Seducing the Vampire

by Michele Hauf

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  RHYS HAD PURCHASED SIX clutches of six roses each for a grand gift to his lover. He’d left her to sleep through the dawn, while he satisfied the werewolf’s craving for real food. His previous attempt at giving her flowers had failed, so he intended to strew the petals up the stairs and into her boudoir.

  She had taken his blood last night. Sweet wonder, he’d reveled to watch her swallow every last drop. If only he could do the same. It would bond them as vampires, yet, well, he would not consider the detrimental effects it could have.

  Burying his face in the soft white petals, he inhaled the scent.

  Before he could knock on the servant’s door, he noted it hung open. Someone rushed out from the stables toward him.

  “They’ve taken her!”

  “What?” Rhys grabbed the stable hand by the wrists.

  The boy—must be Gabriel that Viviane had mentioned—was frantic. Tears streamed down his eyes. He bled at the shoulder, which made Rhys wonder if he had tried to protect himself—but from what?

  “The men!” the shaking teen pealed in sobbing huffs. “They broke down the door and pronounced my mistress the wolf slayer, then grabbed her and took off! I…I think one of them looked like a wolf?” He shoved a hand through his tangled hair. “I could not have seen right. He must have worn a helmet made from a wolf’s head.”

  Werewolves had been here? Rhys dropped the roses.

  “I tried to beat them off with the scythe.”

  “Hell.” Someone from the pack must have witnessed Orlando’s death. “When were they here? How long ago?”

  “Not long. They pulled a tumbrel behind two horses. She didn’t scream. But she did slash and bite at them. I couldn’t protect her! What will they do to her?”

  “Nothing good. Stay here, and nail up the door. Then you go home. It is Mademoiselle LaMourette they want. They won’t come after you, but you’d best stay away, boy.”

  “But the horses?”

  “I’ll see to them.”

  “You must save her, monsieur!”

  “I will.” Rhys raced out the courtyard behind Henri’s estate. “I will get her back!”

  Rhys ran without slowing and leaped the gates near the porte de Auteuil, which he knew would be unguarded this time of night, for key guards were posted west at the road to Versailles.

  Midair he shifted, shedding his were form and clothing, and landed the ground on four paws. Charging along the beaten trail, the wolf kept his nose to the ground.

  He scented the pack before he scented Viviane. But her scent was also strong. Wine and…no fear, but defiant aggression. She had no idea the danger she was in.

  THE CART WAS MANNED by one horse and driver. Two werewolves in wolf form loped before the horse.

  Wrists and ankles aching, Viviane struggled against the heavy iron shackles binding her to the tumbrel. Her guard, a swarthy were named Antoine with long, dirty hair hanging in his eyes held a whip, the handle carved to a point, on her.

  He taunted with a sneer of brown teeth. Viviane worried one bump in the dirt road would topple him forward, stake aimed toward her heart.

  Whatever they did to her, she deserved it. She may have saved a mortal’s life, but the paranormal nations did not value the life of a mortal before their own. Any punishment she received from the wolves would be just.

  Yet while she maintained a fierce indifference, she wanted to fall to her knees and beg freedom. Rhys had made her see the world anew. She did not want their relationship to end because of her stupidity.

  A shrill yip from behind the tumbrel alerted all the wolves. Viviane’s guard searched the star-spangled night and let out a howl.

  A lone wolf sped beyond the cart to race against the wolves in the lead. The cart slowed to a rough stop. The driver tossed the reins to her guard. “Hold the horses, Antoine, and keep an eye on her.”

  Viviane twisted at the waist but could not see over her shoulder. Wolves growled and yipped.

  “What have you done to him?” Antoine growled at her. “He’s fighting his own kind!”

  That meant the new wolf was Rhys.

  Viviane bared her fangs at the man. He responded by revealing his, which were thicker and designed for tearing meat. He didn’t have an inner vampire she could appeal to, either. Suddenly, she felt helpless.

  The wolves snarled and growled, snapping at one another. She wanted to see what Rhys was doing, if he were winning.

