by Julie Plec
“That will take forever,” Klaus grumbled, kicking at a tuft of grass. “Was she this slow the first time?”
“I don’t really care as long as it works,” Elijah countered. He watched Ysabelle reappear on the far side of the house and waited, barely daring to breathe. She did not look at them, instead keeping her eyes fixed on the potion spilling onto the long line of fire. She allowed herself a ghost of a smile when her iron bowl emptied just when she had reached the end. This time, there was no boom, but the world seemed to ripple and the pressure mounted. Then, it seemed to Elijah that the house absorbed the brutal, urgent silence into itself, and the walls swallowed it whole.
She’d done it—and now his family was finally safe.
He would have to arrange for their belongings to be brought from the hotel. He had dreamed of seeing Kol’s and Finn’s coffins in the basement with him, but that was an illusion. It was odd, actually, that Rebekah hadn’t moved them, unless he’d only imagined her as well. That part of his memory still felt hazy. Trying to put events into their proper order only made him feel like he was sliding back into the venomous fever.
He blinked in the sunlight, trying to put his finger on what had changed. The house looked exactly the same, although that was already an improvement over their last attempt.
Klaus wandered closer to it, climbing up onto the low porch with his head cocked, looking for a sign that the spell had really worked. Ysabelle moved the other way, stepping across the extinguished line of peat. She fumbled in her bodice for a moment, then withdrew something that flashed silver in the lazy afternoon sunlight. With an agile ripple of her shoulder, she threw it squarely at Klaus’s back.
Elijah didn’t bother to move. If she had failed a second time, she might as well kill them. But the knife bounced back, landing on the grass as if it had been dropped rather than ever thrown. Ysabelle’s face was lit with her triumph, and Elijah clasped her shoulder appreciatively.
“Thank you,” he told her, but his mind was already elsewhere. The deadly point of a weapon...He had seen that before, and recently. Wading through the hallucinations, he could distinguish the memory of a blue-coated man with a stake.
He’d crept in from one of the passageways, his weapon held at the ready. He’d said something, hadn’t he? Something about Rebekah. About taking Rebekah. And then she appeared, attacked the man, and pulled him out of the cellar.
So why had she not returned? He was now sure that she’d rescued him from the river but that had been at least a day or two ago. Who was that man, and why had Rebekah not simply disposed of his body and returned?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REBEKAH STARED OUT at the ocean, watching the waves chase and break across one another. She could have stayed there forever. She felt finally, totally at peace.
Eric joined her on the little terrace, resting a warm, possessive hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him, remembering the feeling of safety she had experienced the first time they met. He was waiting, and he must feel like his entire life depended on the choice she had to make. But he looked relaxed, simply happy to be with her in this little abandoned cottage facing the sea.
Rebekah had fully intended to make good on her plan to drown him, but she had been overcome by fear and curiosity in the end. She’d wanted to know the details of his messages to her father, and she’d needed to understand why he’d gone to such lengths to deceive her. He could have pretended to shelter her without pretending to love her. He certainly didn’t need to propose to her, and so why had he? What had been the point of his twisted game?
Once she had reached the seashore, she had waited impatiently for him to wake up so she could kill him. And then, with his first breath, he’d said that he was so relieved she was safe.
It was too much, that he would try to keep up the charade even now. But something in the softness of his lips, the trusting look in his eyes, gave her pause.
“How did you get away from that monster?” Eric gasped, and then he looked around them in confusion. “What is this place, and how are we here?”
“‘That monster’?” she repeated. “You were the one who was trying to kill him.”
Eric nodded then winced and rubbed at his throat. “He killed Felix,” he explained, grimacing. “I returned to find Felix murdered, and you gone. I knew the creature was punishing us for our curiosity. We had heard that there was a nest of his kind near here, and so when I realized you had been taken I searched the area. I found the tracks where he carried you from the river. A piece of your dress had snagged on the reeds and so I knew you had been there. I followed your trail to this house. I watched from the trees, and finally I saw you.”
Rebekah tried to make sense of his halting speech. He had found their house, and must have seen her come up through the trapdoor while she had been exploring the tunnels beneath it. And then, believing her to be Elijah’s prisoner, he had used that same door to try to set her free.
It was a ludicrous explanation, but she found that she still wanted to trust him. The way he stared up at her, as if he were drinking in her presence, she could actually believe that he had thought her a helpless victim all along.
Except that Felix had said otherwise before he died.
She could not stand the layers of lies between them anymore. It was not serving her purpose to keep pretending. And the only way to figure out the truth was to reveal what she was. There, in the light of day, where Eric could see.
