by Michele Hauf
The wolf landed before her, crouched like a man. Its wet nose touched her shoulder. Fur tickled along her jaw. Its head was exactly as the wolves in the wild, with long snout, vicious teeth and ears pricked high. Only at its neck did it form into man shape, though broader, more muscled and furred.
But he was no man right now. The paws and talons, the shape of his legs, formed for fast running, were all wolf.
A scream hummed in her breast. Some part of her denied fear. She pushed against the beast’s muscular neck with ineffectual fists.
The werewolf roared, exposing its thick, long teeth. Made for tearing meat, not piercing a vein for a polite drink.
“I…” Viviane gasped, unsure words could still the beast.
It sniffed at her. One paw landed upon her thigh, the talons cutting through her sodden robe and into flesh and opening up streams of blood. Growls, low and warning, continued.
“I love you, Rhys.” Oh, that she’d not the courage to admit her heart until she thought to lose that precious life. “I’m sorry.”
The wolf slammed her shoulders against the wall. The tongue lashed under her jaw. The vampire tasted her blood. Could her blood—somehow—tame this beast? She had to try.
“Take what you must from me,” she warbled. “Anything. All of me. I am yours.”
The werewolf reared onto its hind legs. The size of it was surely two or three heads taller than Rhys normally stood, the shoulders twice as broad. It was a creature to fear. Not a man to love.
And yet, its gold eyes glistened with Rhys’s truths. He believed her when he looked at her now. And she believed him. He was a man who wanted a different reality. A man tortured by a darkness that would never loosen its grip on his gentle soul.
Turning and leaping across the pool, the werewolf took off, leaving Viviane against the wall, her heart racing, and tears pouring down her cheeks.
WHEN FINALLY SHE MANAGED to stand, Viviane tore away the tattered remnants of her night robe. It was soaked, as was she. The tiles beneath her feet were cracked from the werewolf’s weight. She wrapped a linen about her torso.
Hair dripping down her back and tears still spilling, she took trembling steps down the hallway. Realizing her entire body shook as her fingers fluttered over the walls, she sought calm, but could not find it.
Her lover had stolen her bravery. She did not fault him.
Stunning what she now feared most, she also loved.
Ahead, three slashes cut through the wall. The music-room doorway was torn apart, the wood frame hanging. She did not go in. The glass would cut her feet, and while she wanted to feel the pain, she did not want to track blood through the house.
She paused at the stairs. Dawn must be so close. She should secrete herself away in her bedchamber and draw the bed curtains. Yet she walked to the servant’s door and opened it to a whisper of cool air.
He sat outside on the bench before the grave. He’d shifted to man form, and had tugged on his breeches, though they were split down one side to reveal thigh. A tattered shirt hung on his shoulders, yet covered little.
Clutching the linen about her chest, Viviane padded out, barefoot, across the loosened dirt courtyard. He sensed her, lifting his head, but didn’t turn to acknowledge her.
“It’s almost dawn,” he said.
She touched his shoulder, but he flinched, nudging her away. Viviane sat beside him on the bench and he moved aside so they would not touch.
“Did I…” He sighed heavily, and sucked in a breath. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she said quickly. Her thigh hurt, but it had already healed. “Though you had every right.”
He turned to face her, his expression stabbing her as no talon could. “Do not say that.”
“It is true. I killed Orlando.”
“Be quiet, LaMourette.” He beat the bench with a fist. “The vampire, my vampire, wanted blood.”
“And yet when your werewolf scented my blood, it did not harm me. Rhys, your werewolf would not—”
“You know not what I may or may not do to you! What I am capable of. Do not think to understand me. This is wrong.”
“What is wrong?”
“Us!” He stood and grabbed the shovel stuck into the dirt, and thrust it toward the stables. It hit the wood with a clatter. “Do not accept what little I can offer you. Hold yourself to higher standards.” He thrust an arm out, pointing. “Go to him. Go to Constantine if you want to live.”
Viviane swung about to reproach his ridiculous suggestion, but Rhys gnashed his teeth at her and swiped the smear of blood from his cheek. He thrust his bloodied fingers toward her.
“Do you see? This is what the vampire wants from you. He wants it all. To drink you dry, to crack your bones and suck out your marrow.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It is true! I will never rise above the darkness clinging to my soul.”
“That is an excuse. You can be as good or as evil as you desire. The werewolf in you demands you choose well. You are not a monster, Rhys.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Don’t you see me?”
Viviane calmly said, “Yes. And I believe you.” She placed her palm over his heart. So frantic, the pulse racing.
“Do not believe this,” he spat and shoved away her hand. “Go to him! I demand it of you.”
With that, he tugged from her and marched out of the courtyard, picking up to a run by the time he rounded the stable.
Falling to sit on the bench, Viviane could not find tears now. She did believe him. His real truth. And she would not deny her love.
He thought himself a monster. She knew better.
But he was not wrong when he claimed Constantine could give her a better life. Did she want the safety of a patron or the danger of true love?
RHYS WANDERED THE STREETS, a soused man who had not consumed spirits. His clothing tattered from the shift, he kept to the early-morning shadows. Ahead, the cobbles were dusted with fine white powder. A rotund pastry chef walked out and around the corner, a load of empty flour sacks in his arms.
