by Michele Hauf
ONCE RHYS TOOK A PERSON’S scent into his nose, he had it forever. A vampire, on the other hand, must be much closer, within hearing range to track the heartbeat of his victim. Thanks to his mixed blood, Rhys could track Viviane LaMourette anywhere in the city, if he desired.
That was the question. Did he desire to track her?
What was he doing? Seeking to revenge the vampire lord. What had become of his initial, and real, attraction to the vampiress?
Those whimsical blue eyes had captivated him. Too bright, too bold. And that mouth. So red, so soft. And that imperious command of independence he had found refreshing. The woman might well be a libertine.
And that teasing curve at the side of her mouth. Like a delicate petal, it begged plucking.
“And what is wrong if I wish to pursue fine things?” To take them, hold them in his hands and crush them against his skin.
What was wrong was he had veered off course. He’d come to Paris on a mission for the Council. And still, no word from William Montfalcon, which was beginning to disturb him.
Rhys had been suspicious of Montfalcon’s unlocked door upon arrival. It was as if the man had left for the day and intended to return—yet had not. So he and Orlando were staying in the man’s home with hopes he was merely away on holiday. Rhys knew Montfalcon would not mind, and if foul play had occurred, he felt sure Montfalcon would appreciate someone looking over his home.
He had not taken time to question any in the salon after the distraction named LaMourette had turned his head.
“Don’t allow her to change your course,” he muttered.
Yet his course had altered to include revenge against Salignac. That bit of side play he would enjoy.
Later that evening, Rhys tracked the vampiress’s carriage through the tight, dark streets until it pulled up at a stable behind a town house hung with red shutters. An oil lamp flickered above the front doorway, leaving the stables shrouded in shadow.
The maid stepped from the carriage and wandered into the stable, her heels clicking abruptly.
A cloaked figure emerged from the stables behind the maid, a man, perhaps a stable hand. He stepped into the carriage. Closing the door behind him, the maid tugged up her hood and loitered outside.
“The vampiress is out on the prowl.”
Vacillating whether or not to approach, Rhys decided he must attend his own neglected hungers, or meet the full moon with a raging madness he could not abide.
“Time to find a donor,” he muttered, hating the act as much as he needed it.
CHAPTER SIX
CONSTANTINE DE SALIGNAC settled onto the tattered velvet divan, hastily untying the jabot at his neck. He was eager to slip into oblivion. But it was difficult to concentrate after what his man Richard had reported.
“That bastard is in town,” he muttered.
He swiped his palms over his face, and scratched the small patch of dark stubble on his chin.
Richard had reported seeing Hawkes lurking about, sneaking through the salon as if to spy.
“Rhys Hawkes, will I never be free from you? Do you walk this earth only to torment me? To show me what others must never know?”
Richard popped his head into the study. “She’s on her way, Salignac.”
“Properly spiced, I hope,” he snapped.
“Drank the whole bowl of opium,” Richard offered with his usual lascivious glee. “She can barely walk.”
Constantine’s fangs descended in anticipation. Normally Richard waited until he’d been directed to prepare the evening’s repast, but for some reason Sabine had gotten into the opium early. She’d cast him a stabbing glance when he had greeted Mademoiselle LaMourette.
Sabine had no right to jealousy, and yet rarely did his glossy-eyed kin ever show signs of fight over him. Pity.
Sabine was his oldest and favorite. He had a few dozen female kin that he blooded regularly in hopes of eventually getting them with child. A mortal woman-made vampire required five to ten years of blooding from her patron before she could accept his seed and grow fruitful. Sabine had been carrying his child for five months now.
Finally, some success.
If she could give him a male heir, a bloodborn vampire to carry on his name, the tribe would be most pleased. His position as leader was tenuous. The ailing tribe needed new blood to grow stronger. Constantine had been named leader two decades earlier, and he’d expressed the dire need for the male members to gather as many female kin as they could in hopes of producing viable male bloodborn vampires. Yet nothing had come of it.
