The Darkest Colors Read online

  Chapter Seven

  She had noticed it when Brenna had first awoken her. She hadn’t checked herself right away, though, because Duke Sebastian Fallamhain’s adamant plea for secrecy still resonated in her mind … and because she was becoming increasingly self-conscious about anything even vaguely related to sex when she was around Brenna. Leaning against the side of the car for a moment after getting out, pausing as Brenna hopped behind the wheel and started the car, she had to reach under her own skirt and give herself a light touch, bringing her fingers out into the sickly glow of the parking lot lighting. There was no blood, and she was not sore, but there definitely was moisture, thin and somewhat watery. A quick check of the scent told her almost nothing. She hoped that perhaps it had only been sweat, a consequence of her struggle to fight off the Duke or the effects of whatever he’d used to knock her out, but realistically, she knew better than to suspect anything but the obvious. Finding that her underwear had been removed should have been a dead giveaway. Brenna clearly hadn’t missed that detail and was immediately convinced, but Raina still held out hope. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe … just maybe … he had only touched her. Perhaps he hadn’t even done that.

  Still, as she sat wordlessly in the passenger seat of her own car for most of the short drive to Gold Canyon, she made subtle efforts to confirm her suspicions. She felt wrong, disheveled, and damp in a way that was beyond uncomfortable. Additionally, there was an unfamiliar point of soreness at her innermost left thigh, but she forced herself to wait to actually look. She did, however, idly check herself over for any other fresh wounds. There were no punctures, scratches, or other injuries to her neck, throat, or upper body, aside from the minor wound at the bend of her elbow.

  Whether it was the lingering effects of the substance he’d used to put her out, or perhaps a combination of that, alcohol, and general tiredness, she nevertheless had to struggle to keep her eyes open. Less than five minutes away from Brenna’s home, she surrendered to the nagging pull of sleep and allowed herself to slump against the glass of the passenger-side door. The passage of time seemed almost instantaneous from the time she closed her eyes to the moment that she found Brenna pulling open the door, reaching in to pick her up, and literally carrying her upstairs to her apartment.

  “Can you stand on your own for a second?” Brenna asked her as she stopped in front of her apartment door and set Raina down upon her feet.

  Raina swayed unsteadily for a moment, then managed to prop herself up against the wall, keeping her eyes closed. The floor seemed to move under her feet like the whole world was tilting, her vision was beginning to flash with color, and her ears were ringing. She couldn’t decide whether it felt more like she was being squeezed by an unseen force or if someone had stuck a giant fork into her middle and was twirling her guts around like spaghetti. Either way, she knew this wasn’t going to be pretty.

  “Hurry up. I’m gonna puke.”

  Brenna frantically unlocked the knob and deadbolt of her door, shoved open the door, and threw Raina’s arm over her shoulders as she half-carried her over to the nearest of her two bathrooms. Raina thanked her friend for the aid, but shooed her out of the bathroom so she could have a bit of privacy. No sooner had Brenna closed the door and Raina had spun a bit too quickly to face the toilet than a mighty wave of nausea finally overwhelmed her. She fell to her knees so quickly as she vomited that she banged her forehead painfully upon the seat. She heard the door open again for a moment as Brenna peeked in to check on her – she probably suspected that she’d passed out – but it closed immediately as Raina went on about the completely humiliating task of surrendering the contents of her stomach.

  The sickness was almost absurd in its intensity, as was the feeling that she could only describe as the most unpleasant buzz she’d ever experienced in her life. It was akin to being drunk while simultaneously experiencing the hangover of the following morning. Her head throbbed, her insides were knotted and churning, and her whole body ached, yet she was every bit as uncoordinated, bewildered, lazy, and dominated by vertigo as she could remember having felt from her worst occasion of intoxication. It had to be the after-effects of the anesthetic the Duke had used upon her, but she had never heard of someone experiencing such a horrible recovery after being exposed to chloroform. Then again, she had only seen that sort of thing in movies and a few books, so her knowledge on the matter was rather limited, to say the least.

