Seducing the Vampire
Page 25
After indicating he’d purchase the coach, he was thankful he kept most of his money in gold with a notaire in Paris. It hadn’t been destroyed by the fire at his home.
What he needed was a place where he could keep his valuables for centuries. An institution he knew would always exist, no matter where Rhys’s travels took him, and a notaire who would keep his secret.
“Some sort of bank for the Dark Ones,” he muttered. “I like the idea.”
Today had been successful, for he’d secured this smart coach for his lover, and now his future looked bright. He had the full moon to meet tonight, and then he could step into the future, with Viviane at his side.
“MADEMOISELLE.”
The bravo who Rhys had hired spoke so little, the hairs at the back of Viviane’s neck stiffened at the sound of his warning voice.
She’d pushed the key into the lock on William’s front door, and turned to find the bravo gesturing she move inside, quickly.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I heard a commotion around back. Go inside and lock the door. I’ll come around to the back and knock once for entrance. Yes?”
She nodded agreement, and slipped inside. The key tumbled down her green satin skirt and clinked onto the stone floor. Too nervous, she left it where it lay. Pacing twice before the door, she suddenly remembered to turn the bolt.
Stepping back, she peered out the window into the street. No shadows moved. Here, where the buildings towered four stories, and hugged one another so closely, very little moonlight was permitted through.
She forced herself away from the window. Her fingers brushed the writing desk where the wooden hummingbird sat upon the volume of sonnets. Rhys’s melodic recitation comforted her as she remembered the afternoon spent entwined on the chaise lounge.
She clutched the bird, fitting her fingers about its smooth body. To have selected this specific gift, he knew her heart.
“Rhys,” she whispered. “Hurry home to my heart.”
A crash at the back of the house sounded like wood breaking and something heavy hitting the ground. Viviane clung to the stair rail. Her senses honed on a disturbing scent. Blood.
And another presence she could not sort out.
Before she could think to flee out the front door, Constantine de Salignac marched into the room. Adorned in silver and black, his mirthless smile stabbed at her. Blood spilled from his mouth, which he wiped away with a handkerchief. “Viviane, chérie.” Salignac spread his arms wide in invitation.
She backed away. The sonnet book dug into the arch of her slippered foot.
Another man stepped alongside the sneering vampire lord.
“You’ve met Ian Grim before, I’m sure?”
The witch was an ally to vampires. Dressed in emerald velvet, his blond hair a frazzled mess, the man looked insane. But the true insanity was in the wrist he displayed to her. It bled.
Witch’s blood was poison to a vampire. One drop of it upon her skin would sizzle through to her insides and eat away at her organs and heart and finally reduce her to ash. A slow but sure death.
“What do you want?” she firmly asked, glad for her lacking fear. “You dare to intrude in Monsieur Hawkes’s home?”
“I see the mongrel nowhere in sight. Does he not give a care for his lover’s safety?”
“I should be safe in my own home.”
“Ah? You two are sharing the place now? I know for a fact Hawkes squats in this home. It belonged to William Montfalcon.”
Grim stepped forward, brandishing his wrist as a weapon Viviane could not put herself far enough away from. Her hips swiped the writing desk, setting her off balance.
But it was Constantine who approached and spread his fingers over her hair and down her cheek. The touch chilled her blood. He had watched, waited for his moment when Rhys was not around to protect her.
She struck out, slicing him on the cheek with a fingernail. “What did you do to the bravo?”
“The oaf bowed before me and begged me to bite him.” Constantine wiped the blood from his skin then licked his finger. “The big ones always do fall the quickest. You did not place false hope in the lackwit actually protecting you?”
She had. She had underestimated Constantine.
“What do you want?”
“Revenge. It is a family game, to put it appropriately. Rhys has had his win, now I shall take mine.”
Viviane tightened her grip about the hummingbird. All she had right now to bolster her courage. A glance confirmed Grim’s blood dripped on the floor, not a step from her skirts. She drew back her toe.
“Rhys changed his mind,” she said. “He no longer wishes revenge against you.”
“My brother is backing down? Doubtful. That mongrel is vicious with his cuts.”
“He has never killed someone close to you.”
“Does he have you believe I killed Emeline?”
“No.” Viviane looked aside. “He told me what really happened. But you did not protect her.”
“He blames me for not protecting his own? Isn’t that a fine excuse.”
“Leave us to live peacefully, I beg of you.”
“You beg to me now?” Constantine splayed beringed fingers across his chest. “That is rich. After all I have sacrificed for your pleasure, and you have mocked me for those sacrifices, now you would beg my mercy?”
“You have sacrificed nothing.”
“I have killed half a dozen of my kin for you!”
“I did not ask you to kill them, merely to be rid of them.”
“Does that not imply death?”
“You are heartless.”
“You are a bitch, Viviane LaMourette. You think you can survive with the half-breed as your patron?”
“Honestly? No. But I prefer dying in Rhys’s arms to living in yours.”
Constantine moved swiftly. He wrangled her arm around behind her back and twisted so she could not struggle free. And with her head forced forward, she could smell the filth in the witch’s clothing.
“Begin the spell, Grim,” the vampire lord commanded.
