Книга - Seducing the Vampire

Seducing the Vampire
Michele Hauf


A Vampire Like No Other… Courted by two dangerous vampire brothers, Viviane succumbs to handsome Rhys. Yet Viviane’s unaware that Rhys seeks vengeance against his brother, Constantine – and he intends to get it by stealing Viviane and tainting her with his blood. But just as Rhys is realising the depth of his love for Viviane, his brother takes his revenge.Constantine casts a spell that condemns her to living death in a glass coffin. Two centuries later, Rhys hears of the Snow White vampire – his lost love Viviane. He must find her and set her free, but can he save her from the evil still intent on destroying them?










Praise for Michele Hauf

“Hauf delivers excitement, danger and romance

in a way only she can.”

—Sherrilyn Kenyon

“Dark, delicious and sexy.”

—New York Times bestselling author Susan Sizemore on Her Vampire Husband

“Cleverly engrossing dialogue, overwhelming desire and

intriguing paranormal situations are skillfully combined

to make this an irresistible read.”

—Cataromance.com on Moon Kissed

“A novel twist on a vampire tale … Hauf mixes well-

developed characters and sparkling dialogue with a

paranormal tale and comes out with a winner.”

—RT Book Reviews on Kiss Me Deadly

“With dangerous encounters, a myriad of paranormal

beings and even some subtle humor, The Highwayman is an enchanting love story packed with riveting adventures.” —Cataromance.com

“In this action-packed delight, Hauf’s humorous writing

and well-developed characters combine for a realistic

story—in spite of its supernatural basis.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Devil To Pay




About the Author


A Minnesota native, MICHELE HAUF lives in a Minneapolis suburb with her family. She enjoys being a stay-at-home mom with a son and a daughter. Michele writes the kind of stories she loves to read, filled with romance, fantasy and adventure. Always a storyteller, she began to write in the early nineties and hasn’t stopped since. Playing guitar, hunting backyard butterflies and coloring (yes, coloring) keep her creativity honed. Research for her novels has yet to see her stealing jewels or racing cars on a high-speed chase, but … she can pick a lock or bake a mean chocolate cheesecake (with a file inside) if duty calls. You can contact Michele at: PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.

And if you love Michele Hauf don’t forget to check out the sizzlingly sexy, paranormal Valentine’s treatBe My Valentine, Vampire.Available from Mills & Boon


now!


Seducing

the

Vampire



Michele Hauf










www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Michelle Grajkowski, for believing in me.


Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom: If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

—William Shakespeare [Sonnet 116]




PROLOGUE


Paris, 1785

NEVER HAD TERROR LOOKED LOVELIER.

Blood oozed from the punctures in her neck. The choker’s honed iron points penetrated pale, powdered flesh, piercing muscle and even bone.

Thick crimson blood purled down the curve of clavicle, detoured across alabaster shoulder, and then plunged toward the voluptuous breasts imprisoned behind silk damask and lace.

Kohl drawn around blue eyes emphasized her horror. Yet the plump lips—carmine rouge caressing the pouting lowest lip—did not gape in pain.

The witch’s spell had frozen her for time unending.

He stepped away from her and unhooked the bone crown from around his wrist. Tapping the circlet of rat skulls against his palm, he took it all in.

Imposed in stillness, she yet possessed the incredible and annihilating ability to seduce. Always she had bewitched, ever aware that her carefully crafted appearance, her practiced movements, her well-thought words could render all men gibbering fools.

He lifted a hand to stroke the enticing curve of her bosom, but cautioned that connection.

It had come to this. Even as her blood scent filled the air and curled beneath his nostrils, he could not force himself to lean forward. To smell her wine-lush skin. To breathe in her life. To overdose on her terror.

He needn’t, for the heady mixture of her essence surrounded him in an exquisite caress. For the first time, he suspected, she feared. And he had been the master of that rare condition.

If only he could have mastered her in body and blood.

Holding the crown before him, high enough so that her fixed stare could sight the object, he rattled it. Dozens of rat skulls strung about a leather cord. New white bone, stripped of flesh, fur and muscle, still reeked of rodent blood and the sewers beneath the city.

The sewers? Ah yes, a most clever notion.

Placing the crown upon her black hair, always scented with summer wine, he pressed until it sat firmly and would not slip off.

“I crown you—” the wicked edge in his voice cut his tongue—or maybe it was his fangs “—Queen of the Rats.”

She did not scream. Rather, she likely could and was at this moment. Silently. Ragingly. The spell had immobilized her entire body.

Cursed to become a living Pandora doll, frozen on the outside, alive and stunningly aware on the inside, she could now but accept punishment for her wicked, devious ways.

“You had your chance,” he whispered, allowing admiration to soften his tone. “And now I condemn you to eternity.”




CHAPTER ONE


North of Paris, 1785

SLAMMED AGAINST THE CARRIAGE wall, Viviane LaMourette braced her forearms against the padded interior. The impact forced her to bite her lower lip. She swore sharply as the carriage tilted. Her body was wedged against the wall, one hand slapping the glass window. The fragile glass cracked and sharp edges lacerated her palm. The scent of blood imbued with wine and dust tainted the small compartment.

She could tell from the coachman’s agitated yelp that he had fallen from his box. It was the middle of March, yet the weather had been unseasonable. Snow as high as a man’s knee blanketed the countryside. The country roads were barely traversable, save for a few major routes directly to Paris.

The brass foot warmer beneath her seat had slid against the wall and now spilled out white coals. The wool blanket draped over her lap had become tangled in her arms and the lace engageantes at her elbows.

“Insufferable.”

Struggling against the meddlesome twist of fabric, Viviane tried with futile effort to keep blood from smearing onto her damask gown. The fabric was the color of deep forest moss, and she had only brought along one additional gown for this visit.

She licked the blood from her palm. The cut had healed.

A gut-clenching scream paused Viviane from her preening.

Accompanying the coachman’s hideous cry rose snarling, growling, and—Viviane’s bile rose with recognition— the sound of tearing at human flesh.

The horses stirred, tugging at their restraints and jostling the carriage. The commotion stopped. The snow muddled the clod of retreating hooves. The coachman must have cut loose the team of two.

Why release their only means of transportation? She would never make Paris now, and most importantly, not before dawn.

Instinct prompted her to assess her clothing. She wore a satin underskirt that could be used as a hood to protect her head, if she needed to start walking. Gloves covered her hands and wrists, and she did have a leather mask that covered all but her eyes.

The letter Henri Chevalier had sent her weeks earlier crinkled against her breast where she’d tucked it between her chemise and corset. He’d written in expectation of her visit this spring. The mention of Constantine de Salignac had almost kept Viviane from making this trip. Henri had intimated Lord de Salignac, leader of the esteemed tribe Nava, desired her hand in marriage as a means to strengthen tribal bloodlines.

The abominable suggestion now distracted her. Viviane would marry no man, even if he were a tribe leader. Salignac could only have his eye on her because she was bloodborn. She did not care to be any man’s chattel.

The fact Henri had patroned her for two centuries following her parents’ cruel deaths and yet had granted her great freedom had probably spoiled her.

Better spoiled than enslaved.

“I will never arrive in Paris to even face the presumptuous Salignac if I do not extract myself from this detestable situation.”

A low growling snarl set her heart racing.

With her shoulders crushed against the tilted carriage wall, Viviane now listened attentively. Tearing flesh sounded as if a dull blade was cutting through leather. It wasn’t an awful sound, save for the context.

More growls trickled dread up her chest and thudded at the base of her throat. “Wolves.”

But fear did not follow. Fear was for the weak, those lacking in discretion regarding their personal boundaries.

Shoving the blanket away, Viviane flinched at the sound of a pistol and then gripped the broken windowpane.

The wolf barked. It must have been hit. She concentrated and listened. Heartbeats. Two of them. Neither was human—which left herself and the wolf.

If it were not badly injured the animal would next come for her.

“I am not prepared for death tonight. I suppose I must see to this matter myself. Curse the bloody animal for my shoes!” Her shoes were new, and the velvet matched the color of a rich chocolate. A former lover had carved the porcelain roses that dotted the toes.

Stepping up and pushing open the door set the carriage to a wobble. The warning creak of wood and snow indicated she had made a wrong move.

Viviane pressed herself against the seat and groped for a hold on the padded fabric walls as the carriage fell completely to its side. The landing snapped her head against the windowpane.

Outside, the mournful whines did not cease. Wolves in France were abundant, but someone had once told Viviane there were as many lone wolves as there were those who traveled in packs. Pray this one was a lone wolf.

The struggle out through the door facing toward the sky was difficult with the hindrance of skirts and corset. Her long dark hair, which she had unrolled from the curling papers an hour earlier, impeded her movements as heavy curls slapped her face and got caught under her elbows.

Perched upon the carriage side—which was now in position to face skyward—Viviane’s breaths clouded before her. Snow crystals falling from overhead branches sparkled in the darkness.

Divining the warm scent of human blood, she could not see carnage from this angle.

Jumping into the loose snow beside the overturned carriage, she landed with a curse. Snow sifted over her face and under her skirt. Her night vision proving quite fine, she sighted the coachman. His neck had been torn. Blood soaked his dark wool greatcoat, jabot and face. One hand extended above his head, loose fingers still held the pistol atop a bloom of bloody snow.

The wolf limped and wobbled, stepping on three legs, and collapsing in the snow. It had taken a bullet in the shoulder for the bloodied brown fur.

“Be gone with you!”

The creature dodged the fist of snow Viviane tossed at it. It snarled, baring fangs.

Viviane bared her fangs.

Mourning yips echoed across the countryside. She couldn’t risk a pack discovering her alone with little means of protection.

Stalking through the deep snow, and losing one shoe in the process, she gained the wolf. It was large, perhaps as long as she from head to knees, and strong of muscle. Thick black fur streaked the brown. It would certainly make an excellent trim to a woman’s gown or hat.

“A fine replacement for my ruined shoes.”

Blood spurted from the bullet wound near the animal’s neck. It would bleed to death.

Not quick enough for her peace of mind.

Grappling the beast’s head securely, Viviane twisted it under her arm and along her side, making sure to pull up so the skull moved sharply away from the neck. An alchemist who studied dead bodies had once told her that severing the spinal cord caused instant death.

The wolf dropped lifeless to the ground.

Viviane wiped her bloodied hands in the snow. Glancing south, she sighted whiffs of smoke curling from dozens of chimneys. Paris. The comfort of a warm home and Henri Chevalier, her loving patron, called.

“So close,” she muttered. “And now I shall have to walk. Without shoes.” She heeled off the remaining shoe. It would hamper. “Insufferable wolf. You got your just.”

Picking up the coachman’s pistol, she then rummaged through his coat pockets, finding two balls, powder and a short iron ramrod. Making quick order of reloading, she tossed aside the ramrod. She may need to fend off another wolf. The pistol would give Viviane the advantage of distance but once.

Bending over the coachman, she pressed his eyelids closed. “Rest in peace.” She thought to make the sign of the cross over his body, but the detail seemed bothersome.

Pistol in hand, Viviane tromped through the snow. The wolf—she paused, struck by what lay on the snow where once the four-legged creature had been.

“Sacre bleu.” It was—a werewolf.

A man, bare and bleeding at the neck, lay sprawled where she had snapped the wolf’s neck. In human form he was called were. Dark glassy eyes sought hers. Alive yet, despite what she’d thought a spine-severing move.

“I did not know,” she offered, nervous suddenly, whipping her head about to scan the periphery. No wolves lurked nearby.

The were’s eyelids shuttered. His head sank into the snow and his muscles relaxed with death. Blood spilled from his mouth to stain the scrap of white fabric he’d torn from the coachman’s neck.

Minneapolis, modern day

RHYS HAWKES MOVED THROUGH the Irish-themed pub with a swaying stride. It was past midnight, but O’Leary’s stayed open until two. The owner, not an Irishman but rather a German who’d married into the family, granted him carte blanche. The high-tech, temperature-controlled cellar was always open for Rhys to select a bottle of wine, whiskey, or to relax in the cool darkness after a long day at Hawkes Associates.

More than just a bank, Hawkes Associates stored treasures, housed certain volatile objects of a magical nature and offered the various paranormal nations, Light, Dark, Faery and otherwise, a safe and lasting place to keep—and exchange for new currency—their money and valuables as they passed through the centuries.

His firm was the only of its kind and had offices in New York, Minnesota and Florida, four more in Europe and one in China. The Paris office served as his home base.

He didn’t own this pub, but he was considering buying it.

Rhys didn’t get involved in the daily management details of the clubs he collected as if they were baseball cards. They were investments. And rarely did he mingle with the crowds. He was a lone wolf—make that vampire.

Still clinging to the same excuses.

Not an excuse, just an easier summation.

Tonight he was in business mode, eyeing the place for potential.

At the blue neon bar, two college guys exchanged what Rhys had decided were urban legends. The one about the man with the hook instead of a hand was common. But he’d never heard the one about the mermaid swimming the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. He kept the men’s conversation in peripheral range for the humor.

A waitress clad in a shimmy of green satin and beads snuck past him and slipped behind the bar. The scent of alcohol made Rhys nostalgic for the real whisky he’d once drunk in Scotland. Not his homeland, but a safe hiding place when the vampires had sought to extinguish the werewolves from France during the Revolution. He hadn’t been hiding; he’d been in mourning.

