Alexei considered his offer. “Do you have necessary accommodation for a vampire?” he asked.
“I’ll make all the arrangements. You will be comfortable.”
Alexei stood and shook my father’s hand without a word. “Breaking this curse was part of Margaux’s life work. I’m not going to stop until it’s done.”
“Then we can agree on mutual motivations.”
Alexei walked passed my father and toward a doorway in the hall. When he opened the door I saw a dimly lit staircase leading to a room I didn’t even know was there. “The sun will be up soon,” he said, turning toward me and Rodrick before heading down. “The two of you be sure to keep your passions down while I sleep.”
The door slammed shut before I could say anything.
A hollow pit formed in the center of my stomach. Alexei had just said the unthinkable with my father in the room. A rush of red struck my cheeks. I did my best to bury it but it was too late.
My father crossed his arms over his chest and refused to let his penetrating gaze veer away from me. “Don’t make my effort completely meaningless, Riley.”
Rodrick stood up from the couch and placed himself between my father and me. And I couldn’t be more grateful for the interference. I was too embarrassed to look my father straight in the eyes.
“You know as well as I do that Alexei has a mouth on him,” Rodrick said, defending my honor. “Do try respecting your daughter a little more than assuming the absolute worst due to a vampire’s lack of tact.”
My father stiffened at his words. “We could have avoided all this weeks ago if you provided the kruxa in your possession.”
“Nurse Roslyn works for the academy. She is not in my possession. She said she’d rather keep out of vixra business and doesn’t want to be included. If you or Daniella can’t manage to find a willing kruxa, that’s your fault. Not mine. I won’t force my staff to engage in dangerous activities against their will. Riley and I will search for the site of the curse’s origination and you continue your search for a willing kruxa.”
“And the svethulka?” My father asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when its time.”
My father stepped mere inches away from Rodrick. Unfortunately for my dad, Rodrick was taller and stronger than him. I could sense their alpha scents sizing each other up. To my surprise, Rodrick was winning.
“You keep your hands off my daughter,” my father demanded. “Do you understand?”
“Give your daughter more credit than that. And kindly leave the way you entered. I’ll get in touch once we know more.”
My father threw a glare at me that was nothing short of a stern warning. He was trying to free me from the curse’s bind. And if I did anything to thwart his efforts by giving into Rodrick, I had little doubt that he would make sure I paid dearly for it.
He set down his empty glass on the table and walked to the front door of Margaux’s expensive flat.
“Would you be so kind as to give me a moment alone with my daughter?” my father grumbled.
I groaned silently, knowing this wouldn’t be the least bit pleasant.
My father went out the front door and waited for me on the spiral staircase.
I went directly for the wooden hutch where my father poured himself a drink.
“Is there more than one glass?” Rodrick asked as I removed the top of the decanter to help myself to a shot. “I think we’ve both earned it.”
“This isn’t about earning it,” I seethed. “It’s about liquid courage.”
“Can you handle him on your own?” he asked, appearing genuinely concerned.
“You only got a taste,” I said. “Try living with him.”
Rodrick stifled a light laugh as I poured him a glass. Then I downed mine in a single gulp and joined my father on the spiral staircase as he walked down and outside to Margaux’s front doorstep.
The last time I was alone with my father he smashed my head into a grave marker in the Blackburn family tomb.
‘He better restrain his temper this time around. I have one to match now if he doesn’t.’
2
I walked down the spiral staircase and closed the front door behind me to see my father waiting for me just below the steps. I crossed my arms over my chest and refused to walk down the last few steps to meet him.
“Come here, Riley,” he said. “Quit acting like a child.”
“I’m not a child. You know that. So stop treating me as though I’m a naive little girl and I’ll try giving you a modicum of respect that you truly don’t deserve. Especially after you spoke to the Dean of L.I.T. like that.”
“Come here!”
I begrudgingly walked down a couple more steps. I guess he decided that was good enough because he began speaking.
“What triggered the link between you and your brother tonight?” he asked me.
“Alexei thought Rodrick and I were intruders.”
“He attacked you?”
“Yes.”
He rolled his eyes. “Typical. Vampires rarely have any sense in what they do.”
“Why are you curious?” I asked.
“Because it nearly drew your brother into Paris tonight. He would have come looking for you if the Sorlin-Vontaine hadn’t created a charm surrounding the area for its protection against the Dolch Erbe after Margaux was kidnapped. I don’t know if it would have protected you.”
The thought of tonight becoming even grimmer if Dirk had somehow found me and managed to hurt Rodrick made a cold spell strike my heart and make it skip a beat. My hands rounded into tight fists.
“You wonder why I’m so blunt with you about Mr. Blackbane?” he said, using the surname I only just discovered was Rodrick’s real last name. “That’s why!” he said, pointing at me as though he found a detail he knew existed but needed confirmation. “You fear for him. And it’s best that you do. Dirk could have ended him tonight. He could have ended all of us and kidnapped you. There would have been no one to find him. You would have disappeared without a trace and with no one to rescue you this time.”
