by Eva Brandt
My guess was proven correct within less than a minute. “Listen, Pierce. I know you hate me and, after everything I’ve done, you want to kill me. That’s fine. But you need to remember one thing. The priority here is Lucienne. After you’ve secured her, you can do whatever you please with the power you’ll be granted.”
“Whatever I please,” I drawled in disbelief. “Really.”
“Yes, of course. That is the point of all of this, for Lucienne to find happiness.”
I frowned, a worm of uncertainty niggling at the back of my mind. “With respect, Mr. de Hastingues, I’m not sure I understand this conversation. You’ve never deemed it necessary to tell me such things before.”
Louis sighed. “I might as well be honest with you. The truth is I always hoped that I could use Mathias as a vessel. If I could’ve done that, I wouldn’t have needed you at all, except as an ingredient for the ritual. But he refuses to cooperate, which means you’ll have to carry the burden of the enchantment. Can you do it?”
If he’d asked me that a week back, his questions might have meant a lot. Now, though... Now I understood far more than he did. I understood that Lucienne would never be happy if she was forced into it at such a high cost.
Maybe in the big picture, that didn’t matter. Maybe breaking the curse should’ve taken precedence, like the Dames Blanches and everyone else seemed to believe. But I didn’t care about all that. I had no interest in finding a cure for the Accursed Syndrome.
What I wanted was to rescue Lucienne and I no longer believed Louis’s method was the right way. I had no intention of sharing that with him.
“I understand what’s at stake, Mr. de Hastingues. I can’t make any promises for after, but when it comes to the ritual and to protecting Lucienne, you can count on me.”
Louis accepted my words without questioning them. “I’m happy to hear that,” he said. “Because I’ll leave you in charge of retrieving my daughter while I take care of Mathias.”
Well, shit. Now it made sense that he’d asked me to come along. He likely didn’t want to face Lucienne until he absolutely had to. Maybe he did realize he needed to tread lightly, after all.
“Oh, and I advise you to come up with a solution to calm her down,” he said, confirming my thoughts. “We wouldn’t want her to do anything rash that would interrupt the ritual, right?”
I remembered that day, when Delphine had told me to impregnate Lucienne and couldn’t help but wonder to what extent Louis had been monitoring us. “No worries,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to distract her.”
Louis smirked at me and just like that, all my doubts and questions faded. When we stopped in front of Lucienne’s door, I knew exactly what I needed to do. And when he left me there, intent of fulfilling his own task, I understood the path I needed to follow.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked at the door. For a few seconds, there was no reply from inside. I tried again, and this time, a sharp “What?” reached my ears, followed by the sound of shattering glass.
Oh, dear. It looked like Louis had wildly underestimated Lucienne’s condition. I hadn’t seen her since we’d returned from our trip, as I’d just woken up myself, but Diane had assured me she was fine. Maybe I couldn’t trust my sister’s judgment as much as I’d thought.
“Lucienne?” I called out. “It’s me, Pierce. Can I come in?”
There was a brief pause, and then Lucienne replied, “Yes, of course.”
I opened the door and slid into her room. It was dark, the curtains shrouding the windows and keeping the morning light from disturbing Lucienne. She lay in bed, curled around a pillow and looking miserable.
“Hi,” she said with a weak smile. “Sorry for shouting. I’m afraid I’m not going to be good company right now.”
“Headache?” I guessed. After how brutally Louis had attacked her mind, it stood to reason that she’d have trouble recovering. Louis was probably relying on the lingering damage to keep her pliant during the ritual.
She nodded and winced when the simple motion jostled her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t remember ever having such a bad migraine in my life.”
She didn’t remember a lot of things, but that would change today. For the moment, I couldn’t do much about that, but I could chase away the pain a little and hope that would anchor her later.
“Let me help. I’m no healer, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
Lucienne shot me a trusting smile that made my heart clench. “Thanks.”
If things went the way I thought they would today, she’d never smile at me again. Even if I survived—which was doubtful—she’d hate me for what I’d done to her. But that was okay, as long as she was happy.
I joined her in bed and she placed her head on my lap, closing her eyes. As I started rubbing small circles against her temples, I allowed my magic to drift over her body. I couldn’t cauterize the mental wound inside her. It was too deep and I didn’t have that kind of magic. But Lucienne could do it herself, if I reminded her she had the power.
The soulmate bond between us was still there, as strong as always. It responded to my magic and slowly, Lucienne started to relax. “Mmm. That feels so nice. “
The moan sounded almost sexual, but no matter how much I wanted her, I’d decided to not take more from her than I already had. Still, when she lifted her head from my lap and leaned against my chest, I couldn’t help but steal a kiss from her sweet lips.
“Better now?”
“Yes.” She nodded, smiling against my lips. “Much.”
I wanted nothing more than to pull her close and never let go. But as much as I hated it, I hadn’t come here for that and the sweet caresses were only a means to an end. “Listen, I think you should see your aunts to get better treatment. Are you up for it?”
“That’s probably a good idea.” She frowned slightly and wrinkled her nose. “I wanted to talk to Aunt Augustine anyway, although I can’t for the life of me remember what I needed to tell her.”
