Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark)

by Michele Hauf

  She spread her hands before her in a placatory manner, but didn’t offer an argument. She had not a lie to cover her tracks this time.

  Gabriel narrowed his gaze on the woman. So lovely. So deceptive. Speaking a spell against him? What had he seen in her that he’d thought for one moment he could love her?

  “I-I can explain,” she started.

  The glint of a dagger caught his eye. He could not be sure if the line of red purling down the edge of the blade was merely color from above or blood. Until he scented the witch’s blood.

  “So you challenge me with your deadly blood?” He paced closer, circling the candle-enclosed perimeter. “You needn’t stab me with that weapon, merely a touch will incinerate the vampire, yes?”

  “I’ve no intention of harming you, Gabriel.”

  “Why not? You hate me.”

  “No.”

  “You said as much. What better way to rid a nuisance from your life than to be done with me?”

  “Don’t get too close—”

  “Why not? Prolonging the inevitable? Or have you not finished your spell?” He kicked and sent two candles flying. Wax sluiced the marble and solidified in streaks.

  “Please, just listen to me,” she cried. “I don’t want you—”

  “I know you don’t.” Resolute, he wrangled his anger. He had come to place distance between them. She was making it remarkably easy. “And I don’t blame you. We are black and white, we two. So opposite and dangerous to one another.”

  “We share the same pain!”

  That he had confessed his darkest shame to her crushed him now. Truly, she had bewitched the truth from him.

  How to enthrall a witch? He hadn’t a clue, and yet, likely he did. It was all in the eyes. He’d controlled the whore at the Palais Royale with but a look and a whispered suggestion.

  He lowered his head and looked up through his lashes at the impudent witch.

  “Gabriel, I—” She touched her mouth. Wide celadon eyes danced with his. “Where have you been? I’ve—Why are you looking at me like that? Gabriel?”

  He drew in a breath. Concentrate. There must be a way to see inside her, to take control. “I will find your core, witch.”

  “What are you—”She stepped forward, but paused. Smoke hissed up from a candle, coiling wispy tendrils of sulfur between them.

  He felt a tug inside his gut. As if he had grasped upon a speeding soul and his connection had halted it cold. Yes, fall into my gaze.

  Roxane’s hands fell to her sides. The dagger slid down the length of her skirt and clattered upon the marble floor, spinning once and stopping against a candle. A slash of blood sliced the white wax.

  Her mouth pursed and loosened. She muttered a faint “No.”

  Lifting a hand toward her, Gabriel pressed his will out from his fingers and imagined it entwining about the witch’s shoulders and arms.

  Her arms snapped tight to her sides.

  Empowered by the witch’s sudden loss of control he lowered his hand, sending determination down and around her legs. Her skirts swished and closed tight about her legs, the motion causing one of the remaining three candles to flicker out in a wink of sulfur.

  Unceasingly, he held her with his eyes.

  Emboldened by this newfound skill, he tilted his hand and curled his fingers upward.

  Enrobed within the stream of kaleidoscope colors, Roxane’s body rose. Her head fell back across her shoulders. Slowly her body turned, a limp doll commanded by his thrall.

  With but the power of his mind he had commanded another. The thrall was his to own. He stepped close to study her. Held on the air, a curiosity that couldn’t possibly be evil. Could not be the enemy.

  “I will keep you,” the child inside of Gabriel murmured. Thought crashed into plot mode. “With you in thrall, I can keep Anjou away from you once and for all. Then I, and only I, can help Damian. It is what is best, Roxane. You must trust me. I love you. I want to make the world right for you.”

  He spun to leave the room and Toussaint, eyes wide with wonder, stepped through the doorway. The valet must have witnessed the entire thing.

  “You did it,” Toussaint said on a gasp.

  “Indeed, it is the thrall. Quite the spectacle, eh?”

  “Now you will let her down?”

  Gabriel smirked. “Not yet. I’ve an errand to perform.”

  “But you remember what Mesmer said about the thrall. For every moment that a witch remains in such a state her immortality slips away.”

  “Nonsense, Toussaint.” Gorgeous, the witch suspended beneath his sanctuary of colors. An angel mid-fall. He would prevent her from hitting the unconsecrated ground. “Roxane is not immortal. She is a mere earth witch. She has not mastered time.”

  “We don’t know that!”

  “Oh? So you assume this meek and delicate creature has consumed the beating, bloody heart of a vampire in order to attain said immortality?”

  “Well…” Toussaint shrugged.

  “Exactly. She’ll be fine until my return.” Gabriel strode out of the room. “Don’t touch her!”

  Toussaint swung his head to study the woman who literally floated in a slow coil beneath the stained glass oculus. That Gabriel had been able to do such a thing was a marvel.

  And yet, he feared for the woman. Gabriel’s anger blinded him to all but his own troubles. The vicomte could have no clue what sort of danger he had introduced to Roxane by putting her in such a state.

  He stepped forward, gingerly touching a toppled candle. Had she been up to witchcraft? Had Gabriel been justified after all?

  He dared to poke a finger against her skirts.

