Wicked Love

by Michelle Dare

  When her hands wrapped around his forearm, he leapt hard enough to lose his footing. Her grip was effortlessly strong. She guided him into the boat, then followed him in. She had the motor going in one pull.

  The vampire sat across from him. Her gaze was intense. Fixed. Unreadable. Her eyes stayed on him even as she reached behind her to steer.

  “Elisabeth,” she said. “Unless you read my mind also.”

  “I…” Kieran stumbled. She’d given her name, something identifiable, which shortened his life further. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. She’d implied she knew he had abilities of his own. “I did not.”

  “You can, though.”

  “Read minds?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” Kieran said.

  “But you can read something.”

  Did she know, or was she guessing? Even his own family rarely spoke of their gifts. The Sullivans, the family of his mother, were notoriously cagey about their magic. It was often the unspoken dark void in any room they were in together, even as cousins moved their drinks across the table or conjured ice into their bourbon when they ran out.

  “I guess.”

  “What can you read? People?”

  You’re not a person. “Sort of. Emotions. I don’t know.”

  Elisabeth grinned. “You do know. I could know, too. I could read your mind.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  She shrugged, angling the boat around a bend. “Read me.”

  Kieran swallowed hard. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t, because…” he didn’t finish. But it also wasn’t true. He could read her, and had. But he would maintain what little power he had left, no matter how ephemeral.

  “Ahh,” she replied. “We can read one another. Those of us who can read emotions, that is. We can read you as well.”

  “Guess it doesn’t work in reverse.”

  Elisabeth said nothing. Her blond hair caught the wind as the boat picked up speed.

  “I really need to know if you’re going to kill me,” he ventured once more. His heart pounded in his chest. What if she said yes? And even if she said no… could he trust it? If he was a killer, he’d probably lie to keep his victim calm.

  “I need to think,” she said after a pause.

  “To think about killing me?”

  “You can stop talking now.”

  Time passed in sluggish fashion. Kieran tried to take in his surroundings, in case he could later retrace his steps in fearful flight, but he was too nervous to focus and soon realized he’d retained nothing. He watched a pelican land upon a tree cresting out of the swamp. He wondered if this was his last pelican sighting. His last time on a boat. His last—

  “We’re here,” the vampire said.

  6

  Elisabeth

  The first thing she did was bind Kieran’s hands to the beam at the center of the cabin. It could hardly even be considered support anymore, if it ever had been, with the rotting, bowing wood, but Kieran didn’t know that, and she was banking on him not finding out, either.

  The second thing she did was kick herself for sharing her real name.

  The decision stemmed from the same weakness her family accused her of letting take over. She felt bad that she’d known his name when he knew nothing about her. She’d somehow forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to have any knowledge or upper hand. That was the whole point of this relationship. He was her victim! She should have killed him back in New Orleans!

  What new failure would she deliver next? Tell him she was a vampire? Spill their entire sordid history?

  Maybe he’d guessed. He already knew she wasn’t quite human.

  Once he was secured, Elisabeth stepped onto the small porch and threw her head back, exhaling.

  She wished her mother, Marie Louise, were here. Nathaniel de Blanchefort had married her for love, at a time when it was nearly unheard of for the eldest son to follow his heart, but the family welcomed her and began to have hopes she could join them for what the de Blancheforts called their second life. Unlike other outside husbands and wives whose minds were too small to grasp the potential, Marie Louise aided her husband in teaching their children to hunt and to safely exist in a world where there were more men than dhampir.

  She’d been the one to assure Elisabeth that there was not only one way to be a dhampir. That her heart did not make her less effective, but perhaps, an even more evolved creature than others sharing her blood and gift. Elisabeth, who had not been given the gift willingly at all, had known from the very start she was not cut out to be a killer of anyone. Her mother understood this and secretly vowed to help her find another way. Then take the gift with me, Mama. We can learn together.

  Oui, mon cher. Ensemble.

  But then Marie Louise had filled her pockets with rocks and walked into the Mississippi. She’d left no final words. On Elisabeth’s desk, she’d draped the locket passed down through the women in her family.

  Elisabeth’s hand went to it now. The aging gold was tarnished, the clasp brittle and no longer able to open without falling apart.

  She peeked inside the door. Kieran wasn’t struggling against his bindings anymore. His head had fallen forward, chin to his chest. Weary. Perhaps defeated.

  She really hadn’t meant to kill that girl. She only wanted to see the carnival, with the bright lights and sugary treats, the happy sounds of excited children carrying down the fairway. She’d never known what that was like, but there, she could pretend. She could close her eyes and imagine she had been born for something else.

  It was her fault for not drinking before coming to town. Her great-aunt Victorine kept a cellar full of thieves and brigands, her blood slaves, for just this occasion. Elisabeth sometimes snuck down there to satisfy her craving; usually in her weakest moments. Without fail, each time she hated herself more, but it was safer than venturing into town and having something like tonight happen.

