Seducing the Vampire
Page 17
“I’ve ordered new clothes for you,” Rhys offered, “and proper skulking equipment for Simon and me. I expect the entirety to arrive within the hour. There’s a robe in your closet you may use until then.”
The woman nodded and seated herself. “This place is pretty spiffy. Mercedes in the garage. Gold fixtures and silk sheets. How rich are you?”
“Filthy,” Simon said.
“Filthy is my kind of rich.” Dane dug in, smashing the small red potatoes and pouring butter over them. “You get me some pants with big pockets to hold all my loot?”
“No, I ordered you a purse,” Rhys assured her.
The look she gave him stirred up a rare grin. She was one woman who wouldn’t be caught dead dangling a strappy little purse at her side. He had never taken to those kinds of women. Simple and unassuming was more his sort. Nothing at all like her.
“I’m kidding.” He poured a goblet of wine and offered the bottle to Simon.
“So,” Simon asked as he filled a goblet, “how did you know Rhys is a wolf?”
“He’s got the wolf walk,” Dane said. “Loose and loping. Predatory and sure. He didn’t miss a thing of his surroundings when walking toward the café. But he’s different than most wolves.”
Rhys inspected the food displayed on the cart. “Maybe I’m not a wolf after all.”
She raised her brows. “I’m never wrong. But you could be a half-breed.”
“And what, exactly,” Simon said quickly to defer the thread from dangerous territory, “are you, then?”
“That’s for me to know and you to get screwed.”
“I don’t think she’s trustworthy,” Simon offered to Rhys.
“Children, quit fighting.”
“But she’s an idiot to accept your generosity without then divulging the smallest requested detail.”
“She was smart enough to mark me as wolf.”
“Lucky guess,” Simon said. “And only half-right.”
“I knew it,” Dane said, with a slash of her fork, which dripped butter across the table. “Now to figure your other half.”
“And how long do you think she’ll lead us on a goose chase knowing every day puts another ten Gs in her pocket?”
“I can answer that.” Dane tapped her fingers methodically on the glass. “I figure I need at least three days and then I’ll be able to pay off my debts. A week will set me up for a year.”
“Find the coffin—” Rhys pushed his plate aside “—and I’ll set you up for life.”
“Seriously? Why?”
“Because I can.”
“Huh.” She swiped a finger through the butter on the plate. “Now I wish it wasn’t a legend. Wouldn’t mind never having to worry about money again. Will any coffin count?”
“No.”
Rhys sensed her disappointment.
While the food looked appetizing, he reluctantly selected the potatoes and meat. He had no hunger, but knew he would need the energy to see him through whatever the days would present.
“So who’s the evil vampire in the legend?” Dane asked.
Rhys turned a stare on the woman. “His name is Constantine de Salignac.” The evil vampire, indeed. “You heard of him?”
“Sounds not unfamiliar.”
“Because you are a familiar?” Simon prompted.
Dane lifted her chin and shoved a forkful of food in her mouth.
“If you know anything about Salignac,” Rhys said, “you must tell me.”
“I don’t, offhand. But I promise you if something comes to mind, I will tell you right away. Deal?”
Rhys nodded, but Simon interrupted with a triumphant, “Yes!” He looked to Rhys. “That was quick. I just emailed Lepore. Told him you wanted to meet him. He’s available tomorrow.”
“Set up the meet,” Rhys said.
One step closer to resurrecting a relationship with a brother he had hoped to never see again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Paris, 1785
VIVIANE PAID A MAN WEARING ragged wool breeches and a filthy shirt to take Portia’s body away on a tumbrel to Les Innocents, the city graveyard. She had no coin, but the silver candelabra from the tepidarium had made the man’s eyes light up and he quickly agreed to accept it as payment.
She’d bound Portia’s body in the skirts torn from a few of Blanche’s gowns. Fine damask, she suspected, would be stolen from her body before it was buried.
