Page 39 of Death Comes for Her
“That must be why they wanted to consume the sun,” he said. Then he faced me once more before standing to his feet. “And it must be why I’m drawn to you.”
Before I could gasp at his bold statement, a hefty cloth bag dropped into my lap. I caught it, stunned. Holding my breath, I deftly untied the string. Dante’s steps receded until they vanished entirely, leaving me to gape at the glittering substance in the bag.
Golden ash.
I whipped to my feet, spinning toward the attic door. Dante was already gone.
A sob leapt from the depths of my throat. I hunched over, clutching the bag to my chest and wailing. Hot tears sliced down my cheeks as I hugged the ashes to my heart.
“Mother,” I whispered into the roaring winds.
I didn’t stand on the cliffs near a golden palace, and there was no gilded sea surging below me. But right there, at the edge of the roof atop a vampire’s manor, I spread my mother’s ashes in the wind. Glittering flecks drifted and swirled, succumbing to the gust and incoming tempest. My tears slowed and my sobssubsided as I watched my mother take flight one last time, and I had a vampire to thank for the significant moment.
Chapter 13
A hearty breakfast filled my stomach, and a warm cup of tea settled my tumultuous thoughts early in the morning. Aside from my usual nightmares, I’d woken up more invigorated than I had in weeks. Sobbing to the point of exhaustion had a cathartic quality that often went overlooked.
Spreading Mother’s ashes had delivered the final purge of some of the guilt in my heart. Not all of it would be so readily exorcized from the chasm in my chest, but I breathed easier after the cleansing ritual of releasing her to the wind. It meant more than anything in the world that fate provided me the chance to enact last rites for her.
And it meant something that Dante gave her ashes to me. Regardless of what he knew or thought he knew; he’d figured out a few of the pieces. He realized enough to share in that moment with me, to impress something upon me. To my detriment, he roused something akin to feelings that hovered long dormant within me.
The Ambrose Lords were enigmas to me. Both men were a paradox to what a vampire should be, and what the rest of them were. Riddles I wasn’t likely to solve anytime soon.
I soaked in the bath for hours, lost in the sea of my internal conflict until midday. Imani braided my hair after I’d picked at a lunch of steak, spinach, and roasted potatoes. She dressed me in a long-sleeved scoop neck dress of deep sapphire blue material;exposed back as most of my dresses were, likely to show off the scars of what I lost. Proof of my lineage.
“I think I’ll return to the library today,” I told her. “I read through everything I’d saved.”
She clapped her hands. “Rainy days are perfect for reading!”
We simultaneously glanced at the heavy rain pattering against my bedroom window. The storm hadn’t let up since midnight, and I refused to stew with my pent-up energy a moment longer. A walk through the manor and hours pilfering through books would stimulate facets of my brain I’d rather focus on.
I drifted through the gloomy halls, noting the fresh shine on every surface. The staff had taken cleaning to a new level, and I willfully ignored what that meant. Denial twisted through me, pulling blinders over my eyes. And I continued walking past the drawn curtains, listening to the soothing sounds of the storm.
Gentle rustling of paper and the soft thud of a book dropped on a desk greeted me alongside dim electrical lighting. A violent flash of lightning assaulted the windows, chased by a frightening clap of thunder. A startled noise escaped me, and a swish of flipped pages at the back of the library distracted me from the silly reaction.
I dropped off my stack of books, keen to follow the trail of who else loitered in the library. Drifting silently through tall shelves stuffed full of ancient books, my fingers traced absently over their spines and my bare feet padded over plush rugs.
Dante left the night before on werewolf business, and servants only visited the library to clean and organize, leaving my best guess…
A shock of white hair came into view as I rounded the last stack of shelves to the desk sequestered in the back. Parchments, scrolls, and gilded tomes littered the vast lengthof the mahogany desk. Red tinted light bled through the storm clouds, casting the vampire in a bloody haze.
The sound of rain pelting towering paned glass windows and the soft crackle of a low fire in the fireplace broke up the extending silence. I took a few seconds to observe him.
Simon’s white-blond locks fell elegantly disheveled, as if he’d been running his hands through it for hours. His pressed black jacket hung haphazardly over the back of his chair, and the sleeves of his crisp white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, showing off the veins in his toned, alabaster forearms. My gaze snapped to his throat when he swallowed, watching the apple bob before darting up to eyes as blue as the sky on long-lost winter mornings.
As cold as the mornings I’d learned to take my first flights on; a color of sky I’d never see again. A color I wanted to throw myself into and get lost in.
“Do you need something?” he drawled. He deftly flipped shut the book he was previously pouring over. As I neared the corner of the desk, he brushed his hand over a stack of parchments to blanket the cover of whatever had held his interest.
My brow twitched. I remembered my promise to torment the vampire in his brother’s absence. And he was fun to tease.
“Oh, nothing really.” I flipped my braid over my shoulder, where it tickled the length of my spine. My hips swayed alluringly as I rounded the desk. A victorious smile tilted my lips at his eyes, rounding when I lowered myself into his lap.
His throat bobbed again, swallowing hard, eyes dripping down my body, nestled firmly in his lap. He flicked his tongue over his bottom lip before shaking his head. “P… Perhaps a spot of poetry?”
“Is that what you’re doing here? Holed away from the storm and reading long dead men wax on about the beauty of nature and the demise of love?” I pretended to ignore him, feigninginterest in the books front and center. Until I read the gold calligraphy scrawled across the cover of each tome.
“Fairy literature?” I glanced at Simon over my shoulder, noting the pale pink flush on his cheeks.
