Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark)

by Michele Hauf

  “Yes.”

  “How often does a vampire need to drink blood?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Do you feel instinctive about it?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure. Well, yes, I know the feeling when it arrives. Deep and ingrained, if you can believe that. I guess it is something I will become accustomed to.”

  “Do you wish to leave? To find an, er…manner to quench your hunger?”

  The sudden heat of his mouth on her breast chased away her troubling query.

  “I’m hungry for this,” he murmured against her flesh as he tugged the ribbon laces even looser. “What have you been up to, running about untethered?”

  “The urge came upon me.”

  “Mm, I’m familiar with urges, you saucy nudist. But you’re not alone now. In fact, I have it on good authority that you hold company with a dangerous creature. The mythical vampire. Are you frightened?”

  “Should I be?”

  He tweaked her nipple, and she arched her back in response, lifting her breasts high and entreating him continue. She did not fear him looking upon the fire mark; it was who she was. Circling her nipple with his tongue, he sucked and laved at her flesh. “We might be discovered.”

  “Good.”

  “Oh? You are a voyeur then?”

  “Voyeurs like to watch. I think to be watched might be exciting.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on you.” The nearby lamplight reflected in his eyes. Two wide glowing fires burned in the centers of his dark irises. They matched the blaze that flickered inside her. “This mark of ascension is gorgeous. You are gorgeous.” He slipped a hand down her thigh and pulled up her skirts. Her lace petticoat rustled like the linden leaves overhead. “I want to watch you come, lover.”

  His hand slid across her thigh, up, warming a path to her belly. A commanding move that drew pleasurable moans from her throat. Roxane parted her legs and felt him enter her with a single finger.

  “Mon amour,” he breathed. “You’re so ready.”

  “You make me ache, Gabriel.” Two fingers danced inside her, exploring, mapping Renan territory, then slipped up to tease at her aching clitoris. “Yes, right there—no, don’t stop. You tease me.”

  “Merely prolonging the madness,” he whispered.

  She could sense the irony in his voice, but closed her eyes to darker meanings. Fire coursed through her veins. Dew dripped from her flesh to splat upon the midnight-sweet blades of grass.

  Pulse beats quickened, synchronizing between them and huffing out in wanting gasps and moans and whispers for more, more—“More,” Roxane cried.

  “I’ve a spell of my own, witch,” he whispered. “You like it?”

  “If this is the vampire’s thrall, I gladly sacrifice to have it. Oh!”

  Silently she succumbed, floating upon the madness of pleasure he offered. Little frantic pulses tugged her limbs and shivered through her being. Delicious. Splendid. The rush of desire would not relent.

  “I want to feel you.” She slid her hand down the buttoned satin waistcoat and to his breeches.

  Gabriel muttered, “That’s not a stake in my pocket.”

  She laughed, despite his droll humor. But too quickly her laughter segued to uncontrollable gasps. Her body convulsed, mining the edge of release. So close to flight.

  A fang grazed her nipple and she flashed her eyes wide. “No, Gabriel!” She jerked upright, pushing him away with a palm to his forehead.

  But he resisted her and seized her hand, pinning it behind her back. Flickering light glinted on the sharp fangs that skimmed his lower lip.

  With her free hand, she touched one. He grinned. His other hand, still caught between her legs—a flick of one finger shot a shudder through her system.

  “What shall it be?” he wondered in a deep voice laced with whimsy. “Pleasure or pain?”

  “Don’t do it, Gabriel. I choose pleasure.” She squeezed her thighs about his hand. Vibrations of her flight hummed, taunting, cleaving for release, to glide as if floating. “Please?”

  “What if I wish to chance it? Once already I have tasted your blood.”

  “Why must you speak like that? I don’t want to lose you. I love—”

  He gripped her neck, choking off her words. The finger between her legs slipped out and across her thigh.

  Roxane swallowed. His fingers clenched her throat. The sensations still roiling in her loins were difficult to hold on to. What was he up to?

  “You will not love me, don’t ever say it.” He bared his fangs in a wicked sneer. Moonlight glinted upon his truth. Gabriel’s eyes sought hers, bouncing from one to the other. “I am a beast. I do not want the burden of such emotion.”

  “You cannot speak my mind for me. It is the blood hunger talking. You are not like this, Gabriel. Stop!”

  That burst of fear changed the malicious glimmer in the vicomte’s eyes. As if suddenly realizing his slip into malice, his face softened, his mouth falling open.

  He nestled his face into her hair, his jaw resting on her shoulder. A beast subdued? She mustn’t test, for fear of his fangs. One bite would see him dead.

  “Please don’t love me, Roxane, for you are the very death of me.”

  Bittersweet truth.

  “Must I be satisfied with making love to you, but never having your love?”

  “Yes, that is how it must be. It is the only choice I can offer you.”

  “What has become of your proposal to marriage? Must I accept becoming your wife without the love? What of your desire to have a family?”

  “Roxane.” A humorless smile. “Be satisfied with what I can give you. You’ve no worry that I’ll take up with another woman. I want only you.”

