Stuttgart. The balls. The music. Wine and songs, and the ever-blinding spin of waltzes in the air, soaked with the sweet smell of blood, perfumed with sweat and lavender. Dresden. Gengis and his companion were in the ballroom, not together but hunting, rather. She was wearing ochre brocard, rich fabrics that mirrored her honey eyes. Wild brown locks were tamed into an intricate chignon, a few rebel curls inviting touch at the nape of her neck.
She was dancing with a man - he was of no consequence. Handsome and sweet-smelling like the ripest fruit. Rosy and tender like perfectly ready cattle. She did not care. Propulsed through unlife only by the companionship of her dark-skinned Ephebe, she went and seduced the kill. She drank. She hid the body. She returned to the dance floor. Her lips were fuller. Her cheeks were pink.
In the crowd, suddenly, a familiar figure. Flavius. Her Flavius. Two hundred years of an incessant brawl, and still she was his, despite her flight, despite the words that cut like knives, despite how much they hated each other, or said they did. Nothing could take that away from her, from him. Eyes meet, inscrutable. She flees, again.
In the suite she shares with her lover, she is distraught.
"He was here."
"Who was?" Gengis is instantly at her side, demanding.
She says nothing.
"Flavius," he guesses. "That slave's git who made you. What will you have me do, woman?"
She says nothing, looking stoically into the night. She thinks of Lupercalia. Of Ovid. Gengis could not understand the depths that link her to Flavius. Even she cannot.
"He will want you to join him."
She says nothing, again, but a trail of blood sneaks on her cheek. She cries, utterly silent.
"I will not allow it," Gengis says, adamant, violent. "You are mine. You are mine," he repeats, over and over again. "My queen of the night, my beautiful, beautiful queen. My liege. Together we rule Dresden."
"Not with Flavius here," she murmurs at last.
"Then we will leave."
Someone knocks on the door. A note is delivered. Lydia reads it, sighs, and stuffs it in her corsage.
"He wants you to join him, does he not?" Gengis's voice again is demanding, his hands grasping at her arms, holding tight on her cold flesh.
She looks away. "He does."
He kisses her neck, licks at her earlobe, tantalizing. She closes her eyes, falling prey to his sensuality, almost quickened. "Do not. If you go to him, I will go and await for the sunrise," Gengis murmurs against her skin.
She turns to look at him, frustrated, angry, glaring. "You would not dare."
"So I would." He moves, fast like a snake, kisses her fiercely. "I love you, Lydia of Athens, my queen. Do not let me go." She can say nothing to that, and surrenders to his attack, kissing back, biting, even. His arms tighten around her, and she crumbles, abandoned in her lust for him, even if she knows... she knows....
Leaning against him, breathless and tired for the blood loss, she looks at him again. "Gengis, what will we do? He is Ancient."
"And so are you," he points out proudly. "You could take him, but you don't want to."
She looks down. "No, I do not."
"Then we will leave. And you will not go to him."
She nods, and sighs. Better to go with Gengis, who propels her, than to Flavius, who makes her angry - better to be dragged through life than to argue through it. Better to be free, than prisoner of failed love.
She left. The carriage took her away with her lover, disappearing into the night.
As Gengis nibbled on her earlobe, she tried to ignore the bitter pang of regret.