by Michele Hauf
“You filthy dog.”
Rhys mirrored the vampire’s circling moves, keeping an eye to his next attack. “That epitaph is tired.”
“Lice-ridden mongrel.”
“Much better.”
“You stole her from me! You put your filthy hands to her!”
A triumphant smile curled Rhys’s mouth. But the triumph lasted mere moments. This revenge was bittersweet. While he enjoyed serving the coup de grâce to his nemesis, he no longer wanted to involve Viviane.
“She is mine!” Constantine swung at him with his fist.
Gripping the man while he was midswing, Rhys brought up his knee to crush into Constantine’s face. The vampire, released, stumbled and landed on the ballroom floor. He spat dark blood onto a white section of the harlequin tiles.
The tribe moved in.
“Stay back,” Constantine growled at his underlings. “This is between me and the abomination.”
Rhys pounced and landed before his brother. “She belongs to no one.”
Rhys pounded the vampire’s face with a fist. He did not fear injury, for he knew when attacked so directly the vampire couldn’t summon its fangs, a protective means that kept its weapons from being broken. “Most especially not to the vampire lord who thinks to place her within a silver cage and keep her for himself.”
“Would that I had such a cage. The silver would keep you out!”
Constantine shucked off his frockcoat. The two circled one another. The acrid scent of aggression flooding from the tribe stung Rhys’s nostrils.
Constantine charged. Rhys blocked the first punch, then took a boot to his gut. He did not relent. As a child, he had watched his older brother spar with other boys, cheering him on, hoping some day Constantine would teach him his scrapping skills. The day of his puberty arrived too soon, and Rhys came into his werewolf and vampire in one remarkably horrific night.
His brother did spar with him after that, but it was not to teach but to accuse and pummel.
Constantine had taught Rhys real hate. Yet always, he’d attempted to win his brother’s approval by luring unsuspecting mortals in for his brother to bite. But Rhys’s vampire had been wild in those early days and his werewolf could not be contained.
Constantine had been disgusted by his brother’s mad blood hunger. He’d once found Rhys naked and hiding in the shed the morning following his werewolf’s rampage. Rhys still remembered the hot spit hitting his face—his brother’s assessment of his worth.
He’d grown stronger and more skilled over the years; finally, he and Constantine would have their match.
Constantine’s men did not move to stop the fisticuffs.
“She will die without me,” Constantine said, huffing from exertion as a mortal would. “Do you think to steal her away only to watch that happen? Or perhaps that is your finest revenge? I understand now. Seduce her toward a slow death. Well played, Hawkes.”
Rhys took another fist to the face. His blood tasted foul. “Viviane has asked you to leave her be. Why will you not respect her wishes?”
“Because she is being tupped by a bloody wolf!”
Rhys swung wide, his palm stiff. The heel of it connected with Constantine’s shoulder and sent the vampire flying backward.
“Love knows no prejudice,” Rhys said. Rolling back his shoulder, he prepared for the next blow.
“Love?” The vampire, sprawled before his tribe members, studied his bloody skull with a fingertip. “You are incapable of loving a vampire as she deserves. Most especially Viviane. She is one of a kind.”
“Yes, the ultimate broodmare for your tribe. Did you ask Viviane if that is her desire?”
“Females have no say!”
“You are incapable of knowing her heart,” Rhys said. “Your idea of love hurts her.”
“You have poisoned her mind. How dare she? To take up with a wolf?”
To mate with a wolf, Rhys thought proudly.
“Stay away from her,” Rhys said. He spat bloody spittle onto the marble floor. “She’s mine.”
“You have ordered her death,” Constantine countered. “Slowly. Cruelly. Do you know what happens when a female is denied her patron?”
“Viviane has survived for months without taking from her former patron. As you’ve said, she is unique. Because she is bloodborn she needn’t take from a patron so frequently.”
