Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1)

by M. L. Desir

  Gabriel leaned forward in the high-backed chair and glared at him. “This monster needs to be set as a proper example so that this doesn’t happen again.” While he spoke, his eyes glanced over the child.

  Lilith and Faron just stared at him.

  He gave them a glare that could cut diamonds. “You want me to rule, but as soon as I make demands that you don’t like, you expect me to back down. Well, your expectations are bloody unreasonable. I won’t yield.”

  “Fine,” Lilith spat. “We shall meet your barbaric demands.”

  “His demands may sound barbaric,” Nathaniel agreed. “But it will most definitely make a statement.”

  Gabriel rewarded him with a smile. “And I want to be present when he’s punished,” he announced as Lilith and Faron rose from their seats.

  “In secret,” Faron urged, sea-gray eyes very wide. “A secret execution.”

  “Oh, but that simply won’t do. If punishment is done in secret, how will I be able to make a statement? And naturally, since I decreed the sentence, I should attend it. Is that a problem?” Gabriel asked in a tone that showed that Faron should think it not.

  Lilith gave a little wave of her hand, and Faron went over to where the sleeping child lay, shaking his head and looking troubled.

  “Of course, Gabriel. Arrangements will be made, and we’ll see to it that you have a front row seat.”

  “What is the matter with Faron? It’s almost as if you’re hiding something, and he’s none the wiser. If that’s not the case, then I shall gladly apologize.”

  Lilith tilted her head to one side, smiling. “No, there’s no need to apologize.”

  “And why is that, my Lady?” Gabriel asked. He smiled too, but he knew that they weren’t smiling for the same reasons.

  “Because paranoia is a becoming trait in a leader.”

  He had two options: one, strike Lilith or, option two, escort her to the door.

  Option two. Gabriel left her side, went to the door, and opened it wide. Lilith walked out first, and Faron lingered behind, his gaze fixed on the sleeping boy. Gabriel wasn’t sure what to think of that and opened his mouth to ask, but Nathaniel appeared at his side, and the unusual warmth of his hand on his shoulder distracted him.

  “Farewell for now, Faron,” Nathaniel said.

  Faron blinked suddenly, as if someone had snapped in his face. With some apparent difficulty, he looked at Nathaniel. “Yes, for now.” He bowed once to Nathaniel and then to Gabriel before walking through the door. When Colin closed it, another layer of tension lifted. But remnants of it still remained lying on the chaise.

  * * *

  “What a beautiful child,” Colin remarked.

  Gabriel nodded in agreement at little boy’s gorgeous face.

  A face worth studying: smooth in texture and shade, like ivory with a warm, rosy tint in the cheeks and lips. The boy’s skin looked as flawless and fair as Faron’s. Gabriel wondered what color Nikolai’s eyes were. The full lids of the child’s large eyes were lined with thick, black lashes that Gabriel could imagine sending off tiny gales every time he blinked.

  This child was what his sister would’ve called “sweets for the eyes.” His long black hair shone in the candlelight. With his lithe shape and enchanting features, which belonged on the pages of fairy tale, he would’ve grown to be a beautiful man.

  But presently, Nikolai was but a child. And if Faron and Lilith were telling the truth, he would be cursed with eternal childhood. The fingers of his hands were long and slender, perfect for playing the piano or getting into all kinds of mischief.

  Gabriel drew in a deep breath.

  Adults that willingly had children were foolish to think that they could bring their flesh and blood into the world with the promise that no harm in word or deed would come to their offspring. He would’ve liked to have met this boy’s parents and give them a good beating for inconveniencing him. His life.

  His solitude.

  Gabriel didn’t know what to make of the child.

  “He’ll need a bedroom, Master Gabriel,” Colin pointed out. “Shall I prepare one?”

  “Naturally. I don’t want him in mine.”

  Colin snickered. “I see that you don’t want to play the role of papa.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes, looking aggrieved. “Don’t say that even in jest.”

  Gathering the child in his arms, Colin carried him away.

  The long, black lashes lifted to reveal light blue eyes. The child had awakened.