His greatest hope rested upon securing Viviane LaMourette as kin. She was the diamond amongst the rubies. The only bloodborn vampiress in Paris, she was the key to his remaining leader of tribe Nava. Finally!
Yet she asked him to give up his kin? A bold request.
A petite blonde, wearing a gossamer night rail that revealed her tumescent belly, stumbled against the door frame. She grinned drunkenly at Constantine and brushed the loose hair from her face.
He gestured for her to come to him. Candle glow exposed the road map of blue veins beneath her pale skin. She was growing more delicate as her stomach expanded. He made a note to find her a proper maid who would tend only her. He must not risk his child’s life.
She collapsed on him more than sat. Though she was his favorite, he’d gone beyond desire for sex now that she was expanding. Still, her blood was the finest vintage.
“You could not wait for me?” he wondered as he stroked the hair from her neck.
“I thought I was your favorite,” she pouted. “I saw you leaning so close to that wolf slayer.”
So she was jealous. “You are my favorite, Sabine.” For now.
He kissed her neck, grazing a fang along the vein. No passion required, only hunger for solace. Ever polite, only a small cry from her. She clutched his jabot and cooed as he extracted the hot blood from her vein. Laced with opium, it relaxed him and dizzied his world. Made him forget things.
He sucked the sweet wine of oblivion, yet she began to struggle. Normally she slipped into a weak reverie.
Constantine caught Sabine’s wrist. “Settle. I am not finished.”
“Oh!” Such a shriek could not be because of his ministrations. Sabine squirmed on his lap and slid off, landing on the floor, her head tucked. “It is like knives!”
Licking the blood from his fingers, Constantine stopped and noted what he was doing. He was never so messy. Where had it come from…?
A smear of blood across his lap trailed over the chaise longue. He startled. On the parquet floor, writhing in pain, Sabine bled from her loins.
“Richard!”
Jumping off the chaise and over his kin, Constantine wobbled to catch his balance. The opium hazed his perception. He wanted to recline and drift away, to annihilate the nasty foreboding Rhys Hawkes’s presence had embedded.
“Hell, she’s losing it,” Richard hissed. He plunged to the floor and lifted Sabine by the shoulders. “What should I do?”
“Get her out of here!”
Unwilling to look upon the wailing female, Constantine turned and smashed his fist across the candelabra. Half a dozen tapers clattered against the wall. Flame ignited the English paper but quickly burned out. “Damn it. Will I never have what I desire?”
RHYS HAD TO ADMIT THE HAWKER down the street offered excellent pheasant legs. Roasting for hours over applewood chips gave the meat a soft, sweet flavor. He set aside two cleaned bones on the paper they’d come wrapped in and started on his third.
He preferred meat to blood. Or rather, his werewolf did. And though he was vampire right now—and vampires could not abide meat—the werewolf ruled his thoughts. He would regret this when the vampire retaliated during the full moon.
But until then—his werewolf mind urged Rhys to tear another strip of savory meat from the bone.
Setting aside the cleaned pheasant bone, Rhys scanned the copy of Journal de Paris he’d unfolded on the table, yet found he wasn’t in the mood to read
about the queen’s curious involvement with a priceless diamond necklace.
They’d been in Paris a week and William had not returned home. Montfalcon was young, strong and bold, yet he was also gentle and discerning.
Rhys could not figure what would have led a wolf to take Monsieur Chevalier’s life, and that of his wife.
Indeed, could it have been William? Certainly would give a man good reason not to be found.
No, he was forming conclusions with little basis in truth.
Nefarious deeds had occurred within the vampire and werewolf communities. Suspicion should point to the Order of the Stake, a covert organization of mortals intent on slaying all vampires.
Mortals or a werewolf? Rhys would rule out neither.
If she had been patroned by Chevalier, perhaps Mademoiselle LaMourette could provide some insight.
“Oh, did I tell you?” Orlando said, interrupting Rhys’s thoughts as he grabbed another pheasant leg from the diminishing stack. “I learned something about the slain vampires last evening after you went off to stalk the vampiress.”
