Midnight Temptation

by Nancy Gideon

“That is a very cruel observation, madame.”

  “Is it? Gerard always says I have no heart. Shall I prove its existence? Tell me, my dear, how can I help those who befriended you? Give me the chance to show my generous spirit.”

  Nicole hesitated. She had no real reason to distrust this woman’s motives. She had been unfailingly kind so far. Perhaps the air of reserve was just her way.

  “Come, child. Tell me. I caught you picking my pocket. If you were forced to such criminality, their circumstances must be dire indeed.”

  Nicole thought of Musette’s tears and Marchand’s frustrations. Yes, perhaps Bianca could help. The woman had given her coin freely enough. Perhaps this was a way in which to validate her love for Marchand without risk. She could gift him with the freedom of his loved ones from De Sivry’s influence. She could give him his family’s safety . . . even if she could not be a part of it. And suddenly, that meant everything to her. She found herself confiding the coil of intrigue De Sivry had snared them in. Bianca listened attentively.

  “De Sivry. Sounds like a perfectly beastly man. Someone without a conscience.”

  “From what I’ve heard, without a soul.”

  “Indeed,” Bianca mused. “I should like to meet your friends. Perhaps they’d allow me to sponsor their cause. I admire causes. They create such passion, you know.” And she smiled in a manner devoid of that feeling, her look completely calculating, and Nicole wondered if she’d made a mistake in saying so much.

  However, Bianca was so genuinely thoughtful when showing her to her quarters and bidding her to rest, she believed she wronged the woman with her suspicions.

  “WHO HAVE WE HERE?”

  Gerard had his arms draped about the shoulders of two wide-eyed adolescents, brother and sister from the look of them, barely into their teen years. He was smiling, oozing charm the way he could when he wished to. “Our two young friends got separated from their parents in the Gardens. I told them they could wait in here where it is warm while we sent word where they could be found.”

  “What a nice gesture,” Bianca agreed. “It is late and not at all safe for youngsters to wander the streets alone. Why, there are all types of dangerous individuals who would prey upon such innocence. You did right to bring them here, Gerard.”

  “I thought you would be pleased, my love.”

  “Could we send word right away?” the pretty dark-haired girl piped up. “I hate to think that Mama would be worried.”

  “Right away,” Gerard promised, smiling down as he captured and held the guileless gaze in his. Slowly the awareness began to ebb from her until her eyes were all but sightless and her only focus the hypnotic intensity of his stare.

  Meanwhile, her brother was wandering about the room in awe. Bianca trailed behind him, easing ever closer. Her fingertips had just settled upon his shoulders with a paralyzing strength when she heard a soft gasp.

  “Excuse me. I thought I heard voices.”

  “Nicole,” Bianca purred. “We have guests. Would you like to help us entertain them?”

  Nicole stood frozen. She regarded the helpless children, recognizing the thrall they were in. And she recognized as well the fiery glare of brilliance in the eyes of her host and hostess. There was a sharp scent in the room, a scent she’d come to identify with food. The scent emanated from the two waifs and, realizing what she’d interrupted, sent her stumbling back to the safety of her room.

  “How inopportune,” Gerard murmured.

  “See to her, Gerardo. Calm her fears.”

  “In a moment, cara. She is too fragrant for me to visit until I’ve fed.” His hand stroked over the child’s curls. “How pretty you would have been as a woman,” he said almost wistfully as the girl continued to stare up in rapt bewitchment. “A pity you did not stay with your parents.”

  The boy started to turn at the sound of his sister’s soft cry but he never completed the revolution. In a minute’s time, both brother and sister were drained of their life’s vitality.

  Gerard released the withered form and paid no mind as it crumpled to the floor when discarded. “Bianca, see to their disposal while I tend our frightened apprentice.”

  NICOLE SPUN WHEN she heard the whisper of movement behind her. Her eyes were wide and wet with horror as she beheld him.

  “What did you do to them?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You—you killed them, didn’t you?” Her words choked on a sob of anguish.

  “No, cara, they will live forever. Through us. That is how it must be. What did you think we were? What do you think you are?”

  She gave a tortured cry and whirled away. She held her body stiff when he embraced her because she didn’t have the strength to jerk free. His words whispered seductively against her ear. She could smell the thick odor of blood on his breath and hated the way her senses sharpened in response.

  “It’s what we must do to survive. It’s not something we enjoy.”

  “Liar! You do! I saw it in your faces.”

  “Well . . . yes. But we don’t think of it as killing. Nothing so crude as that. We absorb what we must to survive and in doing so, oh, Nicole, you cannot imagine the pleasure of it, the power of it.”

  “It’s murder!”

  “Do you think of it as murder when you dine upon beef? Is it murder when a hunter brings down a stag in the forest or a bird from the air? No. It is survival. It is instinct. And that’s what we are. Creatures of instinct who take the blood of others to survive. You act shocked, but you must know of this already. How else do you explain how you reacted to what you just saw? How else would you know we’d killed them?”

  She couldn’t contain the terrible agony of it any longer. “I saw him,” she wailed in torment. Her head fell back against Gerard’s chest and tears flooded down her face. “I saw him with a village girl. I saw her blood on his face.”

