Seducing the Vampire

by Michele Hauf

  He smiled, looking aside. “I adore you, LaMourette. I dare say if there was a woman on this earth who would dare stand before my werewolf, it would be you.”

  “Challenge accepted.” She tongued her lip, inviting him back to her arms.

  “What is this?” Rhys clasped something from the vanity. “Is this—” he dangled the talon on the blue velvet ribbon, then clutched it and brought it to his nose “—what I think it is?”

  Viviane could feel the punishing waves of his sudden anger, and wondered if such an abrupt change in emotion would bring on his werewolf.

  “Constantine gave it to me,” she blurted. Lunging, she gripped the iron bedpost, but dared not step down to approach him.

  A breathy cry broke from him. Shaking his head effusively, he dropped the talon on the vanity, and stood so quickly and violently the chair toppled.

  “It is hers!” He looked for answers from her. “I can smell her on it.”

  “Hers? But who?”

  “I loved her,” he cried. “He killed her!”

  The macabre artifact’s truth made itself plain. Constantine had claimed the prize from a kill—that Rhys had loved. “Oh, sacre bleu.”

  Rhys stuffed his legs into his breeches. He grabbed his shirt and frockcoat, stepping hastily into his boots.

  “No, Rhys! I did not know. Constantine told me it was a trophy—”

  The man spun on her, his fingers clutched in a claw as if to choke her. His face screwed into a tormented cry, but no sound came from him.

  “Your lover,” Viviane said, so softly, yet feeling those two words cut into her heart as if a blade. “The one…he murdered.”

  “You wore it?” he pleaded.

  She nodded and turned away. Her fingers trembled as she clutched the bed linens, wanted to pull them up to hide from him.

  “I must be away from here.” He stomped toward the door.

  “Rhys, I did not know.” But he did not hear her for he was already halfway down the hall.

  Cracking glass and then the clatter of shards hitting the floor indicated he’d punched the mirror-lined wall.

  Viviane clutched the bedpost and pressed her forehead to the iron. “Have I lost him?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RHYS RAN THROUGH PARIS as if it were a blurred nightmare haunting his sleep. He made the city gates and leaped over them. Once a league out of Paris, the muddy roads began to hamper his footsteps and he shifted to wolf form.

  The shift was quick, but complicated. With the midnight hour so near, his body wanted to shift to werewolf form, yet, fighting the inner vampire, he clung to his were mind and commanded the shift to four-legged wolf.

  From here on, he raced the moon.

  Loping across the lands, the wolf panted, its tongue lolling. Rhys pushed harder, faster. He was too near the city. And her…Emeline.

  He wanted to hurt something—anything—to claim revenge in her name.

  He veered west, tracking the edge of a forest.

  Damn, Constantine!

  He would shame the tribe leader by revealing he was related to a half-breed. He would take his brother’s blood. All of it. He would destroy what his brother needed most—Viviane.

  Wodges of grassy dirt kicked up behind his paws. Dodging into the forest, he slowed as the wolf navigated the close-spaced birch and pine trees.

  Rhys fought to redirect his wolf onto the road where he could make distance, but the wolf had self-preservation in mind. Pine sap and rotting undergrowth called to his wolf. Here was home. Here was safety.

  The scent of human blood made him snap his muzzle and come to a heaving pause. The wolf lifted its nose and sniffed.

  Must avenge Emeline. Must…take blood.

  No, his wolf did not care for human blood. Do not listen to the vampire! Fight the moonlight. Do not…succumb.

  The wolf let out a howl, which was abruptly bit off with a shrieking whine. It rolled on the forest floor, fighting the burning snap of bones and stretch of muscle.

  Too late. The werewolf was upon him. The vampire wanted blood.

  God help the nearest mortal who wandered onto his path.

  VIVIANE STALKED THE DARKNESS. Her skirts made no noise. Her shoes were soled with thick leather, a necessity for silence.

  The midnight moon sat full and bright above the Notre Dame cathedral like a halo proclaiming its divinity.