  She flushed away her dinner and drinks, unsteadily dragged herself to her feet to stand at the nearby sink, and sought the comfort and cleansing of cold water. She had already begun to perspire a bit before entering the bathroom, but she was positively dripping with cold sweat now, as damp strands of her hair stuck to her face. The feel of cold tap water upon her tongue as she swished away the bitter taste of bile was incredibly refreshing. She splashed her face a bit, sloppily soaking much of the front of her blouse. For a moment or two, she actually felt fine.

  Just as she stood upright and shut off the faucet, however, something low inside of her seemed to twist and then come undone. Moving with surprising swiftness in spite of her otherwise lethargic and seemingly drunken state, she managed to turn and seat herself just in time before the sickness claimed the other half of her insides. Everything within her seemed to be coming apart, as her bowels, bladder, womb, and stomach all clenched with a seemingly endless spasm. A small nearby trashcan was fortunately within reach (and completely empty) to save her from throwing up on the plush beige carpet of the bathroom floor.

  Embarrassment was compounding itself by the minute for Raina, though she wasn’t entirely sure anymore what it was for which she felt so ashamed. Yes, she had been a fool to trust the Duke. Yes, she had failed to defend herself against him. And, yes, she had just potentially ruined the wastebasket of her best friend’s bathroom. And, although she wasn’t sure why she even cared, she probably looked about as un-sexy as she possibly could manage in her lifetime as Brenna had again opened the door slightly to check on her for a brief moment. If God saw fit for this to be her last night in life, then she wished for the end to come as soon as possible to end what was without a doubt the worst illness she’d ever experienced in all of her twenty-eight years – even worse than the three-day bout of food poisoning that had nearly hospitalized her four years beforehand. The apparent simultaneous (and very early) start of her period only worsened the matter exponentially, as hellish uterine cramps unlike any she’d ever known before kept her doubled over and groaning miserably for perhaps fifteen minutes.

  Gradually, the bizarre and torturous illness abated. More than once, Brenna asked if she should call an ambulance, but Raina adamantly refused. It would pass, she insisted, and now that the severity of symptoms was finally beginning to wane, she began to believe her own slurred words. The cramps eased, the nausea passed, and the cold sweat and chills lessened to a less dramatic point. She flushed before even thinking about trying to stand, and she finally began to allow herself a few moments to evaluate the extend of damage she’d sustained that night.

  Her immediate concern was the bite to her arm. She rolled up her sleeve and held her arm up towards the bright fluorescent lights over the sink to examine the small puncture wounds. She was surprised by how tiny they were, how they were almost disappointingly minor. She had seen a lot of vampiric bite wounds in the past couple of years, and hardly any of them ever looked like what she saw upon her right arm. For one, both punctures were spaced just far enough apart that they marked the location of her median cubital (middle) and basilic (innermost) veins. Sure, Duke Sebastian Fallamhain was a very old and experienced vampire, but it was amazing that he had been able to so precisely and so delicately prick both veins with a single bite. Of course, he may have only nicked her with one fang at a time to feed upon her, to have two bleeding points from which to suck. Or perhaps he had simply pierced her vein with one of the needles in her phlebotomy kit? After all, civil-minded vampires were actually quite commonly known to us
e diabetic testing needles and pricking the fingers of voluntary subjects to get a quick taste of blood while causing minimal harm.

  Secondly, the hematoma (bruise) surrounding a large area around the puncture to her basilic vein was very unusual. For whatever reason, there had been a lot of bleeding under the surface of her skin after the bite. Raina had been stuck numerous times in the past while training for her phlebotomy certification, as well as for quality control tests in the lab, and she knew that her veins were not at all fragile or prone to rupturing like that. Of course, she had never been bitten before, nor had she seen a bite performed in such a way. Unless it was just a very severe hickey – it didn’t look like one at all – then she could only assume that he had actually punctured one vein but not the other.

