by Reinke, Sara
“That’s our wedding day,” Rene said. “My mamère must have kept it for me. It fell out of that book of yours, that Tome, yesterday in Thibodaux.”
The young woman in the photograph looked so happy. Her cheeks were flushed with joy, her eyes sparkling, her mouth spread in a wide, beaming grin, as if all of her hopes, dreams and desires had come true in that one moment and had been captured on film. She’s in love, Tessa realized. That’s what it looks like. That’s what it must feel like.
“Joli drôle, no?” Rene asked. Funny, isn’t it? “Not at all like your fancy wedding, I’m sure.” He settled back in the seat. “Irene lives in San Francisco now. She’s remarried, at least the last I’d heard, and got herself a nice, shiny life.” He closed his eyes and murmured, “Better than she would’ve ever had with me.”
“You…you should rest,” Tessa said, handing the picture back to him. She didn’t want to look at it anymore, the joy in Irene’s face. It made her feel too lonely inside, envious somehow. “I’ll find a place where we can stop, a town or something, and we’ll call Lina, tell her what’s happened.”
He shook his head as he put the picture back in the glove box. “Why, pischouette? There’s nothing she can do except worry.”
“But you killed that man.”
He nodded. “First time in damn near forty years.” His eyes had closed again, and his voice had grown quiet, somewhat slurred.
You killed him for me, Tessa thought. Not because of the car or his wallet—because Rene had offered those freely to the man. Rene hadn’t tried to resist or fight back until the man had turned the gun toward Tessa.
“We’ll see Lina tonight,” Rene said. “We can tell her then. I’ve fed twice today…made a glutton of myself. Once that kicks in, I’ll be fine.” He didn’t open his eyes but the corner of his mouth hooked slightly, wryly. “That or whatever the hell that kid was high on. Either way, there’s hope for me yet.”
Tessa glanced at him as he drifted off into unconsciousness. She didn’t know much about Rene, but she knew that killing humans was something he took neither lightly nor arbitrarily. He’d taught himself how to feed without doing it. And yet he’d killed to protect her. He’d nearly torn the man’s head from his neck with his bare hands.
You might be right, Rene, she thought. There may be hope for you yet.
She wished that she’d been able to face her own wedding day with the same uninhibited joy she’d seen in the photograph of Rene’s young bride, Irene. Instead, Tessa had been filled with trepidation and anxiety, not to mention a fair share of sorrow.
She remembered her first day at the Davenant house, stepping through the front doors and into the main foyer to be greeted by Monica Davenant, Martin’s first and eldest wife.
“I can smell your cunt.” Monica had been statuesque, tall and whip-thin, with pale skin and auburn hair, her features delicate and pristine, her beauty nearly frigid. Her eyes had been icy, piercing and lucent, filled with nothing but disdain for the young woman who’d stood before her. “Or is that Eleanor’s? Augustus’s whores are so alike—you all share the same stink. However does he tell you apart enough to know which to fuck?”
Tessa had been shocked by the woman’s vulgar language and frightened, as well, but struggled not to show it. She’d been warned about Monica—all of the Davenants, in fact.
“They’ll hate you because you’re a Noble,” her mother, Vanessa, had told her once.
“They’ll hate you because you’re Augustus’s granddaughter,” Eleanor had warned. She’d tried to smile, but her eyes had glistened with tears as she’d stroked her hand against Tessa’s dark hair. “Allistair Davenant is jealous of your grandfather because of his dominance. It’s a hatred that’s been brewing for more than two hundred years and spilled over to his entire clan. You stay close to Alexandra. She’s your cousin. She’ll look out for you, protect you if she can.”
Protect me from what? Tessa had wondered and worried, but she’d soon learned.
“Before you do anything in this house—the Davenant house,” Monica had told her that gray, gloomy morning as she’d pinned Tessa with her gaze in the Davenant great house foyer. “You’ll go and take a bath, wash that nasty Noble stench off your skin before I gag.”
Her eyes had cut to the necklace around Tessa’s neck. It had belonged to Eleanor, a simple gold chain with a solitary but enormous stone pendant—a rare ten-carat green sapphire that Augustus Noble had custom-ordered from Sri Lanka for his favorite wife.
