The dull ache that had been with me all night was a reminder that I needed rest, but after everything that had happened, peaceful sleep was going to be impossible. Dara had taught me a few meditation techniques that were meant to clear my mind and minimize the chance of horrific nightmares. It wasn’t foolproof, but I’d had pretty good success and my nightmares had decreased tremendously. However, after the night I just had, I couldn’t clear my mind long enough to achieve a meditative state, so I gave up.
With most of the team out and everyone else either asleep or working, I had the entire roof to myself. I wandered around aimlessly, sipping coffee and forcing myself to admire the beauty of our artificial oasis. But no matter how hard I tried to distract myself, my thoughts kept wandering back to the strange encounter in the cemetery. I had seen a lot of crazy things since joining the organization, but while science could easily explain away vampires and chimeras, I couldn’t imagine that even our top scientists would find an explanation for people who managed to survive without blood.
Even if we did find a rational explanation, there was still the fact that she knew who I was and hadn’t been fooled by our deception. The only thing that seemed strange was that she didn’t try to attack me. Sure, I had weapons and I was ready to use them, but it had been pretty obvious that I was no match for her when it came to quick movements and reflexes. Perhaps we had taken the name of the painting too literally. Certainly, there were vampires who wanted me dead, but more often than not, it was my abilities that they were after.
I heard the door to the elevator lobby open and turned to see Andre standing with his hands in his pockets, watching me.
“Funny how I didn’t even need to check the GPS to know you were up here,” he said, crossing the lawn to join me where I stood by the wall. He looked out at the lights of downtown and the Quarter. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s magical,” I said, sliding up next to him as he put his arm around my waist. “From up here, it looks like a normal city. You can almost forget about all of the terrible things lurking around down there. Almost,” I added with a sigh. “Sorry, I guess I’m still a little high strung. I figured since I’m kind of useless at the moment, I’d take advantage of some alone time and collect my thoughts.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asked softly.
I turned slightly so that I could put my arms around his neck. “I prefer being alone with you to being alone by myself,” I whispered, letting my lips trail along the sensitive skin on his neck. I smiled as he shivered slightly, wrapping his arms tighter around me. It was stolen moments like these that I lived for. No amount of meditation or therapy could come close to healing my fractured mental state as quickly as Andre’s presence could. There was a time in my recent past when I would have considered myself weak for believing that to be true, but that was before I truly understood how much strength a relationship required. He needed me as much as I needed him and as far as I was concerned, that only made us stronger.
“Come on,” he said and took my hand, leading me over to my favorite alcove.
“Did you figure out why the vamp didn’t show up on the hemograph yet?” I asked, figuring that’s why he came to find me.
“Not yet,” he said, pulling me down next to him on the cushioned bench. “I’ve ruled out the possibility of an anomaly. Now I’m running a simulation to determine if it is possible that the suit was blocking the scan. It’ll probably run all night and I’m fine with that. I’m not going to pretend I’m not exhausted.”
“Then we should probably get you to bed,” I said suggestively, earning me a kiss and a smile that melted my heart.
“Soon. I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said, looking a bit nervous all of the sudden.
“Sure. What’s up?” I asked, wondering if I had missed more bad news.
“Did you happen to notice the date on our tickets to Paris?”
“I did,” I replied with a shudder. We were flying out on the fourth of November, exactly one year after our last trip to Paris. Not that I was superstitious, but after what had happened last year, I didn’t like the karmic implications.
“Do you remember how appalled you were at the idea of posing as my fiancée?” His voice was light and teasing.
I blushed. “I wouldn’t say I was appalled. I was just trying to convince myself that my feelings for you were all in my head. You, uh… certainly didn’t make that easy for me.”
“I suppose I didn’t,” he said with a bashful smile. “But in my defense, I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t in love with you.”
“Boy, what a couple of stubborn idiots we were,” I said lightly, but a pleasant warmth wrapped itself around my insides at the memory of our first ‘real’ kiss in Andre’s apartment after a heated argument.
“I won’t disagree with that,” he said with a small chuckle, going quiet for a moment. I didn’t mind the silence. Leaning against Andre’s chest, with his arms wrapped around me, sitting in a garden paradise eighteen stories over the heart of New Orleans was a beautiful reminder of everything that I still had to be thankful for in my life. Finally, he shifted slightly, sitting up so that we were facing each other.
“I can tell you exactly when it was,” he said shyly, taking my hand. “The exact moment that I knew I was hopelessly in love with you. Do you remember when I showed you my scars?”
“Of course I do,” I said, remembering that night vividly. I had foolishly gone after a vampire and put the both of us in danger.
“I don’t know what I expected exactly,” he said quietly. “Maybe revulsion, maybe even disgust or disappointment, but you surprised me. You only showed me tenderness and compassion that still makes my heart ache when I think about it. I knew then that I couldn’t fool myself any longer. I should have told you right then and there that I loved you, but I was scared. I was afraid that you didn’t feel the same.”
