EPILOGUE II

Florence

Part IV

Karou felt she had been strong and courageous in her battle against Eamon's bursts of irrational rage for so long. Now, though with her final attempts at fixing their marriage dashed, Karou's will to fight had been utterly destroyed. Using her Sire as a shield, Karou squeezed her eyes shut tight the moment she saw Eamon make his second advance on them. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt in anticipation of whatever was to come.

All she felt was Warren draw the air from the room around them toward him; it blew her hair about as it came past. From the reaction alone, she knew that she was saved. Warren meant business. Yes, he meant to illustrate to Eamon that under no circumstances would he get his hands on Karou. Encouraged, she felt brave enough to prize her blue eyes open to peer over Warren's shoulder at Eamon retreating.

His final threat didn't phase her; it only confirmed to her how truly pathetic he was. She had decided at that moment that once she was back in Enoch, she would put on her game face and deal with him once and for all. The Enochian Court could go to hell if they thought she was going to put up with Eamon Tourmaine another moment longer! Their marriage, the lie that it was, was finished!

"I- I'm sorry you had to witness that," Karou said when the air in the room felt normal again, once Warren had relaxed a little.

"I have so many questions." Warren sighed. For now, he didn't turn around but was enjoying the fact that Karou was still clinging to his back. "But I'm not sure it's my place to ask..."

Now that Eamon was out of the equation, Karou's fingers unclasped from the fabric of Warren's shirt. Slowly, feeling over the shape of his back, she spread her palms and fingers out over his shoulder blades and rested her forehead between them. The aftermath was peaceful, and Karou was glad that she got to be alone with Warren that night, after all. She sighed, as did Warren when he felt her breath against his back. Tantalising close to his neck Karou peered over his shoulder to focus on the side of his face; though she couldn't really decipher his expression, she just hoped he wasn't angry with her. "You can ask whatever you want. I'll answer, and I'll be honest, but can we talk like this for a little longer?" Karou asked, nuzzling her face into him again. Maybe this was as close as he'd allow her to get. So she wanted it to last as long as it could before the inevitable arrived and she would have to leave him again.

"As long as you're not hiding your face so that I don't know if you're lying or not..."

"I won't lie, I-..." Karou took a deep breath of Warren's scent through his shirt. It did things to her that might've made most married women scold themselves for, but not Karou. Guilt never occurred to her. Warren was her safe place. "- I just... I don't want to let go just yet. We never even said goodbye last time."

"All I need to know is if his behaviour was alarming to you? Was his reaction out of the ordinary? Or was that a usual sort of lovers spat for you two?" Warren posed his questions calmly; even if inside, he was still simmering with anger. Karou might've heard through his back how his heart was still pounding away, trying to flush out the remnants of the adrenaline.

She paused for a moment of thought before answering Warren's questions. "He has always had a temper, and given the drink and the fact that you're here, he might've found it a bit quicker than usual, but what he said wasn't unusual... It was the same old argument, with him making the same points as always."

"So... what? You're going to patch things up with him?"

"Hmm, something like that," Karou muttered evasively and using one of Warren's own go-to phrases on purpose.

She didn't really want to talk about Eamon right now; she wanted to focus on who she was nuzzling her face into. Her fangs had bared the moment she filled her nose with his scent. As good as the sample of grown blood he'd given her was, it wasn't anything in comparison to the fresh, hot blood her Sire could give her straight from his neck. Her dark eyes flickered open, and from under her lashes, she glared at the left-hand side of his neck over his shoulder. Lapping her lips, she had what she wanted insight. Alas, for now, she couldn't reach it. Gradually her fingertips trailed up his shoulder so that she could trace the soft pads of her fingers over the pattern of scars on his skin.

"Karou..." Warren muttered her name. "Are you even paying attention to what I'm saying?" He was now equally distracted by the sensation her roaming fingertips left over his skin. Instinctively his head tilted to the side to allow her access, though he certainly didn't realise he was doing it.