The world had evolved over the centuries, but the disease between the wolves and vampires could never be healed. Most days Rhys was fine with that. Other days he wished he could have done more.

Of course, his situation was the stickiest. There was no definite “side” for him. He had once been persecuted for his differences—by those of his own blood. He and his nemesis had battled for decades. Neither had claimed victory.

Until she had become involved. She had changed everything. And since then, nothing had been the same.

It was rare Rhys thought of her, and always those azure eyes.

But for a man who had walked the earth two and a half centuries it was easy to pine for a long-departed lover who whispered ghostly sonnets in his thoughts.

Rhys smirked at his wistful memories.

“Heartbreak,” he muttered. It clung like a bitch with fangs.

With one ear taking in the legends, Rhys’s ears perked up when he heard the men start talking about a Vampire Snow White.

“Yeah, you know. The chick buried in a glass coffin by some prince.”

“That was a cartoon, dude.”

“I know, but listen. They say a vampire chick fell in love with a man who was a vampire or maybe he was a werewolf. I’m not clear on that detail,” one of them said.

Rhys slid onto a bar stool. He smiled at the men and pushed the crystal peanut bowl between his hands. They regarded him with nods.

“Vampires and werewolves are fiction,” one man said.

“Whatever. So are urban legends, but you wanted one you’d never heard for tomorrow’s blog.”

“All right, give it to me. So she fell in love with a guy who might have been a vamp—”

“Or maybe a werewolf. But she was being courted by a vampire, too. An evil vampire.”

Rhys’s fingers curled into a fist. He felt the muscles at the back of his neck tighten. He wanted to grip the man and shake the rest of the tale out of him, but he checked his growing urgency.

“Anyway, so this vampire chick falls in love with the man who wasn’t what he seemed and they get married or something. I don’t know. I’m foggy on that detail. Only the evil vampire is pissed, see. So something happens to separate the two—the chick and her lover—and the evil vampire locks her away in a glass coffin and buries her like some kind of Goth Snow White.”

“That’s a dorky legend. Couldn’t she have broken the glass?”

“No, dude, get this. The vampire had a warlock put her under a spell. She couldn’t move, but would live forever. So she can see out the glass coffin, but can’t move or scream. So the legend says she went mad, and she’s probably still buried somewhere beneath the streets of Paris. You know they have all those tunnels under Paris.” “Huh. So what if she escaped?” “Don’t know, man. That’d be one freaky bloodsucking chick.”

The men tilted back swigs from their beer bottles.

“Sweet. But, dude, so not true.”

“Tell me about it. Vampirella gone mad.”

“I’d offer my neck to Vampirella any day. She is so sexy.”

“She’s a cartoon, too.” The storyteller swiped an arm across his lips. “You going to put it on the blog?”

“Yeah, we’ll see. Buy me another beer, dude, this one’s tapped. So what’s with the man who was a vampire or maybe a werewolf?”

“I don’t know. That’s how I heard it told.” “So you mean he’s different, like, where his hand should be—” the guy assumed a melodramatic tone “—was a stainless-steel hook!” Rhys winced.

“No, dude, he was … not right.” The crystal bowl in Rhys’s grip cracked in half. The men turned and delivered him wonky looks. “Delicate,” Rhys offered sheepishly. Not right. The words stabbed Rhys’s heart with bittersweet memory. He could hear them spoken in her voice. He pushed the mess aside. “Interesting story.”

“Yeah, dude, it’s an urban legend. You can read all about it tomorrow at my blog.”

One guy handed Rhys a business card that simply read: UrbanTrash.com.

“Wouldn’t it rock if werewolves and vampires existed? We could all like, live forever.”

“Forever is not always appealing.” Rhys strode away. The Vampire Snow White. Once loved by an evil vampire and another who was maybe a vampire or maybe a werewolf. An urban legend? It was rumor.

But the details were too familiar to disregard. “Mon Dieu, I thought she was dead.”




CHAPTER TWO


Paris, 1785

THE PERILOUS JOURNEY THROUGH knee-high snow ended when a rider galloped alongside Viviane. He literally swept her into his arms to sit before him on the horse’s withers.

The warmth emanating from his thighs and chest told her that he was mortal. The desire to bite him did not rise. All that mattered was getting warm and shaking the feeling into her left foot. A hasty “merci” spilled from her lips.

“The sun will beat us if we do not hurry,” he said.

How could he know the sun would prove her bane? “Who are you?”

“They call me the Highwayman. I know you are not human.”

“But you are.”

“Not like most humans, though.”

They made Paris as the sun traced the horizon, and he left her at her patron’s home.

As she entered the warmth of the marble-tiled foyer, Viviane tumbled into Henri Chevalier’s arms. Shivering and sniffing tears, she took a moment to glance outside. The Highwayman had heeled his mount down the cobblestones toward the pink sunrise, his leather greatcoat flapping out like wings.

She dropped the pistol in her pocket and listened to it clatter to the floor.

“Viviane, what has happened? Where is the carriage?”

“Uh …” Pulled into Henri’s welcoming hug, she melded against her patron’s body. Henri was all muscle and hard lines and smelled like cedar and lavender. “The Highwayman found me.”

“I’ve heard the legend. He is a good man.”

“Like us?”

“No, but immortal. He’s no grouse against vampires— but rather demons—fortunately for you. We didn’t expect you until tomorrow evening.”

“Henri? Oh, dear.” Henri’s wife, Blanche, touched Viviane’s shoulder where wolf blood stained the fabric.

Two years earlier while in Paris on an annual visit to her patron, Viviane had met Blanche and decided to like her. The petite blonde stood like a bird next to Henri’s towering build. She gave to Henri the one thing he had never asked of Viviane—intimacy.

“Have the maid boil water and fill the bath,” Henri directed his wife. “And draw the curtains in the guest room. Quickly!”

It felt decadently blissful to nuzzle against Henri’s chest and cling to the heavy brocade robe that hung upon his broad shoulders. He must have been preparing for sleep. He always did greet the dawn in his dark bedchambers. Vampires required a quarter as much sleep as a mortal did.

“The carriage tending me here … broke a wheel three leagues out,” Viviane whispered. Exhausted and starving, she could but speak in gasps. “A wolf … killed the coachman.”

“And you managed to escape?”

“I … broke the animal’s neck.”

Henri’s chuckle rumbled against her cheek. “I should not doubt it.”

“It was a werewolf.”

“Ah?”

She knew well he held no resentment toward werewolves, unlike most vampires. Henri did not take sides, nor did he hate—unless given reason.

He toed the pistol. “Not yours.”

“Belonged to the driver, who is dead. Sacre bleu, Henri, I did not wish to harm the beast, but I prefer life over mauling.”

“Pity the man—or beast—who forces Viviane LaMourette to do anything. You are fortunate the Highwayman happened along.”

He kissed her cheek and carried her up the curving marble stairs to the guest room. Half a dozen candles glowed upon a writing desk. Two mortal maids—enthralled by their master—bustled about, pouring boiling water into the copper tub. White linen lined the tub; a frill of lace dancing along the hem dusted the floor.

Before Henri could set her on the bed, Viviane clutched his robe. “I’m unsure if I can wait until you rise later.”

He nodded and instead of setting her down, carried her into his bedchamber. Blanche, with but a nod from her husband, whispered, “Bonjour” and took her leave, closing the door behind her.

“I shouldn’t wish to impose upon her,” Viviane said, as Henri set her on the bed. Leaning back onto her elbows, she spread out her hands, crushing the decadent silk bed linens between her fingers.

“It is not an imposition. Blanche will sleep in her private chambers this morning.”

Shrugging off the robe, Henri then tugged the gauzy night rail over his head and dropped it onto the bed to stand in but chamois underbreeches. Built like a Roman gladiator, the man’s broad shoulders never did align straight across. He’d broken his collarbone decades earlier after falling from a cliff in Greece and it had never healed properly. It gave him little worry, but he did wince when raising his left arm over his head.

He stretched out on the black-and-gold-striped chaise longue positioned before the hearth fire.

Viviane found her place and nestled beside him, chest to chest, kissing his cheek.

“I’ve missed you,” she admitted. It had been five or six months. “Have you gained another line near your eyes? You are such a handsome man, Henri. So kind to me. I can never thank you for the freedom you have given me.”

“Then do not speak,” he said. “Take what you need.”

Candle glow licked teasingly upon Henri’s neck. Viviane tongued his flesh, then pierced skin and the thick, pulsing vein to slake the thirst she could only satisfy with Henri, her patron, a friend and mentor, but never her lover.

He was, quite literally, her lifeline. Without him she would be lost.

Two weeks later …

VIVIANE LANGUISHED IN THE SPA. Henri called the room a tepidarium after the Roman baths he’d once enjoyed in Greece. The stone floor was always warm due to an underground pipe system. Istrian tiles lined the walls and glossy crimson squares glinted amongst the pearly white squares. A constellation of crystals set in a white iron candelabrum reigned over the round pool, which was as wide as Viviane’s length should she float across it.

She visited Henri twice yearly, and did like to spoil herself amidst the luxuries of his home.

A map room appealed to her desire for knowledge, though she could not read the words, only trace the snaking rivers and marvel over the shapes of so many countries. The spa and music room strummed her sensual ribbons. Viviane devoured all things sensory and erotic. She was a woman, after all, and would not be kept wanting. Men overwhelmingly agreed, and when she desired pleasure, she took it.

Seven bedchambers, a ballroom and a twelve-stall stable told the world Henri Chevalier could afford anything he desired. Yet he would never be so conceited as to state it himself. Flaunting one’s riches was considered lewd.

Blanche generously shared her wardrobe, and kept an entire room devoted to shoes. By delicious coincidence, Viviane wore the same gown and shoe size as her patron’s wife.

Viviane’s home in Venice was as richly decorated, but it was old. Most furnishings had been acquired in the sixteenth century, and were in desperate need of reconditioning. The plaster walls were cracked and water seeped in the north entry hugging the canal.

Alas, those repairs would never be made. Viviane kept her current financial condition close to heart. It was not dire, but could become so if she did not invest properly, and soon. Pity, the last notaire who had invested well for her had died of sudden blood loss.

Sometimes she simply could not control her hunger, especially when sated by a handsome young man.

Ah, but she had survived alone two centuries; she would beg no man for help now.

And no Casanova vampire lord would entice her to change those principles of independence with the suggestion of marriage. It mattered little that Henri had last evening suggested his approval for the union, if and when Lord de Salignac put forth the offer.

Viviane had attended the Salon Noir twice since arriving in Paris. The Salon Noir mirrored Marie Antoinette’s court with lavish clothing, jewels, courtly titles and decadence, save the attendees were vampires, werewolves, demons and other Dark Ones. Faeries from the Sidhe nation, and a familiar or two, attended in fewer numbers. The Light—the witches—kept away due mainly to their differences with the vampires. The vampires did not mind at all since witch’s blood was poisonous to them.

If you were dressed well, and not human, it was a given you’d been invited to the Salon Noir.

During her second visit to the salon, Constantine had been preoccupied with his patroned kin until she had sashayed past him. She had heard the thud of a woman’s backside hit the marble floor as Constantine pushed her from his lap and sauntered after Viviane.

When Constantine de Salignac walked through a room, all eyes followed his regal lift of chin, those steely gray eyes that saw things before everyone else, that compressed mouth, which could utter a biting jest, or indeed, bite.

Being a tribe leader, Lord de Salignac was expected to populate his tribe with bloodborn vampires. That was possible when a child was born to two vampires. So he blooded mortal women recently transformed to vampire in hopes they would be able to carry his child. It was a long process that could take years before the new kin could even conceive.

Viviane did not care to be another woman feathering his elaborate damask-and-gold nest.

As well, vampire lovers were risky. Most insisted on sharing the bite, which was a means of bonding to one another through the blood. Taking another vampire’s blood was something she had reserved, as most did, for one exquisite relationship that would bond them both in body and blood. It was not to be considered lightly.

Dragging her fingertips over the opalescent bathwater, Viviane sighed and dismissed the dread thoughts. The bath was two parts water, one part milk. Wine and mulled spices had been stirred into the exotic witch’s brew.

Portia, Blanche’s maid, popped her head inside the circular tepidarium. “What is your opinion, mademoiselle? Is the scent not divine?”

“Devastatingly indulgent,” Viviane drawled. “You were quite right regarding my pleasures, Portia. How is it you know so much about what will please a woman when you’ve led a subservient life?”

“Fantasies, my lady.” Portia winked, and dismissed herself.

Viviane wondered if Blanche would allow her to abscond with Portia when finally she returned to Venice. The attentive maid was a prize to hoard.

Viviane had skipped the Versailles soiree Blanche had pleaded she attend. Seeking the king’s eye, and Queen Marie Antoinette’s favor, interested her little. The gossip Blanche would report upon their return would suffice.

Stretching her arms about the curved marble pool, she closed her eyes. Tilting her hips, she let her legs float to the surface. Her toes popped up in the milky sheen, a string of pebble islands.

An acrid taste suddenly stung her throat. She pressed a hand to her chest and coughed.

