Reluctant Partnerships (12 page)

“Can I take a shower first?” he teased.

“I suppose,” Angelique said, “but only if you promise to scrub my back while you’re at it.”

“You’re going to make me late for work,” David warned. “Again.”

“Perhaps, but you’re so good at your job and you work so many extra hours that your boss can’t complain.”

David was not so sure about that, but he did not argue. He would not put it past Angelique to give his boss a piece of her mind, and no one needed that. “Come on, then,” he said, rising from the bed and offering her his hand. “Let’s go.”

She rose with the grace of a belly dancer, her hips swishing in a way guaranteed to make his body react as she walked ahead of him into the bathroom. He hissed out the breath he had been holding and resigned himself to being late. Again.

Half an hour later, bathed, dressed, and ravished, he kissed Angelique goodbye and cast the displacement spell to take him to Alain and Orlando’s house in Pouilly-en-Auxois. Orlando waited for him in the courtyard, basking in the weak fall sunlight. “You look like a cat curled up in the sun,” David said when Orlando opened his eyes to greet him.

“It’s a pleasure I was denied for a very long time,” Orlando said. “I take advantage of it now every chance I get. Not that I get much chance to sit down.”

“I imagine not,” David agreed. “Shall we go? I need to get to work after I take you to Paris.”

“Let me just tell Alain I’m leaving,” Orlando said, going to the door of the house and calling inside to his lover. When he closed the door, David cast the displacement spell to take them back to Sang Froid. Waiting only to make sure Orlando was steady on his feet, David cast a second spell, taking himself to work.

“Angelique?” Orlando called.

“In my office,” Angelique called back. Orlando opened the door that stood ajar and joined her in the luxurious room. “Thank you for coming.”

“You’re welcome,” Orlando said. “Your message said it was urgent.”

“Has Jean told you at all about the vampire they found on Sunday?” Angelique asked.

“Not a lot,” Orlando said, “but enough that I can guess why you called.”

“I’ve tried to help her see how to survive as a vampire,” Angelique said, ushering him out of the office and into the warren of rooms that made up her business, “but my turning was a voluntary one, a way to escape the harem that was my prison. I have no experience with what she is feeling right now.”

“She’s scared,” Orlando said immediately, “or maybe with your help, she’s passed that stage already. She’s angry, bewildered, confused, with no idea how she’ll survive now in a world that has no place for her, or at least that’s the way she sees it.”

“I knew you would understand,” Angelique said. “Will you speak with her? I know you can’t fix her situation, but it might help her to see that it’s possible to have the kind of turning she did—and worse—and still recover to find happiness and peace.”

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” Orlando cautioned, “but I will share whatever wisdom I have.”

“She’s staying in one of my guest rooms,” Angelique said. “She’ll be ready to leave before long, I think, but I wanted to keep her close until I was sure she was ready. She’ll probably be more comfortable talking to you there.”

“She doesn’t have our protection from sunlight,” Orlando said with a nod. He remembered all too well the need to hunker down in a dark room and not move during the daylight hours, even to another darkened room. “I probably should explain that to her as well.”

“She’s seen some of it,” Angelique said, “both at l’Institut and here with me. I took her out to hunt last night, but I chose not to feed. On the way back, she asked me why, and I reminded her I had a partner. I don’t think she really understands what that entails yet.”

“But then neither do we,” Orlando said with a laugh. “I wonder how many of us would have formed partnerships if we’d known then what we know now.”

“Certainly not as many as did,” Angelique agreed, “but few of us regret it. Despite my rough start with David, I wouldn’t change it now.”

Angelique stopped outside a door and rapped lightly. “Pascale, there’s someone here I’d like you to meet.”

Pascale did not answer, but Angelique pushed the door open anyway. Orlando waited on the threshold, not wanting the vampire inside to feel outnumbered or uncomfortable. He was not surprised to see blankets draped over the windows, as if the closed volets did not provide enough protection. It had taken him months after Jean rescued him from Thurloe’s dungeon before he would stir from behind his closed bed curtains while the sun was above the horizon. He had overcome that paranoia long before he met Alain, even if he had still been forced to stay inside until his Avoué’s blood gave him immunity, but it had taken time and much patience on Jean’s part. Orlando would give Pascale the same time and space if she needed it.

