Bond of Fire

by Diane Whiteside

  He finally released her, white marks on her wrist from his fingers’ grasp. She refused to rub them, knowing she’d be bruised for days to come. Terrified she’d nurse the marks and long for their maker.

  His eyes lingered on them for a moment, a bitter curve to his mouth. He bowed again and turned to leave, his shoes striking with a cold finality on the wood parquet.

  “I will tell the king about your vampiro friends!” Hélène flung after him.

  He glanced over his shoulder, one hand on the doorknob.

  “I pray that you will have a surgeon close at hand if so, madame.” His face was utterly, chillingly serious. “Death will come all too quickly in that event.”

  The door closed softly and finally behind him.

  Hélène collapsed onto the bed in tears, where her maid found her a few minutes later.

  “Madame? Madame, what is wrong?”

  Hélène drew herself up, determined to set one thing right according to rational and scientific principles. She had to tell the authorities about the vampiros.

  “I need to report…”

  Her throat tightened.

  What? She hadn’t said anything of note yet. A small voice whispered that Monsieur Perez had instructed her not to mention anything about last night’s attack.

  Even so, she had a duty as a citizen.

  “Madame, what are you trying to say?”

  “I…need.” Mon Dieu, every word was an effort. “To…”

  She clutched at her throat, completely unable to breathe.

  “Madame?” Her maid shook her. “Madame!”

  Hélène’s vision grayed, and her heart pounded in her chest. Her maid’s screeches were coming from farther and farther away.

  Report…Report…

  She was dying. If she told anyone, her own body would strangle her.

  Damn Monsieur Perez. If she never saw the man again, it would be too soon. If she never saw another vampiro again, it would definitely be too soon.

  “Talking isn’t worth dying for.”

  “Madame? Ah, thank God!” Her maid dropped to her knees beside the bed, weeping and kissing her rosary.

  Hélène managed to pat her on the shoulder before closing her eyes.

  Jean-Marie’s face swam before her.

  Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

  If the Lord was very good to her, he’d send her someone else to dream about.

  Maybe.

  FOUR

  PARIS, 6 OCTOBER 1789

  Jean-Marie slammed his fist against the mansion’s front door. There was a kitchen door somewhere, but he couldn’t remember exactly. He sure as hell was not about to enter Rodrigo’s house through a window. He barked with laughter at the thought of how fast he’d be caught and punished.

  Assuming Rodrigo was still alive and well, unlike Paris’s vampiros. Every esfera in town, the territories whose possession was the subject of so much dueling and spite by vampiros, but which had always been hidden from prosaicos—all of them were gone, destroyed by the Parisian mob. After the common people had captured the Bastille, the fortress which symbolized royal tyranny, they’d lost themselves in an orgy of drunken slaughter that had extended across much of the Parisian slums. Anyone caught unaware, especially during daylight, was dead meat—and the vampiros had been the most hapless prey of all, either sound asleep when their former victims turned on them or collapsing into dust under the first rays of sunlight. Their vaunted mental and physical powers hadn’t saved them from the hordes coming against them, happy to find someone, anyone, to slake their bloodlust on.

  Nom de dieu, how the hot summer days and nights had echoed with screams, reverberating through the city’s stone walls and along the cobblestone streets…

  Only vampiros like Rodrigo and Sara, who lived far from the slums and with a strong comitiva’s protection, had survived. Even so, most of them had fled to the countryside, trading a steady supply of food for the hope of a longer life.

  God willing Rodrigo was still here, simply keeping his doors and shutters well locked. No respectable man tolerated trespassers, or allowed bullies of any kind onto his property. And as for the thought of rioters charging into his home, intent on destroying his wife…

  Impossible to imagine in a civilized country. And yet…

  Jean-Marie doubled over yet again, his stomach knotting like an anaconda. The innumerable bloodstains on his coat had dulled the once glossy silk into a dull black, concealing their mates on his waistcoat. His breeches and boots weren’t fit for a pigsty. He’d ripped off his shirt cuffs hours ago—or was it days? Probably hours, since they’d gone to cover the eyes of that young Swiss who’d…

  His stomach clenched again.

