Escaping Solitude Read online

  Danys hands me a beer. I try not to consider the mug’s filth. We lean against the bar together, arms touching.

  “Li fache, yeah?”

  He’s just asked me if Edmund is mad, and although Edmund has deemed himself such, I don’t think he’s actually out of his mind. “He’s wild,” I say.

  “A wild animal.” Danys nods. “And not just between the sheets. Where did you find him?”

  “Far away from here.”

  “You’re different, you know, from before you went away.” He wipes the back of his mouth with his hand. “Plis dou.” More gentle. “And your eyes, they don’t roam the room like you’re searching for something.”

  That’s because I’m well fed and sated on the blood of my lover. I no longer go out every night hunting for fresh meat because I have it at home.

  Of course Danys would notice the change. Although I never drank from him, he observed me for years at the brothel before I was sent away.

  “Maybe you find what you been looking for,” he says. “That wild thing over there.” He gestures toward the card players. “You always had something dark about you, Andrew. Visiting your bed was like visiting the legends of my home country.” He gazes up at me from below thick lashes. “I think your wild thing needs light, though. Don’t smother him in dark.”

  I swallow around the worried lump in my throat. “That’s funny coming from you.”

  He lowers his brows in confusion.

  “You’d love to smother Edmund in your dark.”

  The loud burst of Danys’s laughter almost covers the sound of shouts but not quite. There’s a flurry of movement at the card table, so I move. I shove men out of the way as the table is flipped and hats fly, but there’s a wall of drunken humanity watching the fight and blocking my way. From where I struggle, I see a man with red hair—I assume Jimmy Fitz—has a knife out. He slashes at Edmund, but Edmund, as always, is grace and speed.

  I’m too busy fighting the crowd to watch what’s happening, but by the time I finally break through the wall of shouting men, Jimmy no longer holds his knife. Edmund somehow holds his knife, and Jimmy’s shirt is stained with blood. I smell iron and rage.

  Someone shoves me from behind. It’s Danys. He pushes me forward and continues to push. “Get him out of here!” he shouts. “There’s a back door. Go!”

  I drag Edmund out into a humid night. Together, we run down alleys filled with stinking garbage and eventually find our way back to a main street. Once there, I keep us moving. I don’t stop until we’re a couple blocks away. Then, I pull Edmund into an alley and hurl him against a wall. The knife in his hand falls silently into a puddle, taking with it the scent of sour blood.

  I curl my fists into the front of his coat. “What were you thinking?”

  “It’s not my fault he was a sore loser.”

  I smack him hard. So hard that his head spins left.

  He opens and closes his jaw. “What the fuck, Andrew?”

  “Don’t you understand? Now that I’ve found you, I can’t lose you.”

  He studies me like I’m a puzzle to be solved.

  “You are not invincible yet. Someday, you’ll be like me, but until that day, you are breakable. You could be killed. A knife could kill you. I realize you’ve lived a very foolhardy life until now, but for my sake, please, leave that part of you behind until…” I put my hand on his cheek, still warm from the crack of my palm. “I can’t be without you.”

  He wraps me in his arms and begins kissing any skin he can reach. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

  I hug him and feel his heartbeat against my chest as he continues to whisper apologies into the night.

  BACK IN OUR grand, third story room at the coven, Edmund’s lovemaking is desperate, as if he proves his dedication to me with his body. I try to comfort him, slow him, but he shoves my hands away. I let him exorcise his demons via the medium of my flesh.

  After, he’s quiet. We lay side by side, both staring at the thick, red canopy above our bed. We’ve only lived here for a few days, but I’ve done my best to make it feel like a sort of home. Our clothes hang in a closet or hide in drawers. Edmund leaves his empty teacups everywhere. The large windows overlook the estate’s back garden. From way up here, we can’t hear the parties below. I hear only his breath, still labored from the way he rode me until I saw white.