“Wait.” She scanned about for something of value, and spied a dented pewter pitcher on the cupboard. “Take this,” she said, and gave the pitcher to the man, “and promise me you will not unwrap the body.”
The man looked over the pitiful piece.
“The candelabra alone will feed your family for a month,” she said before he could argue. “Please, respect the dead.”
He nodded, and tucked the pitcher under an arm.
A BEAM OF SUNLIGHT MARKED across his ankle. It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cold. Rhys stared at it for a while, gauging his slow, relaxed breaths, noting his surroundings in the moist scent of hay, rotting wood, and something fresh… Clean.
“Water,” Rhys croaked.
He scrambled across the hay strewn over the hard dirt floor and lifted a tin cup to his mouth. Never had something so simple tasted so good. It washed away the taste of blood.
As the cool water wet his throat, he remembered. His vampire had gotten what it wanted.
Dropping the cup, he gripped the iron bars before him. He knelt, naked, inside a ten-foot-square iron cage, set at the back of an empty barn. Sun beamed through a space in the rotting wood roof. Birds chirped overhead, sifting down straw from a nest.
Rhys pressed his forehead to the bars. He sensed a presence standing off in the shadows near the open barn doors. And he knew what had occurred within the hours of dark and dawn.
“Thank you,” Rhys said. And then, “Forgive me.”
“Do not ask that of me.” Claude Mourreigh stepped forward.
The werewolf was the Marsauceux pack’s alpha principal. The pack inhabited the valley east of Dreux. They were a secretive and much maligned pack. Since the Gévaudan attacks midcentury, Claude had been adamant with rules and safety procedures. It had not been one of their own glorified as La Bête, but a wise wolf kept his nose to the trail and did not reveal itself to the enemy—man, toting firearms loaded with silver bullets.
Rhys hadn’t realized he’d gotten so far from Paris.
No, he would not ask forgiveness from this man who had seen it all, and had suffered far worse for his breed than Rhys could ever imagine. The scar cutting from cheek to cheek and across Claude’s nose was ever a reminder of man’s fearful stupidity about the unknown.
“What were you up to last night?” Claude asked in his hoarse, tired voice. He was three centuries old, surely. Werewolves did not live much longer than that. “You are much smarter, Hawkes.”
“I left Paris too late. I had not time to find an isolated place for the shift. I didn’t realize I was so close to home. Did I… Is the human…?”
“He took talons to the shoulder and across his back, but is not dead. Yet. But he saw you, and a few pack members. You know what that means.”
“It would have been better had I killed him.” Still kneeling before the bars, Rhys hung his head.
Better for the pack, for then no mortal could claim to have seen a mad wolf that walked on its hind legs and was larger than a man. He and la lune engaged in a bitter duel each month. She would ever control him; no enchantment could defeat her silent strength.
Claude turned and stalked away, his well-worn jackboots flapping against the backs of his knees. When he returned, he stuffed folded clothing through the bars, which landed beside Rhys.
“Dress, and we’ll talk. I am not pleased with your actions, Rhys Hawkes. Things have changed between us.”
The pack leader strode out of the barn, leaving Rhys nodding in agreement. Werewolves respected him for his darker side, but Claude was well aware the vampire
ruled Rhys’s werewolf. Claude had been the one to suggest Rhys seek help from Faery to contain his violence.
They had known each other decades, and Rhys had kept his promise to Claude he would harm no one by putting himself away during the full moon. It was a promise he had made to himself, as well.
Now as Rhys gathered the clothing, he saw the blood on his fingers and dashed across his chest. He picked up the tin cup, and with the few droplets of remaining water, tried to clean his transgressions from his skin.
AFTER DRESSING, RHYS FOUND Claude standing before a half-buried boulder that rose from the earth no higher than his knees. Set upon the boulder, a cross had been carved from granite; its highest arm was crumbled and covered in lichen. A single grave marker for so many comrades murdered during the Gévaudan frenzy. The fear of wolves had spread across the country; no wolf—whether natural or a werewolf—had been safe.