  The guard slammed the whip against her throat, pinning her shoulders against the rough wood slats. “No lone wolf would fight a pack leader. What does he want?”

  “Don’t know,” she managed to say against the hard whip handle.

  “You’ve done something to him.”

  “No.”

  “You’ve bitten him, made him blood hungry!”

  “No, he did not….”

  Her guard shoved the whip harder against her throat. Unable to prevent showing her fangs, she knew he took it as a sign of aggression.

  The angry snarls ceased, and now Viviane recognized male voices as they shifted from wolf to were form. She saw one man stalking the darkness, his bare skin gray for the night was black, clouds covering the three-quarters moon.

  “You dare to stop the pack from seeking justice?” called one man she could not see.

  Viviane closed her eyes and listened fiercely.

  RHYS SHIFTED TO WERE FORM. Three pack wolves also shifted. Growling lowly, and yipping, fur changed to flesh, and bones realigned and lengthened, leaving them naked and sweating from the vicious squabble they’d briefly engaged.

  They stood at the edge of the less traveled road. Forest surrounded on both sides, the foliage so thick even a wolf could see in no further than the first line of pine trees.

  The Marsauceux pack members stepped into a row, flanking Claude, their principal.

  Rhys had promised Claude he would not return to the pack’s territory. They weren’t close to Marsauceux territory, the pack had been poking about Paris—likely looking for Orlando—but he would not argue semantics now.

  “You go back on your word, Hawkes,” Claude announced.

  “I had no choice.”

  “Why so? For her? The longtooth bitch murdered Orlando!”

  Rhys twisted a look over his shoulder. Antoine held a whip across Viviane’s neck. The pointed end wasn’t going to cause lethal damage, yet he was thankful it was not poised before her heart.

  “You have been in Paris too long,” Claude said. “The bitch would not have killed Orlando if you—the two of you—had been home.”

  “I am conducting an investigation. You knew Orlando was coming along with me before I left for Paris. Viviane was protecting a mortal girl from Orlando’s attack. He’d syphilis and was mad.”

  “She is a wolf slayer!”

  Indeed. The truth of her prodded at his very soul, yet he saw beyond the foul crimes and into her heart.

  “Orlando would have required putting down no matter.”

  “Putting down? Do you hear yourself, man?” Claude stalked before him. His dusty shoulders were as broad as Rhys’s and the scar digging into his abdomen and across his face claimed him the elder and more experienced of the two. “You sound like a mortal. A pompous mortal hunter. What’s come of you?”

  “I am civilized. As are we all.”

  The pack leader sneered. Who was Rhys to claim such a thing when he warred within his own skin to master his uncivilized counterpart?

  “This calamity tonight.” Rhys gestured at the tumbrel. “What madness has infected your mind, Claude? This is not how you handle injustice against the pack. Not without a fair hearing and proof of the crime.”

  “Do not presume to tell me the order of things. Antoine saw her kill the boy. What further proof do you require?”

  “She did not purposefully attack Orlando.”

  “No, not an attack, but still vicious murder. Perhaps if you had watched over Orlando as promised he would still be alive
.”

  Indeed. Rhys felt the man’s words cut open his heart and bleed it into his entrails. It was his fault Orlando lay buried in Viviane’s courtyard right now.

  One by one, Rhys met the surrounding pack members’ eyes. They sneered and stretched back their shoulders making themselves broader, fiercer, a show of superiority. They were in the right; he was not.

  “Forgive me, principal Mourreigh. I assume all the blame for Orlando’s death.”

  The old wolf cast a glance over his pack, seething, wanting to avenge their own—as was their right. When he looked at Rhys, Claude’s jaw tightened. “I say you should be the one to cut the vampire’s throat and spill her blood in remembrance of Orlando.”

  Rhys took a step but cautioned his anger. Within, the vampire stirred. What foul darkness he possessed that part of him could pine for blood? Thankfully, it was easiest to maintain a grasp on his wolf mind when in the company of fellow wolves that he admired.

  “I’ve a suspicion about you, Rhys Hawkes,” Claude said. “I think you’ve just confirmed it.”

