Мэг Кэбот – Overbite (страница 8)
His grip on her hand loosened slightly.
“I remember,” he said, flinching a little. “But it’s hardly a good idea to bring up a man’s mother at moments like this, Meena …”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But it can’t be helped. You told me she was your father’s first wife, and that she was very beautiful and innocent, and that he loved her very much. You said after her death, people used to whisper that she might have been an angel …”
Now he pulled his hand from hers entirely.
“And now
“Lucien, you have to listen to this,” Meena said urgently. “I keep having this dream. It’s been the same one every night. And I think it’s about you and your mother. I don’t know who else it could be. It takes place in that castle in the woodcut. I went online to research where you grew up—Poenari Castle—and it looks like the same place. In the dream, this woman is sitting on a seat by a window, reading a book with a little boy. The little boy looks exactly like you, and so does the woman. She has long black hair and big dark eyes and is wearing a blue dress—”
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.” Lucien’s voice was curt. “So you keep having this dream. So what? I thought your gift was that you could see into the future, not the past.”
“It is,” Meena said, a little hurt by his harsh tone. “I mean, it was. It always has been. But lately, I don’t know. I think it’s been changing. Getting stronger, or something. Because, Lucien, in this dream, the part from this book that the woman is reading to this little boy—who I think is you—is about good and evil. I don’t know how I can understand what she’s saying, because she’s speaking in a language I’ve never heard before. But somehow I can. She’s talking about how none of us is completely good or completely evil, and
Lucien started to get up from the bed, clearly eager to get away from her.
Only he couldn’t, because whatever was wrong with him, it seemed to knock him back, and off his feet. He sank down again onto the mattress, kneading his forehead and muttering a curse.
“Lucien.” Meena crawled toward him and laid her hands upon his shoulders. “What? What is it? What is the matter with you?”
Now, finally, she felt afraid.
Of him.
What had she done? What had she said? She’d thought he’d be glad to hear about her dream. It wasn’t a sad dream. To her, it was a hopeful dream … even if no one else in the Palatine agreed with her that it meant demons had within them the capacity to be good.
At the very least, she’d argued—particularly with Alaric Wulf, who disliked her mentioning the dream so much, he almost always left the room in a rage whenever she brought it up—it meant that whatever his father might have done, Lucien Antonescu had had a mother who’d loved him, and taught him right from wrong … at least until she’d killed herself by throwing herself into the river that ran beneath Poenari Castle … the river that came to be known, forever after, as the Princess River.
Maybe it was this painful memory of his mother that caused Lucien to swing suddenly in her direction, seize her by both shoulders, and bring her roughly toward him.
There was no sign of weakness in him now. Whatever it was Meena had said to upset him, it seemed to have rid him of that, at least.
“What?” she cried, her heart jackhammering. “What is it?”
He didn’t say a word. He just looked down at her, his dark-eyed gaze seeming to rake her with a need she couldn’t understand. For a moment, she could see in the lamplight that there was a muscle or a nerve twitching in his cheekbone, just above his jaw. It was almost as if he was trying to keep something contained, and not quite mastering it. She stared at that muscle fearfully, watching it jump, asking herself what it was he so badly wanted to do or say that he couldn’t quite seem to bring himself to. She wondered if she needed to run for her cell phone, which she’d left in the next room …
But before she had a chance, he’d lowered his mouth to hers.
And then nothing else seemed to matter. All that mattered was the roughness of his slight five o’clock shadow as it grazed her and the way his arms slid around her, cradling her as gently as if he were afraid she might break if he held her as tightly as he wished to …
… then the growing urgency with which he deepened the kiss, the fierceness with which he grasped her to his long-dead heart when he realized she wasn’t going to crumble beneath his touch.
She lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck, even as he was crushing her against him, making her feel things just with his lips and tongue that she hadn’t felt since … well, since the last time he’d held her in his arms this way.
It couldn’t last, of course.
Because a second later he broke the kiss—literally tore his face from hers just as certain parts of herself had started to turn to liquid—and let go of her, so suddenly that her eyelids fluttered open and she actually had to put a hand out to catch herself from falling back against the mattress without his arms to support her anymore. Because, suddenly, he’d disappeared.
She was so taken aback by the abrupt end to their kiss, she wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing, and drag his mouth back down to hers again.
But then she saw that he’d flung himself a few feet away, and was in a darkened corner of her room, just looking at her from the shadows, his eyes no longer deep pools of ebony, but twin spots of red …
The same red his eyes had always turned when he was at his angriest.
Or hungriest.
Oh God.
She stared back at him. It had never occurred to her to ask what he was living on these days.
Now, as she looked into those bloodred eyes, it was all she could think about.
“The Palatine have frozen all your financial assets,” she said quietly.
“The ones they could trace back to the name I used to use,” he replied, his voice like liquid smoke, drifting from the shadows and curling around her in burning tendrils.
“Still,” Meena said, shivering. She felt as if she were sitting in a cool, dense fog. “It must be difficult to find human blood to purchase on such restricted resources.” She gripped her duvet, white-knuckled, as she waited for his reply.
“Are you worried I’m not eating enough, Meena?” She heard a hint of mockery in his tone. “Or worried I’m resorting to murder for my meals? Let me put your mind at rest on both counts.” She heard a rustle of cloth. He was reaching into his coat pocket. “Here.” He tossed something onto the bed. She reached instinctively to catch it.
It was the impromptu stake he’d given her, and that she’d used to kill David.
“You have my permission to kill me if I ever try to bite you again,” he said. “Against your will, anyway. I should hope there’s still enough man in me to keep me from ever hurting you. But should an occasion ever arise to prove otherwise … well, you’ve more than amply proved this evening that you know what to do with one of those.”
Meena stared down at the chair leg. She had to swallow before she felt able to speak.
“Lucien,” she said. “I told you six months ago: I don’t ever want to hurt you. I’ll always do everything in my power to try to help you … even help you despite yourself. That’s why I told you about the dream. I think I can prove—”
He stepped from the shadows then. His eyes had gone back to their normal color, but a million different emotions played upon his face.
“You know what I want from you, Meena,” he said, in a rasping voice. “As soon as you’re ready to give it—and admit that’s what you want, as well—come find me. You won’t have to look far. I’ll be close. I always have been.”
Then he opened the bedroom door and walked out. A second later, she heard the apartment door slam.
Alaric Wulf was not having a good day. Technically, he wasn’t having a good week.
This streak of misfortune had started when his supervisor, Abraham Holtzman, called him into his office, saying he had something he wished to discuss in private.
“I already know,” Alaric announced the minute he arrived.
“You do?” Holtzman looked up from his computer screen, surprised. “How?”
Alaric shrugged. “You’re kidding, right? She told me. She’s been telling anyone who’ll listen. You should hear her in the commissary at lunch
He felt like his imitation of Meena Harper was dead-on. Sometimes he found himself mimicking her when he was alone. Not on purpose, which was faintly disheartening. He couldn’t seem to get her voice out of his head.