The Romeo Catchers

by Arden, Alys

  Now to find Lisette Monvoisin, the girl Gabriel claims to have made a part of this family but has no recollection of doing so. As if Martine isn’t enough.

  If it weren’t for his hysteria over not finding her, I’d chalk it up to an eighteenth-century, absinthe-induced fantasy. If it weren’t for the fact that blood-drained bodies have been dropping all over the Vieux Carré since the day the attic opened. Since the day she released them. Adeline’s descendent . . . His descendent.

  I must find Lisette tonight. I can only sweep her victims under the chaos of the Storm for so long. The last time I overheard that nitwit detective, he said the body count for the recent French Quarter crime wave is up to a dozen—if he only knew how many bodies I’ve carried out to the swamps.

  Until Lisette learns how to control her feedings, she’s a liability to all of us. The only thing that might be a bigger threat is Gabriel becoming unhinged over losing her.

  The morning light creeps into the sky, and I sense footsteps nearby—a vampire who was never taught how to go unheard. No one has told her to silence her breathing. No one has taught her how to hunt. I quicken my pace.

  Two sets of footsteps? The sharp click of new shoes. Human footsteps. They grow faster, and Lisette’s follow suit.

  She’s hunting. This would be a good opportunity to show her how to take just enough, and how to make her prey forget her; but really, teaching her is Gabriel’s job. He made her.

  The scent of freshly ground coffee wafts from around the corner. They serve the same kind at the café where Adele works.

  No.

  I inhale deeply and smell her shampoo, her freshly washed hair. She’s just around the corner—Adele is the prey.

  The clicks of her footsteps accelerate. She knows she’s being followed. Smart girl.

  The cool morning air sweetens with the scent of her fear. I pull my hoodie tighter and pick up my pace down the broken sidewalk. Three. Two. One.

  Slam.

  Adele bounces off my chest, but my arm darts around her, yanking her back up; her arms fling around my neck. As soon as she regains her balance, she tries to break away, but I hold her tighter. “Shhhhh.”

  She doesn’t listen; I shake her hard as the second set of footsteps approaches us.

  On the other side of the street, she appears, walking past us, bright-blond hair hidden beneath the hood of her cloak.

  Lisette Monvoisin.

  She smiles daringly at me, but the heartbeat pressing against my chest holds my attention.

  Fury builds at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t been here to intervene. What I’d have done to Gabriel’s child if she’d gotten to Adele before me.

  For a split second my rational side considers dropping Adele and going after Lisette, who is a threat to all of us.

  It’s what I should do, but it’s not what I’m going to do, not now that Adele is in my arms.

  For weeks I’ve wanted to touch her.

  This wasn’t the oak-tree branch in the park I envisioned us sitting on, or the top of a Ferris wheel away from the rest of the world, or even my bed. Now it doesn’t matter. I have her close—I don’t want to let her go.

  I file the sound of her heartbeat into my vault of memories and press her tighter as Lisette turns the corner, and just like that, I don’t care where Gabriel’s child is off to, or who she feeds on. Who she kills. As long as it isn’t the girl in my arms.

  If Lisette tries to touch her again, she’ll regret it forever. Niccolò, you’re acting like a fool. But I suddenly find myself not caring about that either.

  Lisette’s footsteps fade into the early-morning haze, and we’re left alone. Only then do I realize Adele is shaking in my arms. She clutches me in fear, not desire.

  She’s scared of me.

  She should be.

  I come to my senses. “Scusa, are you okay?”

  Tension releases from her shoulders as she recognizes my voice. She looks up at me with misguided relief. I don’t want to let go.

  The taste of blood still lingers in my mouth, but I am suddenly starved. I can’t remember a time when I have felt so starved. When I have so truly desired something.

  Her voice shakes. “Have you had any luck finding your family?”

  I lean closer, trying not to inhale her scent too deeply, but I do, and then my lips are moving along the side of her jaw, tasting her skin. My fingers climb through her hair, to a place that can hold her head securely. Every vertebra in her back tenses, and her words continue, though whether they are of protest or pleasure I have no idea. I only hear her heartbeat accelerating.

