Dance with the Devil

Chapter Fourteen

   “Girls, girls,” the Master said sternly as he pried them from my numb self, “I thought we had discussed this.”

   “Sorry,” they said in unison.

   I wondered if the Master was growing to have a different opinion of me now, being that this was twice in so many minutes that I was left completely dependent on his hold to support me. If he had he showed no signs of it, only a brow furrowed in concern as he swept me into his arms, my feet no longer on the floor as he cradled me to his chest.

   “We were just so happy to see her,” the blue twin spoke with her gaze turned to the floor.

   “We couldn’t help ourselves,” the green twin joined hands with her sister again.

   “She’s everything she said she would be.”

   “So pretty.”

   “And bright.”

   Bright, how could my current disposition seem anything close to bright? Bleak was a better comparison, desolate…

   “I realize this,” he spoke to them softly, “but her mind is very fragile right now, she was not ready for such introductions.”

   “We’re sorry,” they chimed together again as the Master turned his back on them.

   I leaned my head dully against his chest, my stare concentrated but unseeing of the world around me, “That wasn’t it,” I mumbled feebly as my eyes began to sting again, forcing me to close them, “they called me Ginny.”

   Any other night and perhaps being embraced, lovingly at that, by a pair of vampire children would give me reason to falter, but tonight was far from any night I had lived through before. Tonight it was only a word, a name that stopped me short in a way that even a bullet to the heart could not. Though I thought this felt eerily similar.

   “Ah,” the Master nodded his head in understanding, “yes, I see.”

   A sigh of fabric met my ears as he lowered me into a plush cushion of blankets atop a bed, only I hadn’t even realized we had moved, hadn’t realized we had left the hall. It wasn’t the same room I had entered before, that had far simpler furnishings. And it did not seem to be the same in which the Duke had hidden in as there were no others in the room. This room had a different air to it, not just a bed chamber; this room felt more like a home with all its personal touches. Leather backed books stacked on the table and floor beside the bed, mismatched lamps that did not coordinate with the otherwise lavish surroundings suggesting they held a sentimental value, a coat hung over the back of a chair, boots beneath its stool, various grooming products lining a vanity.

   Someone lived in this room. And at any other time I may have questioned who, but the fact that I had just been lied out atop of bed seemed more pertinent. Though I did not fear the Master’s intentions, there was no wantonness to his gesture, implied further as he pulled a chair up beside the bed rather than join me. The fact that he had made an effort to ensure my comfort worried me to what more I could possibly learn in this night that could put my stability in question.

   “I am truly sorry Genevieve, they did not know better,” he picked my hand up in his and kissed it gently before running his other hand over my hair, his eyes deep with emotion, “would you like for me to explain how they knew such a thing?”

   “No,” I said with a sigh, “there is only one way they could have known that, they know my sister.”

   “We knew her Ginny,”

   “Not know her.” The twin’s voices echoed from the doorway behind the Master.

    His expression turned frustrated but he did not turn to them, “girls please,” he said tightly, “now is not the time-”