Seducing the Vampire (19 page)

“Do you want a child now?”

“No,” he said. “And yes. But I try not to think about it, because I know the power of Faery is great.”

He shifted on the chaise and the book slid across Viviane's lap.

She caught the book and a small folded paper fell out of it. She handed it to Rhys. “What do you make of this?”

Rhys studied the paper. “The handwriting is small and erratic. It's difficult to decipher. It appears a check of sorts for services rendered. Exact services are not stated. Nor are the parties involved listed.”

“How much?”

“Hmm? Oh, about a thousand livres.”

“Is that very much?”

“About two of your fancy gowns. Enough to feed a man for a year.”

Rhys stroked his thumb over the embossed letterhead. An intertwined
C
and
S
formed the monogram. He sat up abruptly.

“What is it?”

“Huh? Oh…” He winced. “Just a bit of an ache in my belly. I tend to eat for my werewolf, but forget my vampire body cannot endure a feast. Why don't you let me walk you home, then I'll go for a run?”

In spite of his outwardly calm demeanor, Rhys's anger brewed inwardly. He knew the initials on the paper could only be from one person.

R
HYS GROWLED AT THE FOOTMAN
holding post in the Hôtel de Salignac lobby. The man, a mortal enthralled by receiving a regular bite, wisely stepped back.

As he marched down the grand marble hallway toward the ballroom, Rhys's honed senses did not pick up a particular scent. There were plenty of odors, most of them female and hungry.

Ahead, the rumble of male conversation grew louder, more aggressive. Rhys rushed down the steps and into the ballroom.

Two tribe vampires prowled before Constantine. They were dressed in breeches, shirts and jackboots, riding attire or fighting ready.

Rhys lifted his chest, bulking up his frame and bringing all attention to him. The vampires sought command from their leader. Constantine stepped between them, making a small gesture they remain back.

A mirthless smile curved his brother's mouth. “The cat comes to the mouse,” Salignac announced. “Or is that the dog to its master?”

“You are not my master,” Rhys stated. “Are you so enamored of your patronship over so many you automatically include all as your underlings? Do your tribe members bow to you, as well?”

“Not at all. We respect one another. My men are of their own minds. Why are you in my home?”

“I thought a brotherly chat in order.”

“As a matter of fact, I was coming for you.”

“Is that so?”

Constantine looked aside. One tribe member dropped a length of chain and on the end of it dangled an iron shackle. Or was that silver?

Rhys felt his hackles rise. “What is this? Doesn't look like a simple escort from the city.”

“You did it to yourself, brother.”

The feral instinct to shift tingled in his shoulders, but Rhys fought against it. He would not give Constantine the satisfaction.

“You deny you murdered Henri Chevalier and his wife?”

“What?” Constantine shifted uncomfortably. “You mock me.”

“I don't know why I didn't guess it immediately. The one person standing between you and the prospect of a bloodborn child. It was you who hired William to murder her patron. I found the bill!”

Constantine chuckled, small and self-important.

“So you could have Viviane for yourself.” Rhys made the connection like that.

He wanted to swing the chain about his brother's neck and choke him, but that was not the way to kill a vampire. Nor to serve justice as a representative of the Council.

“Brilliant lies to cover your bloody truths,” Constantine said slyly. He approached Rhys, not cowering, and perhaps anticipating Rhys would not swing out at him. Their rivalries had always been private.

“Do not think my men will believe your stories. We are united in Nava. I care for them. They see justice done to any who should act against us.”

Rhys would not allow Constantine to work this in his favor. “Henri Chevalier was not a Nava member.”

“He was a friend.”

“Is that how you treat your friends? Wait. Yes, I believe it is so. For if you treat your very brother so poorly, surely friends receive the same lacking regard. Henri's death was a means for you to gain the bloodborn female you crave.”

“You filthy dog.”

Rhys mirrored the vampire's circling moves, keeping an eye to his next attack. “That epitaph is tired.”

“Lice-ridden mongrel.”

“Much better.”

“You stole her from me! You put your filthy hands to her!”