“Pascale,” Angelique said, lifting the covers completely hiding the body in the bed and peering beneath. “The volets are closed and you’ve covered them with blankets. The only light in the room is from the hallway, and it’s from the light fixture, not from the sun. It’s safe to come out. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“It’s all right, Angelique,” Orlando said. “I have a better idea.” He stepped inside and shut the door. “Now it’s safe. There’s no light, even from the hallway.” Even his preternatural vision could barely penetrate the blackness, and he felt for the chair along the wall as much as he saw it there. Taking a seat, he added, “But there’s also no reason Pascale can’t stay safely under the duvet. We can talk even if she doesn’t come out.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone else,” Pascale said, her voice muffled by the covers. “I’ve told them everything I remember.”

“That isn’t—”

“Angelique,” Orlando interrupted, “why don’t you go take care of business and let Pascale and me talk for a bit? This will be easier for both of us without anyone else around.”

Angelique started to argue, but she decided against it. Orlando would never do anything to harm Pascale, and the conversation would probably do both of them some good. “I’ll be in my office when you finish,” Angelique said. “We can call Raymond or someone else at l’Institut to take you home when you’re finished.”

“Thanks,” Orlando said. He had a suspicion he would need Alain’s comforting presence by the time he finished talking with Pascale. Even more than two hundred years after he was turned and more than a century after Jean rescued him from his maker, the memories had the power to hurt. He waited for Angelique to leave, the snick of the latch and the return to darkness signaling her departure.

“Angelique didn’t really introduce us,” Orlando said into the silence of the room. “I’m Orlando St. Clair. You’re Pascale, right?”

He thought he heard a muffled sound of assent, so he continued. “Did Angelique tell you I was coming or why?”

“No,” Pascale replied, her voice a little clearer this time, as if she had peeked out from beneath the covers.

“A little about myself, then,” Orlando said. “I was a soldier in the British army on the eve of the revolution in the American colonies when a vampire named Thurloe saw me and decided he wanted me. He grabbed me as I left a pub one night, turned me without asking, and held me prisoner for over a century before Jean Bellaiche, the chef de la Cour here in Paris, rescued me.”

Orlando could say the words now, something he had still refused to do before meeting Alain, but nothing would ever make them come easily.

“Rescued you?” The covers rustled, making Orlando wonder if Pascale had sat up in bed.

“Thurloe was a twisted excuse for a vampire,” Orlando said, his voice bitter despite the intervening years. “He tortured people, human and vampire alike, for the pleasure of it. After he moved us to Paris because it became unwise to stay in London, Jean heard whispers of a vampire being held prisoner and abused. When he came to investigate, he found me trying to destroy myself because I couldn’t go on that way any longer. He convinced me I didn’t want to do that, put Thurloe on trial for the abuse, and took me under his wing.”

“You didn’t want to be a vampire either?” Pascale asked.

“I might have considered it if I’d been asked,” Orlando replied, “but he didn’t ask. He pulled me into an alley, knocked me out, and when I awoke, he had stripped me and bound me to a bed. By the time he was done with me, I was ready to die, but he had other plans for me.”

“That’s horrible,” Pascale said, switching on the lamp by the bed so Orlando could see her face for the first time. “What did you do?”

“There was nothing I could do,” Orlando said. “I was his prisoner until Jean found me. I considered ending my existence after Jean rescued me, but Jean always persuaded me to hold on a little longer.”

“What made you change your mind?” Pascale asked softly.

“A lot of little things more than one big thing,” Orlando replied, “but mostly Jean himself. He was a vampire. I hunted with him, so I knew he found people to feed from, but he never treated anyone the way Thurloe treated me. He showed me I could be a vampire without being a monster.”

“The way Angelique has shown me,” Pascale said slowly. “Do you ever wish it hadn’t happened?”

“I used to wish it,” Orlando said. “Even after I stopped thinking about walking out into the sunlight, I wished none of it had ever happened. I will always regret the way of my turning, but I no longer regret that it happened.”

“Why not?” Pascale asked.

Orlando’s smile lit up the room. “I met Alain. If I hadn’t been turned, I would almost certainly have died during the American Revolution like the majority of my fellow soldiers, but even if I had survived the war, I would have died of old age long before now, and I would have missed out on the most amazing relationship I could ever imagine.”

