“My mother might listen,” she insisted stubbornly. “She wants me to be happy. She is always asking if Richard treats me well.”
“And he does,” Tristan felt honor-bound to remind her. He considered Richard a brother. It seemed a poor way to repay him by falling in love with his betrothed. But there was a reason they called it falling in love—you couldn’t choose your landing. Fate chose for you. “He’s a good man.”
“But he’s not you.”
She jerked out of his grasp and vaulted into her saddle. “Are you afraid to prove yourself?” she asked, looking down at him, temper making her cheeks red. “Because I’m not.” She kicked her horse into a gallop, churning dirt and dead leaves in her wake.
Tristan swore and leaped onto his own mount, chasing after her. They kept to the edge of the forest until it was time to follow the river, crossing the fields. They passed villages with their creaking mill wheels and goat pens. The shorn fields glittered in the fading light and it was dusk when they finally left the empty howling moors to approach Viola’s father’s castle. The stone walls and the keep above them were silhouetted against the pink-and-orange sky.
“Lady Viola,” the guard at the gatehouse greeted her with a bow of the head. She nodded back and then they were in the outer bailey, their tired horses picking their way up the path to the inner courtyard.
Viola slid out of her sidesaddle, her legs aching from being wrapped around the pommel. Her cheeks stung from the constant onslaught of the cold wind. The courtyard was quiet, as it always was this time of day. She’d chosen her arrival carefully. She knew her father couldn’t be bothered with visitors until well after supper. She might have a chance to win her mother over to her side by then.
“Mother will be in her solar,” she said as Tristan handed their reins over to a stable boy. Saying the words out loud made her realize that in all her visits over the years, her mother was always buried under a pile of blankets. “She’s unwell,” she explained as they headed up to the old hall. Improvements had been made since she was a girl, including a new stone tower that threw the old timber hall in shadows. “She never leaves.”
Until now.
Viola froze, stopping so abruptly Tristan had to take her shoulder to stop from crashing into her and knocking them both off their feet.
“I don’t . . .” She trailed off, horrified.
Tristan followed her shocked gaze. A woman waited in the cold twilight of the bailey. Her long braids were bound with gold cord and her fine gown and embroidered surcoat, along with her jeweled girdle, marked her as a noblewoman. She wore a fur mantle. Anyone would have thought her the lady of the castle.
Except for the fact that she was hanging from a post by her chained wrists. There were scars on her neck that her linen wimple could not hide.
“Are you under attack, my lady?” Tristan asked, pulling his sword from its scabbard. Fury and bile burned in the back of his throat. “Who is that?” he whispered to Viola. “Do you know her?”
“That’s my mother,” Viola replied before bolting out into the open courtyard. Swearing, Tristan followed, searching for possible threats from the ramparts. When no arrows or hot oil poured over their heads, he risked a glance at Viola. She was clawing uselessly at the chains, her fingertips bleeding. Her mother stirred, blinked at her, confounded.
“Viola?”
“Who did this to you?” Viola asked. “Where’s Father?”
“Viola, it’s really you.” Lady Venetia smiled as her daughter tried to slip an arm under her shoulder to support her. Her smile died, trembling with fear. “You’re really here. No,” she moaned. “No.”
“Help me!” Viola shouted at Tristan. She glared at the servants who gathered at the doorways, watching her mutely. “What’s the matter with you?”
Tristan had the same sharp, uncomfortable feeling in his belly that he’d had the time a gang of outlaws had surprised him in the woods. He’d nearly lost his head that night. He saw the flash of torchlight glinting off chain mail from along the battlements. A dog barked in the kennel.
“Viola, come away.”
“No.” She slapped at his hands.
Lady Venetia was as wild-eyed and desperate as her daughter, but for different reasons. “Viola, you have to leave. You have to run!” She tried to clutch at Tristan’s arm, but the chains stopped her short, rattling with a cold, awful sound. “Please. They can’t know she’s seen me like this. It’s not safe. Protect her! Run, damn your eyes!”