  When I reach out to touch him, he sits up suddenly and puts his arms around his knees. I don’t move. I simply observe the way his shoulders curl forward. He pushes sweaty, dark hair off his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve apologized enough,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “No. I really haven’t.” A muscle in the side of his jaw jumps. “I went in there tonight spoiling for a fight. I wanted that rush of blood through my veins. I’ve always been drawn to it, even as a society boy in London. I’ve always been smart, but I haven’t always been tall. I knew how to spot sore points, so I would pick fights with the biggest boys in school—talk about their mothers or their fathers or their sisters—and see how long I could last.”

  I sit up but still don’t reach to touch him. “Edmund, I’ve always known you love danger.”

  “Yes, but I need to grow accustomed to loving you more. I’ve never had someone care enough to worry for me.”

  “What about your mother?”

  He shakes his head again. “No, in that relationship I’ve always been selfish. She has always worried, and I have never given a damn. Her distaste for my lifestyle has been a wedge between us my entire life.”

  “And Samuel? Your paramour at sea?”

  He wraps his hands around his elbows as if trying to hug himself. “I think he loved me, yes, but many men have loved me. None of them ever made me feel as you do.”

  “And how do I make you feel?”

  “Like I deserve to be loved.” A drop of water falls from the edge of his chin, which is when I realize he’s crying. I lean farther forward to see his eyes are red.

  Now, I touch him. I pull him to me by the shoulders until he melts against me and shoves his face into my chest. His sobs are silent; their only evidence is the occasional tremor that runs down his spine. I wait out this unexpected eruption of pain and know it’s about so much more than a knife fight, my earlier anger, even the loss of Samuel. I suspect Edmund’s fit has been waiting to happen for years.

  For the first time, I wonder how much of my sailor’s confidence is an act. He’s spent his entire adult life on grand ships, chasing new discoveries, new species—but what if he has not been the pursuer but the pursued? How many years has he spent running away from himself?

  “Edmund?” I push him back just far enough so I can see his eyes, puffy and desperate. I try to think, try to put the proper words together. “I love everything about you. I love that you were the little boy who started fights. I love that you love poisonous dart frogs. I love the way you fuck.”

  He smiles a little at that.

  “But about tonight… You made me angry. You made me afraid. That doesn’t mean you lost my love and have to earn it back. I’ll never stop loving you, no matter what you do.” I take his wet face in my hands. “Do you understand that?”

  “No. God, no. Sounds absolutely insane. Or idiotic.”

  I laugh and try to kiss him.

  He turns his face away. “I’m disgusting. Jesus, at least let me wipe my face.” He uses the edge of the bedclothes. When he again settles himself in front of me, he stares at his hands. “It’s reckless to love me no matter what.”

  “Well, you are reckless, so maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

  “God help us.”

  I lift his chin and make him look at me. “You are not as mad as you think you are.”

  “I don’t know. I am in love with a murdering monster who needs blood to live.”

  I tilt my head. “When you put it that way.”

  “I haven’t found anything promising in Michelle’s books, you know. Not yet anyway
.”

  I tell him, “I know, but you will.”

  “You realize the list of people who’ve ever had faith in me is very short. I’m sometimes amazed that you do.”

  “I have faith in very little, but my faith in you is endless.”

  He falls onto his back in bed, dark hair spread on the pillow. I rest at his side and tickle the center of his chest with my fingers.

  “Not there,” he whispers.

  I chuckle because he knows me so well. Ever since he told me he had a ticklish spot I’ve yet to find, I have been seeking it out.

  “Andrew, would you…”

  I look up at him, and his lips are wet as though he’s been biting them.

  “What do you need, my love?”

  “Your mouth.” The shy way he voices his request is so out of character, my eyebrows shoot up. As if I would ever say no.

  He is hot and heavy against my tongue. Within minutes, he comes silently on a slight intake of breath with both his hands tangled in my hair. He drags me up and sighs into my mouth as we kiss. I blanket his body under mine and fall asleep.