  Gabriel stared back at Nikolai, wondering if he had really been sleeping all this time. Or just pretending.

  Lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as black as coals with blue eyes that burned like topaz gems. The longer Gabriel stared, the more he realized that the blue eyes were flecked with gold. The child bared his teeth in a toothy grin, a smile that was not really a smile at all. Yes, his white teeth flashed between the full lips. But beneath the cheerful masquerade lay bitterness.

  Colin ascended the stairs, Nikolai resting his cheek on one of his broad shoulders. Smiling, plotting.

  Children weren’t innately good. Gabriel knew it and could admit it without crossing himself for fear that he’d be struck by lightning for such blasphemy. The fact of the matter was that children just hadn’t learned how to hide their true wicked nature like well-versed adults. But in time . . .

  No. Enlightenment had stolen that from Nikolai.

  “Vengeance is mine,” Gabriel whispered. “I shall repay.”

  * * *

  Gabriel decided to keep vigil over Nikolai, filled with suspicion. He sat in the chair beside the bed and peeled back the collar of the boy’s shirt to look for any puncture marks from the alleged Enlightenment on his neck. Nothing. He frowned. Could the reprobate bastard have bitten the child somewhere else? His frown deepened into a scowl. The very thought of biting someone anywhere other than the neck, an intimate enough spot, sickened him. He lifted the boy’s wrist and pulled back the sleeve. Two puncture marks. He sighed with relief.

  At that instant, Nikolai began stirring from his sleep. He opened his eyes. “Where am I?” he asked.

  Gabriel caught his eyes and held them with an intense gaze. “Safe. Don’t fret,” he commanded, coating his voice with velvety sweetness. He wasn’t good at comforting crying children, so he wanted to quell such emotions from stirring in Nikolai immediately.

  The corner of Nikolai’s mouth curled into a smirk. He shut his eyes. “This bedroom is very drafty. Is a window open?”

  Nikolai’s voice had the androgynous golden timbre of little boys and girls, but the exotic accent to it as well that made the nauseating sweetness of his voice bearable. The accent possessed a dark musical quality, like a Wagner opera. Indeed. Faron had said the child was from Germany.

  Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at the window. The curtains stirred in the passing of the wind. He stood up, closed it, and returned to his seat beside the bed. “Other than that, is the room to your liking?”

  Nikolai opened his eyes, leaped out of the bed, and strolled around the room. He paused at the window. “Yes, I especially like the view of the gardens from here. I love flowers. I have a book on botany, and I can recite all of the flowers in their Latin names. Lavender cotton is lavandula angustifolia. dicentra formosa, bleeding heart.”

  “Impressive.” Gabriel tried smiling at the boy, but he feared the expression had come out awkward. He once practiced smiling at himself in the mirror, and it looked more like just a baring of teeth. Smiling, like a lot of things, just didn’t come naturally.

  “Thirsty?” he asked, as Nikolai crawled back into the bed.

  Nikolai nodded. “I’d like some milk, please.”

  Gabriel furrowed his brow, confused. “Is that all?”

  “Biscuits or shortbread if you have it,” he replied. “But if
you don’t have it, don’t trouble yourself over me.” Nikolai smiled. “Or did you think I should ask for blood, Gabriel?”

  Hmph. Just as he had suspected. The child hadn’t been sleeping, after all. Gabriel flashed a distant smile. “Well then, I won’t have to tell you my name. Good. I always hated introductions. So, how does it feel? I’m sure the dreams were frightening to you.” He sighed. “If I were in your situation, I’d be very angry. I would want revenge. You do realize that your life has been stolen from you, don’t you?”

  Smiling, Nikolai drew his knees to his chest. He perched his hands on the top of his knees and leaned his chin upon them, looking like a strange little bird. “Riddle me this, riddle me that. What’s over your head and under your hat?”

  Gabriel made a face. “What kind of answer is that?”

  Nikolai laughed. “I don’t want to answer that question,” he replied, wagging his head, smile growing wider. “I want you to answer my riddle.”