That was odd. She wasn’t ill. Vampires rarely contracted a human malady. Must be the intense scent of the spices.

A convulsion in her gut forced up a hacking cough. A bead of crimson expanded on the white surface before her.

“What …?”

She touched her lip. Blood painted her fingers. Now she tasted it in her mouth, metallic and hot.

A spike of feverous heat clenched her heart. Sucking in a breath, she slapped her palms on the water. More blood eddied up her throat. She tried to call for Portia but, wrenched forward by the sudden sharp pain in her chest, her head plunged under the milky surface.

Viviane swallowed the odious blend. Surfacing, she choked up another throat-burning spasm. Blood swirled into the white.

She felt a stabbing pain at her breast.

“Portia!”

Thrusting her naked body aside, she landed on the ceramic-tiled floor. Heaving blood, she cried out as the pain ceased.

Three leagues west of Paris, en route to Versailles

THE STAKE BURST HIS HEART. Henri stumbled, groping at the thick wooden dowel. His attacker growled and slashed talons across his throat. Blood choked into his mouth and blurred his vision as he collapsed before the carriage. In eyesight lay Blanche, her head severed from her neck. Crimson spattered her blond ringlets.

The werewolf who had charged the carriage, leaping to grab the coachman from his post, stomped his paw on Henri’s head, crushing it into the soft mud.

NO FUNERAL WAS HELD FOR EITHER Henri Chevalier or Blanche. A team of four vampires had been dispatched to clean the scene of assault before dawn and collect the vampire ash. The carriage was burned. The ash was thrown into the Seine.

According to rumor, a werewolf had murdered the couple.

Viviane did not attend the Salon Noir for weeks. But though her heart ached for her patron she was not a woman to dwell in sadness.

Now, more than ever, she must be vigilant for her own future.




CHAPTER THREE


THE HôTEL DE SALIGNAC SAT at the west end of the Tuileries on the rue Saint-Honoré. Tonight the four-story town palace’s cobbled fore-courtyard boasted carriages parked tail to head. A blazing touchier, brandished by an iron Aphrodite, held reign center courtyard to welcome the Dark Ones.

It was rumored Lord de Salignac privately entertained the queen and her ladies on occasion. Marie Antoinette was said to be particularly fond of Salignac’s aviary, ill contained as it was. The birds had the run—or rather flight—of the palace.

Moving through the ballroom, Rhys Hawkes took in the faces. Among the crowd, the vampires were easy to spot. Pale flesh was not the most obvious giveaway—for mortals used cosmetic powder to achieve the same effect—but rather the imperious lift of nose as they practiced their ill-gotten aristocratic airs.

Rhys was thankful he’d not developed the snobbish mannerism innate to Parisian vampires, though at times like this he realized it best he at least adopt an air so he did not draw the sort of attention he abhorred—disdain.

He did not sense any wolves in attendance, besides his companion Orlando, and that put Rhys ill at ease. The Salon Noir was a sort of safe ground for all breeds of Dark Ones to gather, but Rhys knew well vampires had an irritating manner of labeling werewolves animals and claiming themselves the civilized breed of Dark Ones. As well, find a werewolf eager to embrace a vampire and you’d find an omega wolf ostracized from the pack.

He would stay so long as required to sniff out any suspicious sorts.

Two vampires had been murdered a fortnight earlier east of Versailles.

Rhys had been recruited by the Council, which had representatives from all the paranormal nations, to discover the culprit and the reason behind the heinous act. He would be accepted as a seated Council member after he’d solved the mystery. Field investigation was a lowly assignment, but he didn’t mind. A man should have to prove his worth if he wished to claim merit.

The black-and-white harlequin ballroom floor buzzed with an assorted enclave, ranging from the dourly macabre to the flighty giddiness of the Sidhe. A few pairings of four danced an intricate quadrille flowing from three violins and a boxy harpsichord.

Low, black wrought-iron candelabras flickered a circus ring of amber flames. Rococo frieze lined the upper walls with what appeared to be cupids vomiting roses and birds. Rhys noted bird guano smeared the black-and-silver-striped English paper on the wall to his left.

The ballroom was a bustle of animated expressions, studied smiles and practiced gestures. Men dodged powdered and beribboned wigs. Women tapped damask shoulders and the occasional cheek with a communicative flip of their lace fans.

Rhys understood the women could send messages with a flick of their fans. The intricate code bemused him, though he had never bothered to learn it.

The thought to make a connection with a sumptuous lovely hung in his mind. When in Paris, indulgence could not be ignored.

A minuet twinkled from the harpsichord and the dancers rearranged and re-paired. Rhys noticed Orlando paired with a blushing mortal who wore her blue satin bodice low enough to reveal the rosy aureoles staining her breasts. The young wolf was hungry for a ripe female. The boy’s pleasures were not wicked or dark, so he was safe.

Rhys on the other hand, possessed a dark secret, which made him cautious as to whom he chose to engage in a lusty liaison.

An interesting scatter of red roses nestled against fathomless black hair caught his attention. Red, so red. Like that first drop of blood. The vampire within him stirred. Tucked within the center buds of those roses were tiny … skulls? Curious.

Rhys followed the woman’s gliding procession across the ballroom. Her hair was unfettered by powder or wig. Dressed in bold red, she was attired to captivate.

“Regarde moi,” he whispered. Look at me.

She turned. Rhys straightened, lifting his chin. His persuasion never worked on paranormals. She couldn’t have heard him. Blue eyes sought his. Unnaturally blue, but not Sidhe, for faery eyes held a violet tint.

The corner of her mouth turned up, a morsel of tease. What sensual delights did that tiny curve of flesh promise? Did her mouth curl so preciously when she cried out in ecstasy?

Sweet mercy, Rhys had not felt his body react so instinctively to a woman in years. His heart pounded and blood rushed to his groin. His werewolf growled lowly, pining for an illicit coupling.

Fortunately, he was vampire now. It was easier to contain the werewolf’s lusty desires when in this form. And much safer.

The rose-embellished beauty swept behind a couple who nuzzled nose against neck. The man’s gray powdered wig tilted askew as his fangs grazed alabaster skin. The bite. A wicked tease between two vampires that could be construed as a promise to one another, but only if mutually consented.

When had he last taken blood for sustenance? Rhys couldn’t recall. Weeks surely. And that was the aggravation of it. When in vampire form, he had to remember to take blood; it was not instinctual. Though he assumed vampire form most often, his werewolf mind ruled when in this shape—and the werewolf did not desire blood.

He’d ask about the murders, and find a pretty thing to bring home tonight. Or at the least, find one to wander through the Tuileries with him, the taste of her trickling down his throat after he abandoned her in a swoon beside a lush crop of roses.

Perhaps the rosy beauty with the bright eyes?

Following the pull of desire, Rhys shuffled through the crush of powder-dusted shoulders and silk-stockinged legs. Passing a faery, he accidentally brushed her forearm with his fingers, and whispered an apology. The result of contact sparkled on his flesh. He rubbed his fingers on his coat to wipe it off.

Again she appeared in view. Closer. She received a kiss on both cheeks from another woman Rhys knew was vampire for the fangs her smile revealed. But the blue-eyed beauty, while pale, was vibrant, too much life sparkled in her eyes to be vampire.

He favored mortals. Much less drama. And easier to abandon after the bite with a touch of persuasion. Perhaps that was why she’d turned to him—she was mortal.

Again her gaze fixed to his. Her eyes widened with promise, a touch without tactile sensation, yet it sped Rhys’s pulse and warmed his neck.

He nodded and offered a smile, remembering Orlando’s coaching: When at court one must never smile to show their teeth, but the smile mustn’t be so weak as to be construed false. So many rules and ridiculous pandering. It was enough to make a man’s head spin.

It took a lot to spin Rhys’s head. And this exquisite beauty did so.

The woman touched her bottom lip with a fingertip, her flirtatious eyes holding his. Just below her left eye a black heart patch beckoned.

Rhys offered her his most charming smile.

She let out a peal of laughter and spun away, an elusive wraith becrowned in skulls and roses.

“What the hell?” Rhys muttered to himself. Had his sensual prowess fallen amiss? He could not let her slip away without a few words.

The investigation could wait.

VIVIANE STRODE THE MARBLE floor in one of many galleries of paintings. She’d needed a moment away from the stuffy ballroom and leering gazes. It seemed all the male vampires were hungry for her. Not because she was attractive or interesting, but because she was bloodborn.

“Bother.”

Drawing in the air, she thought of Henri. He had never made her feel like an object.

The clatter of approaching shoes tugged her from the wistful moment.

A man strolled toward her. His swaggering stride made him move like a prowling feline, yet his broad shoulders and stocky build put into Viviane’s mind that of a provincial worker, one who lived off the land.

Certainly not an aristocrat, and most definitely not vampire. That put her to ease.

His eyes fell upon her high breasts, tethered behind the cinched bodice. Very well, so he was like the other men.

Licking his lips, he smiled, revealing the whitest teeth and an easy charm that Viviane could not disregard. Hair dark as her own had been tamed into a queue at the back of his neck and tied with a plain black ribbon. But there, on the left side of his head, a gray streak amidst the black gleamed under the candlelight.

Desire stirred. Momentarily, Viviane imagined his hair sweeping across her breasts, gasps huffing from his lips, and she clinging to those wide shoulders. No other at the Salon Noir had been capable of summoning such a visceral reaction, and this man had not yet spoken a word.

She angled so her path would pass him on the left.

He adjusted his trajectory to a direct line before her.

Presumptuous of him. She shuffled sideways. The man matched her feint.

“Pardon me,” she said, and her skirts swished across his buckled shoes.

At the last moment, he stepped aside to grant her berth, but not too far, and her skirts crushed against his thighs.

“You are hardly deserving of a pardon, mademoiselle. Such beauty should never be forgiven, but rather indulged.”

Viviane stopped walking and swung a look over her shoulder. Romantic blather never impressed her, even when issued in a deep, sure tone. His delving eyes were brown, as was his frockcoat. So common.

Strangely, though, her heart beat faster, anticipating more than she expected he could give her. Men always disappointed.

One of her dark brows curved sharply. “Who are you?”

“Rhys Hawkes.” He strolled around behind her. “An admirer.”

Viviane drew a careful study from his hands, along the snug cut of his sleeves and down the front of his frockcoat. Minimal decorative embroidery on his coat, and only a bit on his blue waistcoat. A sorry lack of lace, which further alluded to his provincial origins. Yet she could not know what he was without touching him, or tasting his blood.

Mortal or other?

“Are you like me?” she asked abruptly.

“A vampire?”

“You cannot be.” He could not be vampire for his ill fashion sense and less than discreet approach. At the very least, he was not a Nava tribe member.

“I am,” he confirmed.

“Hmph. You are—” nostrils flaring, she winced “—not right.”

The man pressed a palm to his chest and bowed his head. Offended? What had she said? And then she did not care; not if he was here on pretense.

“How did you get in?” she asked tersely. “The Salon Noir is invitation only, and I know Salignac would not dream of admitting an unfamiliar.”

He stepped closer. Yet as annoyed as he made her, Viviane’s feelings vacillated from cool dislike to lunatic desire.

Could she press her tongue through his smirking lips? Might the man answer her longings, fulfill her desires and entertain her passions?

Possibly, but there was no reward in succumbing too easily.

“I suppose those glances across the ballroom meant nothing?” he said.

“You must be mistaken, monsieur, if you believe I was looking at you. I dare not waste a moment on one so—”

“Not right?”

“Who are you?”

“I’ve told you, I am an admirer.” He performed a curt half bow, and came up, gliding his face close to hers. He smelled earthy, like a forest. So different. “There lives a daring challenge in the curve of your smile, mademoiselle.”

A flicker of her lashes could not be stopped. Yet until she learned exactly what he was, she daren’t appear interested. If he really were vampire avoidance was key.

Viviane took a step to the side.

He matched her with a quick side step.

“Remove yourself from my path, monsieur, or I will scream.”

“You won’t do that. It’s hardly fitting of your character. And I’ll press my mouth to yours to capture that scream before you can vocalize it.”

The tip of her tongue dashed out to trace her lower lip. Yes, please?

“You are correct,” she offered calmly. “A scream is vulgar.”

In a sinuous move, she snapped her fan out from where it had been tucked up her sleeve, and slashed it before him. Blood purled from cut skin and sweetened the air.

The man touched his cheek and turned his forefinger toward her. “Does not my blood attract you?”

Her nostrils flared as she scented him. Wrong move, Viviane. You are always hungry of late.

“It repulses me,” she forced out. “You are not vampire.”

“I … am.” Why the reluctance in his tone? “But I do not intend to wear out my voice convincing you of what should be obvious.”

He brushed his fingers across her cheek. Before she could close her eyes and dip her head into the delicious connection, Viviane flinched away. “The shimmer,” she said on a gasp.

She did not speak of faery dust, but the innate sensation two vampires felt when touching. So he was vampire. Yet why did she still wonder at what made him so different?

Rhys stepped aside, offering her ease of escape. “Forgive me, mademoiselle. My passion knows little in the way of boundaries.”

“Passion? We’ve only just met, Monsieur Hawkes. You do not even know my name.”

She wanted to tell it, but again, that would be too forward. If he discovered it on his own that would prove his interest.