  “You want this.” She gripped his wrist, dragging his fingers to her mons.

  “Oh, yes. Sweet witch, dripping for me. Moaning for— But I want all of you, Roxane.”

  “What if I refuse to give all without your love? Without the promise of a family and marriage and a normal life?”

  “Normal? You ask that of a vampire, witch?”

  He had a point.

  She hated to hear him talk like this. It was not Gabriel drawing this negative argument, it was the urge for darkness, the need for sustenance. “Very well.” She spoke the lie easily. Things would never be simple. She would never truly know happiness. “If that is all you can offer, I want it. Fuck me, Gabriel.”

  “My sweet little witch.”

  And her body reached the pinnacle she had touched. Gabriel bewitched. He commanded. He devastated. Climax rode a silent wave through her every bone.

  And when the two lay still within the shadows of the garden, her lover whispered, “I love you, Roxane.”

  All she had wanted to hear meant so little now.

  “I hate you, Gabriel Renan. I hate you for your lies and your truths.” She pulled herself up. “Take me home. To my house, not yours.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  They let off Roxane at home. She did not turn to Gabriel nor did she bid him au revoir. It mattered not, for his skull yet echoed with her vehement diatribe.

  I hate you, Gabriel.

  How was that possible? After they had made love in the shadows of the Tuileries? Morbleu, he may have been abrupt with her. Indeed, it had been the hunger talking. But he’d confessed his love!

  And had then taken it back.

  The horses snorted; their hooves pawed the cobbles. Toussaint waited for a signal that they leave.

  “Go,” Gabriel said on a sigh.

  “Home!” Toussaint bellowed at the driver.

  “The Palais Royale,” Gabriel called to correct. He ignored Toussaint’s appalled gape and stared out the window.

  I hate you, Gabriel.

  Roxane had every right. First, he asked her to marry him, and then he promised her he could never love her.

  Well, he couldn’t. His love would only hurt her. Vampires and witches were no mix.

  He must do what he had planned. Save the brother
from serving as endless liege to the mad men of Bicêtre, then be done with Roxane. A vampire vicomte was not what was best for a simple country witch.

  “We’re here.”

  “Very good. Don’t wait, Toussaint. I’ll walk.”

  “But—”

  A flash of fang silenced the servant.

  Sated, Gabriel dragged an arm across his mouth. No blood on his shirt; he was learning delicacy. Swaggering into a grinning stride he mentally congratulated his neatness.

  Breathe now. Be alone. Dive into this new life. Understand it, so it will not bring you so far into the shadows you can never emerge.

  He walked around a blurry haze of light reflected on the ground. Glancing up he spied a window that released candle glow to the outside world in the shape of a cross. He stood outside a little chapel.

  “Be alert,” he chided the giddy new beast inside him. “Or soon find your death.”

  Footsteps echoed. From around the corner walked a man in blue damask and tricorn.

  Him.

  “We missed you at the opera,” Gabriel called.

  Xavier Desrues did not appear in the least startled. “I was otherwise occupied.”

  “Roxane expected as much.”

  The man strode a wide circle about him and the cross-shaped glow on the cobbles. He drew black gloves through his fingers, stroking, slightly menacing. “So you’ve fucked my daughter and offered the requisite marriage proposal. Quite the gentleman you are, vicomte.”

  “I’ve no dispute with you, Desrues. I’ve no intention of judging, for your life is your own. As well, Roxane’s life is her own.”

  “So if she chooses to run about with a known rake I should stand back and allow it to happen? You are foolhardy if you think I care so little about my girl. Yes, we have our differences. I’ll be damned if she blames me for her mother’s death. I blame myself every morning that I rise. Roxane has suffered for my indiscretions. But I’ll not allow you to make her life the worse.”

  “I’ve no intention of doing any such thing.” Gabriel stepped forward. The cross glow touched his flesh. He recoiled at first sense of heat. “I love your daughter, Monsieur Desrues. I crave a life of domesticity with her and our children.”

  “You’ll grant me the benefit of doubt, since I am aware of your reputation.”

  “Mere surface glamour. I am not the man you see.”

  “So, you are a liar?”

  Gabriel punched a frustrated fist through the air and paced away from the dangerous light shaped of the holy. “You’ve every right to hold me to the highest standards, for she is your daughter. No man should be good enough for her. Especially not a—” Vampire, he thought.

  Xavier’s damask heels clicked toward Gabriel. The man, much younger than he should appear, angled a hard gaze at Gabriel. “Would you walk away from her if I insisted?”

  It is what he should have done all along, the very moment the ice queen bewitched him with her celadon gaze. But what man could resist her allure? The hope of love…

  “Yes,” Gabriel offered.

  “Then I insist.”

  “But—”

  “Ah.” Xavier waved a finger between them. His eyes castigated. “I knew there would be a but. There always is.”

  “Do you honestly believe that you, a man who has walked back into Roxane’s life for but a few moments, can know her heart?”

  “I can never dream to guess at the machinations of my daughter’s heart. Much as I would give my life to do so.”

