by Michele Hauf
“It is no longer in Constantine’s hands. That is all that matters.”
He kissed her brow. Inhaled her innocent beauty. Indulged in her seductive allure. “Thank you. Simply…thank you.”
“You, Rhys Hawkes—” she leaned in, her lips brushing his ear “—are all that I want.”
He needed that acceptance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“THIS IS A WARM, comfortable home,” Viviane commented as she strode past the table where Rhys sat finishing the last of his meal.
He offered a chunk of bread but she shook her head. The man ate as if famished. She couldn’t understand how his vampire allowed it. Surely, it must make him sick.
He followed her, baguette in hand, as she took the steps to look over the small library. A few books lay on the floor, which she picked up and replaced on the shelf. “So many books. You said this is a werewolf’s home?”
They’d come to terms after she’d given him the talon. She could never erase her guilt—she had worn the talon taken from his lover—but they understood one another.
Viviane knew she could never replace Emeline. She didn’t want to. But should she tell him about the wolf she had slain? It felt like betrayal not mentioning it, but she wasn’t confident he’d accept another brutal truth so soon after the other one.
“William was peaceful and contemplative,” he said. “I’m sure he read them all. I fear he is not missing, but rather dead.”
“Why so?”
“I spoke to a woman who knew him intimately.”
“A lover?”
“A prostitute, actually. She has been waiting for his return. William gave her no indication he would not return. Has Constantine said anything to you about his investigation?”
“Only that he would find the wolf responsible and punish him justly. You don’t think—?”
“William’s disappearance is too curious not to at least wonder if there is a connection. I…went to the site where it happened.”
Viviane pressed her fingers to her mouth. To imagine the horrors Henri and Blanche must have experienced.
And you fret, wolf slayer?
Oh, she wanted to confess to Rhys but could not.
“It was cleaned up, but I scented William distinctly.”
“So he was the one?”
“I suspect so, but until we find him in hiding, there can be no justice.”
“Constantine sent his men out searching. Perhaps you and your brother—”
“Should work together? I don’t believe that will go over at all.”
“I suppose not.” Viviane ran her fingers along the books. A dizzy wave fell over her.
Rhys wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. He smelled like the burgundy sauce that had seasoned the roasted fowl and it distracted her from morbid thoughts.
“Are you all right here? We can leave?”
“No, I need…distraction. To think about something else.”
She felt safe with Rhys. As if she could tell him anything. So why did she not?
A kiss tickled along her neck. She would not walk away from this gift. The gift of love. Yet she was duly aware she had not spoken her love to him. She could not speak it out loud, for that would make it too difficult when she must betray him.
Viviane slid her fingers over the book spines, and spied a brilliant red one. “This one is pretty.”
She tugged out the narrow volume. Red moire covered the end boards and glossy gold embossing styled the title. “So….” She hadn’t seen the word before, and sounding it out was a challenge.
Rhys traced beneath the next letter with a fingernail. “That’s the n. How does it sound?”
She made the letter’s sound, and added it to the first letters. He spoke the next letters to her, patiently waiting for her to put them all together, and finally she declared, “Sonnets!”
“Yes, very good. Shall we read a few? It may distract your thoughts.”
“That would be splendid.”
He twirled her about. The worn gray velvet chaise longue was wide enough for both of them. Her back to his chest, and one of his arms about her waist, Viviane paged through the book until she arrived at a short verse with many small words. She recognized one of them. “Love!”
“You know all the important words, I see. Now, do you want to give this one a try? A few sentences?”
“You won’t mock me?”
“Darling, lover mine.” He kissed her head. “Why would I do that?”
She remembered the cold reception knowledge of her lacking skills had gotten from Constantine. The two men could not be more opposite. Pity Constantine had not learned compassion and kindness from his brother.
Nestling against her lover’s body to study the page, she sounded out the word following love. Rhys only suggested help when she paused overlong. He did not rush or chide her for mistakes, gently encouraging she retry the sounds together.
“‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,’” she reread, gaining each word after much practice. And then the next line, “‘But bears it out even to the edge of doom.’”
“Excellent,” he encouraged. “Shakespeare wrote some gorgeous verse. You’re coming along well with your studies, Viviane. Soon you will be reading through the entire wall behind us. Want to try another line?”
In fact, she read two more lines, and was rewarded with a kiss. Master Rosemont never did that.
“You will spoil me if I am rewarded with a kiss for every sentence I get correct.”
“You deserve to be spoiled.”
“Mmm, you taste like rosemary.” She kissed him again, gliding her tongue along his lower lip. “I haven’t been able to eat for two centuries. Sometimes the smell of food maddens me. I want to taste, but know it’ll make me sick. You give me that splendid taste. But how can you eat?”
“My werewolf must be fed.”
“Your vampire does not get sick?”
“No, but it retaliates against the wolf during the full moon.”
Spreading her fingers over his chest, she tugged the drawstring around his neck loose. The soft hairs beneath tickled as she explored. Finding his nipple made him tense when she touched the hard little bead.
“Seems you’ve decided the lesson is finished,” he remarked.
