Bloodspell (The Cruentus Curse, #1)(28)

VICTORIA RETRIEVED THE wallet and walked past the hall with the grand piano. She saw that the lights were on and the piano lid was open with sheets of music strewn across the top. Someone must have forgotten to turn them off and put the music away. She was just gathering the sheet music when she heard a noise behind her. She whirled around, panicked, her hand to her throat.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Christian said softly.

Even when recognition set in, Victoria didn't relax. Her body remained tense, poised for flight. "That's okay. I didn't know anyone was here."

"I was just ... practicing."

"Oh. Well, I'll let you get back to it." She eased past him.

"Tori? Will you play? With me this time?" His voice and eyes were gentle. Victoria stepped back, the automatic "no" on the tip of her tongue. "Please?"

Victoria's throat tightened. She could only nod despite the warning spark of her amulet, his nearness and startling sweetness overwhelming.

Reading the sheet music for The Sleeping Beauty, she played the introductory chords. She was clumsy at first, and what had come so easily the last time she'd played it seemed to take a lot more effort, but Christian was patient. Soon they fell into a harmonized rhythm and made it through to the end without too many jarring mistakes on her part.

"I think I've made you worse," she said.

"Let's try it again."

They played it again and after a while, she let the music take over as her fingers glided across the keys. Mindless of Christian sitting beside her, his fingers moving in accord with hers, she became lost in the melody, letting the memories sweep her away—back to Greenwich Village, back to her apartment and sitting beside her mother at the piano, back to when she was laughing and smiling and alive. She played until her knuckles—and her heart—ached.

"Beautiful," he said, breaking the spell that held her. "You're a natural."

"Thank you. I forgot how good it feels," Victoria admitted, as her fingers performed a scale exercise up and down the keyboard. "I'm nowhere as good as you are though."

"Years of practice. I actually don't really like the piano," he confided. She shot him an incredulous look. "Listen for a second and you'll see what I mean." Christian stood and leaned over near the side of the piano to take his violin from its case. "Pick something. Any composer you like."

"Vivaldi."

Without hesitation, he plunged into a rendition of Winter I, Allegro Non Molto. His eyes were closed as he started the beginning notes tapping the bow against the strings. Then the muscles in his forearm and neck clenched as he whipped the bow across the strings with such a driving, passionate intensity that she felt it in her fingernails. The bow was a blur until its pace slowed, and then built once more. Victoria felt the hairs on her arms raise as the music swept her along with it rushing toward its final conclusion. Her chest felt like it was ballooning into her throat.

When Christian stopped, she could only stare at him in silent awe. He was good at the piano, but he was astounding with the violin. It was nothing like she'd heard anyone play before. With the piece for the orchestra, she only now understood just how much he'd been holding back. She shook her head in disbelief and after a minute breathed, "I see what you mean." A self-conscious smile touched his lips as he replaced the violin.

"So what's your favorite music?" he asked, pushing back the hair that had fallen into his face and sitting on the bench next to her once more. She shot him another incredulous look at his blasé nonchalance.

"You should be at Julliard or in a concert hall in New York somewhere."

"I don't like the spotlight." His words were quietly spoken, and Victoria got the feeling that he wasn't just talking about music. She didn't want to pry, so she answered his earlier question.

"For classical piano, Chopin hands down. Vivaldi as you may have guessed. But on the flip side of that, I'm a big fan of popular music, movie soundtracks, Broadway, that kind of thing. And for violin, don't laugh," she told him, "but I love the Bond girls."

"Bond?" He flashed perfect white teeth. "They're pretty good ... looking."

Victoria rolled her eyes skyward. "I guess the fact that they're four hot, half-naked girls playing strings doesn't hurt. But I like the fusion of classical and electronic. It's cool."

"Shall we?" he asked, notching an eyebrow toward the piano keys. "So Broadway? How about this one?" He struck the opening chords to Phantom of the Opera, and she grinned, her fingers recalling the notes of the song's upper register as he played the lower.

"Fitting," she said, and he laughed, a full-throated sound that made something inside of her tremble.

"I should be offended. You think I am some deformed, ugly guy behind a white mask stalking you."

"I don't think you're ugly!" Victoria blurted out, and then blushed as his silver light eyes found hers. Embarrassed, her gaze dropped to her fingers as warmth flooded her body from tip to toe.

"I don't think you're ugly either," he said softly. Victoria could feel the side of his thigh plastered to hers on the short piano bench, and the nearness of him was suddenly overpowering. She held every part of her, except her hands, perfectly still.