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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.
