Closing his eyes, the room started to go on an easy little spin, as if his bed was right over a drain and everything was slowly funneling out.
You know. . . considering how well this was rolling along, he was going to have to remember the safe out. The pain in his chest was nothing but a dim echo; his blood hunger was quelled; his emotions were placid as a marble countertop. Even when he slept, he didn't get this kind of respite -
The knock on his door was so soft, he thought it was just the beat of his heart. But then it repeated. And repeated again.
"Goddamn, fucking hell. . . " He jacked his head off the pillow and hollered, "What. "
When there was no answer, he shot up to his feet - "Whoa. Yeah, okay. . . hello. "
Catching himself on the bed stand, he knocked the empty Herradurra on the floor. Wow. His center of gravity was now split between the pinkie toe of his left foot and the outer piece of his right ear. Which meant his body wanted to go in two directions at once.
Getting to the door was like ice-skating. On a Tilt-A-Whirl. With a helicopter as headgear.
And the knob was a moving target, although how that door was shifting from side to side in its frame without breaking was a mystery.
Yanking the thing wide, he barked, "What!"
There was nobody there. But what he saw sobered him up.
Across the hall, hanging from one of the brass sconces, was his Wellsie's red waterfall of a mating dress.
He looked to the left and saw no one. Then he looked to the right and saw. . . No'One.
Down at the far end of the hall, the robed female was going as fast as her limp would allow her, her frail body shifting awkwardly under those folds of rough cloth.
He probably could have caught her. But, shit, he'd obviously scared the crap out of the female, and if he'd been unfit for conversation at the dinner table, he was now unfitter-er.
See? He was even making up words now.
Plus he was buck-ass naked.
Weaving his way out into the corridor, he stood in front of the gown. The thing had obviously been cleaned with care and prepared for storage, its sleeves stuffed with tissue paper, its hanger one of those jobs that had a padded insert for the bodice.
As he looked at the dress, the effects of the alcohol made it seem as if the skirting was caught in a breeze, the bloodred fabric waving to and fro, the weight catching the light and reflecting it back at him at various angles.
Except he was the one moving, wasn't he.
Reaching up, he lifted the hanger from where it had been slung over the sconce, and carried the gown inside his room, shutting his door behind them both. Over at the bed, he laid the dress out on the side that Wellsie had always preferred - the one farthest from the door - and carefully arranged the sleeves and the skirting, making minute adjustments until it was in perfect position.
Then he willed the lights off.
Lying down, he curled on his side, putting his head on the pillow opposite the one that would have supported his Wellsie's head.
With a shaking hand, he touched the satin of the filled-out bodice, feeling the whalebones set within the fabric, the structure of the dress built to enhance a female's gentle, curving body.
It was not as good as her rib cage. Just as the satin was not as good as her body. And the sleeves weren't as good as her arms.
"I miss you. . . . " He stroked the indentation of the gown where her waist would have been - should have been. "I miss you so much. "
To think she had once filled this dress out. Had lived inside of it for a brief time, nothing but a camera shot of one evening in both their lives.
Why couldn't his memories bring her back? They felt strong enough, powerful enough, a summoning spell that should have had her magically reinflating the gown.
Except she was alive only in his mind. Ever with him, always out of reach.
That's what death was, he realized. The great fictionalizer.
And just as he would have reread a passage in a book, he remembered their mating day, the way he had stood so nervously to one side of his brothers, fidgeting with his satin robe and his jeweled belt. His blooded sire, Hharm, had yet to come around, the reconciliation that had arrived at the end of his life still a century in the making. But Darius had been there, the male looking over at him every second or two, no doubt because he'd been worried Tohr was going to pass the fuck out.