“She cannot survive forever. She needs vampire blood running in her veins. She’s lived over two centuries. Can you imagine waking one evening to a woman aged two hundred years? It happens swiftly. She will rapidly age and change to dust. Can you do that, Hawkes? Hold the dust of your lover in your hand and be thankful for your selfish decision to make her yours?”
“You know not.”
“I do! I have let many of my own die recently. She demanded it of me! Promised me her heart if I would devote mine to her. Wicked vampiress. And look how she thanks me?”
“What did William do for you?” Rhys insisted. He must get his brother’s confession.
Constantine stood. “You know.”
“He killed Viviane’s patron. But he would not have done so. Ever. I know William. He was a gentle man. What did you do to Montfalcon to make him commit murder?”
Constantine spat blood, and dragged his tongue along the bottoms of his fangs. “It is helpful to have a witch in one’s pocket.”
“A witch?”
“Do you know what our children could be?” Constantine continued. “A son would be the most powerful vampire Paris has seen. He would be the key to strengthening Nava’s fading bloodline. I must have Viviane.”
“As a commodity,” Rhys barked. “Could you patron her knowing she would never love you?”
“With the blood comes a certain attachment. The swoon. Eventually she will not know what it was like to be without me. I have kept your secret too long, brother. Now you force my hand.”
“My secret?”
The vampire lord whistled. From across the ballroom half a dozen more vampires marched forth, wielding chains. The clink of iron threatened.
“You are the only man I know of in Paris who is possessed of an unnatural lust—a werewolf who seeks blood. Seems to me you are the only suspect.”
“That is madness! You’ve confessed—”
“To nothing, save the heartbreak in knowing my brother is guilty of a heinous crime.”
Much as Rhys wanted to stand and fight, he did not want the justice Constantine would mete out should his minions manage to wrangle him.
Lifting a foot, he heeled Constantine in the chest, shoving him backward, into the klatch of oncoming vampires.
Rhys clenched his fists. Turning and running away felt wrong. It was not like him to not stand and face whatever challenge sneered at him.
Yet his werewolf wanted free. To slash out at injustice. To prove Constantine’s mad accusation by revealing his wicked darkness.
“You run, brother!” Constantine called from the ballroom. “I will not relent. You’ve gone too far. You will be punished!”
Rhys slapped the wall nearest him and swore. He had no doubt Constantine would accuse him and find success for he had the entire tribe behind him and Rhys had no one.
Racing toward the exit, he struggled with his new cowardice.
But it was not a fear of facing his brother that pushed him down the cobbled street and toward Viviane’s home. It was the call to keep her safe. For now Constantine had played his hand, he would not cease until he owned the one thing he desired most.
RHYS DID NOT RETURN to William’s home, so Viviane had returned to Henri’s estate and waited. He did not appear the following day, and she began to worry. He’d walked from her arms after a blissful afternoon of making love and reading poetry to one another. She did not suspect she had said anything to keep him away.
Which meant he was either investigating the murders, or something was really wrong. Had he decided against an affair with her? He’d been relentless in her pursuit, and now…nothin
g.
A half-moon scythed the sky and drowsed through a window above the butcher table. Out of sorts, she passed through the silver-shadowed kitchen, fists clenched at her thighs. When her skirts snagged on a chair leg, she kept walking. The chair clattered onto the tiles in her wake.
Here the moonlight glimmered on the crystal chandelier still on the floor. The currier would pick it up tomorrow in payment of Henri’s bill for the stable supplies. The vultures had picked this home clean.
Viviane stopped before the constellation of crystal droplets, guttered candles and arabesquing iron. A tear dropped onto her cheek. Feeling her entire body begin to quake, she struggled to maintain composure.
Never let them see your weakness.
Never had she shed tears for anything. Anyone. Now she cried for herself. She had begun to love Rhys. Where was he? The moon was not full; he did not need to be away from her.
Shoving the heavy iron chandelier, she managed to push it against the wall. Crystals shattered and beeswax candles snapped in half and clattered across the floor. The tinkle of crystal skittering on the tiles mimicked the furious anger racing along her spine and neck.