  Viviane wondered how Rhys saw the moon right now. Did he view it with human eyes or through animal eyes? And what did the werewolf look like? She had not ever seen a werewolf completely shifted, only in the animal wolf shape, which she obviously had little difficulty taming, or killing—once wounded, of course. She wasn’t sure if she could take on a fully shifted werewolf.

  Had Constantine taken the talon from the wolf or the werewolf? Had she still been alive?

  A shudder rippled up her neck as she listened for mortal heartbeats.

  That she had worn his lover’s talon! She hated Constantine for that. She hated the vampire lord for his fascination with her wolf kill.

  Might his knowing she was sleeping with his brother turn him away from her? She suspected it would ignite a bloody war between the twosome and she would not care to guess at the outcome.

  Constantine must not learn of their liaison. Hell, she wasn’t sure how to label it. Merely fascination? Curiosity? Or something deeper, something that touched her heart.

  It is love, you know it as you know nothing else. You have tasted love from the veins of others. Know it now as it pulses your heart.

  Shaking her head adamantly, she picked up the slow thud of life. Behind her and moving at a shuffle. The odor of vile, unwashed flesh overwhelmed her senses.

  Viviane slipped out from the alley and quickened her pace. She was not so hungry that she would stoop to feed on a disgusting human.

  Would Rhys’s werewolf be compelled to drink blood this night? He’d been repulsed by his dark side. What horrors would his werewolf commit at the direction of his bloodthirsty vampire?

  “Oh!” A fop in pink damask and powdered wig exclaimed as he stumbled right into Viviane’s arms. The intriguing scent of opium smoke coated him. “Sorry. Not so sure where I am right now,” he slurred. “Was on my way home.”

  “This way,” Viviane said, and directed him into the darkness behind a cart of loose hay.

  She clutched the threadbare damask, her fingernails cutting into the pink fabric. Not unhandsome, even the skewed wig could not hide his glittering eyes. Viviane had been in opium houses before, and didn’t mind the small high she got from drinking an addict’s blood.

  “This can’t be right,” he muttered against her breast. “You are too beautiful.”

  His hands groped for hold against the cart and her hip. Hot breath upon her bosom gave her no thrill. It made her sad for her absent lover. A lover she had betrayed by wearing the talon.

  With a resolute sigh, she pushed up the man’s head with the heel of her palm. “It will be right, you’ll see.”

  Tilting his head put him off balance, and Viviane clung to his body as his legs gave out. Sinking her fangs into his neck she sucked the blood. It was warm and not undesirable. But that was all.

  She stopped drinking before he could be granted the orgasmic swoon her bite promised. One last lick of the blood curling across his throat and she whispered, “You stumbled against a cart and cut yourself. Safe journey home, my tattered prince.”

  Standing, she turned right into Constantine de Salignac’s arms.

  “YOU WOULD NOT NEED TO succumb to such lowly tactics as drinking from any drunk fop you encounter if you would simply accept my patronship, Viviane.”

  She backed against the hay cart. Constantine moved in, his legs crushing her skirts. She could feel his desire for her. Wolf slayer. It disgusted her.

  Tugging out the black lace fan from her sleeve—Constantine grabbed it, preventing her from unfurling the weapon. “You really wish to show me your disapproval?”

  “I tire of you
r pursuits, Lord de Salignac. Leave me be.”

  “I thought so.” Fisting the fan, he squeezed, crushing the delicate wood pieces. “My bravos tell me he was in your home again. How can you do this to me, Viviane?”

  “You know nothing. Not of my heart.”

  “So he is in your heart now? That damned half-breed! You consort with an animal!”

  “He is your brother!”

  “Indeed.” Constantine sniffed and smirked. “Henri was a fool to give you so long a leash.”

  She tried to push by him, but he would not relent, keeping her caged against the cart, and with the fop lolling at her ankles muttering nonsyllables.

  Constantine leaned in, drawing his nose along her jaw. Sniffing, scenting. If he thought to bite her—

  He reared, his eyes black coals in the darkness. “I smell him on you.”

