The Damned

by Renee Ahdieh

  They mingled, waiting for the sun to rise over their shoulders. For its light to seep into the sky and take the place of night. The riverboat churned at their backs, the giant red wheel tossing a constant spray of water, the banks of the Mississippi guiding their path forward. Newfangled electric lanterns blazed brightly, strung through the wooden rafters, bathing the polished wooden decks in a soft glow.

  Beer and moonshine and table wine were poured liberally. Everywhere Émilie looked, she saw men and women laughing together. Occasionally children would dart between them, weaving through the crowd like the reeds of a basket.

  It was all so different from the world in which Émilie had been raised. Here, among the wolves, there was no pretense. Men were not given unfettered authority, and women were not relegated to roles of subservience. Even the children were allowed seats at the table, their voices valued.

  Among the vampires—among Nicodemus’ ilk—decorum had been sacrosanct. Her uncle had expected all his children, mortal and immortal alike, to bow before him. In that world, there had been no place for Émilie. All eyes had been on her younger brother, Bastien, the scion of the Saint Germain family.

  Émilie breathed in through her nose and closed her eyes.

  Her uncle would pay for this. She’d waited for this dawn for ten years. When the sun rose from its berth, Nicodemus would be there to receive his reckoning.

  Émilie caught the eye of another young wolf. A girl with hair the color of flaxseed. The girl grinned at Émilie, her brown eyes flickering in the darkness, caught on a beam of starlight. In her warm gold stare, Émilie saw endless possibilities. A future in which she could be whoever she wished to be and love whomever she wished to love.

  “Happy?” Luca asked behind Émilie, his large hands pulling her close.

  Émilie nodded. “This is what I always dreamed of. A world in which we are all united.”

  “Then I am pleased.”

  She turned toward him, her arms looping about her husband’s neck as she stood on her toes. He’d always been tall. Taller and stronger than any other wolf in the whole of Louisiana. “You should be more than pleased. Tonight you made my greatest dream come true.”

  Luca wrapped his arms around her. A smile touched his lips. “Are you ready to make my dreams come true in return?”

  “Of course.” She pressed a kiss to his chin. “You saved me, after all.”

  It was true, in a way. As Luca held her tightly—a contented sigh rumbling from his chest—Émilie’s mind drifted back to the day of her human death at the age of fifteen. How she’d spent the morning playing with Sébastien, then left him to his own devices so she might read a book. Émilie had been sure to leave him in his room within shouting distance. She could have read in the room with him, but the light was better in the downstairs nook, and Émilie wanted to enjoy Le Vicomte de Bragelonne without any distractions.

  Passersby had noticed the fire from outside. A Créole maid had screamed as she raced for the stairs, Émilie in tow.

  The fire had already spread to the first landing. Unbeknownst to all, Bastien had hidden himself in a hall closet. No one had been able to find him before they’d raced out the doors, choking on the acrid smoke.

  Émilie had known it would be too late.

  She’d taken the stairs two at a time, the fire thrashing at her skirts, singeing through her stockings. She stifled a shriek and rolled across the floor to put out the flames along the hem of her muslin dress. Her actions had been taken without thought. Without consideration for the risk they posed to herself. Her baby brother was trapped, and she would rather die than watch him burn. He was only a boy of six, after all.

  “Bastien?” Émilie had said in a level voice. “You have to come downstairs with me.”

  “No!” he’d shouted from the hall closet. “The fire will burn me. If I stay here, it will leave me alone.”

  “If we don’t go now, we will get even more hurt.”

  He’d said nothing for a time. Smoke had begun to choke the air around Émilie.

  “Bastien?” She’d tried the knob and found it locked, the metal hot in her palm.

  “I’m sorry, Émilie,” he said so softly she could barely hear him. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

  “Just open the door, mon amour, and all will be forgiven.”

  Bastien turned the handle, and Émilie would never forget the stark look in his grey eyes. As if he’d aged a decade in a matter of a few short moments. She swept him up in her arms and turned back for the stairs.

