by Колин Глисон
Thank the Fates for Drishni and Kritanu, helping him understand how he’d changed. How he must have answered the voice that said in his head: Choose.
How he’d found light after all the darkness. Soothing, peaceful, warm…after so many years of darkness.
If it hadn’t been for them, he’d have gone mad.
More mad than he’d already been, after Narcise.
Rubey made a moue of distaste. “Sure and it’s ironic, the way I run a house of pleasure for them who drink blood when the very thought of a bloody steak or the leg of a hen makes me ill. My pappa couldn’t ever understand why I was happy with only potatoes and greens.”
Giordan might have replied but his shift toward the ever-expanding exposure of her bodice was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Blast it,” Rubey said, disappointment clearly in her tones. “What is it?” she called.
The door eased open and one of her servants—a large brute of a mortal man named Eduardo, whom Giordan didn’t wholly trust—stepped in holding a small silver tray. “A message has just arrived for Mr. Cale,” he said.
Giordan took the note, which was marked with Corvindale’s seal, and broke into it. “Meeting here tonight with Wood-more. Voss still in city. Come.”
He closed it up, a myriad of emotions running through him—the foremost and strongest being pain. Darkness. But Giordan drew in a deep, steadying breath and after a moment, his red vision and the pounding, trammeling feeling eased. His fingers relaxed.
There was a time when he’d have had no qualms, no hesitation about snapping the neck of someone like Woodmore—particularly since, several months back, he found the man in the rooms Giordan had let in London, preparing to hang his heart on a stake. Some sort of gray-black smoke was trickling from the fireplace and Woodmore was caught off guard by Giordan’s wakefulness during the day and, he learned later, a malfunction of some sort of smoke explosion.
But those days of quick, efficient violence had gone, and when Giordan learned that his would-be attacker was none other than Chas Woodmore, associate and friend of Dimitri, he’d allowed it to end as a misunderstanding. He’d even helped prepare the bastard for his mission to assassinate Cezar Moldavi.
But his easy assistance was before he’d responded to Woodmore’s request to meet him in Reither’s Closewell…and smelled Narcise. Everywhere. Everywhere on Chas Woodmore.
Even the information Woodmore had wished to share—that Cezar Moldavi had not, in the past decade, forgotten his obsession with Giordan—didn’t concern him.
After all, it had been a decade for Giordan as well. The ten years had been both interminable and all too brief, too close. Too raw.
Now, he stood and made himself walk casually over to the chair where he’d removed his shoes, sit and pull them on.
He’d known they were together, of course; that Wood-more had helped her to escape from Paris—or had abducted her. No one was clear on the details. But to smell her thus…so lush and rich and feminine. Narcise.
The moment was as if he’d slammed into a stone wall: he lost his breath, he felt the shock of pain reverberating through him, he turned numb.
After, Giordan wasn’t certain how he’d managed to make it through that meeting at the inn, once he’d caught her scent. It was the way it rolled off Woodmore, the way it seemed to permeate him and mix with his own essence…mocking and familiar and horribly insidious.
His vision turned dark and red even now. He couldn’t ignore the memory of the disgust in her face, the horror in her eyes.
As if anything she could think about him was as horrible as what he’d done. For her.
He’d tried to explain, to make her understand…but she didn’t want to listen. She wasn’t ready to listen.
Either she’d never loved and trusted him at all, or she hadn’t loved and trusted him enough.
At it was, he didn’t know whom to thank that Narcise had decided to go with Woodmore to London instead of having Giordan take her to Wales. He doubted he would have survived that trip with his sanity intact.
“Is everything all right?” Rubey asked.
Giordan wasn’t certain how long he’d been silent—he’d finished dressing and was starting toward the chamber door before she spoke. “A summons from Dimitri,” he said with an ironic tone. “When the earl beckons, one must answer.”
She was watching him with those shrewd eyes. “When will I see you again?” she asked. Not with petulance, not even with invitation, but as a businesswoman, scheduling an engagement. Rubey was no man’s woman through her own volition, and not for lack of being wooed.
