The Darkest Colors Read online

  Raina shoved her away by the shoulders suddenly and hard. Brenna’s head banged loudly against the solid, heavy wooden door while Raina backed away from her until her back hit the painted cement wall behind her. Brenna cursed under her breath and winced in pain with her eyes closed, rubbing the back of her head sorely. Raina stared at her with wide eyes of alarm.

  “What … the … fuck?” Raina demanded with sudden anger. “You … how … how could you?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Brenna said, waving a hand as she continued to wince with pain and massage the back of her own head. “That was messed up, I know. I shouldn’t have…”

  “Oh, ya’ think?” Raina snapped. “Jesus, Brenna! What the hell?”

  “I’m sorry, I just … I … I dunno,” she stammered, clearly humiliated. She shamefully tried to meet Raina’s stare. “It just … felt right.”

  “Maybe for you!” Raina countered, wiping her lips almost insultingly with the back of her hand.

  Brenna looked almost hurt. No, not almost – she was hurt. “You didn’t feel it too?”

  “Feel what? Like I was being taken advantage of? Again?” she cried. “Oh, yeah! Yeah, I sure felt that!”

  “That’s not what I mean. I wasn’t … I’m sorry, Raina. I didn’t mean it like that at all.”

  “No? Then how did you mean it?”

  Brenna struggled to find the words for a few seconds. Ultimately, she let her arms flop to her sides with a huff. “Look, it was just a kiss, okay?”

  “Just a kiss?”

  “Yeah, just a kiss.”

  Raina stared at her. “Just … a kiss?”

  “Yes, my sweet, just a kiss,” Brenna repeated. “I wasn’t trying to slip you the tongue or bite your face off. I just wanted to kiss you. And obviously, that’s a major no-no.”

  “Obviously! Do you not understand why?”

  “Sure I do,” she responded. “It’s because you’re still a homophobe.”

  “A homophobe?”

  “Yeah, a homophobe. You’re afraid of gay stuff.”

  “And now you’re gay? What … officially, now?”

  “Yeah,” Brenna replied immediately. She hesitated, reconsidering that. “Well … okay, maybe not. But, like … half-gay. Bisexual. Whatever. But still … jeez! I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time we’ve kissed, anyway. Hell, you were the one that kissed me last time.”

  “Yeah, when I was drunk!”

  “Hey, a kiss is a kiss.”

  “Dammit, I am not gay!”

  “Nobody said you were.” Brenna smiled at her slightly. “Awfully defensive about it, aren’t you?”

  “Well … yeah, considering you were trying to make out with me…”

  “It … was … just … a kiss! Look, I’m sorry! Okay? I felt like kissing you, and my timing was all wrong, so … I’m sorry, all right?” she explained, her embarrassment turning slightly into hostility. “Did I hurt you? Did I leave any marks on you? No, I didn’t. So, take a fucking chill pill, already. God, you make it sound like I was trying to stick a finger up your butt or something.”

  “Well, I’m sure that part would’ve happened eventually, if I’d let you,” Raina quipped, running her fingers nervously through her hair. Her fingers snagged painfully upon her ear, and she briefly struggled with the awkwardness of that feeling as she tried to move her hair over the tip of that pointy, elongated new feature.

  Brenna glared at her. “Is that how you think I am?”

  “What?”

  “Are you fucking serious?” The anger in her tone and her face was unmistakable. She was scary now. “What, you think I was going to try to rape you, or something?”

  “I never said that.”

  “No, but that’s what you’re implying. You really think I was just trying to force myself on you? Like I’m some kind of sick bitch that gets her jollies by sexually assaulting other chicks?”

  Raina narrowed her eyes at her. “Jesus, Brenna, what is your trip?”

  “I’m not a dude! Okay? I don’t have a dick! And I’m not the one that lured you out to your car to get you alone so I could knock you out and have my way with you,” Brenna practically snarled, “so don’t even try to fucking imply that I’m that kind of a person.”

  “I never did.”

