by Kat Ross
Gabriel looked puzzled. “Why couldn’t you tell me this?”
“Because….” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. It just sounds so … pathetic.”
“No.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. “Not pathetic at all. Just lonely.”
She shot him a look. “That’s a synonym for pathetic.”
“Then I am pathetic, too.”
“It’s not the same. You have your Order of the Rose Cross. Others like you.”
Gabriel gave her a cheeky smile. “There’s no one like me.”
Anne laughed and wiped her nose. “That’s undeniably true.”
They were silent for a moment.
“What if you never had to feel lonely again?” he asked.
Her heart beat painfully, still raw and tight. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry we came to know each other this way. More than you can imagine. I…. I’ve wrestled with it for days. Weeks.” Gabriel always seemed so certain of himself. He lived in a world of moral absolutes — as he chose to interpret them. But now he sounded tentative. “I tried to avoid you, Anne, but you made that impossible. And, well…. I’ve come to care for you, and I think perhaps you for me.”
“Perhaps I have,” she conceded.
“When I told you the story of the Beast and you asked if the ability could be taught….” He picked at the pearl buttons on his waistcoat. “It would take years. But if we were bonded—”
Her chair scraped back. “You’d make me your slave,” Anne snarled, knowing it was unfair but too shocked and furious to restrain herself.
She’d lost her temper more times in the last week than she had in the last century.
“No!” Gabriel was vehement. “Never. If you wanted to leave me, I wouldn’t stop you. But you would have all my gifts.” His voice lowered to a seductive purr. “I know you want to. I could see it in your face last night. You wondered what you might become. What it would feel like to have claws and fangs, a tail to lash when you get angry at me—”
“And what would you get out of it?” she demanded.
“Life without death,” he said simply. “You call me a parasite. Then help me stop killing, Anne.”
“Oh, no. Don’t you dare put that on me.”
He crossed his arms, hurt in his eyes. “Would it truly be so bad? You like my cooking.” He glanced at the meatloaf. “Most of the time. You could come and go as you wished. I have my own life, you know. I won’t interfere in yours.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is.”
“Was this your plan all along? Coax me into bonding you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yet you happen to have a set of cuffs.” Her eyes narrowed. “Where did you get them?”
“An old woman at the bazaar in Kabul,” he replied smoothly. “She had no idea what they were, of course. I bought them decades ago. A curiosity. I suppose they belonged to a pair of Immortals.”
She shook her head. “I do care for you, Gabriel. Against my better judgment.”
An eyebrow rose.
“But when I was freed, I swore never to allow myself to be bonded again. You must understand that.”
“I do. And I don’t expect you to make up your mind on the spot. Just think about it, Anne. That’s all I ask of you.”
“I don’t have to. The answer is no.”
“We’ll see.”
His calm was maddening.
“All right, Gabriel. If I were to agree, there would have to absolute trust between us, yes?”
“Of course.”
“So prove it to me now.” Anne raised a hand to her throat. She could sense the rose cameo dangling from her neck, inches away. “Take this off.”
He hesitated.
“You see. You don’t trust me.”
“And if you try to kill me again? You know all my secrets now.” His eyes darkened. “This time you might succeed.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
A slow cannonade of thunder rattled the windows. Gabriel rose.
“Don’t break my heart by lying, Anne,” he said softly. “Just … don’t.”
La Belle et La Bête.
She lay in bed, the book open across her chest.
In the story, only true love could reverse the spell.
But what if Beauty didn’t want to reverse the spell?
What if she wished she were the Beast?
If you bonded me, you’d have all of my gifts.
Oh, Gabriel did know her. Too bloody well. He knew exactly what to promise that might tempt her.
But no. She’d be mad to even consider it.
Anne climbed out of bed and paced to the window, peering into the night. The Beast of Gévaudan was out there somewhere. It had been a shadowy presence the night she encountered it in the forest, but she suddenly wanted to see it, this creature of ancient magic and dark appetites. To look it in the face, or at least catch a glimpse.
Gabriel’s bedroom looked out over both the bailey and the woods beyond the wall. She sat in a chair by the window, her eyes growing heavy but determined to wait. The hours passed. And then, just before dawn, Anne saw something moving through the trees. She sat up, instantly alert. It slunk through the dappled shadows, moving low to the ground, lithe and sleek. Then it passed beneath a huge oak and disappeared for a moment. Anne held her breath. A few seconds later, Gabriel emerged, walking upright and clad only in moonlight.
He strode through the postern gate and drew up a bucket of water from the well, dousing it over his head. Then he rolled his shoulders and tipped his head back, arms raised to squeeze the water from his hair.
Their eyes met.
Anne pulled back from the window. Had he truly seen her? It was only for the briefest instant. She couldn’t be sure.
But she raced to the bed and leapt under the covers.
She heard the massive front door open and soft footsteps climbing the stairs. They padded down the corridor and paused for a brief moment in front of her bedroom, then continued on. A door closed softly somewhere in the house.
She sat up and threw the covers off.
