I withdrew my sword, wiping the blood on my tunic, and turned toward the girl...
I was suddenly on the floor staring up at Renata"s ceiling.
"Epiphany." It was Vasco"s voice. He touched my cheek lightly. "Epiphany?"
"I"m not quite sure, yet," I managed to say.
He helped me sit up, propping my back against his torso. "You wouldn"t let me guide your vision," he said, as if he were in my thoughts and felt my confusion. "If you had let me guide it and didn"t try to take control, you wouldn"t feel like this."
How did I feel? I felt unreal and confused. I blinked. "Vasco..."
"S?"
"Don"t you ever do that to me again. For future reference, I"d rather stay in my own body."
His lips spread into a grin. "So I noticed."
I heard movement and turned to look at Renata. She knelt beside me, touching my forehead with nimble fingers. "I did not know you could project memories, Vasco."
"I cannot, my lady."
She gave him a questioning look. "Her?"
He nodded. "It seems Epiphany"s powers of empathy only want to absorb. Her power doesn"t care whether it is thoughts, emotions, or memories that it is absorbing."
Renata made a little, "Hmm," sound as her fingers tickled lightly down my neck.
"He didn"t protect me just for you," I whispered, watching her.
"So I noticed."
Had she seen the memory?
Her hands found my shoulders and she started pul ing me away from Vasco. His grip tightened around me for a second, I think, afraid of what she would do. I didn"t have the energy or the wil to fight either one of them. Renata gave him a look of warning and he let me go.
Her hands moved at my back.
"Turn around," she whispered the words against my hair and I shuddered.
I moved to my knees and turned. Renata opened the back of the dress and pushed it down off my shoulders. She exposed my back, touching the scar there. The knife Lucrezia had used had been silver, and though my body had healed, it had left two light pink scars like an angry X between my shoulder blades. One thing Vasco hadn"t witnessed was that before he"d arrived, Lucrezia had told me she was going to carve the target on my back. She"d stayed true to her word.
The rage was a bitter and hateful thing in my mouth as Renata"s fingers traced my scarred flesh. It wasn"t my rage. It was hers. The muscles in my back twitched and jumped, as if my skin remembered the blow.
"Renata," I whispered.
It was like something hot sliding down my spine. I said her name again, through clenched teeth.
I turned and caught her wrists in my hands.
Vasco hissed and I knew it wasn"t at Renata. He"d never seen the scar. I let go of her wrists.
"I thought," he said, swal owed, and tried again, "I didn"t know she"d maimed you."
"I know," I said. "You were too late. You saved me, Vasco, but you were too late. The knife was silver."
Renata looked at him in one of those very slow movements. Her anger brought forth the blue topaz color in her eyes. "You never reported to me that she had been abused."
I wasn"t looking at him as he repeated himself, "I did not know Lucrezia had maimed her."
"I am not maimed," I said, "only scarred."
Renata touched my cheek and I flinched.
I will kill her.
I gazed up at her and said, "I won"t stop you."
I thought I saw a smal flicker of surprise flit across her features.
"It seems you are right, Vasco. Epiphany"s power seeks and it finds."
"S," he said.
"It"s never been like this," I said.
"I know. I believe that Renata not only tasted your power, but has, ah, given it a boost of sorts."
"With practice would I be able to read a person"s thoughts whenever I wanted to?" I asked.
"I am not sure, colombina. Our powers are polar opposites. Where yours absorbs, I project."
I nodded; it was something I already knew.
"Some." Renata brought my attention back to her.
There was something in her demeanor that made me ask, "How do you know?"
She smiled rueful y. "It seems you have gained a power more similar to my own."
Renata explained while deftly tying the lace at the back of my gown. "Telepathy was one of the first powers I gained," she said. "I had no idea your empathy would be so similar."
"You can read minds?"
"Better than you can," she said, but there wasn"t any arrogance in her tone. "I have had years of practice to read the thoughts of others and to project onto them what I wish them to feel."
I peered at her over my shoulder. I licked lips that were dry. "Have you read mine?"
"What do you think?"
That was unnerving.
I pushed the hair out of my face. "What wil the chal enges be like?"
"Difficult," she said. "I cannot make it any other way."
"What are they?"
"You wil see."
"Why can"t you tel me?"
She touched my brow. "It would be unfair and it would displease the Elders."
"You are their Queen."
"Even a queen has rules to abide by." Her fingers traced the line of my jaw. She stood in a fluid motion, her velvet skirts like dark water. My eyes fol owed the line of her body, the paleness of her shoulders beyond the sheer sleeves.
"There is a way to avoid al of this," she murmured thoughtful y.
"How?"
"Come back to me."
Her words pierced me.
The proposition was sweet, so sweet, and bitter. Why did a part of me enjoy that bitterness?
I lightly shook my head. "No," I said, "you cast me aside. I am not your pet anymore, nor do I wish to be. I wil not voluntarily remain an Underling merely to be cast aside again."
"You do not realize what I risk by asking you to return to me."
"Oh?" I said snidely, "Pray tel , what great risk are you taking?"
"You think I simply tossed you aside, but your selfishness blinds you, Epiphany."
"I don"t understand."
"No," she said, "you do not."
"Then tel me."
"I do not comprehend it myself, my Queen," Vasco said smoothly.
Renata moved fast, burying her hand deep within the tresses of my hair. She pul ed my head back. Her lips were dangerously close to my cheek as she said, "Have you not wondered why Lucrezia wanted to torment you?"
"I thought she was a s.a.d.i.s.tic psychopath."
"There are those Elders that believe I played favorites."
"You are stil their Queen," I said. "Our Queen. To harm you is a death sentence."
"A queen is not invincible," she said, hand traveling down the back of my neck, "just as neither you nor Vasco are invincible."
Her hand slid distractingly across my shoulder, fingers light and tickling. She touched my cheek again, and this time I turned my head so that my lips brushed her palm.
"You are our creator," I said against her skin. "You are more powerful."
Her thumb traced the line of my brow and I shuddered. It wasn"t a s.e.xual gesture, but the sensuality in the way she touched me brought goose b.u.mps to my flesh.
I felt the loss of her.
I had felt it since the day she cast me out.
"Creator. Queen. Siren. I am but one vampire."
There was a wary knowledge in her eyes that made the breath catch in my throat, not from arousal, but fear.
"What haven"t you told me?"
She looked away, withdrawing her hand. "I have told you nothing that is not of your concern."
I moved with her as she stood, catching her wrist. "Renata."
"Epiphany," she said, but she wasn"t looking at me. Her voice was soft. "Release me."
I didn"t and she said my name again.
"Bel ezza," Vasco warned.
I shook my head. "No. I have spent the last two hundred years obeying orders. I have spent the last two hundred years huddling beneath the mantle of someone else"s power, afraid that if I did not, someone would break me to their wil ."
Renata gave me a considering look. "I broke your wil once."
I smiled sadly. "No, I gave you my wil . There is a difference between what one freely offers and what is taken by force. I have huddled like a child for too long. I have been afraid to test my limits, afraid to embrace my abilities, afraid that they would not be enough. My greatest fol y is that I have underestimated myself. I see that now."
She looked at me as if I"d sprouted a second head, not a disgusting one, but one that made her curious. "Are you sure this is not your doing, Vasco?"
"Quite sure, my lady."
"If you want me," I said to her, "then you wil have to accept me as an Elder."
"There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, Epiphany. Tread lightly."
"At times, one must test that line."
"Be wary that the line does not break," she said, "for if it does I wil not have you at al ."
"Are you saying that these chal enges might kil me?"