He would hardly call it stalking. Mild interest, perhaps. “Yes?”
“Seems they were a husband and wife, and…the vampire…”
“Henri Chevalier.”
“Yes, he patroned only his wife and one other vampiress. Viviane LaMourette.”
“Yes, I know.”
“But did you know—” the boy leaned in dramatically “—she is bloodborn?”
Rhys sat back in his chair, stretching out his legs. Bloodborn female vampires were rare, a prize to snatch and hoard. If two bloodborn vampires were to procreate, the offspring would be very powerful.
Lord de Salignac was bloodborn. Rhys was also aware tribe Nava was desperate for new blood. The tribe was in danger of extinction for a mere dozen or so males remained.
“You are sure?”
“A faery told me. And then I stole a kiss from her.”
“You should be cautious of the Sidhe, Orlando.”
“But you—”
“Have a distinct relationship with their kind.” And not one he wished to cultivate. “A man unaccustomed to dealing with those who wield glamour had best stay as far from them as possible.”
“I kissed her once. Besides, I’ve my eye on the mortal pretties who prance about the Palais Royal and lift their skirts to show their unmentionables.”
Rhys shook his head. “Be careful there, too, boy.”
So Viviane LaMourette was a bloodborn vampiress. He’d thought only the created vampires required a patron. But then, this was the first existing bloodborn female vampire he had heard about in a long time.
“Bloodborn,” he whispered.
Constantine would be a fool to let so valuable a female slip from his clutches. Which would make Rhys’s successful seduction as a means to revenge all the more satisfying.
And aren’t you doing a spectacular job of that, man?
“I think the murders are in retaliation for the wolf slayer,” Orlando said.
“You do?”
A pack wolf had been murdered as spring had arrived. He had been found beside a toppled carriage, neck broken. Yet the killer had not been a mortal, for rumors whispered through the Salon Noir it was vampire.
The packs were careful to keep away from humans, yet the werewolf’s humanlike soul required a connection with the mortal world when the full moon insisted they mate.
Rhys, on the other hand, suffered moon madness. Normal werewolves sought to mate during the full moon; his werewolf—urged on by the vampire mind—hungered for murder.
“So how did it go with the vampiress? I thought you intended to seduce her?”
“We got on well enough.”
“Isn’t what I sensed.”
Cheeky boy. Rhys splayed out a hand. “Did you expect she would fall into my arms at first glance? I intend to call on her today. She must have information regarding her patron’s death.”
“I wager you are the only vampire who dares approach her.”
“Makes things more interesting, I suppose.”
“How will you take from Constantine the one thing he wants more than life? Will you kidnap and ravage her?”
“No.” Rhys chuckled. “It will be far sweeter to win her admiration, then see Constantine and know the woman he loves has been tainted by me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. Clouds blurred the moon.
Viviane navigated the slick cobblestones with airy steps. The women at Versailles had nothing on her balletic rush-walk.
A cat meowed. The creak of carriage wheels a street away slapped the hard stone.
The Dark Ones occupied these spare hours between the theatre and the dawn arrivals. Viviane mused the blood was fresher, healthier even, than from the languorous aristocrats.
A breath pulsed the night.
Viviane paused, but did not look over her shoulder. A survival trait, she never made herself obvious, be it walking through a crowd or alone.
Again a breath teased the air and tickled the base of her neck. Goose bumps tightened her skin. Normally she was the one to produce such a sensation in a victim.
She picked up her pace, clutching her skirt to keep it from the wet cobbles.
Tonight she craved…something. A bite from a stranger. The wanting brush of skin against skin. Sometimes, if the man were clean and reasonably handsome, she would allow his hand under her skirt, but that was rare. She kept her lovers separate from sustenance.
It is not blood; I want to be touched tonight. To feel passion. To surrender to climax.
A carriage rolled by, forcing her shoulder against the limestone wall of a three-story home. A nail jutting from a windowsill snagged her sleeve.
