I heard a tortured sigh, which had to have been Nero's. "I have tried reasoning with her, but her allegiance to Lucinda is too great."
"I can understand the sentiment," Michel said on a chuckle. "Both the desire to be close to Lucinda and the defiance all Nosferatin seem to show their kindred."
Nero laughed then too. "Sophie isn't half as wilful as Lucinda," he said, making me frown and glare at the slightly open door. "But she is trying to model herself on the Prophesied, so there is hope." Nero didn't sound too hopeful.
"A word of advice, Nero," Michel said and I almost made myself get up and approach the door to hear better - and maybe give them an earful with my hands fisted on my hips while I did it. "Encourage her will. For nothing is more rewarding than a heated exchange with your kindred. The end result definitely outweighs any discomfort in getter there." I rolled my eyes at the ceiling.
"You weren't always as accepting of Lucinda's will," Nero said softly, pointing out a fact I was definitely considering right then.
"Ah, you are wrong, my friend. She has been the one in complete control since the moment she was born."
"You sensed her? When she was born?" Nero asked, a note of awe in his tone.
"I waited for her birth, knowing my life would truly not start until she arrived. When I first sensed her, I was brought to my knees. When I first laid eyes on her, I was prepared to lay down my life for one more look. When she came to my city, my heart beat for the very first time in centuries."
Slow tears tracked down my cheeks. That's the nicest thing anyone has every said about me, I whispered in Michel’s head.
Then why do you cry, ma belle?
I sucked in a hitched breath, but the tears didn't stop.
Because I love you so much, I finally answered.
I could feel him shaking his head in bemusement, through the Bond.
"This bewilders you?" Nero asked, letting me know that Michel was actually shaking his head in reality, not just in his mind.
"She confounds me daily, but I would have it no other way."
"We are lucky men, Michel," Nero said after a lengthy pause.
"May the good fortune continue," Michel answered and I heard the clink of glass on glass as they toasted their successful joinings.
It was such a little thing, but it meant so much. My good friend and former trainer, someone I loved as a brother, respected with my whole heart, sharing a quiet moment with my kindred. If we weren't at war, I would have believed life was perfect. Nero had been lost to me, and now he was back. But not only that, he and Michel had found neutral ground on which to meet. They had never been friends, more like allies they did not completely trust. But from this small conversation I could see a friendship building. Hell, if Michel and Gregor could become such fast friends again after Gregor's and my dalliance, then Nero and Michel could too.
The shutters may have been down, blocking out the UV rays, but the sun shone brightly on my bed right then. My heart lighter than it had been in days. Nero had a kindred. Amisi and Gregor were ready to be joined.
And I was in love with the most amazing man I had ever met, who happened to be my kindred - my sacred match - too.
"The most amazing man you have ever met, ma douce?" Michel said from his vantage point by the opened doorway to the sitting room. He was leaning against the frame, legs crossed at his ankles and arms over his chest, casually watching me in bed. I hadn't even heard Nero leaving, too hung up in romantic thoughts.
"And he knows it," I replied with a smile.
He chuckled and pushed off from the door frame, gliding across the bedroom in that preternatural movement vampires can have.
"I would say, you are the most amazing woman I have ever met," Michel said softly, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed beside me, his hip to my hip. "You do realise," he whispered, his hand reaching up to brush my hair from my face. He began twining a strand around one of his fingers. "That you are my most magnificent obsession."
Magnificent obsession. I think I liked that. I certainly understood it. He was mine too.
"We are lost to each other, are we not?" Michel asked, his eyes roaming over my face.
"Personally," I said, licking my lips, "I hope I'm never found."
"Ditto," he murmured, his concentration fixed on my hair right then, or was it the side of my neck. I tilted my head slightly, in a casual move to lengthen the line of my neck, exposing my vein. And watched, mesmerized, as his fangs lengthened and his lips parted on a sigh.
Oh yeah. My neck.