Rhys’s vampire stirred. You still have not fed me. You denied me the vampiress’s blood.
Rhys turned the corner. He hated doing this.
You need this. Me, your vampire. Do not deny me!
And why not? He’d already made a mess of things by chasing Viviane, scaring the hell from her, and then demanding she go to Constantine.
His grand design to get revenge upon his brother had turned itself on its head, and now he had become the recipient of the vengeance. Served him right for dallying with the ruthless plan in the first place.
Viviane must hate him now.
The more the better. It would make it easier for her to go to Constantine.
“What’s that, then?” The chef turned to look over the sorry man, clutching at his breeches to hold them up. “I don’t have any scraps this morning. Be gone with you!”
Rhys lunged, his fangs sinking into the dry, dusted skin of the tumescent neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Paris, modern day
THE WORLD BENEATH THE SURFACE of Paris toyed with Rhys’s sensory perception.
Though in vampire form now, he could follow Dane’s feline scent with his eyes closed. His werewolf instincts weren’t sure whether to follow her or swat her about, which proved it a good thing he wasn’t in that form right now.
The petite, dreadlocked spelunker led the way, her headlamp glancing off the hard limestone walls. Chalk, paint and charcoal marks designated meaningful info to those who had made them. Dane would occasionally tap a red circle or arrow as if confirming her mark on this underworld.
Dane moved slowly Rhys suspected to allow him and Simon to adjust to the uneven terrain and darkness. The darkness did not bother him.
“We’re going down, messieurs,” Dane informed them in the no-nonsense tone she had adopted and which he appreciated.
He’d been right to take a chance on her. She kn
ew what she was doing.
Rhys waited while Dane directed Simon to step carefully along the edges of the circular, vertical tunnel.
“You’ll have to drop the last six feet,” she instructed.
Simon yelped. His feet gave from the last foothold. His body thudded against stone. Dane turned to offer Rhys help.
“I’ll bring up the rear,” he said.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I do, but a gentleman never allows a lady to go last.”
“Now you think I’m a lady?”
“You’re no gentleman.”
She took it with an accepting nod and dropped out of sight into a lower tunnel. Rhys followed, finding he was growing less keen on the tunnel’s tight confines, and knowing worse was to come.
If a person were confined here for any amount of time surely they would struggle with sanity. And worse, what if their confinement were inside a coffin?
He could not bear to think it, for his stomach convulsed as if the vampire was hungry. It had been weeks since he’d taken blood. So he grasped his werewolf mind, sane, calm and wise. For now.
“I am so sorry, Viviane. I pray you are not alive.”
TWO HOURS INTO THEIR TREK, the threesome squatted in a three-foot-high tunnel that Dane had—remarkably—not yet explored.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, directing her headlight beam onto the dirt floor in respect for the men’s eyes. “This coffin was supposedly buried in the eighteenth century?”
“1785, if it was done immediately,” Rhys replied.
That statement put him to a sudden panic. He couldn’t get past the possibility that this could be a farce, or perhaps it was that he did not want to go beyond that, to actually ruminate on the “evil vampire” from the tale.
Had the vampire lord kept her prisoner for a time? Before burying her alive? Truly, had it been his brother? Why had he not killed the bastard long ago?
“It’s all right.” Despite Simon’s nervousness the assistant knew when to offer Rhys reassurance. “We’ll find her.”
“You really believe this, don’t you?” Dane asked him.
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Rhys said, feeling sweat sheen his forehead for the first time. “I have to follow this through to put my heart at peace.”
“I understand. But we’re losing battery power, guys, and should be heading back up.” Dane dug in her backpack and drew out a fresh piece of red chalk and turned to make her mark on the wall, along with compass and longitude directions. “You cool with calling it a day? Or rather, night. It’s almost four in the morning.”
“We should organize a bigger search party.” Rhys spoke his worries out loud. “We’ll never manage this alone. There are miles of tunnels to cover. We need another half a dozen men.”
“And we need to spread out,” Dane agreed.
Rhys sighed. The air was heavy and he was exhausted. In spite of the meal he’d eaten earlier, he knew what he needed was warm human blood.
He glanced to Simon, whose eyelids blinked with exhaustion.
“Fine. We retreat and regroup.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Paris, 1785
VIVIANE SAT BEFORE THE VANITY looking over the various pots of rouge and face powder. Kohl for her eyes. Carmine for her lips. Portia normally made up her face because Viviane could not see herself in a mirror to know how she looked.
Now she had not the heart to fuss over her appearance. For she only faced Constantine this night. Not as though she were going to meet a lover, a man she cared for. A man who would ask her to share his life.
A man who had unleashed his darkness upon her—and yet had not harmed her—because he could not. He would not, no matter of what he believed his vampire capable.
Outside her bedchamber window, torchlight flamed and invited late-night revelers to view the carnival on the Seine. Magicians and contortionists entertained well past midnight, entreating one and all to satisfy their macabre curiosity.
A tear dribbled down Viviane’s cheek. The mansion was so quiet now. Her peace had been ripped asunder by Constantine’s cruel act.