“Indeed. And I also sense my desire offends you.”

“Desire never offends me. Speaking with a man who is not what he claims to be does.”

Rhys nodded. “I release you from this uncomfortable tête-à-tête with hopes you will spend fitful moments anguishing over the loss of my presence.”

He bowed, spun sharply, and marched away, shoes clacking loudly.

A roll of her eyes could not be prevented. Anguishing over the loss of his presence? Why did they always attempt to win through words and platitudes?

Viviane desired action, a bold approach and a forceful insinuation of passion. Or rather, it was a fantasy she thought of often, but had never the pleasure of experiencing. Rare did she meet a man to match her bold mien.

Pausing at the doorway, the man touched the cut on his cheek. She had marked him.

“But have you the daring to mark me?”

“THIS WAS A DELICIOUS IDEA,” Orlando muttered as he joined Rhys.

Orlando tugged at the frockcoat the tailor had insisted be taken in at the arms. The green velvet transformed the pup into one of those Greek forest deities with powerful muscles and the face of an angel, or so the effeminate tailor had commented, much to Orlando’s discomfort.

“My ideas are never delicious,” Rhys grumbled. “Reckless perhaps, but never bordering delicious.”

“Most certainly not wearing such plain attire.”

Orlando had taken on airs since stepping inside the Hôtel de Salignac. Rhys would allow the boy his vanity.

He had brought along Orlando, who was much like a son to him, because the two of them named a common friend in William Montfalcon, a werewolf who lived tucked on the left bank’s boulevard Saint Germain. It was where they were currently staying, despite Montfalcon’s strange absence.

Rhys smoothed a palm down his new coat, brushing at the clinging faery dust. Plain? The brown embroidered silk suited him. The tailor had insisted he call the color by its proper name la chocolat, after the queen’s favorite drink. Though the ivory buttons were extravagant and over the top, the enthusiastic tailor had insisted they would draw attention in the wake of Rhys’s regrettable decision to forego lace engageantes on his sleeves. The sky-blue waistcoat lent to what little vanity Rhys could muster.

And while he was a boot man always, the hose and buckled shoes did not feel uncomfortable, only not quite masculine. Heaven forbid, he engage in swordplay on rain-slippery cobblestones.

At least he’d the principle to forego a powdered bag-wig.

Rhys decided he would make no advances worrying about his attire. It was his carriage and attitude that would win him entrance into the secrets hoarded within the salon.

He leaned close to Orlando and said, “The rumor is that a werewolf murdered the vampires. Have you heard any interesting discussion?”

“Not yet, but I did spy Salignac. Over there.”

Following Orlando’s nod, Rhys scanned the crowd of wigs dribbled with candle wax and bird droppings and saw, splayed across a red velvet chaise longue, the vampire lord and leader of tribe Nava, Constantine de Salignac.

Blood heated Rhys’s neck and he clenched his fists.

Over the years, he and Salignac had traded the role of tormentor against the other. Whenever Salignac found opportunity, he went for Rhys’s jugular. They got into rousing duels and malicious dupes. Constantine had even gone so far as causing the death of Rhys’s only loved one.

Rhys did not believe in an eye for an eye. Senseless violence proved nothing. Yet the seeds of such violence were always cracked open whenever in Salignac’s presence.

He took morbid delight in the idea of walking up to Salignac tonight. It had been a decade since they’d last spoken.

“Here’s something you’ll find of interest,” Orlando said. “Salignac is smitten.”

“Smitten? As in …?”

“In love. Or so the whispers tell.” Always so comically dramatic, the young werewolf fit into this false society with an ease Rhys would never possess. “Seems there is a beautiful vampiress who was left without a patron after Henri Chevalier’s murder. You know the females need to feed from a familiar blood source to maintain their life essence.

“The thought curdles my blood,” Orlando muttered.

Werewolves would never dream of drinking blood from humans, or consuming their flesh. It was abominable. Yet a werewolf bitten by a vampire would develop the gruesome need to take mortal blood.

“Salignac stumbles moon-eyed in the wake of her silken skirts,” Orlando reported. “The entire salon is abuzz with rumors he will patron her, perhaps even marry her. It is why no other vampire dares pursue her.”

“That is not love, Orlando.”

“Yes, but if ever an alpha existed in the vampire ranks, it is Salignac. If he strikes first, the other males cower. I hear the woman is indifferent.”

Rhys smirked. “A female not interested in Constantine? The illustrious leader of the failing tribe must be confounded.”

“Seems her former patron gave her unbounded freedom.”

Interesting. Rhys had never heard such a thing. Female kin were literal slaves to their patron.

“She attends the salon and boldly defies convention,” Orlando added. “She is wicked.”

“Wicked women are better left to other men to suffer their claws.” And yet, he’d never refuse a scratch or two, most especially one from an azure-eyed beauty.

“Perhaps so, but Salignac is relentless.”

Rhys had once been in love. With family. With the idea of serenity and an untroubled life. He still considered it on occasion, despite Constantine’s best efforts to excise that desire from his heart. The man had taken it all from him, and with a smirk and a nod.

“To each his own,” Rhys said.

Yet his tattered heart heaved to know Constantine was in love. And Rhys would ever be challenged to find a woman who could see beyond his darkness and into his heart. You are not right. The oath female vampires tended to pin on him with an indelicate stab. Not usually so quickly, though.

Hearing such words from the vampiress, issued with a biting cut, had been akin to pushing him facedown in the muck littering the streets of Paris.

The deuce! He did not require love. Lust suited him fine. And the sensual vampiress would serve that craving well.

Both men observed as a tall woman bowed before Lord de Salignac. Rhys noted it wasn’t a complete bow, rather forced actually. She did not deem Salignac worthy of her submission.

Though he could not completely see her face, long curls of raven hair paralleled a slender neck. And the hair was teased, coiled and pinned up with—

“Red roses,” Rhys said under his breath. It was the blue-eyed woman who had caught his eye.

“What’s that?”

“Can you see if there are skulls at the center of the roses?”

“In her hair? Can’t see from here. But don’t you adore how the women cinch their corsets so tightly their bosoms have nowhere to go but—”

“Orlando, watch yourself. Is that how you behave around women you do not know?”

“Yes.”

The boy’s innocence would get him in trouble some day. “You are yet a pup. To win a woman’s regard you must not be so vulgar.”

“And you are the master of wooing a woman? The last time I saw you with a woman—”

“I do not share all my liaisons with you, boy.” Nor did he discuss his affairs.

Rare was it Rhys left the country to seek amorous pleasures. The country women would not think to powder their hair or wrap themselves in ells of expensive fabrics. They appreciated the more rustic male, one whose appetites were fierce and less refined than the city fops.

“I’ve my eye on someone,” Rhys said. “And she will be in my bed soon enough.”

“Oh, yes? Which one?”

“The one with the roses in her hair.”

“Oh, but Rhys …” The werewolf swallowed audibly.

When Lord de Salignac lifted the woman’s hand to kiss, Rhys sucked in a breath. The vampire lord’s eyes closed. He lingered over her hand, inhaling her scent, consuming her in a breath.

Rhys knew that look.

“She is the one,” Orlando said. “Mademoiselle Viviane LaMourette. The one whom Salignac loves.”

Indeed. Rhys closed his eyes. He had chosen incorrectly.

And yet. Was it not his chance for love? Surely Constantine pursued her for one purpose, and that purpose did not require love.

A tendril of spite clutched Rhys’s spine. It was always there, forced up by Salignac. What satisfying vengeance to take away from Salignac the one woman he loved?

Decided, Rhys nodded once and drew up his shoulders. “I want her. I will have her.”




CHAPTER FOUR


Paris, modern day

“WAS IT LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?” Simon Markson asked Rhys as they walked through Charles de Gaulle Airport.

“Yes,” Rhys said, smirking wistfully as he recalled the foolishness of his youth. And yet at that time every cut to his person had felt like a blade directly to his heart. He had needed revenge. And the opportunity had been too perfect.

“She was beautiful. She was like … a hummingbird,” he muttered absently.

“What’s that?”

“She was a hummingbird—a woman who can never be caged. And should her wings have ceased to flutter she would have died.”

“She had wings?”

Rhys shook his head. Simon’s head was a veritable database of all paranormal creatures; he’d taken it upon himself to research his employer’s world after being hired a decade earlier.

“Why did you never tell me the legend?” Rhys asked his assistant.

“Never thought much of it.”

“But you’ve heard it before?”

“The Vampire Snow White? Once or twice. While on dates, you know.” Simon tapped away on his cell phone with his free hand. “It’s an urban legend for a reason, Rhys. It’s fiction, a story created to titillate and you know how much the women like vampires nowadays.”

“I’ve told you my history. It could be true.”

“Yeah, I remember the day you told me everything.” Simon whistled. He tucked the phone in his breast pocket. The two walked through the sliding doors to the pickup lane outside. “Who would have thought werewolves and vampires were real?”

Rhys had hired the man as an assistant when he’d needed help adjusting to the technology that moved faster than a hyperactive hare. He’d surrendered to the learning curve with the introduction of the laptop and BlackBerry and the iPod. Now he gladly let Simon handle all the technical stuff.

While Rhys could function in this human-dominated realm without having to divulge his true nature, he was not a man to treat friendship lightly, and always revealed himself to his closest friends, even if they were mortal, which were few. Trust came with truth. Never again would he doubt himself or attempt to hide a part of his nature.

Didn’t mean he flashed his fangs to anyone. The rule of discretion applied always.

Simon flagged down his driver three cars back in the queue. He’d contacted the Paris office of Hawkes Associates and made arrangements the moment Rhys had called him about the legend early this morning.

“I still think it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Simon said. “There are over five hundred kilometers of tunnels beneath Paris proper. And some of those tunnels go down five, six, even seven layers deep.”

“You made contact with the man who claims to have mapped all those treacherous tunnels?”

“Right,” Simon said. “Guy named Dane Weft claims to have made the ultimate tunnels map. But on his website, he admits the tunnels constantly change. And there are some inaccessible levels. I offered him cash. Didn’t even have to break the bank.”

“Money does not concern me, Simon, but I do appreciate your frugality.”

Raindrops splattered their shoulders. A woman in heels with an immaculate coif stepped back from the curb toward the overhang and bumped into Rhys. “Pardonnezmoi.”

Bright blue eyes held his for a moment and her cherryred mouth slipped into a smile.

Not the same. He’d never hold her again.

He stepped beside Simon as the car pulled up.

“I don’t know what you expect to find, Rhys. Even if this glass coffin does exist, she could have escaped decades ago, centuries, and may have died—for real—when the glass broke.”

“If someone had a witch bespell her and the coffin, I can assure you it will be fail-safe against natural disaster.”

“I thought the legend said it was a warlock?”

“Witch. Warlock. Same thing, only one is a wanted criminal.”

Rhys sighed. Truly, he was jumping to conclusions. And yet, he couldn’t not investigate. He’d never forgive himself if he ignored what felt so real in his bones.

Could it really be her? Shame on him if it were true.

It hurt him deeply to imagine her locked away, alive and aware, in a confining little box. It had been two and a half centuries!

Simon slid into the Mercedes’s backseat and waited for Rhys to follow. “You okay?”

Rhys slid in and confirmed the driver knew his home address. Pushing fingers through his hair, he massaged his pounding temples. “I won’t be okay until I see her again, and know she is not damaged for my foolishness. Or … find irrefutable proof she died in the eighteenth century.”

If the legend was true, the enormity of the repercussions practically took Rhys’s breath away. He was no man for abandoning her.

Don’t get ahead of yourself. It is merely a legend.

“Is it possible you are reaching for chimeras?” Simon asked. “She’s gone. I thought you saw—”

“I don’t know what I saw now. Was it her? How can I be certain? Just think, Simon, if I have walked away and left her to suffer. Could she still be out there somewhere?”

“It’s longer than a long shot. It’s an infinity shot.”

“I have to pursue this.”

“You didn’t know, man.” Simon slapped a palm on his knee in comradely reassurance. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. But what if we do find her? I mean, you know what the legend says.”

Yes, that she would be mad. Locked away for centuries, aware of the dark, the insects and whatever horrors surrounded, yet unable to utter a scream? Rhys recalled her fear of rats. Her mind must be a macabre store of dread and terror.

Did he want to find the remnants of what had once been the most beautiful woman to ever touch his heart, to know him and accept him, even his dark side? And if he did find her, would he be far more kind if he killed her quickly to put an end to her suffering?

The chance he was merely chasing a phantom legend, a story conjured by firelight to entice and frighten, was great.

“No,” Rhys muttered. “I will find her. If I must die trying.”




CHAPTER FIVE


Paris, 1785

CONSTANTINE DE SALIGNAC’S voice possessed a soft murmur and felt like warm syrup seeping into her skin. His very presence, taller than she by a head, with broad shoulders and long fingers moving expressively as he spoke, intrigued her.

When he stood near, Viviane could not look away from him.

And yet, she did not feel the necessary spark of passion. His closeness did not provoke desire, twinkle across her flesh, or vibrate throughout her body. Intimacy should be like that. A man’s presence should put a woman out of sorts in the best of ways.