A triumphant smile curled Rhys's mouth. But the triumph lasted mere moments. This revenge was bittersweet. While he enjoyed serving the coup de grâce to his nemesis, he no longer wanted to involve Viviane.

“She is mine!” Constantine swung at him with his fist.

Gripping the man while he was midswing, Rhys brought up his knee to crush into Constantine's face. The vampire, released, stumbled and landed on the ballroom floor. He spat dark blood onto a white section of the harlequin tiles.

The tribe moved in.

“Stay back,” Constantine growled at his underlings. “This is between me and the abomination.”

Rhys pounced and landed before his brother. “She belongs to no one.”

Rhys pounded the vampire's face with a fist. He did not fear injury, for he knew when attacked so directly the vampire couldn't summon its fangs, a protective means
that kept its weapons from being broken. “Most especially not to the vampire lord who thinks to place her within a silver cage and keep her for himself.”

“Would that I had such a cage. The silver would keep you out!”

Constantine shucked off his frockcoat. The two circled one another. The acrid scent of aggression flooding from the tribe stung Rhys's nostrils.

Constantine charged. Rhys blocked the first punch, then took a boot to his gut. He did not relent. As a child, he had watched his older brother spar with other boys, cheering him on, hoping some day Constantine would teach him his scrapping skills. The day of his puberty arrived too soon, and Rhys came into his werewolf and vampire in one remarkably horrific night.

His brother did spar with him after that, but it was not to teach but to accuse and pummel.

Constantine had taught Rhys real hate. Yet always, he'd attempted to win his brother's approval by luring unsuspecting mortals in for his brother to bite. But Rhys's vampire had been wild in those early days and his werewolf could not be contained.

Constantine had been disgusted by his brother's mad blood hunger. He'd once found Rhys naked and hiding in the shed the morning following his werewolf's rampage. Rhys still remembered the hot spit hitting his face—his brother's assessment of his worth.

He'd grown stronger and more skilled over the years; finally, he and Constantine would have their match.

Constantine's men did not move to stop the fisticuffs.

“She will die without me,” Constantine said, huffing from exertion as a mortal would. “Do you think to steal her away only to watch that happen? Or perhaps that is
your finest revenge? I understand now. Seduce her toward a slow death. Well played, Hawkes.”

Rhys took another fist to the face. His blood tasted foul. “Viviane has asked you to leave her be. Why will you not respect her wishes?”

“Because she is being tupped by a bloody wolf!”

Rhys swung wide, his palm stiff. The heel of it connected with Constantine's shoulder and sent the vampire flying backward.

“Love knows no prejudice,” Rhys said. Rolling back his shoulder, he prepared for the next blow.

“Love?” The vampire, sprawled before his tribe members, studied his bloody skull with a fingertip. “You are incapable of loving a vampire as she deserves. Most especially Viviane. She is one of a kind.”

“Yes, the ultimate broodmare for your tribe. Did you ask Viviane if that is her desire?”

“Females have no say!”

“You are incapable of knowing her heart,” Rhys said. “Your idea of love hurts her.”

“You have poisoned her mind. How dare she? To take up with a wolf?”

To mate with a wolf, Rhys thought proudly.

“Stay away from her,” Rhys said. He spat bloody spittle onto the marble floor. “She's mine.”

“You have ordered her death,” Constantine countered. “Slowly. Cruelly. Do you know what happens when a female is denied her patron?”

“Viviane has survived for months without taking from her former patron. As you've said, she is unique. Because she is bloodborn she needn't take from a patron so frequently.”

“She cannot survive forever. She needs vampire blood running in her veins. She's lived over two centuries. Can
you imagine waking one evening to a woman aged two hundred years? It happens swiftly. She will rapidly age and change to dust. Can you do that, Hawkes? Hold the dust of your lover in your hand and be thankful for your selfish decision to make her yours?”

“You know not.”

“I do! I have let many of my own die recently. She demanded it of me! Promised me her heart if I would devote mine to her. Wicked vampiress. And look how she thanks me?”

“What did William do for you?” Rhys insisted. He must get his brother's confession.

