House of secrets, p.20
House of Secrets, page 20
One of Nadia’s six-inch heels tapped against the ground impatiently. Andras threw open the double doors and stepped into the light, locking his sights on Nadia. They took each other in for a moment, he narrowed in on her sharp cheekbones and large almond eyes. She was beautiful, absolutely stunning, and I could feel that she knew it from the way she looked down her nose at him despite being a few inches shorter. She stepped forward, her expression resolute and severe. Andras slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back slightly on his heels.
“Nadia,” he spat. Then his body began to shake, his lips twitching as a smile broke free, and they both burst into laughter. Then Nadia was on top of him, on top of us, her long legs wrapped around his waist. I tensed. Did I really need to see all of this? Nadia gently cradled his head in her hands, kissing his cheeks all over, leaving sticky red lipstick marks. He set her down lightly, and she sauntered right past him into the bedroom, like she owned the place, with Andras following close on her heels, hands back inside his pockets. If I were able to feel my body at that point, I knew my skin would be crawling, and my heart would drop in anticipation of what might happen next. If they were gonna fuck, I didn’t want to see it.
“I’ve missed you,” she cooed, twirling to face him with an ethereal grace that had clearly been honed over centuries; after all, she’d jokingly referred to Andras as “an infant,” a reminder that she was so, so much older than him. She reached out and touched his shoulder gently.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, absolutely beaming. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Everywhere,” she shrugged, looking down at his pants and wrinkling her nose. “Never thought I’d see you in loungewear,” she teased.
My eyes flicked towards a wall mirror and there Andras stood, shoulders back, head high, sapphire eyes twinkling. Okay, was she insane or did she not notice how absolutely incredible his ass looked in those pants?
He followed her disapproving gaze down the length of his body, then smirked. “A sign of the times, old friend,” he cocked his head, “and I caught your scent just as I was heading to bed. There simply wasn’t enough time to change into something more acceptable.”
Nadia’s smile faded, and she bit her lip nervously. She clicked her fingernails together a few times.
“Listen,” she cleared her throat quietly, “before we catch up.” She winced, “I’ve got some extraordinarily shitty news and you’re not going to like it one bit.”
Andras's entire body went rigid. Staring at her mouth, he waited for whatever damning words were about to fall from her full red lips.
“Well, it seems you might have some ex-boyfriend problems soon.”
“What does that—”
Nadia raised her brows and dipped her chin to indicate that he fucking knew exactly what it meant.
“Oh no,” Andras whispered, staggering back. His legs felt weak, and his fear became my fear. I wanted to hold him. He began to pace from his bed to the fireplace and back. “No, no, no,” he chanted. “Bloody hell, no. That’s not possible.” He dragged my hands through his hair. I could feel his face twisting with rage. The room came into hyperfocus, and I knew that meant his pupils were expanding, like spilled ink, rubbing out the blue, just as they had before he’d pulled me into his mind to watch all of this unfold. He clenched his hands into tight fists at his side, still pacing, and his eyes narrowed into two hateful slits focused entirely on the floor.
“Yeah,” Nadia agreed as she blew out a breath. “I’m sorry.”
She took a step toward him. “It appears that your psychotic ex is free from that lovely cement pit we dumped him in. And apparently, yet unsurprisingly, he’s holding a bit of a grudge.” She examined her ruby red nail polish, which anyone else would have taken as a gesture of indifference, but Andras seemed to view it positively. He knew her well enough to know that she was focusing her attention elsewhere in order to give him time to process without her eyes on him.
He paced some more, and then we were in a different memory, a darker one, grainy and old. The smell of wet cement overwhelmed my senses, followed by gargling, furious screams and threats of revenge hurled up at Andras from somewhere low, somewhere nearby. A pit, a quickly filling pit. Nadia stood to his right, grasping his hand so hard I thought she might break it off until the rage and roaring stopped. They slept there, seated in the shadows, until the slab was thoroughly cured.
