Page 58 of Just for a Taste

The conversation hushed as Serafina descended the stairs toward me. Even with her in flats and me in heels, she towered over me. As beautiful as I had believed I was this afternoon, I now felt the opposite. I remembered I was a short, plain, poor student surrounded by aristocrats, wearing a dress valued at several times my net worth. She looked like a masterpiece in a simple, blue cocktail gown. I didn’t know if tearing off my dress would make me feel more or less naked right now. Serafina’s eyes traveled inchmeal across me, piercing through each freckle and flaw before finally landing on my face.

“You must be Cora Bowling.” She leaned down, washing me in the fragrance of her spicy perfume.

Was I? With such an otherworldly person so close she could have kissed me, it was hard to remember anything at all.

“I, uh—yeah.”

Serafina recoiled, one of her ringlets brushing across my shoulder. Hers was the softest, lightest hair I had ever felt. “Youare to be hisbeniamina?” she scoffed, then looked above me with a smile. “Oh, hello, you.”

A warm hand rested on my shoulder, and Zeno pulled me toward him. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and tried to keep from trembling.

At the sight of Zeno, Serafina’s eyes blazed. In an instant, she transformed from a lovely cherub to a beautiful Lucifer. No wonder he had loved her.

The thought sent yet another pang of dread through me. But when I looked behind me, he didn’t appear to share the sentiment. Rather, Zeno regarded the woman with the same cool impassivity he would give a mere object.

“Don’t follow us, Serafina,” he said in a monotone.

Her lips tightened and trembled, like her mouth was full of embers. Slowly and deliberately, she enunciated, “As you wish.”

Zeno led Baslio and me back to the room where I had awoken. It was cramped, of course, having been barely big enough for Lucia and me, but I felt much less suffocated there than amongst the crowd.

Zeno motioned for me to sit on a bench in the corner, leaving him and Basilio to stand as they conversed.

Zeno straightened his sleeves, held his hands behind his back, and smiled warmly at his cousin. “Why did you bring Serafina here? I didn’t invite her,” he said evenly, even sweetly, but the sharpness in his tone was undeniable.

Basilio leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. “What do you mean? Obviously mybeniaminawould be my plus-one.”

Zeno narrowed his eyes. “I hadn’t gotten there yet, but in case you weren’t aware, I didn’t invite you either.”

Basilio smirked. “Your father extended an invitation to me on your behalf. I’m family, am I not? Who else is more equipped to bring you back? It isn’t my fault the only time I could reach you was now.”

My chest tightened. Zeno was leaving the abbey?

Why did that hurt so much, when I might do so myself one day?

The vampire let out a mirthless laugh and shook his head. “Stop speaking nonsense. You both know I have no plans of returning. Why did you even come here? What’s changed?”

“What’s changed, Zeno, is that Uncle Vincenzo learned you not only took someone likeher—” he gestured to me “—as abeniamina, but more importantly, you dared to present her in public when you denied such a position to Signorina Salviati. Do you know what that will do to the company stocks?”

The people who had crowded outside of the room to listen in did not even bother to whisper any longer. I heard my name in dozens of voices at full volume, spoken with shock and disdain.

Basilio continued in his suave manner, “You chose to make thisritus sanguinouspublic and bring your name to the forefront. It’s time to return to proper society. I’m tired of holding your place, Zeno. You can't hide in backwater Italy and wallow in your own misery forever.”

“I can’t wallow in my own misery forever?” Zeno sneered. “As usual, Basilio, you underestimate my abilities.”

“I thinkyou’rethe one underestimating here.” Finally, Basilio cracked and his voice rose above baseline. “Since you made this foolish decision, Uncle Vincenzo has given me orders. He wants you to leave this girl, leave backwater Sicily, and come back with a reputablebeniamina. I pulled innumerable strings and even broke apart an engagement to bring Serafina here. I can make it so this gathering never even happened, as far as high society is concerned.”

Zeno’s brow flattened, and the corner of his lip twisted in disdain. “What an utter waste of everyone’s time. You’re a fool, Basilio.”

It was Basilio’s turn to step closer to his cousin. Now the two were so close, they could touch.

“Insult me all you want, but I’m just trying to help. I’m worried about you—leaving suddenly like that, with no phone number, no mailing address, no way of contacting you? This is the first time I’ve actually even been able to talk to you.”

“Maybe you should have taken that as a hint.”

“Look, even if you hate me, I still care about you. You have an entire family that wants you to come back and just . . . be normal. I miss you. I truly do.”

Suddenly, Zeno’s demeanor lightened—not to brightness, but to nothingness. Expression blank, he turned his back to Basilio and faced me.

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