Beyond the pale by Savannah Russe

Author:Savannah Russe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical romance, Fiction - Romance, Vampires, Romance - Gothic, Horror, Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Fantasy, Romantic suspense fiction, Gothic, Romance - Contemporary, Occult fiction, Romance & Sagas, General, Romance: Gothic, Romance - Fantasy, Spies
ISBN: 9780451215642
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2005-06-06T07:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 9

The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley,

And leave us naught but grief ana pain For promised joy.

—Robert Burns

The hours between midnight and dawn provoke X melancholy and grief that find no natural outlet, no relief. They are the hours when nocturnal creatures hunt, bringing death quickly to innocent creatures in their bowers and beds. And these are the vampire hours that since the beginning of time have evoked humans' deepest fears and most secret desires when they long for a vampire's exquisite kiss and gift of immortality. For human beings have always been drawn to forbidden acts that titillate and tempt. Jung described this dark side as the shadow self. Deny it not; you have it. And I live it.

Yet as I waited in my apartment for Benny to finish her evening with Louis and call me, my own night wanderings covered only the intimate territory between the living room and bedroom. I vacuumed under the couch and rearranged my sock drawer. For me, performing these mindless tasks recalls Sisyphus pushing his great stone up the mountain, only to have it roll back again in endless repetition. Housework numbed the mind and stilled the emotions, and I hated it and loved it both. Tonight it kept my thoughts from spinning off to Darius. Almost.

When I finished vacuuming, I put an old October Project album in the CD player. Listening to those lyrical, haunting songs made me sit down and stare at the wall, thinking of Darius. I remembered how his eyes looked when he smiled, soft and warm and filled with laughter. They never held the hardness and frost of J's. I remembered how he had reached out and taken my hand in his and looked at my palm as if it held a priceless jewel; how he had lifted it up to his lips and kissed it. I remembered how he laid his cheek next to mine and whispered poetry into my ear. He told me I was beautiful, that I shone like the moon in his own secret sky. The things he had said to me earlier tonight suggested his feelings for me were growing. As for mine, I was afraid of the intensity of my emotions when I was with him. I didn't want to acknowledge how strongly I cared for him. This relationship was becoming far more than sex, and I knew it. I was sure he knew it too.

Sometime after two A.M. Benny phoned and soon afterward arrived at my door without Louis. She came in, all brass and shine, bringing cool air and fresh energy with her. We adjourned to the kitchen, where I made a pot of herbal tea. As we sat at the breakfast bar, she asked what I thought of Louis.

Diplomatically I didn't say that I thought he could be bisexual and that there was something really weird about his eyes. I didn't blurt out that for some reason he made me want to check to see if my wallet was still in my purse.

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