Page 4 of Hound

Regret was a feeling long ingrained in my bones, its dense weight carried by blood and flesh. The first time I’d ever felt its tug was after our mother’s passing, when silence had consumed my thoughts in the darkness of night. At the time, it was a pinch behind my eyes, a slight heaviness in my chest. Although such remnants persisted, throughout the years, it twined itself into a cord that always dangled, clutching my presence erratically. Its shadow was a figure I’d become too familiar with, habituated with, and in turn, mastered how to subdue it.

Yet, on the occasion I stepped into Le Maudit, regret was more than an acquaintance. It was a vexatious nightmare.

Wednesday, particularly in the early autumn season, was the feeding parlor’s liveliest night as the freshest selections of pure, human blood wines were supplied. The domestic powerful and wealthy visited to indulge even if the parlor enacted an intake limitation of a goblet per patronage. It was all one needed when mingled with bane, our kind’s concoction of pure ethanol and inland taipan venom.

This sort of intoxication dulled our main senses while collectively increasing a vampire's libido. The scale of whatamplified and diminished varied on the individual, but one common aspect in all was the mindless blathering that seized them. And in the presence of Anabella Ambrogio, it evolved.

All seven Ambrogio sisters possessed a gravity that could never be mirrored by outsiders, their beauty the pull and their disposition the trap. Yet, Anabella sustained a potency only she embodied, one that blindly led her chase exactly where she desired them.

In the past, it never failed. In the present, it seemed to crumble.

Boundless, obsidian eyes held mine as she leaned deeper into her choice of man for the night. Uncertainty wavered in his reluctant hands, each clammy stroke along her back unmeasured. It amplified the looming withdrawal in their rigid kiss.

If I noticed it, Anabella surely did, as well.

Her pull was swift, not a single strand of platinum blonde hair out of place as she stood and strode to my side outside the dens’ entrance. She shut the French doors, tucking away her choice in abandon.

“Not to your liking?” With the years of frequenting feeding parlors alongside her, Anabella’s taste in men was particular. Tall, broad-shouldered with a deep complexion and high cheekbones. Their similarity to a guardian back at the manor was uncanny, but I kept it to myself.

She smirked, her icy presence surging as a drop of humor gleamed in her dark eyes, her bloodless fangs flashing. “He was too tense.”

I extended a hand, her cool palm caressing mine as she realigned her plunged neckline with her left hand, neatly tucking misty pink nipples. Within the floor-length, pale blue, silk dress, her silvery-fawn complexion glimmered like a jewel andemphasized her sharp curves. Flared sleeves cascaded beside her once she straightened her posture.

“The night is still young,” I murmured as we slithered from the den and into the main floor. “Your fling must be hidden in the shadows.”

She hooked an arm around mine and scoffed. “Or lodged in their partner’s genitalia.”

“As if you wouldn’t join.”

“Surely, but tonight isn’t fortoo muchpleasure.” Her gaze narrowed as she studied our surroundings, halting before the rounded bar and collecting two liquor-filled goblets. “Did you find Mal?”

Sylvester, or Mal, which Anabella preferred to informally call him, was the reasoning behind tonight’s visit. Anabella’s sudden invitation for a relay of information had come during noontime, and Sonia, the Sephtis Senior Guardian, wasted no time admonishing my sudden departure. The berating questions would come afterward, though, an inkling bled in my chest between Anabella’s supposed discovery and Sonia’s dry yet evident unsettlement.

Especially as we were to have the pleasure of an Ambrogio visit tomorrow after quite some time.

“No.” My head followed her sight, each den preoccupied by plastered patronages. Despite being the heirs of Regal Families, not a single soul batted an eye at us. How could they when their intoxication blurred their vision and muddled presences amongst them?

Except one.

I glanced at a particular stool down the bar, the seat empty. The man from minutes ago was absent, his broad stature and possessive bronze eyes plastered in my mind. Though my search across the first level for Sylvester continued, my intentions altered after a realization dawned on me: I hadn’t probedthe man’s presence. Upon failing to find either, I returned to Anabella, in hopes these whirling feelings within me ceased.

Regret was no longer a caving pit. Instead, it twisted and blossomed into a foreign craving

“If we split, we could cover more ground, don’t you think?”

“We could, but I was under the impression that we’d share a drink over conversation, not haul the poor man.” On the occasion we met with Sylvester, life seemed to drain from his eyes more and more. Anabella blamed his leftover career; I believed it was his raging alcoholism.

“Christopher, you know how unbecoming he gets,” she remarked. “If he amounts his liquor to his body weight, a word won’t escape him. We just need to pull him aside before he slumbers, or worse, is swept into an orgy.” Her eyebrows slightly rose as she examined a barkeeper with short waves. “I’ll do the second level.”

“And reexamine the first level?”

“Grand idea.” In the blink of an eye, she stood beside her new choice of the night, a bright grin uplifting her chiseled features as they fell into conversation. Her gravity magnetized, drawing attention from all corners, yet my own deviated.

Since our youth, That Man had engrained our pairing, alongside my brothers and her sisters. A pair were to wed, Anabella and I the best fit when compared to our siblings who were of age. Yet, we still tethered for reasons we’d unveiled years ago, interred alongside our agreement.

In the public’s eye, we upheld the façade of a pair, feeding the expectations and desires of High Parliament. But in private, we took pleasure in whomever. Anabella’s wish to please her family was embedded flesh deep, but her care for me ran just as vast.

As expected, tart muskiness stroked my nose, slicked bodies ravishing each other across the open-door den before the staircase. While liquor had the ability to diminish a vampire'spresence, Sylvester’s still overhung. His tolerance proved to persist as his muted presence lingered in the suspended air. Faint, but ample enough to steer me onto the fourth level.

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