Reluctant Partnerships

by Ariel Tachna

  “Get out,” Martin said softly, his voice tight. “When you’re done hiding behind the ghost of your dead lover, you know where to find me.”

  Denis looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he nodded and turned, leaving Martin alone.

  Slumping back against the pillows, Martin cursed under his breath. He was caught in a battle he could never win, because how could he fight a ghost, a man Denis had loved and lost?

  Merde.

  He would have to wait and hope Denis came back to him.

  Denis snuck through the corridors of the Hostellerie, not wanting anyone to see his disheveled state. He would have to let at least one wizard see him so he could get home, but he hoped to minimize the number of people who noticed him. He had nearly reached the door to the courtyard when it opened and Sebastien came in. “Oh, hello, Denis. I didn’t realize you were here,” Sebastien said.

  “I’m not,” Denis muttered. “I was just leaving.”

  “I didn’t see your car. Do I need to find Thierry? He’d be glad to send you home,” Sebastien offered. “Or you can come in for a chat, which it looks to me like you need even more than a displacement spell.”

  “I’m fine,” Denis said.

  “You don’t look fine,” Sebastien pressed. “You look halfway between ravished and miserable, and since Martin’s rooms are upstairs, I’m guessing it’s a little of both.”

  Denis flushed. “We, euh, we might have had a bit of a disagreement.”

  Sebastien chuckled. “And out of order with the sex,” he surmised. “Come have a drink with me. Thierry will be a few more minutes at least. You can tell me what happened and maybe I can help. Thierry and I have had our share of arguments.”

  “He doesn’t understand what it means to a vampire to feed from someone,” Denis blurted out, giving in to the need to talk to someone. “He thinks it’s the same as falling into bed with a lover.”

  Sebastien nodded. “He’s equating it to the most intimate act he knows. It’s not his fault he’s never known anything more than sex. That’s his problem. What’s yours?”

  “I had a lover,” Denis said. “I met him the night I was turned. I tasted his blood that night and never wanted anyone else’s until he died and I had no choice. He wouldn’t let me turn him and he wouldn’t let me make him my Avoué, insisting he didn’t need that kind of promise between us, that he trusted me not to feed from anyone else even without the magical bond.”

  “How long ago did he die?” Sebastien asked, his heart aching a little even now when he thought about Thibaut, dead four hundred years ago. Thierry’s unfailing presence at his side had eased the constant emptiness he had lived with since then, but nothing could erase it completely.

  “Thirty years,” Denis said.

  Sebastien nodded. “You have to remember they’re mortal. For them, thirty years is half a lifetime, certainly half their adult lifetime. Okay, perhaps not for the wizards who live somewhat longer than the average mortal, but even so, it’s a large chunk of time to them. Even Thierry, who is as close to me as anyone has been besides my Avoué, doesn’t see our relationship the same way I do. He loves me. I know he does, and I trust that love, but it’s not the same for him. Our relationship may be the foundation he builds his life on, but he is my life. His blood sustains me. Nothing in his experience comes even close to that. If something were to happen to me, like happened to Adèle’s partner, he would grieve—I have no doubt of that—but he would reach a point where he could move on. It’s not that easy for vampires, and there’s no way to make a mortal understand that.”

  “So what do I do?” Denis asked.

  “You have to decide that for yourself,” Sebastien replied, “but the simple answer is you grieve until you’re ready to move on. Their timetable, Martin’s timetable, for that happening doesn’t matter. When you’re ready to move on, you’ll know it.”

  “How did you know?”

  “When the lure of Thierry’s blood grew stronger than my longing for the one I’d lost,” Sebastien replied honestly. “Maybe it’s the magic in his blood. Maybe it’s just the strength of the man himself. I don’t really know, but there came a point when I asked myself what I had to lose by being with him, and the answer was nothing. Suddenly, holding onto a ghost wasn’t worth it anymore. But it took me four hundred years and thousands of anonymous feedings to reach that point. Martin may not understand if you choose to let this opportunity pass you by, but no vampire who has ever lost a lover will question it. You have to do what’s right for you, because once you’ve formed a partnership, it can’t be undone.”

  Chapter 21

  More than a little nervous at what she was about to do, Adèle knocked on the door to Pascale’s house. The wizard had spent the past two days mulling over her conversation with Thierry, trying to decide on a course of action. She hated feeling uncertain this way, and that had finally pushed her past her fears. Maybe it would be as big a disaster as her relationship with Jude had been, but maybe, just maybe, she would get lucky this time and find a partnership that could sustain her rather than drain her.

  She summoned a smile when Pascale opened the door, a plain cotton robe wrapped tightly around her. “Hi,” Adèle said, feeling unaccountably shy. “Would you like some company?”

  “Adèle,” Pascale said, her surprise clear in her voice. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow night.”

  “I know,” Adèle said, “but I owe you an apology, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said and what Thierry said, and I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance.”