“What are you doing?” She struggled, but he held her with ease, pressing his clawed hand about her neck and wrenching her arm higher across her back.
Grim chanted in Latin, a language Viviane recognized from the intonations only. A spell? The devil take Constantine and all his bloody kin!
“If you wish your revenge on Rhys then kill me,” she cried.
No, please. She did not want to die.
Pulled upright by a yank of her hair, Viviane felt Grim’s words enter her mind. The bellicose tones shimmered and ignited. The rhythm of his incantation seduced.
Viviane blinked. Her shoulders relaxed.
“You think my revenge is against my brother?” Constantine’s teeth dragged down her neck, not cutting, but warning. “You betrayed me by taking my love, twisting it, and tossing it at me. Wicked bitch. You will spend the rest of your days unable to move, yet your mind will be alive and vital. Think of me, Viviane. Think of me when the rats scurry over your body and you try to remember what your lover’s touch felt like. And know because you betrayed me, you will have unending horror.”
The witch’s chanting grew to a shout.
Viviane’s body stiffened. Her hands cringed into claws. The hummingbird’s beak dug into her palm. She tried to fight the movement, but it was as though her muscles were being commanded by Grim’s voice. Constantine’s hold slipped away, yet she sensed him at her back, supporting, holding her.
Viviane opened her mouth to scream.
Did she scream? Had she opened her mouth? She couldn’t feel her lips.
And as she stretched her jaw and pleaded with the witch to cease, she knew she was not moving at all. Her body was frozen. Held motionless by a spell that enchanted her to a drowsy, mirthless smile.
“It is complete.”
In her peripheral view, Constantine’s hand spread open to receive. “The choker,” the vampire said.
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He spoke of the iron-maiden choker. Had he been to Henri’s home? She’d left the thing behind for the sellers to include with the house.
Why could she not move? And how long would this miserable spell last? To keep her immobile yet conscious?
“Bind that wound on your wrist,” Constantine directed the witch. Then he clutched the roses on the side of Viviane’s head and tugged them off. “I will need this.”
Grim must have brought along bindings, for but moments passed before he confirmed the task complete. “Shall I hold her for you?”
Shuffled into the witch’s hold, Viviane could feel his hands grip about her shoulders. His stench reviled.
Constantine’s pitiful smile stabbed. “Frightened?”
“Yes,” she screamed silently. “Make this stop. Rhys!”
“You should be.”
He lifted the choker before her. She saw the small black stones and the sharp points. If he intended to put it on her, it was backwards.
“You should not have accepted my gift if you intended to deny my love. I have only ever been kind to you, Viviane,” he said. “You would have been safer with me, your own breed. But you are tainted now. You’ve the half-breed’s blood in your veins.”
Thank the gods she had taken Rhys’s blood. Viviane could feel it within her now. Hot, strong. Life sustaining?
“I can smell him on you. It is more filthy and wretched than Grim’s odor, I assure you.”
Something warm spattered her cheek. Tears.
The cold choker clutched her throat. Constantine tied the ribbon behind her neck. The points pierced her flesh, burning. Agony slid a delirious scream through her mind. Yet she could but experience and not react.
He touched a bloody finger to his mouth, but did not taste it. “Tainted,” he pronounced, and wiped the finger on her bodice. “Help me lift her.”
Her body was handled roughly as Grim gripped her shoulders and Constantine groped about her skirts to get her stiff legs in hand. “Set her on the chaise, will you?”
Grim asked, “What of the—?”
“This first.”
Viviane’s world tilted, her vision scaling along the shelves of books and the ceiling. Her skirts shuffled up her legs. Metal buttons clacked as Constantine released his breeches.
“You are a voyeur?” he asked the witch. “Give me a moment. I want to send my wicked lover to hell with part of me inside her.”
Viviane’s bile curdled. She wanted to lash at the monster, to win her freedom.
He entered her. She could feel nothing. But the horror overwhelmed as he pumped quickly, gruffly, and gave an abbreviated cry of pleasure.
“Remember me, Viviane, as I drip down your thigh and you are unable to wipe it away.”
He stood and refastened his breeches. “Help me now, Grim.”
Through the house and out the back door they carried her. Were they setting her on the ground? She could not move her eyes, and could see only directly before her. The sky glittered with full, gorgeous moonlight. Rhys. My love. At this moment he must be loping freely across the countryside beneath the pale full moon.
Constantine kissed her on the mouth. She could not feel the touch. His face blocked out the moonlight.
She wanted to see the moon. To connect with her lover.
I am yours. Her last words to him.
“Grim, hand me the crown.”
Her tormentor held a hideous thing before her. A ring of skulls. Small skulls similar to the rose hairpiece she often wore.
“Rat skulls,” he said, his eyes glinting. “I crown you Queen of the Rats.”
The moon flashed. Something moved over the top of her. It was glass, set in a narrow frame, for she could see the leading that connected it as if a box to the sections on the side.
What horror is this? They’d put her inside something. And now it was lifted from the ground and she could feel her body floating.
“You had your chance,” Constantine said. “And now I condemn you to eternity.”
