by Lynsay Sands
“I shall make Julius suffer for a couple more days, just to twist the screw a bit, you understand,” Vita said as she peered down at Christian’s still face. “For old time’s sake.”
“Of course,” Marguerite said quietly and wondered when exactly Vita had gone mad. Living so long without a lifemate could do that to an immortal and it had obviously affected this one. The woman was riddled with bitterness and rage and madness.
“Then I’ll send him a letter telling him where he can find you both. I was thinking a small wooded area not far from his house, but I haven’t completely made up my mind yet.” She shrugged. “He’ll arrive to find you both dead and be crushed of course. I’ll enjoy that for a few minutes and then put him out of his misery, and mine.” She released a little sigh of pleasure at the very idea.
“What now?” Marguerite asked quietly. “You leave us down here without any blood until you’re ready to kill us?”
“No, I don’t think there’s any need for that,” Vita said thoughtfully. “Now that I’ve told you everything, it’s really rather risky to keep you alive. What if you escaped? No. I think it’s better if I deal with you now.”
Marguerite’s eyes widened with alarm. “But you wanted to torment Julius some more.”
“I will,” Vita assured her with amusement as she swung her sword up over her head. “It is nice and cool down here. Your corpses should still be recognizable in two days’ time.”
Christian’s eyes shot open and he started to roll toward Vita, reaching for her leg, but Marguerite had already thrown herself toward him to take the blow as the sword swung downward.
Three things happened at once. Marguerite landed on Christian’s side with a grunt, Vita’s sword slashed across her behind, and Christian pulled his aunt’s leg from under her, sending her tumbling to the ground.
“Marguerite!”
She blinked her eyes open and when Christian started to turn under her, catching her by the arms to lift her slightly, she smiled weakly despite the white hot heat in her backside and said, “You sound so like your father.”
“That was Father,” he assured her, worry drawing his eyebrows together. “Are you all right? Why did you do that?”
“I was protecting you. It’s what a mother does,” Marguerite said, closing her eyes with a grimace as pain radiated through her posterior section. Her eyes then blinked open again almost at once. “It was your father?”
Christian nodded, and then glanced to the side. She followed his gaze to see Julius pulling Vita to her feet and passing her over to Dante and Tommaso to be restrained. The twins promptly began to drag her from the room and she saw Nicodemus Notte follow, his expression cold and closed. The woman was in a lot of trouble, she thought, and was glad for it. No one tried to kill her children and got away with it.
“Are you both all right? Marguerite, can you—” Julius had started to lift her off of Christian, but paused when she groaned in pain. “Where are you hurt, love? I didn’t see where she got you.”
Marguerite closed her eyes as he began to check her back. This was so humiliating. Apparently her black skirt was hiding the wound, making the blood impossible to see. Presumably the slice in her skirt where the sword had got her was hidden by the folds of the material, because his hands were moving over her upper back and she could hear the frown in his voice as he said, “I can’t find it, Marguerite. You were hit, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Marguerite said and then sighed and added, “I won’t be sitting down for a day or two.”
She felt cool air on her behind. When Julius cursed, Marguerite smiled crookedly at her son. “How is your wound?”
Christian released a little laugh and shook his head helplessly.
She felt her skirt being dropped down over her behind, and then Julius moved up beside them.
“This is going to hurt a bit,” he warned, and caught her under the arms to lift her off of Christian.
Marguerite managed to keep from crying out as white hot agony sliced through her behind by biting down on her lip, but sweat had broken out on her forehead by the time she was upright and on her feet. Her legs immediately gave out, and she bit down harder as they buckled, sending another shot of pain through her, but then someone was immediately there at her side, dragging her arm over their shoulder even as Julius slid under her other arm.
“Lucian,” Marguerite said with surprise as she peered at the man. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” he said wryly. “You didn’t think we’d let you disappear and not come looking?”