The clack of boot heels on the cobblestones near the tower seemed louder than the blacksmith’s hammer. Lady Venetia went paler than she already was and then flung herself at the end of her chains like a wild animal. “Not my daughter!”
Viola just frowned at her grandmother who approached them, strange and pale as she always was. “And who is this you’ve brought with you?”
“Tristan Constantine of Bornebow Hall,” he replied with a bow, though his sword was still naked in his hand.
“I see.”
Viola crossed her arms. “We want to marry.” She stepped closer to her mother, trying to keep her safe even though she wasn’t entirely sure what the danger was.
“You’re already promised to Richard Vale,” Veronique replied briskly. “Return to him at once.”
“No,” Viola said. One of the servants gasped from where she was pressed against the dog kennel. Venetia began to weep. Tristan wondered how the hell he was supposed to fight an old woman. Viola just narrowed her eyes.
“You will do as you’re told.” Veronique’s voice was sharp and strange. It was like nails inside their skulls.
“I won’t,” Viola insisted, gritting her teeth against the inexplicable pain. “I’ll run away first.”
“My husband is not here to mediate,” she said dispassionately. “And my son has been troubled enough. But believe me when I tell you, I shan’t let you further dishonor our family name by breaking a perfectly good marriage contract.”
Viola could not understand how her grandfather or her father could know about this and not be filled with righteous fury. Her grandmother had always been inscrutable and cold, but Lord William had a laugh that could shake a barrel of ale out of its hinges. Her mother was baring her teeth like a bear protecting her young.
“Further dishonor?” Viola asked. “What are you talking about?”
Tristan grabbed her hand before she could get a reply, and dragged her behind him. “Run,” he shouted. She turned back to stare at her mother but Tristan’s hold would not break, nor his pace slacken in any way. He tossed her onto his horse and scrambled up behind her, shielding her back so she wouldn’t be vulnerable in their escape. Her mare was already in the stables being rubbed down. They thundered out of the first gatehouse and down the path to the main gates.
“Never mind,” Veronique said to the guards waiting for her order. “This is best done away from prying eyes.” Her eyes glittered as Venetia began to wail. “It’s time to rid my son of this embarrassing problem.”
Tristan and Viola made it out of the castle grounds and across the field before the horse stumbled. Tristan reined him in, casting a baleful glance at the sky, which was moonless and so dark he could barely see the gleam of the river in the ravine below. He could barely even see the glint of Viola’s golden hair inches from his nose. He slid off the mount. “We’ll have to go on foot,” he said grimly. “He could break a leg over the moors.”
“I don’t understand,” Viola said, shivering under her thick cloak.
Tristan tilted her chin up so she was looking at him. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
She swallowed, looking more frightened instead of comforted. Dread clawed at his spine as he turned around, expecting a dozen knights, a rabid wolf, a rain of spears.
Anything but a strange old woman.
Veronique crossed the field, quicker than anything he’d ever seen. Her hair streamed behind her under the white linen of her wimple. Her face was pale and perfect, even at a distance.
And then she was suddenly standing right in front of them. Her teeth were too long and too sharp.
“Grandmother, why are you doing this?” Viola asked. “And what’s wrong with your teeth?”
“Don’t call me that,” Veronique snapped. “You are no bloodkin of mine. But your father has a soft heart and he loves you as though you were his own.”
“But . . . I am.”
“Christophe cannot father children.” Veronique smiled for the first time, but there was no humor in it. “For the same reason I move faster than you can imagine, for the same reason that I died over thirty years ago and yet still, here I stand.”
Viola began to wonder if age had addled her grandmother’s mind.
“Vampire.” Tristan didn’t wonder. He saw the teeth, the pale skin, and reacted as he would have reacted to any other monster. He swung his sword.
“Don’t be absurd, boy.” She sighed, breaking his hold with a single twist of her hand. His sword fell into the frost-tipped grass. He felt a primal ancient fear such as he’d never felt before. “Your mother tried to foist her bastard on my son,” Veronique said. “And still he will not kill her. Because of you.” Before Viola could blink, her grandmother had her by the throat. She forced Viola’s head back even as she drove Tristan to his knees with a careless blow to the temple. Viola screamed.