  And lastly, there was the worry of bacterial infection. Bite wounds were always the worst, regardless of whether they were from a vampire, human, dog, cat, or any other creature. The mouth was a dirty, filthy thing, indeed – not just when it spoke foul language – and it played host to a plethora of bacterial monsters. Infected bite wounds from vampires were certainly not unheard of, and she had heard many cases of people becoming very sick, or even dying, after developing bacteremia or sepsis, as Brenna had mentioned, as a result of germs entering the bloodstream. That idea scared her more than perhaps any other possible aspect of the attack. The fact that she was exhibiting such symptoms of sickness made her fear the worst, that she already had something horrible floating about her entire circulatory system, and unless she saw a doctor soon enough to get an antibiotic prescription, she might wind up bedridden in a hospital … or cold and dead in the morgue down the hall from where she normally worked.

  It wasn’t until she lifted her skirt higher to use a bit of toilet tissue that she noticed the deep scratch upon her inner thigh. She had felt a slight stinging there from the time she had awoken, but had been too preoccupied with everything else to give it much thought. The scratch was almost two inches in length, running diagonally across her thigh. Surrounding it was the unmistakable discoloration of an obvious, genuine hickey.

  Seeing it, knowing it for what it was, and connecting that minor injury with the memory of her underwear being out of place, she suddenly felt sick again. A few dry heaves were all that she could manage now. There was no evidence that she could see that he had left any of his own fluids upon or within her, at least not at that point, but she had a definite idea as to what she had endured during her unconsciousness. She didn’t understand why it had happened. She had been attracted to him. She thought that she had made it clear enough with the way she had been flirting with him. She might have even fooled around with him, if given the chance. But instead of giving her the chance to offer herself to him willingly … he’d simply taken her.

  Why? And why her? What was so special about her that had made him seek her out? Why had he picked her to … to … oh, she didn’t even want to think of the word. She didn’t want to think about any of it. She had been through enough of those kinds of thoughts before, and she knew where her mind always went as a result, the way her thoughts turned poisonous and inward. Therapy had helped, but not enough, and this time, nothing would save her from herself if she found herself on that path again…

  According to Brenna’s annoying wall clock – a black cat with eyes that went back and forth in time with his dangling tail – it had been nearly an hour since she’d entered the bathroom. She finally felt human enough again to exit. She had been fortunate enough that she hadn’t given up much to the wastebasket and that it had been lined with a plastic shopping bag, so she needed only to tie it securely shut and double-bag it with one from the bathroom’s other wastebasket to clean up after herself. Blessed with another small bit of luck, she found that Brenna still had an emergency stash of feminine products in the cabinet under the sink – likely kept only for guests, given her friend’s totally different physiology as a vampire. Though the odor was already gone by means of the fan and the passage of time, she nevertheless gave the room a liberal spray of air freshener before opening the door and clicking off the light.

  Brenna had been standing out on the patio, chain-smoking from a fresh pack of Djarum Blacks with the sliding glass door open wide. She heard Raina’s exit from the bathroom, flicked away a cigar that appeared to have just been lit, and hurried over to help her along as she staggered toward the bedroom.

  “Jesus, I was worried sick about you! I thought you were dying in there,” Brenna exclaimed as she put her friend’s arm over her shoulders again and bent her knees to accommodate her shorter height.

  “I wish,” she said in a near-mumble.

  “How are you feeling, now?”

  “Like shit.”

  “Obviously! You look awful.” Brenna stopped her as she neared the bed and moved to stand before her, holding Raina by her shoulders. “God, you’re almost as pale as me. Are you still nauseous?”

  “No … just dizzy and tired, and … I feel like I’ve been run over by a steamroller,” she replied, still fighting to keep her eyes open. “Everything hurts. God, even my teeth hurt.”

  “What about … y’know…?”

  “What? Oh … no, I’m fine.”

  “So, you didn’t find any … y’know … foreign fluids…?”

  “I told you, I’m fine.”

  Brenna put a finger under Raina’s chin to lift her lazy gaze, gently forcing her to meet her enchanting emerald-green eyes.

  “You don’t have to be ashamed. If he did, you can tell me. It’s just us here.”

  Reluctantly, she lied, “I don’t know.”

  “Are you sore?”

  “Not down there, no,” she replied. That much was true. Everything else, however, was sore.

  “Did it seem like he did anything at all to you?”