  Gabriel sighed and pretended to think. The answer to the boy’s riddle was simple. Child’s play. “Hmm. Over my head and under my hat? Hair. Am I correct?”

  Nikolai bounced a little on the bed, clapping his hands. “Yes! Yes! But that was easy. I started with that one on purpose. Here’s another: Through all my days, I’ve sore been pressed, and trampled under feet; stranger alike to joy and rest or liberty so sweet. At length I’m gone and quite decayed, and nought can me condole; for he whose power and wisdom made me—cannot save my sole!”

  Before answering, Gabriel waited patiently, which seemed like the polite thing to do. “A shoe.”

  Nikolai gasped. “One more, one more! This one, you won’t be able to answer. I’m the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space. The beginning of every end, and the end of every place. What am I?”

  “That’s a very clever one,” Gabriel replied. He crossed his arms against his chest, staring at the ceiling, pretending to think. “By chance, are you the letter e?”

  Nikolai let out a melodramatic snarl, sounding as threatening as a puppy. “No fair! I can’t trick you.”

  “What did you expect? I’m much older than you. And thus, I should be a great deal wiser.”

  He rubbed his nose. “Tell me a riddle then, please. Do you know any?”

  Gabriel smirked. The riddles he knew were charmingly sexual in nature. Double entendres hidden within the riddles were what teased the listener. One answer was suggested, but another was always meant. “I know some riddles,” he replied, as if Nikolai had just spoken a second ago, “but you’re too green to hear them.”

  “Oh, please tell me.”

  “No.”

  Nikolai pressed his hands together as if in prayer. “What about when I grow up?”

  Gabriel sighed and stood up. “Yes, when you grow up,” he replied flatly. Funny, how he managed to lie so easily in comparison to producing a genuine smile. “Now, you stay in your room. I have some business to attend to.” The poor brat still didn’t understand. A pity he would never mature into a man.

  “What kind of business?” Nikolai asked. “Is something troubling you?”

  Gabriel gave his pale little hand a pat. “Nothing concerning you.”

  “No. I insist that you tell me,” he said, seizing Gabriel’s hand before he could withdraw it. “You’ll feel better if you tell me. I promise you that.”

  Strange. Gabriel sank back into his chair and felt compelled to do just that. He told him a short summary of what had happened over the past several days, focusing a lot on the party last night. He also told him about Seth.

  Nikolai’s blue-and-gold flecked eyes narrowed to slits as he leaned back in his bed. “Hmm. Mm. Seth. I would certainly like to meet him.”

  Gabriel cocked an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

  “It’s just that he sounds tormented, like a child lost in darkness. Maybe if I could meet him, I could help him.”

  “Tormented? A lost child. That’s farcical. Wherever did you get such an absurd notion?”

  Nikolai gave an immediate answer. “From the same sensations I get from you.”

  Gabriel placed his hands on his hips and cocked his head to the side, perplexed. He felt insulted. Being compared to Seth. “You’re peculiar,” he said. He told Nikolai to lie down, and the boy complied without argument, or even another riddle. Gabriel covered him with the warm layers of linen. He blew out the candelabra on the dresser beside the door. He opened the door to leave, but stopped, an amusing thought gripping him. He stood in the darkness, watching Nikolai staring back at him. “What lives on its own substance and dies when it devours itself?”

  Nikolai giggled. “A candle, my lord.”

  Gabriel gave a small nod of his head. “Indeed. Good night.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Old Laws

  FARON CLOAKED HIMSELF with light and floated over the throng of people. Some were boarding cabs on their way for a day of work and drudgery. If anyone were to notice him soaring above their heads, they’d probably see just a miniature sun and rationalize it as a trick of the light and the clouds or the ever-present ugly yellow fog.

  Arriving at his destination, he floated back down behind the protective trunk of a gnarled tree. He half walked, half ran around the corner to Leigh’s house. An open porch with marble columns made up most of the façade. He climbed the steps, skipping every other. He knocked on the door, but no one answered. He had forgotten that Leigh believed the Old Laws. That sunlight could burn his skin, grind him into dust, and other such tripe. Faron was grateful that Lilith had never taught him to believe such silly rules.