  “What, that I’ve a civilized bone and don’t wish to watch a slaughter?”

  “That you’ve developed a dangerous folly for the vampiress. Have you been tupping her? Worse, have you taken her blood?”

  Back in the tumbrel, Viviane’s chains clanked and she shouted, “Never!”

  Rhys winced. Was she trying to protect him? It wasn’t necessary.

  His brother had been right; he would never belong to the vampire race or the werewolf breed. He was a man who stood alone.

  Spreading out his arms to expose his chest and torso put him in a vulnerable position before the pack members. Rhys lifted his chin and announced, “I love Viviane LaMourette.”

  “Love makes men do stupid things,” Claude hissed. “You should have stayed away. You promised.”

  “Doesn’t matter what has been done or what has not. I love her, and I accept whatever punishment the pack wishes to enforce upon me. Will you release her if I surrender myself?”

  Claude shook his head, as if to confirm Rhys was acting the fool. The old wolf stomped the loamy earth. “Release the bitch.”

  The leader eyed him. “You surrender nothing, Hawkes. I have already marked you from this world. But I will take justice for the vampiress’s crime.”

  CONSTANTINE CLIMBED DOWN the curving, narrow wood steps into the dark cellar beneath Ian Grim’s house in the Marais. This section of the city had been built over marsh. Stench of rot and dampness overwhelmed.

  As the stairs twisted and the walls changed from stacked brick to hard-packed clay earth, he assumed he was at a level to the tunnels that traversed beneath the city. The tunnels were rumored to snake and twist for hundreds of leagues, some plunging five stories into the ground.

  Close enough to touch Hell?

  “Salignac,” Grim acknowledged without looking up from the table before him.

  The witch was Scottish. Salignac hated his provincial brogue. Even more he hated that the man never deigned to present him with due respect. As one of the Light, the witch knew he wielded a powerful weapon over Constantine. Thanks to the great Protection spell, all witches’ blood was poisonous to vampires.

  Constantine strode beneath a ceiling hung with desiccated, dried herbs and a dead rabbit dangled in the mix. The smell of decayed flesh put him off, and he mined for the handkerchief tucked up his frockcoat sleeve.

  “What brings you to the earth’s bowels?” Grim asked, still focused on the vials before him. He tilted the contents of one into the other. Both liquids were clear, but when combined, transformed to a murky blue.

  “You ignored my summons.”

  “Busy.”

  Quelling his ire, Constantine fisted his fingers. “I need silver bullets. Silver blades. Silver in liquid form to institute into food. Something.”

  “Werewolf problem?”

  Constantine smirked. Problem made it sound so small. He stroked a thumb along his jaw, which still ached, despite the crack Rhys had pummeled into the bone having healed hours ago.

  “It is Rhys Hawkes. Again.”

  “Well, it is his turn.”

  “I didn’t ask for a tally on our encounters.”

  “Encounters.” Grim chuffed. “That’s a way of putting it. What has he done now?”

  “He’s stolen her from me.”

  “Her? Ah, yes, the one you’ve lost your heart to. The bloodborn vampiress?”

  “It is no longer love. It never was.”

  “Merely need, eh?”

  “She’s chosen a slow death over a secure life with me.”

  Now Grim set the vials in a brass rack and twisted his blond head to give Constantine his full attention. He pushed up the spectacles perched at the end of his nose and sniffed. “That’s a cruel blow to your ego, I’ll wager. But how can she survive without a patron?”

  Constantine swallowed. How could she choose death? His brother was not so powerful, so appealing to women. Was he?

  What, about him, repulsed her so?

  “How soon can you have the silver prepared?”

  “Hmm, a couple days. You’ll have to provide me with ingots. I’ve not the coin to invest in silver.”

  “I will, I’ll send Richard with some later—”

  “I cannot guarantee a werewolf eradicator will work against your brother since he is only half wolf. And isn’t he enchanted?”

  “Superstitious blather. He is a living being, as I am, and can be killed. You just have to provide the correct means.”

  The witch toyed with a pearl-handled anthame placed beside a bloody rabbit’s ear. “I thought you had vowed not to kill your brother.”