  “It surprises me you would recognize his scent. You deem to keep your brother at such a distance.”

  The slap to her cheek was unexpected. Viviane sneered and this time managed to wrestle her fan free. But she did not slash it across Constantine’s face, only held it before her, defying him to make that move again.

  The vampire lord held back his shoulders, his chin up, and looked upon her. “He taints you, Viviane.”

  “You’ve no idea,” she purred. A flick of the fan stopped his move to touch her. “You do not care to patron me, you simply want me to birth bloodborn vampires to strengthen your tribe.”

  Constantine slapped a palm across his heart. “But I do love you. Genuinely. And you do need a patron.”

  “Perhaps. But he must be as Henri, kind, loving and willing to grant me rein.”

  “Ridiculous! Why can you not see the honor in supporting our tribe?”

  “It is your tribe, not mine. And I will not submit to you.”

  “You!” He fisted the air, then released the tight, brutal grip. “You are lying through your fangs, Viviane. You were devastated to learn he is a half-breed,” Constantine surmised. “And where is he now? Ah, I am foolish to forget. He is out howling at the moon like the animal he is.”

  He pressed her shoulders to the cart and Viviane retaliated by drawing the fan blades across his forearm. It cut fabric, and in the next moment, the vampire broke it in half, and flung it over his shoulder.

  “You bastard,” she said. “Why do you hate your brother?”

  “Is it not enough he is a half-breed? An abomination! Viviane, don’t do this to me. Do not stray from the one man who wishes to care for you, to see you patroned.”

  “Take your hands from me, Constantine. I will not be forced to anything.”

  “But I’ve dismissed two more kin. If I am releasing my lifeblood for no reason—”

  “They are your lifeblood? I thought it the kin who relied on the patron, not the other way around. Are you addicted to them as the man who lies at our feet is addicted to opium?”

  He growled, exposing his fangs in a manner any vampire would take as a threat.

  Viviane did not back down. “Show me you can embrace your brother and I will not find it so difficult to consider you as a patron.”

  “We have been at each other’s throats for decades. A man cannot change overnight.”

  Viviane stepped away from him. She walked swiftly. Her home was down the street. “Do not come to me, Lord de Salignac. If I deem you worthy, I will come to you.”

  “He does not love you,” he hissed. “This is a game against me!”

  She reached the front door of Henri’s estate as Constantine grabbed her arm.

  “Unhand me! You’re hurting me.”

  She shoved open the door and clattered inside, but was unable to keep Constantine from following.

  “You will be mine.”

  “Even after I have tainted myself with your brother?”

  “You admit to it, then? What insidious notions live in your small brain, woman? No vampire will have you, let alone patron you, if he knows you’ve been touched by the mange.”

  “He is not contagious!”

  She hurried away, matching her footsteps to her heartbeats. A frantic pace, both. It had only begun. For the vampire lord would not release her so easily. Today he had thrown down a gauntlet.

  Heartbeats pounding, her breaths came too quickly. Desperate sobs were merely gasps.

  Portia spun into the room, a wondering look on her face. “Cherie?”

  Viviane wanted her to stay, but would not show Constantine her worry. “I am busy as you can see.”

  The maid bowed and backed from the room.

  Hands on hips, she paced. “Don’t think to assault me in my home, Salignac.”

  “Assault you?”

  “You’ll never have my blood, nor do I wish yours.”

  “We are two of a kind. The children we could have—”

  Viviane chuckled.

  “You are yet a viable mate for me,” he insisted.

  “Do not put it that way. It is as if I am a commodity.”

  Constantine lunged for her, pinning her shoulders against the wall. He stretched his mouth to show her his fangs. A power play she would be wise to submit to. Instead she lifted a knee and managed to just brush his thigh. Her skirts were too cumbersome to do any damage.

  “I will expose you, Viviane. Surrender to me or risk the entire vampire nation learning of your digression.”

  “Why would you have me after you’ve said no other vampire will?”

  Constantine thrust Viviane to the floor and swept out of the room. The maid scrambled from his path and he gnashed his fangs at her. And then, he grabbed her, and sank his fangs into her throat.