Michel shook his head again, a smile widening across his handsome face.
"From the moment I first laid eyes on you, you have been a temptress."
"When did you first lay eyes on me?" I asked. Michel paled slightly, a look of chagrin crossing his features. "Michel?"
"You will think me an unconscionable letch. But it is not how it sounds."
"Tell me," I insisted, a small smile threatening to break free on my face. He looked so embarrassed, so I had an inkling of where this was going and couldn't help but laugh at his uncomfortable state.
"You were less than one," he finally admitted.
"One what?" I asked, not getting it.
"One year old, ma douce," Michel confirmed.
Oh. Not quite where I had pictured this going. I'd kind of assumed he'd sought me out on the farm, seen me when I was a teenager or something. From his conversation with Nero, I gathered he'd been aware of me before I had been born. Maybe the Foreteller had shown him images of me from the future. But one year old? No, I hadn't expected that.
And then I started to place where I would have been at that age, and as it began to become clearer in my mind, I watched pain lance across Michel's face.
"I would have saved them too, if I could have," he said, his voice cracking slightly. "But the sun approached, and the car was rolling at such a speed, and your attackers were close behind. It was all I could do to get you free of the vehicle unharmed, whilst flashing alongside."
I breathed deeply for several moments, aware Michel was as tight as a coil at my side. He'd been the reason why I had escaped the car accident that took my biological parents' lives. Michel had come for me, when my father's brothers forced the car off the road in Arthur's Pass.
"How did you know to be there?" I asked eventually.
"The pull to you was undeniable. I used Ley Lines and watched it all unfold. I had no idea why I was there, until it all happened. I would have died trying to save you. I almost did. But nothing could have stopped me from attempting the rescue. You were already mine."
A while ago, hearing this may have fazed me. As it was, I felt a little numb because of how close it came to my parents having been saved. But, with everything I have seen and experienced, since finding out who I am, I know one thing for sure. Our destinies are mapped out for us, before we're even born. We take varying paths to get to them, we have choices of our own to make along the way. But Michel was destined to save me that day, as were my parents destined to die.
It still hurt. Hell, it added to the ache already festering in my heart from Kathleen, Matthew and Christopher’s recent deaths. But I understood fate now. And I was Michel's back then. As he was already mine.
"I don't remember it," I said on a breath of exhaled air.
"No," Michel agreed, his own breathing settling having realised I wasn't going to flip out. "But you looked at me, just before I passed out," - Oh goddess did hearing that make my heart leap - "as though you knew me. As though you knew you were mine too."
I smiled then, and started giggling.
"What is so funny?" Michel demanded, but a smile was twitching at the edges of his mouth too.
"I guess that's not the reaction you saw the day you appeared in my bank that first time?" Michel had suddenly appeared in my branch of the Bank of New Zealand, the first week I had started my new job. I knew then I was different, even if I didn't know why, and I also knew he was going to be a big feature in my life. It to
ok him two years to convince me after that fateful day. Two years of constantly chipping away at my shell.
Michel did laugh then. "No. You most definitely did not greet me with open arms. But I must say, you have been the most rewarding hunt of my very long life."
"Oh!" I said, attempting to sit up in the bed and glare at him, but was gently pushed down by a well placed hand on my chest instead. "I was your prey, was I?"
"Lucinda," Michel chided. "You were my prize, my treasure. You are the sum of all my wealth."
"And now that you have me?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and trying to appear put-out. Not easy when you're supine in bed.
"I intend to enjoy you for eternity, ma belle." He raised his eyebrows at me in question, daring me to say otherwise.
"Well," I said, picking at a non-existent loose thread on the coverlet, "don't think I won't make you work for it, or anything."
He threw his head back and laughed. A full body, deep from the stomach, laugh. Finally, after I had scowled at him for a good few moments, he got himself under control and leaned forward to kiss me lightly on the lips. He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against mine.
"Ma douce," he said, a little breathless from his raucous amusement, "I was counting on it."