“But I did,” I said softly, a half-giggle, half-sniff escaped as I tried to contain the emotions that were welling up in me. “It’s silly, but I was afraid too. I thought that you were just a really good actor and you were trying to stay in character as my fiancé.”
“Did I do a good job?” he asked with a lopsided smile.
“Too good,” I assured him with a kiss.
“So,” he said, giving me a look that was both hopeful and guarded. “What would you say if I asked you to come to Paris as my real fiancée this time?”
I think my heart may have actually stopped beating for a moment. I’m not sure what the stunned expression on my face looked like, but it must have been positive because Andre slid off the bench and got down on one knee in front of me.
“I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you in it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. “Will you marry me, Lucy?”
I didn’t even give him a chance to open the box before I tumbled off the bench and into his arms, covering his lips with mine. Although he had dropped a few casual hints in the past, I had always assumed that getting married was something we would eventually get around to discussing. After all, we had made the decision to move in together, so it did seem like the natural progression. But hearing the words come out of his mouth changed everything. Suddenly, the thought of marrying Andre went from inevitable to something new, exciting, and infinitely more important than every moment of my life up until that point, and I was definitely okay with that.
“I’m hoping that’s a yes,” he managed to mumble out before I resumed my attack on his lips.
All I could manage was to nod my head vigorously, realizing that this was exactly what being speechless meant. There was a lump in my throat so big that I was surprised I could breathe.
“May I?” he asked as he picked up the velvet box and opened it. Inside was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. The stone, much smaller and more understated than the fake engagement monstrosity, was a dark amber color, flecked through with lighter gold that sparkled wh
en it caught the faint light of the moon.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, blinking away the tears that streamed freely from my eyes.
“I remember the first time I actually saw your eyes. We were fighting, of course,” he said with a low chuckle. “But all I could think about was how beautiful you were. I wanted something to capture that, so I altered a tiger’s eye in the lab and well…” he trailed off with a blush. “As far as gems go, it’s not worth much, but I do recall some of your disgust over the diamond so…”
“Not worth much?” I gasped as he slid the ring onto my finger. “Andre, you made this! This is priceless! Anyone who thinks otherwise is a shallow jerk. I don’t even know what to say. No, that’s not true. I do know what to say. Yes, I would be honored to be your wife.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, kissing me again. It didn’t matter that the world was falling apart around us. It didn’t matter that my own life was in danger. For one fleeting moment, everything was right and perfect in the world, if only temporarily.
Chapter 10
Rumors spread fast through headquarters, so it should have come as no surprise that by the time I woke up the next day, nearly everyone had heard of our engagement. Still, I was a bit surprised when Lona shoved a handful of wedding dress sketches in front of me while I attempted to eat breakfast.
“Were you hiding in the bushes or something?”
“Oh no, I’ve had these for a while now,” she said with a sly grin. “I started designing them for your fake engagement, but something told me to hold on to them. Of course, I’ll have to update the designs. Especially if you go for a spring wedding because cap sleeves are so last season.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” I said with some amusement. “Unfortunately, we have a lot of other things to plan for at the moment, so I’m afraid wedding plans will have to wait.” Aside from the engagement hubbub, I also awoke to a massive packet of information that Evan sent over, containing every report the Paris team had put together on their mystery vamp. I wasn’t sure if three days was going to be enough time to get through it all.
“Are you okay with going back there?” Lona asked cautiously. In the months following my last trip to Paris, I had suffered some pretty bad post-traumatic stress in the form of hellish nightmares, so her question wasn’t unfounded.
“I am a little creeped out,” I admitted. “But I think I’ll be fine. It’s a lot different now.” In truth, I was a lot creeped out. It wasn’t so much going back to the lab or even looking for Oscar’s apartment as much as it was where they were located. All my life, I have had an irrational fear of being underground. As a small child, I was terrified of basements. Even the walkout basement where my mother would do our laundry made me panic unless the door was open to the apartment’s courtyard. Somehow, as a teenager, I managed to become comfortable enough with DC’s underground metro stations to have a modest social life, but that was it. In Paris, it wasn’t just the metro stations and secret ES hideouts that gave me pause. EJC headquarters in Paris housed their arm of the secret organization below ground as well.
“But at least this time I won’t panic if Andre tries to kiss me out in public,” I said with a laugh to take my mind off the bad things.
“Embarrassing isn’t it? I always hated the way he tried to make out with me while we were working,” Miles said, sliding into the empty seat next to his wife. I somehow managed to swallow my coffee instead of spewing it all over the table and Lona’s drawings.
“I’m going to have to ask him about that,” I said after I stopped laughing and coughing.
“Seriously, congratulations, and thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“Well, thank Andre really,” he said with an impish wink. “I won the pool on when he would finally get around to popping the question. Fifteen hundred dollars!”