  The door opened.

  “Gracias a Dios, you’re home, Jean-Marie!” Rodrigo yanked him inside.

  It was a magnificent house, a true mansion, built for use in Paris by one of France’s great families. Rodrigo had bought it upon their arrival two years ago and cared for it well, adding to its glories from increased wealth wherever he visited.

  Jean-Marie noticed none of that.

  But when Rodrigo hugged him—the strong, simple embrace of masculine friendship—he returned the clasp as warmly. “Mon frère,” he murmured, his throat tight, “I must reek.”

  “You do,” Rodrigo agreed. He released him, unabashedly displaying the tears on his face, and cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. “Which means I now have someone to play piquet with again.”

  Jean-Marie managed a smile as he was intended to do.

  “Any wounds?” Rodrigo asked, his dark eyes fiercely cataloguing every inch of Jean-Marie.

  “All small and well within a compañero’s ability to heal. Most of this is from other men.”

  “Jean-Marie!” Sara raced into the vestibule and stopped on the threshold. She swallowed hard and fanned herself rapidly. “You look…You smell…” she tried again. She turned away slightly. “Of course, I’m glad you’re home,” she finished in a rush.

  He bowed in acknowledgment, a cynical smile touching his mouth.

  Rodrigo signaled to a hovering servant and drew Jean-Marie into the drawing room, a painted and carved ode to French craftsmanship, and handed him a brimming goblet of Burgundy.

  Jean-Marie poured it down, savoring for once the rich taste of Rodrigo’s mighty vampiro mayor blood, forgetting how long he’d craved such sustenance. Its power kicked him harder than a tankard of illegal apple brandy, screaming like fire through his bones and veins faster than cannonballs across a battlefield. His knees buckled, and he would have sagged except for Rodrigo’s quick grab.

  “Easy there, easy, mi hermano.” He eased Jean-Marie into a chair, ignoring Sara’s brief squawk of protest over damage to the upholstery. “You’ll still need to feed and drink deep when you do. But this will keep you on your feet for another hour or so while you wash. The servants are preparing everything now.”

  “And tell you what happened.”

  “If you wish to and are ready.” Their eyes met, and Jean-Marie saw a battle-hardened commander’s bone-deep, bitter experience there. Rodrigo would give him time—but only while silence endangered no one else.

  “You need to know.” His body tightened again at the thought of reliving, even through retelling, that horror. He tried to think of a gentle, elegant summation and failed. He settled for bald facts.

  “The Paris mob’s womenfolk have captured the royal family at Versailles and brought them back to be immured.”

  “That’s impossible! What about their bodyguards? Or the Swiss Guards?” Sara demanded.

  Jean-Marie shuddered, a thousand horrific images whipping before his eyes.

  “Slaughtered.” He didn’t recognize his own voice. “All of them butchered. The mob fought over the pieces of their bodies and tossed the shreds about for trophies.”

  “And you?” Rodrigo’s steadiness was a lifeline.

  “Early last night—after I delivered Sara’s message to her, the vicomtesse asked me to w
ait while she composed a reply. I couldn’t sleep and was visiting some of my childhood haunts in the palace.”

  He rose and began to pace, unable to sit still even now though the battle had ended.

  “The howling crowd attacked unexpectedly in the dead of night. I heard them coming—so damn fast!—and took the dauphin to safety through the old secret passages. I found the king wandering aimlessly afterward and managed to get both of them to Marie Antoinette.”

  He inspected the bottom of the goblet, decided he wouldn’t ask for any more of Rodrigo’s blood, and drank the dregs.

  “After that, I went back to the guards but there was nothing…Even so, I tried. But all I could do was give them a decent burial.” Would he ever stop seeing their broken, scattered bodies? Or his childhood home, bloody and defiled?

  Fire crackled on the hearth.

  “The mob found the Royal Family hours later, when their bloodlust had been sated. They’re bringing them back to Paris. I doubt they’ll ever leave alive.” He studied his goblet again, before he headed for the wine. Rodrigo’s hand pressed down on his shoulder, and he reluctantly settled back into his chair. The big Spaniard refilled Jean-Marie’s glass and placed the bottle at his elbow.