Then we were back in his bedroom, facing Nadia, whose eyes were silver-lined and full of sorrow.
“How?” Andras pressed, his deep voice quiet and steady in a way that promised violence. He gestured to the carpet between them, “tell me how.” He quickly scanned the room, then went to the window to peer out. Nothing. Nothing but trees.
Andras whispered quietly to himself, “he could be anywhere. He could be on a branch, on a roof, hiding in a car. Anywhere.”
Nadia closed the distance between us, or between them, coming so close I could see every one of her long, sweeping lashes. “Humans,” she grimaced. “They freed him. Some students…” She trailed off then threw up her hands, “and that’s why they can’t have nice things!”
Andras glanced at her disapprovingly.
She scoffed, crossing her arms.
Sauntering over towards Andras's bed, the same bed he’d touched me on the last time he’d pulled me into his mind, she leaned against the mattress, and my heart dropped, thinking of where this might be going. Nadia casually brushed a piece of lint away from her red dress. She scented the air.
“Something happened here recently,” she crooned, looking around, distracted for a moment. And…oh, Gods, could she smell that I’d been there? Could there even be a scent from that? Or…had other women been there recently?
I didn’t want to know.
she seemed to remember that she was in the middle of delivering bad news. “As I was saying,” she cleared her throat, “some archeology students studying the old way of making Roman cement accidentally freed him while excavating the site, and, unfortunately, wound up very dead. There was barely anything left of them, just a mess of husks shredded to pieces after they’d been drained dry.”
Andras stalked past Nadia, out of the bedroom, and down the stairs. He moved towards the study, Nadia traipsing behind him like she had all the time in the world.
“I’ve tracked his mayhem to this continent, Andras,” she went on. “He’s already here, maybe not yet in Denver, but here.” I felt a chill skitter up Andras's spine and neck, and I wanted to cringe, to hide. He was afraid, very afraid, and I wondered: how evil is this person if both Andras and Nadia are terrified of him?
Andras bit back nausea as he beelined straight for the bar cart against the back wall, lifting a whiskey decanter from its place and filling a heavy crystal glass to the rim with the amber liquid. He handed the glass to Nadia without looking up, intentionally avoiding the concern in her eyes.
He poured the same glass for himself before offering the side of his glass to Nadia. The crystal rang out beautifully as their glasses gently collided.
“Cheers.” They said flatly, without any cheer at all.
Andras knocked back his whiskey in two enormous gulps, then poured another while still swallowing. For fuck’s sake, this man knew how to drown his feelings. Nadia frowned at him, but he didn’t seem to care. She made it a point to take her whiskey in small mouthfuls, sending a deliberate and judgemental message with each sip.
“You realize that you need to be sober to deal with this, right?” she gently chided as Andras depleted his second glass. “And considering your black-as-night lord-of-death eyes, I’m guessing that you’re not at all in the right headspace for this conversation yet. Carry on, then, keep drinking.” She lowered herself to the side of the armrest of the sofa, legs crossed at the ankle.
“What is it?” Nadia demanded. “Something is bothering you. I can feel it.”
He scowled at her, then downed yet another glass of whiskey as if it were a cold glass of water in the desert. Adding one more splash of liquor to his glass, he blew out a breath and then turned to face her, running a hand through his dark hair.
“Not too long ago,” he began, “I saw a halfling. I wasn’t entirely sure because it’s been such a long time since I’ve scented one, but I’m certain of it now.
“You saw a halfling where?”
“It’s a long story. A man broke into a neighbor's house very close by, and I happened to hear the struggle and went in to help. He was unconscious when I leaned in to get a closer look at him, but his scent was…weird. Human, but not.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. I even tried to find him again after, tried to track him down and couldn’t. I’ve kept an eye on the house, and on the woman he attacked, but nothing so far.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He suspected the thing that attacked me wasn’t human. And he’d been keeping an eye on my house ever since? I didn’t know whether to be flattered or horrified.