Grasping the heavy iron bar that circled the chandelier, Viviane sank to her knees and pressed her forehead to it. Her skirt spread out behind her and she tore open the top laces on her constricting bodice.
Viviane slapped a hand across the broken crystals.
Her heart had abandoned itself to a promise of happiness in Rhys Hawkes’s arms. And tonight, without a word to her, he had taken her heart and crushed it beneath his heel.
“I must go out. Erase Rhys’s brutal betrayal from my thoughts.”
With blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RHYS ALMOST WALKED PAST the thin girl in tattered dress and no shoes, but her bird chirps were too sweet to ignore. She held a tiny carved shape in her frail hand. The long beak of it immediately told the species, and his heart pulsed.
She asked but six sous, a pittance that would likely buy her a loaf of bread. Rhys pressed a gold louis d’or into her palm and told her to spend it at the bread shop on rue Dauphine, one of Orlando’s favorite haunts. He knew the proprietress would give the girl correct change and not steal from her.
Striding the bridge, which crossed at the end of the Tuileries, Rhys shoved a hand in the deep pocket sewn inside his frockcoat and felt the wooden bird. Smooth and small, so delicate. Like Viviane’s trust.
He strode by the hawkers and merchants edging the bridge and landed the soft grass fronting the octagon pool at the end of the royal gardens. The day had been overcast and now night had fallen, an eerie fog hung level with the second-floor windows. Rain sprinkled his face. The weather had cleared the park of the finer crowd who did not care to get their clothing wet or muddied.
Happiness carried him through the heady perfume of roses and greenery and toward the rue Saint-Honoré. Despite the weather, the street was abustle with carriages headed toward the Palais Royal for a night of gambling, drink and debauchery. He had never felt the desire to drink himself to oblivion. In Viviane’s arms he’d found a sweet surrender beyond bliss.
He’d not been able to face her after speaking with his brother. He’d needed time—and needed to shrug off the change that had begun to shift him to werewolf. He’d sent word to the Council today that his efforts had uncovered a suspect but that he needed confirmation.
He’d then gone to the brothel and given Annabelle more than enough gold to see her put up in an apartment on the left bank, with the prospect of doing seamstress work for the landlord. It goaded at him that Orlando cared for one of such little means. And though Orlando must leave the city, he could at least allow that he would know Annabelle would be well in his absence.
A scream cracked through the cluttered streets like a pistol shot. Rhys followed the carriages and people through twilight’s glitter of street lamps toward the noise. They gathered about someone.
Stretched at an awkward angle, her head back and one leg wrenched under, the young woman’s arm bled, the flesh shredded at her shoulder. Held by an elder woman, her close-spaced eyes were wide, her screams frantic and laced with bloody spittle.
In the middle of the cobbled street, sprawled across the muddy gutter, lay a wolf, blood oozing from its midsection.
A wolf in the city? The sight clenched at Rhys’s gut. It was larger than the average natural wolf. It had attacked the woman; Rhys knew to glance at the wounds. But the beast had not done fatal damage—it hadn’t time.
The wolf’s killer, poised over it, her hand still on the knife blade, did not see Rhys approach. She panted, her arms strong, muscles flexing and fingers firm about the knife handle. Jaw gritted tight, she finished dragging the blade from sternum to gut.
Brave to approach a wolf attacking another. Yet so vicious, animalistic, as she remained over the kill, breathing in its death scent.
“It attacked without provocation,” someone muttered from the crowd circling the hideous scene. “She is so strong.”
“It was ravenous.”
As he approached, arms spread in placation, Rhys bent cautiously to allow the killer to see him. He heard a whisper from the crowd, “Wolf slayer.”
The killer turned to him, her blue eyes vibrant. Blood smeared her lips.
“Viviane?”
Recognition softened her tense jaw. She released the knife and it clattered onto the cobblestones.
Rhys moved quickly to pull her from the wolf’s body. She did not fold herself into his embrace, nor did he do anything more than hold her back when her body wanted to remain crouched over the kill.