  It’s hours before one of his nightmares, and the way he stares at me in the dark—clings to me—forces me to conclude this was not a dream of the sea. This was something about me. I kiss his face until he calms and dozes off, but I don’t sleep.

  Danys worried about me smothering Edmund in my darkness, but I’m beginning to think my darkness is the lesser of our two.

  Chapter Seven

  I WAKE UP to something hitting me gently in the face over and over. It’s a rhythmic, focused motion, right on the tip of my nose. Eyes still closed, I smell the familiar scent of my darling—and his tea. I grab Edmund’s finger before it again taps me on the nose, open my eyes, and find him grinning above me in the morning sun.

  He chuckles and lifts a teacup to his lips. He sips and tries to poke me in the nose again, so I hold tighter to his hand. “What’s gotten into you?” I ask.

  Seated on the edge of our bed in what appears to be nothing but a blue silk dressing gown I bought him, he looks away. “I’m feeling very…needy this morning.”

  “Needy?”

  “The need to be close to you.”

  I roll onto my back and stretch. “You had one of your dreams last night.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You have said ‘sorry’ more times in the last eight hours than over the duration of our entire relationship.”

  He clears his throat. “Fine. Not sorry then.”

  “Tell me you weren’t walking around a house full of vampires in nothing but that.” I eye the thin fabric that coats his shoulders, chest, and thighs like melting caramel.

  “No. Michelle brought it up.”

  I blink at him and lift onto my elbows. “Michelle now brings you tea in the morning?”

  He leans forward and sets what I assume is now an empty teacup on the table by our bed. He runs his hands through his sleep-mussed hair. “No. Well, this morning, yes, but she wanted to invite us to a party tonight. She’s having one of her to-dos in the ballroom.”

  I sit up and brush his wild hair with my fingers. “You can call it what it is.”

  “Fine. An orgy. It just sounds so Arabian Nights.” Eyes closed, he teeters into my touch.

  “I don’t want you in the library today.”

  “I need to work.” He sounds half asleep again.

  I move even closer and suck his earlobe into my mouth. His shoulders jump at the unexpected caress. “You need water,” I say.

  “If you think I’m stepping even one toe into that disgusting excuse you Southern chaps call a harbor, you’ve lost your damn mind.”

  “No.” I reach beneath the thin fabric that covers his lap. “I have a much better idea.”

  I TAKE MY sailor to the only public bathhouse in New Orleans, an expensive men-only affair the coven has paid into for years. Much like Edmund, we are a bit of a vain lot.

  Earlier, while I spoke to the young man at the front desk, I watched my beloved peer curiously down the white-painted hallway. Then, as soon as he even sensed steam, his entire face lit up. As we were led down the hall, he tapped his hand against mine in silent—and socially appropriate—thanks and hasn’t stopped smiling since.

  I’m sitting on the edge of a steaming tub the size of a large room when he surfaces in front of me, black hair wet and dripping in his eyes.

  “I’ve found fucking heaven,” he says.

  A threesome of towel-wrapped older gentlemen scoffs at his language, but I smile around my cigar. I haven’t smoked a cigar in years.

  “This”—he floats up onto his back, naked as the day he was born—“is perfect.”

  “The heat feels oddly familiar,” I say.

  He laughs that loud, easy giggle of his. The strange melancholy of last night and this morning is gone. “God, this is just like that bloody island, isn’t it? Except no one’s trying to kill me.” He picks his head up. “It’s a bit Grecian, though, isn’t it? I thought New Orleans was supposed to be a modern city.”

  “Perhaps we’re showing how modern we are by paying homage to the classics.” I blow pungent smoke toward the ceiling and admire the marble columns and frescos of naked cherubs.

  He dunks under and up again before asking, “Aren’t you going to get in?”

  “In time.”

  He nods to my hand. “I didn’t even know you smoked those things.”

  “I haven’t. In a while.”

  He smiles knowingly before doing an underwater flip and tumble like a rather large, mad fish. Again, he floats on his back, but this time, looks down at himself. “I am getting fat, aren’t I?”