“The man in the cellar is a vampire,” she told him bluntly, and then she concentrated for a moment so that her own fangs extended into view. “He is my brother. I am a vampire, too, and so you understand why I couldn’t let you hurt him.”
Eric remained sprawled out on the sand, carefully thinking over her words. Even if he had known all along, she hadn’t expected such composure from him. “You were not kidnapped,” he said finally. “You...you killed Felix.” He did not sound angry or afraid—but amused.
“Felix tried to kill me,” she said. “He tried to ambush me with the same stake I found you holding over Elijah. You attacked us. Felix said you had been hired to find us, and that you’d sent reports back to my...to your employer.”
Eric sighed and closed his eyes. “The man who hired us wanted only information, not murder. He chose me because I had education and resources, which Felix did not—he only had a fervent desire to hunt down monsters. Our employer hoped that would lead me to you. But I deceived him, and I lied to Felix as well. I didn’t want anyone else to find vampires—I wanted them to be all mine.”
“You sent no reports,” Rebekah interpreted. “Or you sent false ones. And if he had no education, then Felix could not write any himself, nor read what you wrote. Then no one but you now knows where we are. But why?” It made no sense, but he stood to gain nothing from inventing that tale—and if he was the only person who knew her secret, then killing him would keep her safe.
Felix had promised Rebekah that she would be hunted down, and Eric could have told her the same story, trying to bluff his way into some kind of negotiation. The chance he would survive would be slim, but it would have been smarter than saying that her exposed secret could die with him, right there on the beach. As bizarre as it seemed, she found herself inclined to believe what Eric was telling her. She sensed that, like her, he was ready to simply tell the truth.
His hazel eyes had opened again, and lingered on the smallest details of her face. “Your brother,” he repeated. “I did not know.”
“He was lying half dead,” Rebekah snapped, irritated by her own confusion on top of everything else. “How did you think he could have carried me away in that state? He hardly looked a threat.”
“His injuries confirmed that he had fought with Felix.” Eric coughed and rubbed at his throat again, then tried to prop himself up on his elbows. With a firm hand, Rebekah indicated that he should sta
y where he was. “And I thought that even a wounded vampire could manage to kidnap a frightened widow.”
In spite of herself, Rebekah laughed aloud. “You were wrong on every count.” Really, the idea of Elijah’s gruesome wounds coming from a tangle with some human was ridiculous. Rebekah hadn’t gotten a scratch in their brief struggle.
To her surprise, Eric smiled at her. “I knew you were extraordinary,” he murmured. “And yet I find myself embarrassed by how thoroughly I underestimated you. And equally as ashamed that my lieutenant picked up on the truth before I did, when I could not be there to protect you.”
Of course she was extraordinary, but it seemed like a rather odd reaction to everything she had just disclosed. For a human. “You don’t sound as alarmed as I would have expected,” she pointed out, showing her fangs again for emphasis.
“I am hopeful that you’ll let me live, in a sense,” he admitted. She scowled, but her eyes roamed to the lean chest that his ripped shirt exposed. His strong hands, and how capable they looked...
“If you didn’t want to report our whereabouts back to you benefactor, then what did you want?”
“I’ve been hoping to meet a vampire for years now, but not because I wanted to kill one,” he replied.
“I don’t understand, Captain. If not to kill him, then what was the point?” She remembered the sight of the dead werewolf with the wooden stake protruding from his chest, and shuddered. “You cannot tell me you have not hunted us, and a hunt should end with a death.”
“My death, though,” Eric argued urgently, pushing himself up into a sitting position. This time, she let him. “Since Marion died so suddenly, so senselessly, my own death is all I have been able to think about. It haunts me to know that I will simply end, between one breath and the next. I stood before her grave and vowed that I would not follow her so easily. I would not let some sickness, some wound, some accident rip me out of the world. When I discovered writings about your kind, I knew that you held the keys to life and death. I need those keys, Rebekah. I have searched for years so that I could beg you to make me like you. Kill me, so that I cannot die.”
She recoiled, hope and fear warring together in her heart. She had assumed his obsession with death was morbid, that he hated having to live in a world from which every trace of his wife was gone. Death was indeed his enemy, she realized, but only because he loved being alive. She wanted to believe him so badly that it was almost physically painful. “Next you will say you never intended to kill my brother,” she hissed, her voice even harsher than she expected. “You were just trying to threaten a vampire into turning you?”
“I thought he had taken you,” Eric shouted and then winced and lowered his voice again. “I saw you emerge from that tunnel, too afraid to run away. I knew I had to act before the sun went down, and the vampire woke up.