Twice now, Lord de Salignac had kissed Viviane. Once in the garden behind the ballroom during a midnight salon. Last time had been four days ago in the planetarium amongst the squawking blue-and-emerald parrots. The kiss had invited their tongues to dance, and yet too quickly it had turned rough. Possessive. But hardly interesting.

Viviane knew what Constantine wanted. Eventually she must succumb. But if a man wished to keep her interest, she required passion. The man must convince her of his conviction.

Now Constantine coiled one long ringlet of her hair about his forefinger. “I am pleased you’ve attended this evening, Viviane. It is good you’ve not despaired in the wake of Henri’s death.”

She tensed. The man gained no regard with his callous prod at her most intimate memory.

A bird squawked nearby. “You’ve many birds. The peacock in the back courtyard is magnificent.”

“A gift from Marie Antoinette.”

“Does she know you are vampire?”

“The queen does not believe in the occult.”

Viviane recalled Madame du Barry had been ousted from court for her belief in the occult. It was never a good thing when those in power believed, be their beliefs real or superstitious. Always scandal followed. The mortal could be silenced, and usually such reprimand was ordered by the Council.

She strode the hall where earlier she’d met Rhys Hawkes. “Have you hummingbirds?”

“No.”

“I should think not.” She stroked the gathering of roses above her right ear. The pointed beaks on the skulls pricked nicely.

“What are these?” Constantine inspected the flower buds tucked along the side of her coif. “Rat skulls?”

“I abhor rodents. These are replicas of hummingbird skulls carved by a Venetian artisan.”

“Yes, the long beak …”

“I regard hummingbirds as my totem.” Always she felt as if she must stay one step ahead, her wings ever beating, to maintain life. “Pretty, yes?”

“They suit you. But one mustn’t overlook the value of a plump rat.”

“Do not tell me if you drink from them.”

The masterful tribe leader lifted a brow, but instead of proclaiming he did so, and completely horrifying her, he said, “I wonder if you would enjoy a stroll in the north hall where I’ve had the Tiepolo hung? It is a marvelously dark piece.”

“Perhaps a few moments,” she reluctantly agreed, while her eyes scanned the ballroom for the man with the graystreaked hair. “It is oppressive in here.”

A glance to Portia assured her she would return. Portia liked to wander the salon and figure who was mortal and who was not. The maid was safe from hungry vampires for she wore Henri’s mark. To them Portia appeared used, not worth a taste.

The north hall served as a retreat for a few couples walking arm in arm, admiring the massive fresco paintings, which would normally fill an entire boudoir wall. But on the two-story-high walls they appeared merely portraits, one lined after the other. An ostentatious display of wealth. Three candelabras marked the walls at distances, providing low, hazy light.

Viviane realized Constantine could tend all her needs. Save the most vital—freedom.

Constantine offered his arm, which she accepted. The lace blooming from the end of his sleeve spilled across her wrist. He smelled of lavender, wine and the slightest trace of blood. He must have fed before attending tonight, most likely from one of his kin.

Viviane had never bitten another vampire who was not Henri. The bite was very sexual, which had made her relationship with Henri unique. They’d never had sex. That he had respected her enough to allow her freedom, while both succumbed to the orgasmic swoon of her bite, was tremendous.

She would be bound to no man, vampire or otherwise. Yet she was not stupid. A patron was necessary to survival.

“You stand alone amongst the frippery tonight,” Constantine said. He placed a hand upon hers, which she curled about his forearm.

“I shouldn’t wish to be an oddity,” she said. “You don’t think I blend well?”

“You do, but your beauty blinds one and all to your true nature.” He paused before a velvet settee and Viviane tucked her skirts to sit. “Because I know what wickedness lives in your heart.” He leaned in and whispered aside her ear, “Wolf slayer.”

Spine stiffening, Viviane tightened her jaw. “It is not a title I admire.”

“But you should. The entire salon uses it with respect when you pass.”

“Only because you told them the tale of my encounter.” That it had already become a tale whispered amongst the throngs disturbed her.

“It puts you above all others. A strong, dangerous woman no man shall reckon with. Which reminds me, I have something for you.”

He slipped a ribbon from his sleeve. A curved white talon dangled from the length of blue velvet. Viviane touched it tentatively.

The sudden intrusion of warm metal brushing flesh startled her. Constantine stroked her cheek. One of his rings had sharp edges and she flinched, but it wasn’t from fear of being cut. All vampires felt the shimmer with contact, a glittery vibration coursing through their veins. It was the only way they could recognize their own breed unless they saw fangs or witnessed the other drink blood.

Was Hawkes really vampire? His otherness baffled her.

“From a werewolf,” Constantine said, confirming her suspicions. “One I slayed decades ago. This is the trophy I took. I want you to have it.”

“Oh, Constantine, I could not—”

“You must. It is a symbol of our similar spirits. We are both wolf slayers.”

Viviane sighed and clasped the dead relic. At least she’d the decency to wear facsimiles of hummingbird skulls. Yet she could not deny her macabre curiosity. Inspection found the talon to be like ivory, and the tip pin-sharp.

Yet what troubled her was his talk of werewolves.

“Henri was never cruel to a wolf,” she whispered. “He claimed no enemies.”

She wanted to learn more. Because something did not feel right to her. Who had been the wolf who murdered Henri? Was it a retaliatory move because she had slain the wolf in the country?

“Of course, Henri was kind to all,” Constantine offered quickly. “Too kind.”

“Do you think … Because of what I did?”

“Slaying the wolf? No, mademoiselle, a thousand times no. These things simply happen.”

The banal statement struck at her core. Constantine stroked her cheek again. The touch irritated more than comforted.

“For your reassurance, you must know I have already set my men to track the murderous wolf. Though Henri was not a member of tribe Nava, he was an honorary member. And we protect our own.”

If Nava were so protective of their own, Henri should not be dead, honorary member or not.

“His head will sit upon a spike in the Bois de Boulogne in no time.”

The city park was a sort of haven for Dark Ones after the prostitutes had left with their marks for the night. It was also the place where an example could be made of any who had thought to act against another tribe. Midnight executions were rare but not unheard of.

“Shall I tie it around your neck for you?”

“No.” She nestled the talon beside her breast, tucked behind the corset. “The ribbon doesn’t match my gown. But I promise I will wear it to the next salon.”

“That would please me immensely.”

She stifled a shiver to imagine pleasing this man. At this horrible moment she realized her future was tenuous.

“I wonder after your intentions?” she found herself blurting. Very well, so curiosity would kill this cat, or at the least, maim her. “Regarding your pursuit of me.”

“As I’m sure Henri told you—”

She put up her palm. “It is not something I can consider at the moment.”

Constantine audibly swallowed. “I understand. You and Henri were close. But marriage aside, you must choose a patron quickly. Henri’s blood is established in you,” he continued. “To take a new patron will require some … re-structuring. Time to adjust. You must be blooded anew.”

An emptiness eddied at the back of her throat. How much time did she have? She had only needed to drink from Henri twice a year. Yet she had felt his death as if he’d been ripped from her very soul.

“I will consider your proposition if you will show me how willing you are to have me in your life.”

“You’ve to ask me anything.”

“Understand, just because I am considering your proposal does not ensure that I will accept. But I find it would be extremely challenging, if not socially humiliating, to step under your patronage when you’ve already so large a harem. I feel I would become lost amongst the throngs.”

“They mean nothing to me, Viviane. I do not love any of them. My kin are there to serve a purpose.”

“Would I not serve that same purpose?”

“No, it would be different. Viviane, I love you.”

The hairs at the back of her neck prickled. What beasties snuck upon her heart?

She maintained decorum. “Then prove it. Send them away.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. Cease patronage to your entire harem.”

Taken aback, he thumbed the Van Dyke beard on his chin. “They would die without me.”

Viviane shuddered inwardly. She was only promising to consider his proposition.

“It shall be done,” he said.

ONCE RHYS TOOK A PERSON’S scent into his nose, he had it forever. A vampire, on the other hand, must be much closer, within hearing range to track the heartbeat of his victim. Thanks to his mixed blood, Rhys could track Viviane LaMourette anywhere in the city, if he desired.

That was the question. Did he desire to track her?

What was he doing? Seeking to revenge the vampire lord. What had become of his initial, and real, attraction to the vampiress?

Those whimsical blue eyes had captivated him. Too bright, too bold. And that mouth. So red, so soft. And that imperious command of independence he had found refreshing. The woman might well be a libertine.

And that teasing curve at the side of her mouth. Like a delicate petal, it begged plucking.

“And what is wrong if I wish to pursue fine things?” To take them, hold them in his hands and crush them against his skin.

What was wrong was he had veered off course. He’d come to Paris on a mission for the Council. And still, no word from William Montfalcon, which was beginning to disturb him.

Rhys had been suspicious of Montfalcon’s unlocked door upon arrival. It was as if the man had left for the day and intended to return—yet had not. So he and Orlando were staying in the man’s home with hopes he was merely away on holiday. Rhys knew Montfalcon would not mind, and if foul play had occurred, he felt sure Montfalcon would appreciate someone looking over his home.

He had not taken time to question any in the salon after the distraction named LaMourette had turned his head.

“Don’t allow her to change your course,” he muttered.

Yet his course had altered to include revenge against Salignac. That bit of side play he would enjoy.

Later that evening, Rhys tracked the vampiress’s carriage through the tight, dark streets until it pulled up at a stable behind a town house hung with red shutters. An oil lamp flickered above the front doorway, leaving the stables shrouded in shadow.

The maid stepped from the carriage and wandered into the stable, her heels clicking abruptly.

A cloaked figure emerged from the stables behind the maid, a man, perhaps a stable hand. He stepped into the carriage. Closing the door behind him, the maid tugged up her hood and loitered outside.

“The vampiress is out on the prowl.”

Vacillating whether or not to approach, Rhys decided he must attend his own neglected hungers, or meet the full moon with a raging madness he could not abide.

“Time to find a donor,” he muttered, hating the act as much as he needed it.




CHAPTER SIX


CONSTANTINE DE SALIGNAC settled onto the tattered velvet divan, hastily untying the jabot at his neck. He was eager to slip into oblivion. But it was difficult to concentrate after what his man Richard had reported.

“That bastard is in town,” he muttered.

He swiped his palms over his face, and scratched the small patch of dark stubble on his chin.

Richard had reported seeing Hawkes lurking about, sneaking through the salon as if to spy.

“Rhys Hawkes, will I never be free from you? Do you walk this earth only to torment me? To show me what others must never know?”

Richard popped his head into the study. “She’s on her way, Salignac.”

“Properly spiced, I hope,” he snapped.

“Drank the whole bowl of opium,” Richard offered with his usual lascivious glee. “She can barely walk.”

Constantine’s fangs descended in anticipation. Normally Richard waited until he’d been directed to prepare the evening’s repast, but for some reason Sabine had gotten into the opium early. She’d cast him a stabbing glance when he had greeted Mademoiselle LaMourette.

Sabine had no right to jealousy, and yet rarely did his glossy-eyed kin ever show signs of fight over him. Pity.

Sabine was his oldest and favorite. He had a few dozen female kin that he blooded regularly in hopes of eventually getting them with child. A mortal woman-made vampire required five to ten years of blooding from her patron before she could accept his seed and grow fruitful. Sabine had been carrying his child for five months now.

Finally, some success.

If she could give him a male heir, a bloodborn vampire to carry on his name, the tribe would be most pleased. His position as leader was tenuous. The ailing tribe needed new blood to grow stronger. Constantine had been named leader two decades earlier, and he’d expressed the dire need for the male members to gather as many female kin as they could in hopes of producing viable male bloodborn vampires. Yet nothing had come of it.

His greatest hope rested upon securing Viviane LaMourette as kin. She was the diamond amongst the rubies. The only bloodborn vampiress in Paris, she was the key to his remaining leader of tribe Nava. Finally!

Yet she asked him to give up his kin? A bold request.

A petite blonde, wearing a gossamer night rail that revealed her tumescent belly, stumbled against the door frame. She grinned drunkenly at Constantine and brushed the loose hair from her face.

He gestured for her to come to him. Candle glow exposed the road map of blue veins beneath her pale skin. She was growing more delicate as her stomach expanded. He made a note to find her a proper maid who would tend only her. He must not risk his child’s life.

She collapsed on him more than sat. Though she was his favorite, he’d gone beyond desire for sex now that she was expanding. Still, her blood was the finest vintage.

“You could not wait for me?” he wondered as he stroked the hair from her neck.

“I thought I was your favorite,” she pouted. “I saw you leaning so close to that wolf slayer.”

So she was jealous. “You are my favorite, Sabine.” For now.

He kissed her neck, grazing a fang along the vein. No passion required, only hunger for solace. Ever polite, only a small cry from her. She clutched his jabot and cooed as he extracted the hot blood from her vein. Laced with opium, it relaxed him and dizzied his world. Made him forget things.

He sucked the sweet wine of oblivion, yet she began to struggle. Normally she slipped into a weak reverie.

Constantine caught Sabine’s wrist. “Settle. I am not finished.”

“Oh!” Such a shriek could not be because of his ministrations. Sabine squirmed on his lap and slid off, landing on the floor, her head tucked. “It is like knives!”

Licking the blood from his fingers, Constantine stopped and noted what he was doing. He was never so messy. Where had it come from …?

