Read The Key (Sanguinem Emere) for Free Online Page B

well-up enough to loose a single droplet, “I can’t lose you, either.”
    “Delilah, don’t do anything rash,” Even to my fearful ears, the tremors are clear.
    “I don’t plan on doing anything, Eva,” Delilah croons as she visibly softens, her face slightly mocking at  my apparent paranoia, and tuts in annoyance at the trill of her cell. She pauses for a brief moment as my eyes dart towards the shade of the door being cast on the wall beside me. It’s starting to get dark and the long afternoon shadows are enticing. I wish I could be out in the summer evening with leaves whispering to me and the fragrance of old heat making my mouth water. But Delilah’s face has turned more severe, as she bites off her words into the mouthpiece, and slightly cold as she glances at me, ice lacing her gaze. “I see,” She mutters and clicks the flip-cover shut, her eyes lazily passing to Cecily as if the moment of winter never happened.
    “That was Levi.”
    My sister wrinkles her lip in disgust with an uncharacteristic sneer, “What the hell does he want?”
    “He has a message from Dimitri…”
    The tension in the room crackles under the weight of both their accusatory looks being turned to me. I glance hopefully at the door again and then sigh in mild irritation at myself and my ridiculous fear. They would not – could not – ever do anything to make me stay here if I really didn’t want to. What has gotten into me? Their behaviour is certainly odd, for both of them, but not good enough reason to start suspecting delinquent reactions.
    “Eva, Dimitri wants to see you. Alone.”
    The fire in their cumulative eyes makes my skin quite literally sting. Although Cecily is doing her best to seem less invasive than Delilah who is glaring at me with open jealousy.
    “So?” I sneer back, fuelling my bravado with self-satisfaction I don’t actually feel.
    “Well, it really doesn’t matter to me either way what you do,” Delilah begins off-handedly as she snaps the eye-contact off and starts clearing the crockery off the counter-top.
    “Good,” I snatch my handbag closer to my side and head for the door slowly, trying to feign disinterest in whatever it is Dimitri has to say, though I know it’s an obscene lie. I desperately want to see him. And hear what he has to say for himself. And maybe reminisce just a little about the monumental feelings that have started bleeding through my limbs after last night.
    “But he says he has a story for you.”
     
    SUNDAY 16 November 2008… 18:22
    Dimitri sits across from me with steepled fingers.
    I chose the dining room for legitimate reasons. I think. For one thing, It’s close to the entrance hallway, which is close to the door. And open-plan, which is pleasant - the room leading off nicely to the foyer.
    I met Dimitri in here, my purse still clutched to me, my feet ready to leave if I, in any way, felt discomfort at his approach. The options were 1). The solid, non-descript area to the left of the foyer with its doors auspiciously closed, or 2).  The open-plan, high-walled dining room.
    I chose the least threatening option.
    I have every right to leave, dammit. Every right to storm out of here without hearing his explanations, without agreeing to see my friend or my sister ever again. But the bastard knows me, it seems. He knew what it would take to make me stay.
    A story. The same one I chose to engage in when I first met him? The reason I got mixed up in all of this. The reason I can’t stop staring at his face across the way from me.
    I think. I hope.
    Anything else would be a travesty.
    Because I don’t love him.
    Dimitri smiles and that tweak of intrigue cocooned in lust preens inside me and I glance directly into his eyes, fighting discomfort with discomfort. If he thinks he is going to put me at ill ease, he’s sorely mistaken. I place people off-balance for a living. Especially people like him. Seemingly secure in their invulnerable castles of secrets. Their