  A gasp in her throat, she stopped in her tracks. There was no way to use the stairs anymore. The fire had caught along the balustrade and begun to lick at the expensive wallpaper. It was already reaching for the crown molding around the ceiling, the paint starting to bubble.

  Émilie knew she could not panic in front of her little brother. So she raced toward the back of the home and put him down. “Stay right here,” she ordered as she threw open a window sash.

  Another mistake. A breeze tore through the open window, fanning the flames. The smoke began billowing higher, the fire moving ever closer to them.

  Still Émilie refused to be daunted. She began shouting and flailing her arms.

  It was an act of God that had drawn the fire brigade toward them. That had granted the men the wherewithal to create a makeshift landing space below, two windows over. Émilie had seen her uncle staring up at them from the crowd, a bleak expression on his face, as if he were resigned to their deaths.

  Hang his resignation. Émilie refused to give up.

  Coughing all the while, she ripped a piece of her petticoat and threw it over Bastien’s protesting head. In the nick of time, she managed to hurl him out the window, watching—her heart in her throat—as he landed in the center of the blanket, to cheers from the crowd. To her uncle’s awaiting arms. As soon as Nicodemus lifted Bastien from the center of the bedsheet, he’d turned his back on the fire. Turned his back on her.

  A fit of coughing overtook Émilie in that moment. Caused her eyes to water and her body to fold in on itself. She backed away, clutching both hands to her throat, feeling the heat burn into her lungs. When she regained her bearings, precious moments had been lost.

  The window was no longer an option.

  The fire surrounded her on all sides.

  A fresh slew of tears coursed down her cheeks. She crouched toward the floor, seeking clean air, realizing the flames would close in on her soon, hoping the smoke would choke her before the fire burned her skin.

  Something rustled through the flames. A blur of motion coming from above, descending as if from the attic.

  The instant before Émilie succumbed to the smoke and the despair, a set of clear, inhuman eyes—rings of blown-out black pupils surrounded by ochre—stared down at her as strong hands snatched her through the smoke.

  When she woke, her lungs were burned. The skin on her right hand and along the right side of her neck was singed. It took her only a moment to agree to their terms. To agree to serve whoever had saved her. To honor the one who swore to put an end to her pain. Who vowed never to turn his back on her.

  With every promise, Émilie recalled the sight of her uncle watching their home as it burned. The relief in his eyes when Sébastien landed in the center of the fire brigade. How he turned away from the burning building. Away from her.

  In life, Nicodemus had never concerned himself much with her welfare. In death, he left Émilie to burn. He would burn everything to the ground if it meant saving his legacy.

  Which was why Émilie took it from him. Why Émilie lied to everyone. Even the ones she purported to love.

  She grinned up at Luca Grimaldi.

  Everything Émilie had worked for all these years was about to come to pass. She’d already made one part of Luca’s dreams come true. She married him. At her behest, they eloped and traveled
to Europe for a honeymoon. One in which Émilie had spent an inordinate amount of time speaking with some of the elder wolves in the Greek archives. The next part of Luca’s dream would never come to pass, though he did not know it.

  Émilie had no interest in having children. She never had. And the notion that she simply must in order to have value as a woman had always chafed her sensibilities.

  One of the most lasting lessons her uncle had taught her was the weakness of love. It was something Émilie had marveled at over the course of the last decade. Many of the men, women, vampires, werewolves, and other fey creatures she encountered were beings capable of great evil. Interestingly they were also capable of great love.

  And so many of them loved their families with an inordinate amount of ferocity. Their loved ones were often their greatest weakness. It was for their families that they did their worst.

  Émilie wasn’t interested in that kind of weakness. In that kind of excuse.

  She fought for herself and for herself alone. The family she had now was one of survival. She loved them because they gave her the strength of numbers. But her love was conditional. And she always made certain her conditions were met.