A smear of blood across his lap trailed over the chaise longue. He startled. On the parquet floor, writhing in pain, Sabine bled from her loins.

“Richard!”

Jumping off the chaise and over his kin, Constantine wobbled to catch his balance. The opium hazed his perception. He wanted to recline and drift away, to annihilate the nasty foreboding Rhys Hawkes’s presence had embedded.

“Hell, she’s losing it,” Richard hissed. He plunged to the floor and lifted Sabine by the shoulders. “What should I do?”

“Get her out of here!”

Unwilling to look upon the wailing female, Constantine turned and smashed his fist across the candelabra. Half a dozen tapers clattered against the wall. Flame ignited the English paper but quickly burned out. “Damn it. Will I never have what I desire?”

RHYS HAD TO ADMIT THE HAWKER down the street offered excellent pheasant legs. Roasting for hours over applewood chips gave the meat a soft, sweet flavor. He set aside two cleaned bones on the paper they’d come wrapped in and started on his third.

He preferred meat to blood. Or rather, his werewolf did. And though he was vampire right now—and vampires could not abide meat—the werewolf ruled his thoughts. He would regret this when the vampire retaliated during the full moon.

But until then—his werewolf mind urged Rhys to tear another strip of savory meat from the bone.

Setting aside the cleaned pheasant bone, Rhys scanned the copy of Journal de Paris he’d unfolded on the table, yet found he wasn’t in the mood to read about the queen’s curious involvement with a priceless diamond necklace.

They’d been in Paris a week and William had not returned home. Montfalcon was young, strong and bold, yet he was also gentle and discerning.

Rhys could not figure what would have led a wolf to take Monsieur Chevalier’s life, and that of his wife.

Indeed, could it have been William? Certainly would give a man good reason not to be found.

No, he was forming conclusions with little basis in truth.

Nefarious deeds had occurred within the vampire and werewolf communities. Suspicion should point to the Order of the Stake, a covert organization of mortals intent on slaying all vampires.

Mortals or a werewolf? Rhys would rule out neither.

If she had been patroned by Chevalier, perhaps Mademoiselle LaMourette could provide some insight.

“Oh, did I tell you?” Orlando said, interrupting Rhys’s thoughts as he grabbed another pheasant leg from the diminishing stack. “I learned something about the slain vampires last evening after you went off to stalk the vampiress.”

He would hardly call it stalking. Mild interest, perhaps. “Yes?”

“Seems they were a husband and wife, and … the vampire …”

“Henri Chevalier.”

“Yes, he patroned only his wife and one other vampiress. Viviane LaMourette.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But did you know —” the boy leaned in dramatically “— she is bloodborn?”

Rhys sat back in his chair, stretching out his legs. Bloodborn female vampires were rare, a prize to snatch and hoard. If two bloodborn vampires were to procreate, the offspring would be very powerful.

Lord de Salignac was bloodborn. Rhys was also aware tribe Nava was desperate for new blood. The tribe was in danger of extinction for a mere dozen or so males remained.

“You are sure?”

“A faery told me. And then I stole a kiss from her.”

“You should be cautious of the Sidhe, Orlando.”

“But you—”

“Have a distinct relationship with their kind.” And not one he wished to cultivate. “A man unaccustomed to dealing with those who wield glamour had best stay as far from them as possible.”

“I kissed her once. Besides, I’ve my eye on the mortal pretties who prance about the Palais Royal and lift their skirts to show their unmentionables.”

Rhys shook his head. “Be careful there, too, boy.”

So Viviane LaMourette was a bloodborn vampiress. He’d thought only the created vampires required a patron. But then, this was the first existing bloodborn female vampire he had heard about in a long time.

“Bloodborn,” he whispered.

Constantine would be a fool to let so valuable a female slip from his clutches. Which would make Rhys’s successful seduction as a means to revenge all the more satisfying.

And aren’t you doing a spectacular job of that, man?

“I think the murders are in retaliation for the wolf slayer,” Orlando said.

“You do?”

A pack wolf had been murdered as spring had arrived. He had been found beside a toppled carriage, neck broken. Yet the killer had not been a mortal, for rumors whispered through the Salon Noir it was vampire.

The packs were careful to keep away from humans, yet the werewolf’s humanlike soul required a connection with the mortal world when the full moon insisted they mate.

Rhys, on the other hand, suffered moon madness. Normal werewolves sought to mate during the full moon; his werewolf—urged on by the vampire mind—hungered for murder.

“So how did it go with the vampiress? I thought you intended to seduce her?”

“We got on well enough.”

“Isn’t what I sensed.”

Cheeky boy. Rhys splayed out a hand. “Did you expect she would fall into my arms at first glance? I intend to call on her today. She must have information regarding her patron’s death.”

“I wager you are the only vampire who dares approach her.”

“Makes things more interesting, I suppose.”

“How will you take from Constantine the one thing he wants more than life? Will you kidnap and ravage her?”

“No.” Rhys chuckled. “It will be far sweeter to win her admiration, then see Constantine and know the woman he loves has been tainted by me.”




CHAPTER SEVEN


THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. Clouds blurred the moon.

Viviane navigated the slick cobblestones with airy steps. The women at Versailles had nothing on her balletic rush-walk.

A cat meowed. The creak of carriage wheels a street away slapped the hard stone.

The Dark Ones occupied these spare hours between the theatre and the dawn arrivals. Viviane mused the blood was fresher, healthier even, than from the languorous aristocrats.

A breath pulsed the night.

Viviane paused, but did not look over her shoulder. A survival trait, she never made herself obvious, be it walking through a crowd or alone.

Again a breath teased the air and tickled the base of her neck. Goose bumps tightened her skin. Normally she was the one to produce such a sensation in a victim.

She picked up her pace, clutching her skirt to keep it from the wet cobbles.

Tonight she craved … something. A bite from a stranger. The wanting brush of skin against skin. Sometimes, if the man were clean and reasonably handsome, she would allow his hand under her skirt, but that was rare. She kept her lovers separate from sustenance.

It is not blood; I want to be touched tonight. To feel passion. To surrender to climax.

A carriage rolled by, forcing her shoulder against the limestone wall of a three-story home. A nail jutting from a windowsill snagged her sleeve.

Viviane tugged and cursed as the lace at her elbow tore. She touched her abraded skin and sucked at the bleeding wound. The skin knitted together under her lips, and within a few breaths it had healed.

Moving briskly through an alleyway so tight her shoulders brushed the walls with alternating steps, the darkness overwhelmed. A whisper of wind brushed her ear so tangibly she felt sure someone had touched her.

She would not tolerate an untoward mortal man thinking he could seduce a lone woman this evening—that was an engagement she always controlled. However, if it be a cutthroat, then do follow; she would lure him to an unfortunate result.

Viviane stepped on a moving ropelike bit. Her ankle twisted and upset her footing. The kitten heels were not made for sure balance. Something squeaked. Dread scratched her senses.

“Sacre bleu.”

She could feel them teem about her skirt hem and across her toes. Slithering. Sharp, pin-quick claws. A silent swarm. So suddenly they’d come upon her. Had she wandered into a nest?

Odor of rot assaulted the soft tissues in her throat. Terror lifted in her belly. The intensity of her racing pulse hurt her ribs. Her shoulders dropped against the wall. Eyelids fluttered.

“No,” pealed from her mouth. “Please, I, cannot …”

Disgust and fear consumed her bravado. An agonizing moan keened from her lungs. Yet Viviane could not cry out for the scream lodged in her throat, clinging as if for safety from the horrible creatures.

Too many of them. The horde rattled.

Which way had she come?

Tiny fangs pierced her ankle. Viviane shook her leg violently. Her skirts hampered movement. The satin corset constricted. She lost balance and slapped a palm to something hard. Should she faint—

“I have you.” A man’s voice.

Lifted from the ground, her senses blurred. The something hard she’d grasped to steady herself was a man’s chest. She gripped him about the neck, trapping a ponytail tied with ribbon under her fingers. Earthy scent. Subtle vampiric vibrations shimmered under her palm.

Strong and focused, he carried her through the darkness.

Aware. So aware of his breath playing across her décolletage.

The heartbeat against her breast pounded steadily. He held her as if a child, secure in his arms. Viviane recognized his scent. Not a stranger.

Nor a friend.

Sacre bleu, she had fallen into his arms?

“You’re safe,” he whispered. “It’s over.”

He set her down. Clinging but a moment longer to his coat shoulders, Viviane ducked her forehead against his neck. Safe here. Nothing to fear.

Still she could feel rats teeming about her ankles. A prick of fang— She lifted a foot and slid it along her leg.

“No more of them,” he comforted. “I promise. They swarmed over a dog carcass at the end of the alley. I could smell it. You couldn’t have known.”

“I … hate them.” Humiliating, she could not find her breath or stand and face him calmly. But the memory …

The bodies of her parents’ victims, left behind after the Order had slain her parents. The dead mortals had not been buried, for she was too young to manage digging a grave. Swarming with rats.

“I don’t like rats much myself. They are filthy creatures.”

He stroked the hair from her cheek. The touch was rough, his flesh not smooth, unlike Constantine’s soft, thin fingers. Viviane clasped his hand. She closed her eyes and held him there at her cheek. Chase away the memories. Concentrate on his warmth until she recovered her breath and tendered her confidence.

He was too close, too intimate with her. So wrong.

She did not care. Could not think beyond the safe feeling. It wasn’t wrong to take comfort, was it? She didn’t know. Rarely had she received the like. He must think her weak.

“Are you well, my lady? Tell me you were not harmed? Bitten?”

“Yes, a few bites.” Healed now, surely. “So awful. There were too many. I did not hear them until it was too late.”

Still gasping for breath, Viviane followed the stroke of her fingers down the front of his frockcoat. Simple pearl buttons wobbled on threads in need of tightening. The coat was old, a comfortable piece. He was not a Nava tribe member then, for they deemed a man worthy by not only his unbaptized state, but as well by his dress and aristocratic bearing.

The observation distracted her, and she needed that. Breaths settled. And her heartbeat resumed a normal pace.

His scent, earthy and rich, like a wide-open meadow or a vast, enclosed forest, appealed. Complex. Not dusty or perfumed as so many of her kind preferred.

Realizing her fangs had lowered she willed them up. Tucking her head, Viviane chastised her body’s irrational reaction. Anxiety always put her to defensive mode.

Yet so did desire.

“I thought you were Constantine.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I am not disappointed.”

“Pleased?” he asked hopefully.

“No.” She wobbled, grasping for the wall.

Rhys Hawkes pressed his body against her, hugging her from breast to hip. It was a lover’s easy pose. His eyes held hers and he bowed to her. Would he kiss her? Dare he?

“We stand outside your home.”

For the first time she realized the wall behind her shoulder was the Chevalier stable. Truly her mind was out of sorts.

“I would escort you inside,” Rhys said, “but fear the invitation will not be offered.”

He slid a hand down her thigh—she’d forgone underskirts for the hunt; much quieter that way—and bent to squat before her. His hand moved over her shoe, tied with red moire ribbon, and up her ankle. Though she wore silk stockings, it felt as if his skin touched hers. Warmth burnished her flesh. He could wrap his whole palm about her ankle, contain her, control her—

Viviane realized he was feeling for the bites, not trying to accost her.

“I am sure any bites have already healed.” She pulled her ankle from his touch, yet regretted the lost connection. “Were you following me?”

He shrugged.

“When have I ever given you the suggestion I appreciate your company? You’ve spoken to me but once, and that was most unpleasant.”

“It wounds me your memory of our meeting was so foul. I found it most enjoyable. I think it was something I saw in your eyes. They are the color of a bright summer sky.”

Viviane looked away. The last time she had seen the bright sky …

Deprived of daylight for two centuries, she often wondered what it would be like to touch sunlight streaming through paned windows, and could still recall watching dust motes dance in a sunbeam before she’d been blooded at puberty.

She possessed a vague recollection of summer fields dotted with fresh cornflower and clover. Now all she had opportunity to see was the occasional moth on a suicidal mission toward a flame. Still, pretty in a macabre manner.

“Go away,” she whispered.

Monsieur Hawkes leaned in and delivered a wicked grin. “Make me.”

He stroked a curl of hair along her neck, so she swatted his hand none too lightly.

“Ouch. Do it again?” He snickered.

Viviane’s blood rose at the challenge. A gentleman would walk away. A rogue would have kissed her by now.

“You may like the vintage of my blood, Viviane.”

She bristled at his use of her name. It was too personal. He invaded her comfort. “I wager it is a less desirable vintage than I am accustomed to, Monsieur Hawkes.”

“Yes, I am to understand you city types sneer at the country appellations.”

“Only because they are so uncivilized and illmannered.”

“Are we still talking about blood, or have you turned to my person?”

“It is all the same.”

“Of course. You are the aristocracy.”

“You do not claim the same?”

“I am a humble provincial at your beckoning, Mademoiselle LaMourette. Ask me to slay all the rats in the city and I shall.”

She could not prevent a chuckle. “If but you could.”

Moonlight filtered between the nearby rooftops, gleaming on the harsh planes of his square jaw. Dark eyes glittered with the stars she could not see for the clouds. His thick, long hair was dashed with a gray streak as wide as two fingers. So wild.