“We?” she asked and glanced around to see the room was now filled with men. Her eyes slid over Bastien, Lucern, Vincent, Tiny, and Marcus with surprise.
“And you said they’d enjoy the respite from you,” Christian said on a breathless laugh as he struggled to get to his feet.
Marguerite smiled faintly at his teasing, but then frowned as Bastien and Lucern immediately moved to help him and he suddenly stiffened up, looking uncomfortable as he muttered that he could manage on his own. She knew he was now experiencing what she’d been suffering for the last few days. Uncertainty and discomfort in the face of unexpected family.
“Christian,” she said quietly, “let them help you. That’s what brothers are for.”
He hesitated, then seemed to relax a little and nodded, allowing Bastien and Lucern to take some of his weight.
“I found some keys in the hall. Let me see if I can find the one to get your chains off,” Vincent said, crossing the room toward her.
Marguerite smiled as he knelt to try various keys on her chain, and then glanced around and asked, “Where are the girls?”
“They’re in York,” Vincent answered, glancing up to admit wryly, “They weren’t with us when we got Julius’s number. It seemed better to come straight here than to go back and collect them.”
“Jackie won’t take that well,” Tiny commented dryly, speaking of Vincent’s wife, Jackie Morrisey, the owner of the Morrisey Detective Agency and Tiny’s usual partner.
“I know,” Vincent said cheerfully as he found the right key and the cuff around her ankle fell away.
Marguerite raised one eyebrow as she watched him move to Christian’s chain. “You don’t seem too worried about it.”
Vincent shrugged. “She’ll have a fit, throw a tantrum, I’ll grovel a bit, and we’ll have make-up sex.” He glanced up from working on the chain on Christian’s ankle and grinned. “It’ll be great.”
Marguerite shook her head as she noted that all the Argeneau men were grinning. She suspected there would be a lot of make-up sex when they got back to their women.
“There you go.” Vincent straightened as Christian’s chain fell away. “We have blood in the truck. We’ll have you both back in fighting form in no time.”
“Blood,” Christian sighed. “Sounds good.”
Marguerite watched as Bastien and Lucern began to help Christian toward the door.
“They’ll accept him,” Lucian said quietly and she smiled and nodded.
“Yes, they will. They’re good boys.”
“We should get you out to the truck too,” Julius said urging her forward, but pausing abruptly when she tried to walk and gasped when pain shot through her backside and down her leg as she moved.
Julius and Lucian paused and glanced at each other. Taller than she, they were both crouched over to fit her arms over their shoulders, then she glanced from one to the other as Lucian raised an eyebrow and Julius nodded. Without a word they then both straightened, lifting her off the floor.
“Better?” Julius asked as they began to walk forward with her dangling between them.
“Yes,” she admitted with relief. “Now tell me I don’t have to sit on the bus,” she pleaded, and grimaced as they both chuckled.
Epilogue
“Finally,” Marguerite said with a smile as Lissianna placed her new granddaughter in her arms.
It had been two weeks since she and Christian h
ad been rescued from Vita’s home. Julius had spent the time since fussing over her like a mother hen, feeding her bag after bag of blood and coddling her long after she had healed. He’d also spent that time telling her more about the period when they’d first met, hoping to bring back the memories that were missing.
It hadn’t worked so far. Marguerite feared she may never remember, but she had her lifemate and her son, and that along with her other children and the rest of her family was enough.
Lucian, Lucern, Bastien, and Vincent had stayed at Julius’s home in Italy for a couple of days while waiting for the European council to pass judgment on Vita. Once they’d pronounced that she be executed and the deed was done, they’d returned to York to collect their lifemates and head back to Canada. Marguerite had talked to everyone on the phone since then, but had only returned home to Canada the night before, flying in with Julius, Christian, Dante, Tommaso, and Marcus.
