by Reinke, Sara
“Arnaud?” After another bewildered moment, realization seemed to dawn on Jean Luc, and he tipped back his head, laughing. “You mean your half-wit, drunkard brother?” he asked Mason, slapping him on the back of the head as if sharing some hilarious joke with him. “Is that what you’ve told him all of these years?”
“Shut your mouth,” Mason said.
Confused, Tristan looked at his uncle. What is he talking about? he thought, but Mason wouldn’t look at him, had, in fact, turned his face defiantly away from Jean Luc, his brows furrowed, his eyes and lips clamped tightly shut.
Still laughing, Jean Luc came to stand in front of Tristan, then folded his legs beneath him, lowering himself to look almost tenderly down at him. “Poor poppet,” he said. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“You…son of a bitch,” Mason cried. “Leave him alone! You’ve…no right—”
“Haven’t you ever looked in the mirror?” Jean Luc asked Tristan with a gentle smile. “I could tell from the first time I laid eyes on you. Arnaud Morin didn’t sire you. His father did.”
Tristan flinched as if he’d been struck again. What? he thought, stunned. But that…that would mean…
Jean Luc seized him in a sudden telekinetic hold, jerking him to his feet and shoving him face-first toward Mason, holding him pinned in the air, immobilized, nearly nose to nose with his uncle.
“Tell him, Mason,” Jean Luc said. “Tell him it’s the truth.”
“Mason?” Tristan said, stricken. Tell me it’s not, he pleaded in his mind. Tell me it’s a lie, Mason. Oh, God, please tell me you haven’t lied to me my whole life—not you, anyone but you. Tell me Michel’s not my father.
“Michel loved your mother,” Mason said. “Tristan, listen to me…he and Lisette loved each other deeply, but they always knew…because of Phillip…they knew they couldn’t…”
“No,” Tristan whispered, shaking his head. “No, no, that’s not true. That can’t be true.”
“I’m sorry.” Mason’s eyes flooded with tears. “God above, mon lapin, I…I’m so sorry. We were only trying to protect you.”
“And a damn fine job you’ve done of it too,” Jean Luc lauded from behind them.
Tristan uttered a startled yelp as he abruptly flew backward, crashing hard into the wall, this time cracking more ribs and catching the brunt of the blow on his already battered arm. With a hoarse, agonized cry, he collapsed, on the brink of unconsciousness, his mind succumbing to shadows. He didn’t hear Jean Luc’s approach but was shocked back to semi-lucidity by pain as the older man snatched him by the hair again, hoisting his head from the ground.
“No, no, no,” he said, clucking his tongue, mock-fussing. “Don’t fade out on me now, poppet. I want you wide awake for this.”
Tristan groaned, breathless and hurting, as Jean Luc forced him onto his knees. Spreading his feet wide as he stood behind Tristan, Jean Luc pulled his head back, angling his face toward the sky. With his free hand, he gestured in Mason’s direction, and the pliers Tristan had seen beneath the chair rose into the air, wobbling unsteadily in place before floating toward Mason’s outstretched, awaiting palm.
“I’m going to rip out his teeth,” Jean Luc said to Mason.
Dazed with pain, Tristan looked up and saw the glow of stars overhead and the broad, bright sweep of each spotlight beam cutting intersecting diagonals within his line of sight. He felt Jean Luc’s hand slip from his hair, then come around beneath his chin to crush against his jaw, forcing his mouth open.
“Not just his fangs,” Jean Luc said. “Every last goddamn one of them.” With a grim wink delivered for Tristan’s exclusive benefit, he added, “That way, whenever I skull-fuck him, he won’t be able to bite.”
As he felt Jean Luc cram the pliers past his lips, Tristan tried to focus his waning conscious awareness on the stars, how their pinpoints of light reminded him of the glistening beads of dewy glow on Karen’s skin when she’d become aroused, when his pupils had widened and the bloodlust had come upon him, expanding his sensitivity to light. He thought of Karen because he imagined he could feel her, that inherent sensation he’d always felt. He imagined he could smell her sweet, delicate fragrance, the one he’d know anywhere, the one he hoped to cement in his mind, to cling to for comfort throughout whatever unimaginable hell he was about to endure.
