Page 3 of Sound
I startle when her icy cold fingers snatch the empty glass, knocking it against my lip and shaking off the memory. My teeth cut the inside of my lower lip, and the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth. The tip of my tongue traces the slight cut and I finally bring my focus back to the present. My gaze finds her face, a slight tightening of my belly the only emotion coursing through me when I see the smile stretching her red-painted lips plastered there.
“There you go,” she coos at me, her hand gliding patronizingly over my hair in a mocking caress. “Doesn’t that make you feel better?” Her cold, clammy fingers pinch my cheek like pincers. I barely stop myself from flinching. “You even have a bit of color back on your face. I will not have you looking like you’re about to keel over on the stage tonight, you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am.” When the words pass my numb lips, there is no infliction in my voice.
“Excellent!” I jump slightly when she claps her hands excitedly, the glass from a moment ago nowhere to be seen. “Now get ready. You look disgusting and you’re up in thirty minutes. We have important guests tonight, so I will not have you embarrass me.” With one last look that promises all sorts of pain if I don’t do what she wants, she sweeps out of the room.
Blowing out a breath, my shoulders sag when the door locks with a soft click. Pressing both hands over my face, I scrub roughly over it a few times, burying the anger and helplessness threatening to drown me, as deep as I can. The drink she forced down my throat makes me sluggish, but it does not stop me from inwardly seething because of my situation. Defiance has proved ineffective and extremely painful. I’m stuck here no matter what I try, at least so far. Until I have a new plan, I will just have to play along with her. If she believes I’ve given up on the idea of escaping, maybe she’ll make a mistake.
“Tough chance.” Snorting humorously, I look around the sparse room. “The chances of Seraphina making a mistake are as good as seeing those blue eyes again.”
A sharp ping stabs me at that thought and I rub at the center of my chest in hopes it will go away. My eyes landed on him what seems like a lifetime ago, I know it’s foolish to keep thinking about the intriguing man. It was just a moment in time, two barely understood sentences in a club too loud to be able to think in, little less speak. I really am deplorable for obsessing over a guy that may have been asking where the bathroom is for all I know instead of trying to find a way out of here. Yet, I can’t seem to get his face out of my mind.
It’s one of the only things keeping me from falling apart in my prison: those soul-piercing blue eyes, the only other thing being the insane idea that I can escape. A girl can dream.
Lifting off the narrow bed I am perched on, I snatch the black corset that is sitting at the end of it. It takes a good ten minutes to wiggle my way into it, and even still, my ribcage protests from the tight, squeezing sensation, which of course pushes my breasts up for everyone to see. And that is another thing Seraphina enjoys: making me dress so out of my comfort zone that I feel rattled and unable to focus. The tight black leather pants and high-heeled ankle black boots are next, followed by the lacy elbow-length gloves. The rose patterns on the lace draw my gaze and I trace them with a fingertip. A sigh passes my pursed lips when I straighten, eyes locking on the violin waiting patiently on the only chair in this small, claustrophobic room.
Guilt almost chokes me because I know I’ll enjoy every moment I’m able to play my instrument. I try to hate it, and I do my best to force myself to be miserable with every note I play, but it’s always to no avail. I don’t know what Seraphina is trying to achieve or do by keeping me here, but I know one thing for sure: because I love playing, I’m as guilty as she is for whatever she is doing.
2
Étienne
“Any luck?”
Pausing in my stride, feet faltering at Lucien’s voice, I unhurriedly turn and look at him. One shoulder leaning on the doorframe of his bedroom, his scrutinizing eyes search my face, and it’s as if he can read my mind. I watch him, thinking I’ll find anger or disappointment in his features—the same thing I’m feeling—but all I find is a stoic expression giving nothing away. Frustration claws at me, but I know it has nothing to do with my brother and everything to do with my inability to get us out of the mess we are in. Placing both hands in my pockets, I incline my head to him, inviting him to walk with me.