  “Yes,” she snapped, raising her voice a bit, “you did! ‘Oh, I’m sure that part would’ve happened eventually.’ What the fuck else could you mean by that? I wasn’t putting the moves on you, Raina. I was kissing you. Not that it makes a bit of difference to you, but I wasn’t doing that so I could make out with you. I kissed you because I love you, I care about you, and…” Brenna hesitated, shaking her head as her voice began to crack. “Fuck, why am I even trying to explain this to you? We’ve already been through this. I don’t need to hear it twice.”

  “Brenna…”

  She spun, jerked the door open, and stormed out into the hallway, practically closing the door in Raina’s face. The sound of the door slamming shut made Raina jump with a gasp. She stood still for several long moments in total shock. What was going on with her? Was this whole mess with Raina becoming a vampire putting Brenna through some kind of emotional roller coaster of some kind to make her act this way? Or was Raina so stubbornly denying the love that Brenna was professing that she was frustrating her to a breaking point?

  Brenna’s feelings for her were becoming more and more of a confrontational issue, and Raina knew that she was putting off the need to make a crucial decision about them: accept them totally, or reject them outright. She knew that she didn’t want to shut Brenna out of her life. She needed her, and not merely because of her current situation as a vampire. Brenna was all she had left, really. She had no family to speak of, no other friends – at least none that she could consider reliable anymore – and she had never been blessed with a lover to comfort, protect, and guide her. Brenna was all of that to her, or at least she offered to be as much, and Raina realized that it would have been utter foolishness to turn her away.

  The only trouble was … Raina simply couldn’t get past the gender issue. She wasn’t sure why it was even an issue, honestly, because she had never considered herself to be any kind of a bigot. She had never referred to lesbians as “dykes” or gay men as “fags.” They didn’t bother her … not really. Given, she could not necessarily relate to, appreciate, or understand why some women wanted to act like men and why some men wanted to act like women, or why either of them preferred to be with someone of their own gender. Either way, that had never been something to affect her before in any way. She knew what she preferred and, until recently, she had never been honestly propositioned by another woman or otherwise found it necessary to adamantly stand up for her own sexual preference.

  The thought of being with another woman had really honestly never even crossed her mind until she had met Brenna. And although, being truly honest with herself, she had actually given the concept some genuine contemplation since meeting her – not so much being with Brenna in particular as with being with any female – she just couldn’t wrap her mind around the concept of one girl kissing another. It seemed too much like kissing oneself. And to do anything more than that seemed like … well, like masturbation. Of course, she certainly could not throw stones with regard to that issue, not by a long shot, considering how lonely she had been over the years. But mutual masturbation just didn’t seem like an honest basis for a relationship.

  Raina’s theory had always been that homosexual relationships had very little to do with emotional attraction and far more to do with a simple, deviant physical desire. Or, if one were to put a Freudian spin upon it, to desire to be with someone of the same gender seemed to imply some sort of desire to make love to oneself, to find someone not only like in mind but in body, preferring similarity over contrast. Perhaps that was what turned her off from the concept the most. Raina was not vain, self-centered, or narcissistic. She wanted … no, she needed contrast in a relationship. She needed a yin to ba
lance out her yang. She didn’t want to be with herself. To be with herself was to be alone, and she had been alone for far, far too long.

  Raina snapped back to her senses with a startled blink as she became aware of Brenna’s voice just outside of the restroom door, conversing with someone else outside. Trying to shake off the lingering wooziness and fuzzy-headedness of her anxiety-borne nausea, she picked up the plastic bag of her personal belongings, withdrew her mini-purse from within it, and crammed the other few items she had into that purse before tossing the plastic bag into a small trash bin. She casually began to open the restroom door, but was startled to feel it bump against someone on the other side.

  “Stay in there, my sweet,” Brenna told her. “Lock the door.”

  “Raina?” a woman’s voice called from a bit farther away in the hall. “Raina Delgado? Is that you?”

  “Back off, bitch,” Brenna snarled, trying to push the door shut with one hand. “You want her, you gotta come through me.”