It was my turn to shake my head then. Yeah, Michel may have won the hunt, but he'd never be satisfied with a docile reward at the end. I resolved to make sure he spent the rest of his eternal life chasing me, in one way or the other. Couldn't have him growing complacent now, could I?
"How are you feeling, ma douce?" Michel asked, breaking into the wicked plans forming in my head.
"OK," I said, with a shrug. "Although I haven't even sat up yet and I think things will change then."
"You still feel the nausea?" he asked, concern shadowing his eyes.
I nodded and sighed. "We need to kill him," I announced out of nowhere. Well, nowhere for Michel, I associated my illness with Avery, so it wasn't news to me I'd want him dead. And that was only one reason to wish for his demise. I could make an extremely long list in favour of staking the Plucking Pervert's heart.
Unbidden images of Matthew and Kathleen came into my head. Where had he killed them? Where were they now?
Michel made a sigh of his own, it sounded weighty. "We found their bodies in the herb garden. Christopher's sword off to the side, but he is long gone." He would have turned to dust and have been blown away by now. But the thought of our dear old friends lying outside waiting for us to arrive, pained me.
Tears started trailing down my cheeks again. You'd think I'd have nothing left to cry.
"Was it swift?" I asked, voice thick.
"Ma douce," Michel said with feeling, clearly not wanting to tell me the truth. But the fact he'd hedged told me what I didn't want to know anyway. Avery had made them suffer. Oh dear Goddess, how did I deal with this knowledge and pain?
Michel gathered me in his arms and rocked my body as sobs tore from my heart up my throat. I felt like I was coming apart. My very existence about to be torn asunder. How did I deal with this? How did I get past this ache in my chest?
Losing Nero had damn near killed me. Many more have died since then. But it doesn't get easier, just because it is familiar. If anything it's harder, because the pain of the most recent loss, just gets added to the rest. Eventually you get buried beneath it. I felt like I was being buried alive.
And as I cried my heart out, tried futilely to release some of that anguish through my screams, Michel held me fiercely. He would never let me go. And somehow, that knowledge, in face of all the sorrow, grounded me. Kept me tethered to the present and didn't let me float away in mindless grief.
Kathleen and Matthew would not want me to succumb to this agony. Would not want me lose sight of our goals. They both believed that I could be everything I needed to be, to balance the Dark with the Light. And not just my Prophesied responsibilities. Kathleen had reprimanded me in the past, when I had failed to do right by those who needed me. It wasn't just about the Prophesy, it was about what was right and wrong. Kathleen saw in me something that could facilitate a change in our world. Could help to bring all supernaturals together.
They may have been human, but they lived in the supernatural world. What would Kathleen say now if she saw me? She'd huff and puff and tell me to pull my socks up and 'get on with it, girl', although she'd call me 'Mistress'. I ached to just curl up and pretend it hadn't happened, but how would that be honouring my old friend?
I pulled back from Michel and looked around the room we shared, in the home Kathleen and Matthew had found. They'd chosen the Château because it was near Michel's birthplace. They'd wanted him to see the area he once called home again. It was a lavish mansion, a castle in more than just name. Nothing like what he would have lived in as a human, but befitting the man he had become.
And Kathleen was proud of her find. And she had died here, with her husband. I suddenly needed to see where they had been buried.
"I'll get Amisi and Sophie to join you," Michel said, hearing the thoughts in my mind. "Are you well enough to dress, ma douce?"
I nodded, thoughts of nausea well out of my mind. Even as my stomach rolled unmercifully as I dressed, I refused to give in to the urge to be sick. Sometimes the mind can do miraculous things, like overcome an illness. Mind over matter. Wouldn't Kathleen have approved.
Michel stood at the inner vestibule door beside the kitchen, as the Nosferatins walked me out to the sun. I could tell he didn't want me to go alone, that he wanted to be there for me at this sad time. But I couldn't wait for the sun to set. I owed Kathleen, Matthew and Christopher my respect.