  Jean-Marie thanked him silently and gulped the wine greedily, even though it wouldn’t blur his compañero senses enough to make him forget. But it did bring him to the next step, understanding the implications for France—and by extension, his adopted family. “The monarchy is gone.”

  “The break truly happened in July when the Bastille—that great prison—fell to the mob, because the governor lacked the machismo to shoot them.” Rodrigo’s big shoulders lifted in a shrug.

  “And nobody else, either the monarchy or the elected representatives in the National Assembly, called them to task for killing men in the public streets and parading them like barbarians. Today’s events only confirmed it.” Jean-Marie couldn’t keep his bitterness out of his voice. Or his longing for his father’s iron hand, even with the sure knowledge that his father’s time was long gone.

  “Society left Paris afterward, leaving only the queen’s dearest friends and the legislators.” Sara shook out her skirts with a snap. “Now your belle amie will surely never return to the capital, Jean-Marie, even though we’ve lingered here for two years. You can return to me.”

  “Never! I will never share your bed again!” He sprang to his feet with a roar of denial. “A century ago, I was a foolish young man, vulnerable to anyone who’d speak softly and at least half-truthfully to me. You lured me into your arms with lies, saying that you cared about only me, not my father’s wealth and power. Telling me it would be for a few nights, not for decades and centuries to come.”

  Rodrigo watched them warily from beside the fireplace, clearly ready to take action on a moment’s notice.

  “Every word was true! I wanted you since the day Rodrigo showed you to me in his prison cell,” she snapped back, coming to her feet to face Jean-Marie, a febrile glitter in her eyes. “You belonged to me then, and you will be mine again.”

  “All you have ever thought about was yourself. Of having a concubino compañero eternally at hand, eager to provide you with carnal pleasure. So that you would need no one and nothing else ever again for the emotion and blood you need to live on. Isn’t it?” He dragged Sara up out of the chair by her shoulders and shook her. “Isn’t it?”

  “Of course! Why not? My life has been bitter. Why shouldn’t I have what I need and desire?” She glared at him defiantly.

  “Even when it destroys a young man’s life?” Rodrigo slapped the carved marble with a force that set portraits shaking on nearby walls.

  “Rodrigo, por favor…” Sara shrank from his rare open display of wrath, as Jean-Marie released her, turning to open another bottle of Burgundy rather than maul her again.

  “France’s armies could have used him decades ago, and she needs him more today. Yet you have tied him so completely to your apron strings that he must travel wherever you go or die within a few weeks.” Rodrigo towered over her, his dark eyes flashing. “I thought our long captivity had left you too much of a child to ever deliberately destroy someone else. I have cared for you, protected you, and been glad to see your wits return. But I will do so no more.”

  “Rodrigo, what do you mean?” She caught at his arm.

  He regarded Jean-Marie, completely ignoring her. “Amigo, there is one other alternative to being her concubino compañero.”

  “You’ve never mentioned that before.” Jean-Marie’s head came up, and he stopped uncorking the wine.

  “Compañeros are very rare outside of Asia, concubinos compañeros even rarer, and those whose vampira primera is a vampira mayora are possibly the rarest of all. Something I suspect Sara was counting on to protect herself.” Rodrigo’s voice gained the slick deadliness of a Toledo blade. “Am I not correct?”

  She made a rude gesture more suitable to a gutter than a fine mansion and flounced out the door, silently confirming his story’s truth.

  “What is the option?”

  “I doubt you will like it.”

  “What is my other choice?” Jean-Marie repeated, ready to lunge at his old friend.

  Rodrigo’s dark eyes were troubled but honest under the brutal scar.

  “I, too, am a vampiro mayor and a century older than Sara, which makes my blood more potent than hers.”

  “As I already know. You’ve saved my life more than once with its ability to heal.” Jean-Marie shrugged impatiently. “What of it?”

  “You’ve probably also noticed that I—enjoy the company of both women and men.”