“Oh no, more, please. Will you read to me?”
“Only if you promise your hand will not stray lower and distract my concentration.”
“I’ll try my best.” She glided her fingers over his abdomen.
“Wicked vampiress. Pity there are no pictures, eh?” He paged through the book and began to read.
Viviane closed her eyes to the melody. Rhys’s voice entered her mind on soft intonations, and touched her soul with a resonating timbre. And in the deep, abiding recitation, his words glided along her flesh as if a lover’s tender kisses. She’d never been read to before. It was as much an aphrodisiac as foreplay.
When finished, Rhys paused, sighing, as if to take in what he’d read. Viviane did the same, nestling her head against the hard muscle strapping his shoulder. “More,” she whispered. “Please?”
She spread her fingers across his stomach, riding the tips of hair under his breeches. He moaned as a fingernail grazed his erection. “One more, and then…” she prompted.
“Very well, one more. And then.”
This sonnet spoke of a lover searching for his heart and finding it in the most unlikely of places. In a woman he had never thought to consider. Viviane smiled to think they were much the same. What love she would not have known had she not given this man the slightest of considerations? For his pursuing her without relenting she must be thankful. She trusted him completely. So much so, she could lie next to him and expose her greatest secret, and have him but embrace her and encourage her to master her reading.
When the last word was read, she whispered, “I am yours.”
“Are you? Can you be mine?”
She didn’t reply. Rhys clasped the hand she�
��d held across his stomach and kissed it. It was a bitter truth that must be abided. They both knew she must go to Constantine for patronage.
“Tell me how the faery enchanted you,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to meet a faery, but is not their ichor addictive to vampires?”
“Very. I did not take her ichor. But she gave me a great gift. Claude Mourreigh, a pack leader, is the one who suggested I seek help from Faery to tame my vampire. He had said the faery would come to me if I called….”
Rhys had never seen a faery, though he believed in them. They were supposed to take quite well to a werewolf. Rhys’s werewolf, though, was always controlled by his vampire, so he doubted a faery would enjoy the vicious company.
Cressida was the name Claude had given him, but he had been told not to use it until invited to do so.
Rhys fell to his knees deep in the forest surrounding his home, west of Versailles. Spreading out his arms, yet keeping his head down, he opened himself to what may come. He called out blessings to the forest, the trees, the earth, and all things natural, over and over.
The leaves rustled. Not far off a ground snake slithered across the crisp autumn leaves. A cricket chirped. A crow squawked, midflight.
A shimmer of cold air touched him as if frost. Rhys gritted his teeth at the icy sensation. Something glittered in the air before him. And amidst that glamorous atmosphere, she materialized.
Small, thin and pale, yet so beautiful. Streams of white hair spilled over her shoulders and past her hips, wavering like the sea. She wore a gossamer sheath that exposed her legs and arms. Rarely had Rhys seen a woman wearing so little.
“I am Rhys Hawkes,” he said, still kneeling.
“I know who you are. I missed your birth, Rhys Hawkes.”
“I’m…sorry?”
“Too late for you now. We prefer half-breeds when they are newly born.” She walked to him, yet her feet did not crunch the leaves. Perhaps she floated above the ground; he didn’t want to look too closely. “You have had a time of it. Your dual natures have no intention of embracing.”
“My vampire is vicious,” he explained. “It needs to be shackled. I…don’t wish to harm innocents.”
“What of those who are not innocent?” She bent before him, bringing her bright violet eyes close to his face. “What of murderers and cutpurses, and lechers most foul?”
“I am no man to judge,” Rhys answered. “I do not wish to take life. Ever.”
The faery stood abruptly. “Honorable. But dull.” She sighed, obviously disappointed in him. “So, what shall it be?”
“Claude Mourreigh tells me you might enchant my vampire in a manner it no longer controls my werewolf.”
“That is a tall order, Rhys Hawkes. You think I can control the moon? You are quite ridiculous.” Pouting, she gave him her shoulder, arms crossed.
“Forgive me. It is what I was told. What…what can you do for me? Please.”
“I may be able to shackle your vampire throughout the month. Keep it buried within you. But anger and violence are too powerful to harness.”
“I would avoid getting angry.”
She smirked. “You would be a man alone if you could master that. And do not expect me to challenge the moon. Surely your werewolf requires release once in a while.”
“Yes, during the full moon. But only then. I will do anything you ask, give you anything—”
“Of course you will.” The faery shook her shoulders and wings unfurled behind her, stretching out to touch the canvas of branches and glistening like oil on water. “You will owe me a boon for enchanting your vampire, Rhys Hawkes. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” he hastened to answer, and then wondered what exactly the boon would be. And in the next moment, he did not care. The prospect of finally controlling his vampire was too great. “What need I do?”
“Stand. And do not move.”
It happened swiftly. The forest floor seemed to rise and smack Rhys in the face.
In actuality, the faery lifted a great glamour and forced it into Rhys. His body took in the ancient faery magick and sorted it through his veins and muscles and clung to it as a starving man to a cleaned bone. It became Rhys. It tendriled about his vampire. It slid along his werewolf.
