Blood and Lace: Chapter 11

Della was acutely aware of the rough carpet beneath her and the bed frame a few inches above. In the moment she felt grateful for the narrowness of the space. It made her think of insects captured beneath glass, preserved and immobile and still.

She was not still. There was a horrible sensation just beneath her skin, a wavering like some taut string of a musical instrument had been plucked inside her. But the cramped accommodations—symbolic as they were—were keeping her together. As long as she stayed here the wavering would stay within her, not burst forth in a wave of dangerous potential.

It had been more than ten seconds since she’d spoken to Nicholas. He hadn’t moved above her. His heartbeat was going like a prey animal’s and his breathing was labored. She was tempted to use the Compulsion and force him to leave. Instead she stared at the bed slat directly above her and did nothing.

Finally, movement. Della followed the sound, turning her head to see two bare feet hit the floor a few feet away. More shifting and a mild huff of pain, and now Nicholas was off the bed on his hands and knees. One hand reached to lift the bed skirt—

“Don’t!” Della commanded. “I’m not fully dressed.” Nicholas's hand immediately dropped the fabric back. She felt a flash of heat on the sides of her face. She wasn't exactly naked in a tank-top and underwear, but everything about this situation already made her feel horribly exposed.

“Della…” Silence stretched out past the word. It was clear Nicholas had no idea what to add after her name.

She closed her eyes. Distance, she thought, distance and time. Out loud, she said, “Go to the kitchen. When I am dressed…I’ll come out.”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Yeah, okay.” He climbed slowly to his feet, then walked away from the bedside. The door shut. After several seconds she heard the muffled sound of a kitchen chair being pulled out and a creak as Nicholas sat in it. Thank the gods. A few precious seconds alone.

She was mortified.

Della couldn't recall a time she’d ever been more embarrassed. She took a deep breath, unsuccessfully trying to purge the intolerable sensation. Somehow this felt worse than the mockery of the wedding dress. How could that even be possible? The wedding dress had been the ultimate blow to her dignity. This…it was just…

A bedroom farce.

Yes! Drivel penned by a hack. It was all so…human. It reeked of physicality and base emotions. Sheep in the pasture…rabbits in the fields…and all of it—all of them!—beneath her. She gave another shuddering sigh, but her chest remained tight.

You like him, she accused herself with a kind of despair.

It was a terrible thing to think, made more terrible by its truth. She liked this absurd human hunter. Not in a romantic way—that was impossible—but in a way that was still frightening in its rapidity. Della didn't warm to others easily, not even her own kind; some friendships had taken decades to set. She didn't even know Nicholas very well.

But tonight he had made her shake with emotion. She had been swept along through anger…horror…disgust. And then he had started talking to himself in the dark and she’d plunged into a pool of unbearable empathy. That's why she had spoken out: to minimize his humiliation. It was like Nicholas had opened up some conduit to her distant past, to the young woman who once walked in sunlight, overflowing with youth and the unceasing clamor of human impulses. A part of her that, for one awful instant, had felt a spark of jealousy.

Not jealousy. It wasn’t that.

She was not romantically interested in this human.

He’s dangerous.

Della suddenly reached back to grab the bag containing her paltry possessions. She slid out from underneath the bed and stood. The air still smelled of Nicholas and the woman he’d brought home to bed. The doxy preferred a cloying floral fragrance. She bared her teeth, then pushed it from her head.

The capris were the only item she hadn't yet worn, so she pulled them on. The sweater from yesterday would have to do. She put her hair up in a quick chignon, then cursed herself a few minutes later when she was still fussing over it. Are you putting off talking to him or trying to look pretty for him? She growled at the back of her throat and let it alone.

The air was less thick in the hallway. She studied Nicholas’s strange movie poster while trying to get the last of the floral stench out of her nose. What on Earth was a “Goonie” supposed to be? At last her head began to feel clearer. Della rolled her shoulders and took a step into the kitchen.

Nicholas was slumped over the table with his head in his arms. Every line of his muscular frame was rigid with tension and his light brown hair looked as if he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly. He was a picture of misery.

It was…oddly reassuring.

Modern humans often mystified Della. They lived with such desperate vitality, as if expecting their already-short lives to be cut shorter at a moment's notice. She’d felt outpaced by the world since the 1950s, but lately it was like some humans—even the younger ones—had begun to feel outstripped as well. They sought connection through any and every method available, some of them shockingly intimate. She didn't judge—a predator that survived on the blood of others was hardly fit.

But Nicholas’s abject chagrin was something she recognized, comforting in its familiarity. Della had always been diligent in staying modern, but she had lagged behind this…area of study…since the end of Prohibition. Her kind only required superficial knowledge of human sexuality. She supposed she was a prude by the standards of the twenty-first century, but it seemed the gulf between her and Nicholas wasn't so vast that they couldn't…talk. Anything to make the tightness inside her unwind before it became something darker.

She sensed his heartbeat quickening. He had become aware of her presence in the doorway. The only outward sign was a tightening of his arms around his face and the shifting of his back with a deep inhalation. She walked fully into the kitchen, but stopped well short of the table.

“I am dressed,” she said softly.

He didn't raise his head. “You were there the entire day?” The words were muffled by his arms.

