Page 26 of House of Darkness (The Fallen Star #1)

ESTRELLA

By the time Roman managed to make his exit, it was early morning and most of the party had already dispersed. As his decorative arm candy, I had remained by his side until the very end. When we left the ballroom, he paused to help me out of my heels, and my sore feet were grateful for the relief.

I was still riding the high of the evening.

Nothing mattered more than the elation of securing my first customer.

Someone was going to pay me to create a dress.

Me. An acolyte. I had never held money before—hadn’t even touched the golden coins.

I wondered if they were heavy. Surely, they couldn’t weigh more than the burden of slavery.

Roman held the door open and followed me into the Levis Count’s bedroom. I floated on clouds to the bathing chambers, eager to wash away the day before sinking into the gilded bedsheets. Roman remained silent, either exhausted from the festivities or aware that I was currently speechless.

The bathing chambers were as magnificent and gaudy as the rest of the room. A porcelain tub, wide enough for multiple people, rested on golden clawed feet. I turned on the nozzle, and as steaming water filled the tub, I slipped out of my gown and sank into the soothing depths.

The solitude was a rare luxury, but in the quiet, my thoughts began to drift.

Was I truly ready for this? I didn’t understand how money worked, and honestly, I hadn’t yet crafted a dress of the grandeur that Iliya would expect.

I wasn’t sure I could. Panic crept through my chest, constricting my heart and rising up my throat.

I dreaded the thought of rejection if she disliked my work, but if I couldn’t handle this, I didn’t deserve freedom.

Freedom meant strength in ways I had never known. It meant trusting myself.

After bathing, I dressed in my immodest nightgown, tugging at the hem as I reentered the main chambers. Roman was seated on a turquoise settee, still fully dressed. His gaze fell on me, and he smirked. “Of all your gowns, that one is my favorite.”

My cheeks flushed. “Pig,” I snapped, though I didn’t retreat as he approached me.

He chuckled softly. “I’ve been called worse. Can I finally congratulate you?”

The blush spread across my entire face. My fingers fidgeted with the hem of my gown. “I’m nervous.”

“It’s good to do things that make you nervous; it means you’re on the right track,” he replied, his fingers tracing over my arm. “I’m proud of you. Truly.”

“What if she doesn’t like it?” My concern was interrupted by a loud thudding sound, followed by muffled moans.

“What was that?” I asked, a frown creasing my brow.

Roman laughed and released my arm. “I think you know what that is. I’m surprised you’re only hearing it now; I’ve been listening to it all night. The downside of having so many vampires in one house—no privacy.”

I should have been more accustomed to the idea of sex; I had spent most of my life preparing for it.

Yet the thought of it happening right next door made me uncomfortable, especially after our earlier ventures.

I was about to voice my discomfort when I realized something he had said. “Vampires have keen hearing.”

Roman’s eyebrows knitted together. “Yes?”

“You can hear nearly everything in this castle. All the time.”

“Yes. Are you alright?”

I hadn’t fully considered the implications of playing the doting acolyte. We had been here for four days, yet every night had been marked only by silence from our chambers. I whispered, “They all know we aren’t having sex. Isn’t that suspicious?”

His shoulders tensed. “I don’t care if it’s suspicious.”

“I promised to play this part. If that means we need to—”

“Absolutely not, Estrella.” He stepped back, his expression suddenly fierce.

Now it was my turn to be confused. “I don’t mind, Roman. I enjoyed this morning.”

“That was different.”

“How is it different?” I stepped toward him, closing the distance between us.

Shadows began to writhe around him, curling up his arms and spreading across the floor between us. “You wanted to then; there were no expectations. Now you’re offering out of duty.”

I reached forward, touching his arm. “You aren’t forcing this—”

In an instant, shadows shot through the room with explosive speed, narrowly missing me and shattering the glass table beside us.

Roman stepped back, his pupils dilated to mere rings of red, and his wings raised in an imposing display.

My heart leaped into my throat as the tsar loomed over me, his talons unsheathed. “I said no,” he snarled.