“Mon Dieu.” He recognized the fur, a unique ginger fur, the belly streaked with white. Such knowledge cut him through the sternum with an intangible blade.
He pushed Viviane aside.
Aware she stumbled and landed her palms on the street, Rhys muttered a negligent apology. His focus remained on the wolf’s body, not long dead.
“There is nothing to see here!” he shouted to the crowd. Anger crackled his words. Heartbreak delivered them with a tight cut. “The beast is dead.”
It pained him to name it a beast. But better to clear the crowd quickly. He wasn’t sure how much time he had.
“See to the woman,” he directed someone standing before him. “I’ll remove the wolf.”
Legs shuffled and people were drawn out of their marvel to action.
He lifted the wolf’s cumbersome body. Blood spilled from its gut over his chest and arms, soaking hot against his skin. Rhys tightened his jaw to keep his composure and hold down his rising bile. His hackles stiffened and his innate senses wanted to howl at the moon for this tragedy, but he bit off the urge.
Viviane held his gaze, the knife somehow again clutched in her hand. Her gaping mouth said nothing. There was nothing to say. She’d protected innocent mortals. Yet she had also committed a heinous crime.
Rhys nudged his way between two people. “Stand back! It may be rabid!” He gritted his teeth to speak the foul accusation. “Do you wish to be exposed?” That cleared his path.
He ran, Viviane in tow, down the street and dodged into the first narrow alleyway. He wanted to run from this cruel city and into the country. No time. And he would never get past the guards at the city wall with a dead wolf in his arms.
“Rhys, where are you taking it?”
“To safety.”
He heard Viviane flick her blade out at someone and say, “Do not follow! The beast is foaming at the mouth!”
He reached the Chevalier stables, and Rhys slipped inside and gently laid the wolf where straw had loosened from a neat stack. Blood pooled onto the dirt floor.
Viviane closed the door and stalked before the corpse. “I will not have that thing in here. It would have killed the woman!”
“You ensured that would not happen,” he hissed.
She reared from his vitriolic response. He had no patience for reassuring kindnesses now.
“Why would
he have done something like that? He would not,” Rhys said firmly. “He must…not be well.”
“What are you talking about? It is but a beast. I don’t know how it got through the gates—oh, sacre bleu.”
The shift began. Fur stretched and receded into flesh. When a werewolf died, or was murdered in its wolf form, it always, eventually reverted to were shape. Rhys had recognized the fur and was thankful he’d gotten to him when he had.
He would be more thankful had this hideous crime never occurred.
Viviane slapped her palms over her mouth. Her muffled scream disturbed Mordaunt, who snorted and heeled the floor. The horses hadn’t so much as moved during the wolf’s shift.
Rhys put a hand over the man’s blood-soaked ginger hair and stroked it from his closed eyelids. His gut was split open, the intestines spilling out. The smell viciously assaulted his nose and he choked back a howl.
Viviane gasped. “It is the boy.”
“Orlando Thomas. His parents died when he was twelve. I’ve looked after him since. I considered myself a father to him. He never disputed that.”
“But—Why would he attack? Werewolves, they do not—”
“I cannot know. Orlando would never harm anyone.”
Forcing himself to look over the young man’s body, Rhys winced at the sight of his genitals. The flesh was dotted with pustules, forming an angry rash. A symptom he had never before seen, but had heard of.
“Syphilis. He must have contracted it from a brothel whore.” And he’d only just come from seeing Annabelle. He hadn’t noticed her ill. “Damn, I should have kept a closer eye on him. Claude will never forgive me.”
“Sickness made him do this?” Viviane approached, but did not lean down. “I am so sorry. I… Sacre bleu, I’ve killed your friend. Yet another wolf…”
Yet another? Rhys closed his eyes. God help him.
Her skirt swished Rhys’s shoulder as she turned away. Quick to react, he caught her at the open door and pinned her against the frame. “You did not know.”
