Page 54 of Rock Bottom
“Will I be welcome to come and spend lots of time here on my downtime once I don’t need to be protected anymore?”
“I believe that will be the case, yes. Marco says he’s open to moving me to a hallway you can have access to, so you can stay in my bedroom with me as well, if you wish, though I understand humans need sunshine and windows, so no pressure.”
“How does Cora work that?”
“She lived here years before Marco moved in, and her bedroom is still on an upper floor, but I believe she splits her time between the two rooms. Cora might be open to talking to you about life with a vampire.”
I wasn’t positive she would, but I’d heard her talking to Ronnie one evening, when Josef was here for a security meeting, and the two were sharing lots of information about how they handle life with a vampire. I’d heard several minutes of their conversation while I’d waited upstairs to greet Duke and Brain and walk them downstairs. Maybe she’s closer to Ronnie, and wouldn’t want to share that much with my Silver, but I hoped maybe she would.
Silver walked me to one of the many benches Kirsten has spread around the woods near the house, and asked softly, almost shy, “Will you sing for me?”
“It’ll be in Italian.”
“I don’t care, I just want to hear you sing. Do you need music? Can you sing without it?”
“Are you familiar withThe Marriage of Figaro? I can doDeh Vieni Non Tardar.” Or a portion of it, if I didn’t think she was getting into it.
“I’ve heard of it, I think, but I don’t know anything about it.” She met my gaze. “I’m not likely to know anything about the music of your time, so whatever you want to sing for me is fine. Please.”
I considered which two-minute slice of an aria might most appeal to a modern-day American, and I took five steps back from her.
I was self-conscious at first, singing for one person is alwayssointimate, but a few lines in, the music took hold, my posture straightened, my breath deepened, and I let it pour through me the way I’d been trained. I sang from memory, the emotion built into the phrasing carrying me through.
When I reached the section I’d planned to stop, I let the final note linger, and when it was gone, fading into the hush of the forest around us, I returned to Silver with too much distance between us.
She waited just a beat, probably to be sure I was finished, and then she launched herself at me in a blur of movement. I caught her easily, lifting her so her legs could wrap around my waist, her arms locked tight around my neck, her face a picture of pure joy.
“Thank you! Oh, wow. You’re so gifted.Sotalented!” she breathed, voice thick with wonder.
She leaned back, kissed me square on the lips, and framed my face with her small hands, eyes bright and shining. “I adore you. I love you. Thank you so much for gifting me that. I know you need to leave soon, and I’ll have this song in my heart to remember you. Can you text me the name of the piece, please? So I can look up a translation of the lyrics?”
“I can,” I said, touched down to my bones. “I love that you enjoyed it. Truly. And I love and adore you, my dear Silver.”
I carried her to the bench and helped her step down, holding her hand as she jumped lightly to the ground. We made our way inside through the patio, fingers still laced, and found everyone gathered in the kitchen, which is huge — big enough for the entire wolf pack to hang out before and after full moon runs, though I understand they sometimes take over the enormous screened-in porch of the farmhouse.
“I take it the two of you have said your goodbyes?” Marco asked.
“We have,” Silver told him. “Thank you for giving him the evening off.”
“He’ll have plenty of work in the limo and the plane. I’m glad I could spare him for the evening. I believe you know Josef, who performed your oath. He’ll be on the premises to help with security, and Mordecai plans to be around during the daytime hours when Josef is dead to the world.”
Josef stood, and I smiled at him. “Oh, hello. It didn’t even occur to me that maybe I might not be as safe without Marco around.”
Seeing him brought the whole Alfheim experience back — the dragon, the lion, the otherworldly band, the oath. The memory wasn’t visual so much as visceral, and I was still disappointed I hadn’t been able to ride the dragon.
“My Ronnie will be here tomorrow evening, and I believe Kirsten has a special dinner planned. I hope you’ll join us.”
“I do,” Kirsten told me, “but we can talk about that later. Kiss your vampire goodbye. They need to get going.”
I walked to him and he lifted me like he always does, as if I weigh nothing, as if he’ll never let me fall.
I usually wrap my legs around him, but with an audience… before the thought was fully through my head, I wrapped my legs around him and kissed him the way we do in private, slow and deep with a lot of hip action, possessive as hell, and maybe that’s why I decided to do it with an audience.
When he set me down, Marco was still lip-locked with Cora, so I figured we were good.
“Adelaide is already in the limo,” Marco finally told Julian, and the two of them left.
The door closed.