  It startles me how concerned I am with her heart.

  A tear slides down her cheek and over her jaw, dampening her skin before it reaches my lips. When I taste it, I know that I’m too far gone.

  “Nicco?”

  My teeth sink into her flesh, pushing a soft moan from her mouth.

  With each pull, her pulse slows. “Nicco,” she whispers as she bleeds into my mouth.

  Her arms fold over the back of my head, and I forget about it all. I forget about the chase. I forget about revenge. I forget about the curse. I forget about avenging our father. And I forget about León.

  I lift her by the waist and step into the nearest alleyway. In the darkness, I continue to drink, and I have never felt truer to monster form. I suck harder. This is all I ever wanted. She is all I ever wanted. To hear her pulse. To taste her. To have her heart.

  Thump-thump.

  Her voice screams inside my head: Nicco, you didn’t bite me! This didn’t happen!

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  It’s not her voice. It’s my voice.

  Screaming inside my head.

  I need more. I want more. I want her completely. Forever. And I take her until she goes limp in my arms. Everything goes red—and then black. I’m in the darkness, pleading.

  “Please get out, Adele. I beg you. Please get out . . . There are things . . . you can never unsee.”

  She disappears from my arms. I reach out, but there’s only blackness.

  Thump-thump.

  Thump-thump.

  She refuses to get out of my head—out of my fantasies. She fights back. All I can do is push her into a different day.

  The clouds pass swiftly through the black sky, and the stars twinkle down. My feet hit the pavement with purpose and frustration. Letting Adele out of my sight is not a risk I’m willing to take, not now that Emilio is in New Orleans.

  I pull the flask of whiskey from my pocket, take the last sip, and hurl it against a Bourbon Street dumpster. It slams with an explosion of glass.

  But then my adrenaline spikes—she’s near—I feel her.

  My eyesight pulses in the darkness, eager to catch a glimpse, and my hearing sharpens, ready to pull the sounds of her footsteps to my ears. Why is she out on the street at this hour? After the curfew? She should be at home, behind the Saint-Germain protection spells.

  Her footsteps hasten, as do her breaths. She’s on the next block. I quickly step around the corner so we collide, and again I catch her before she hits the ground.

  “We really should stop meeting like this, bella,” I say, feeling the alcohol warming my insides, “not that I mind it.” Humor has never been my strong suit, but I am overwhelmed by a need to see her smile.

  She doesn’t.

  She’s panting but trying to hide her breaths. My hearing sharpens once more—her lungs struggle for air, an asthmatic condition, perhaps. He braids are disheveled, and her clothes . . . are some of them are missing? My thoughts flash to Emilio. “Are you hurt? Why were you running?”

  Still she doesn’t speak. She begins to shake. Then he—that incessant Air witch—calls her name, and she flinches.

  I grab her hand and take off. What are you doing, Niccolò?

  We run through the curfew-silent streets, away from his cries to her.

  The only r
eason I haven’t ripped him limb from limb is because he’s protecting her too; I know he will at all costs, because he loves her. So for that he is useful, but still, she needs to learn to protect herself—as if such a thing is possible against my family.

  She squeezes my hand as we run. Her power emanates in waves of warmth. The lights flick off as we hurry past them. She’s getting stronger. I know she’s the one who broke the seal. She’ll be the one who leads us to him.

  But for now I am leading her, through the garden, through the cathedral, up the stairs, and into the bell tower. Away from my family, away from everyone. It’s just me and her and the moonlight beaming down through the window. Under the cast of silver, she looks even more like León, and her fingers go to the necklace, just like Adeline’s always did.

  She gasps for air as she leans over the stone ledge. She’s angry. Bene. She’s going to need that passion to channel the magic, to reach the Fire I know is there.

  It’s not fair for such a sweet, innocent girl to be dragged into this war, but we don’t choose our families. And when our families have roots as dark and twisted as the briar patch we are tangled in, we don’t choose our destinies either.