  Raina’s blood seemed to turn into an icy slush within her veins as she realized whom Brenna was facing in the hallway. The timing of it all was impeccable. It seemed too convenient, too coincidental. Just after Raina had awoken from what amounted to a coma, she was discharged from the hospital with bizarre swiftness, Brenna was released … and then suddenly, waiting there to greet them was none other than Countess Wilhelmina von Reichenbach. It wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for her to assume that the Sheriff had practically handed them both over to this particular homicidal High Court vampire. After all, he had no qualms about letting vampires kill one another … just so long as no humans were involved.

  Raina pushed back upon the door and had to force her way out of the restroom against Brenna, who had been leaning her weight back against the outside of the door. Brenna finally stumbled forward a step and looked back at Raina with wide eyes of alarm.

  “What’re you doing? Get back in…”

  “Forget it,” Raina interrupted her, “I’m not letting you get killed over this.”

  Laying eyes upon her would-be killer for the first time in person, Raina was stricken by several feelings at once. For one, Countess Wilhelmina, flanked by two large hospital security guards, seemed small, dainty, and almost delicate. It wasn’t so much her height, as she was taller than Raina but shorter than Brenna, but more so her very slender build. The fingers of her hands were long and thin, her legs equally lengthy and very slender. Raina had half expected to see her arrive in full battle dress, that tight-fitting, ninja-like, black cat suit that she’d worn when she had killed Duke Sebastian, at not at all in something so … well, ordinary. She was dressed formally, tastefully, and quite conservatively, looking as though she was about to attend some kind of business meeting. A black blazer over a charcoal gray blouse and matching skirt, with dark sheer stockings and simple low-heeled dress shoes were her choice of killing attire this night, apparently. If she had been wearing an employee badge, she would have easily mistaken her for being someone in the hospital administration or clerical staff.

  “You want me?” Raina asked, trying to get past Brenna. “Here I am.”

  “Dammit, Raina!”

  “I intend to kill no one tonight,” the Countess declared, nodding to Raina. “As you can see, I have not come dressed to fight. If I had intended to kill you, Ms. Delgado, I would not have approached you in this way.”

  “Yeah, right. A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” she muttered as she stood beside Brenna, who still tried to place herself between her friend and her enemy.

  Countess Wilhelmina looked to the hospital security officer to her right, making an elegant sweeping gesture towards Raina and Brenna with one hand. The guard, a military-flattop blonde with somewhat nerdy eyeglasses and a tactical bulletproof vest worn outside his uniform, approached almost reluctantly, taking something out from behind his back.

  “As it is customary among the High Court,” the Countess explained as the guard neared them, “I am surrendering my sword to you to show that I come in peace.”

  Brenna took a half-step aside so that the guard could rather unceremoniously hand off the sword to Raina with apparent indifference. Wasn’t he supposed to bow to her or something? She wasn’t sure how any of this worked. Her only experiences with customs involving swords were limited to those in a dojo and what she’d read about the samurai of ancient feudal Japan.

  The sword was surprisingly light, yet very solid in her hands as she felt compelled to examine it. The handle was wrapped in fine black suede leather, with a square polished steel hilt and a neatly lacquered and polished black aluminum scabbard. Aside from a few scratches upon the hilt, in addition to several notches that had deliberately been gouged in, the outside of the sheathed sword appeared very newly-made and pristine. Raina had a feeling that the sword had been forged (or purchased) very recently, exclusively for the purpose of the Countess’s quest to cut down each and every member of the Grand Duchess’s bloodline.

  She had held and admired many swords over the years, owning a few of her own, but almost every one of those weapons she’d held had been made for the sake of decoration or casual demonstration. Swords were things of beauty and grace, not merely tools for hacking and slashing. In Raina’s hands, she could perform a series of fluid, artistic motions that she had always practiced for the sake of exercise, balance, coordination, self-discipline, and exhibition. However, the blade she held in her hands had been made and used solely for the purpose of combat … or, more in this case, for murder. It had cleaved flesh and bone, and its polish of choice was blood. It was a thing of death, plain and simple. She was strangely fascinated and horrified at the same time by the realization that the last body this object had been thrust into was that of the same individual that had bestowed the curse of vampirism upon her.

