Darling (6 page)

“I cannot, my
lady. Not when I’m dying.”

“Do you know
your lord is coming to this world more and more? Why do you think
that is? It is because of you, little girl. His lust for you is
overcoming his good sense. You must stop this.”

“How?”

“Seduce him.
Force Constantine to put an end to this stalemate between you. Make
him lose.”

“No.”
Cassandra pushed off the wall. “If he cannot only see me then I
will not see him at all. I will not play these games.”

“Do not be
stupid I said! I did not bring you here for this purpose!”

“My apologies
for not falling in line as an obedient human dog, my lady. Now take
me home.”

Lady Kamilla shook
her head, mouth pursed, and fury bleaching her gaze of all color.
Cassandra wasn’t impressed. She held the vampiress’
stare, challenging her to do her worst.

“You waste
your time in daring me to kill you, little girl. I would never do
it.”

“Why?”
Cassandra sneered. “Do you fear Lord Constantine so much?”

“I fear for
Lord Constantine that much.” Lady Kamilla reached for
Cassandra’s hand. “I will take you back.”

Cassandra closed her
eyes, feeling the ground disintegrate before rebuilding itself into
the familiar world of eternal night and macabre magic. She found
herself back in the frozen scene of carnival revelers. She approached
Lord Constantine. His eyes still sparkled with merriment, mouth soft
with affection. Cassandra wondered if he showed this lying face to
the human he kept. Rage licked at her, making her visible aura thick
with fire.

You have made a fool
of me, my lord. I could kill you for this.

Cassandra raised a
hand. It shook. Placing it on the side of his face, she wondered if
he could feel her through Lady Kamilla’s enchantment.

“This will
seem a nightmare, my dear, but remember it is true. What you do with
it is up to you.”

“Why did you
do this, my lady?” Cassandra’s raspy whisper held the
scorn of a million screams. “Do you have any idea of what you
have just destroyed?”

“Anything
destroyed can be repaired.” Sadness rippled across Lady
Kamilla’s exquisite face. “I want him happy, my dear. His
happiness lies with you and so I want you both happy. I know you may
not believe that right now but that does not make it less true.”
A gentle kiss to the temple followed Lady Kamilla’s whisper.
Cassandra watched her fade away into the night.

“Darling? What
is it?”

7

“Darling?”
Lord Constantine smoothed his hands over her small shoulders.

Cassandra heard the
fire surrounding her, felt it licking across her skin like a thousand
tongues, and wondered how vampires read humans in their world without
the benefit of literal representation.

Or does he know his
mistresses so well he does not have any trouble?

Lord Constantine
lifted her up until they were eye-to-eye. “What is wrong,
darling? Why are you upset?”

She fixed a corpse
gaze on him, relishing the confusion scurrying across his. “Put
me down.”

Her disrespectful
address surprised Lord Constantine into compliance. “Cassandra,
tell me what is wrong. Now.”

She exploded and
howled like a banshee. “You want to know what is wrong? You.
You are what is wrong with me, Lord Constantine!”

Puppet faces turned
to watch them. Whispers buzzed about. They had just become the most
entertaining spectacle in a world full of spectacles.

Lord Constantine
took her by the arm. Anger tightened his mouth. “You are
overwrought. We are leaving now.”

“Let go of
me!” Cassandra slapped at his much larger body, wrenching her
limb back until he either could crush it or obey. “I hate you!
Do you hear me? I hate you!”

Lord Constantine’s
eyes bled the color of freshly spilled blood. “You will take
back those words, Cassandra.”

“No!”
She spun on her heel and ran away. Pushing through the sudden crowd,
she ignored their jeering faces and babbling laughter. Every part of
her body hurt so badly. How could it have turned out this way?

I have to disappear.
I do not want to be here anymore.

Cassandra shouldered
her way past a trio of green-winged fairies and wished she could rip
their wings off and fly away.

“Cassandra!”

She cried out in
shock as her feet left the ground. Lord Constantine wrapped her
tightly in his arms and forced them both up higher into the sky.

“You are a
very, very bad girl and you are in very, very big trouble.”