  The cross breeze gives her voice a slight shake. “What are we doing here?”

  “You’re upset about something,” I say, drawing her to the center of the tower and circling behind her. “I have an idea to make you feel better.” My hands slide up her arms, raising chill bumps.

  Her delicate shoulders knock against my chest, and for a moment I have to calm myself.

  I sweep both of her braids to the left side. Her nervousness both saddens and intoxicates me.

  “On the count of three. I want you to scream as loud as you can.”

  “What?”

  “One,” I whisper against her ear.

  “Two.”

  Chills sweep down her neck.

  “Three!”

  I jump up and ring the bell and then protect her ears as she screams, buckling, pulling me down to the stone floor with her. I want to make everything better for her. I want to hurt whoever has caused her pain. I want to get her as far away from the Medici as I can.

  I want her.

  Stop it, Niccolò. Bring her home.

  I lift her up. “Do you feel better?” I ask, her back still pressed against my chest.

  “Yeah, actually,” she whispers, turning around.

  “Bene.” I brush a tear from her cheek.

  She peers up at me, her cobalt eyes just like his, burning with that age-old energy I know so well, and I vow to end anyone who tries to harm her, my family or not.

  Bring her home.

  I don’t. The way she looks at me . . . Is it fascination? Infatuation? Or just morbid curiosity? Or is it possibly . . . something else? The longer she gazes at me, the more I wish it to be.

  You’re a fool, Nicco. Even if she does know about you, she’ll never love you, not after she learns of the things you’ve done. She’ll run from you, and that’s what she should do now.

  She doesn’t. Instead she moves to the wall and slides down to the stone floor.

  What do you know, Adele? Who I am? What I am?

  Her smile makes me think she knows, and yet . . . she came here with me anyway. With a vampire.

  Her teeth chatter, and I tell myself it’s because she’s cold, not because she’s scared. I give her my jacket, and I want her to wear it forever.

  We sit in the bell tower, and she asks questions, and I give her the answers. None of her questions are the right ones, but at times the undercurrent in her tone makes me rise in my seat.

  She looks directly at me. “Did Adeline ever tell her father you called?”

  With one little name drop, the undercurrent rips my feet out from beneath me, and I’m swept down the dark river. My jaw snaps shut, hiding the evidence of my desire. That was the right question. Definitely the right question.

  My fingers cover my mouth. “What did you say?”

  She stands up with misguided confidence. “Paris: 1728. Did Adeline ever tell her father that you called . . . Monsieur Cartier?”

  I pounce, pinning her to the floor beneath me. Hearing her call me by Séraphine’s name makes me seethe with need.

  I want her to know everything—the urge to tell her all of my secrets almost overtakes me—but she cannot know. Not yet. It’s too dangerous for her . . . and it’s too risky for me. After all, she is a Saint-Germain.

  And deceptive innocence is their key trait.

  She radiates warmth, and it pulls me closer—a warmth I haven’t felt since I was alive, since those days in the laboratory with León. Fire magic.

  “Do you trust me, Adele?”

  “Sì,” she whispers, sitting up to meet my gaze.

  I want to press my lips into hers, but instead I slam her back to the ground.

  “Never trust a vampire, Adele!” My fangs are exposed to her, but her eyes don’t flicker. Her gaze pours into mine.

  Nicco, this is wrong.

  She lifts her chin, bringing herself closer, and I don’t know if I lower to her or she pushes up to me, but my lips touch hers, and her mouth opens up to mine, and I can’t resist tasting her. I slide my hand beneath her, and she pulls me even closer.

  Kissing her isn’t part of the plan, Nicco. I’d wanted to learn about her magic, and whether she could defend herself against my family—and against me.

  But I want this more.

  In her naïveté, she kisses me too hard, and my fang scrapes her lip, drawing blood.

  I shudder violently against her. My lips move to her neck in a wave of feverish kisses. My arms crush her tighter.

  “Stop, Nicco,” she whimpers. “Stop fighting it.”

  Her fingers slip through my hair, and she presses me tighter.