Bastien and his lifemate, Terri, had met them at the airport and brought them home, but everyone had left them alone last night to allow them to recover from the journey. Tonight, however, her family had congregated at her home, a family gathering to introduce the two families. Even Jackie, Vincent, and Tiny had flown in for the occasion, and it was an occasion, this was her first sight of her beautiful granddaughter.
“We named her after Uncle Lucian,” Lissianna announced as Marguerite ran a finger lightly down the baby’s soft cheek. “Her name is Luciana, but we’ll call her Lucy.”
Marguerite tore her eyes away from the beautiful baby and glanced worriedly toward her son-in-law at this news. The two men had not got off to a grand start and she was surprised he’d allowed the name.
“Lucian and I have worked things out,” Greg assured her with a smile. “Like the rest of the Argeneau men, he’s really not so bad once you get to know him.”
Marguerite smiled, her gaze slipping across the room to where Christian, his cousins, and the majority of the Argeneau clan were seated, talking. Christian had spent a lot of time with his half brothers, his new cousin, and his Uncle Lucian during the two nights they’d remained in Italy, and they all seemed very relaxed and comfortable around each other. But then she’d expected no less.
A gurgling laugh drew her gaze back to her sweet granddaughter and Marguerite smiled and whispered, “Little Lucy, you’re perfect.”
“Yes, she is,” Lucian agreed, appearing beside her. He reached over Marguerite’s shoulder to offer the child a finger and little Lucy immediately grasped it in her tiny fist and tried to draw it to her mouth. “And soon she’ll have a playmate.”
Marguerite glanced up wide-eyed at this announcement. “A playmate?”
He grinned and then drew a petite brunette closer so she could see her as he announced, “We’re pregnant.”
“Already?” Marguerite asked with surprise and then beamed on the pair, thinking how much happier Lucian seemed. Things were really looking up when Lucian Argeneau actually smiled. “I’m very happy for you.”
“Thank you,” he said solemnly, then reclaimed his finger from Lucy to lay his hand on her shoulder, cleared his throat, and said quietly, “Marguerite, I want you to know I had no idea what was going on back then. I believed that Jean Claude was dead. He didn’t even contact me during those years and he never explained his absence to me. It was a bone of contention between us for centuries.”
Marguerite frowned at the hurt in his eyes, knowing he felt betrayed by his twin’s silence during that time. Squeezing the hand on her shoulder, she said, “He couldn’t have told you, Lucian. It would have put you in an untenable position. You were a member of the council in Europe at the time. You would have been faced with the choice of turning in your own brother, or breaking some of the laws you helped put in place. It was better he didn’t tell you. I know it must have been hard for him too.”
Lucian nodded, but he wasn’t finished. “I was happy for you when you found Julius back then. It had been obvious to me for some time that you and Claude were not true lifemates and he’d made a mistake there, so I was happy to hear you had found someone who made you happy. But when Jean Claude returned…” He paused and shook his head. “He said the two of you were working things out and had decided to stay together. He told Lucern the same thing. I had no idea about the three–on-one or the—”
“I know, Lucian,” Marguerite interrupted quietly and assured him, “you have too much honor for me ever to have thought that you had known or been involved.”
Lucian nodded and patted her hand, his gaze sliding to Thomas as he led a pretty dark-haired woman over to join their little cluster. “We’ll get out of the way and go join the others. Thomas has something to tell you.”
Eyebrows rising, Marguerite watched the handsome young couple approach, smiling as she noted the way they moved, their footsteps in sync. Thomas was measuring his longer stride, reducing it to match the woman’s shorter stride.
“Aunt Marguerite, I’m so glad you’re safe and feeling better,” Thomas greeted her, bending to press a kiss to her cheek.
Careful not to crush the baby, Marguerite smiled and hugged her nephew before letting him straighten. She then raised a quizzical eyebrow as her gaze slid to the woman at his side.
Thomas grinned at her expression as he drew the girl forward. “This is Inez Urso.”