‘Lothar would come for me. I know he would. He already has.’
I didn’t say a word. A single muttering of defense would have made him believe he was right.
“This is why I don’t want you here. If you won’t agree to stay home in Derbyshire then stay at the academy. At least you have some small amount of security there. But in Paris, or anywhere else outside the lycan realm, you will be a target. I will talk with Daniella and make sure you’re welcome in Paris for the remainder of your stay as long as you promise not to come back here again.”
“Rodrick managed to keep me safe,” I said. “He’s a Blackatter just like you and me.”
“Rodrick is under the curse’s influence. Why do you think I have such concerns? Why do you think Daniella doesn’t trust either of you?”
“Why is Daniella afraid of you?” I demanded, walking down one more step but making sure we remained at eye level. “And don’t say its because of the vixra.”
“It is.”
“But why?”
“Ellinor made it clear to her that my authority usurps hers. Daniella won’t try going around me ever again.”
“Again?”
I searched his eyes for more meaning. He swallowed uncomfortably. A nervous trait we shared and I reluctantly admitted to myself was a quality he passed down to me. I backed up a step and put my hand over my mouth, stopping a gasp from leaving me the second the realization hit me like a sack of bricks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shrieked. “Daniella and you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t make yourself look ridiculous.”
Daniella and my father had been involved with each other. Maybe they were even lovers. I crinkled my nose at the thought, wanting nothing more than to lash out at him for having the nerve to talk of Rodrick and me with such outright shamelessness.
“When the hell did this happen? It better not have been while
mum was alive!”
His eyes flared. “How dare you!” he hollered only to realize his voice was carrying down the lane and Rodrick probably heard him from upstairs. He lowered his voice right away. “I was always faithful to your mother. For as long as I had her. Even after she left me I never lost hope that she might come back. Or she would come to her bloody senses.”
“So after mom died then?”
“What?” he cocked his head. “Was I supposed to remain a grieving widower for all time?”
The pieces came together in my mind. Daniella had an anger streak. I only knew her for a matter of minutes and that much was obvious. My father’s temper probably rivaled her own. I had a feeling their passion went from lust to hatred rather quickly. It might have ended as fast as it started.
“That’s why you had such long business trips even after you retired. You were here with Daniella?”
“I was attempting to help the Sorlin-Vontaine find a way to break the curse. The second your brother was bitten by a lycan I started searching along with others who have made it their life’s work to destroy the Dolch Erbe. People like Margaux Carville. Why do you think she was able to build such a strong coven? It isn’t because she’s charming. It’s because she gathered those who have been harmed by the Dolch Erbe and gave them a common purpose. Motivation to crush the Dolch Erbe and discover how they’ve managed to turn so many against their own over the centuries. Daniella was one of them. Her sister was murdered by the Dolch Erbe years ago.”
“And the moment you and Daniella disagreed on something she went to the vixra to try and overrule you. Ellinor proceeded to put her in place.”
My father’s face twisted into a closed-lip smile. One he used whenever he was feeling smug. “Blackatters carry a lot of weight with the vixra. More than you know.”
I shook my head in disbelief, trying to resist the urge to laugh. “And you love a good power play.”
“Be grateful, Riley. If things hadn’t happened the way they did I wouldn’t have had the authority to tell Daniella not to kill you tonight.”
I might have felt a sensation resembling loathing toward my father the majority of the time but it wasn’t difficult to notice what Daniella might have seen in him. My father wasn’t a bad looking man. My mum even told me that he was quite the lady’s man before meeting her. Waitresses flirted with him when he took her to the best restaurants in London. Reporters made passes at him when he gave interviews as an MP. He was powerful, passionate, masculine, and most important of all, a Blackatter lycan. Until they got to know him of course. Then they realized that the power came from a need to control everyone around him with brute force.
‘Of course. My father is an alpha lycan. Daniella probably fell at his feet.’
“I don’t want to discuss it further out here,” he said. “I have something for you. Meet me tomorrow morning at café Chez Louise before Rodrick wakes up.”
“Why can’t you give it to me now?” I asked.
“Everything I do has a purpose, Riley. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
He turned around and walked away from me. I was left to climb the spiral staircase back up to Margaux’s flat with nothing but lurking thoughts of Daniella and my father together. It was enough to make me physically cringe.
The living room was empty with nothing but the dying embers of the fireplace flickering in the dim light. The only sound my lycan senses could hear was the shower upstairs next to the bedroom as water ran down through the pipes in the wall. Rodrick must have been washing away the insanity of the night before going to bed. I went up to Margaux’s bedroom and threw my trench coat down onto the white wicker chair in the corner. The only thing I had with me was a couple of extra shirts I stuffed into my outside pockets and some underwear. If I was going to get a proper night of sleep, I would need something more substantial than that.
The room was lit with long tapered candles, giving me enough light to look around.
I raided Margaux’s perfectly folded clothes in her large wooden dresser to search for anything I might borrow just for the night. The woman attacked me with the svethulka. The least she could do was permit me the use of her bed and perhaps some pajamas for the night.