“Alain?”

“Alain Magnier, my Avoué,” Orlando explained. Even saying Alain’s name sent a flush of warmth through Orlando. “Before you ask, an Aveu de Sang is a bond between a vampire and a mortal. Alain is my only source of sustenance, and I am the only vampire who will ever feed from him, but it’s so much more than that. He is the other half of my heart and soul. Some days, I think he is my heart and soul. If I hadn’t been turned, I would never have met him. Having him is worth what I suffered at Thurloe’s hands.”

“He sounds like a very special man,” Pascale said. “I don’t have anyone like that.”

“Very few vampires do,” Orlando admitted. “Even those who have a part-time or full-time lover rarely have an Avoué, but that isn’t what I came to talk to you about. Jean and Angelique thought it might help you to talk to someone else who didn’t choose to be turned. They mean well, but they don’t understand.”

“But you do.”

“As much as anyone can,” Orlando said. “I didn’t choose the existence I now have any more than you did. The only difference is I’ve had a few years to get used to the idea and, more recently, a reason to be glad it happened.”

“It’s a gift to them,” Pascale said slowly. “Jean, Angelique, all the other vampires I’ve met… they see being a vampire as a gift, a way to extend their lives far beyond mortal years. They don’t see that to me it’s a curse.”

Orlando smiled sadly. “No, they don’t see it that way. A vampire turned Jean after he’d been injured in a Viking attack. He would have died from the injuries if he had refused the turning. For him, it was a choice between life and death. A different life than he had known before, but still a kind of life. For Angelique, it was a way to escape the prison of the harem where she would have died eventually, because no woman who enters a harem ever leaves unless she dies. For us, though, it wasn’t a choice, but something forced upon us. It isn’t necessarily sexual, although for my maker it was, but it is undeniably a violation of our humanity, our very souls. Nothing in their experience compares to that.”

“So how do you recover?” Pascale asked seriously. “How do you stop hating the situation you’re in and learn to live with it?”

“Day by day,” Orlando replied. “I wish there were an easy answer for you, but it isn’t something you get over. There is no cure except walking outside on a sunny day, and that’s not nearly as easy to do as you think it should be. As soon as you can, find a way to return to your old life. If you can still do your job, go back to that. Arrange your house so you’re protected from the daylight. Reconnect with your friends if you can. Some of them won’t understand, but things are changing. The equal rights legislation and the vampires’ contribution to ending the war have opened people’s eyes to the fact that we might have a different kind of existence, but we aren’t fundamentally evil simply because we’re vampires.”

“And if I can’t do that?”

“Then connect with the magical community,” Orlando said. “There are vampires, wizards, and other magical beings scattered throughout the country. I couldn’t tell you how to find them other than through l’Institut, because I wasn’t very good at following my own advice. I didn’t have a choice when I was first turned, and by the time Jean saved me from Thurloe, I had no interest in anything other than being left alone to lick my wounds. Only since l’émeutte des Sorciers have I developed many connections outside of my friendship with Jean, but they have made all the difference in the world. Suddenly I have friends again, people I can depend on who accept me as I am and care about me anyway.”

“Wizards keep coming up in conversation and in the lives of the vampires I meet,” Pascale said. “What’s that all about?”

“I’ll give you the short answer,” Orlando offered. “For the full answer, the easiest thing is to spend a week at l’Institut. That’s what they do there: explain the partnerships to vampires and wizards.”

“So the short answer.”

“The short answer is that the right combination of vampire and wizard offers both parties advantages. For vampires, it’s protection from sunlight and an increase in strength. For wizards, it’s more magical ability and more control over their magic,” Orlando said. “And for some of us, it’s the chance at happiness with a lover beyond our wildest dreams.”

“Your Alain.”

“Yes,” Orlando said, “or Angelique’s David, if you’ve met him. Jean and Raymond, Sebastien and Thierry. The list goes on. Not just magical partners, but partners of the heart. You shouldn’t rush into anything, because once you’ve fed from your partner the first time, your instincts will rush you as it is, but ultimately, for me, finding that partner made the difference between existing and living again. I’ll always be a vampire, but for the years of Alain’s life, I’ll be happy as well.”