They'd been buried in the corner of the herb garden, under a flowering cherry tree. Kathleen loved this garden and she and Matthew spent many hours tending it. And now I also knew, from what Michel had said, that they had been killed here. I didn't try to look for the spot, to determine if blood still seeped into the pebbled pathway or not. I just knelt down under the tree and prayed to Nut that they were happy in Elysium. Because although they were not other like us, they were part of who we were. And Nut would take care of them for us, until we could meet again one day up there.
I closed my eyes and spoke directly to them in my head. Promising to avenge their death and live up to what Kathleen was sure I could do. I didn't doubt her. There's not much I doubt now. But I knew the time had come for me finish what Nut had started when she bestowed the Prophesy on me.
And while I was at it, mentally talking to people who were not here, I sent a thought out to Avery. Even if he and I were no longer connected, and such things were thankfully impossible now. I still did it, as though he'd hear it and somehow heed my words.
You've gone too far, Avery Rousseau. Even my Light can't save you now.
Chapter 35
Kindred
The rest of the day was not wasted. Trapped by the sun, the vampires schemed. While the Nosferatins prepared for a celebration that even impending battles would no longer delay. In truth, we all needed something to keep our mind off our losses and our attention on something other than Avery's impending return.
Michel and the other Councillors had devised a plan, one that I only became aware of when I entered one of the sitting rooms on the ground floor and found them deep in conversation with Nero. Nero, not being a Councillor, was there for a reason. And it soon began to fall into place in my mind.
His conversation with Michel in the sitting room attached to our chambers. The fact that he had been Viktor Davydov's vampire. Not of his line, Viktor didn't make Nero, Nut - in a way - did. But Viktor had been powerful enough to control Nero's mind. No longer of course, because I had intervened with my Light. Breaking that connection, severing Viktor's hold. But all of this meant one thing. Nero had a relationship of sorts with Viktor Davydov, Avery Rousseau's right hand man.
"This won't work," I said, interrupting a conversation on what Nero was about to slink away and do. "Viktor will see through the ruse."
"Perhaps," Michel admitted, from his position by the fire.
For the purposes of Council meetings, we'd agreed to keep some space between us. His vampire-within was still over-protective of me, so distance seemed like a wise move. We couldn't show any weakness in front of these men, despite them being on our side. And Michel's tendency to get all fangy when his vampire-within felt I needed him, wasn't a good sign. So I sat on a couch near Gregor, and Michel stood several feet away by the fire.
"But to not try would be remiss," Michel added. "If it does not work, we have lost nothing. If it does work, we lure Avery here, well before he was prepared to confront us. If we set the time and place of our battle, we hold the upper hand."
I kind of understood what he, and the other Councillors, were getting at. Avery Rousseau was not your average vampire. He was manipulative and calculating. A hedonist who got as much fun out of the action, as the preparation itself. He wouldn't be in a hurry to end this, our pain and anxiety would be fuelling that side of himself.
He'd toyed with me in the past, played with my emotions as though conducting a symphony. He was meticulous in his planning. And brutal in his execution. At one stage I had thought he cared for me, but the entire time he'd been setting me up for his trap. Avery was only ever concerned with one outcome. His gratification. And any delay in the final battle would be extremely gratifying to the man.
"So, you lure him here, denying him the satisfaction of drawing this out," I mused.
"Yes," Michel agreed. "It is small, in the scheme of things, but it means we have pulled his strings."
How poetic, considering Viktor Davydov had played Puppet Master to Nero. Now we would be Puppet Master to Viktor's ally.
"How do you intend to do this, Nero?" I asked, having missed the first part of this meeting, spending time with Amisi planning her big event this afternoon.
"I am about to make a call and offer up some intelligence, Prophesied," Nero replied, using my title to show me respect in front of all these larger-than-life political players. Still backing my corner, even after he was dead.
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