“Yes, I know. She works for Bastien,” Marguerite reached out to squeeze her hand in greeting. “I met Inez when she came to Canada for a tour of the offices after her promotion to the executive position. I see Bastien finally introduced the two of you as I suggested,” she added with satisfaction.
“You suggested he introduce us?” Inez asked with surprise.
“I don’t believe it,” Thomas muttered when Marguerite nodded. His gaze shifted across the room to where Bastien was laughing. “I thought I was the first one to escape your famous matchmaking and all the time he was in cahoots with you. Wait till I…” Catching Inez’s hand, he started to lead her toward the group, no doubt to give Bastien an earful, but paused as he realized he was marching off on his aunt.
Turning back, he opened his mouth to speak, but Marguerite grinned and waved him on. “Go on, join the others. We’ll come over in a minute.”
“Oh, give Lucy here, Mother. She’s wanting her diaper changed,” Lissianna murmured when the baby began to fuss.
Marguerite gave up the baby, but watched with regret as Lissianna and Greg moved to the other side of the room to tend their daughter. Her gaze then slid to the group seated on the couches and chairs arranged around the fireplace. They were laughing and talking as if they’d known each other forever.
“Christian seems to be getting along well with his new brothers and sister,” Julius commented, moving to sit on the arm of her chair now that she no longer had the baby.
“I’m glad,” Marguerite said, her gaze wistful as she watched the young man laugh at something that had been said.
“What’s the matter, love?” Julius asked with concern.
Marguerite shrugged and then admitted, “I’m just a little sad thinking about how much I’ve missed of Christian’s life.”
Julius bent to press a kiss to her forehead and suggested softly, “We could have another Christian to make up for it. Or a Christina.”
Marguerite peered up at him, “Would you like that?”
“I can’t think of anything more wonderful than having a dozen bambinos with you, Marguerite,” he said with a smile, and then added, “but maybe not for a couple years. I’ve missed out on the last five hundred years with you and want to make up for lost time first.” He paused and frowned, then said fretfully, “I’m sorry. I should have known you wouldn’t have done any of what they claimed. I should have come for you after the maid brought Christian to me.”
“I wouldn’t have remembered you,” she pointed out quietly. “From what Vita said, I wasn’t even conscious, or at least mentally competent, for quite a while after the three-on-one.”
“But I could ha
ve—”
“Done nothing,” Marguerite insisted firmly, and then added, “Julius, please don’t ever feel guilty about the last five hundred years. We all did the best we could. Even Jean Claude. I’ve hated him so much and for so long, but in the end, Vita damaged him too, killing his true lifemate and child as she did. When I look back on it, I see the difference in him before the missing memories and after. He wasn’t great but he tried before that. Afterward, he was so full of rage and bitterness all the time and I never understood why, but now…”
“His loss didn’t excuse his behavior toward you,” Julius growled.
“No,” she agreed quietly. “But it explains it.”
He shook his head. “I still think I should have done something.”
“And then I wouldn’t have Bastien, Etienne, or Lissianna,” she pointed out quietly.
Marguerite saw the flicker in his eyes as he recognized the truth of her words. Had he taken her from Jean Claude five hundred years ago, her three youngest children wouldn’t have been born. She also wouldn’t have raised Thomas and Jeanne Louise and…There were so many ands.
“I love you, Julius,” she said quietly. “But I love them too and everything in my life—good and bad—has led me to this point where I can have all of you. All those experiences have shaped and formed me like a blacksmith beats a sword into shape in the fire.” Marguerite peered at him solemnly. “I like who I am, and I’m happy with what I have: my five lovely children and you. It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes it was downright painful. But I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Then neither would I, my love,” Julius whispered and kissed her.
A burst of laughter from the group by the fireplace made them pull apart and glance toward them curiously.
“Our children are up to something,” Julius said with amusement.
Marguerite nodded with a smile. Our children. It had a beautiful ring to it. Julius was opening his arms to her family too and that was as important to her as the Argeneau side accepting his family.