He could have her if he but swept her into his arms and carried her inside. And then she would receive the satisfaction she craved this night.

He placed a hand above her shoulder on the wall. “Rumor tells you require a new patron?”

“My patron was Henri Chevalier,” she said tightly. Anger spilled over the tender wanting. “Constantine believes a wolf killed Henri and his wife in cold blood.”

Rhys shifted against her, leaning in closer. “Not all wolves are vicious.”

“What do you care for the wolves?”

“I mark no man my enemy, no matter his breed. As Rousseau says, ‘All men are created equally.’”

Henri had once quoted the same. She’d thought him a revolutionary. And she had admired him for his bold, independent thinking.

Her anger subsided as she looked over her rescuer’s face. Square jaw and bold nose. Not outwardly handsome, yet indicative of a warrior, and strong, powerful men always attracted her. Desire again scurried to the surface, reducing her need to put up the offensive. Rhys was attractive, more so for his teasing gentleness.

“Thank you for the rescue.” And then she leaned in to kiss him.

A connection, two mouths meeting in the night. Testing. Taking measure. Wondering. She kept it chaste; his lips were soft and yet firm, willing to give her her way. This kiss was hers to direct, and while she fought with the insanity of it, she was proud of her independent heart. It never led her too far astray.

Tonight her heart took what she craved. Flesh to flesh. Sharing of body heat. A sample of pleasure she could either pursue or flee.

How she wanted to pull him to her, crush her breasts against his chest, and dive into the deepest of intimacies. But no, this simple moment must be savored. This first kiss, not at all awkward for their mouths met as if destined, she would remember always.

Breaking the kiss, she leaned back, but Rhys followed her, forehead to forehead.

“You surprise me, LaMourette. I thought my presence offended you.”

Indeed, she surprised herself.

“Regarde moi,” he said.

No, she would not look at him. Could not. Her bold heart grew trepid.

“It was nothing more than a thank-you kiss, Monsieur Hawkes. Lost in a moment of relief.” She exhaled resolutely. “I assure you, now I’ve gained my senses, I will ask you to leave.”

“I am honored to have earned your kiss, even if in a moment of nonsensical folly. Good eve, LaMourette. Until we next meet.” He glanced upward. “Full moon in less than a week. What is it Shakespeare wrote? Well met by moonlight?”

“I believe it was ill met by moonlight.”

“Ah? Well then, forget I said that. Meeting you has been beyond a pleasure. Au revoir.”

She lifted her chin and did not look until he’d broached the cross street and his silhouette filled the alley. Broad-shouldered and solid. He was built like a peasant who worked the fields. Not refined. Brusque. And such a swaggering walk. Nowhere near the aristocratic elegance she was accustomed to.

Viviane swiped her tongue across her bottom lip. The taste of him did not offend. And the smell of him, so much a part of this mortal realm, crept into her pores and fixed itself there. Complex, yet simple. Dark. Sure of himself.

Yet she could not abandon the ill ease something about the man was very wrong.




CHAPTER EIGHT


“YOU SAY SHE WAS WAITING for William Montfalcon to return to her?”

Orlando nodded fervently. “He’d told her he was bringing money, so they could be together.”

Having returned from his nightly visit to the brothel, Orlando’s ginger hair was mussed and his shirt untucked from his breeches. But he wore a smile like a badge of triumph.

“Her name is Annabelle,” Orlando said.

“Just Annabelle?”

“Yes, just.” A wider, more pleased grin had never graced the boy’s face.

Ah, the afterglow of a night well spent.

Settling in for the morning, Rhys sat on a stool at the end of the bed, stripping his stockings off before the porcelain ewer filled with boiling water. “How did this topic come up while you two were …?”

“I asked her if she ever thought to stop and leave the world behind.”

“Interesting conversation.”

“We did more than shake the bed.” The boy plopped onto a chair, one arm draping the back, a leg dangling over an arm.

Rhys recalled the drunken high of after sex, and felt a nudge of jealousy. Kissing—or rather, receiving—LaMourette’s kiss tonight had only increased his frustration.

“I am a gentleman, Rhys. You taught me to treat a woman with dignity.”

“Is that so? I don’t recall directing you to comment on their assets as if they were confections on display at the market.”

“Oh come, man! I am young. I am enjoying myself.”

“Indeed.” He plunged his feet into the copper bowl, huffing out a satisfied moan at the heat. “And she said nothing else?”

“Only it has been almost a month since William promised to return to her. She’s all put out about that. I wish I had a bit of coin to give her. More than she usually asks, that is.”

“I think I can help you with that, Orlando. I want to speak with her. See if she’ll give me further information regarding Montfalcon’s whereabouts. When do you see her next?”

He shrugged. “Few days.”

“Excellent.”

IN THE SHOE ROOM, Viviane sat with her back to a padded damask column. A loose linen chemise spilled from one shoulder. Lace about her neckline and wrists tickled her skin like a lover’s breath. Rhys’s breath. A red satin shoe with black frogs and an ebony heel she clutched to her heart.

Earlier, Portia had dusted the room with lavender powder, which lulled her. Sleep had eluded all through the morning hours. And now, well past two in the afternoon, she could not begin to start the day. For he haunted her thoughts. Her every step. Every time she ran her tongue across her lips she thought to taste him.

Him—the vampire with the warrior’s name and the curious scent—Rhys Hawkes.

She touched her mouth and allowed a wicked smile at the thought of Rhys’s mouth tasting her. She pressed her thighs together and almost, almost, reached a pinnacle. Surely, it would take more than a kiss to bring her to climax. Yet for as agitated as she’d been lately, Viviane was surprised she’d not come from a mere kiss.

What power did the man wield to affix himself in her thoughts—into her very body—like this?

Constantine she never thought about, unless it ended in revulsion.

Rhys, it seemed, could not be near her without touching her, if even through the slightest glide of his knuckles along her skirts, he sought connection.

And he had achieved it. To her detriment. Now she could think of nothing more than seeing him again. Tempting him to touch her, to unleash her from her self-imposed freedoms. To take their kiss beyond.

Did he mark it off as folly? Or did she haunt his thoughts, as well? Did he crave her? Did he wish to feel her teeth against his neck, his mouth, his veins?

“I want more of him,” she said on a wistful sigh. “A taste of him.”

A taste would not bond her to him as kin to patron. A deeper drink was required for that.

Rolling forward onto her stomach, she teased a red tassel decorating the toe of a cerulean slipper. Each pair of shoes had been lovingly placed on a tilted shelf, the sides of each foldable box down to reveal the contents. It was as if a confectionary shop displayed its wares of satin, lace and ribbon.

Noticing the corner of paper tucked beneath one box, Viviane drew it out. The card was about the size of her hand, and featured a marvelous ink drawing with exquisitely lascivious detail.

“Blanche, you do surprise me.”

The drawing depicted a man on a chair, leaning over a woman who sat on the floor. Her dress spilled from shoulders and hips to reveal he teased her nipple with one hand and her quim with the other.

But more interesting in the picture was the chair decorated with arabesques of large male members, and on the woman’s shoes were tiny female figures, legs splayed to reveal all.

The erotic art increased Viviane’s ache for a sensual touch. She traced a fingernail along the curve of the woman’s breast, and tapped the man’s delving fingers.

Rhys could touch her like that and she would not stop him.

Even though he disturbs you?

She imagined herself in such a position—with Rhys leaning over her. Sucking in her lip, she slid her hand down her skirts to press between her thighs. Giddy desire stirred. She needed so much more than a kiss.

Portia tiptoed in and leaned a shoulder against the damask wall below an angel-bedecked candelabrum. “Dear, you look so melancholy. It is Monsieur Hawkes.”

Viviane hid a sly grin behind the erotic card. “You think to know so much?”

The maid nodded, sure of her assessment. Wilted ruffles frilled about her bosom and mobcap; she’d been steaming Viviane’s gown.

Viviane sat up against the padded post and drew her legs into a curl. She displayed the card to Portia. “Were you aware of your former mistress’s secret stash?”

“What is that?” Portia bent to examine the card. “Oh my. He’s touching her so … And oh.” She clutched the card, but Viviane snatched it and possessively pressed it to her chest. “I had no idea. Shall I dispose of it for you?”

“No. It appeals to me. As does Monsieur Hawkes.”

Portia’s eyelashes fluttered in delight. “He was appealing.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, that gray streak in his hair is charming. Makes me wonder if he got it because of some devastating trauma that wounded his heart. And now he bears the scar of it as a reminder.”

“You have quite the imagination, Portia.”

“Is he a vampire?”

“Apparently.” At Portia’s wondering gaze she explained. “He seemed out of the ordinary. Not like vampires I’ve met. Rough-mannered. Dressed poorly.”

“Oh, dear, yes, no lace.”

“That, and did you see his walk? A bowlegged strut like something right off a pirate’s ship. The man was overall …” She searched for the correct summation.

“Wild,” Portia murmured with wicked delight.

Viviane hid a smile behind the card. Passion had flared in Rhys’s brown eyes as he’d stepped defiantly before her to divert her pace in the salon. When he’d stepped around behind her, she had felt his eyes roving down her back, lingering at the base of her spine. It was as if he had touched her there.

What a divine place to experience touch. And she preferred if it were by a man’s tongue while she lay naked before a blazing hearth fire. The tickle of a wet tongue down her spine, tracing into the dimples of Venus that crowned her derriere …

“You’re thinking about him,” Portia chided teasingly.

“He fascinates me, nothing more.” She studied the card again and wondered if there were more to the collection tucked away.

“Does he desire to give you what Salignac can?”

“What, exactly, is it Constantine can give me?”

“Safety. Life.”

She liked those things. But freedom was missing from the list.

“You do adore fine things, ma chérie. And your coffers are not growing larger. Hell, what coffers?”

She hated that Portia spoke the truth with little reserve. But she did not fault her for it.

All the servants had mutinied following Henri’s death. They were owed wages, and Viviane had discovered Henri’s caches empty. Upon Portia’s suggestion, she’d handed each employee a silver candelabra or two and bid them adieu. But the stable boy, Gabriel, and Portia remained.

Every day new creditors knocked at the door seeking to collect Henri’s debts. The furniture in the music room had been carried out yesterday. She had no idea how she would pay Rose Bertin, the dressmaker, yet supposed she could return all of Blanche’s gowns.

Viviane studied the shoe and wondered if she could pay off a few leeches with a damask mule or ermine slipper?

“I’ve pressed the gown with the hummingbirds on the sleeves.”

Viviane adored that one.

“Master Rosemont just arrived,” the maid added. “He’s copying out lessons.”

“Excellent. Help me prepare.”

IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON and Master Rosemont stood over Viviane, gently guiding and observing as she copied out the word carriage on the paper. Henri had seen to arranging for her studies but days after her arrival.

“It’s a complicated word,” Viviane said as she finished the e. “But pretty. Did I make it right?”

“Your penmanship is coming along well, Mademoiselle LaMourette.”

Much as she insisted he use her first name, he never did. He was young, and more than a few times Viviane had caught him observing the rise and fall of her bosom as she concentrated over her work. Once she had met his roaming gaze and he blushed so deeply, she decided never to do that again. The man was nervous, but a kind teacher.

“Are there some words you’d like to write today? List a few and I’ll write them for you to copy.”

Pressing the quill’s feathered end to her lips, Viviane perused the many objects in the room, wondering which of them she’d most often need to write about.

“Shoes,” she said. “Hmm, and wine.”

“Yes, of course.” Bemused, Master Rosemont scrawled the words on the page. His strokes elegantly imprinted the ink to paper with an ease that made her marvel. “A few more, and I’ll leave them as your homework. How about Portia’s name?”

“Oh yes. Portia. And gown. Salon. Book. Park.” Her mind wandered to some of the more lascivious pleasures— stroke, tickle, tongue—but she wouldn’t do that to him. Would kiss be too extreme to mention? Yes, it would. “How about … Hawkes?”

“Very good. Beautiful animals, are they not?”

“I’ve not seen one close up.” Save for the man version. “Have you?”

“Only a dead one. Poor thing. It hung in the taxidermy shop on the left bank. Gorgeous plumage. I felt sudden anger for the hunter at the sight of it.”

The hunter. Like a wolf slayer?

Averting her rising guilt, she studied the paper he turned toward her. “Is that the word?”

“You tell me.”

Viviane knew the first word began with an s. “Shoe,” she said.

“Very good. And the next.”

She recited them all, and when the short word beginning with h ended the list, she traced her finger beneath the letters. “Hawk.” Which wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted. “If I put an s at the end?”

“It will mean more than one.”

“My lady, there’s a visitor in the foyer,” Portia called as she entered the study. “Lord de Salignac.”

“I did not expect him. He knows I do not receive on Saturdays.”

“Shall I send him away?”

“No, I will speak to him.” There was still half the hour for her lesson, and she did not want to send Master Rosemont home. “I’ll send him away quickly,” she said. “Write a few more words for me, please. These few will hardly keep me busy the week.”

“I agree.” With a determined élan, Master Rosemont leaned over the paper.

Flames on a wall sconce flickered as Viviane entered the sitting room.