“This is the first gift your grandfather ever gave to me,” Eleanor had told Tessa, upon presenting the necklace to Tessa on her sixteenth birthday. Tessa had sputtered in flabbergasted protest, but Eleanor hadn’t listened. When her mother had warned Tessa not to bring it with her to the Davenants, Tessa likewise hadn’t paid heed. Eleanor hadn’t been dead a week at this point. Tessa had still been very much in mourning, the gift even more precious to her because of it.
Monica Davenant’s eyes had danced with a wicked sort of glee as she’d reached out to touch the pendant. “This is lovely,” she murmured, her voice low, nearly a purr.
“It…it belonged to my grandmother,” Tessa said, uncertain of what to say but struggling to be polite.
Monica locked gazes with her. “Yes. I know.”
Tessa gasped in startled disbelief as Monica closed her hand quickly about the sapphire and with one swift, sudden jerk, snapped the chain and yanked it from about her neck. She reacted instinctively, not as the new wife—the least among six in Martin’s part of the Davenant family hierarchy—but as she would have had she been standing beneath her own family’s roof. Her hand shot out, her fingers closing fiercely around Monica’s slender wrist. “That’s mine,” she’d said, her brows furrowed. “Give it back.”
Monica had blinked at her, her lucent blue eyes flying wide in surprise. “You little bitch,” she seethed, wrenching her arm loose and stumbling back a step. Tessa caught a blur of motion out of the corner of her gaze, and then Monica slapped her in the face—the first time Tessa had ever been struck in her entire life. It stunned more than it stung, but then Monica grabbed her roughly by the hair and shoved, sending her sprawling to the floor and making her bark her knees painfully against the granite tiles.
“Nothing in this house is yours anymore,” Monica snapped, snatching a handful of Tessa’s hair again and twisting hard enough to make Tessa cry out. “Whatever you walked through that door with—kiss it good-bye, you spoiled little bitch. It’s mine now, and so are you. You belong to me.”
Later that evening, she’d overheard Monica complaining to Martin: “Don’t you remember how that stupid cunt would parade around with this dangling from her neck like it was some kind of goddamn prize?”
Tessa had been going upstairs to the small room she would be sharing with Alexandra, when she heard voices from the third-floor landing, filtering out from behind a nearby closed door. The word cunt, again delivered with nearly tangible venom, drew her short.
“I remember,” Monica said. Tessa crept to the door and knelt to peek through the keyhole. She could see Martin sitting in a winged-back armchair with Monica behind him—one of the first times Tessa had seen him since he’d come to take her from the great house. Monica leaned over his shoulder, holding something in her hand, something that flashed and glimmered in the glow from the nearby lamp—Eleanor’s green sapphire pendant.
“She wanted all of us to see it,” Monica hissed. “All of us to know—Augustus Noble spends money that rightfully belongs to all of us however he damn well chooses. It’s bad enough he used to take her with him all over the goddamn free world, but then he lavished that slut with stuff like this—look at it, Martin!”
Martin seemed bored as he swatted the necklace out of his face, apparently more interested in the half-empty tumbler of bourbon in his hand. “I see it,” he growled, tilting his head back. Tessa heard ice cubes clink softly together as he drained the glass.
“Well, it’s mine now,” Mon
ica declared, and Tessa had felt her face flush angrily as she watched the woman draw the chain about her neck, fastening the clasp.
Like hell it is, you bitch, she’d thought, and in that moment, she’d resolved that somehow, someday she would get the pendant back. It was a promise she’d ultimately been unable to keep; even though Monica had worn the sapphire nearly every day without fail, Tessa had no chance to grab it from her before she’d fled Kentucky. The idea that the necklace—a symbol not only of her grandparents’ love, but of Eleanor’s love for Tessa, as well—remained in Monica’s possession killed her.
“Augustus sits at the head of the Brethren Elders, puts his sons in all of the choice positions with the farms and distillery, and what does he leave for the rest of you?” Monica had said to Martin that night four years earlier. “Grunt work and mid-level management. Why doesn’t he put you out with the Kinsfolk or the laborers shoveling shit in the barns? It’s not fair.”