Andras scrubbed at his face and cracked his neck.
“It’s been what, centuries?” he bit out. “You don’t think there’s a chance that he might just want to, I don’t know, fucking move on?”
Nadia’s eyebrows went up at that.
“Weak men have held on to grudges for a lot less than a broken heart, Andras. Well, a broken heart and a knife in the back.”
Andras rolled his eyes and scoffed.
“Does it honestly count as a betrayal if he was trying to kill us?”
“In his deranged mind, yes.”
Andras paced back and forth on the rug as if his vampire senses had gone haywire, nearly knocking into the coffee table.
“How much time do you think we have?” he asked, glancing at the windows again, tapping his pinky against the glass in his hand like a tiny nervous woodpecker.
Nadia shrugged.
“I don’t know. Hours. Or days. He’s fast and insane so it’s possible he’s already right outside of your house. I came to warn you as soon as I found out. It would have been faster to call, but I really don’t trust phones, you know that. Never have.”
Andras stopped pacing and his shoulders relaxed.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, “I have missed you.” He smiled with his teeth, “I am happy to see you, even though I wish it were under better circumstances. Please, tell me you’re going to stay a bit?”
I felt Andras's eyeballs tingle. I wondered if he was going to cry, or…or was that what it felt like when his pupils shrunk back to normal after his eyes went black?
“Ah, you’re calming down,” Nadia observed.
Yep, must have been that. I laughed to myself.
Nadia stood before him as beautiful as any model and as proud as an empress, with the same eternal grace as a God.
“I’ve missed you, too, Az,” she said, taking Andras's hand in hers and holding it. “We haven’t been in the same place together in centuries, not since we both lived in London, with all its unimaginable indulgences.” She grinned like a cat and Andras chortled. “We drank everything and everyone, danced all night, and were mostly happy. Weren’t we?”
“Mostly. Everything would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for Callum.”
“So you won’t leave right away, then?” Andras questioned, peering down into her eyes.
Nadia tilted her head up and smiled wickedly, “Leave? Me?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth, “and miss out on all the fun?” She motioned around the room, “Never. I didn’t get enough of you back in whatever century. The Middle Ages? So long ago, gross.” She wrinkled her nose at that. “Plus, I’m curious about the life you’ve built here.”
She dropped Andras's hand to turn away from him, pointing a ruby red nail at the bookshelves filled with way too many books, an occasional piece of art, and one succulent shriveled nearly to death.
“Still reading everything you can get your hands on, I see.” Her lips curved up in a teasing smile.
“Oh, much worse,” Andras teased. “I’m a book editor.”
He went to the leather couch to perch on the armrest, resting his forearms on his thighs.
Nadia spoke to the bookshelves, “From feared mercenary to publishing? It’s essentially a lateral move, I suppose?”
Nadia sauntered over to join him on the couch. She slipped her heels off, letting each one tumble to the floor with a thud. She flexed and pointed her slender feet, toes painted red to match her fingernails, before swinging them up onto the couch and lying down. Crossing her long legs at the ankle, she pulled a throw pillow toward herself and fluffed it behind her head.
With her eyes closed, she breathed,
“I’m awake. Just need to rest for a minute. I haven’t slept in days. I had to get here–to Denver, to you–as fast as possible.” She hummed quietly to herself for a time, “I know that this is terrible, Az. I know that Callum is a dangerous lunatic, but something else seems to be weighing on you, too. Something…no…someone, is making it all that much worse, no? What’s their name, this person you’re worried about?”
Nadia briefly opened one eye to peer up at Andras from the couch, then closed it. Her lips revealed the slightest hint of muted amusement as she waited for him to answer.
“You’re obnoxious,” he said, teasing, “and her name is Danny.”
My heart thundered. He was worried about me? I didn’t want to see this. It felt wrong to watch this, like an invasion of privacy, eavesdropping on them talking about this, about me.