Rhys stepped beside Claude and bowed his head. He whispered blessings and crossed himself in deference. Yes, he believed in a god.
“The pack is doing well?” he asked.
“Two births last month,” Claude said. “Both healthy baby boys. I am proud of them.”
Whether or not the pups were Claude’s progeny mattered little; the principal claimed a certain foster parentage to all those born within the pack. It made a tighter group. But it was not always a sexual situation. Each wolf mated for life, and did not have affairs within the pack.
It was the difference between the werewolves and vampires. Rhys suspected vampires would tup whoever was standing before them, be they wife, lover, friend or stranger. Well, he knew it for truth.
Fortunately, when vampire—as now—he followed his heart, which was werewolf.
“I envy your family,” he said.
“You will have family someday, Hawkes. You already do.”
“Salignac is not family.” The words felt bitter on his tongue.
“But he is your brother. Honor that connection.”
“I do.” He stubbed his toe against the boulder. “I do not always honor it. I will. I must try.”
The pack had been Rhys’s first look at real family after his mother had died, leaving him to fend on his own at the age of seventeen. Loving, caring, protective in all matters, pack wolves respected one another. It had been his first taste of romantic love as well, for Claude had introduced him to Emeline. She had not been chosen to mate by a pack member because she’d been lame with a gimp right leg after being caught in a trap. Rhys had cared little she limped.
She had stolen his heart, and Claude had approved of their bond. Rhys had not allowed her to be present during the full moon, but he’d always felt his werewolf would never harm her. Emeline had pined for the connection they might share during the full moon; it was when the female werewolf went into heat and needed sex.
Rhys still did not think it cruel to have denied her.
Would his werewolf harm the vampire he now loved? For to think on it, as werewolf, his vampire mind reigned. Surely the vampire should take well to another?
It wasn’t so simple as that. It would never be simple.
“I…have fallen in love.”
“With a mortal?” Claude’s tone was too hopeful. Leave the packs alone, it suggested, find a common mortal and hope she can accept you. You, who are not right, and never will be.
It was the first time Rhys had sensed disdain from Claude.
“She is vampire,” he said quickly.
Claude whistled lowly.
“My brother also loves her.”
Without looking, Rhys knew Claude shook his head. The old werewolf was a man of few words. His actions always spoke loudest.
“You are no longer welcome to visit the Marsauceux pack, Hawkes.”
Rhys’s heart clenched at the announcement, much as it was deserved. “I understand.”
He had brought the pack out in werewolf form last night. They’d sensed him, and Claude had known if Rhys were not captured, he would kill.
“What of Orlando?” Claude asked. “Where is the boy now?”
Rhys had taught Orlando to get away from all humans during the full moon, though as a full-blood werewolf, Orlando had not the worry he would attack someone for blood. Werewolves sought to mate during the full moon, and if they came across a mortal female, well, then…
“He is safe, I’m sure.”
“You have no idea where he is,” Claude hissed.
“He’s been doing well in Paris. Enjoying the city’s extravagances.”
“Tupping whores, no doubt. Send him home. I no longer trust the boy in your care. The pack will welcome him.”
Rhys nodded. “I will send Orlando to you immediately.”
It would be as if sending away his only child. But for the danger his neglect may cause Orlando, Rhys knew it was the only option.
“Thank you for your lenience, principal. I will not set foot on pack territory again.”
And he walked away, knowing the werewolf tracked him until he could no longer see him. It was the hardest walk Rhys had ever to make. To walk away from his mentor in shame. To walk away from trust because he had destroyed that fine strand of acceptance.
To give up the one piece of family he had.
Swallowing, he beat a fist against his heart, but it did not stop the tears that watered his eyes.
He had never felt more alone.
“SHE ARRIVED BEFORE SUNRISE. Refused to leave,” Orlando said as he took Rhys’s coat and shook off the rain.