Constantine stood. “You know.”

“He killed Viviane's patron. But he would not have done so. Ever. I know William. He was a gentle man. What did you do to Montfalcon to make him commit murder?”

Constantine spat blood, and dragged his tongue along the bottoms of his fangs. “It is helpful to have a witch in one's pocket.”

“A witch?”

“Do you know what our children could be?” Constantine continued. “A son would be the most powerful vampire Paris has seen. He would be the key to strengthening Nava's fading bloodline. I must have Viviane.”

“As a commodity,” Rhys barked. “Could you patron her knowing she would never love you?”

“With the blood comes a certain attachment. The swoon. Eventually she will not know what it was like to be without me. I have kept your secret too long, brother. Now you force my hand.”

“My secret?”

The vampire lord whistled. From across the ballroom
half a dozen more vampires marched forth, wielding chains. The clink of iron threatened.

“You are the only man I know of in Paris who is possessed of an unnatural lust—a werewolf who seeks blood. Seems to me you are the only suspect.”

“That is madness! You've confessed—”

“To nothing, save the heartbreak in knowing my brother is guilty of a heinous crime.”

Much as Rhys wanted to stand and fight, he did not want the justice Constantine would mete out should his minions manage to wrangle him.

Lifting a foot, he heeled Constantine in the chest, shoving him backward, into the klatch of oncoming vampires.

Rhys clenched his fists. Turning and running away felt wrong. It was not like him to
not
stand and face whatever challenge sneered at him.

Yet his werewolf wanted free. To slash out at injustice. To prove Constantine's mad accusation by revealing his wicked darkness.

“You run, brother!” Constantine called from the ballroom. “I will not relent. You've gone too far. You will be punished!”

Rhys slapped the wall nearest him and swore. He had no doubt Constantine would accuse him and find success for he had the entire tribe behind him and Rhys had no one.

Racing toward the exit, he struggled with his new cowardice.

But it was not a fear of facing his brother that pushed him down the cobbled street and toward Viviane's home. It was the call to keep her safe. For now Constantine had played his hand, he would not cease until he owned the one thing he desired most.

 

R
HYS DID NOT RETURN
to William's home, so Viviane had returned to Henri's estate and waited. He did not appear the following day, and she began to worry. He'd walked from her arms after a blissful afternoon of making love and reading poetry to one another. She did not suspect she had said anything to keep him away.

Which meant he was either investigating the murders, or something was really wrong. Had he decided against an affair with her? He'd been relentless in her pursuit, and now…nothing.

A half-moon scythed the sky and drowsed through a window above the butcher table. Out of sorts, she passed through the silver-shadowed kitchen, fists clenched at her thighs. When her skirts snagged on a chair leg, she kept walking. The chair clattered onto the tiles in her wake.

Here the moonlight glimmered on the crystal chandelier still on the floor. The currier would pick it up tomorrow in payment of Henri's bill for the stable supplies. The vultures had picked this home clean.

Viviane stopped before the constellation of crystal droplets, guttered candles and arabesquing iron. A tear dropped onto her cheek. Feeling her entire body begin to quake, she struggled to maintain composure.

Never let them see your weakness
.

Never had she shed tears for anything. Anyone. Now she cried for herself. She had begun to love Rhys. Where was he? The moon was not full; he did not need to be away from her.

Shoving the heavy iron chandelier, she managed to push it against the wall. Crystals shattered and beeswax candles snapped in half and clattered across the floor. The tinkle of crystal skittering on the tiles mimicked the furious anger racing along her spine and neck.

Grasping the heavy iron bar that circled the chandelier,
Viviane sank to her knees and pressed her forehead to it. Her skirt spread out behind her and she tore open the top laces on her constricting bodice.

Viviane slapped a hand across the broken crystals.

Her heart had abandoned itself to a promise of happiness in Rhys Hawkes's arms. And tonight, without a word to her, he had taken her heart and crushed it beneath his heel.

“I must go out. Erase Rhys's brutal betrayal from my thoughts.”

With blood.