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“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.