  “The leeches are almost here,” a voice announced through the din.

  Émilie refrained from going to the edge of the deck to peer at the sight she’d longed to see for so many years. Instead she walked toward the bow, to the dais reserved for musicians. The electric lanterns glowed beneath her. Along the horizon, a faint light began to bleed into the night sky. The first signs of dawn.

  Luca came to stand beside her. He reached for her hand. Émilie wove her fingers through his. Something roared through her with the force of a summer storm when her brother stepped over the railing, a blank expression on his face.

  Sébastien looked so much like their father. Handsome. Chiseled. Strong.

  Émilie almost flinched.

  A lie. In the end, Rafael Ferrer had been weak. So very weak.

  When Bastien saw her, he stopped, a look of shock and dismay on his face. In the blink of an eye, he schooled his expression into one of calculated ambivalence. A part of Émilie was impressed. The little brother she remembered was far more ruled by the tides of emotion. He reached behind him to offer his hand to the young woman accompanying him.

  Celine Rousseau, who disregarded her brother’s help and held the hem of her long skirts high before planting her booted toes on the deck. Émilie’s gaze narrowed. Odette Valmont, Shin Jaehyuk, Boone Ravenel, and Madeleine de Morny moved into position as all the wolves formed a protective semicircle around Émilie and Luca.

  Émilie removed her hand from Luca’s and stepped toward Bastien.

  “I appreciate you responding to my invitation, Monsieur Saint Germain. Though I’ll admit I expected your arrival a bit sooner,” Émilie said in a pleasant tone.

  Bastien took in a breath as if he meant to speak, then stopped himself. Again Émilie found herself admiring his restraint.

  “I’m certain you wish to ask me how I came to be here, mon petit lion.” She grinned.

  “I do,” he replied. “But does it matter?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Where is Nicodemus?”

  “He came to me of his own volition, just as you have.”

  “I am not here because I wish to be here, Émilie.” His piercing grey eyes cut through her. In another life, she might have been intimidated. “I am here because I was not given a choice.”

  “You were given choices, Sébastien. You chose to come here to save our undeserving uncle, for reasons I am certain I will never understand,” she replied. “You could have left him to his fate, one he deserves more than most villains, to be sure.”

  Bastien paused as if in thought. “I suppose it depends on how one defines a villain, does it not?”

  “You sound so much like him,” Émilie said, her words taunting. “How proud he must be of you.”

  “I am nothing like Nicodemus.” He frowned, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

  Delight warmed through Émilie. Finally she’d managed to strike a nerve with her little brother. Before Émilie had a chance to react, Celine Rousseau stepped toward her, her eyes flashing. “Enough of this. You asked Bastien to come if he ever wished to see his uncle again. What do you want from us?”

  A formidable opponent, as Émilie had surmised. “Marceline Rousseau,” she murmured, appraising her slowly. “I’m happy to finally make your acquaintance.”

  “You came to my shop once. I remember you asking Pippa about a mourning gown.”

  “I did. I could not help myself. Tell me . . . how does it feel to realize you will one day destroy the boy you love? That your kind will forever be plotting to put an end to his kind?” It was deliberate of Émilie to bait this girl. She wanted to see what the half fey could do. What kind of Vale magic might flow through her veins.

  “I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by provoking me,” Celine said softly. “But it won’t work. You won’t goad me to anger, though you are most deserving of it. The anger I feel for you is deep and strong. But I will not let it control me, as it has controlled you. I will not allow hate to define my actions.”

  Something pricked at Émilie’s skin. Like a drove of ants crawling down her back. She laughed, letting the sound carry into the sky. All around her she felt the wolves stir, restless in the shadows. Eager to be unleashed, just as she was. How much Émilie longed to tear Celine Rousseau’s words from her pretty, pale throat. To watch her brother fall to his knees at the sight of his lost love.