  “Who?”

  “My father.”

  “Oh.” How tenderly he said that and how compassionately he held her, as if he truly felt her grief. “And you ran away from him.”

  She nodded miserably.

  “Poor Gino. How that must have broken his heart. He has one, you know, though I can’t claim I still do. He didn’t tell you what he was.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Oh, mío amíca, what a fool you are.” He hugged her gently. “And you never told him what was happening to you.”

  “No.”

  “No wonder you were so afraid. I will tell you whatever you need to know. You can trust me, Nicole.”

  She twisted to look up at him, her features pulled with confusion. “How do I know that?”

  “The same way you know me. You did, didn’t you, from the first time you saw me. We are one, Nicole, as your mother and I are one.”

  “You were her lover?”

  He chuckled at her moral astonishment. “No, cara. We had a different sort of union. When I took of her blood, I made a bond between us that can never be broken. And, as you were a part of her, you and I share that same bond. Does that appall you?”

  “I heard your voice in my mind.”

  “As I can hear yours once you get used to the power you have.”

  “Why did you warn me to say nothing to Bianca?”

  “Shall we say, she and your mother are not the best of friends.”

  His tactful amusement gave much away. “Bianca and my father were lovers?”

  His tone grew suddenly terse. “That is of no matter now. It was long ago and forgotten. What matters is that you not let her know how to find your parents. She will be kind to you as long as you hold to that secret.”

  “How is it done?”

  He blinked, bewildered by her sudden fervor. “How is what done?”

  “How did you take m
y mother’s blood?”

  “Here.” He stroked his forefinger along the side of her throat. Nicole shuddered but held tight to her courage.

  “How?”

  “Oh, sweet innocent, you do not wish me to show you that. There is much about you that stirs the hunger in me. You are very mortal for all your power.”

  “I saw my father’s teeth. They were sharp and pointed. But yours aren’t like that, nor were his—usually.”

  He mused over this for a moment. “You’ve not experienced the change then or you would know.”

  “What change? Please, I need to know. If I can’t change then perhaps I can’t feed.”

  “Cara, the hunger is strong in you. If you don’t feed, you will starve.”

  “But I don’t know how!” She couldn’t believe she was begging this terrible knowledge from him, but it was all a part of what she was. She had to know. She had to discover all.

  “I’ll teach you.” He was silent for a long beat before saying, “Nicole, there may be no going back from this point on. Once you savor the life force from a mortal, you may lose touch with your own humanity.”

  “I have to know. Please tell me. What’s happening to me?”

  He sighed then, resigned. “You know about the strength of ten and the senses of the keenest stalking animal. Your speed of movement is invisible to the average eye. You can smell live blood when you’re among mortals and it excites you. It makes you tremble with need. Am I right?”

  She looked away, resting her head back against him, nodding once.

  “You know the need, the hunger. You crave the taste. Let the urgency overtake you. Let go, Nicole. Imagine it. Hear the pulse of it, so strong and fresh. Smell the richness of that child flowing through me.” He curled his forearm up around her head so that his veins were pushed against her mouth, so she couldn’t avoid the contact. “Can you hear it, Nicole?”

  “Yes.” Was that her voice, so strained and raw?

  “And you want to take it from me, don’t you? You want to pierce my veins and draw it out. You want to bite, to drink.”

  “Yesssss.”

  That hiss of breath was followed by a searing agony through her gums. It shot up to her cheekbones, making her cry out.

  “It hurts! It hurts!”

  “Oh, but Nicole, it is such an exquisite pain. Relax and let it become rapture.”

  She quieted then, because it had become just that. When she dared, she touched her tongue to the elongated tips of her incisors and a wild necessity shook her.

  “Go ahead,” he urged softly. “See what it can be like.”

  And she bit him. Her teeth punctured the taut flesh of his inner arm and the sense of gratification was like none other. So she did it again. And again, carried away with the act if not understanding the full intention. Until the taste registered in her mind and then there was nothing else. It was everything. But the minute she started to draw upon the wounds she’d made, he shook her off, saying sternly, “No, not from me. Never drink from one of your own kind. It’s forbidden.”

  But she was filled with an insatiable hunger and the aroma of his blood was tantalizing before her. So she grabbed on and drove deep, meaning to begin a frantic suction when she felt the sting of his palm on her cheek and in confusion, she pulled away from seeking satisfaction. She growled in frustration, trembling with the wild desire of her kind and because he understood it better than she, Gerard encased her in strong arms, murmuring quietly for her to relax until the urge subsided.

  He held her as a father would a child, as that feeling of bitter anguish cut through gums again and her animal-like teeth receded. When that ordeal was over, she began to notice other things that hadn’t been important before. Like how pale he was and how his arm from wrist to elbow was torn savagely open as if some vicious beast had worried it. That beast had been her. She could see the marks of her many bites and she realized now, where she hadn’t then, that she’d heard him cry out each time. And she hadn’t cared that she was hurting him. Not at all. But now the horror was overwhelming.

  “Now you know how it’s done,” he said with a remarkable calm. He gave her a wry smile as teary eyes rose in abject apology. “You are an apt pupil. Oh, but don’t look so upset. You cannot harm me, not for long any way. See, even now they heal.”

