Elizabeth Hunter - A Hidden Fire

“Maybe you like biting her down here ,” Lorenzo giggled, trailing a finger along her knee. “Shall we take off her skirt and find-”

“He doesn’t!” Beatrice finally shrieked, pushing him away, unable to take the thought of the vampire’s cold hands touching the skin of her thighs.

“He’s never bitten me! There are no marks,” she cried as she squirmed out of his grasp and scrambled to the other side of the couch. “Leave me alone! Don’t touch me. Please, don’t touch me again.”

No one answered her. She began to cry angry tears; she felt like an object in the room. “Why aren’t you making him stop?” She sniffed again and pulled her legs into her body, trying to make herself as small and casting her eyes around the room, looking for escape.

“For fuck’s sake,” she heard Gavin mutter.

Lorenzo scooted away from her, seemingly uninterested in her further discomfort. “So, not your property after all, is she, Giovanni?”

Giovanni sat, coldly sipping his scotch in the armchair. He glanced at Gavin.

“Why are you here, Wallace?”

“Shite, I’m here to witness a supposed business transaction that your little boy here doesn’t seem to want to complete. Stop the gabbing, Lorenzo, and just do it.”

“Fine!” Lorenzo sat back and crossed his legs. “You two are so boring. I’m going to allow that she’s yours,” she saw Gavin open his mouth to speak, but Lorenzo continued, “even though we all know I could press the point if I wanted to. Still, possession is nine-tenths of the law, or something like that.” He shrugged. “Anyway, Papà, I do have a proposition for you.”

He waved his hand toward the dining room table. “Over on the table, I have your books, the entire Pico collection. Manuscripts, letters, scrolls, blah, blah, blah. What I’m proposing-since possession is nine-tenths of the law-is that you give me the girl, who I have use for, in exchange for your books, which I don’t.”

Her stomach dropped. He wouldn’t…

“The entire Pico collection is there?” Giovanni asked. Dread twisted in her stomach when she saw the interest light up his eyes. He glanced over toward the table and then let his eyes flicker to her.

“No,” she whispered, but no one seemed to listen.

“Yes, yes.” Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “All of it.”

“And Andros’s books?”

He snorted. “How valuable do you think she is?”

A sense of panic began to crawl over her skin the longer Giovanni looked at the books on the table.

“No,” she said a bit louder. Still, no one even glanced at her.

“I’ve grown tired of lugging them around, so I thought I’d just throw them in this lovely fire if you don’t want them. After all,” Lorenzo leaned forward, “they are mine . Like the girl is yours. I can do with them what I want.”

“What?” Beatrice looked around the room. “I don’t belong -”

“Giovanni?” Gavin cut her off with a glare. “What do you think? He’s offered a fair trade, property for property, do you want the books or the girl? It’s up to you,” Gavin said, as he played with a thread on his cuff.

“Gio,” Beatrice started in horror. “No! You can’t-”

“No trade,” Giovanni murmured, finally looking at her.

Beatrice relaxed into the couch, leaning her forehead on her knees as she took a deep breath; her heart rate, which had been pounding erratically, started to calm.

“Unless you have Giuliana’s sonnets.”

Her head shot up.

She stared at him in horror. “What?”

He was looking at Lorenzo. She shook her head in disbelief.

“No,” she said again, even louder.

Lorenzo reached over, drawing a thin book, bound in red leather, from the side table. It was small, no bigger than the size of a composition book, and the binding was intricately tooled; she could see the finely preserved gold script on the cover.

“As a matter of fact,” Lorenzo said gleefully. “ I do .”

Giovanni cocked an eyebrow and held his pale hand out. “Let me see them.”

She kept expecting him to offer her a look or a wink or… anything to tell her he was in control. That he was bluffing. That he wouldn’t trade her for his old books. Anything to stop the cold feeling of dread and betrayal that began to climb her throat, choking her where she sat. She looked around the room in panic as Giovanni paged through the small book.

No, no, no, no, no , her mind chanted when she saw the interest in his eyes.

“They’re all there. Angelo Poliziano had the originals bound after Giuliana sent them, heartbroken after her lover deserted her. Andros took them after he murdered Poliziano. These are her copies-written by her lover’s hand. Now, would you like to trade? Or are these little poems destined for the fire?”

Giovanni looked at the small volume in his hands and a look of tenderness softened his features. Then, he wiped his expression clean and looked at Lorenzo.

“Fine. The girl is yours.”

“No,” she screamed. “No!” Beatrice looked around the room, but no one would meet her eyes. “I won’t go with him!” She looked at the vampire she had trusted. “Gio? Don’t let him take me! Giovanni?”

He wouldn’t even look at her.

She crawled over the back of the couch, trying to flee toward the patio doors, but the dark-haired vampire grabbed her before her feet hit the ground.

“No,” she screamed again, trying to twist away, but it was useless. She was bound in the iron grasp of cold, immortal arms. “You can’t do this to me! No!”

But the sick feeling that crawled through her said that they could.

She observed the rest of the Lorenzo and Giovanni’s “business transaction” as she twisted and bit the guard’s arms, desperately trying to get away from him. “Let me go, you bastards! Let me go!”

They stood, and Giovanni shook Lorenzo’s hand, then Gavin’s.

She broke down sobbing when he refused to look at her. “Please, Gio!” she cried. “Please, don’t let him take me. Please!”

“So,” she heard Lorenzo say, “all that posturing at the library was about your books? I think I’m disappointed.”

“I don’t give a damn about your disappointment,” Giovanni bit out. “And you’re going to give me the rest eventually. Andros’s books are mine and I will find them. Now get the hell out of my house and out of Houston. I don’t want to see you for another hundred years, do you understand?”

Giovanni turned his back to her, and the tears fell swift down her face. Her screams had turned to painful whispers, and her head hurt from crying. She shook her head, trying to block out the betrayal that played out before her, and wishing for physical pain to block the deep cut of abandonment.

“I’m off!” Lorenzo chirped. “Lovely doing business with you.”

There was no need for the guard to hold her tightly anymore. She sagged in his arms, and if she’d anything left in her stomach, it would have been emptied on Giovanni’s luxurious Persian rug.

The whole time, she’d been a pawn. Only a pawn for the man in front of her to get what he wanted. His words months ago drifted to her memory.

“Don’t be naive. For the right price, everything is for sale.”

He’d told her.

She just didn’t want to believe him.

Beatrice was propelled toward the kitchen door, but she refused to walk. Finally, her captor picked her up and carried her like a piece of luggage. As she left the room, she heard Giovanni speak.

“Gavin, care to stay for a drink? I’ve got a wonderful whiskey a friend sent for Christmas. I’ve been waiting to open it.”

By the time they reached the car, she wished that someone would strike her or use their amnis so she could pass out and escape what must have been a nightmare.