Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(174)

“What happened this afternoon?” he asked.

“Answer my question first.”

“Don’t push me. Not tonight,” Matthew warned.

“You think my day has been easy?” The air between us was crackling with blue and black threads. It looked ominous and felt worse.

“No.” Matthew slid his chair back. “But you’re keeping something from me, Diana. What happened with the witch?”

I stared at him.

“I’m waiting.”

“You can wait until hell freezes over, Matthew, because I’m not your servant. I asked you a question.” The threads went purple, beginning to twist and distort.

“I sent them away so that they wouldn’t witness this conversation. Now, what happened?” The smell of cloves was choking.

“I met the golem. And his maker, a Jewish weaver named Abraham. He has the power of animation, too.”

“I’ve told you I don’t like it when you play with life and death.” Matthew poured himself more wine.

“You play with them all the time, and I accept that as part of who you are. You’re going to have to accept it’s part of me, too.”

“And this Abraham. Who is he?” Matthew demanded.

“God, Matthew. You cannot be jealous because I met another weaver.”

“Jealous? I am long past that warmblooded emotion.” He took a mouthful of wine.

“Why was this afternoon different from every other day we spend apart while you’re out working for the Congregation and your father?”

“It’s different because I can smell every single person you’ve been in contact with today. It’s bad enough that you always carry the scent of Annie and Jack. Gallowglass and Pierre try not to touch you, but they can’t help it—they’re around you too much. Then we add the scents of the Maharal, and Herr Maisel, and at least two other men. The only scent I can bear to have mixed with yours is my own, but I cannot keep you in a cage, and so I endure it the best I can.” Matthew put down his cup and shot to his feet in an attempt to put some distance between us.

“That sounds like jealousy to me.”

“It’s not. I could manage jealousy,” he said, furious. “What I am feeling now—this terrible gnawing sense of loss and rage because I cannot get a clear impression of you in the chaos of our life—I cannot seem to control.” His pupils were large and getting larger.

“That’s because you are a vampire. You’re possessive. It’s who you are,” I said flatly, approaching him in spite of his anger. “And I am a witch. You promised to accept me as I am—light and dark, woman and witch, my own person as well as your wife.” What if he had changed his mind? What if he wasn’t willing to have this kind of unpredictability in his life?

“I do accept you.” Matthew reached out a gentle finger and touched my cheek.

“No, Matthew. You tolerate me, because you think that one day I’ll manage my magic into submission. Rabbi Loew warned me that tolerance can be withdrawn, and then you’re out in the cold. My magic isn’t something to manage. It’s me. And I’m not going to hide myself from you. That’s not what love is.”

“All right. No more hiding.”

“Good.” I sighed with relief, but it was short-lived.

Matthew had me out of the chair and up against the wall in one clean move, his thigh pressed between mine. He pulled a curl free so that it trailed down my neck and onto my breast. Without releasing me, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the edge of my bodice. I shivered. It had been some time since he’d kissed me there, and our sex life had been practically nonexistent since the miscarriage. Matthew’s lips brushed along my jaw and over the veins of my neck.

I grabbed his hair and pulled his head away. “Don’t. Not unless you plan on finishing what you start. I’ve had enough bundling and regretful kisses to last a lifetime.”

With a few blindingly fast vampire moves, Matthew had loosened the fastenings on his britches, rucked my skirts around my waist, and plunged inside me. It wasn’t the first time I’d been taken against the wall by someone trying to forget his troubles for a few precious moments. On several occasions I’d even been the aggressor.

“This is about you and me—nothing else. Not the children. Not the damn book. Not the emperor and his gifts. Tonight the only scents in this house will be ours.”

Matthew’s hands gripped my buttocks, and his fingers were all that was saving me from being bruised as his thrusts carried my body toward the wall. I wrapped my hands in the collar of his shirt and pulled his face toward mine, ravenous for the taste of him. But Matthew was no more willing to let me control the kiss than he was our lovemaking. His lips were hard and demanding, and when I persisted in my attempts to get the upper hand, he gave me a warning nip on the lower lip.

“Oh, God,” I said breathlessly as his steady rhythm set my nerves rushing toward a release. “Oh—”

“Tonight I won’t even share you with Him.” Matthew kissed the rest of my exclamation away. One hand retained its grip on my buttock, the other dipped between my legs.

“Who has your heart, Diana?” Matthew asked, a stroke of his thumb threatening to take me over the edge of sanity. He moved, moved again. Waited for my answer. “Say it,” he growled.