With a jolt, I realized I’d just given her a massage with the same hands I’d used to clean Augustine’s blood off Louis’s floor. Lucienne might not have senses as sharp as those of a vampire or a shifter, but clearly, she’d noticed something.
“I’m sure we can find her,” I said, hating the new lie I had to tell her. “She went to speak with your father earlier. I can carry you there, if you want.”
Lucienne didn’t seem to find the vagueness of my response suspicious. “I can walk,” she replied, already leaving the bed. “Your massage helped. Just lead the way.”
I took her hand and guided her out of her quarters. As we headed back toward the ritual room, I prayed my soulmate would have the strength to deal with what was waiting for her.
* * *
Mathias
It was unfortunate, but being a practically indestructible immortal being born in the times of the Romans sometimes made me forget about my own indisputable weakness. I knew I was arrogant, but it wasn’t something I could prevent, when very few creatures alive could hold their own against me.
Normally, that wasn’t an issue, since ninety-nine percent of the time, I had backup in the form of a group of individuals who worshiped the ground I walked on. But there was one significant exception, and never had I been more aware of it than the moment I woke up lying on a cold stone floor, strapped in silver chains.
For a few seconds, my vision went white and I almost blacked out due to sheer panic. Thankfully, even if I hated being immobilized, I’d had time to find a coping mechanism for my phobia. I clenched my hands around the chains and remembered the solid weight of my axe, as it had felt in my hands, more than one thousand years ago. I could see myself so clearly, chopping wood in the small forest behind my cottage.
Thud. One split log. Thud. Two split logs. Thud. Three split logs. Thud. Four. On and on it went, until I could breathe without feeling shaky.
Hoping no one had noticed my lapse, I opened my eyes and
allowed my senses to take in my current situation. On the bright side, I could still see and move a little. Considering my past experiences with my aunt/uncle, that was a very good thing. But the good news ended there. The familiar scent of a werewolf’s blood filled the air, and I recognized it, because I’d spilled the very same blood in the past. I tasted a vampire’s death in my mouth, and it was the same death I’d once caused. The sharp spike of an incubus’s emotions reached out to me and a combination of my own magic and that of a certain Alarian prince crackled through the air, weak and sluggish, but there.
Okay, so we’d all been taken captive and Louis had obviously decided to start the ritual. That was all right. We’d seen this coming and we hadn’t feared it. We just had to trust that, together, we’d manage to make our way out of this one. Our history might not be the best, but I still believed there was a good reason why we’d been able to find one another in this life. I believed in us and Louis couldn’t change that, not ever.
Well, mostly.
It was harder to remember that when he walked into my line of sight and smiled down at me. “Ah, my dear, sweet nephew. Hello. I hope you don’t find your current position too... unpleasant.”
He sounded like he meant it and ironically, I suspected he did. Not that it mattered any. “Why are you even asking me that? I doubt you have any plans to free me anytime soon. Or at all.”
Louis grimaced, but didn’t deny it. “That’s true, but think of it this way. You’ve always hated your immortality. Now, you’ll finally be free of it.”
“Yay!” I said sarcastically. “I’d throw a party if I had my hands and legs free.”
“There’s no need to be snide, dear. Why don’t you focus on clearing your mind instead? It’ll help with the pain.”
Pain? What pain? No, I wasn’t comfortable and the silver shackles burned me slightly, but now that I’d fought my way past my phobia, it wasn’t that bad. Then again, he hadn’t started the ritual yet, and whatever he was planning would likely make my current position feel like Lucienne’s embrace.
Louis produced a knife and knelt by my side. I was tempted to try to fight him off, but I knew that would end with me exhausting myself and him either smiling smugly or giving me disappointed looks. It was better to save my strength and try to break free later, when he wasn’t paying attention.
The pentagram he cut into my chest made my heart skip a beat, and not out of agony or fear. Truth be told, despite his warning, I wasn’t in an excessive amount of pain. The symbol just brought back very unpleasant memories, memories of my Dahud and the way she’d died.
“It’s all right,” Louis told me, not unkindly. “This is for her too. She’ll get her life and her future back. That much, I can promise.”
But would she? Louis seemed to believe that, as long as Pierce was by Lucienne’s side, she’d be fine. I just couldn’t be sure that was true.
No matter what we’d been once, we were people now, and the bond we shared with our queen wouldn’t fade away just because Louis wanted it to. Yes, she was unstable, as evidenced by her earlier outburst, but she cared about us. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I told him. “You know as well as I do that you’re lying to yourself, just so that you won’t be forced to make a choice you don’t like.”
Louis didn’t falter in his work, but I could hear his pulse accelerate. I wondered how much he actually loved Lucienne. In this life, she was his daughter, and Louis had shown a degree of affection toward her. But in my experience, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
In the end, it didn’t take long for me to get my answers, on my soulmate, at least. She arrived just as Louis was completing the fifth corner of the pentagram on my chest.
The moment she entered the room, she froze in her tracks. “What the fuck?” she asked in French. “What the hell is this?”