Constantine wore black, as usual. It was not a color aristocrats embraced, for black was the color of mourning, and of cheap wool they could only afford when they’ve nothing in their purses. Yet he wore the color as if he’d invented it. The damask coat was shot through with silver threads. In one pose the coat looked black. Yet if he tilted a shoulder or lifted a hand, it shimmered the fabric, turning it a jet silver, and then steel.

“I have told you this is not a day I receive visitors.”

“But surely you’ll receive me? Is there someone else here?” Constantine peered over her shoulder. “It’s a man, isn’t it? Viviane, I asked for exclusivity.”

“And I asked for proof of your devotion.”

“Three kin have left the brood,” he stated. Straining his head over her shoulder he glanced toward the study.

“It is not what you would guess it to be.”

“Really? So there is a man in the house?”

“Yes, but—”

He flew into a rage so quickly Viviane was swept off balance as he brushed past her. The last thing Master Rosemont needed was a raging vampire interrupting his work. She hurried after him, but he beat her to the study, and held the writing master slammed against the wall when she arrived.

“Let him go!”

“I demand an explanation,” Constantine hissed at the reddened teacher. “What are you doing in Mademoiselle LaMourette’s home?”

Viviane could but cross her arms and sigh. So the truth would be out.

“He is teaching me to read and write,” she confessed. “Now do release him.”

“Reading?” Constantine dropped the man, who crumpled to the floor.

“Yes, reading.”

The vampire leaned over the table, inspecting her work papers. He jerked a look at her, apologetic yet tinged with a creased anger.

“I believe you owe Master Rosemont an apology.”

“Oh, not necessary,” the frazzled teacher piped up. “I am fine.”

“Forgive me,” Constantine said, and Viviane was glad for his humility.

“I think perhaps I should be off.” Master Rosemont gathered his leather satchel and shoved the paper across the table. “I completed the list for you, mademoiselle. Perhaps you should send for me next Saturday? I shouldn’t wish to intrude.”

“No, please, return at the usual time. I promise this embarrassing situation will not be repeated.” She delivered Constantine knives with a glance. “Will it?”

“Of course not. Can I ensure your ride home, Master Rosemont?”

“Oh no, no. I’m off.” He bowed hastily and made a leg for the front door.

Constantine picked up the list and inspected the words. “Hawk?”

Feeling as though he’d raped her most precious secret, Viviane marched out of the room, hands on her hips.

He followed close on her heels. “So you don’t know how to read?”

“What of it?” she spat out.

“I am surprised. I had thought your patron would have ensured a more schooled kin.”

“So I am not smart enough for you?” A vicious clarity suddenly focused her, standing off the man who would own her if he had his way. “I think you should leave.”

“I admit I was in the wrong to approach Master Rosemont so violently. But please, let’s put that behind us, Viviane.”

Yes, yes, keep the man appeased. “What did you come for?”

He bowed and kissed her cheek, and the other, and finally a brush of a kiss over her mouth. The man was like marble, only because Viviane wondered how to ever soften him, find the soul beneath the hard surface.

“Is that smile for me?” he asked.

No, it was not. “But of course. Who else?” She touched her mouth. Rhys lingered there. “Ah, Portia.”

The maid brandished a silver tray sporting goblets and a wine bottle. Viviane poured half a goblet and tossed it back while Constantine observed with wonder.

“A bit parched,” she offered. She wiped her lips with a finger. “Would you care for some?”

“No, wine tends to sit ill with me. While I was waiting I couldn’t help notice your music room is rather spare of furniture. And on the wall.” He pointed at the strange bright rectangle of English paper where a painting had once hung. “Are you having trouble, Viviane? Because you know you can ask anything of me.”

Pacing away from Constantine to the one remaining settee in the entire house, Viviane decided the truth was not going to harm her, and it would show she trusted him. By all means, she wanted to stay on good terms with him.

“I had no idea Henri was in debt,” she offered. “The creditors began appearing with bills three days after his death. All the servants have left, save for Portia and a stable boy, who am I most grateful for.”

“If you need money—”

“Not at all. I paid the servants with furniture and silver. The creditors took a few horses and one of two carriages Henri owned. I thought it a fair exchange. I don’t wish to make a fuss of it, Constantine. So if we could put the subject aside I would appreciate it.”

“I’ll not mention it again.”

He gripped her wrists and pulled her to him. Viviane knew he would kiss her, and struggled—only a little. He bruised her mouth with an urgent connection that sparkled in her belly. She had to force herself not to grab at his coat to pull him against her.

It would be so easy to let it happen. To not clasp his fingers in an attempt to stop him from tearing asunder the bows securing her corset. To expose her breasts so he might lick them as she needed them to be touched, tasted and worshipped. But she could not.

Tearing from his embrace, she stepped once before he pulled her back and she tripped on her skirts, falling against him. Constantine’s breath whispered down her neck. The prick of his teeth altered her insistent desire as if a penitent’s lash to bared flesh.

She managed to slip the side of her hand across his mouth. Skin tore and her blood oozed out. “Don’t you dare.”

He swept out his tongue and licked the faint crimson trail. Defiance glinted in his dark eyes. “Sweet. As suspected. And pure.”

“That is the only taste you will know of me if you do not honor my request to dismiss your kin.”

She held her breath, matching his defiant stare. Pure. Exactly what he required.

“You are the most exquisite taste, Viviane. To drink of you should murder me sweetly. It is a death I will wait for.”

“Constantine, please, tell me what you want from me.”

He clasped her hand and his thigh brushed hers. “I would ask you to accept my hand in marriage. To come under my patronage. To have my children.”

Hand pressed to her throat, Viviane paced to the table where the wine decanted. She traced a fingernail along the bottle’s thin neck. “Marriage.”

“It would make you mine exclusively.”

No mention of love.

“But you understand that is impossible, Constantine. I’ve needs. The hunger forces me to seek others.”

“Those men are but donors, vessels to feed your hunger. I don’t want to direct you how to go about meeting those needs. But the others, if there are others besides me, I would like you to stop seeing them.”

Other male vampires. Lovers? How ridiculous. “You say that as if I’ve a harem similar to yours.”

“Mine is a necessity.”

“A patron needs only one or two kin. Henri was an example of that.”

“Henri did not lead a tribe. I must set an example by creating progeny.”

Poor luck he was having with that.

Constantine was not cruel. Why did she insist on being so cruel to him?

She returned to the settee and sat on the edge of it, offering her hands, which he took and curled before his mouth to kiss. “I will consider it.”

“I want an answer now,” he insisted. For the first time Viviane felt she’d heard the real Constantine, the powerful lord who got as he wished, and cut down his enemies with one blow. “It is only fair to me.”

“You think you can simply select me to become yours and I will comply?”

“Viviane, you have been granted such independence—” He stopped abruptly, checking his words.

“It bothers you, my freedom? That does not speak well for my future. As you’ve said, I have been granted independence. An independence I expect to retain, at all costs.”

“That would be a steep price. Viviane, the relationship you had with Henri was unique.”

She’d been so young when Henri had taken her under his care. Too young to be pressed into a sexual relationship. And he had never pressed, bless his kind heart.

“Please, let’s not speak of him. My heart still aches for his loss.”

“Of course.” He lifted the talon from around her neck and let it fall from his fingers. “Forgive me. But please consider what the two of us could create.”

Quite sure she did not favor being forced into making a decision, Viviane swung her foot and glanced to the floor beside the settee where she spied a box.

“What is in the box?”

Constantine’s eyes sparkled. “Curious?”

“Of course. Anything secreted within a red satin box and tied with a bow would make a woman’s heart beat.”

“But you avoid answering my request.”

“Show me what is in the box, and I shall consider your request.”

“Ah, so you shall decide our fate by how you judge the value of what I’ve brought you?”

Of course. If it was of value, and she could use it to pay off one of Henri’s debts. “Constantine, you know I will come to you … eventually.” It was a sad truth she must soon face. “I need time.”

“What if you have not time?”

“I have gone well over six months without drinking from Henri. I am … unique. Older.”

“Perhaps it is because you are pure blood.”

“If you distract me with whatever you’ve brought along, perhaps …”

Perhaps she could summon a reason not to answer his question. Ever.

“Very well.” He placed the box on her lap. It was flat, narrow, and the red satin box was tied with a froth of black moire ribbon that wavered like oil under the candlelight.

“There is a craftsman in Rouen who designs astonishing pieces of jewelry. I once asked why Marie Antoinette had not summoned him, and he said she had, but he did not enjoy the fuss. Can you imagine?”

“Not everyone lives for the queen’s summons, Constantine.”

She knew he craved a connection to mortality she would never understand. As well, the fame.

“I saw this piece and immediately decided you must have it. It is as if it were made for you.”

Viviane struggled with the knot, but refused to slip the ribbon from the box, as was possible. To delay the surprise was the best moment, and she always took her time when opening the few rare gifts she received.

For his part, Constantine did not rush her. She felt his eyes creep along her face and down to her breasts.

Marriage? He was a fine man. Handsome. Powerful. A tribe leader. All Dark Ones in Paris looked up to him. He could have any female vampire he desired, and she in turn should feel gratitude she’d been chosen by him.

And yet, Viviane had always avoided attachment to men for the very reason immortality meant forever. A woman promises her heart to one man and, centuries later, he may still be in her life. She wasn’t ready for that. She’d never fallen desperately or head over heels in love.

And if she should, forever was too long for a commitment to a man whose eyes reflected babies. A baby tucked to her breast was the last thing Viviane envisioned for herself.

Pushing off the box top revealed a wide network of what initially looked like chain mail. Closer inspection found the pewter links were elaborate filigrees, chased and polished to a gleam. Hematite stones were set into the filigree. They shone like polished metal.

Constantine caught her reaching hand. “Careful. The tips of each link are sharpened to fine points.”

Viviane lifted the box to eye level to see that indeed, the links were embellished with tiny points, like miniature fangs. “It’s absolutely medieval. Like a torture device.”

“Do you like it?”

“I believe I do. How delightful, yet dangerous.”

“Much like you.”

“Thank you, Constantine. It pleases me.”

Setting it aside, she dipped her head before his face to accept a kiss. He answered without reluctance. This kiss was hard and demanding, much like—no, she would not think of that other kiss.

The kiss from a man who intrigued.

VIVIANE LINGERED AFTER Constantine had departed.

“You’ve a letter. Just delivered by a messenger.” Portia dropped it on her mistress’s lap. “So busy today with the visits and correspondence.”

Pressing the crisp paper beneath her nose, Viviane scented the earthy odor and immediately guessed from whom it had come.

“Who is it from?” Portia asked.

“Monsieur Hawkes. Read it, will you?”

Sitting beside her, Portia carefully popped the red wax seal.

The seal of red wax fell away and Viviane caught it. Interesting crest. The design featured a fleur-de-lis surrounded by pine bows. So provincial. She set it on Portia’s lap.

“’My dearest LaMourette,’” Portia began, yet commented, “He addresses you like that? Presumptuous of him.”

“I thought you favored him?”

“I do, but the propriety. Please.”

“Continue, Portia.”

“’My dearest LaMourette. Since we parted last night I have thought of nothing but your warm lips.’” Portia delivered Viviane a gaping O of her mouth.

“Read,” Viviane persisted.

“’I know you will take no favor in my listing the many different ways I have thought of our encounter. Nor will it appeal that you have invaded my heart and I’ve no intention of fighting you from the vanguard.’”

Viviane yawned and patted her mouth dramatically.

“’But I do know how to win your heart, my dark, delicious queen of the night.’” Portia squiggled beside her. “He is so romantic. Oh.”

“What?”

“Here is the final line. He writes, ‘On my way home I encountered a rat and kicked it most soundly, sending it careening through the night, squeaking to bloody hell.’”

Viviane imagined the rodent flying through the air at the point of Hawkes’s toe. How satisfying. How utterly humorous.

“’Good morrow, my sweet LaMourette.’” Portia dropped the letter in her lap. “Why write to you about something so awful?”

Viviane burst out in laughter. She laughed so hard she had to grip her stomach for the corset compressed her ribs. It was most painful, but she was too giddy to care.

“I don’t understand,” Portia said. “You don’t even like rats. You find this funny? What did I miss?” She silently reread the missive. “If he’s such an effect on your mood, I believe him dangerous.”

“No man is a danger to me.”

“To your person. But your heart is something else entirely.”

“Nonsense, Portia. Your head is polluted with romanticisms.”

“Better romance than dread.”

Indeed. Constantine’s visit had stirred dread in Viviane’s heart. Dread for a dismal future that would see her freedom abolished. Monsieur Hawkes had an awkward, misplaced sense of romance.

Romance?

Rhys Hawkes and Viviane LaMourette? The idea of it tickled Viviane’s persistent desire for all things sensual.




CHAPTER NINE


Paris, modern day

RHYS ASKED SIMON TO DROP his things in a guest suite then return immediately to the grand room to go over their plans.

It was good to be home. He owned estates in New York, Daytona Beach and Venice, but Paris was truly home.

Brushing aside the curtain, he admired the sky, dappled with stars. The moon must be on the other side of the house. Two days until it was full. After all the decades had passed, he still took no pleasure trying to sate his vampire or in locking his werewolf away.

Sexually sating the werewolf on the day preceding the full moon and the day following was not a hardship. It was what all werewolves craved during the full moon, sex, or rather, mating. A connection with one’s mate they kept for life.





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