“When next I need to feed,” he told her smoothly, then moved quickly back to her side. Pressing a farewell kiss to her temple, he said, “With your permission, madame.”
“Of course,” she replied haughtily. But he felt the weight of her curious gaze following him out the door.
The trip to Blackmont Hall, the residence of the Earl of Corvindale, was hampered by a carriage accident on Bond. Giordan didn’t begrudge the delay, for it gave him more time to mull, to consider, to settle. To decide if he even meant to go.
The streets were relatively quiet, for the shops were closed this late at night, but the thoroughfares were by no means deserted. Carriages and hacks trundled by, many pedestrians skirted the shadows—some of them up to no good, some of them simply walking from one pub, club, theater, or party to another.
Giordan sat quietly in his richly appointed carriage and considered how far the bounds of friendship reached. If it were anyone other than Dimitri, he would ignore the summons. When Woodmore sent him the secret message to meet in Reither’s Close, Giordan had gone, not realizing what awaited him.
But he did now. And he wasn’t certain he’d be able to handle being in the same chamber as Woodmore and not think of peeling the man’s flesh from his body. Despite who he’d become.
He hadn’t laid a violent finger, hand, or fang on anyone since the After Hell.
Instead of dwelling on thoughts of Chas Woodmore, Giordan forced himself to review what he knew, wondering why Dimitri felt it necessary to have him present tonight.
Voss had run off with Angelica Woodmore. He claimed it was to keep her safe from Moldavi’s men, who’d, predictably, followed Woodmore and Narcise from Paris.
Giordan had been in London—although with Rubey and not in attendance—the night of the abduction, when Belial and three others had entered a masquerade ball and murdered three people. That night and the next day, he and Dimitri had had to work together to enthrall witnesses and change stories. Otherwise, the news might cause a mad panic in London such as there had been in Brussels some years back after a similar occurrence. Shortly after, Giordan left to meet Woodmore in Reither’s Close and break the news of Angelica’s kidnapping.
But by the time Giordan had returned to London, with, presumably, Woodmore on his heels, Angelica had been safely retrieved by Dimitri.
Still, the earl was furious with Voss for taking one of the Woodmore sisters while he was responsible for them during their brother’s disappearance, and by the tone of his message tonight, he intended to find Voss and square things with him. Which, in Dimitri’s mind, likely meant to kill the bastard.
Ever since the incident in Vienna a century ago, when Dimitri’s house had gone up in flames, there’d been bad blood between the earl and Voss. This current situation involving Angelica—which the earl would interpret as impertinent and insolent, at the very least, and a grave insult at worst—made the situation even more untenable.
And therefore, Giordan would answer the summons if for no other purpose than to reason Dimitri out of cold-blooded murder, and to help him find Voss if necessary.
Which was, it seemed, how far the bonds of friendship extended.
Blackmont Hall—which was nearly as dreary and cold as its name and resident suggested—was surrounded by high, smooth, brick walls that were topped with sharp metal and wooden pikes and studded with gas lanterns. The
two dozen lamps were lit every night and extinguished every dawn whether the earl was in residence or not. Aside of that structural barrier, Dimitri had an entire retinue of guards—both mortal and make—at his disposal, watching the sisters and the grounds.
If there was a place in London safe from Belial or unwanted guests, it was the Corvindale residence.
Giordan was well-known to the gatekeeper, and he was waved in after he removed the hat and cloak he’d donned against the ever-present drizzle. Crewston, the Blackmont butler, opened the front door and said, “His lordship is in his office with several persons. Including his young wards.” His tone indicated his disdain for the inclusion of the two Woodmore sisters in a meeting clearly meant for men only. “Apparently there was some sort of event this evening.”
Handing his hat and cloak to the butler, Giordan stepped into the foyer and stilled. Narcise. Was. Here.
It was with great effort that he didn’t pause in his strides, although he did slow and his movements turned jerky as he walked past Crewston down the corridor. His heart pounded, his blasted hands wanted to become damp, but by the Fates, he wouldn’t allow that. He swiped his palms on his trousers and kept walking.