  In her strongest moments, she satisfied herself with deer from the bayou, a choice that horrified almost everyone who loved her. In her weakest…

  What was she thinking, following them into the funhouse? Two went in, none should have come out.

  But one did, and he was now tethered in the cabin her grandfather used to teach her more about herself.

  If she killed him now, his death would haunt her.

  If she did not kill him, his life would haunt her.

  “I know what you are,” Kieran said when she dropped a chair in front of him and sat down. “I know more than you think I do.”

  What you are. Not who. “Whatever you think you know is irrelevant,” she said.

  “Vampire.” He practically hissed the word. “I saw how you drank her blood. Like my brother Dillon going hard on a crawfish boil.”

  The accusation startled her. Not that he’d come upon the truth so easily, but how he had no struggle in the belief. He was afraid of her, but he was not afraid of what he knew, only what she would do as a result of this knowledge.

  “My brothers and I… we studied people like you. Creatures like you, I mean.”

  Elisabeth said nothing.

  “We believed in you. Then we grew up, and, I don’t know, I guess now I’m kicking myself for it. Kelley, he kept believing. He denied it, but I know he did. He even went to Seattle to try and find one of you. He doesn’t think the rest of us know this, but we’re Sullivans, it’s our business to know everything. Some of us are Deschanels, too, so, you know, the magic is really strong. Not me. I’m just a Sullivan and a Landry, but I have cousins who are both.”

  He was rambling. She let him do it. She wanted to know what he knew, or thought he knew.

  But she recognized these names. Sullivan. Deschanel. The Deschanels were the great family of witches of New Orleans, living and existing within high society as if they were any other blueblood of the Garden District. Doctors, politicians, lawyers, they were behind every power structure in Orleans Parish
, and beyond. They were distant relatives of the de Blancheforts, both families carrying within their blood strange gifts of magic. Every Deschanel she’d ever encountered over the years had terrified her, for she knew, if they studied her closely enough, they’d learn her secret. A secret that could bring down her entire clan, as though they shared blood, they did not share this. No Deschanel had ever taken the gift of immortality.

  The Sullivans had a different reputation. Lawyers, nearly all of them, as if the disposition for law was genetic. But they, too, descended from Deschanels, and so shared in their magic. That made him her kin as well.

  Elisabeth had, sitting before her, an actual witch.

  A witch whose family would know how to find him.

  A witch who would be greatly missed if not soon returned.

  Oh, you do know how to pick them. What a fine mess.

  Kieran was still talking.

  “Dhampir,” she said, regretting the word even as she was saying it. But whether she killed him or not, she felt drawn to make the confession. She’d never said it to anyone beyond their family before. Not once. Not ever.

  “Slavic vampires,” Kieran whispered, eyes wide in wonder. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “We’re French,” Elisabeth said shortly.

  “You are, but not your origin. Your, uh… what do they call him? Master? Though, yeah, I guess some of you came through the Carolingians, or was it the Merovingians?”

  “Same line.”

  “Right. Right, they are, aren’t they? Wow. I just… wow. You know, it’s been a lot of years, and my knowledge is rusty, but aren’t there only a certain number of you? Like it’s capped or something?”

  “That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

  “Why did you tell me anything? Why confess what you are?”

  Elisabeth stood again. “Because everyone deserves truth in death.”

  7

  Kelley

  Kelley Landry’s life had not remotely been the same since his run-in with Vincenc the vampire.

  When Queen Edith came to him with the proposition that they go after this so-called blood drinker, he’d had his vampire hunting days in his rearview for years.

  Kieran and Dillon stopped believing long before he did. Secretly, he’d still retreated to the small, dim closet in Aunt Mary’s pub from time to time, and by then he’d also discovered communities on the internet, where he could continue his curiosities anonymously. Or so he thought. Queen Edith had sure found him with no problem.

  But not his brothers. Dillon’s excitement shifted to his football scholarship to LSU, and Kieran had a fine life in law ahead of him, like the rest of their mother’s family. Kelley had watched them both with pride, but also a creeping anxiousness, for nothing had ever been that clear to him. He didn’t know who he was. What he wanted. Where he should go.

  And then he’d met Vincenc.

  All three brothers, along with Queen Edith, had gone to Seattle to see him play with his band, World Tree Burning. But only Kelley and Queen Edith knew what he was. Only Kelley ended the night with meeting the creature.

  Vincenc was both a wonder and a disappointment. No sharp blood-drawing teeth, or telltale deathly pale skin. He used a small sharp instrument to take Kelley’s blood, which he did drink, with permission.

  My offer is thus: I will change you, Kelley Landry. I will make you my successor. Take you to the Master's Tree and trade my eternal life for yours, folding you into the dhampir brethren. But, I will not do it today. I will take your blood on this day, which will allow me to track you. And I shall observe your behaviors in this decade carefully.

  Observe for what?

  I will not give you this gift until you have truly lived. I command you to go back to your life and pursue the things that call most potently to your heart. I also command you to learn about who you are. I do not mean to wax poetic on this, Kelley, I mean this in a quite literal sense. You are a very powerful young being from a powerful family, and your ignorance on this subject is criminal. You must discern the extent of your abilities before I will consider fulfilling my end of this bargain.

