The Key (Sanguinem Emere) by Carmen Taxer Read Free Book Online

mansions and hotel rooms. The palaces whose walls they seek to hide behind.
    Well guess what? You let the enemy in behind the lines, Romeo.
    “You’re upset, My Lamb,” My heckles rise with an inaudible snarl at his words, and especially at the familiar term of endearment, as I let the emotion leach from my face. I cannot be a person to him. I won’t let him see my rage and start picturing me as a human. If he sees me as such, then I become a thing to manipulate.
    And my emotions have been indiscreet enough as it is since I arrived here. To be honest with myself, since long before that, even.
    “That would imply that there is something here to be upset over, Dimitri.” I keep my features as impassive as I am able, but the gleam in his eyes is hard to ignore and as he stands from his end of the twelve-seater and starts sauntering over to me; I feel the machismo sliding off of me like oil from water. But I keep my gaze locked to his and watch his approach wearily.
    He sits beside me and takes my hand, which I allow to lie scrunched inside his, an angry fist of denial in the face of all this…
    “Don’t be,” He ignores my earlier statement and I watch as the moonlit shadows outdo the divinity of the shaded-lamp-glow over his features. His storming eyes settle over me as he straightens up and slips his hands from my despairing fist, reaching his regal height and roaming his glance over mine.
    “Delilah told me of your intentions,” He speaks formally, “To leave, I mean.”
    I nod in silent affirmation of the unspoken question lingering between us.
    If it is true.
    “I see.” His eyes look sad as they rotate away from mine and I have to literally pinch myself to remember why I am here. Be stubborn. Be reluctant. Anything to get the story. Anything at all.
    And end this ridiculous infatuation where it stands. I can’t afford to be romantically beholden to a story-hook. I’ve let myself remain ‘enamoured’ with him for too long. This story should have been sent in to print three weeks ago already.
    “Wasn’t it you who told me that the best way to learn of your ‘quarry’,” I flinch at my own words given back to me on his lips. I’d never meant to make him feel like he was just a thing to be pursued. Maybe that’s why he’s doing this to me. “Is to immerse yourself in his environment?”
    I glower at him as the words of his finished question ring in my ears. “So you’re trying to tell me you brought me here to give me a glimpse of how the other half lives?” I let my eyes wander over the general environment in disgust, recalling all too plainly the tension between the girls in the kitchen.
    “I brought you here because I wanted you. And I thought you felt the same way.”
    A pause hangs between us like the blade of a guillotine. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a small, navy velvet box which he puts on the table between us.
    “Go on, open it.” His eyes shine and a shadow of a smile almost crosses his lips. One of those very open, honest ones that would normally melt me. If I’m going to be honest, it still does.
    I daintily pry open the box. Nestled within is a silver bracelet weighed down with charms. A few of them catch my eye as lovely for their shine, others for their age. But the entire thing is like carnival jewellery. So many of them that if I spent an hour studying it I still wouldn’t be able to recall everything on here.
    I touch it with the tip of my fingers, a gesture I just can’t accept right now. An heirloom.
    And he’s giving it to me.
    I glance up into his eyes watching me and I flinch at the disappointment and the sadness as he looks away. He saw my hesitation.
    A smile hitches itself onto his lips, mechanical and full of regret.
    He casts his eyes down and a little blip of shame sends a sonar signal through my heart. But that doesn’t stop my knee-jerk reaction of shunting my face abruptly to the side when he lightly grazes my chin with the back of his hand.
    “I