  “Another chance at what?” Pascale asked, picking nervously at the collar of her robe.

  Adèle reached out and captured the wandering fingers with her own. “A chance at a real partnership instead of the business relationship we both pretended to want.”

  “Pascale?”

  Adèle peered over Pascale’s shoulder into the house. A woman she had never seen before stood in the doorway that led down the hall to Pascale’s bedroom. Adèle had never been down the hall, but the woman draped artfully against the doorjamb radiated familiar ease. Adèle’s eyes narrowed as the strap of the woman’s negligee slid off her shoulder, revealing a bite mark on the top of her breast.

  “Deux secondes, Nicole,” Pascale said. “I’ll be right there.” She turned back to Adèle. “This obviously isn’t a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow evening and we can talk then.” She started to close the door, but Adèle wedged her foot against it.

  “No,” she said, magic sparking around her dangerously, “you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to go in there and be with someone else and pretend we don’t matter.”

  “You made it abundantly clear there is no ‘we’,” Pascale reminded her sharply. “You’re the one who told me how many times that you had no interest in women.”

  “I don’t,” Adèle said, “but I seem to have developed quite a bit of interest in you. Get rid of your trick, and I’ll show you.”

  “You really are something,” Pascale said with a disbelieving laugh. “You barge in here uninvited, interrupt my evening, and then expect me to just drop everything in gratitude because you’ve deigned to change your mind about our relationship. Forget that. I don’t need the heartache.”

  “No heartache, I promise,” Adèle said, taking a step closer and touching Pascale’s cheek. “I’m not playing, and I’m not saying this because I’m jealous as hell that someone else is in my place in your bed or has your fang marks in far more intimate places than I do. I was stupid and blind and narrow-minded, none of which you deserve, but it was a little unsettling, suddenly finding everything I believed about myself turned on its ear. I’m a temperamental bitch at the best of times. That was more than I could handle, and I took it out on you.”

  “So what are you saying?” Pascale asked, eyes still narrowed distrustfully.

  “I’m saying I want a partnership with you,” Adèle replied. “A real one, however that develops. I want a chan
ce at the happiness everyone else has found, and I’m sorry it took you finding someone else to make me see that.”

  “Do I get a say in this?” Pascale demanded.

  Adèle wanted to shout no, to pull Pascale into her arms and never let her go, but she would not do to the other woman what Jude had done to her. “Yes. You can tell me to leave right now and I will. You can tell me not to come back until tomorrow or the day after or next week. Just don’t tell me to never come back, because I’m not sure I can do that.”

  Pascale nodded slowly. “You can come in. I have to talk to Nicole. Wait in the living room, and if you say one nasty word to her, I’ll send you home instead of her.”

  “What are you going to tell her?” Adèle asked, heart pounding as she came inside.

  “I’m going to tell her the truth,” Pascale said. “She works for Angelique at Sang Froid. She knows about l’Institut and has some idea of what the partnerships entail. She won’t be happy, but I didn’t make any promises. Once she’s gone, we’ll talk.”

  That sounded ominous to Adèle, but she already knew she was here on sufferance. She reined in her temper and prepared to wait out the other woman’s departure. Once the interloper was gone, she would show Pascale how sincere she was and how good they could be together.

  The sound of a loud crash in the bedroom had her on her feet and halfway down the hall before she remembered Pascale’s edict that she stay in the living room. “Pascale, is everything all right?”

  The door at the end of the hall opened, and the woman Adèle had seen before, fully dressed now, came storming down the corridor. “She’s all yours, the lying bitch.”

  Adèle’s hand tightened around her wand as she fought the urge to cast something unpleasant in the other woman’s direction, but a muffled sound, nearly a sob, drew her attention back to the bedroom. Knowing Pascale would probably yell at her for not listening, she walked to the doorway anyway. Pascale knelt on the floor, shards of glass on the floor around her.

  “Wait,” Adèle said, “don’t cut yourself.”

  “She broke my grandmother’s vase,” Pascale said, looking up at Adèle helplessly. “I understand that she was angry, but why did she have to choose that?”

  Adèle took another step into the room. “Maybe I can help,” she offered. “If you trust me not to make a bigger mess of it.”

  “It’s already broken,” Pascale said. “What could you do to make it worse?”

  Adèle smiled. “That’s the attitude. You don’t have shoes on, so don’t get up until we’re sure this works. I don’t want you to cut your feet on the glass.”

  Pascale nodded, setting down the piece of glass she already had in her hand. “Rassemblez!” Adèle said, directing her magic at the shards of glass. Slowly the pieces reassembled into the form of a vase. Pascale reached for it, but Adèle stopped her. “I’m not done yet. I don’t have Thierry’s gift of reknitting stone. I’ll have to try refiring it. I’m not sure it will work, but it’s the best I can do. If you’ll let me, that is.”

  “Your spell won’t hold it together?” Pascale asked.

