That first night back she wandered into her dress room. Something hung in the air that she couldn't place, memories of parties flooded into her mind, rushing from all directions in a kind of incomprehensible storm. The tremors shook her again as she began to pull the dresses off of the hangers one by one, making a large pile in the center of the room. She sent a quick text message to one of her contacts.
There is a pile of dresses in the first bedroom. I would like you to sell them for me.
It was done quickly and efficiently. The oldest were donated to various museums. Those that were waiting on a closing deal were kept securely at her contact's--who would receive ten percent of the dress earnings. The masquerade masks were left hanging on the wall.
The past few weeks she spent in solitude, never setting foot outside of her property. Damien had come to see her. They were quick visits and she was much withdrawn. When not visiting with Damien, she had taken up painting again. A ten-foot-long canvas rested currently atop drop-cloths draped across the floor of the Grand Room, opposite the piano, and propped against the wall. She couldn't remember ever painting anywhere aside from the small studio she had set up in her bedroom. The vampire hadn't been sleeping much since her return and felt restless whenever she went into her room. It was left exactly as she had found it when returning: her frantic writings scattered about and unfinished paintings set up on various easels. She had taken all of her paints and brushes and pallet knives from the studio then had one of the large blank canvases taken up from the basement. The canvas she painted entirely black with smears of navy blue like sharp, jagged cliff-faces. It was a gloomy and unfinished thing, drying and awaiting the next layer of paint.
She had other smaller paintings set up on easels adjacent the largest 10-foot canvas. They were all meticulous portraits of Nadia.
The phone number on that scrap of paper remained sitting on the piano, as it had since it came into her possession for the first time.
After a few text messages back and forth, they had spoken on the phone a few times before Sonya sent one of her cars to pick the boy up. It had been nearly two years since she had last spoken to him, and he had forgiven the passing of time as if it were little over a month. It told her that the boy was still interested. Very much interested--and why shouldn't he be? She was Sonya Irena Turkevich, after all. One did not decline an invitation from The Queen.
She waited at the back porch, leaning over the newly-repaired railing and twirling her cellphone around between her hands absent-mindedly. Tonight she wore neat jeans and a black bra that was hardly obscured by the translucent loose white tank top over it. It wasn't intentionally chosen to get a rise out of the boy--Marco--but it undoubtedly would. She had yet to decide if that was what she wanted. It was the hot blood on her mind, of course.
The last they had seen one another, he was over for a piano lesson--that much she could remember. He had asked her if everything was alright, indicating that after that night he had been worried about her.
She couldn't imagine why, and out of politeness, he didn't elaborate.
From a distance, she could hear the crunching of rocks into the dirt road as the driver returned with her guest for the evening. She did not move from her spot at the railing, staring out quietly at the ocean. There was a part of her that urged her down to the shore, but she resisted for fear that it would pull her in again. Sonya listened as Marco thanked the driver and made his way into her home. He called to her timidly, and she could feel him look about the house for her before spotting her out on the deck. She could hear the muscles in his face move when he smiled, the blood pumping and filling his face. The glass door opened and he stepped out onto the deck with her.
My darling! he nearly gushed, and now she did turn to face him with a smile. It did not touch her eyes.
Marco stepped toward her and she held out a hand for him to kiss. He did so graciously and with a flourish that he meant humorously. She rewarded him with a light laugh and he blushed. She could see him trying not to look at her body with hunger, in that way that men do, and could smell the blood rushing through his body. Undoubtedly he was getting hopeful. It had yet to be seen what the Queen desired.
Where had she gone for all this time, he had asked, and she answered vaguely about going across the ocean. He said that he had missed her terribly. The smile on her face did not touch her eyes.
The flicker of a memory clawed at the inside of her throat again. There was something too familiar about this, but she couldn't shake the sense that there was something wrong with this. As though the déjà vu only just failed to match. It drew attention to the void in her mind and set her firmly on edge. The boy--Marco--must have sensed this as he fell silent and muttered some kind of apology.
Sonya took his hand reassuringly and lead him through the glass doors again into the house. She could feel his heartbeat quicken as she led him to one of the couches in the Grand Room, sitting them down together.
He looked around shyly at the paintings, asking who the pretty one was in the smaller paintings. Sonya did not answer, leaning closely into him just inches from his neck and inhaling slowly.
Marco smelled delicious. He let out a nervous chuckle as he placed a light hand against the side of her head, fingers slowly teasing through her hair. She began to gently kiss his throat, coaxing a whisper of a moan from his mouth and a stirring beneath his belt. He murmured something sensually but she paid it no mind, nipping urgently now at the flesh of his jawline and down his neck to his collar bone. She could feel him subtly shift his body toward her and before she had even realized what she was doing, she had climbed into his lap and straddled his hips. He let out a light gasp--she must have moved quickly--and tentatively traced her waist, feeling the shape of her. Marco looked into her face, searching for some sort of passion and finding none. He meant to ask her if everything was alright, but then she was upon his throat again and he lost the motivation to question it.
The kissing was rough now, teeth leaving angry red marks where they pulled at the skin. She could feel him tense beneath her, moving strangely between fear and desire for her body. Fangs slipped into his neck, gently at first, and she moaned when his blood rushed into her mouth. There was desperation edging into the bite and she clutched roughly at him, crunching down a bit harder. Now he froze, a surprised animal caught in her teeth. He gripped uncertain at her shirt, clutching the fabric, whispering something. Saying something. Whimpering. Beginning to push at her, fight her off of him.
At some point, it had registered that she was about to lose control and she pulled herself off of him. He gazed at her in awe and adoration, shaking a bit with nerves. She smiled at him, and he regarded her with light suspicion as she leaned in for a kiss, melting against her nonetheless.