And then her father was suddenly there, just as pale in his fury as his mother.
“Maman, you promised,” Christophe snapped, breaking her hold. Viola couldn’t say a word, though a thousand clammered to be spoken.
Veronique’s fangs were fully and viciously extended. Hunger lined her gray irises with red. She snapped her attention on Tristan, who was pushing to his feet, pressing his palm to the bloody gash on his head. Blood dripped onto his tunic. Christophe’s fangs lengthened as well and Viola squeaked.
“I promised I wouldn’t kill your wife’s bastard. I made no such promise about her lover.”
Viola went cold and brittle inside. She might not have been able to save her mother but she could save Tristan. She didn’t shift position, knew it would only betray her. She whipped her arm out, locking her elbow tight and catching Tristan in the throat with her fist. Already dizzy, he flew off hisfeet and tumbled down the ravine to the river.
Veronique turned hard gray eyes toward Viola.
Toward me.
It took me a moment to realize this wasn’t the Madame Veronique of Viola’s long ago. I was back in my own body, back in the real world without castles and dragons anywhere.
I was Solange again.
But Madame Veronique was still trying to kill me.
Chapter 9
Christabel
Tuesday night
I hadn’t had a chance to read an entire novel in weeks.
Whatever the others might say about politics, civil war, and hunters, the real evil here was lack of reading time. If they all read more they might freak out less. And if I was going to live forever I was going to have to start a reading list.
Starting with How to Survive Your Boyfriend’s Family.
Well, not boyfriend exactly. I’d only known him a few weeks. But we were dating . . . when we weren’t running for our lives.
Connor kept pace beside me, alert for sounds that I still couldn’t quite catalogue. After all, it’s not like I’d had much experience with the skittering of beetles under tree bark or an owl fluffing her wings a hundred feet over my head. It was disconcerting but at least it didn’t give me splitting headaches anymore. And I kind of loved that I was only wearing a thin shirt and Aidan’s wampum belt under my army jacket but I wasn’t the least bit cold. I could run faster than any other creature in the forest, even in my heavy combat boots. And even when I had mixed feelings as to where I was running to.
Aidan was the one who’d turned me into a vampire. He’d saved my life by doing so, but he’d been the one to kidnap me and put me in danger in the first place. All because he thought I was Lucy and could give him leverage with the Drakes. The Drakes, who weren’t too bothered with leverage at the moment, since their daughter had just had the mother of all temper tantrums. The temper tantrums I was used to didn’t come with tiaras.
“Your family sure is high maintenance,” I muttered, nearly tripping over a root because the sound of mole digging underneath startled me.
“Didn’t used to be.” Connor flashed me a very brief, slightly sad smile. “Not like this.”
I was an idiot. He’d basically watched his little sister go darkside, as he put it, and it had sent the whole family into a tailspin. I stopped running. “I’m sorry,” I said softly, twining my fingers through his. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, squeezing my hand. “Sure.”
“Are all your brothers as bad a liar as you are?” I asked, stepping closer. I could see the widening of his pupils, and the pale blue fire of his irises. He’d told me my eyes would change too, would go lighter until they looked like amber. I couldn’t imagine they’d be half as beautiful as his. He was gentle and self-deprecating and way tougher than people gave him credit for. And twin or not, he was even hotter than Quinn, in my humble opinion.
I kissed him hard but quick. Making out in the woods wouldn’t make him feel better the way finding a solution to his family’s dilemma would, but for now it was all I could offer.
“You’ll get through this,” I promised him, the same way he’d promised me I’d survive when I was fighting the bloodchange.
“I know.” The dangerous edge he usually kept so hidden, the one that sent all sort of delicious shivers over the backs of my knees, flashed through his usually kind expression. He crowded me back against a tree, moving so quickly it was like a backward dance too fast for human eyes to see. His kiss was considerably darker than mine had been. It made me catch my breath, even though I didn’t breathe anymore. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to that. If I thought about the emptiness in my chest where there should be a heartbeat, I got sweaty and panicky.