  “As does every other vampiro I’ve met. But you linger with none of them, and you’re always careful of their pleasure, no matter what their gender.” Jean-Marie rolled his eyes, wondering when the Spaniard would get to the point. “Why are you telling me the obvious?”

  “A compañero’s addiction to one vampiro can be overwhelmed by an addiction to another, older vampiro.”

  “You?” Jean-Marie all but dropped the wine bottle.

  “Myself.” Rodrigo inclined his head. “However, since you’re a concubino compañero, whose bond was originally based on blood and sex, any new bond would have to include both elements.”

  “Take you as a lover?” Jean-Marie’s legs were suddenly very unsteady. He’d always, only thought of himself as an admirer of women.

  “For the rest of your life, although I would, of course, never be a demanding one, amigo.” Anger flared briefly in Rodrigo’s voice before being pushed back.

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too much of a friend to force yourself where you weren’t invited.” Jean-Marie smiled briefly, his brain whirling.

  “Gracias.” The other’s face lightened.

  Jean-Marie tried to think clearly. If he agreed to Rodrigo’s offer, he’d be tied to a friend, who’d support him in his interests. Who wouldn’t be petulant, irrational, jealous, drag him away from places he loved and things he cared about doing…

  But he’d have to have sex regularly with another man. He’d never done that, ever. Not when he’d been a young boy or even during some of the more extravagant orgies he’d attended. Always, something inside him had jerked him away.

  He knew very well that in vampiro society, the odds of survival increased rapidly with the ability to find willing, sensual partners to enjoy sex with, starting with those of the opposite gender. Refusing Rodrigo could shorten his life span, given how much more often these dizzy spells were starting to occur.

  But he couldn’t do it. He’d rather be in bed with a woman, preferably someone like Hélène d’Agelet.

  “I’m sorry—but no.” He shook his head. “I appreciate your offer but…”

  “All you can see are the ladies, and a particular one at that?” Faint humor lit Rodrigo’s eyes. “As you wish, amigo. But the offer remains open. If you ever change your mind, all you have to do is say so.”

  “I will never…”

&n
bsp; Rodrigo held up his hand in warning. “Do not tempt the Almighty, amigo,” he said entirely seriously. “He has a remarkable way of persuading one to follow paths one would never have thought possible.”

  “I’m as likely to become your vampiro as your concubino compañero,” Jean-Marie sniffed.

  Rodrigo laughed outright at that, having vowed never to become any vampiro’s creador. They hugged, the tension broken.

  “Do you wish more blood before you go upstairs? The servants should have water heated for your bath by now.”

  “No.” Jean-Marie stretched, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m strong enough to sleep now and go to Sara in the morning, when she’ll be more generous.”

  “Bien. We’ll leave Paris for London tomorrow afternoon, if you’re ready.” Rodrigo’s eyes searched his for a reaction.

  And abandon hope of seeing Hélène d’Agelet again, at least anytime soon. But—how much hope had he really had?

  “I’ll be ready.”

  CHTEAU DE SAINTE-PAZANNE, THE VENDÉE, FEBRUARY 1793

  “Raoul de Beynac is a soldier fighting France’s enemies!” Celeste slapped the table, making her wine dance in its glass. She was very good at that, gained by arguing with her father for so many years.

  “He is a traitor to his king and a regicide!” roared their father, the comte de Sainte-Pazanne, the setting sun pouring crimson over his hair through the windows. “If he truly honored his oath, he’d have resigned when those foul beasts in Paris executed the King last month.”

  “How could he when there are Austrian and Prussian armies on our frontiers? When he has already fought—and won!—one victory against them?”

  “France has a new king, Louis XVII, the young boy who needs every brave man’s help to escape his stinking prison and bring peace.”

  Their voices set the crystals rattling below the sconces, and Hélène winced reflexively. If only the footmen were still standing watch, Papa and Celeste’s argument might not have gotten out of hand.

  The servants still served the Sainte-Pazannes out of love, unlike many other aristocratic households after feudal rights had collapsed. But Maman had excused them as soon as Papa had mentioned politics, of course, knowing the conversation would quickly become heated.