  But the wretched girl was right. Émilie’s hate should not define her actions. And Émilie had greater things in store today. From her periphery, she saw the rest of the vampires draw together in a tighter circle around Celine. She marked how Bastien made no move to silence his woman or stop her from taking charge, though he angled himself nearby, his grey eyes glittering.

  They loved her. Every one of these fallen leeches would kill for the half-fey daughter of the Lady of the Vale. It was almost enough to make Émilie laugh even louder.

  The wolves growled as they tightened their own circle. They would be less powerful in the daylight. Émilie knew this, though she nonetheless waited for the dawn. Because Émilie could not leash her emotions in the face of this wretched half-fey creature—this girl who had stolen her brother’s heart—she laughed again.

  “Where is Nicodemus, Émilie?” Bastien asked, his voice cold.

  Émilie turned to the young man who used to be her brother. She took her time, wishing to savor the moment. The rays of sunlight reached ever higher in the sky. Dawn was fast approaching.

  It was time.

  “Luca,” she said softly. “Please see that our esteemed guest is escorted to the boat deck.”

  Bastien’s eyes narrowed as Luca Grimaldi gestured toward the stairs leading below. Her brother’s shoulders rolled back as he followed Émilie’s earlier gaze toward the horizon. Then he murmured something.

  As if he knew what Émilie intended to do.

  Immediately Jae stepped forward, his long jacket falling from his back, his posture like that of a coiled asp.

  “Don’t move,” Émilie said loudly. “If any vampire makes any sudden moves, I will not lift a finger to save you or yours, Sébastien.”

  “And if any harm befalls Nicodemus, I offer you the same promise,” Bastien replied without missing a beat.

  He thought her the sort to throw a chained victim helplessly on the boat deck and watch him burn. Of course he did. That was the elegant, brutal world in which they had been raised.

  So of course it gave them pause when Nicodemus walked up the stairs of his own volition, neither chained nor bound. Two werewolves flanked him. The only sign that he was anything less than an esteemed guest were the long spears tipped in solid silver in each of the wolves’ right hands.
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br />   Émilie watched confusion flicker across Bastien’s face, quickly replaced by cool indifference. Nicodemus nodded at his progeny, his expression unreadable. He strode across the boat deck with purpose, the wolves continuing to flank him. He paused for only an instant before Sébastien and the rest of his immortal children.

  “It was good of you to come,” he said with a small smile. “Mademoiselle Rousseau.” He offered the girl a bow.

  Bastien nodded once in acknowledgment. Nicodemus continued making his way toward Émilie. Once his back was turned from his children, his features sobered. He slowed his footsteps the closer he came to Émilie. In the distance, the sun had begun its careful rise.

  “I knew you would not disappoint, Uncle,” she said with a pointed grin.

  “What do you want in order for us to depart with Nicodemus?” Bastien asked from where he stood.

  “You are free to leave now,” Émilie replied, her grin widening.

  Nicodemus stared at her, twirling the signet ring on his right hand.

  “What games are you playing, Émilie?” Bastien asked.

  “I asked for Nicodemus to come so that we might clear the air between us,” Émilie replied. “He obliged me. Through the course of our conversation, I believe he has come to understand my way of thought,” she continued. “To fully realize what it will take to forge a lasting peace between the Fallen and the Brotherhood.”

  Nicodemus continued to meet her gaze, his eyes unblinking. He inhaled as if he meant to speak. Over his shoulder, Bastien took another step toward them, stayed only by Celine’s hand on his arm.

  “She is correct, Sébastien,” Nicodemus said without turning around. “There is indeed a way to spare everyone present the bloodshed of years ago.”

  “No,” Odette murmured. “No.” She shook her head as understanding dawned on them all. Bastien blurred into motion, Jae rushing from one side.

  Nicodemus removed his signet ring and closed his eyes. The flames alighted on his exposed skin. Émilie watched him grimace in agony, though he made no sound. A pang unfurled around her heart. Once she’d loved him. Seen him as her protector.