  Propelled by a sudden force, Toussaint flew across the room. His shoulders and back cracked against the wall. He hadn’t time to thrust out his arms to catch his fall. He landed, face down upon the marble floor.

  He lifted his head from the hard marble. The witch remained untouched, enthralled within Gabriel’s cruel whim.

  “I won’t let the darkness take you, Renan,” he croaked.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Something is not right,” Toussaint pleaded as he swept Gabriel’s cape from his shoulders. “She is weak.”

  Gabriel dashed up the stairway and into his room. Darkness kept him from immediately placing Roxane.

  “The lantern!” he called to Toussaint.

  No vivid colors lighted the enthralled witch. A thin streak of light from the street lamp outside the window cleaved between the drawn velvet draperies, slicing a clean line down the center of her twisted skirts. Still in thrall, Roxane was bent backward, arms and legs slack, as if a ragdoll strewn over a narrow table.

  Close enough to smell the rosemary, but not touching, Gabriel held his open palms over Roxane’s stomach. Warmth permeated his flesh. The flow of her blood sounded in his skull. Slow, not a normal pace.

  Was she truly immortal? That would mean she had taken part in that horrid ritual! A witch must drink the blood of a live vampire to gain immortality. This gorgeous, delicate woman—how had she done such a thing? He shook his head.

  Perhaps the thrall affected a mortal witch equally by draining her life force?

  Either way, this was not what he had intended. What a bastard he had been. He did not hate Roxane or wish her death. He had only thought to detain her while he sought the vampire Anjou. His search had turned up nothing.

  How to reverse this cruel thrall?

  A shower of color swaddled the suspended ragdoll and Gabriel’s hands. Overhead, Toussaint’s footsteps pattered across the roof. He heard the valet say, “Take it easy, boy.” Charles must be wary of his mistress’s danger.

  “What have I done to you, my beautiful Roxane? I did not intend to harm you. I just wanted to—”

  To what? To contain her. To punish her for her lies, for saying she hated him when he knew she did not. What sort of evil thing had he become that he sought to punish? He was no man to be so vicious to a woman. Even if she was a creature who should b
e his natural enemy.

  “Not enemies,” he whispered to the frail beauty. “Never. I love you, Roxane. How do I stop this? Can you hear me? Can-can I touch you?”

  His fingers brushed the pink satin skirt. He could touch her. Lowering his other hand to her stomach, he looked her up and down. This contact did nothing but stop the slow circling of her body.

  Before he had felt her succumb, he had stepped into her very core with his concentration. Could it be so simple as returning that willpower to her core?

  “Look at me.” He lifted her head. Her eyes remained closed, the ice queen sheltered from the vampire’s storm. She was so weak. “I did not wish for this, you must believe me.”

  Compelled to a greedy embrace, he accepted her weight into his arms. Plunging to his knees, he followed Roxane’s body down and cushioned her descent to the marble floor. Guttered candles rolled away from their embrace, strewing soft wax trails out like rays of a wicked sun.

  The dagger Roxane had held lay at the end of one of those wax runnels, dried witch’s blood taunted from the blood groove.

  Let me explain…

  Mayhap she had been speaking a spell to protect him from Anjou? Or for her brother?

  “Come back to me.” He lifted her wobbly head and pressed his lips to her cold flesh. One arm outstretched, her pale fingers curled upon the marble. Vermillion haze splashed the underside of her arms.

  Tears streamed from his eyes and pooled at the corners of his lips. After decades of fierce refusal to show emotion he could not contain the ache. Gabriel swallowed his salty pain and hugged Roxane to his chest, rocking her.

  “Come out of it, my love. I release the thrall!”

  Her body jerked and shuddered. Fingers clutched at his shirt, tugging the tired lace jabot free from the bow.

  “Yes,” he gasped. “I release you, Roxane. Open your eyes. Come back to me!”

  “G-Gabriel?” A sigh spilled from her mouth and over his lips. “I…I was lost.”

  “No, you were right here in my bed chamber.” She tilted her head but did not open her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I put you in a—”

  “—thrall.” She swallowed and opened her eyes. The ice queen, so sad—had she been defeated? A blink released a single teardrop down her cheek and splat upon his hand. “You’ve taken so much…from me,” she managed.

  Depleted, she laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. The fingers that clutched his shirt opened and slid down his chest.

  What a few gold coins could bring to him astonished. Henri checked the ropes secured about his prize’s wrists and ankles and stuffed his handkerchief—smelling of clove—into the boy’s mouth. The blood tempted. But he had far grander plans for this simpering idiot.

  He was pretty and young. A hell of a lot more naive than Xavier had been. Master, the boy had called him as he’d fallen to his knees in the midst of the rabble that had wandered the dust-dry exercise grounds of Bicêtre.

  So he remembered him?

  “Ride on,” Henri called to the driver.

  Settling onto his bed, with Roxane in his arms, Gabriel eased against the pillows. Still weak, she allowed him to move her about.

  “Tell me I have not irrevocably harmed you, Roxane, please. I will plunge a stake into my heart if I have done anything to hurt you. I did not know. I could not have guessed.”