He’d stopped by his country home after leaving Dreux to check that it was still locked up tight, and spent that evening alone, away from mortals and gorgeous vampiresses who would tempt his werewolf.
There he’d pulled on some boots and a serviceable coat. He tired of wearing the satins and silk stockings required to attend the Salon Noir. He simply wanted to be himself. Focus must return to investigating the crime.
But she was inextricably woven into every breath and movement Rhys made, or intended to make. “Viviane?”
“She is in William’s bedchamber. How are you, Rhys?”
“Well enough.”
He could not meet the boy’s eyes. So many good times he and Orlando had shared. They lived simply, working the land for their food and chopping wood for warmth. Play, entertainment, love, it was all fashioned from the heart. “I did not make it to safety on the night of the full moon.”
“Oh.” Horror in the boy’s utterance.
How many times had Orlando been the one to lock up Rhys as the clouds moved away to reveal the moon? Rhys would see to it he would never bear that burden again.
“The Marsauceux pack prevented me from committing murder. My vampire wanted blood.” Rhys exhaled. “Claude wants you to return to the pack.”
“I won’t.” Orlando fisted his hands and thrust back his shoulders in sudden defense. “I am not a pack wolf. I’m like you, Rhys. We make our own way. Just like you’ve always said.”
“Orlando, I regret ever giving you the idea a wolf alone was a boon. The pack provides family.”
“You are my family. You are—” He swung about and punched the closest thing, which was the bookshelves. Books tumbled to the floor. “You are like my father.”
“And you, my son.” Swallowing, Rhys clamped a palm on the boy’s shoulder. Neither looked up. Orlando huffed, fighting a yowl or perhaps sobs. “Claude does not trust me as your guardian. I do not trust myself. I should have never left you alone in the city.”
“But I can take care of myself. You know that! I roamed the woods edging the city and my werewolf was content beneath the full moon. It is you who must be away. You were doing what you must….”
“Boy.” Rhys pulled him in for a hug. “Please, do this for me. Just while I’m in Paris?”
“But if I go to the pack—”
If he joined the pack he would have family, might be mated with a female and would have a good life. They both knew it was for the best, but not necessarily the better.
“You didn’t promise her riches?”
“No.” A sly smile cracked the boy’s solemn expression. “Only a tumble.”
AN ANGEL SLEPT, HER HEAD nestled upon the pillow. Pale skin, dark hair, pursed rosebud lips. A study in dark and light. Much like himself. Yet Viviane’s soul did not struggle against itself. She could walk the world knowing exactly who she was, what she wanted, what she must do to survive.
And what she must do was succumb. A cruel notion to Viviane. To Rhys, as well. What if he could find a patron who would agree to blood her, yet stand back and allow her and Rhys to have a relationship?
Fool. No vampire would do such a thing, not when the prize of a bloodborn vampiress was offered.
Rhys stroked her cheek and she stirred.
“I could not stay away,” she murmured. “It’s been two days. You were able to get to safety?”
He mumbled a positive tone, and leaned in to bury his face in her hair. What was safety? Nothing tangible, that was sure, more a feeling.
She slid her hand into the placket of her skirt, pulled something out and placed it on Rhys’s palm. Clasping her fingers over his, she held there for a moment. “I had no idea what it meant, or who it belonged to until you told me.”
At first sight of the talon, Rhys sucked in a hissing breath. He clasped his fist about the precious memento and pressed it to his mouth.
Emeline’s pleas to allow her to approach his werewolf during the full moon screeched at him now. Would things have gone differently if he’d trusted himself?
No.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I removed the ribbon. It is not a thing to decorate, and should not be considered jewelry, but instead a piece of your heart. Keep it close, and remember the good times.”
He nodded. “It is hideous, but it is as if you’ve returned her to my heart. Thank you.”
“Do not grant me favor. I took it willingly and with macabre fascination.”