"I'm paying attention to You, yes." A quiet, mischievous giggle rolled in her throat as she pushed up onto her tiptoes. The attempt was futile, though, she was never going to reach his neck this way. "But I'm not interested in talking about Eamon."

"You're not interested in talking about your husband? The man who you have to rekindle things with? The man you have to return home to Enoch with?" As he gave those scenarios life through his words, he grew to hate the prospect of letting her leave to do them even more. Still, Warren's eyes had fallen closed since he couldn't escape that he was enjoying the other things his fledgling was making him feel. At his sides, his hands had balled into fists to stop him from reaching for her. He was itching to touch her.

"No, not remotely," Karou whispered with both her hands set into the top of his shoulders. She added a little pressure, she needed him to lower himself down if she was going to get at what she was thirsting for, but when he didn't oblige her, she whimpered.

At her whimper, he groaned; he knew exactly what she wanted and how could he deny her, even if he might regret what he did later on... The rapid pace of his movement was supernatural, it might've startled Karou when he turned around to steal her of the comfort of his back. He grasped her waist between the vast clutches of his hands and lifted her away...

Quietly she yelped and found herself seated atop the dining table with her Sire positioned between her knees. Karou came around quickly to his intentions and made quick work of unfastening the buttons of his shirt all the way down to the waistline of his pants. With it still tucked in, she peeled the fabric back over his broad shoulders allowing it to gather at the crook of his elbows. It restricted his movement perfectly for Karou, being that he wasn't completely free of it, yet still gave her access to the bare landscape of his entire upper torso; that was all she needed. Again this was all done with such speed that Warren was helpless to stop the work of her hands and found that barely a second later, her thirsty eyes had homed in on the spot she would devour him from. In control, Karou grasped the nape of Warren's neck. The heels of her feet pulled into the rear of his knees, causing them to buckle slightly and brought him to her fangs. She simultaneously lunged forward and bit down into precisely the place she intended.

Between the fevered moans and whimpers Karou made against Warren's skin as she drank desperately from his neck, Warren had groaned. Aroused by the initial sting he felt when Karou made her wounds, he growled but eventually settled to rest the side of his face to hers. With his head drooped and breathing steady, he relaxed into the calm of their interaction as they both concentrated on how it felt to have her lips suckling at his neck again. The swell of emotion that came from Karou's eagerness to get at him had passed now, and the feeling between them became one of peace and contentedness.

For now, Warren didn't presume to touch her anywhere too intimate. He'd taken his hands from her waist the moment he'd positioned her on the table. Instead, he held her wrists, not to restrict her but to keep her hands on him. One of Karou's dainty hands cupped under his ear so that her fingers stretched back into his hair and her thumb could stroke over his cheekbone to soothe him. Her other hand simply splayed into whatever tufts of hair she could at the back of his head. At first, she had tugged his hair so that his head tipped back - a little aggressive perhaps, but it was just an instinctive action to check he'd comply. Of course, he did; he was just as ready to be bitten as she was to bite him. With all that passed and Warren's blood slowing as his wounds slowly healed beneath her lips, Karou was almost at the point where she'd have to retreat. Oh, but she didn't want to. She'd been kissing his neck for some time now but wanted more.

In the wind-down, Warren opened his lips to speak. His voice was hushed being that he was already so close to her ear. He revealed that he'd been wondering something... He thought he knew the answer, but it didn't feel redundant to ask. "What is Eamon's problem with me exactly? Karou, it's very hard for me to ignore all of the de-vamperising things he said to you... was that just all talk because he was angry?"

"Like the Enochian Court, he'd prefer it if I was just nephilim. They're all rather bigoted, but I've gotten used to it. He could never get close enough to me to actually de-fang me; it's an idle threat. If he harmed a hair on my head, he wouldn't get what he wants..." Now that her feed was over, Karou rested her forehead onto Warren's shoulder and allowed her hands to drift downward and rest on his chest. As she spoke, she eyed over his torso, admiring him. Her fingers were idly toying with the light smattering of chest hair over his pectorals.