  He didn’t particularly dislike Leigh. Something just seemed off about him. He found it ironic that Leigh had Enlightened any at all. Just as he turned to leave, the door opened. A young man peered through the crack, and a sliver of lemon sunlight revealed his features: a handsome face with a goatee. Not Leigh. Maybe one of his human servants.

  “Sir?” the young man asked. “May I be of assistance?”

  “Leigh. Is he available?”

  “No. He sleeps.”

  “Of course,” Faron replied with a forced smile. “I have a message for him.” He slipped a pen and a writing tablet out of his coat. “Lend me your back,” he requested. “I haven’t the time to come inside.”

  The young man nodded and stepped outside. He turned his back to Faron so that he could write on a firm surface. Speak with Seth, he scrawled on the paper. Persuade him to be obedient. Or else . . .

  Faron tore the note from the booklet, folding it into a neat little square. He handed it to the human servant. “See to it that your master gets this.”

  The human servant unfolded the note and glossed over each line before crushing it.

  Anger rushed through Faron. “What in the Devil do you think you’re doing?”

  The human servant blinked, and his eyes rolled in the back of his head showing the whites before they came back to the surface. They had darkened in color. “What has Seth done now?” The voice had become—no, altogether changed—softer, with more rounded vowels.

  Faron stepped backward, startled. He bowed at the waist to show homage. He had almost forgotten that Leigh took the meaning of human servant quite literally. Being an ancient one, he used humans like puppets. “Seth has become most troublesome,” he reported. “His actions will draw attention to us if he’s not dealt with.”

  The young man furrowed his brow. “So speaks Lilith. What does she want? How can I appeal to her mercy?”

  “Seth’s head on a lance. There’s really nothing else you can do. I only came here to warn you.”

  The young man’s face darkened with hatred. “Is this,” he questioned with a dark undertone, “over the humans?”

  Faron nodded, but didn’t reply. He had heard that one of Leigh’s powers involved reading the truth. If he didn’t speak, perhaps there’d be nothing
to read. Perhaps.

  The young man wagged his head, not convinced, but apparently satisfied. “No. No. That couldn’t be the only reason. Let me plead his case. Please, Seth is my dearest one.”

  Faron frowned. “Plead it to the new Prince, but I don’t think you’ll be successful. Seth has a remarkable talent for making enemies.”

  A solemn expression washed over the human puppet’s face. “Yes, quite a talent.”

  Faron pivoted on his heels and ambled down the steps. Good luck with that, he thought to call over his shoulder, but decided otherwise. It would be obsequious to pretend to care about the fate of Leigh’s blood-child when it was Seth’s very existence that threatened the well-being of his own. Faron smiled. For the first time, he looked forward to, even prayed for Gabriel’s iron cruelty. It would certainly secure Nikolai’s safety.

  CHAPTER 21

  Beautiful Light

  OVERNIGHT, GABRIEL HAD somehow become quite popular. A small miracle. He didn’t think it could last for very long, though. He had concluded, after five minutes of trying to reply to the Chosens’ letters, that he was socially inept.

  He sat behind his desk in the study reading the letters from them. Some came with offerings in the form of banknotes or coins. Most of the letters came from women, the “gentler sex,” promising their allegiance to him. Sometimes, their beds. Gabriel smiled wryly. Their desires, whether for life, death, or power, were just as strong, just as vicious as any man’s. They probably hadn’t even flinched or hesitated to drink the blood of another human being in order to gain the promise of eternal life.

  Women were like their male counterparts, which left nothing especially gentle about them.

  The door to the study opened, and Colin burst through. “Master Gabriel,” he said. “A man who goes by the name of Seth is here to see you. And he’s brought a lovely woman named Bela with ‘im.” Colin wiggled his eyebrows, smiling broadly.

  “Send them away,” Gabriel ordered without looking up.

  “Come now, our Prince.” Seth appeared in the doorway, behind Colin. “You certainly have a lot to learn about hospitality.”