Oh, what the hell.
Anne went to her door and opened it. She smoothed her nightgown and dragged fingers through her hair. Then she started down the corridor, reservations crumbling to dust. At the same instant, Gabriel appeared from the other direction. He’d yanked on a pair of trousers and a linen shirt, open at the throat, and by God, he looked good.
“Anne,” he breathed, eyes widening.
“I was just—”
He took a step towards her when they both heard the sound of hooves on the road.
Gabriel frowned. “Excuse me, Anne. I… I’m sorry.” He spun on his heel and hurried down the stairs. He seemed annoyed, but not surprised or alarmed.
He was expecting someone.
Anne slipped after him.
The rider must have already reached the front door, for she heard it open and the murmur of voices. She crept as close as she dared, but they’d gone into the library and closed the door. Like all the doors at Chateau de Saint-Évreux, it was thick and nearly impervious to eavesdropping.
Still, Anne did her best.
She seemed to have missed some crucial part of the conversation though, because most of what she heard made little sense, as well as being conducted in French, which she was rusty at. Gabriel seemed enraged at the rider, his voice a harsh staccato. From what she gathered, the man had done something Gabriel did not approve of. She heard the word fantôme several times, which she thought meant a wight or a ghoul. Also Duzakh, and Bekker. To her intense frustration, the rest of it was inaudible.
When she heard footsteps approach, Anne darted for the stairs, just rounding the first curve as the door opened. She crept back to her bedroom. Gabriel did not return to her, though she heard him pacing downstairs long after the rider had departed.
A soft knock roused her late the next morning. Gabrie
l stood in the doorway, dressed more formally than usual, in a dark coat with silver buttons and polished boots. He clearly hadn’t slept and violet shadows smudged his eyes.
“I must leave you, Anne. For a few days only.”
“Where are you going?”
“London. The Duzakh is gathering and I must deal with them. You have free rein here. There’s food in the kitchens. For God’s sake, just stay within the castle walls. Will you promise me that?”
“And if you don’t return?”
“I will. And then…. We can talk more.”
Once she would have rejoiced at being left alone. She might have made another run for the wall, Beast or not. Now she felt only dread. She knew enough about the Duzakh to understand that Gabriel was walking into a viper’s nest.
“Who was that last night?”
“A man named Constantin. One of my brothers in the Order.” His jaw tightened. “He stepped over the line about a certain matter I set him to attend to, but I’ll sort things out myself.”
“Be careful,” she said, touching his cheek.
He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning into her fingers.
But he made no promises he couldn’t keep.
Anne watched through the window as Gabriel galloped off on his horse, bent low over its neck.
She spent the day reading but found it hard to focus. Dinnertime came and went. Anne had little appetite. They didn’t spend all their time together, but she always heard him somewhere in the house, playing his pianoforte or rattling around in the kitchen. The silence was oppressive.
Finally, she succumbed to curiosity — and perhaps a desire to feel his presence — and sought out the room Gabriel slept in. It wasn’t hard to find. It was the only one with fresh linens, a room far less grand than the one she’d taken over. Anne sat down on the rumpled bed and looked around. One of his shirts was thrown over a chair. She saw a brush and polish for his boots, a razor and small shaving mirror. And a book, with one of his black ribbons carefully holding a place.
Anne picked it up. The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.
The publisher’s watermark was a cross with a rose at the center. Printed in 1616, two years after they’d first met.
She lay back on Gabriel’s pillow and started to read. The story was divided into seven days and read like a fever dream, steeped in romance and mystical allegory. It told of a Bride and Groom, and the narrator’s arduous journey to a castle for their wedding. He endured captivity and any number of strange experiences, but the tone of it was joyous and full of wonder.
Anne read it straight through without stopping, a shaft of sunlight creeping across the room as the hours passed. At last she closed the book, the smell of him on her skin, and let out a soft breath.
No author was named, but she knew who’d written it.
A beautiful, demented fantasy, she thought.
Just like Gabriel.
22
Count Balthazar Jozsef Habsburg-Koháry climbed the steps of the townhouse on Portland Place and rapped the knocker once. The middle-aged woman who opened it cast a professional eye over his elegant Chesterfield coat and silver-tipped walking stick. She gave him a warm smile.
“Do come in, sir.”
She ushered him into a parlor festooned with maroon velvet drapes. Balthazar removed his hat, which was duly placed on a rack.
“Your coat, sir?” she asked.
“Thank you, I’ll keep it,” he replied courteously.
She didn’t seem sure what to make of this. Balthazar forged ahead.
“My name is Count Koháry,” he said with a bow. “I am seeking companionship this evening. A gentleman friend gave me this address.”
At the mention of a title, the madam’s smile widened. “A foreign noble,” she murmured. “How exciting. Where are you from, milord?”
When pressed, Balthazar claimed to be a distant cousin of the Hungarian princes who were booted out in 1858. In fact, he lacked a single drop of royal blood, but he was rich as sin and most people seemed to take his word for it.
“Buda-Pesth,” he replied.