After minutes of rummaging around, I concluded that Margaux slept in nothing but satin lingerie lined with delicate lace. The finest Parisian designers could offer. The only suitable thing I could find that wouldn’t make me feel like a complete slag was a white cotton nightgown buried in the back. I held it in my hands feeling slightly relieved. I was cured of that the second I pulled on the nightgown and turned to see the inviting bed behind me. The room was all cleaned up. There was another fire flickering in the large fireplace on the back wall. The curtains weren’t torn. The bedspread didn’t look like a knife dug through its seams. The carpet wasn’t littered with broken glass. Daniella cleaned the entire flat up with the flick of her wand. The bedroom looked exactly how it did in my vision. I was wearing the white cotton nightgown I wore when I dreamed of Rodrick laying across my body and making me more than willing to submit to his every desire.
Before I could scurry out of the room, Rodrick came in already dressed in some trousers I gathered he got from disturbing a few items in Alexei’s room across the hall. His hair was still wet. His neck dripped with droplets of water cascading down his muscular back. And most distressing of all, he was shirtless. His perfectly toned abs caught my undivided attention just before I came to my senses and veered my eyes away. I walked over to the large balcony doors overlooking the rooftops of the city and opened one of the doors to feel the gentle breeze cooling off the heat surging over my skin just from the sight of Rodrick.
“I’ll take the guest room,” Rodrick said from behind me, folding up his trench coat in his arms and getting ready to leave.
“Alright,” I said without looking back at him.
He didn’t leave right away.
The skin on my back practically blistered from the familiar heat coursing inside me.
‘No. That’s not me. Rodrick is watching me.’
I turned my head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of him. He was watching the way the breeze made the long curls of my hair waft behind my back. The fabric of the white cotton dress highlighted the curves of my silhouette in the pale moonlight. Then before he could allow any more seductive thoughts to penetrate his mind, he moved to leave.
‘Thank god!’
The setting was too perfect. And too similar to my vision. I knew if he were to come over to the window and place his arms around me, my will power would be put to the test.
‘It’s the curse,’ I silently reminded myself. ‘It’s the damn curse. Fight it! This isn’t natural!’
I turned back toward the view overlooking the balcony, trying my best to appear distracted. I heard his footsteps come closer to me.
‘Jesus. He’s going to do it! He’s going to make a move!’
“What the hell is this?” he asked in a stern voice.
I turned to see Rodrick standing next to the white wicker chair in the corner holding the notebook I stole from Margaux’s hidden potion room. It must have been peeking through the breast pocket of my trench coat and somehow caught Rodrick’s attention.
I blinked a few times as he stared me down, waiting for an answer and looking at me like I was a common thief.
“It has information about Blackatters inside,” I said firmly, trying to make it clear that I didn’t owe him an explanation. “And since there’s little to nothing written about them in the library back at the academy, I figured I could learn a thing or two.”
Rodrick opened up the front page to see that I was right. Then he closed it and kept it in his hand. “This isn’t yours.”
“Oh, come on!” I complained, going from completely turned on to irritated in a heartbeat. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
‘Well done, sir. You killed the mood. Now give that back to me!’
“Oh come on isn’t a defense, Miss Bl
ackburn,” he said, using my last name again and going back into his formal role as the Dean of L.I.T. in an instant.
“As long as you and everyone else continue to keep secrets from me and only give me information in small doses I’m entitled to learn whatever I can on my own. And as long as you continue to call me Miss Blackburn maybe I should call you Mr. Blackbane, given you never even gave me your real last name. I had to hear it from my father.”
He pressed his lips together in quiet frustration. I could sense that I somehow offended him.
“I keep my true last name private so the students don’t catch on that I’m a Blackatter,” he said. “I have personal reasons for keeping it a secret. You’re well aware now that our kind are hunted. I don’t want the academy being placed in unnecessary danger due to the happenstance of my birth as a Blackatter.”
“How am I supposed to know such things if you don’t tell me?” I argued.
He tossed the notebook back onto my trench coat lying on the chair. “I’m trying to do things properly, Miss Blackburn.”
‘Oh, for the love of god! Just call me Riley!’
“Too much information at once would overwhelm you,” he went on. “The same as it would any student who comes to us not knowing a damn thing then having their entire world turned upside down. We’ve had students lose their minds after they discovered everything they once knew to be true is a lie. I wasn’t about to confess details surrounding your existence or anyone else’s until I knew your state of mind and how you handle the pressures that come with being a part of our world.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” I bickered. “I can handle more than you’ll ever know.”
“Yes, it is my decision to make!” he argued. “As the Dean of L.I.T. along with everything else!” His gaze focused on me with unblinking eyes. For the first time in weeks, I felt small and completely insignificant. I overstepped boundaries. Ones he was obviously determined to keep in place. And he was willing to talk down to me to make sure I knew it. “You can quarrel with your father but not with me. Do you understand? Now put the notebook back where you found it.”
Rescind: (Lycan Academy of Shapeshifting: Operation Shift, Book 4) Page 2