  “It will make it look pretty, but you couldn’t use it as a vase,” Adèle said. “The water would seep right through the cracks. If I fire it again, if that works, it will be remade.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  “I can stop now,” Adèle said, “and you will have a pretty decoration to set on your shelf. If I try firing it and it works, you’ll have a functional vase again. If I try firing it and it doesn’t work, you may be left with nothing recognizable or usable. It’s entirely up to you.”

  Pascale looked at the vase and back at Adèle. “I trust you.”

  “Then come over here. The heat from the fire will be intense, and I don’t want you to get burned.”

  Pascale joined Adèle in the doorway of the room. Closing her eyes, Adèle focused all her power on connecting with the elemental magic within her, drawing the fire from deep inside and channeling it around the vase. The heat was intense, but she ignored it, pouring all her power and all her concentration into surrounding and reforging the vase held in her magical grip.

  The touch of Pascale’s hand on her arm drew her momentarily out of her magical trance, causing the temperature to drop. “Let me help.”

  Adèle nodded, keeping her eyes on the inferno before her as Pascale moved in front of her. She nearly lost control of her magic when the vampire unbuttoned the blouse she was wearing enough to bare her collarbone. The flames wavered as Pascale’s fingers traced the scars on Adèle’s breast, her reminder of what Jude had been capable of.

  “I’m not him,” Pascale said again, as if she could read Adèle’s thoughts. “I won’t treat you that way.”

  “I know,” Adèle said hoarsely. “Bite me now. We have to finish the spell.”

  Pascale nodded, leaning in and licking along Adèle’s collarbone until she found a place where she could drive her fangs between bones. The tickle of her tongue sent desire skittering along Adèle’s nerves, but the moment her fangs penetrated, Adèle felt the incredible rush of magical symbiosis and bone-deep need she had known in her time with Jude, except that this time, she did not have to fight it. Suddenly the means to fix the vase seemed obvious, a simple wave of her hand. She set it gently on the shelf, releasing it from her magic, and let her hands fall to Pascale’s waist. “It’s done.”

  Pascale looked up, her fangs slipping free of Adèle’s skin. “I’m not.”

  “Neither am I,” Adèle said, lowering her head and covering Pascale’s lips with her own. Another time she might have hesitated, either because of the blood on the vampire’s lips or because she had never kissed a woman before, but the past few moments had broken all her reserves, leaving her prey to a need too great to ignore.

  Pascale returned the embrace and the kiss eagerly, leaning against Adèle so that their bodies rubbed together. Pascale’s fingers still covered the scar from Jude’s fangs, but her hand settled against Adèle’s breast now, cupping the swell in her palm. Adèle shivered at the unfamiliar, intimate touch, need growing apace. To her surprise, Pascale broke the kiss and took a step back, catching Adèle’s hands. “We don’t have to do this tonight. You came here so we could talk, not so I could drag you into bed.”

  “You could stop now?” Adèle asked incredulously, memories of Jude pinning her against any available surface to have his way with her coming back.

  Pascale lifted their joined hands to her lips, kissing Adèle’s knuckles softly. “I’m not him,” she said one more time before releasing Adèle’s hands and closing the buttons on her shirt. “Come in the living room with me. We’ll talk like we said we would and we’ll see what we see when we’re done.”

  Desire simmering still, Adèle followed Pascale back into the living room, joining her on the couch where Pascale had fed from her twice before. Determined to begin as she intended to go on, Adèle sat close enough to Pascale that she could put her arms around the slighter woman, pulling her close. “We’ll talk,” she promised, “but will you let me hold you while we do?”

  Pascale snuggled deeper into Adèle’s embrace, perfectly content to curl up next to the woman who had haunted her dreams since the first night they met. “What happened?” she asked. “The last time we spoke, you stormed out of her declaring you weren’t interested in women, and now you’re here, kissing me, holding me close, letting me bite you intimately.”

  “I stormed out of here and went to Paris, determined to forget about you,” Adèle admitted, blushing at the memory. “It didn’t work. So I went to talk to Thierry. He was married, had never been interested in men before he formed a partnership with Sebastien. Kind of the same situation I found myself in. I thought maybe he could give me some advice.”

  “Apparently he did,” Pascale said, leaning up and kissing Adèle’s jaw. “What did he say?”

  “He reminded me that there’s no such thing as a love potion,” Adèle said. “If I’m attracted to you—and I th
ink it’s pretty obvious that I am—then I’m attracted to you. No external magical force made me feel this way. You made me feel this way. Yes, it’s going to take some adjustment to my thinking, and yes, I’ll probably do stupid shit because I’m not used to being with a woman, but I can take a chance on you and maybe find something special, or I can keep denying it and pass up what might be the chance of a lifetime. I may be temperamental, but I’m not stupid.”

  “I don’t know,” Pascale teased. “Some of the things you said the other night….”

  “Like I said, temperamental,” Adèle said, “and I already apologized.”

  “No, you said you owed me an apology. You didn’t actually say you were sorry,” Pascale reminded her.