Page 20

Chapter Twenty

Hovering outside the second floor of the shoddy inn, I try to jump through the window, to Paolina, so that I can warn her or devour her.

Manod holds me back, but he doesn’t need to. The law is the law. I am not invited in.

The squirrel with his dick in his fist sits up straight, eyes growing like soap bubbles. He points at the window, open-mouthed. Nervous about being seen, I start to shift out of sight, but Manod holds me there.

“I taught you glamour,” he says.

He did teach me how to cast the spell of longing. I gather that power around the tiny bedroom, but then Paolina turns, and I lose my attention. She gasps, one hand over her mouth, another covering the triangle between her legs.

My hunger shifts to purpose. I still want to drain her, but now I want to fuck her too.

If she wants to die in pleasure, she will. If it seems otherwise, I have learned to hold back my impulse to fuck what I kill.

I weave the glamour over her and the man. My master is a good teacher. It’s easy now.

Yet, though the squirrel-man is fully susceptible to suggestion, something about her is too loose.

“Paolina.” I put my hands to the glass. “Let me in.”

“Carmine.” The hand over her crotch drifts to her heart.

“Invite me in.”

“I ca?—”

The little rodent, dick swinging, rushes to the window and unlatches it. “You’re invited.”

Manod lets go of my lapel to rush into the room, leaving me to gravity. I almost tumble to the street, but grab the window jamb. It’s enough to hoist myself up.

“Paolina,” I say, stepping into the room. The sweetness twisting my veins is the same as the thread in the tunnels when she ran. How did I not notice it when I was a man? “Don’t be afraid.”

Manod has the Empire’s squirrel half on the bed, half on the floor, teeth to throat, shredding the little man’s trousers with one hand.

“Oh, I’m not afraid,” she says.

“Good. It’s me. Just me. Carmine.” I step closer.

“Careful, fledgling,” Manod says as he covers the man’s mouth so he can’t scream when he’s mounted. “I’m watching.” He shoves his dick into the squirrely man, then bends to suck his neck.

I wish he wouldn’t do that right now. Paolina saw enough of it to be afraid. I can’t fool her into thinking I’m the same old fun-loving guy if he’s right there splitting her trick in two.

“Come away with me.” I hold my palms out to show her there’s nothing in them. Just two hands that have treated her tenderly. She doesn’t trust me and she’s justified. “It’s not like before. I’m calmer now. I’m safe for you. I promise.”

How safe, for how long, I do not know. But I don’t smell fear on her, so I know she believes me.

She whispers, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Manod is sucking and grunting, yet she’s not tempted to look his way. Her tits are perfect and her belly is as soft as a feather bed, but somehow, with her hard attention on me, arms in a fighting stance, nothing about her body asks to be caressed.

“I can get you out of Rome.” I hold out my hand to her.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Come now and I won’t leave without you.”

Her neck undulates with a swallow. “This is your choice then.”

She comes for me. I see it later than I should, because she’s faster than she should be.

Much faster, and so much stronger. Her blow to the chest knocks the wind out of me. I lose my footing and fall against a cupboard, knocking over candles and a bronze cup.

What’s happening?

Before I can answer, she punches me again and again. I shake out of my stupor and grab her fist. She swings with the other. I take that one too.

“Paolina!”

Her forehead crashes into the bridge of my nose. The bone snaps. I let her go. It hurts like a knife jammed in my skull, but this new body manages pain by eliminating the fear-blindness. I am cognizant enough to dodge the candlestick she throws at me.

What is going on?

No one has ever fought like this. Bigger men, faster men, soldiers and Swiss Guardsmen have all struggled for their lives and not made this much contact.

Manod is still fucking and drinking, but watching. He points at Paolina, who’s ripped a picture from the wall and smashed it against the headboard. She twists away a side of the frame, leaving a pointed stake. She hoists it over her shoulder as if she’s going to throw it.

“Come on.” She curls her fingers at me, giving Manod a quick glance. “Let’s leave Rome, baby.”

She is so sweet. I am overcome. Too hungry. Careless. Overcome by her scent and my idea of who I thought she was.

“Yes. I’ll show you Napoli. Amalfi.”

She stiffens her arm when I approach, pointing the frame’s angle down toward my chest. Does she think she’s going to puncture through to my heart with that thing? I am impressed. She is so brave.

“The ocean.” She dances to the side so her back isn’t to Manod. “I want to feel it rush between my legs.”

“I’ll take you away from him.” When I whisper it, even I believe it. “Let me?—”

Before I finish—faster than I think possible, with the deftness of a trained fighter—she lunges. I know, as sure as it gets dark when the sun drops below the horizon, that this evil, unnatural life eternal will end before it began.

But I don’t feel the frame’s corner hit my chest, much less pierce the bone.

All I see is a blur until it resolves into Paolina on the floor, looking up at Manod, who has his knees on her biceps.

She growls and tries to flip him. He wrests the stake from her hand.

His chin and neck are slicked with Squirrel’s blood.

“The young ones are stupid and weak.” He slaps her, and something inside me lurches. “But I am old.” He slaps her other cheek hard enough to make a man cry. “You knew you couldn’t take me in the sewer. So you waited.” He slaps her again. “But from day one, I scented you.”

“You stank of death,” she growls. “You still stink of it.”

He pulls back his arm, fist clenched. He’s going to punch her.

“No!” I cry. “Don’t. She’s…” I stop myself. I was going to say she’s just a woman, but is she?