“We’re going to get Solange back,” he said, against my mouth. My fangs poked into my bottom lip. “Thanks to you.”
“We don’t know if Aidan will even help us,” I felt the need to point out. “And Saga’s not exactly predictable.”
“You’re our best hope.”
“If you call me Obi-Wan I’m going to kick you.”
He grinned. “Hot. Say Obi-Wan again.”
I laughed, shoving his shoulder. “Shut up.”
The only reason I was their best hope was the same reason I wore Aidan’s wampum belt: he considered me his emissary. I wasn’t just a regular vampire, I was Na-Foir like him. The rest of the vampire world was only just finding out about us. Apparently they’d been hiding for centuries, because the intense blue rivers of our veins made us appear faintly blue all over. As in Hel-Blar blue. And I’d had enough experience with the Hel-Blar to understand the fear. Still, I wasn’t Hel-Blar. I wasn’t that sick gangrene-blue and I didn’t smell like an old swamp. According to Connor, I smelled like cinnamon. That wasn’t exactly enough to convince the others; they either stared at me or went to great lengths to avoid eye contact. Except for Sky, who was more interested in convincing me to let her read one of my poems; Uncle Geoffrey, who wanted to study me; and Lucy, who didn’t seem to notice the stuff other people got all worked up about.
“Where to now?” Connor asked, since I was the only one who knew the directions to their hideout.
Technically.
“Is that a cedar or a pine tree?” I asked, annoyed. “And what the hell does starboard mean?”
“I think it’s pirate for ‘right,’ ” Connor replied. He was taking a risk coming with me but he wouldn’t change his mind. Aidan and Saga knew him so it would probably be all right. We kept running between the trees while I tried to remember if that boulder on the right was the one I was looking for.
And to think right now, my mother probably assumed I was home reading a book. She still had no idea what I’d become. And I wasn’t go
ing to tell her until she was out of rehab. And stable.
The fallen log beside us looked vaguely familiar.
So did the dagger that whistled through the air and slammed into the ground in front of us. Jewels glinted in the hilt. Connor leaped in front of me while I stumbled back.
Saga laughed and we both looked up to see her standing on the edge of a rock outcropping, half hidden by the top of an enormous cedar hedge. Her hands were on her hips and her red hair streamed down her back. She wore a vest over a white shirt, ripped jeans, and tall boots. “If it isn’t my favorite scalawags. Fancy a cup of grog?”
“Um, no thanks.” Grog was the most disgusting thing I’d ever drunk, including blood. And Connor’s uncle Geoffrey still had to hook me up for blood transfusions every dusk because I just couldn’t stand the idea of swallowing blood.
“Christabel,” Aidan said quietly, emerging from the green boughs. I hadn’t even noticed him there, watching us. Judging by Connor’s violent start, he hadn’t either. “What brings you here?” He glanced at Connor. “Has your sister quit playing queen and finally called council?”
“I need to ask you something,” I said. “If you can help us, you might get your council faster.”
“Come along then,” he said, vanishing back into the cedar. We followed him to a hidden wall of rock, looking up to the caves where Saga was standing.
“Come on, lass,” she grinned. “Climb up to the eagle’s nest.”
Climbing up wasn’t easy, despite the fact that I could move faster than ever before. I still clung to thick roots and crumbling rock, muttering lines from “The Highwayman” under my breath for comfort. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until Connor came up beside me.
“Don’t worry,” he said. He scaled the rest of the outcropping and reached down to help me up. The treetops were far below us, like pointy green spears. I felt better with sturdy ground under my boots. Behind us, the cave opening led into a scattering of smaller caves. It smelled damp and cold, even with the candles burning in the dirt along the back. Saga sat on a pile of furs, drinking from a leather wineskin. Aidan crouched beside her, the bear claw around his neck swinging like a hypnotist’s pendulum.
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