Pausing outside the study door, which had been left slightly ajar in—he suspected—a show of empathy and warning for him by Dimitri, Giordan listened, waiting for an opportune moment to make his entrance. The earl had given him the advantage of surprise, and he was going to make full use of it.
Someone was speaking in tones threaded with distaste. “You must be Narcise Moldavi. The vampire.” He recognized the voice wafting through as that of Angelica Woodmore.
“I am.” Narcise’s voice was low and dusky as it always was, yet it carried a hint of annoyance. Giordan’s heart thumped uncomfortably and he squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, nearly missing the Woodmore sister’s response.
“Are you here so that we can welcome you to the family?” came Angelica’s reply.
Clearly she wasn’t any fonder of the idea of Narcise and Woodmore being together than Giordan was.
Or, no, perhaps it wasn’t that the two of them were intimate that disturbed Giordan, when one came down to it. It was more the fact that she was here. He’d have to see her. He might even have to speak to her.
All the while pretending his entire insides weren’t warring, desperate for her again.
“In fact, mademoiselle, I’m here, endangering my person only because of you.” He heard the faint clink of a glass over Narcise’s voice. She sounded hard and unemotional. “When your brother learned that Voss had abducted you, he insisted on coming to London, despite the danger to me.”
Suddenly furious that Narcise would blame the young mortal for her own weaknesses, Giordan opened the door. He stepped inside with smooth, controlled movements, his face expressionless. “You know very well you didn’t have to come to London with him. Don’t blame your own cowardice on the girl, Narcise.”
He couldn’t have planned for a better entrance. All eyes swung to him, but he was only looking toward one pair. They flashed with bald shock and a ripple of fear…and then into cold, emotionless sapphires. Fear, oh, oui, it was there. And well it should be. If she had any concept how deeply he struggled to keep himself in the light…how much, even now, after his change, he’d consider risking it, just to grab her by the shoulders, to shake some sense into her—to force her to understand, to care about what he’d done….
The voice in his head, the one of the light, said: She’s not yet ready. She cannot hear you.
But oh, yes. A woman could indeed drive a man to do what was unimaginable. To do something he could hardly conceive. For love or, just as readily, for hate.
A little shudder of nausea rippled deep in his belly and he pushed away those sordid, awful memories.
Narcise was standing near the liquor cabinet, dressed in masculine clothing. He could see that she’d been disguised as a man—and an elderly gent, if one accounted for the faint lines that had been drawn on her face to emphasize wrinkles and aging. Ironically it was Giordan who’d taught her that trick during his clandestine visits to her. Smudges added to the gauntness of her face…a face that was still as beautiful and perfect as it had always been. A mask covering perfidy and fickleness.
She held a hat that, presumably, had just been removed in an exposure of her gender and identity.
Narcise didn’t respond to Giordan’s entrance other than to add a flash of fangs to her sneer as she tossed the hat onto a table. Sipping from a glass of whiskey, she walked over to stand deliberately next to Woodmore.
But Giordan was no longer paying attention to her. He’d turned his back, although he was aware, of course, of precisely where she was standing and how she’d moved. He forced his curling fingers to loosen as he looked at the other occupants in the chamber.
“Miss Woodmore, Angelica, meet my friend Mr. Giordan Cale,” Dimitri spoke, rising from his seat in the corner.
“Chas, what in heaven’s name is going on here?” Maia Woodmore demanded.
“I’ve been attempting to tell you,” Woodmore replied mildly. “And I will…if we aren’t going to have any further interruptions?” He glanced at Narcise, but it wasn’t a look of reproach as much as it was one of affection.
Ah, the damned fool loved her.
“You’re taking us home, Chas,” Maia said firmly, and at that moment, Giordan felt a bit of sympathy for Dimitri. This elder of the sisters was clearly as headstrong and stubborn as her brother—and not nearly as tactful. “Tomorrow.” It was more of a command than a question, or even a request.