  And if I don't?

  Then your life will go on as it always has. I will find someone more suitable to succeed me.

  Kelley had told no one. Not the studious Queen Edith, who’d organized the hunting expedition entirely on her own, nor the two brothers who had been his partners in this fascination for all their childhoods.

  A year had passed.

  Still, he told no one.

  He’d started down the path Vincenc set him upon. It was no small feat learning about who he was, who his family was, for the Sullivans had always held their truths close to their well-tailored vests. They seemed ashamed of them; by contrast, the Deschanels embraced theirs.

  So Kelley had approached Colleen Deschanel, that formidable Deschanel matriarch that was said to know all and see all, both within the family and without. She’d said that yes, she could help him. But first, he needed to finish school.

  He was a year into his studies at the University of New Orleans when he had his first vision.

  He’d seen it all so clearly. The sharp widening of Chelsea Landry’s eyes as she realized whoever had come through the doors of Landry’s Pub was no mere patron. Her hands, sliding under the bar, searching for the button, but not finding it, because it was on the other end, and to move could cost her her life.

  Kelley hadn’t known what to do when he saw this all in his mind’s eye, so he called the police. He didn’t tell them how he knew Landry’s was being robbed, or they would have laughed him off the phone. They arrived in minutes, just as the thief was shoving money from the till into his bag. Kelley’s mother was on the floor, on her knees, hands trembling behind her head.

  Chelsea was grateful, but suspicious. How had Kelley known to make the call? He didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t even conjure one anywhere near a level of believability she’d accept. She let it go at the time, but he knew good and well it wasn’t over.

  Not long after, he saw Dillon’s car accident. Dillon had come from a frat party and had been drinking. Kelley saw him wrap his car around a telephone pole, the steam from the car and the late night the only signs of life after impact.

  He didn’t call Dillon. Instead, he called his girlfriend. Take his keys. Doesn’t matter why. Trust me. Please.

  He’ll be so mad at me!

  But he’ll be alive.

  Dillon called the next afternoon. Exhausted. Hungover. Heart still beating in his chest.

  Don’t call my girlfriend again.

  Fine. But Dillon was alive.

  Mom was alive.

  And now it was Kieran who was in danger, and he didn’t yet know how to make sense of it. Because it wasn’t possible, was it? That another Landry triplet had come in contact with another vampire?

  But Kelley’s instincts, though new to him, had not lied to him yet.

  Colleen Deschanel had told him to wait until he was done with college, but Kieran didn’t have that long.

  Kelley grabbed his keys.

  8

  Kieran

  Kieran watched the vampire pace the dilapidated cabin, pausing her neuroses from time to time to lean on cabinets that could barely support the weight of a mouse; gazing for long stretches out the windowless window at the expanse of nothing beyond. He wondered how she’d even found such a place. Was this where she took her victims? He thought not, by how out of sorts she seemed. She was conflicted, but that was as far as his senses took him into the mind of Ms. Elisabeth. If that was indeed her real name.

  He thought it was. The panic that passed across her face indicated she’d told him something she shouldn’t, and was already regretting it. That made two of them.

  But it did give him an idea. Kelley would say that you should avoid seeing your assailant’s face, as they were more likely to let you go if you couldn’t identify them later. But once you’d seen it, it was better to course correct in the other dire
ction. Get to know them. Make sure they know you’re not just another face, but a real person, with a name, feelings, family, friends.

  Maybe connecting with her would keep him from being her next meal.

  “Elisabeth,” he said. “Or do you prefer Lis?”

  She tensed at the sound of his voice, but didn’t turn.

  “You’re going to kill me. I mean, you said as much,” he said. It was a strange thing, to sound so confident about one’s own death, but he’d never been in a situation quite like this one before. If he did survive this, he’d tell his brothers that very thing. That until you’re in it, you don’t know. He guessed his mind was trying to protect him by tempering his fear. If he did emerge from this with his life, there’d be at least one therapist out there set for the rest of their career.

  She turned her head further. Listening now. But still, she remained facing the other direction.

  “You don’t seem like you’re totally into doing it. That’s okay, I wouldn’t be either,” Kieran pressed on, bolder now. “I imagine being a vampire is pretty hard. Not all glamourous and fun, like the movies would have you think. It’s kinda unfair that people turn you, and then you’re forced to drink blood for eternity. That’s a long time.”

  “We aren’t forced to drink blood,” Elisabeth said, so quietly he barely picked up the words. “Not our kind anyway. Maybe there are others who are.”

  “Are there other kinds?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His heartrate soared at her response. He had to choose the right questions, ones she would want to answer, to keep her talking. “Why do you drink blood if you don’t need it?”

  It seemed as if she’d go back to ignoring him when at last she spoke up. “We don’t have to, but if we don’t, we don’t feel quite right. Do you know how, when...” Elisabeth trailed off, thinking. “When you haven’t eaten in a day or so and you feel shaky?”