  “I’ve never heard something more ridiculous in my whole life.” I kick my feet back and forth beneath the warm, clear water.

  “Is there boxing in New Orleans?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  His gray eyes shine. “There is. There must be. Modern city and all.”

  “You are not boxing.”

  “Come on, Andrew. It’s not a bar fight. There are rules. Besides, I’m good.”

  “I recall.” I remember catching his fist in the face on the island once. It felt like a hammer to my skull. Add to that the graceful way he moves and his height, and he would be a boxing phenom exemplar. I’m relieved to have a towel across my waist, because the thought of him beating another man to a pulp is oddly arousing. Damn it, I’m beginning to think Edmund doing just about anything would arouse me.

  He swims close, but before daring to touch me in public, reaches for the bar of sandalwood soap at my side. He lathers up his hands before attacking his hair. “Are we attending the party tonight?”

  I swallow smoke. “If it pleases you.”

  “It might indeed.” He ducks his head underwater, and I don’t worry when he’s down there for a while. I know my sailor can hold his breath for some time. From below the surface, he gives my toe a playful pull before standing and shaking his head like a dog.

  Once we’re both sufficiently clean, I watch him shave in the changing room. Watching the man run a sharp blade up his neck is truly an art form. He’s meticulous about it, his daily routine.

  Back at the coven, florists and caterers rush in and out. Edmund and I hide in our room. There is no sex between us, as the early afternoon turns to late. We rest together above the sheets, touching, kissing occasionally. Edmund reads not research but some penny dreadful we picked up from a street vendor on our way home. It doesn’t surprise me that Edmund enjoys sensational stories, but it does surprise me that I would be content to merely be near my lover, doing absolutely nothing.

  It’s true we aren’t exactly intimate, and yet, this is the most intimate thing I have ever done. I sit and watch Edmund read. He laughs and recites particularly preposterous scenes until I’m laughing too. For years, I lived on an island, surrounded by solitude, but being with Edmund makes me think I’ve actually been alone for hundreds of years—surrounded by people but separate, literal
ly immersed in flesh but self-contained.

  Now, I am no longer alone. More than that, I no longer seek something bigger, better, more. With my head resting on Edmund’s stomach, listening to his breath, I am complete.

  I tell him I love him.

  He tickles my ear with his fingertips. “Love you more.”

  Chapter Eight

  I HEAR THE music before I see a single soul. It wafts up the steps like the buttery scent of cooked crawfish. A skilled violinist plays a shrewd gypsy tune as Edmund and I reach the ballroom. Tall, golden candelabras are strategically placed along walls and in corners where they won’t be knocked over. Above us, the large chandelier glows and casts attractive shadows on the bodies below, already writhing in low beds and on silken pillows. Vampires look up when we enter. They pause in their sex and their feeding to inspect Edmund, whose silver vest catches the light and reflects back their lust.

  Even my cocky companion ducks under the collective gaze and runs a hand through his oiled black hair. “Jesus,” he whispers. “I feel like a prime cut of meat.”

  I put my hand solidly on his shoulder. “That’s because you are.”

  “Cute.”

  Michelle waves from her couch at the far end of the room. She smiles with Felipe at her side. I notice his dark eyes never waver from Edmund, so I put my hand on the back of my sailor’s neck and squeeze as if to tell the entire room, Mine.

  Before we even reach them, Edmund grabs a glass of champagne from a passing tray and finishes the entire thing. He reaches for a second as his eyes wander. No longer the target of so many heated gazes, he becomes the observer. He elbows me and points to that lovely young thing from last time—the boy with the red hair—currently being pleasured by two male vampires in the center of a purple satin bed. Edmund tugs at his collar, and the gesture is almost comical. If he wore a cravat, it would have been the ideal moment to remove it and complain of the heat.

  Michelle lifts her hand to Edmund when we approach, and he bows to kiss it. “You smell delicious,” she says. “Trip to the bathhouse today?”