Rhys landed on the forest floor, stomach first, arms slamming the ground, his cheek smacking cold earth.
When he woke the sky had darkened. Wind brushed leaves over his arms.
Rhys rolled to his back and examined his hands. He was alive, though he felt as if he’d been plowed over by a team of horses.
Had the enchantment worked?
“Of course it did.” The faery appeared right before his face.
Rhys scrambled to stand. The faery hovered, beating her gossamer wings slowly.
“Now my boon,” she instructed.
“Anything.”
“You will give to me your firstborn, Rhys Hawkes.”
Rhys gaped. That was quite a boon. And yet, why not? He had no designs on family. What was a child to him? “Very well.”
“I will return for the boon when it exists,” the faery said. “You have earned the right to name me Cressida.”
“Thank you, Cressida. How will I know—”
She fluttered away, through the treetops, seeming to grow smaller until she was the size of an insect.
“How will I know when the boon exists?” Rhys finished. “She will return? When the child is born?”
It confused him, but semantics mattered little.
Now, he would walk through the month and see if his vampire riled his werewolf to murder. If he could make it to the full moon, then the faery had served him well.
“That’s incredible,” Viviane whispered. “But she asked very much of you.”
“It was easy enough to make the bargain when I gained so much. Of course, I was young then. Children were not something I would have considered.”
“Do you want a child now?”
“No,” he said. “And yes. But I try not to think about it, because I know the power of Faery is great.”
He shifted on the chaise and the book slid across Viviane’s lap.
She caught the book and a small folded paper fell out of it. She handed it to Rhys. “What do you make of this?”
Rhys studied the paper. “The handwriting is small and erratic. It’s difficult to decipher. It appears a check of sorts for services rendered. Exact services are not stated. Nor are the parties involved listed.”
“How much?”
“Hmm? Oh, about a thousand livres.”
“Is that very much?”
“About two of your fancy gowns. Enough to feed a man for a year.”
Rhys stroked his thumb over the embossed letterhead. An intertwined C and S formed the monogram. He sat up abruptly.
“What is it?”
“Huh? Oh…” He winced. “Just a bit of an ache in my belly. I tend to eat for my werewolf, but forget my vampire body cannot endure a feast. Why don’t you let me walk you home, then I’ll go for a run?”
In spite of his outwardly calm demeanor, Rhys’s anger brewed inwardly. He knew the initials on the paper could only be from one person.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RHYS GROWLED AT THE FOOTMAN holding post in the Hôtel de Salignac lobby. The man, a mortal enthralled by receiving a regular bite, wisely stepped back.
As he marched down the grand marble hallway toward the ballroom, Rhys’s honed senses did not pick up a particular scent. There were plenty of odors, most of them female and hungry.
Ahead, the rumble of male conversation grew louder, more aggressive. Rhys rushed down the steps and into the ballroom.
Two tribe vampires prowled before Constantine. They were dressed in breeches, shirts and jackboots, riding attire or fighting ready.
Rhys lifted his chest, bulking up his frame and bringing all attention to him. The vampires sought command from their leader. Constantine stepped between them, making a small gesture they remain back.
> A mirthless smile curved his brother’s mouth. “The cat comes to the mouse,” Salignac announced. “Or is that the dog to its master?”
“You are not my master,” Rhys stated. “Are you so enamored of your patronship over so many you automatically include all as your underlings? Do your tribe members bow to you, as well?”
“Not at all. We respect one another. My men are of their own minds. Why are you in my home?”
“I thought a brotherly chat in order.”
“As a matter of fact, I was coming for you.”
“Is that so?”
Constantine looked aside. One tribe member dropped a length of chain and on the end of it dangled an iron shackle. Or was that silver?
Rhys felt his hackles rise. “What is this? Doesn’t look like a simple escort from the city.”
“You did it to yourself, brother.”
The feral instinct to shift tingled in his shoulders, but Rhys fought against it. He would not give Constantine the satisfaction.
“You deny you murdered Henri Chevalier and his wife?”
“What?” Constantine shifted uncomfortably. “You mock me.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t guess it immediately. The one person standing between you and the prospect of a bloodborn child. It was you who hired William to murder her patron. I found the bill!”
Constantine chuckled, small and self-important.
“So you could have Viviane for yourself.” Rhys made the connection like that.
He wanted to swing the chain about his brother’s neck and choke him, but that was not the way to kill a vampire. Nor to serve justice as a representative of the Council.
“Brilliant lies to cover your bloody truths,” Constantine said slyly. He approached Rhys, not cowering, and perhaps anticipating Rhys would not swing out at him. Their rivalries had always been private.
“Do not think my men will believe your stories. We are united in Nava. I care for them. They see justice done to any who should act against us.”
Rhys would not allow Constantine to work this in his favor. “Henri Chevalier was not a Nava member.”
“He was a friend.”
“Is that how you treat your friends? Wait. Yes, I believe it is so. For if you treat your very brother so poorly, surely friends receive the same lacking regard. Henri’s death was a means for you to gain the bloodborn female you crave.”