And now she was preparing to sacrifice herself to him. Because Rhys would not have her.
“He is trying to save me.”
A sacrifice she knew must wrench at his heart as wretchedly as it did hers. He believed his werewolf would harm her. She did not believe that. She had looked into his eyes and had read his soul. So bold, yet gentle.
She slapped the back of her hand across the vanity. Glass pots, brushes and a ewer of stale water clattered across the floor. The crash muffled her despairing wail.
She cried for the loss of her lover’s pride and she cried for the girl in the blue dress. She cried for Orlando, whom she should have gotten to know better. But she could not cry for herself.
“I will go to that bastard, but I will not have his child. He will have to force me—”
And she knew he would. If she were to give Constantine a male heir that would mean a new beginning for him, and his tribe. A beginning that did not involve his brother, Rhys.
SQUATTING BESIDE A SOOTED gargoyle, a hand curled about the stone wing, Rhys observed the city from atop the Louvre. The revelers had passed, their path snaking them north along the Seine to the Place de Grève for their macabre festivities.
The air was so still he could hear voices murmuring in houses. The shifting of horses in their stables. The slithering rhythm of a knife across the whetstone.
The single candle flame in her bedchamber flickered out.
Rhys’s heart thumped. He anticipated the seconds it would take for her to arrive on the town house’s street level. The kitchen candle extinguished. She would leave out the servant’s door, as was usual. Going to him, the leader of tribe Nava. To claim her future and ensure her survival. Rhys did not fault her that need. He wished it was he who could meet that need.
You told her to go to him.
It had been the life-giving option. Viviane would thrive under Constantine’s care. He could give her anything she desired.
Save love, whispered Rhys’s heart.
Opening his hand, he inspected the single black hair he’d twisted round his forefinger. Now he carefully threaded the precious strand through the threads torn loose on his sleeve. A part of her.
“Don’t do it, Viviane,” he murmured, fingers curling about the gargoyle’s neck. “I love you. Maybe I can patron you.” It would require he take her bite and further enrage his werewolf—but if it meant Viviane’s life? “You could be my mate.”
And he knew she could not, because his werewolf would rip the vampiress’s head from her neck the moment he saw her. So much for saving her life.
And yet he had not harmed her this morning. His werewolf had looked into her eyes, and even goaded by the vampire, but had not the desire to harm her. She had bestilled him.
A moment was all he’d required.
Had he sacrificed his only hope for love?
VIVIANE REFUSED RICHARD’S suggestion to show her to Constantine’s study. She preferred to walk the long, winding path to Hell alone.
It had come to this.
The dark halls creaked under her wary steps. This elaborate palace housed a murderer. Surely, Constantine had killed many mortals in his lifetime. Dark Ones, as well. As tribe leader, a fierce mien was expected.
Only Portia’s death mattered to Viviane. The maid had harmed none. She had been a constant and faithful companion.
She did not want to bow before Constantine.
She could think of nothing but standing in Rhys’s arms, because right now those arms, even if they ended in talons, were more giving than any others.
However, the truth could not be disregarded.
She would not sulk about her fate for one moment longer. With head held high, and heart shaky but determined, Viviane LaMourette would begin a new chapter.
One she must learn to tolerate.
Ahead she sensed the heartbeats from more than o
ne being. Constantine’s dark allure drew her forward. Lavender and blood spiced the air. The walls were mirrored, yet not a single shadow darkened the silvered glass as she neared the oil lamp.
Drawing her gaze along the seam in the wall, she decided the small knot on the wood chair rail must be the release. A push triggered the latch, and the door swung outward, gushing out a drowning roil of candlelight and the heavy scent of incense. Harpsichord notes tripped out too gaily, warning Viviane that she must remain on guard.
She inhaled resolutely and pressed a palm to her stomach.
Ruby velvet hugged the walls. Black, tooled leather decorated the chaises and ottomans about the expansive room. The carpet looked animal fur. Viviane would not be surprised were it wolf. The crystal chandelier hung low, so one had to walk around it to navigate the room’s perimeter.
Everywhere lounged females in all states of undress. Vampires—once mortal—blooded by Constantine. His harem. Their eyes were glassy, their movements lethargic. One lunged forward, but was caught by the arm of a companion.
Constantine lay sprawled, his shoulders against a tumble of elaborate velvet and satin pillows. His leather breeches were unfastened at the waist to reveal dark hairs tufting out. He wore nothing else. Candle flames worshipped him, flickering smartly across his bare abdomen, not so muscular as Rhys, but neither soft. He was a vision.
Silver flashed as he flicked his fingers to silently command the slender woman draped across his lap to move. She crawled off, leering at Viviane and revealing she was not so neat when taking blood for the crimson drool at the corner of her mouth.
Uncivilized, Viviane thought. The room housed a harem of hobbled animals, kept reined by their master.
I cannot do this. I do not want to be kept like them. Do they not see they are nothing more than chattel?
“Mademoiselle LaMourette,” Constantine said on a lazy drawl. His fingers played with the vampiress’s garnet hair. “Did I request your presence this evening?”