“Yes. My sanctuaries were…” She trailed off, grabbing her elbows and leaning back against the counter. “It was necessary to seek shelter here for one more day. I let myself back in while you slept.”

“You could have woken me up.”

“I didn't wish to impose.”

He gave a mirthless laugh and finally raised his head. Her heart jolted at the distraught cast of his expression. The warm brown of his eyes had become muddied with wretchedness. The strong lines of his face were sharpened to severity by a scorn she knew was directed inward. It was the face of a young martyr painted by a Renaissance master.

The tightness in her chest loosened. A trickle of compassion, bright and pure, replaced it. The intensity of his feelings couldn’t be more plain, and they pulled her own in unfamiliar directions, to heights outside of a vampire’s ordinary experience. It was a different kind of light for one such as her, but no less imposing than the sun.

“Nicholas…what just happened…it was…”

“Awful.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Della…I'm so sorry. If I had known you were here—”

“You wouldn't have brought the woman home.”

Nicholas furrowed his brow. “What?”

“If I had known this was common behavior for you,” she said dryly, “I would have told you I'd returned.”

“Wait…” He held up a hand. “Did you think I brought Jessie here?” When Della raised an eyebrow in response, he gave an irritable shake of his head. “She came to see me. Didn't even call first.”

Della frowned. Was that true? Nicholas and the lady-bird—Jessie—were already in the bedroom when she'd woken up. Had Jessie initiated the encounter? “When I awoke,” she said cautiously, “you were both on the bed. You seemed quite…enthused.”

He winced. “Can I, um, try to explain?” He laced his fingers together and squeezed until they were white. “I probably won’t be able to look at you while I do it, though.”

“Very well,” Della replied quietly.

Nicholas drew in a shuddering breath. “Okay. Jessie and I had a prior relationship—well, half a relationship. ‘Friends with benefits.’ Do you know that term?”

“I am familiar.” Deserts were less arid than her tone.

“Well, uh, she initiated it, and we were…pretty compatible. Physically, I mean. It lasted a few months, but I ended it about six weeks ago and hadn't even seen her until yesterday. I guess she missed me.”

“Clearly.” Della, angry at the little spark of jealousy that had sprung back to life, tried to resist asking the next question. She failed. “Did you miss her?”

Nicholas grimaced. “No. At least, not like I think you mean. I missed…I think I missed how simple things could be with her. There was a certainty in that relationship. It was safe.”

“Certainty,” Della echoed, thinking of how little she had appreciated the concept until it had been removed from her own life. Nicholas nodded as if she had asked a question.

“Yeah. Because ever since I pulled you out of that house, spent time with you…shared blood…” A faint flush of embarrassment colored his neck. “I feel like the ground under me has just…dropped away, and I don't know when it will be back. And in the meantime I'm thrashing in deep water."

Della masked a sudden shudder. Nicholas had unknowingly conjured up horrible images of rolling waves and stygian blackness. Did these hunters know about her people's fear of open water? She forced the mental images away with an effort, refocusing on his words.

“…thought maybe I was having some traumatic reaction to the raid,” Nicholas was explaining. “In the moment, desperation—and sure, arousal—got the best of me when she pulled her dress off.” The flush had deepened to an all-over red. “But it didn't take much to realize it was a huge mistake. All I could think about was…” His gaze darted up for the first time since he'd begun talking. It sought hers for an instant then peeled away. “Well. It wasn't Jessie. That’s why I stopped it before we went any further. You, uh, know the rest,” he murmured.

Della nodded stiffly. Describing what she’d heard as “the rest” was an understatement.

A beautiful, soulful enemy who I can't stop thinking about.

It seemed neither of them were eager to discuss it. Perhaps what had already been said was enough. That terrible agitation coiling in her stomach had begun to unwind. The sense of turbulence hadn't eased entirely, but she felt calmer and even—gods help her—relieved. She was glad to be spared from further embarrassment, of course, but that alone didn't quite explain the intensity of it. Was it because Nicholas had resisted that woman's advances?

Beautiful…soulful…

“Della?” His voice brought her back.

He was staring at her with a quiet fervor, the face of a man awaiting a verdict.

She tilted her head, regarding him for a moment. “None of this would have happened if I’d made my presence known. This mutual embarrassment is my fault.”

“No. If I had dealt with Jessie like a mature—”

“Let me finish, Nicholas.” Della glowered at him and he wisely fell silent. She took a steadying breath. “It wasn’t decorum that made me conceal my return here. It was simple vanity. My prideful nature. I was ashamed.”

“You don’t have anything to be—”

“Of course I do!” Della snapped. “My means have plummeted far below my station. Everything I own fits into two bags and all my money was loaned to me by a human who hunts vampires.”

Nicholas pushed back from the table and slumped against his chair. “Well if it's any consolation…I'm obviously not very good at it.” The self-deprecating humor in his words seemed to warm the room. She saw a flicker of his familiar smile.

She smiled back. Only for an instant. It was so involuntary that she briefly touched her fingers to her lips in surprise. Had he noticed?

“But maybe it’s not all bad,” Nicholas said quickly. He shifted forward, his heartbeat speeding up as he prepared to make an announcement. “Thanks to my back injury I have some time off. I think there may be another way I can help you.”