“I know it’s not,” Martin replied, standing. He crossed the room to refill his glass. “But there’s nothing I can do about it, Monica. You want to change things? Give me sons.”
“One male heir is all that’s made them the leading clan,” she said. “That’s why Augustus didn’t just clap his hand over that little bastard Brandon’s mouth all of those years ago and see him smothered when he realized he wouldn’t bleed to death. It’s why he didn’t kill him for defying the bloodletting. He’ll keep him alive if only to force him to it. And now Vanessa’s given birth to another misbegotten whelp that might make it to adulthood. Two sons—two lucky births, that’s all.”
Tessa had been frozen with shock, because she’d known that Monica meant her brother Daniel, who had been born only two months earlier.
He’d been the third of Sebastian and Vanessa’s sons; in addition to Brandon and Daniel, who was now four, there had been the eldest, Caine. But Caine was dead now; he’d come after Brandon and Lina had killed him. The Elders, including Augustus, were hunting for Brandon with the intent to murder him, which was why they were cutting such a desperate path across the country—to escape the Elders somehow.
But maybe we don’t have to. Not now. Not anymore.
The leading Brethren clan—the family that held dominance over all others—had always been determined by the house with the most adult male heirs at any one time, those who had gone through the bloodletting and fed for the first time. For generations that distinction had belonged to the Nobles. But because of the mounting fertility problems and infant mortality, over time it had become a slim margin of victory over the other clans, and the Davenants in particular.
“It’s only one son who keeps the Nobles dominant,” Monica had complained that night years earlier. “Until Brandon and Daniel Noble complete the bloodletting—if they complete the bloodletting—that’s the only thing keeping Augustus in power. Take out one…” She’d reached over Martin’s shoulder, pinching a half-melted ice cube from his drink and tossing it into the fire. “…and he’d have to share with the Davenants. Take out another…” Again, she flicked an ice cube into the flames. “…and your father, Allistair, becomes the lead Elder with the dominant clan—and you next in line when he’s gone.”
“What do you want me to do?” Martin had griped, moving his glass out of her reach and cradling it somewhat protectively against his belly. “Walk up to their front door and shoot Caine Noble in the goddamn head? You said so yourself—they’ve got two more of the little bastards right in line behind him.” He’d slurped the rest of his drink down. “I’d be doing my father the goddamn favor, not me.”
Now Caine was dead. That left the Nobles and Davenants equal in the number of male heirs. Monica had been right; this would mean the two clans would share dominance equally.
But only once word reaches the Elders. They didn’t know that Caine was dead. At least, she didn’t think they knew. Because if he did, the Grandfather would change his mind, she thought. He’d rescind his order to have Brandon killed.
Eleanor had told Tessa that Allistair Davenant hated Augustus Noble and the feeling had been more than apparently mutual. They would share control of the Brethren as readily as they might have cut off their own balls, and Brandon would be the key to avoiding that scenario.
The Grandfather needs Brandon now, needs him to complete the bloodletting if the Nobles are to be the dominant house.
Caine had slipped away from Kentucky on his own; the Elders might not yet have realized his absence. There was a very strong possibility that they were completely unaware of what had happened.
She glanced at Rene, then lifted her foot off the gas pedal. As the Audi slowed, she pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. The car jostled in the loose gravel, and Rene stirred, groaning and sitting up somewhat.
“What…what is it?” he murmured, blinking dazedly.
“Nothing,” she said, opening her car door. “I…I just…I need to stop. I feel sick to my stomach. The baby, I think.”
“Oh.” He nodded once, his eyelids drooping closed.
Tessa walked around to the back of the car and fished her cell phone out of her pocket. She squatted against the rear bumper so that Rene couldn’t see what she was doing clearly if he looked through the side-view mirror. Not that she needed to worry; he’d been out again before she’d even closed the door.
She felt badly for him, and knew she needed to get him to New Mexico so they could meet up with Brandon and get some of Rene’s pain medication. She needed to stay on the road, but at the moment, she just couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Rene,” she whispered as she flipped back the cover to her phone. She thumbed through her address book until she found the number she needed, then hit send.