The threatening
rumble seared her ears. Wind forced the bottom of her dress up,
letting the air freeze Cassandra’s delicate legs. Her gorgeous
hat fell off, forever lost to the undulating crowd beneath them.
Cassandra whipped her head away from him only to have Lord
Constantine shove her face back against his chest.

His scent, so
familiar, brought Cassandra pain. His touch, so craved, wounded. She
screwed her face up and forced her useless tears to recede.

Hold onto your rage.
Let it be your power.

Lord Constantine
released her as soon as they landed in the empty castle courtyard.
Cassandra fisted her dress and fled up the gigantic stone staircase.
Her legs trembled as they pounded over the midnight-blue runner, numb
and pained from their exposure to the bitter cold. Lord Constantine’s
slow, measured steps gained steadily behind her. Cassandra cursed in
panic as soon as she realized she would never reach the top.

Stop sniveling and
stand up for yourself.

She whirled around,
stuck halfway up the staircase. Lord Constantine carried himself with
the nonchalance of a man who had all the time in the world to hunt
down his foolish prey. Cassandra drew herself up and forced her voice
to be that of a disinterested stranger.

“Let me go in
peace. I have nothing to say to you tonight.”

Lord Constantine
stared her down while keeping his unhurried pace. His continued
silence released a vicious diatribe long coming.

“I am not a
child for you to punish! You do not have the right to change the
world around me! If I want to go to my rooms then I have that right
without your interference!”

The vampire finally
stopped on the step below her. He still towered over Cassandra,
making her feel tiny, insignificant, and unworthy of his attention. A
suffocating weight settled in her chest. She remembered his betrayal
and wondered why the ground didn’t split beneath her tired
feet.

“Why?”

Lord Constantine
misunderstood her plaintive question. He assumed it to be a welcome
sign of her appropriate submission. “Your disrespect must be
seen to. You have shamed me in front of my kingdom, darling, and that
is not something I can excuse lightly.”

Agony contorted her
doll-like face. “And what of the shame to me, Constantine?”
In all their years together, Cassandra had never addressed him
without use of an honorific.

His eyes widened a
fraction of an inch before narrowing. He took a deliberate step
backwards. “What did you say to me?” Devoid of all
emotion, Lord Constantine’s voice sounded like death. It
should’ve been enough to send Cassandra straight to her knees
to beg for forgiveness.

“I know where
you were! I saw you with that woman!”

He made no attempt
to hide his confusion. “Have you lost all sense, Cassandra? I
have been with you this entire time.”

“NO!”
The scream unleashed all of the misery and betrayal she had
suppressed, all the countless nights of wondering why he couldn’t
stay by her side and terrified he would eventually abandon her.

“I. . .saw. .
.you both. I saw you. I saw her.”

Lord Constantine’s
already pale face lost its normal pallor. He croaked out her name in
horror. “What exactly did you see, darling?”

“I saw your
pretty redhead, Constantine. I saw you in that. . .that. . .hotel.
Are you going to deny you were there tonight?”

“How could you
have seen. . .” Lord Constantine reached out for her only to
have Cassandra back away. Devastation marked him for a ruined man.
“Darling, no!”

“No, you were
not there or no, it never happened?” Cassandra scented blood.
“Answer quickly, Constantine. It is not a difficult question.”

“Darling, let
us go inside.” He held her hands in his and pitched his voice
soft. “You are overwrought. We can discuss this after you
sleep.”

Cassandra yanked
back. Blood exploded between them in a fine mist. “I am not a
child! Do you understand? I may be small, I may not look like your
mistress, but that does not make me any less of a woman!”

Lord Constantine
retracted his claws, stunned at the unintentional violence wrought by
his carelessness. “Darling, your hands! Hurry! Let me see
them!”

“Do you think
I care about my hands?” Cassandra pulled off her ruined gloves.
She held her arms up high. Long gashes marked them crimson. “Do
you see this? Do you? This is nothing compared to what my heart looks
like.”

“Precious,
please! I have to heal you.”

Cassandra stumbled
back, nearly falling over the hem of her gown. “You put me in
these suffocating dresses so that I drown beneath a sea of
petticoats, corsets, and stockings but she is all but naked! Is that
what you like? Is it? Do you bring her pretty dresses too? Do you?”