  She gave a reluctant glance toward the butchery of his arm then stared, for all that remained were small red indentations marring his flesh.

  “That is the nature of what we are. I think you’ve learned enough for now.”

  Chapter Eleven

  NICOLE COULDN’T find where they slept during the daylight hours. She looked, wandering about the splendid rooms until her own weariness grew impossibly strong. Everything slowed, her pulse rate, her breathing, her thoughts, until it was inevitable that she seek her own rest. She lay upon her bed in the sumptuous quarters Bianca provided. There, with the drapes drawn tight against the morning, she tried to think of all that had happened. But despite her struggles, awareness slipped from her and she, too, slumbered.

  That became the pattern of her life; sleeping through the sunlit hours and rising with her two companions and the moon. They were interesting and, as they promised, founts of knowledge, but after spending several days with them, Nicole began to realize they were careful about what and how much they revealed to her. Just bits and pieces, but never enough for her to get a firm grasp on their existence. If anything, her confusion grew in tandem with her dependence upon them.

  Gerard was for the most part a delightful diversion. He played the charming beau or doting father with equal enthusiasm, and his dazzling physical beauty held her spellbound. Though his behavior was often seductive and his embraces were frequent, she sensed no passionate nature within him, no inner warmth. It was as if all emotion was displayed like a carefully chosen gesture, for effect rather than with spontaneity. Occasionally, she would get a glimmer of something stirring beneath the smooth surface of his appeal that would suggest he felt more than he cared to, especially when Bianca tried to draw out of her information about her parents. That subject made him testy and anxious. Those things she intuited more than observed, for Bianca was unaware of the change in him at such times. Perhaps it was the psychic bond between them that had her privy to his moods.

  She enjoyed playing games of the mind with him. Her first tentative reaches were frustrating. She could feel him, but couldn’t focus enough to find him. His silent voice teased about within her head, making her remember her rusty Italian, coaxing, chiding, challenging her to do better. Then one evening, as they sat listening to Bianca berate the latest fashions, Nicole gathered her energy and sent the call of his name like a bolt from a bow.

  Gerard!

  He lurched sideways in his chair, tumbling from it to clutch at his temples. When he straightened to gaze at her, there was none of the congratulations or amusement she’d expected to see. His stare was dark and dazed. Shocked. Apprehensive.

  “Gerard, whatever is the matter with you?” Bianca demanded in irritation.

  It seemed to take him a moment to respond. “Forgive me, cara. I wouldn’t want you to think your sparkling conversation lulled me into a coma.” His reply was barbed enough to make her grumble and ignore him, but his attention was fixed upon Nicole.

  I’m sorry. She tried to touch him with that sentiment on a lower scale of intensity, but found herself blocked off from him. She couldn’t find his psyche in the cold void of subconsciousness, and she was surprised by how alone that made her feel, as if some vital connection had been severed. He remained withdrawn from her for the rest of the evening, his stare uneasy and remote. He left early to hunt, and that left her with Bianca.

  Nicole couldn’t summon any liking for the sleek, sophisticated female. Bianca was all poised polish but there was something irrevocably tarnished beneath that glossy sheen. She
was kind, even generous with her time and money, providing Nicole with an enviable wardrobe and exposing her to the finest culture Paris had to offer. But Nicole was never allowed close to her. That determined distance bred discomfort; and Nicole was reminded of Gerard’s warning. Bianca would be pleasant only as long as she wanted something. And Nicole began to suspect that that something was her father.

  Toward a cold aloof dawn, she was brooding in her chamber when she felt Gerard’s presence. He glided past her to stand at her balcony window, looking out over a slumbering Paris. His expression was oddly quiet and somehow vulnerable.

  “Dawn is such a melancholy time of day,” he mused. “We must bid goodbye to the world just as it is waking to life.”

  She watched him for a moment, steeping in misery because he was holding himself purposefully away when she’d come to enjoy his quixotic company so. It was a kinship she could never feel with Bianca, and the only link she had to this new and deeply frightening life. She couldn’t bear to let the barriers stand between them. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she blurted out at last.

  His gaze flickered in her direction. A smile moved upon his face, a gesture of forgiveness that never went beyond the outward features. “You caught me with my guard down. It startled me, is all. You are very strong.” He fell silent, pondering that with all the wariness of an implicit threat. That was it, she realized at last. Her power scared him. Of the two of them, she’d felt Bianca in control and now he was feeling her intimidation as well and didn’t like it.

  “I would never harm you, you know.”

  He continued to smile blandly at her reassurance. “Nicole, I have not lived so long by being trusting.”

  “But you stay with Bianca. You must care for her.”

  He gave a snort of laughter. “Cara, I am not the fool she thinks me. As for trusting her, I’d as soon place my faith in a desert scorpion.”

  “Then why stay with her?”

  He sighed and looked back out at the city. “You have no notion of how hard it is to live so long. She is the perfect companion for me. The edge in our relationship keeps it fresh, yet we don’t pretend to hold great feeling for one another. It is more for the sake of mutual greed than personal need.”