“Tessa?” Her father, Sebastian, answered his cell phone on the second ring, his voice tinged with static, nearly shrill with alarm. “Tessa? Is that you?”
He’d recognized her number undoubtedly, and the concern in his tone brought immediate tears to her eyes. “Hi, Dad,” she said. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Where are you? Is Brandon with you? My God, we’ve been worried sick, Tessa, and Martin is—”
“Dad, listen to me,” Tessa cut in. “I can’t talk long, but you need to know. You need to let the Grandfather know. Caine is dead.”
Stunned silence from the other end of the line. “Emily’s dead, too,” Tessa said, because her younger sister had been with Caine; they had both attacked Brandon and Lina had shot her, as well.
“What?” Sebastian asked, sounding breathless and strained, like she’d just kicked him in the balls. “How? I…I don’t…”
“They followed me to look for Brandon and they…they were killed.” Her voice quavered as her tears spilled. “I’m sorry, Dad.” She clapped her hand over her mouth as a little sob escaped her. “I love you.”
She hung up on him before he could say anything more, and squatted on the side of the road for a long moment, struggling to compose herself. She hadn’t been particularly close to either Caine or Emily, but they’d been her siblings nonetheless, and she hadn’t yet allowed herself to mourn for them. She closed her eyes, knowing she’d just broken her father’s heart.
But hopefully I just saved Brandon’s life.
Although it had been an arrangement dictated by the Elders just after she had been born, she’d been wed to Martin Davenant shortly after her eighteenth birthday, two weeks after her bloodletting. It was supposed to have been Brandon’s first kill, as well as her own, but her brother had defied the customs of the Brethren and refused. He’d fled from the bloodletting ceremony and holed up in his tutor, Jackson’s guest house on the farm, waiting there until the following morning before returning home to face the Grandfather’s wrath.
But it was a wrath that had never come. Terrified of what Augustus would do to Brandon, Tessa had pleaded with her grandmother, Eleanor, and her father, Sebastian, to intercede on Brandon’s behalf. As with Eleanor, Augustus had seldom refused their son, and Tessa had desperately hoped that this united front
might persuade him to spare Brandon punishment.
And it had worked. Brandon’s teacher had been fired, an act that had broken her brother’s heart, but that had been the extent of any retribution against Brandon. A week later, Eleanor had died. A week after that, Tessa had been shipped off to the Davenant great house to assume her life as Martin’s wife. In retrospect, she wondered if this had been further punishment for her brother; with neither Tessa nor Eleanor remaining in the house, and Sebastian often consumed by his responsibilities to the daily operation of the horse farm, Brandon had been left virtually on his own, his most stalwart champions gone. But while Tessa knew some of the Brethren—including members of their own family—looked down at Brandon and treated him derisively because of his handicaps, she’d never thought that anything truly bad would happen to him. Certainly not from their own grandfather.
But something had happened to Augustus Noble upon Eleanor’s death, and whatever soft spot she’d held in his heart had hardened to match the rest. More than just cool and distant, as was his customary demeanor, he’d become vindictive and cruel. Three years later, Tessa had realized to her horror just how much so he could be.
He’d crushed Brandon’s hands, shattering the bones and leaving her brother crippled. Tessa had rushed to the great house as soon as she’d learned, and remembered finding Augustus standing before the fireplace in the first floor study upon her arrival.
“How could you?” she’d cried, marching up to him, her eyes flooded with tears, her hands balled into fists. “You…you monster! How could you do this to Brandon?”
The Grandfather had struck her so hard she’d stumbled sideways and crumpled to her hands and knees, momentary stars dancing in her line of sight. She’d blinked at the floor in silent, absolute shock.
“Watch your mouth, girl,” he’d said, his face icily stoic. “Or you’ll be laid out along with him.”
Only then had she realized he wasn’t alone; on the far side of the room, at least five Brethren men stood in a tight and stern-faced ring—Elders from other clans. She recognized one of them in particular, a man with sharp, cold eyes the same shade of steel gray as his hair and a doughy face that tugged the corners of his mouth into a perpetual frown—Allistair Davenant, Martin’s father.
