Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 96
With a grateful smile in her eyes, almost innocent, she wrapped those red lips around the neck and tipped it back. Her throat was smudged with harsh bruises and dirt, but it was a lovely neck worthy of an aristocrat. He bent down to kiss the marks left by violent touches, his lips gentle.
Startled, she froze. But when he did nothing more than lavish her flesh with kisses, she relaxed and took another sip from his flask. “No need for wooing, mister—my skirts is up, ain’t they?”
“Ah, but I’m a gentleman…”
“Suit yourself,” she said. Her lids closed as she savored another drink.
He dropped his hand to her chest, his fingers stilling over her heart. The romantic courtesies confused her, the wary twist of her brow said that much; and she was right to be wary. “You should not be out on a night like this.” He reached into his coat again, this time to retrieve a fat purse that jangled musically as he placed it into her hand.
Her hand trembled beneath the weight of coins. “Are you mad?”
“Undoubtably,” he said with a sigh, touching her hair again. She reminded him so much of… No, he would not think of her! He could not afford to think of her. “Your beauty has bewitched me, little bird.”
“You look so sad,” she said. “I know how to put a smile on your face…”
He looked up, surprised, for his gaze had drifted faraway. The face and the hair might resemble his love a little, but this voice certainly didn’t. “You should go.”
“A kiss goodbye then?” She looked almost disappointed by his dismissal.
“Very well, a farewell kiss you shall have.”
The nightingale leaned in, somewhat shy despite her jaded feathers, and cautiously pressed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
He sighed. “No, thank you, little bird.” With that, he plunged his fingers deep into her chest and ripped her cage open. He knew his eyes were no longer mortal. Her mouth gaped open, a frozen scream on her lips as she met his gaze. Death and horror glazed her eyes as he tore her heart from her. Then he kissed her on her wide, red lips before releasing her.
She fell in a heap at his feet, the coins spilling loudly from the purse.
“It isn’t for me, you understand,” he said, kneeling beside the dead bird to stroke its drab, little feathers. The still beating organ was secured in his coat where the discarded flask had been. “This heart will serve to slay a dragon.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Billet-doux
Dearest Emma,—Milli has been confiding tales too fantastic to relate. I fear she suffers from a malady no physician on earth is equal to treat. Write at once and set my mind at rest, for I shan’t be at peace until I know you are safe and well, Cousin. God keep you always,
Mary.
A slumberous shaft of grey was breaking through the crimson drapes when Emma finally awoke. The space beside her was conspicuously empty and offered no more warmth than the frail light. There was only the silence of an empty bedchamber to meet her searching gaze. Only the silent white queen keeping vigil atop the pillow beside her.
Emma smiled at the figurine and reached across to curl her fingers over its cool length, remembering with pleasure the nocturnal devotions shared in the night. She was not yet inclined to acknowledge the dark inklings of guilt that were endeavoring to rouse themselves and steal her happiness. The daylight was yet too impotent to loose those dreaded feelings.
As soon as she sat up, her peripheral flooded with nauseating shadows. Fortunately the darkness subsided as quickly as it had collected behind her eyes, and it was with bloodless enervation that she finally left the bed to retrieve her tattered chemise. Unsalvageable, she thought, fingering the delicate fabric as heat stole rapidly into her cheeks. The ruined chemise was once more delivered to the rug, after which she betook herself to the windowsill to cast her eyes over the foggy landscape. It was a cheerless prospect made more so by the mist clinging to the ground like a phantom’s breath.
Ruminating over the stillness, she lifted a wary hand to her neck where Markus had placed his vampiric kiss. The raised flesh beneath her fingertips propelled her to the mirror where she inspected her neck for the puncture wounds she could feel. His mark upon her throat looked nothing like the one left upon Milli’s. The flesh was only a little bruised and swollen around the bite mark, but otherwise Emma was in fine fettle. In fact, apart from a little lightheadedness that had beset her earlier, there was a healthful, rosy hue suffusing her cheeks.
There was not a single aspect about their voracious midnight coupling that hadn’t been incendiary. Though he had been gentle, he’d left behind exquisite bruises. Even now the trace of his touch still lingered. For one transcendental moment, their souls had moved as one prismatic flare of ecstasy.
But where was he now? And how was she to slip back to her room unnoticed by his servants. In such cases as these, audacity might have to prevail over missish modesty—Emma might well have to mantle her body in bloodied sheets, march back to her room, and hope to remain invisible.
This difficulty was, however, rendered moot when Mrs. Skinner suddenly entered the room after only a cursory knock to declare herself.
There was nothing for it but to bear the woman’s cold scrutiny as she floated into the room—not for the world would Emma have balked and scurried