She looked back at Pierce, but he didn’t answer. Louis set his knife aside and got up, providing the explanation she had requested. “We’re putting together a small ritual to neutralize the scavengers that have been causing such an issue. Do you feel well enough to participate?”
“A ritual?” Lucienne repeated. “Father, this isn’t right. It’s dark magic, I can tell. What did you do to them?”
“Nothing I didn’t have to,” he offered. “I don’t revel in their pain, but this couldn’t be helped.”
The angle I was in didn’t allow me to see Lucienne’s face very well, but still, I caught a glimpse of her shaking her head. “Father, no. Surely there has to be another way.”
“If there had been, I wouldn’t have chosen this method and I wouldn’t have involved you, my dear.”
It occurred to me at that moment that Louis had never asked Lucienne for anything in the past. He’d always just taken or forced her to do his bidding. For whatever reason, he seemed reluctant to go with that approach now. He hadn’t tried to possess her again, nor had he forcibly dragged her here. Instead, he’d sent Pierce after her and he was trying to persuade her to accept his plan.
That could only mean one thing. He needed her to participate in the ritual willingly.
“Lucienne, don’t listen to him,” I croaked out. “He doesn’t have your best interests at heart. He’s going to—”
“Be silent, wretch,” Louis cut me off, pressing his foot against my throat and cutting off my ability to speak. “Nobody asked you for your opinion.”
Lucienne made a small noise, but didn’t try to stop her father from hurting me. Still, I could feel the tension and magic gathering in the air, and I knew Louis had every reason to be concerned. If he didn’t tread lightly, Lucienne was going to lose it again.
Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to reach out to her. I couldn’t see the others, but they must’ve been unconscious or too out of it to say anything. Louis took advantage of this to deliver the finishing blow. “Lucienne, dear, I know this is unpleasant, but you need to trust me. This is for the best. “
For a few seconds, Lucienne didn’t answer and I dared to hope that she’d seen through his lies and would free us. I really should’ve known better than to think our lives could ever be so easy. “Of course I trust you, Father,” she said. “It was just a bit of a shock. Pierce didn’t mention we were coming here for such a spell.”
“That’s my fault,” Louis replied without missing a beat. “I asked him to make sure you were calm before the ritual. He didn’t want to lie to you.”
With some hesitation, Lucienne stepped deeper into the room. “It’s all right. I’m sure you had your reasons.” She took a deep breath, as if she was bracing herself for something very difficult. “Now... You mentioned something about making sure these scavengers weren’t a threat anymore? What can I do to help?”
Thirteen
The Cursed Princess
Lucienne
It was official. My life didn’t make any sense. I had no idea what was going on and next to no way to find out what I was supposed to do.
My unbearable migraine had faded into a duller throb, but even so, I was still having trouble processing my father’s actions and motivations. I felt like I’d decided to watch a new show, only I’d skipped the first season and didn’t understand any of the characters. Even that association made my mind ache and pulse with a strange fierceness. There was a hole inside me, one I couldn’t fill, no matter how hard I tried.
Pierce’s presence helped, but his almost ominous, damning silence also resurrected my questions. And worst of all, I didn’t know how I felt about the men whom my father had taken captive. I recognized them all, and although I had trouble remembering our past exchanges, I knew all about Mathias Vandale, my father’s worst enemy. He’d been the one who’d attacked my wedding with Pierce. My father could’ve died that day. He’d only recovered a few days back, so I should’ve been relieved to see his enemy immobilized. Strangely, I wasn’t.
My father didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him, not right now, at least. Instead, he was bent over the Al
arian royal who’d been captured and mind-controlled by Vandale. Was he trying to break the enchantment on Prince Darius? If so, he had a very interesting way of showing it. The last time I’d checked, choking someone by stepping on his throat didn’t free him from mind-control.
Pushing back my apprehension, I forced a smile and pretended I was completely comfortable with what he was doing. “Do you need me to help you with the Alarian?” I tentatively asked.
My father shook his head. “Come and stand here, in the middle.”
I did, although I still didn’t agree with what was going on and my head was starting to hurt even harder. I wanted to ask my father why he was hurting Prince Darius, but I doubted he would give me a satisfying reply. When he guided me to the right spot without actually moving from his, I followed his instructions without protest, taking advantage of the occasion to check over the other men.
Declan Whelan and Malachai Braun were the ones who’d taken the most damage so far. The werewolf was so cut open I was surprised I couldn’t see his organs. Between that and the silver poisoning, he was barely breathing, hanging onto life through sheer strength of will. The vampire was a little bit better, but not by much. The massive pentagram on the floor was drawn in his blood and my father had needed a lot of it.
Bjorn Lindberg was unconscious, but he didn’t have any visible injuries, except for the glowing pentagram on his chest. Mathias Vandale must’ve put up a fight, though, because I could see mild burns all over his body.
I tried to remind myself that these were the same scavengers who’d killed so many of my friends and family members. Up to a point, it worked, and my anxious magic settled. My father noticed and he shot me an approving smile. “There you go,” he said. “Pierce, why don’t you join her? This will all be over in just a moment.”
Pierce didn’t answer. He walked up to me and wrapped me in his arms. I immediately felt a little better, less like I was going to collapse out of sheer confusion and pain.