I froze. I had seen him like this only once, the night he took me from the academy. Just like then, I didn’t know how to react, especially with that cascade of emotion directed at me. He broke the deafening silence with curt words, “I’m going to bathe.”

He brushed past me, his feathers grazing my bare shoulder, leaving me alone amid the shattered glass. Yet all I could see was his expression when I touched him.

There had been fear in his eyes.

By the time he returned to the main chambers, I had crawled into bed. The mattress groaned under his weight as he settled on the far side. I didn’t react, though I was sure he knew I was awake. Silence enveloped the room, punctuated only by the soft rustle of his feathers.

“I’m sorry for exploding; I never meant to scare you.” His voice was soft and defeated. I didn’t like it.

I rolled to face him. He lay on his back, arms behind his head and wings half-spread over the mattress. “Truth for a truth?”

He glanced at me with soft eyes. “Yes.”

I took a deep breath. Roman had become my image of strength, and seeing terror in his eyes terrified me. I needed to understand what had made the strongest man I knew fearful. “Why does the idea of being intimate with me scare you?”

He huffed a hollow, broken laugh. “I love the idea of being close to you, Estrella. I thought that was clear this morning.”

He shifted to his side, propping his head up with one arm. His wings stretched out behind him, damp feathers catching the low candlelight. “The idea of being with you when you don’t want it scares me.”

That wasn’t an answer. I waited silently for him to continue, my expectant gaze making him shift uncomfortably. “Did you know mind powers are relatively common in the Koraki line?”

I shook my head. Vampire powers were mostly kept hidden, so they weren’t well understood by humans.

He continued, “They are. It started with my great-grandfather, one of the original vampires, Draco. When he was turned, he was gifted the ability to gain all the knowledge a person held simply by touching them. He was a scholar, so you can imagine how useful that power was for him.”

“My grandfather had the same power, though it skipped my father. He was powerless, and the jealousy consumed him. He dedicated his life to creating an army of children, all with powers and all bent to his will. When he had my eldest brother with my mother, he knew he had found an acolyte who could reintroduce mind powers to the line, so he committed to keeping her pregnant. Then he had me and my sister.”

I hadn’t known Roman had siblings. I tucked that knowledge away to ask him about later, but it felt rude to interrupt him now. “Leonidas decided my powers were the most valuable to him, so he fixated on me. You know what that entailed, for the most part.”

Roman took a shaky breath, his eyes closing before he continued. “The rest, well, you deserve to know. He wanted more, and in his mind, the easiest way to achieve that was for me to have children. So, he demanded I do so. He bought acolytes for that purpose.”

His eyes reopened, damp and glistening in the candlelight.

“It wasn’t the first time. He would force me to be intimate with high-ranking vampiresses for political gain.

That wasn’t as bad, though. The vampiresses were willing and didn’t know I was being coerced.

But the acolytes—I could sense their fear.

I could hear their terror. I refused the first time, and Leonidas hurt her more than I ever could have.

Then he killed her just to make a point.

I didn’t refuse after that, though I got on birth control so I wouldn’t curse any of them with my children. ”

A tear slid down his cheek, and I was stunned into silence. “They pretended to enjoy it, like acolytes are trained to. Until one didn’t. She begged me not to, and I couldn’t do it. That was the night Leonidas killed my mother—because I refused him. He killed the acolyte too.”

“I regret not killing him sooner. If I hadn’t been so weak, I could have prevented all that pain and suffering. None of those women deserved to endure that, and my mistakes will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

He made no move to wipe away his tears, and silence fell over us once more as I worked to digest his words. Finally, he broke the silence. “Say something.”

“It’s your turn to ask a question,” I said breathlessly.

“Do you hate me?”

I thought for a moment. There was an ache in my stomach, but it was not hatred. It was pain. “You were a victim. A child hurt by the person who was supposed to protect you. I don’t hate you, Roman. I hurt for you.”

I shuffled across the space that separated us. Since arriving, I had instinctively rolled into him each night; it seemed only practical to save my sleeping self the effort. Gently, I placed my hand on his shoulder. “And I’m grateful that of all the places I could be, I’m here with you tonight.”