  “No!” Viviane crawled into the doorway and, skirts impeding her swift rise, struggled to stand. “Unhand her!”

  He tore his teeth from the maid’s throat, ripping flesh and quickly dropping her to avoid the spurt of blood.

  “What have you done?” Viviane lunged to Portia’s side. Her fingers slipped through hot blood. “This cannot be stopped. She will die!”

  She stood and beat her fists against his chest. Grinning, Constantine licked the maid’s blood from his lips.

  “Get out of my house! You will never have me. Rhys was right about you.”

  He gripped her wrists and crushed the fine bones within his grip. She twisted her head down and screamed.

  He shoved her away, to land near the maid’s bleeding body, and stormed from the house. “You will submit to me, or you will never have a patron.”

  “I will not!”

  “Then I will tell all. All the vampires who walk the streets of Paris will know Viviane LaMourette has lain with a hideous half-breed.”

  “No!”

  “Word will travel quickly. There is not a vampire in this world who will patron you.”

  “No, Constantine, please.”

  “Submit to me. If you do not wish to save yourself, save your lover.”

  He marched out, leaving Viviane sprawled in the growing pool of Portia’s blood.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Paris, modern day

  POOLE, THE BUTLER IN RHYS’S Paris home, pushed a food cart laden for a crowd into the great room that also served as a dining room.

  “How do you think Dane knew you are a wolf? At least half,” Simon asked as he tapped away on the laptop at the dining table. He paused to select a plate with red potatoes in rosemary sauce and half a boned game hen.

  Rhys sat across the table from Simon. “She’s something else herself.”

  “But what? Faery? Demon?”

  “Not something I’ve been around. Ever.”

  “Seriously? Hell, you’ve worked with all sorts at Hawkes Associates.”

  “She puts up my hackles. Could be a familiar.”

  “Ah, a cat shifter.”

  “You know I’m not a fan of cats.”

  Simon had given his cat to a neighbor after taking the job as Rhys’s assistant. It wasn’t so much the cat hair as the lingering feline scent that stirred up his werew
olf.

  “She could be dangerous,” Simon said. “Can we trust her?”

  “I have a feeling cash will keep her in line.”

  Simon nodded. “Do you remember where William Montfalcon lived in the eighteenth century? I’d like to plot out a city map and mark our progress.”

  “You think we should go underground near his former residence?” Rhys considered it for the first time. Yes, why not? They must explore all possibilities. And yet. “I believe William was dead well before I thought Viviane dead.”

  “So the question I’ve avoided asking…” Simon began cautiously.

  Rhys nodded, knowing. “Who put her in the coffin?”

  “I understand you thought her dead, so didn’t even consider it back then. But now, have you thought about it?”

  On a heavy sigh, Rhys said, “Constantine de Salignac.”

  “Your brother?”

  “You know our history.”

  Simon whistled.

  “I lost track of him at the beginning of the twentieth century.” Rhys paced the floor, sure he’d mark a path in the rug before the day was dark. “Who is the Council representative here in Paris?”

  “I believe the vampire rep is Vincent Lepore.”

  “Contact him,” Rhys directed. “He should know where I can find Constantine.”

  “Will do.”

  “That smells so freakin’ good.”

  Both men glanced at the vision that sauntered in from the hallway. A huge black-and-blue-striped beach towel wrapped about her body. The long dreads gleamed with water droplets. Her skin glowed after a good scrubbing.

  “Wonders do not cease,” Simon commented. “There was a real girl beneath all that grime.”

  Dane flipped him the bird.

  “Or not.” Simon focused back on the laptop, while managing to fork in food with his free hand.

  “Help yourself,” Rhys offered.

  Dane gobbled a carrot stick in crunchy bites. “Where are my clothes? They’re not in my room.”

  “Hopefully burned by now.”

  “And what the hell am I supposed to do now?” The woman grabbed a plate of potatoes and chicken. “Tromp beneath the city naked? If you guys have some weird sort of ménage planned, I am so not interested.”