I nearly spit my coffee again. Betting on everything and anything was a time-honored tradition among the members of the organization, and I wasn’t immune, but nearly all bets were fifty dollars.
“Exactly how many people were in on this?”
“Standard fifty dollar bet,” Miles replied. “I’ll let you do the math. And by the way, you are looking at the best man, so you better be nice to me or the bachelor party will be at a cathouse.”
“By cathouse, you better be talking about an animal shelter,” Lona said with a shaded look at her husband.
“Is that so?” I hadn’t even had enough time to process the fact that I was getting married and Andre had already picked a best man. “I’m not even going to ask you, Lona. I’m demanding that you be my maid of honor.”
“Matron of honor, I’m an old married lady,” she said with a wink. “I’d be honored. And if the bachelor party plans get out of control, I know a few places we can go for a hands on bachelorette party.”
“By hands on, you better be talking about pottery classes,” Miles threatened with a smirk.
“I think I’ll leave the two of you to sort out the debauchery,” I said and stood to leave. “I’ve got a month’s worth of reports from Paris to get through.”
By the time we left for Paris, I was actually glad to be fleeing the country. Everyone wanted to know all of the details of how Andre proposed and what our plans were. It was nice to be in the spotlight for something positive for a change, but still, it was more attention than I was comfortable with, especially with everything else that was going on. Though as we waved goodbye to my father at the airport, I couldn’t help tearing up as I remembered the look of absolute pride on his face when Andre formally asked him for my hand. It was a bit old fashioned and almost completely unnecessary seeing as my father already considered Andre to be something of a son, but I found the gesture to be incredibly sweet nonetheless.
“Nervous?” Andre asked with a devilish smirk, noting the Sky Mall catalog that I automatically grabbed as soon as we were seated. I couldn’t help myself. Nothing made a flight go by faster than looking at the strange items the airlines thought people were willing to part with their money for.
“You have Judge Judy, I have the Sky Mall,” I replied, swatting him lightly with the catalog. “Besides, don’t we need to start a registry? Why ask for a normal blender when you can get one that sings? How about a toaster that prints pictures of Elvis or Jesus on your toast?” I set aside the magazine. I might have been joking, but truthfully, everything about this trip set my nerves on edge. “So, where are we staying?” I asked casually.
“At the apartment. I don’t know the new team well enough to trust them yet.” This was sensible. Most of the hunters who previously worked for the Paris division had been taken into custody the year before for taking bribes from the ES. “But there’s no need to be nervous,” he added with a wink. “You don’t have to stay in the clown room.”
“I should hope not,” I said with a giggle. Though I didn’t mention it, I’m sure Andre realized that I was relieved we wouldn’t be staying in the underground dorms at headquarters.
We landed in Paris just before eight in the morning local time, but as was usual for Paris this time of year, the sun had yet to rise.
“One of these days, we’re going to have to come back in the summer,” I said with a wistful sigh. “All of this darkness is depressing. I want to see eighteen hours of sunlight.”
“Maybe so, but it’s going to be pretty useful for all of the sneaking around we’ll be doing,” Andre replied.
Being back in Andre’s tiny apartment brought back a lot of memories from our last trip. Admittedly, most of those memories were of arguments, but there were quite a few powerfully emotional moments as well.
“Don’t get too comfortable, we’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us,” Andre informed me as I set down my bag and threw myself onto the faded orange sofa that I loved.
“Drive?” I asked. We had a meeting scheduled with Lisette, but that wasn’t for another hour and a half, and the office was a ten-minute metro ride away at best.
&nb
sp; “We’re meeting with Lisette and Fausto at Lisette’s place, which is a ways outside the city. I thought it best to keep our involvement here a secret for the time being.”
“Smart. Paranoid, but smart.”
“I’d rather be paranoid than have a repeat of the monumental mistake I made last time,” he said with a look that managed to convey love, guilt, and an overprotectiveness that was both sweet and frustrating.
“What is it going to take to make you realize that nothing that happened here last time was your fault?” I asked, reaching out to pull him down onto the sofa and repositioning myself so that he was pinned under me. “We are in this together, got that?” I informed him sternly as I tangled my hands in his hair. Any reply he might have had was lost when I covered his mouth with mine.
“Are you trying to make us late?” he growled, putting his hands around my waist and pulling my hips firmly against his.
“Nope,” I said with a wicked look as I rolled to my feet. “Give me ten minutes to freshen up and I’ll be ready to go.”
“You’re a cruel woman, Lucy,” he called out as I bounced up the tiny staircase.
“Maybe so,” I called back, “but you’re the one marrying me.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were speeding through the secret tunnel that led from Andre’s underground garage at breakneck speeds. I kept my eyes fixed to my phone and browsed the internet to keep myself from thinking about the fiery ball of death we would become if Andre strayed a little too far to the right or left. Eventually we emerged into blinding sunlight in a part of town that wasn’t as densely populated as the inner city.
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 72