His jaw worked, and he rubbed at his temples.
“I think about her all the time, almost constantly, since the first night I met her. She’s beautiful and curvy, with a full gorgeous ass and modest, beautiful breasts that fit perfectly in my mouth.” He smiled wickedly at Nadia, who grinned with her eyes still closed. I wanted to smack him; I was flattered and proud that he thought me beautiful, but I wanted to smack him. The bragging lout.
Andras went on, “Her eyes are sometimes the color of evergreen, other times golden yellow and weary but warm. Her laugh is breathy and sincere, and she isn’t afraid of me, even knowing what I am. She isn’t scared to rage at me, something that I don’t encounter often, as you well know. Not as a mercenary or soldier, and certainly not as a vampire. Well, other than with you, of course, Nadia. You’ve never had a hard time in that regard.” He huffed a laugh, and my Gods, I wondered if my body was swooning back in his foyer.
“I barely know her,” he continued, “but she’s special. I feel like I’ve come home when I’m with her.”
“Huh,” Nadia breathed thoughtfully. “Did you feel that way instantly? Like you’d been infected by her?”
“That’s an odd way to put it, but yes.”
“Fated,” Nadia whispered.
“That’s just folklore. It’s not real.”
“How do we know that?” Nadia raised an eyebrow in question.
“I've never seen it. Have you?”
“Just once. I think just once.”
“She’s also human.” A pause. “And a mum to two little girls.”
He tensed as if waiting for Nadia to react as if he expected her to leap to her feet and pummel him.
Her lids flicked open, and she growled.
“You’re a bloody idiot,” she scolded.
Almost too fast for me to track the movement, she yanked the pillow out from under her head and flung it at him, but he snatched it out of the air and winked at her.
“Have you gone mad?” she hissed, propping herself up on her elbows.
“Apparently, yes,” he said, setting the pillow down next to him. “You’d like her, though. She’s kind and determined. A real ball buster.” He huffed another laugh.
“Well in that case, I would like her,” Nadia agreed. “But you’re still a bloody idiot.”
“Yes. And now it’s all a mess. Now I’m afraid I’ve put her in danger.”
“You absolutely should feel terrible,” she said flatly, but then she grinned. “I’m teasing. Andras, you had no idea this was going to happen. And what a horrible life you’d lead, we’d both lead, if we spent every day thinking about that vampiric equivalent of asbestos we call your ex. I’d rather hoped he’d just rot until the earth boiled and put him underwater.”
“Yeah,” Andras ground out.
Nadia’s smile faded as she studied him.
“Can I ask you a question?” she whispered.
“Anything,” he whispered back.
“Alright.” She blew out a breath, and Andras stilled, waiting for something terrible. “As an editor, are you specializing in…paranormal romance?”
“Oh, fuck off,” he said, throwing back his head to laugh. He grabbed a pillow with vampire speed and hurled it at her, but she curled up like an armadillo to deflect the hit, her red dress hiking up to reveal red panties. He threw back his head and laughed and laughed: a warm, deep, belly laugh. Nadia leaped to her feet and grabbed another pillow, but by then, he was running towards the door. She gave chase, bare feet smacking against the floor, across the entryway, up the stairs, and to his bedroom where he dove onto his bed, howling. She bounced after him and clambered onto his back, as she growled and pretended to nip at the nape of his neck. They shook with laughter. Nadia rolled off of him and removed her leather harness, dropping it off the side of the bed. Andras rolled onto his side and propped his head up on an elbow to watch her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was about to happen next, but I kept looking anyway, peering out from behind his eyes. Nadia peeled off her dress and threw it across the room, her ample breasts bouncing in her red lacey bra. Climbing under the blankets in her underthings, she rolled to her side to face him, hands under her cheek, eyes hooded with sleep. She yawned.
“Tell me everything about Danny,” she said, barely a whisper.