  “Nine members of the House of Fallamhain have fallen under the sword you are holding,” Countess Wilhelmina informed her quite proudly, seemingly reading her thoughts. “The steel of that sword has tasted the flesh of Dukes Leofric, Cedric, Hiroshi, and Sebastian Fallamhain, and five of their lesser blood. It is by that sword that I am here now to warn you of the evils of the House of Fallamhain.”

  Raina looked up from the sword she held with both hands and blinked almost dumbly at the High Court. In all her fear and excitement, something only then became plainly obvious to her.

  “Y’know, no offense but for a German, you sure do sound awfully … British…”

  She smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know why? And aren’t you curious why I intend to protect you from that bloody megalomaniac you call the Grand Duchess?”

  “Whoa, whoa, hold up. Protect her?” Brenna asked, incredulous.

  “Yes, exactly. I have no intentions of harming Raina,” she replied, beginning to casually step towards her, “and it is only by the grace of God that I was able to reach her first.”

  Almost reflexively, Raina unsheathed the sword halfway with a sudden jerk. The Countess halted in her advance, and both security officers reached for their pistols, although they did not draw them.

  “Not in here,” the blonde officer warned them sternly. “If you ladies are going to fight, you need to do it somewhere else.”

  Hesitantly, Raina decided not to draw the sword completely. Before she slid it back into its sheath, she noticed a series of obvious chips in the blade’s cutting edge, only a few inches away from the hilt. She wondered how many of those chips were caused by locking swords with her Maker. The sword fit smoothly and snugly within the sheath, giving a soft clack as the hilt met its home. The officers visibly relaxed as she let the sword hang at her left side in one hand, although she mentally kept herself ready to draw and strike, if the need to do so arose. It was surprising how quickly and easily she had slipped into this warrior-like mode of combat readiness, in spite of the fact that her underlying terror was making her hands tremor slightly and her heart thud within her chest with an incredible rush of adrenaline. Even if she hadn’t consciously studie
d sword fighting for the sake of self-defense, apparently those years of training had nevertheless turned certain practiced actions into automatic reflexes of survival.

  Countess Wilhelmina held up both empty hands with a smirk as she resumed her careful advance. “Again, I assure you that I mean you no harm, Ms. Delgado.” She paused, cocking her head slightly. “Or would that be … Duchess Fallamhain?”

  “Don’t,” Brenna said simply, pointing a finger at her face as she balled her right hand up into a fist at her side.

  The blue-eyed blonde gave her an almost convincingly innocent look. “I only mean to ask whom she wishes to claim as her Maker.”

  “Me,” Brenna answered for her, closing the fist of her other hand at her side. “I’m her Maker. And I’m not about to let you get her tangled up in your stupid High Court soap opera.”

  “Soap opera?” she echoed, still seeming to feign innocence. “What ever do you mean?”

  “You’ve got some beef with the Grand Duchess, so you’re killing off everyone that has anything to do with her. And now you want Raina to admit that she’s a Fallamhain, just so you can kill her.”

  “Well, it’s rather obvious that she was reborn into royal blood. Who are you to think you can lay claim to her?”

  “Brenna Douglass,” she replied. “I am her Maker. She is mine by right of blood.”

  The Countess glanced to Raina, then back to Brenna, and then chuckled. “Don’t be absurd. You are only a Commoner.”

  “Maybe,” she admitted, “but that’s my blood in her veins.”

  “Your blood? You are mistaken, child,” she informed Brenna, pointing to Raina’s long, pointed ears. “She bears the crown of the High Court. The blood in her veins is that of a Fallamhain. Duke Sebastian, to be precise, the same Fallamhain who last fell under my sword. The tree of the High Court has so few branches that there is no doubt that the blood in her veins is mine.”

  “Oh, really?” Brenna countered, putting a hand upon her waist and cocking her hips. “Gee, that’s funny, because I really don’t remember seeing you giving her a blood transfusion while she was laying there on that bed the other night, dying.”