A Hidden Fire

accents.”

Lorenzo smiled, his fangs dropping down. “Is this why Giovanni kept you around? To make him laugh? You smell as lovely as your father, so I’m sure he must have had to control himself if he didn’t bite you. It does make me wonder.”

She clenched her jaw for a moment. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Because he traded you?” Lorenzo shrugged. “Giovanni never cared for much besides his books and himself, to be honest. Don’t take it personally.”

Her mind flashed to a hundred different moments of kindness between them, but she didn’t want to dwell on those memories when the reality had turned out to be so much different. “I just have better things to think about.”

“I was expecting him to show up. I was so sure it was you he was smoking about in the library that day…but he hasn’t by now, so he probably won’t. If he cared for you at all, he’d be far more territorial.”

She stared at the ocean, remembering Giovanni’s fiercely protective behavior around Carwyn and Gavin. It had annoyed her at the time; but the moment she’d really wanted him to protect her, it had fallen away to nothing, so she didn’t know what to think.

“Something tells me he still has something up his sleeve.” Lorenzo flicked at a bug on his pants. “After all, one doesn’t hire expensive security for dinner. So…yes, I’m expecting something.”

“Yeah?” she muttered. “I’m not.”

She suddenly remembered him laughing over a bite of lemon cake she’d forced him to try. He’d made the most hilarious face, and she had leaned over and kissed his cheek in delight, laughing at his disgust and tugging the ends of his hair.

“You need a haircut.”

“I do not. Do you know how long it takes my hair to grow?”

“It falls in your eyes all the time and annoys you. Just a trim. I’ll do it for you; I used to cut my grandfather’s hair for him sometimes.”

“You’d cut my hair for me?”

“Sure.”

She felt tears come to her eyes, and she bit her lip until it bled, forgetting for a moment about the vampire sitting next to her in the dark. She glanced at him, worried he would try to bite, but he only handed her a white linen handkerchief and chuckled at her expression.

“I’ve had requests for you to join us in the evenings, but I doubt you’ll do that. But there’s a full library for you to enjoy, as well as plenty of music. I even have a music player you may borrow, if you like.”

“What’s the catch?”

His delighted laughter pealed out. “No catch, my dear. Xenos can come with you. He’s your personal guard, you know, chosen by me. No one will touch you or harm you in any way. After all,” he winked, “I need to have you in good condition when your father arrives.”

Her heart dropped. “My father’s coming? When?”

“I have no idea.” He shrugged. “Crafty little boy to have eluded me for so long. I’d really find it quite endearing if I didn’t want to kill him so much.”

Beatrice shuddered at his matter-of-fact tone. “Why? Why do you want to kill him? You made him a vampire, now you want to kill him?” Her frustration boiled over. “I don’t understand any of this! I feel like I got caught in some giant game all of you are playing, and I don’t even know why.”

Lorenzo’s head cocked; he almost looked amused. “I suppose it would be confusing to a human-even a bright girl like you.”

“So why don’t you enlighten me, Lorenzo? Since I’m here and no one seems to be coming to my rescue.”

He stared at her with the inhuman stillness she had come to associate with them. Finally, his lips cracked into a smile.

“You met my little mouse at the library, didn’t you? Scalia has been my mouse for many years, long before you were born, and long before he met your father in Houston when they were in school. It was pure chance that they met again in Ferrara.”

“My father wasn’t in Ferrara, he was in-”

“Yes, he was in Ferrara, researching some correspondence about Dante, of all people, and his exile in Ravenna, blah, blah, blah. Very boring. He was in the old library and had the unfortunate luck to stumble upon some books of mine. Books I had hidden there.” Lorenzo’s expression darkened. “Books that my little mouse was supposed to be guarding for me.”

“So you killed him? For finding some books?” She felt the tears slide down her cheeks. “He probably didn’t even know what he was looking at. Why did he have to die? Why-”

“It didn’t matter that he didn’t know, Beatrice. Scalia found him and your father began asking questions of his old school chum-questions I didn’t want any human asking. When Scalia told me about it, like the good little mouse he was, I decided to get rid of him. It seemed like the simplest thing.” Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “It’s my own fault I let myself be swayed to turn him. I thought he could be a replacement for Scalia, who had disappointed me, but sadly, your father was too bright.”

“And he ran away.”

“Yes, he did.” Lorenzo grimaced. “Though not before taking some books he knew I valued.”

“What books? Some of Giovanni’s?”

His eyes narrowed. “Some of mine. Our father-yes, we had the same father, I only call Giovanni ‘Papa’ because it annoys him-and it is technically accurate. Our father left them to him, when he should have left them to me. It didn’t matter what Giovanni thought. I was the one who had earned them.”

Lorenzo broke off, making a disgusted noise and flipping his long hair over his shoulder. “The fool was so trusting.”

“Who? Giovanni?” Beatrice was still confused. Was Lorenzo Giovanni’s brother? His son? She wanted to ask, but wanted to know about the books more.

“I told him the mad friar had burned them all.” A laugh bubbled up from Lorenzo’s throat. “And he believed me! He thought they were all gone. All his books and letters, Guiliana’s precious sonnets…all of it. Up in smoke in the ‘bonfire of the vanities.’”

“In Florence,” she whispered. “The bonfires of Savaranola.”

“Of course, my dear.” Lorenzo winked. “There were many things that didn’t quite burn as Savaranola intended. It was a good time to be an opportunist. It all happened before Giovanni was turned. Even then, he couldn’t run about like me. Andros didn’t trust him. With good reason, as it turned out.”

“Andros?” she muttered, but Lorenzo wasn’t listening. She recognized the name from the letters. Niccolo Andros was the name of the strange associate of Lorenzo de Medici’s who had shown such an interest in Giovanni Pico. Andros was Giovanni’s sire? She wondered why Lorenzo called him his father, too.

“Father thought Giovanni was the clever one.” Lorenzo chuckled, still reveling in his own deceit. “I was smarter than both of them. I fooled them both.” His eyes narrowed as he looked over the water. “And soon, I will fool them all. All the silly, trusting fools with their delusions of grandeur. As soon as I find your father and torture him into telling me what he did with the books…”

Lorenzo smiled and turned to her. “But perhaps torture won’t even be necessary. In fact,” he chucked her under the chin as she cringed, “I’m absolutely counting on it.”

Tucking all the vampire’s cryptic revelations into the back of her mind, she swallowed and tried to remain calm. “How do you know he’ll even come for me? How do you know he’s even keeping track?”

“He might not be.” Lorenzo shrugged. “But word will reach him eventually. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe in a few years? I’m sure it depends on where he is.” Lorenzo smiled and scanned her with cold eyes. “I have no doubt he’ll join you eventually.”

A few years? She cringed at the thought.

“And then? What happens to me then?”

He looked at her, cold eyes raking over her throat and legs, lingering around her breasts until her skin flushed in