"Has he ever hurt you?" Warren's dark eyes squeezed closed as his brow furrowed; he hated to even contemplate that possibility. He wasn't innocent of harming her, but the breaking of her wing had absolutely been an accident. Turning his face into the crook of Karou's neck, he could smell nothing but her; it was playing havoc with his thirst, but for now, he dared indulge a little.

When his eyes flickered open, he was confronted with the texture of the concealing makeup she was made to wear. It was there in plain sight for him to see as it had been in Brazil. The neglect of her vampirism was once again staring him in the face.

The fact that he'd never imagined she would have the kind of life she evidently did in Enoch angered him. Some thirty years ago, back the Compound, when he'd first accepted Cambria's plan to take Karou away, he'd never envisaged that she'd be made to conceal her vampirism. Oh, how furious that made him with himself that a fire burned in the pit of his stomach. He had made her what she was - he had tainted her nephilim-hood when he sired her! She wouldn't have been suffering as she was if it hadn't been for his weakness. How he hated to admit it, but Cambria Morningstar was right; he had foiled her plans for a happy life for Karou. He'd poisoned her future, and even now, he was causing her pain.

From the deepest depths of his mind, a solitary, dangerous thought entered his head. It calmed his inner turmoil and peaked a selfish strain of hopefulness. What if he wasn't the problem? What if Cambria's plan was the road that led Karou to unhappiness?

Suddenly Karou would have found her face trapped between Warren's cool hands as he stared down into her eyes, his full of concern. "Are you happy, Karou? In Enoch. Married to Eamon. Are they things that bring you any happiness?"

Now that she found herself staring up into her Sire's eyes, they welled up with tears she'd left un-spilt for many years. "No." Was her only answer and it came from her lips so much easier than she had anticipated.

Eamon had never physically harmed her, not yet... but her marriage was a miserable affair. Ultimately, no, she wasn't happy in Enoch, either. She was trapped there and terrified that one day she'd have to take over as ruler. She doubted she would ever feel ready to take on that mantle of responsibility.

Karou didn't put her next thought into words but allowed Warren access to it as they stared into each other's eyes. He knows I'll never love him the way that I love you.

Eamon hated Warren; he represented everything tainted and unobtainable in Karou. After all their time apart he still had Karou completely under his spell. Although Eamon could admire how well Warren had played the game to get Karou under his thumb, (they were his twisted thoughts and not remotely the truth) it only made him hate the vampire more for feeling outdone by him. How could a man like Warren Howard, a vampire, a sired one no less, having come from nothing, with no name, no family, no reputation, no money other than what he made in his dirty business of blood supplying (to Eamon it was no better than being a pimp or drug dealer) still be so much more alluring than him? When Eamon realised he could never erase the taint of Karou's vampirism and Warren Howard's hold on her or control her instincts he'd given up on actually trying to trick her into falling for him. Instead, he resigned to keeping her within his clutches long enough to become King of Enoch, which was his real goal in marrying and fathering her a daughter to begin with.

Whether or not she had to go back to Enoch. Whether or not she would attempt to make amends with Eamon just for the sake of continuing on the track her current situation had her on. Whether or not she'd eventually become a Queen... Right then, he saw only his fledgling looking up at him. With her face between his palms, he gently kissed her.

Karou hadn't expected it even though she had been yearning for him too. That yearning translated to her wilting against him and moaning contentedly into his lips to the moment he met hers. Karou instigated taking the kiss a little further when she lightly nipped Warren's lower lip. With a smirk, he obliged her and kissed her more deeply, more passionately. There was very little doubt in either of their minds that to the rest of the world what they were doing was wrong. Lucky that no one was there to see them, even if Eamon had already assumed exactly what would happen between the two of them the moment he abandoned Karou to her Sire.