A scream exploded behind her eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Paris, modern day
DANE TOLD RHYS SHE’D START making calls to gather a team when they returned to his estate. But as soon as she sat on the bed in the guest room, she fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of soft, cushy beds layered with satin sheets, and with men like Rhys Hawkes tucked between them. She woke later, smiling, thinking that was the best dream ever.
In her peripheral view, she noticed Rhys sat on the chair near the window, his heels on the windowsill. His profile revealed closed eyes to the high-noon sunlight.
“I thought I locked the door,” she said groggily.
“You did not,” he replied. “You going to sleep all day?”
She’d like to. “Sorry. Guess the lure of a real bed got the better of me.”
Rest would come soon enough. She’d already pocketed ten grand.
“What are you?” Dane boldly asked.
He tilted a smile at her. The sunlight admired his face, slipping along the lines fanned out at the corners of his eyes and in the crags wrinkling his forehead as he lifted his brows. “Half vamp, half wolf. What are you?”
“Familiar,” she offered plainly.
“I suspected.”
“Aversion to cats?”
“Their fur, not their demeanors,” he offered.
“How can you soak up the rays if you’re half vamp?”
“My werewolf protects me. How can you sit in the same room as a wolf if you are a cat shifter?”
“I’m not afraid of wolves. Nowadays, they’re plain stupid. But vampires are smart.”
“I would argue that summation, but to each his, or her, own.”
She had insulted him, but she wasn’t sure how.
“How did it happen?” she asked. “I mean, if the legend is true. Where were you that some vampire was able to kidnap your lover?”
“It was the full moon. I’d left the city to put myself away from her. I had hired the biggest, strongest bravo I could find to protect her. I only wanted to keep her safe.”
Hell of a lot of good that had done.
“I thought the only problem a werewolf had during the full moon was wanting to mate. Why would you need to be away from her?”
Dane couldn’t imagine what he must be struggling with right now. If it were true—which it wasn’t—he must feel tremendous guilt.
“Because of my mixed blood my vampire mind controls my werewolf. Makes it bloodthirsty. It’s never good. I should have taken her along with me. I could have chained myself. I should have…”
Dane felt Rhys’s anxiety burst through to the top of the scale. At that moment the butler knocked and brought in breakfast.
“You want some?” she asked, hoping to alleviate his tension.
“No, I will leave you. I am eager to return underground. An hour?”
“Less than that. I’ll round up a team. Thanks, Monsieur Hawkes.”
He nodded. “I’ll have the next ten thousand waiting for you before we leave.”
RHYS FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO do nothing, waiting for Dane to gather a larger team of spelunkers, but it had been centuries. Much as it pained him to admit it, a few more hours was not going to matter.
Viviane had taken his blood the day before the fire. But he had not taken hers. Rhys now believed, with two centuries of knowledge under his belt, if she would have bitten him, cursed his wolf with the blood hunger, his vampire mind may have been appeased.
Or rather, he wanted to believe.
“Master Hawkes.” Poole stepped into the living room. “A Monsieur Lepore is here to see you.”
“Show him in.”
Rhys fisted a hand in his opposite palm, anticipation growing. One step closer to locating Constantine.
Vincent Lepore was a tall, slender vampire with gray hair and a nose that curved west. He’d served on the Council for a century, though, and Rhys knew from hearsay, his word was impeccable.
&n
bsp; “Hawkes.” Lepore offered a hand and the two shook. “Your assistant tells me you are looking for your brother?”
“Yes, and I assume since you’ve come directly to me, you’ve information on his location?”
“Actually—” Lepore scratched the back of his neck “—I’ve discussed this matter with a few Council members.”
It had become a matter? That didn’t sound promising.
“We’ve determined it unwise to reveal Salignac’s location to you.”
“You protect a criminal?”
“What crime has Constantine committed?” Lepore asked, and for good reason for he could not be aware of Rhys’s suspicions.
“I cannot say. I want to speak to my brother. Can you not, at the very least, give me a phone number?”
“Don’t think he uses technology. He’s very private, Rhys.”
“And yet you seem to know much more about him than I, his own brother.”
“The Council is aware of the bad blood between the two of you. You know we keep tabs.”
Yes, and yet another reason he’d been fine with his decision not to pursue a seat on the Council. Big brother, he was not.
“Constantine may have buried my lover alive, beneath Paris, two centuries ago,” Rhys blurted out. “Had her bespelled by the witch Grim.”
“The warlock is on the Council’s watch list.”
Rhys chuckled. The Council had a tendency to watch more often than get involved.
“He lives in France,” Lepore offered. “That is all I will say. I can attempt to contact him on your behalf if that will serve?”
“Do so,” Rhys said. “Tell him I need answers regarding Viviane LaMourette.”
“CHANGE OF PLANS, BOYS.” Dane entered the living room a few minutes after Lepore had left and plopped onto the sofa next to Simon, who protected his laptop from her elbow.
“You weren’t able to gather a team?” Rhys wondered.
“Got the team. But today all efforts are focused in the Bois de Boulogne. Two of our own have gone missing.”
“Our own?” Simon intoned skeptically.
“Fellow cataphiles.”