I’m sorry, he thought, closing his eyes tightly. Oh, God, Karen, I’m sorry I never fed from you, never had the courage to see our pair-bonding through. If I had, I’d be able to sense you now—for real, not just my imagination—and I could tell you that I love you.
I love you too, he thought he heard her say, her voice inside his mind, and then his eyes flew wide as he heard her with his ears too, a furious cry from somewhere behind him. Jean Luc jerked abruptly, violently, his hands falling away from Tristan, the pliers clattering to the ground. Tristan fell forward, catching himself with his uninjured arm before he face-planted into the asphalt again. Cradling his broken arm against his belly, he looked over his shoulder in bewildered surprise.
He saw Karen standing there, bathed in a corona of light from the security lamp. There was blood on her face, a light spattering of dark splotches, as if it had somehow splashed onto her. Her brows were furrowed with a murderous ferocity he would never have expected or thought her capable of.
As she stumbled back, Jean Luc in turn floundered forward, his eyes wide, his mouth agape, a strange caw escaping from his lips. He pivoted clumsily, trying to face her, and Tristan saw something long and thick, a shaft of bright yellow dangling parallel to the length of his spine.
“You…” Jean Luc croaked at Karen. “You…human bitch!”
With that, he pitched forward, crashing to the ground, the spiked end of the fire ax buried deeply in the back of his skull. She’d swung it hard enough to split the bone open wide, like a rotten walnut, and he lay prone and motionless on the ground, blood pooling out to envelop him in a widening circumference.
“Karen?” Tristan gasped in shock, certain that he was either dreaming—that he’d passed out somewhere along the line—or was suffering from pain-induced hallucinations.
“I’m here.” She rushed toward him, dancing around Jean Luc’s outstretched legs, then falling onto her knees. Her arms flew around him and he crumpled into her shoulder, shuddering in her embrace. “Oh, God,” she whispered, even as his consciousness at last abandoned him fully, and he fainted in her arms. “I’m here, Tristan. It’s all right. It’s over now.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“He didn’t sense me,” Karen said to Michel as the two of them sat together on opposite sides of Tristan’s bed more than a week later. She couldn’t come up with any other reason why she’d been able to take Jean Luc Davenant wholly by surprise. “I’m not one of the Brethren, so he wasn’t even aware of me. He couldn’t sense my presence.”
“He was too busy focusing on revenge,” Michel said, his expression fraught with guilt and remorse as he watched Tristan sleep.
“He’s my son,” Michel had told Karen at the Trésor, an admission so frank and unexpected, she’d nearly keeled over in shock. “He doesn’t know. Mason does, but no one else, not in the entire clan. If Jean Luc Davenant figures it out…” His voice had grown strained, and he’d paused for a long moment as if composing himself again. “Please,” he’d whispered to Karen. “Help my sons.”
He hadn’t had time that horrific night to explain to her more fully than this, but during the long days that had followed, during which Tristan had languished, comatose and unresponsive, in the compound medical clinic back in Lake Tahoe, the two of them had had ample opportunity to talk.
Tristan had been injured so badly, had he been human, in all likelihood he wouldn’t have survived. A chest tube had been inserted to ease the burden on his right lung, which had been punctured by his broken ribs and subsequently collapsed. Severe brain contusions had resulted in prolonged unconsciousness and intracranial swelling. He’d also suffered moderate renal inj
ury and a dislocated hip and shoulder. Michel had personally performed the numerous surgical procedures needed to repair these injuries, plus try to restore eventual functioning and strength to Tristan’s shattered arm.
He’d kept a faithful vigil at the younger man’s bedside, leaving only to check on Mason. Although badly beaten, Mason had a far better prognosis than Tristan. He’d spent only two nights at the clinic before Michel had discharged him, and he’d been in earlier that morning to show off a set of prosthetic teeth that had been fitted to replace the fangs Jean Luc had so viciously excised.