The vampire’s
proud shoulders sagged. It was all she needed to convict him. He
beseeched, “Darling, you are my love. It is not as you see it—I
swear.”

Cassandra covered
her face. She wanted to die. Everything she believed was real, her
very existence, it was all a cruel lie. Lenore was right—Cassandra
was wrong in trying to gain a vampire’s love.

If this is what he
would do to me now, what would he do if he wanted to really hurt me?

Lord Constantine
rested his palm on her back and murmured his love for her,
continuously swearing things were not as she believed them to be.
Cassandra nearly vomited.

“Do not touch
me with that disgusting hand! Did you have the decency to wash
yourself before you came back to me or do you carry the stink of your
whore all over you now, Constantine?”

“It is not how
you see it.” He repeated it louder, impotent and useless
beneath the weight of her scorn.

“Do not tell
me what I see, you lying, traitorous vampire! I hate you,
Constantine! Do you hear me? I hate you! I wish I had never been born
if that meant being here with you!”

“Take back
those words, Cassandra.”

“No!”

Lord Constantine
yanked Cassandra off her feet and sped into the castle. The mammoth
doors flew off their hinges. Destruction followed them through the
receiving hall, up the grand staircases, and into her rooms.

Cassandra pushed at
him in vain. She screamed for Lenore, begging her guardian to take
her away from Lord Constantine. She yelled how she never wanted to
see him again. She pummeled his face with her bloodied hands.

Lord Constantine
crouched to the ground, holding onto her as an anchor in danger of
disintegrating if he loosened his grip for one moment. “What
must I do for you to forgive me? Tell me, Cassandra.” He
repeated it over and over until his darling screamed herself hoarse.
Cassandra finally lay still in his arms, limp and broken from
betrayal.

“Darling,
please forgive me. I never wanted to hurt you. I swear it!”

“But you did,
my lord. You did.”

He took stingy
comfort in her use of “my lord” even as her raw whisper
branded him. Lord Constantine shook his head as if to escape the
searing pain. “Cassandra, you are my only love.”

“No. I am but
a responsibility to you. A burden. You spend all your personal time
with your mistress because she is your joy. I am a mistake. I should
not be here.”

“Stop it!”
The vampire cupped his human’s face and forced her attention to
him. “You belong here with me, darling. My feelings for you
have never wavered, have never been in doubt. I love you, Cassandra,
more than you could ever know.”

“And I loved
you more than anyone in the world. I loved you so much, Lord
Constantine.” Her lips curved into a dead smile. “I do
not love you anymore.”

“You lie.”
His fangs flashed. He looked capable of murder, especially with the
blood from her hands drying on his face. “You cannot tell a lie
to a vampire and hope to keep it.”

Cassandra sagged.
She wished to disappear. “You are a cruel master to have. You
will not even allow me to lie to myself.”

Guilt softened the
hard edges of his face. “Darling, listen to me. That woman was
food. Nothing else.”

“You treat
your food very well.”

Lord Constantine
cursed softly. “Please do not doubt me, Cassandra. I have loved
you your whole life. You cannot think I would ever put another before
you.”

“You touch
women like her but not me. If you love me then you must love her
more.”

“I am not a
human, darling! Do not put human morals on me!”

“Then must I
adopt a more vampire way of being, my lord? Will you let me have any
handsome man I fancy? Will you look the other way, secure in my
feelings for you, as I spread my legs for him?”

Lord Constantine’s
handsomeness became distorted by the vicious predator laying in wait
beneath his pretty skin. A terrible growl built deep in his throat.

“Ah, so my
human morals are not so human after all?” Cassandra’s
mockery pricked his mutinous silence.

“I would not
dishonor you once you became my lover. I would have no need of any
others. What you speak of is not the same. I feed off of those women
because I cannot feed off of you. Not yet, Cassandra.”

“So you save
your dishonor for me now. I fear what will happen to me in the
future.”

“Do not twist
my words, darling. Please do not.” Lord Constantine’s
gloved finger brushed against her cheek. “I never wanted this.
I only wanted to keep you happy. I thought it was the best for us
both. . .I was wrong.”