“I haven’t made progress at all,” I admit when he pushes off the door and falls in step beside me. “He is mindless by now; there is no way he is hiding something from me. Either he truly doesn’t know who hired them, or …” My throat closes at the thought choking me with rage. “Or magic is involved and is silencing him.”
Lucien says nothing for a while—a trait my middle brother does not possess on the best of days. It speaks volumes about the gravity of our situation. Ever since two weeks ago when we were attacked in front of a night club by a group of mercenaries—assassins from our kind hired to kill all three of us—we haven’t learned anything useful. At first, we thought that the French court—the one my father ruled as a vampire king before he was killed—finally discovered us here in North America. We managed to stay under the radar for just over fifty years, but our luck was bound to run out eventually. To our surprise, the attack that night didn’t come from the one who’d killed our father and wanted our own heads.
It took a damn cat turning our lives upside down to figure that out.
Even then, we were no closer to finding the truth. The only thing we learned was that magic was involved. Following the damn cat led us to an old church left in ruins on the outskirts of town, and it was drenched in enough magic to choke me. Of course, the beautiful music coming from within was like a siren’s song, luring us forward as well. I still had no idea how we managed to resist it that night.
To this day, that is still all the information we have.
“You’re growling,” Lucien points out, his tone conversational as he keeps his gaze trained in front of him.
“J'ai envie de rugir, pas de grogner, mon frère." He snorts at my murmured confession that I want to roar instead of growl, because I spoke the truth.
“Est-ce que cela résoudra nos problèmes? Nous pouvons rugir ensemble si tel est le cas. " Flicking his eyes to my face, the humor in his words evaporates in the blink of an eye, his offer to roar with me all but forgotten. “I can try to persuade him to speak, even though I know you think I’ll kill him if you leave me alone with him. Perhaps I’m rough, but I’m not stupid. I’m well aware how much we need that scum still breathing.”
“I don’t think roaring will solve our problems. Doing it alone, or together with you as you so kindly offered.” Ignoring his request to question our prisoner on his own I answer Lucien’s first question. “I do, however, believe that the girl is somehow connected with it all.” My heart punches my ribcage with an audible thump, and my fists clench in the pockets of my pants. “The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.”
“And you’ve been thinking about it quite a bit I can see,” Lucien drawls as we reach my office.
Head snapping in his direction, my hand tightens on the doorknob, the metal groaning under my grip. Lucien lifts both hands in surrender, somehow managing to look as innocent as a virgin on her wedding night. Taking a step away from me, his eyes widen in mocking fear. I bare my teeth at him.
“About the connection … You’ve been thinking about the connection, I meant. No one said anything about the girl, definitely not me.”
Forcing my fingers to release the doorknob one at a time, I straighten, my chin hitting my chest when I pinch the bridge of my nose between a thumb and forefinger. Not that his jab was far off the mark. Since it issospot on, it makes me want to rip his throat out. Blowing a lungful of air out, I crack my neck to alleviate the tightness in the back of my skull. Killing my own brother will be monumentally stupid. As if hearing my thoughts, he sobers and stands straighter while he eyes me warily.
“I need a drink.” Pushing the door open, I let the scent of leather, ink, and old parchment wash over me, calming my emotions. I haven’t struggled with control like this in centuries.
“You and me both.” Waiting until I’m halfway through the office, Lucien enters behind me before closing the door. “It might help with keeping my mouth shut when it needs to be.” I raise an eyebrow at him as I lower myself in the chair. “Or maybe not.” Grimacing, he beelines for the bar in the corner.
“There is something we are missing, it’s mocking us and it’s staring us in the face.” Nodding when he lifts a bottle of whisky, I lean on the desk and watch him pour us both two fingers straight. “We’ve been here long enough that any other supernatural would’ve made their move long ago, if they were aware of us. Why now? What triggered this if it has nothing to do with home…or the girl?”