  The witch had the obnoxious manner of always being right.

  Pacing beneath the gruesome ceiling, Constantine’s mind opened wider and revisited the blissful memory of he and Viviane, during sweeter times. She’d been so pleased with the choker. A deadly gift that could thrill none but his perfect mate.

  If she were not to choose life, perhaps he would give her exactly as she desired.

  “No,” he said. And then, more decidedly, “No. I don’t want my brother dead. If he is dead, he will not feel the anguish of my revenge. One that will require your assistance, Grim.”

  “I am at your service, my lord. What do you require?”

  “I must see to the details first. If it is even possible. There is a glass-smith on the Rive Gauche. Yes, that is how it will be. I shall exact the perfect revenge and bring the dog to his knees.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE PACK SHIFTED TO WEREWOLF shape and stalked toward him. Rhys shifted in preparation. His werewolf roused and snarled, snapping his toothy maw, but it maintained deference. His vampire mind sensed it was in no position to fight, so did not prod him to lash out.

  Behind him chains clinked as Antoine released Viviane. Claude would ensure honor was maintained. The pack wanted his blood now.

  So long as someone’s blood flows, his vampire mind hissed with macabre glee.

  There was one brand of pack justice. First strike took Rhys across the forehead, the talon cutting through flesh and skull bone. He did not cry out. In werewolf form he could not speak—nor would he howl.

  Talons went at all angles to his body, tearing fur, muscle and bone. The vampire in him roiled in vicious delight as blood coated fur spattered the air.

  It seemed the torture went on forever, but finally, when Rhys could barely stand, the pack shifted. In were form they stood, their bodies bloodied. Two jumped onto the cart and hastened it away, while two had shifted to wolf form and loped along behind the cart.

  The pack leader said not a word to him. A scornful look spoke volumes.

  Rhys collapsed, landing in a thick nest of leaves beneath an oak tree. His vision red, the world smelled of blood, pain and agony. He hated his vampire, who writhed in near sexual climax at the joy of it all.

  At this moment he could curse his mother her indiscretions, but then his wolf
mind grasped hold of the vampire and shook it. He shifted, crying out as the painful cuts tortured anew his human flesh. He would heal in were form but not as quickly as if he’d remained in werewolf shape.

  Exhausted, completely shifted to vampire form, yet in his werewolf mind, he could barely lift his head to scan the sky. Dawn crept upon the horizon.

  “Viv…” he gasped out. He prayed she had gotten to cover before the sun rose.

  “Rhys!”

  She landed at his side and stretched an arm across his chest. Rhys groaned as the contact abraded the cuts and tore at the open wounds. Yet her presence worked a balm to his bare and shivering soul. “You should not…”

  “Oh, my love, they could have killed you.”

  “Never. Claude does not condone murder. I am…no longer welcomed by the pack.”

  “Sacre bleu, you’re covered with wounds. Does it hurt terribly? No, that was a foolish question.” She touched his neck and looked at her finger. Would the vampiress lick off the blood?

  “I’ll heal.” He clasped her hand.

  “Rhys, you shouldn’t have done that. I killed the boy.”

  “I love you more than my werewolf family, Viviane. I would sacrifice my life to save yours again and again.”

  “Don’t say that. I want you alive, in my arms.”

  Her mouth brushed his cheek. Pain flickered into the background. Blood wet his skin, and she could dash out her tongue and taste it, but she did not. Instead she tendered gentle kisses over his face. He felt his muscles band tightly and a few rib bones snapped into place.

  “You need clothes,” she said, as if just noticing his nudity.

  “More important, you need protection. We’ll never make it to Paris before the sun rises. But we might make it to my home.”

  “You live close? But you can’t walk.”

  “Give me a few moments, and more kisses, and I’ll have healed enough to hobble. Tear your skirts, love. Make some protection.”

  She ripped her skirts and fashioned a hood to pull over her head and face. Rhys arched his back, and popped one last vertebra into place. A satisfied groan masked the yip of pain. A flash of orange light hit his eye.