  She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “You should. Seriously, if I have to drag you down to the hospital just to be sure…”

  “No!” she exclaimed with sudden urgency. Seeing Brenna’s surprise at her response, she drew back as she thought of a half-lie. “Look, I … I think he just … he only went down on me. That’s why, y’know … my underwear … I mean … really, I don’t think that … I don’t think he raped me.”

  “Sexual assault is the same thing as rape.”

  “No, it’s not. That’s just … like, a catch-all term. I mean, even grabbing someone’s boob can be considered sexual assault.”

  “What are you, a lawyer?” Brenna quipped.

  “No, but I read the news a lot.”

  “Okay, smarty pants. But they’re both still felonies.”

  “Whatever. Look, I don’t think he did anything major,” she lied. “For all I know, he might have just … I dunno … felt me up or something, and … bit me.”

  Brenna narrowed her eyes. “You’re absolutely positive?”

  “He just … he … left a hickey.” Her voice broke as she said it. “But … why would he do that? I mean … I don’t get it. Why? What would … what would he get out of that?”

  “The taste of blood?”

  “No, I mean, the taste of … me?”

  “Forget about it. It doesn’t matter, anymore,” Brenna told her. “Countess Something von What’s-her-face tore that son of a bitch’s heart out in front of everyone about two hours ago. I mean she literally tore it out with her bare hands … elbow-deep in his ribcage and everything. Everyone got to watch it live on the news, but they’re not showing any replays because it was pretty graphic shit. Probably can find it on the Internet pretty soon, though…”

  “He’s dead?” Raina interrupted.

  Brenna looked at her with an almost annoyed expression. “Uh, yeah! I mean, unless he’s capable of functioning without a heart, I’d say he’s pretty fuckin’ dead.”

  Her vision blurred and she bit her trembling lower lip, murmuring, “I only wanted to help him. I did the best I could, and … and I can’t believe that he … still…”

  Brenna s
ilenced her by giving her a long, comforting hug as Raina struggled not to fall apart into tears. The guilt was automatic, even though it didn’t seem to make any sense to Brenna … or even to Raina, herself. In spite of what he’d done, the way he’d used her, she still pitied him. She still felt the pain of his loss, though she barely knew him. She had lost several familiar faces to death, but none in such a way that she felt somehow involved in their demise. Now, her feeling of failure had extended beyond herself to include Duke Sebastian Fallamhain and, consequently, Grand Duchess Duvessa Fallamhain, as well. It did not sit well in her heart at all. And just as quickly as she felt pity for him, she felt hatred for herself for sympathizing with someone who had abused her. She knew better than to feel this way, and she despised herself for it, but she couldn’t help herself either way. She was a mess … and she was sure that everyone else knew this about her, even Brenna.

  After almost a minute of being in Brenna’s arms, however, gently being rocked from side to side, she couldn’t help but to practically melt in her embrace. Raina was beyond exhausted. Her knees buckled and only Brenna’s hold upon her kept her from dropping straight to the floor. Instead, with an easy physical strength that was surprising in spite of her very feminine form, Brenna swept her friend off her feet, carried her a few feet, and then gently laid her down upon the bed.

  “Mind if I crash here tonight?” Raina tried to ask, though her speech was so slurred that it barely emerged from her lips as more than a mumble. The last thing she felt as her eyes closed and sleep overtook her was her shoes being removed from her feet. The slumber that she dove into was as complete, dreamless, and death-like as the kind she had experienced at the end of the Duke’s attack upon her.

  Raina awoke to find herself again drenched in a cold sweat, more completely now than ever before. The covers of the bed underneath her were literally damp with her perspiration. In spite of her chilled sweat, she felt as though she were burning from within, almost dangerously feverish. The dark interior of the room was still spinning, her menstrual cramps had returned with a vengeance, her back ached terribly, and every muscle of her body ached so much that it was a struggle for her just to sit upright. For a few moments, she could only sit with her elbows upon her knees and her face in her hands. Something was very, very wrong with her, and she could only hope that it was just the coincidental onset of a completely unrelated illness of some kind – maybe some wildly mutated strain of the flu virus that everyone else in the lab had been getting, lately.