in my ear but only once do I make out the words.
Rest now, vampire. The only real dream is the one that sleeps in my arms.
Eventually, my dreams change.
I’m wandering down the road outside House Urbigu in the Shadow Realm. The fog seems heavier than before. Like I could push it. Manipulate it. Maybe even lift it. Peel it back like orange skin. I wonder what would be beneath. Horror, probably. Suffering. No other place knows such darkness, and I’m guessing it has much more to offer than what I’ve seen. But I wonder if it could be different. If the fog was stripped away, if everything was exposed to the sun, what would it be like?
I keep walking down the road. I see no souls or reapers. The silence has a presence to it. I don’t like it. It’s thick, like the fog.
I start humming to myself to fill the void of sound. My voice sounds different from the way it’s been since Cairo. More like the way it used to be, but somehow richer. Darker. It feels like it pushes into the fog, reaching for something.
I hear a sound in the distance. I halt and go quiet. It’s a chanting refrain that grows louder with every beat of my heart, surrounding me from the gray, limitless depths of the mist.
It’s my own voice, calling back to me.
Do it now. It is time.
There’s a pull to these whispered words that snaps my eyes open and I feel wide awake, buzzing with a current beneath my skin. I shift my gaze to the clock hanging across the room. It’s just after three in the morning.
I lie still. The minutes flow on and on. That voice keeps whispering with every tick of the second hand.
Do. It. Now.
It. Is. Time.
I’ve been trying to push these thoughts down but I can’t seem to. There’s an urgency that keeps me blinking in the dark, keeps my muscles stiff beneath Ashen’s heavy arm. It’s like the longer I fight to ignore it, the more insistent my own voice becomes.
“Are you going to lie awake all night, or are you going to talk to me?” Ashen’s whisper teases in the dark. I press my eyes closed and exhale slowly through my nose before I roll over to face him.
“How did you know I was awake?”
He scoffs, his breath flooding my face with sweet warmth. “You think I don’t know the cadence of your sleeping heart? Or the slow rise and fall of your breath when you dream?”
I smile into the shadows, but it’s fleeting. That urgent whisper is growing louder in my head.
Don’t waste another moment. Do it now.
“What is it?” Ashen asks. The concern thickens in his voice. He sweeps some hair away from my face and lets his hand trail down my neck. My pulse thrums against his fingers as nerves knot my insides like rope. “Lu?.. What’s wrong?”