  Separated by the cross glow, the men faced each other in a duel of wills. “Do you trust you are doing the right thing by asking me to walk away?”

  “I know the hearts of men of your ilk. You are her enemy, vampire.” Xavier pulled a wood column from inside his frock coat. The point was sharp as a rapier. “Walk away, and I’ll not stake you through the heart.”

  “You speak madness.” But while Gabriel protested he fought to conceal his surprise. First encounter with opposition—and a knowing opposition at that. “What do you know about me?”

  “I know you are a vampire.”

  “How?” Shocked at the truth, he tilted a wary eye on the stake-wielding bastard. Had the man seen the smoke rise from his hand when he’d briefly moved it into the cross-glow? “Vampires are myth.”

  “It is the myth that keeps them safe. You wonder how I know? It is apparent.”

  “It is? How?” Gabriel spread his arms and looked down over his body. “Please tell me, because I am new at this, and if I am sending a signal or flashing a warning I probably need to be aware of it.”

  Xavier smirked and strode carefully around the distorted shape of the cross. “Oh, you don’t flash.”

  “Are you a witch, like your daughter? Is that how you know?”

  “You know my daughter is a witch, and yet you risk your life by being with her?”

  “I was not a vampire when first we met. I had no idea she was a witch, until…” No sense in telling the father he’d made his daughter a victim, his very creator.

  So he had wronged Roxane. Had taken the blood from her without permission. You used her to serve yourself. Indeed, he should, and must, step away.

  “She holds far more power over me than I do her.”

  “How did the two of you find each other?”

  “She found me. Right after the attack on me.”

  “Ah, yes. Friend of yours?”

  “Are you mad? I would have never asked for this!”

  Xavier nodded as if considering. “I see you decided not to resist the blood hunger.”

  “I decided—” Gabriel paused. He wasn’t sure how much the man knew. Roxane felt sure Xavier Desrues did not know about his son’s unfortunate slip into madness. He couldn’t tell all his reasons for succumbing to vampirism. “It’s a hell of a better option than madness.”

  “So I have been told. But enough chatter.” Xavier twirled the wooden stake expertly. “Leave, or you’re a pile of blood and ash.”

  “Not until you give me some answers. You know what I am, and I will consider stepping back from your daughter at your request, but I still don’t know what you are. Or if you are more a danger to Roxane than I can ever be.”

  “You accuse me of wanting to harm my daughter?”

  Gabriel reared from the raised stake. He was just getting the knack of vampirism, no sense in so quickly bringing the party to an end. “I want to know where you stand in the whole scheme of things.”

  “I am merely a concerned father.”

  Who had happened to guess Gabriel was a vampire? Of course the man had come from a family of witches; he would have knowledge of the supernatural.

  The stake remained in the air, threatening. Gabriel raised his hands to placate. Had he the strength to take the man down? Of course. But jumping his lover’s father would never redeem him in Roxane’s doubting heart.

  “Very well then,” he conceded, lowering his hands. “I will not go to her.”

  “You had better not.”

  “But I cannot prevent her coming to me.”

  “You will, or you will not live to dream about having a future with Roxane.”

  “You’re a hell of a mystery, Desrues.”

  “And you are dead if you so much as breathe my daughter’s air.”

  And what would the man make of the vampire Anjou if he knew what he had done to his son? Together the father and daughter could work to destroy Anjou. But they wouldn’t have a hope without Gabriel to coax Damian up from the madness.

  “I am leaving.” Gabriel stepped back. “But I’m not giving up on your daughter, or your son.”

  Xavier Desrues held the stake aloft as he watched the vicomte’s hasty retreat into the shadows.

  His son? What in hell had the bastard meant by that? What had Damian to do with this?

  Releasing the breath he had held during the entire encounter, Xavier stumbled backward, thinking to catch himself against the outer wall of the cathedral. His hand slashed through the gol
den light that had kept the vicomte nervously at bay. A spiral of smoke sizzled from his fingers. He clutched them to his chest and coiled, spinning and stumbling, seeking the darkness.

  His cruel darkness.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Gabriel had told Xavier Desrues he would walk away from his daughter. He should not have made such a promise. It would be the honorable thing to do. A choice that would keep Roxane from a future that promised only pain.

  How to do it without hurting her more than he had to? Without hurting himself?

  She had made it clear she hated him. Or could it have been a senseless tirade, a result of her affronted morals? She cared for him still. She must. As he did her.

  But to keep her safe, he must push her away.

  “I’ll figure a way,” he hissed. “I’ll…put her under my thrall and make her believe she doesn’t love me.” Like a drug, the thrall would turn her to indifference. Give her heart new hope to love another.

  He charged through his bedchamber door and Roxane spun around at his entrance. Azure, violet, and narrow streaks of rust infused her flesh. Crimson rained upon her hair, dramatically brightening it in bloody rivulets around her face. Around the circumference of her skirts sat fat white candles, guttered and hissing smoke, freshly blown out. A dagger glinted in her palm.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “Are you placing a spell upon my home, my private chambers?”