Out for Blood

Chapter Thirty

Chrysabelle closed the door to the hurricane shelter where Mal was catching up on his daysleep, his last kiss still cool on her lips. Calm filled her, despite the situation they were preparing for. Whatever happened, they would face it together, and she had faith that the holy mother would bring them safely back, Damian included.

Velimai met her halfway to the living room. Mortalis just dropped Nyssa off and is on his way to Dominic’s tailor with Mal’s measurements. She’s having a cup of tea and a muffin in the kitchen. You should eat. It’s going to be a long couple of days.

“I’ll eat a big lunch. I’m too wound up to eat right now. I’d rather go upstairs and start looking through the dresses. Which room?”

Last room in the east hall, right next to the gym. The key is in your mother’s jewelry box in the bottom drawer.

“I thought that door was another entrance into the gym.”

Velimai smiled wryly and shook her head. See you in a few minutes.

Chrysabelle headed upstairs and retrieved the key. It was just where Velimai had said it would be, tucked into the bottom drawer of the jewelry box Chrysabelle hadn’t paid much attention to. She hadn’t had a reason to, but maybe for this ball she would borrow a few pieces to make her outfit convincing.

Key in hand, she headed down the hall, passing the same rooms she walked by every time she went to train. When things calmed down, she’d investigate the rest of the house. Would Damian want to live here with her? It was as much his house as it was hers. The whole property was. She’d have to talk to the Lapointe Cosmetics board of directors, let them know that the company was half Damian’s. Surely the corporate lawyers could take care of that paperwork.

Making plans like that filled her with happiness. Damian would be pleased to know there was something waiting for him when he returned to Paradise City. She smiled wistfully. It might take him a while to come to terms with having a sister. Comarré education gave no place for such intimately connected family. Hopefully he’d be as happy about the news as she was.

If only Maris had lived to know all of this. Chrysabelle’s smiled disappeared. No doubt if Maris were still alive, things would be different. She couldn’t picture her mother allowing a vampire, Mal or otherwise, into the house or approving of her daughter’s relationship with one. Would Chrysabelle be living at Mal’s? On her own? Or would things between her and Mal never even have developed?

That thought saddened her more than she expected. No matter how she’d fought her feelings for him, now that she’d accepted them, she couldn’t imagine not caring for him. It seemed as natural as breathing. She was still scared of what it meant for both their futures, still learning not to run from the difficult times, still coming to grips with what it meant to make decisions based on two people instead of one, but that’s what love was, wasn’t it? Compromise? Growth? Finding new ways to do old things?

If not, someone else would have to teach her, because nothing in her background had prepared her for this. The only relationship rules she knew involved the care and feeding of one’s patron.

Was that what had come between her mother and Dominic? Chrysabelle expected she’d read the full story in her mother’s journals at some point but had found nothing yet, and Dominic didn’t seem inclined to talk about it. Whatever had happened between them had left them both scarred and bruised.

Would that… could that happen to her and Mal? How would she know what to watch out for if she didn’t know what she was looking for? Maybe Dominic would give her a few clues. Or maybe she was being silly. Maybe whatever had happened with them would never even be an issue.

She trailed her fingers across the doors into the training room. With the time she’d lost to recovering after being dead and everything else that had been going on, she hadn’t sparred in days. She missed it, but when Damian was here, she’d have a permanent training partner. That would be wonderful.

Pausing in front of the storage room door, she fit the key into the lock and turned. After the soft click, she twisted the handle and pushed. The door opened with a soft hiss and a rush of air as the rubber sealing around the frame released. Leave it to Maris to preserve her things with an airtight closet. Chrysabelle felt the wall for the light panel, tapping the softly glowing green button.

The overheads flooded the space with cool light.

Racks of garments lined each side of the long room. At the end, ceiling-high shelves held handbags of every description, shoe boxes, jewelry rolls, and other accessories. Judging by the lack of color present in the clothing, Maris’s early days had been a struggle to wear anything that wasn’t white just as Chrysabelle’s were now.

She walked in, the scent of her mother’s perfume almost bringing tears to her eyes. There was no doubt to whom these things had belonged. Chrysabelle caressed the sleeve of one gown, the silk slipping out of her fingers like a whisper.

Behind her, a throat cleared. Chrysabelle turned to see Velimai and Nyssa standing there. She waved at the remnant. “Hi, Nyssa. Thanks for coming over so early.”

Nyssa nodded and signed, Happy to help.

Chrysabelle’s hand strayed back to the silk dress, her fingers rubbing the soft fabric. “Velimai, why are these things in here? They’re all beautiful. Why not keep them in the closet in her quarters? She didn’t give up wearing white entirely. She wore it much of the time she was here with me.”

Velimai smiled a little sadly and her gaze drifted through the room. Slowly, her hands began to move. These things… she loved them very much, but they were a reminder of… Velimai’s words faded along with her smile. This is everything Dominic ever bought her.