“I’ve got my everyday pair,” he’d said, flashing Karen a grin that might have been handsome, had it not been for the healing bruises and abrasions still apparent on his face. “And these”—holding out his hand, he’d shown her a removable bridge fitted with a pair of long, gold-plated canines—“for more formal occasions.”
“You saved Mason’s life,” Michel murmured, looking across Tristan’s bed at her. His voice was soft and somewhat strained, as if he hovered on the verge of tears. “And Tristan’s too. I can’t thank you enough.”
Karen shook her head. “There’s no need.”
“Yes,” Michel replied. “There is. I’ve seen the way Tristan looks at you. I’ve sensed his thoughts, the conflict he feels inside.” A soft smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Just as I’ve sensed your own.”
“I love him,” Karen said. It felt good to admit this aloud—and to Michel of all people—right somehow in her heart.
“I know,” he said. “You may find this hard to believe, but I’ve been in love before, enough to recognize it when I see it. A long time ago, before we left Kentucky, my father had a slave girl named Rachel who worked in the kitchen. She was exquisite, quite possibly the most amazing creature God ever saw fit to grace upon this earth. Of course, things being how they were in those days, I’d have been no more free to love her openly as a human than as a Brethren. So I loved her in secret, and for her part, she loved me in return.” His gaze became distant and he fell momentarily silent, glancing down at the bed, and Tristan’s fingers, laced loosely through his own.
“Was that what made you think of the pair-bonding concept?” she asked, making him smile.
“Who told you about that?”
“Mason,” she said, and he chuckled.
“I might have guessed. Yes, she’s the reason. Or the inspiration, I guess you could say.”
“Did you feed from her?”
“Like a glutton. Whenever I could.” He laughed again. “She never minded for it, said it aroused in her a sort of wildness for me, made her damn near insatiable.” Cutting her a sheepish look, he said, “Though I suppose you don’t really want to hear about that.”
Karen shook her head. “I don’t mind. What happened to her?”
His smile withered. “She died. I guess as all of us must at some point. But when she did, it left behind an emptiness inside of me. Something dark and hollow, hurting. I didn’t think I would ever love again…not like with Rachel.”
Again, his attention turned to Tristan, and he drew his thumb lightly against the unconscious younger man’s knuckles. “But I was wrong. When my oldest son, Phillip—you’ve met him, haven’t you? Once or twice?—when he was wed to Lisette Giscard, when I set eyes on this delicate, gentle flower of a woman for the first time, it felt like a punch to my heart, as if all of the emotions, the attraction, the desire I’d once felt for Rachel were instantaneously resurrected. She was extraordinary.”
Again he smiled. “She would play for me for hours on the piano. Mon Dieu, I could never tire of listening to her play. She’s the one who taught Tristan, you know, although she’d have told you he was the more talented between them. Phillip always found it trifling, and he seldom paid mind to it…or her. She suffered a miscarriage, their first child, and he all but shunned her after that. She was his first wife, but he’d relegated her in his regard to less than any of the others, incompetent somehow. An inconvenience to him. She turned to me for comfort and affection, and I’m ashamed to admit it, ma chérie, but I gave it to her willingly, gladly.”
“What about Arnaud?” Karen asked.
His expression shifted, growing ashamed. “He hardly knew her. By that point, his alcohol abuse was out of control. I could count on one hand the number of days I found him sober in that year alone. It was Lisette’s idea to say they’d had an affair when she became pregnant. She remembered the fire of 1815, and all of the infighting that precipitated it. She was terrified that if I admitted to being the father of her unborn child, it would all start again, creating a schism in the clan from which we’d never recover.” Shaking his head, he heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe she was right. But agreeing to that—denying her and Tristan—was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life…and one I still question and regret to this day.”
From the bed, Tristan uttered a soft sound, breathless and hurting, his brows lifting in his sleep as he moved his head restlessly. Karen and Michel sprang to their feet in unison, both of them leaning over the side rails.