  This is the way, Nicco. To get what you want. Her.

  Just next to her ear, I whisper, “It will be quick, bella.”

  My teeth plunge into her neck, and I shudder and shudder as I take her completely.

  When she goes limp against the floor, I kiss her lifeless lips. “Ti amo, bella.”

  But then her hands push against my chest.

  It’s not possible. She’s dead. I killed her.

  “Get off!” she cries. “Get off me!”

  Her hands shove me so hard I fly backward and crash against the stone wall, through the tower wall—and I’m back in the cassette.

  In the attic, on my back.

  In the darkness.

  A wave of rage so great passes through me that my eyes flutter open, just for a few seconds, and my lips move.

  “Get out,” my dry voice croaks. “Get out. That never happened, Adele! I would never—I am not a monster! Get out! Get out of my head!”

  I tore off his jacket and huddled in the corner of the closet, tears pouring down my face.

  You were there, Adele. He didn’t kill you that night in the bell tower. He didn’t bite you. He didn’t even try.

  But it felt so real. It wasn’t a memory—at least not completely—but it was in his mind, what he was thinking about as he lay there in magic-induced slumber, what he’d been thinking about during all of our times together—killing me.

  I didn’t need Olsin Daure to tell me I’d slipped from Nicco’s dreamscape into his fantasies. Part of me had always wished I was in his thoughts, but reality came crashing down upon discovering the reason I was—because Nicco’s strongest desire was to drain me . . . to kill me.

  Does it make him any less of a monster that he didn’t?

  No. Because he had another reason for not killing me: he needed me to find the Count. And that’s all Nicco ever wanted from me. That’s what kept Adeline alive in 1728, and it’s what kept me alive last fall. León.

  Devastation swelled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. It was like I’d been thrown out of the window all over again.

  I curled against the wall. Isaac had been right about Nicco all along, and so had Callis. The image of his f
angs plunging into my neck made me wonder something I’d never considered: Maybe Callis is right to rid the world of Nicco.

  I sat up, shoved the candles, herbs, and diary down into the hole, and closed it with one quick whip. I grabbed Nicco’s jacket and locked the closet door behind me.

  Nicco can go to hell. I’m done.

  I traded the leggings for a pair of jeans, laced up my boots, applied some wing-tipped eyeliner, and sent a message to Annabelle.

  Adele 9:02 p.m. Still want an extra date to the party? <3

  CHAPTER 37

  Let Him Go

  The last time I’d climbed into Annabelle’s Porsche SUV involved hot pants and a blindfold, so I couldn’t help being nervous as I clicked the seat belt in place.

  “Nice jacket,” she said. “Looks Italian.”

  “You have no idea . . .” There was no point in letting good leather go to waste.

  “Did you manage anything?” she asked, turning off my street.

  I patted the backpack in my lap, and it clanked. “Four bottles. Trust me, it’s enough to send the whole party into an alcoholic coma.”

  “Cool. I swiped a case from the pantry. Mrs. Nicholson will never notice.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Nicholson?”

  “The housekeeper,” she said, as if everyone in town knew Mrs. Nicholson. Maybe they do, for all I know.

  When she continued down Esplanade and turned left at the river, I became really curious. “Where are we going?” I asked, the déjà vu coming back tenfold.

  This time she wasn’t evasive. “A requiem for Holy Cross. The boys are already there, hopefully with the bonfire blazing. It’s freezing.” She cranked the heater and flipped on her brights.

  As we drove down the riverfront through the abandoned neighborhood into the Lower Ninth Ward, one horror after another popped into the flood of her headlights: houses that had been pushed off their slabs, crushed by telephone poles, even burned down to charred piles of tinder. People’s entire lives spilled out into piles on the streets . . . generations of once-treasured things. And the spray-painted Xs contained numbers that weren’t zeros.

  As the images whipped past us, I thought about Isaac, and how he came here every day, helping strangers, trying to fix people’s lives. I wondered what had really happened that day with the little girl in the photo for it to still be affecting him this badly.