“Please, have a seat.” She gestured at a sofa. “Do you have any particular preferences, milord?”
“It makes no difference,” he replied honestly.
The madam retreated to a back room and returned with a lovely young girl of perhaps twenty, dark of hair and with a creamy English complexion. She wore a thin robe that barely concealed the outlines of her firm body.
“This is Lucy. She’ll be happy to accommodate you, Count Koháry.”
The girl smiled at him and took his hand, leading him up a rickety flight of stairs to a small room on the third floor. A threadbare carpet covered the floor. A bed stood against one wall, the sheets hastily straightened from the exertions of the previous client. She let her robe slip from her shoulders and raised a hand to unbutton his shirt. Balthazar gently caught her wrist.
“I prefer to remain clothed,” he said.
She arched an eyebrow. “Whatever milord prefers.”
“Come, sit on my lap, Lucy.” Balthazar drew her down to the bed and began stroking her thighs, easing them open. He took his time about it, nuzzling her neck a bit, trying not to rush although he ached with a different need. The least he could do was make the experience an enjoyable one. By the time he slid a warm hand between her legs, she gave a cry of genuine pleasure.
“Now there’s a good girl,” he murmured.
As one finger slipped inside her, his other hand lifted a pendant from his own neck and laid it around hers. His hand moved with calculated precision and it didn’t take long to bring her to climax. Balthazar gave a little shiver as life poured through the ouroboros dangling from the chain, poured from her into him.
When her tremors had subsided, she touched the pendant, a serpent eating its own tail. It was cunningly wrought, with lifelike scales and glittering emerald eyes.
“What’s this?” she asked, curious.
“Just a fetish of mine.” He lifted her hair and returned the talisman to his coat pocket.
The girl looked at him, wide-eyed and adorably disheveled. “Now it’s your turn, milord.”
He eased her from his lap and stood. “That’s all I wanted.”
She gave a disbelieving laugh. “What, milord?”
Balthazar dropped a thick wad of banknotes on the table. “A tip,” he said, unable to meet her gaze.
The girl seemed astonished at her good fortune. Balthazar picked up the robe and hung it over her shoulders. Yet when she looked away, he couldn’t resist studying her with a guilty eye. Did she always have that faint line next to her mouth?
He never knew how much he’d taken from them, if was an hour, a day or a year.
But at least he tried to make it worth their while.
“Well, you’re certainly one of a kind,” she joked as he strode to the door. “I ought to pay you.”
Balthazar gave her a weak smile.
He wished he could say he had standards. That he would never despoil a virgin or pay a woman for sex when in fact he was stealing her life force.
But he couldn’t.
Balthazar would take what he could get when felt himself starting to weaken.
Not weaken. Die.
She stuck her head out the door as he walked down the stairs. “Come back anytime, my name’s Lucy, don’t forget!”
The madam looked surprised to see him leaving so soon, but when he gave her an even larger wad of money, her face grew calculating.
“Won’t you stay for a while, Count Koháry? I can arrange a late supper.” She gave him a coquettish grin. “I have other girls, too, even prettier than Lucy. You haven’t seen half of ’em.”
“I must decline your kind offer,” Balthazar said, taking his hat from the hook and setting it on his head. “But thank you.” He gave her a bow and headed down the front stairs with a new bounce in his step.
Balthazar would never return. His only ironclad rule was that
he never stole from the same woman twice.
Sometimes a single encounter sustained him for months. Other times, he felt himself weakening after only a week or two. Was it because he’d taken more from the first one? Again, who knew.
But he would feel a lethargy come over him when he waited too long. The exhaustion of a drawn-out illness. Once he had waited to see what would happen next. It wasn’t encouraging. The aging rapidly accelerated.
Only then had he fully grasped the predicament he was in for all eternity.
Balthazar strolled around the corner where his manservant Lucas Devereaux waited with a carriage. He sat back as they rattled off, his eyes half-closed, walking stick resting across his knees. Luckily, he liked women in all shapes, colors and sizes. There were far worse ways to earn one’s immortality.
Lucas drove them straight to Balthazar’s townhouse in Mayfair. He’d only returned to London so he could sell it and leave as soon as possible for his estate in Basque Country. There were people who might be looking for him and he had no burning desire to encounter them again. The Lady Vivienne, in particular. But he couldn’t resist squeezing in one last liaison.
It was past midnight by the time Lucas delivered him at the front door and went off to stable the horses. Balthazar unlocked it and entered the dark house. He kept no other servants when he came to town. The fewer who saw his face, the better. The housekeeper and cook only knew that they had a foreign employer who traveled a great deal and demanded the utmost privacy when he was in London. They kept the house ready for him, and the cook came in the early mornings and made food that she left for Lucas to heat up. It was an odd arrangement, but he paid them well and they seemed to expect eccentricity from a Hungarian count.
Balthazar climbed the stairs and headed for the study, thinking he’d have a brandy before going to bed.
Gabriel D’Ange was sitting in his favorite chair by the fire.