“Easy, petit,” Michel murmured, smoothing Tristan’s hair back from his brow. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.” When he looked up at Karen, she saw tears swimming in his eyes, gleaming with reflected light. “I love him too,” he whispered.
She smiled and reached for him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I know.”
****
“He needs to feed.”
Michel had told her this before excusing himself from the bedside. “I got your voice mail, by the way,” he’d said. When she’d looked at him, puzzled, he’d added, “The one you left me from Las Vegas. Part of it, anyway. The reception must have been terrible. There was too much static on the line for me to make it out clearly.”
She’d remembered. I just think it’s best if I go, she’d told him, part of a three-step plan she’d pretty much forgotten since then.
“Was there something you needed?” Michel had asked, pausing in Tristan’s doorway. He’d given her a pointed glance that had let her know nothing had been wrong with her message to him; he’d received it loud and clear and was offering her the chance to take it back. “Something you’d wanted to say?”
“No.” She’d shaken her head. “Never mind. It wasn’t important.”
Tristan continued that agitated fidgeting after Michel had gone. With his uninjured hand, he pawed weakly at the chest tube leading out from a small incision site between his ribs, beneath his arm, and she caught his fingers to keep him from pulling on it.
“It’s all right,” she said, trying to soothe him.
“He has to be in terrible pain,” Michel had lamented. “The more quickly he heals, the better. It would help him to feed.” He’d offered this last with a long, pointed look at her. “Although I suppose I could get a blood bag, hang an NG-feed for him.”
She glanced around the room, then leaned over to dig through one of the bedside dresser drawers. When she found a small lancet inside, the kind used when checking blood glucose levels, she pulled it out. Pulling off the plastic cap, she studied the small, squat needle for a moment. Then, without giving herself time for hesitation or reconsideration, she plunged it deep into the pad of her index finger. It hurt, sharp like a bee sting, and when she yanked it back, wincing, she saw a bead of blood, dark and glistening, well up at the point of puncture.
Michel was right—Tristan needed to feed. Even the scent of this tiny droplet was enough to stimulate him, despite his lack of consciousness. He squirmed in bed, tangling his fingers in his sheets, moving his legs restlessly. His eyes still closed, he turned to her, gasping for breath, nearly panting, his face glossed with sweat. Beneath his upper lip, she could already see the telltale swelling as his fangs began to instinctively descend.
“Here,” she murmured, pressing her finger lightly to his lips. When he opened his mouth, she slipped her fingertip inside and felt his tongue push against her skin as he struggled to suckle the bl
ood. His teeth descended further, forcing his jaws apart, and his eyes flew open wide, the green-gray irises completely swallowed by his enormous, swollen pupils. His eyes looked like doll’s, all glossy and black, and he sat up despite the tangled web of intravenous lines and oxygen tubing draped and arranged around him and the bed.
She didn’t know if he was awake or not, not fully, anyway, or if he was reacting out of physiological reflex. Clasping her hand between his own, he drew her finger from his lips, then tugged against her, pulling her near. She fell into his shoulder, her head cocked to the side, her throat lay bare and exposed. His breath was hot against her skin, rapid-fire and fluttering, and she felt the prick of his teeth, twin points digging into her skin.
I’m not afraid, she thought, closing her eyes, even though her heart was hammering, and her own breath came in quick, staccato hiccups. I’m not afraid, not of this, not of Tristan. Not ever.
There was a moment of pain as he sank his teeth into her flesh, but then the analgesic enzymes in his saliva kicked in, making her numb to anything but pressure as his fangs extended further, delving deeper. When they met their mark, puncturing her carotid artery, he uttered a low, gravelly moan and pressed his mouth fiercely against her skin, forming a tight seal.
She closed her fingers in his hair, suddenly and acutely turned on, not only by the sensation of his lips against her skin, but the soft, muffled sounds as he fed from her. As his rhythmic sucking increased in tempo, so, too, did her arousal grow, and now she was the one squirming, wriggling, panting for breath.
“Please,” she whispered, because it was as if he was making love to her, touching her, caressing her, moving her to climax without using his hands, without as much as undressing her. “Tristan, please!”