Viviane tugged and cursed as the lace at her elbow tore. She touched her abraded skin and sucked at the bleeding wound. The skin knitted together under her lips, and within a few breaths it had healed.
Moving briskly through an alleyway so tight her shoulders brushed the walls with alternating steps, the darkness overwhelmed. A whisper of wind brushed her ear so tangibly she felt sure someone had touched her.
She would not tolerate an untoward mortal man thinking he could seduce a lone woman this evening—that was an engagement she always controlled. However, if it be a cutthroat, then do follow; she would lure him to an unfortunate result.
Viviane stepped on a moving ropelike bit. Her ankle twisted and upset her footing. The kitten heels were not made for sure balance. Something squeaked. Dread scratched her senses.
“Sacre bleu.”
She could feel them teem about her skirt hem and across her toes. Slithering. Sharp, pin-quick claws. A silent swarm. So suddenly they’d come upon her. Had she wandered into a nest?
Odor of rot assaulted the soft tissues in her throat. Terror lifted in her belly. The intensity of her racing pulse hurt her ribs. Her shoulders dropped against the wall. Eyelids fluttered.
“No,” pealed from her mouth. “Please, I, cannot…”
Disgust and fear consumed her bravado. An agonizing moan keened from her lungs. Yet Viviane could not cry out for the scream lodged in her throat, clinging as if for safety from the horrible creatures.
Too many of them. The horde rattled.
Which way had she come?
Tiny fangs pierced her ankle. Viviane shook her leg violently. Her skirts hampered movement. The satin corset constricted. She lost balance and slapped a palm to something hard. Should she faint—
“I have you.” A man’s voice.
Lifted from the ground, her senses blurred. The something hard she’d grasped to steady herself was a man’s chest. She gripped him about the neck, trapping a ponytail tied with ribbon under her fingers. Earthy scent. Subtle vampiric vibrations shimmered under her palm.
Strong and focused, he carried her through the darkness.
Aware. So aware of his breath playing across her décolletage.
The heartbeat against her breast pounded
steadily. He held her as if a child, secure in his arms. Viviane recognized his scent. Not a stranger.
Nor a friend.
Sacre bleu, she had fallen into his arms?
“You’re safe,” he whispered. “It’s over.”
He set her down. Clinging but a moment longer to his coat shoulders, Viviane ducked her forehead against his neck. Safe here. Nothing to fear.
Still she could feel rats teeming about her ankles. A prick of fang— She lifted a foot and slid it along her leg.
“No more of them,” he comforted. “I promise. They swarmed over a dog carcass at the end of the alley. I could smell it. You couldn’t have known.”
“I…hate them.” Humiliating, she could not find her breath or stand and face him calmly. But the memory…
The bodies of her parents’ victims, left behind after the Order had slain her parents. The dead mortals had not been buried, for she was too young to manage digging a grave. Swarming with rats.
“I don’t like rats much myself. They are filthy creatures.”
He stroked the hair from her cheek. The touch was rough, his flesh not smooth, unlike Constantine’s soft, thin fingers. Viviane clasped his hand. She closed her eyes and held him there at her cheek. Chase away the memories. Concentrate on his warmth until she recovered her breath and tendered her confidence.
He was too close, too intimate with her. So wrong.
She did not care. Could not think beyond the safe feeling. It wasn’t wrong to take comfort, was it? She didn’t know. Rarely had she received the like. He must think her weak.
“Are you well, my lady? Tell me you were not harmed? Bitten?”
“Yes, a few bites.” Healed now, surely. “So awful. There were too many. I did not hear them until it was too late.”
Still gasping for breath, Viviane followed the stroke of her fingers down the front of his frockcoat. Simple pearl buttons wobbled on threads in need of tightening. The coat was old, a comfortable piece. He was not a Nava tribe member then, for they deemed a man worthy by not only his unbaptized state, but as well by his dress and aristocratic bearing.
The observation distracted her, and she needed that. Breaths settled. And her heartbeat resumed a normal pace.