  “I will…live,” she said, a sigh hushing her breath across his throat as she clung to his shirt. “Just not…forever.”

  “You had immortality?”

  Her nod moved across his chest.

  “And now it is gone?”

  “Not sure. Have no idea how long it requires to steal it away. I am weak.”

  Her head heavy upon his chest, she sighed. Gabriel stroked her hair, toying with the curls. It was impossible to keep his thoughts from going to the place of horror Toussaint had described from Mesmer’s explanation.

  “So you…performed the ceremony to become immortal?”

  “Yes.”

  Her confession stirred the blood in his head to a woozy spin. That this seemingly simple, unassuming woman could have done such a thing. To a vampire. A man like him. For her own gain.

  As you took her blood for your gain?

  No, to help Damian.

  And yes, for himself. For the passion and life ever after.

  “Forgiveness is not mine to beg.” He kissed her forehead. Her fragile hand landed on his, a withered flower upon hard stone. “You must rue the day you met me. If I would have died that night of the attack, you might have had your brother back by now.”

  “Or I may have been killed by Anjou. Don’t say such things, Gabriel. Just hold me. I feel as though I am…yet slipping. I don’t feel safe.”

  “But you are.” Hope was that she truly was safe in his arms, but truth told she was probably in more danger with him than out alone in Paris. Even his accidents could prove dangerous. “So sorry, Roxane.”

  “I should have explained everything to you. I secreted my truths. I had initially thought to use you to get to Anjou.”

  “I will be whatever you wish me to be. Your lover, your bait—”

  “Don’t speak like that. My heart has changed. I love you, Gabriel.”

  “You should not love me.”

  “It is not that I should not, but that I wish not to. Only because I don’t want to cause you any more pain. If you were not mine…”

  He closed his eyes and kissed the crown of her head. True words that made his heart swallow. “I love you, Roxane. Forgive me.”

  Gabriel woke and looked over the wilted flower he had lain beside through the night. The draperies were drawn, but he sensed it was morning. He could not see Roxane’s face in the hazy light, but he could hear her soft, shallow breaths. Untroubled sleep, he hoped.

  Thank whichever God would listen for that.

  He kissed her forehead and she stirred. Slender fingers entwined within his. Drawing his lips down her nose and to her mouth, he felt the curve of her smile.

  “I feel as though I’ve walked against a raging windstorm,” she murmured.

  He fought renewed tears, “I could have killed you.”

  “You did not know,” she said, her eyes still closed, but her head turning to find his mouth. She kissed him. Such mercy. “You had to see if you could do it.”

  “I did not think the thrall would harm you. I would not have left you if I had known.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To find Anjou and—hell, I wanted to kill the bastard. Give you no reason not to choose me to help your brother. It was selfish of me. The evil has cleaved to me. The remnants of my soul are turning black, Roxane.”

  “Don’t say things like that.” Her fingers fell upon his mouth. Still so far from her strength.

  He clasped her hand in his. “It is truth and it frightens me. Would I have killed Anjou if I found him?”

  “You would have ended a life that has taken so many others.”

  “Do not in any way make me heroic. I am like Anjou.”

  “You do not kill for blood.”

  “I am a novice. As my heart blackens so will my ways.”

  “Stop it.”

  “What?”

  “Playing the tragic victim! You are a good man, Gabriel. You will remain so, I know it. I won’t have you thinking any other way. Promise?”

  “You do not cease to startle me. Even after all I have done to you, you remain kind and open to my black heart.”

  “It is like breathing, Gabriel.”

  Her simple kindness killed him. For she loved her own death. “I must know, the thrall. Did you lose your immortality?”

  “I suspect so.”

  “You can restore it?”

  “There is but one way to do that.”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed her mouth, soft and warm. In her celadon gaze he saw his reflection. Did he reside there or was it merely a trick of the light?

  �
��If I could give you my heart, I would.”

  “You already have. And I did not treat it with the respect you deserve.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I should not have been so judgmental. Can you forgive me?”

  “I have. But can you ever trust me now?”

  “Why not?”

  “I will always be looking at you as someone who can give me the immortality I have lost.”

  “Ah. And I have offered my heart to you. Literally.”

  “I could not take it.”

  “I don’t imagine how you could have ever performed such a ritual.”

  “Charles helped. I won’t elaborate.”

  Nor did he wish to hear anything so vulgar cross his lover’s pale lips.

  He nuzzled into her neck. The pulse of life tempted him to press his lips there, but he kept back his desires, and instead kissed softly, his lips hiding his fangs.

  “Oh, lover.”

  He slid his hand down her stomach. The chemise tickled her knees as he inched it up with his fingers. The pillow cupped her head as she pressed back, riding the sudden pleasure of his touch and moving it throughout her body.

  THIRTY

  They staggered from Bicêtre as if refugees allowed out into the light for the first time. It was not a sunny day. Thunder clouds sweatered the sky. The atmosphere felt heavy, foreboding with a crackle of lightening across the sky.