Narcise shifted, and so did her lover. “I’m afraid that’s impossible right now,” Woodmore said.
“What do you mean? You’re here, you’re back. There’s no reason for us to stay here any longer,” Maia said.
“Don’t disappoint the girl, Chas,” the earl said. “Take her home.” Then he glanced over. “Or perhaps Giordan would like to take on governess duties?”
Giordan snorted in return. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of the honor, Dimitri.” He bared his teeth in a false smile and accepted a glass of much-needed whiskey from the earl. It was all he could do to keep from slugging it down.
“But why can’t we go with you, Chas?” demanded Maia.
“Corvindale is and will remain your guardian for the foreseeable future,” Woodmore replied flatly, “but I wasn’t going to stand aside and let Voss compromise my sister.”
“I’m not compromised,” Angelica said stubbornly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Woodmore replied, glancing around the room. “We know he was here tonight, Angelica. Whether you invited him or welcomed him or—”
“I certainly didn’t invite him!” The girl was clearly outraged and offended. “I wouldn’t invite a terrifying creature like him anywhere!” Apparently she shared her brother’s distaste for the befanged Dracule.
“It doesn’t matter,” Woodmore continued sternly. “Corvindale and Cale are going to help me find him. And then I’m going to kill him.”
Giordan kept his tickle of annoyance at Woodmore’s assumptions to himself, and felt rather than saw Narcise move to the other side of the chamber behind him. She stayed carefully out of his eyesight. Her essence stirred the air, still as lush and feminine as it had been in Paris…but yet not quite the same.
“Since it appears that you will be under this roof for some further time, Miss Woodmore—Angelica—perhaps you might find your way back to your chambers,” Dimitri said abruptly, standing from where he’d been brooding in a corner chair. “The night is waning.”
Giordan, who, in some ways knew his friend better than Dimitri knew himself, suspected the man had used up his not very extensive patience. The earl’s library and office had been invaded, not to mention his hermitlike lifestyle disrupted by the new additions to his household, and would be, it seemed, for sometime to come.
The earl wanted everyone gone.
In the flurry of the sisters Woo
dmore bidding good-night and farewell to their brother, and the earl’s insistent ushering of them out of the chamber, Giordan managed to position himself so that Narcise would be unable to quit the room without passing directly by him.
As it happened, whether by accident or Dimitri’s intent, Narcise was separated from her lover and left alone in the chamber with Giordan. She would have slipped past him, the cowardly woman, if he hadn’t moved a half step to stand in the way. Now she must brush against him if she meant to escape and avoid a conversation.
“Good evening, Narcise,” he said.
She was close, so close, that not only her essence but the warmth of her presence surged against him. Yet, he absorbed the assault as if withstanding the force of a blow and would not allow her to escape from his gaze.
“Giordan,” she replied in a voice as cool as her icy-sea eyes. An ink-black coil of hair clung to her temple as if it had been smashed there by the heavy hat.
For a moment, he wavered—the darkness, the loathing and disgust, shimmering, threatening to drop like a heavy curtain—but it was just an instant of madness. He recovered himself. “And so you have found your escape at last. My felicitations. I hope it is all that you’ve dreamed.”
Ah, his tones were so easy, so casual and absent of irony, devoid of the shame and anger he felt. The humiliation. They were so loose, unlike his twisting insides, unlike the impossibly tight curling of his fingers.
“It is,” she replied in a matching tone. It was as if they’d settled at a café and discussed the weather over coffee and tea whilst overlooking the Palais Gallery.
He made certain he showed no hint of the bloodlust that simmered beneath his skin, throbbing, dark and hot and suddenly insistent.
“My only regret,” she said, still looking up at him with eyes as emotionless as a pair of black-mounted amethysts, “is that Cezar still lives.”
“What is this?” Giordan responded lightly, oh, yes, still so lightly despite the heaviness threatening his mood. “Your vampire hunter could not complete the task?” Faint surprise and polite regret tinged his words. “I was under the impression that he traveled to Paris for that purpose only.”