“When I saw no further signs of you or your captor, I tried to follow you inside,” he rasped on. “It was foolish, but when I found him lying there, I thought the risk had paid off.” He frowned, his brow furrowing deeply. He raised one hand to run a rough finger down the side of her face, and the small touch sent shivers through her body. She found herself at a loss for words. “I will not deny I planned to kill him for his sins against you. I intended to kill him if it cost me my life or even a chance at eternal life. What would any of it matter if I lost you?” he said.
She lifted her hand to cover his, and he wove his fingers between hers. “Once I met you, I began to want more than just immortality. I wanted to share it with you,” he finished.
Rebekah felt a sudden heat flushing her skin. She bent down and kissed him passionately, and he wound his fingers in her long hair to keep her close. In that moment she knew she wanted to stay that way forever.
* * *
THEY HAD FOUND the abandoned cottage and lost track of the time. They had talked about everything—learning each other from the beginning, with no secrets between them this time.
He told her what he knew of Mikael’s plans and whereabouts, which naturally wasn’t much at all. They had met only once in an inn outside of Paris, and after that meeting Mikael had handled their business through associates. In turn, Rebekah told him about her father’s past, and he held her while she cried at the most bitter parts. She talked about her short life as a human, and he reminisced about the brief time with his beloved wife.
Most of all, though, they made love. Even when they had to pause, their bodies remained in constant contact. They could not stop touching: hair, shoulders, lips, back, ankles, everything. Her fingers traced the scars from his battles, and his calloused hands explored the flawless silk of her skin. They clung and collided, entwined and caressed. She drank her fill of his blood, and he begged her to take more.
She could not, though, not yet. She had made a promise to the witches of New Orleans nine years before, and her brothers’ bargains were tied to her own. As long as she remained in the vicinity of the city, she could make no new vampires, or else they would all be cast out.
Elijah and Klaus would not forgive her for that disobedience, but they would not absolve her for leaving them, either. She spent hours weighing those two choices, because the only other option she could think of was refusing Eric, and that she would not do. After all of her long life she had found a true mate, and she fully intended to keep him.
Eric’s hand slid down from her shoulder to drift along her collarbone, and he bent to kiss the side of her throat. He had extraordinary stamina for a human, and she could only imagine what he would be like as a vampire. She reached up and pulled him down closer, always closer, her mind made up. “We will leave together,” she told him softly. “I will make them understand that you are my family now, and we will go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KLAUS WAS RESTLESS. It had taken him only a night to discover that he was not made for life in the countryside. It was boring, and the sounds from the bayou were downright disturbing. The house, with its formidable new enchantment, was obviously the best place to be when every werewolf within fifty miles was probably out for their blood. But the confinement chafed, and so he paced and complained and made his brother miserable until dawn came and Elijah sent him outside to take care of the rotting old stump near the back of the property.
It would almost certainly have to be removed, but their explorations revealed that its roots framed one of the several underground caverns that dotted the property. They had strategic value, the brothers had agreed immediately, and it would be unfortunate to lose one of them if they could help it. Klaus examined the lacework of the roots, trying to see where they gave the most support. The dead and rotting wood would not hold up forever, but if they worked carefully they could probably replace it without caving in the chamber entirely.
A strange keening came from the direction of the house, and Klaus straightened. It sounded mechanical, but he couldn’t think of anything in the house that might have made such a noise.
“I thought I might find you here,” a familiar voice said, and Klaus froze. Of course...the protection spell. Someone had stepped onto their land, and the spell had tried to warn him. He had not understood quickly enough, and the price of his mistake stood before him, watching him with haunted black eyes. “I came to see if you were all right.”
Vivianne looked more fragile than he remembered her, as if something vital were slowly being drained from her body. She wore a deep, heavy cloak of ivory wool that should have been sweltering in the heat of the day, but she pulled it close around her as if she still could not get warm enough.
Klaus found himself unsympathetic.
“You’ve seen me now,” he pointed out sharply. He slammed the trapdoor closed and turned his back on her, marching toward the house.
She followed him through the ankle-high grass, but he refused to slow down. “I saw Armand, too,” she called after him. “He said you
were the one who hurt him. Your brother was in the woods the other night, and he attacked us, too. Is this all happening because of us? Klaus, is it because of...me?”
He reached the shelter of the porch, and turned so that she could see the bitterness on his face when he laughed. “You!” he exclaimed. “What could you have to do with these squabbles, Viv? What might you have done that could possibly cause all this fighting?”
She bit her full red lip, looking even paler in the sunlight than she had in the shade of the trees. “Armand wouldn’t tell me anything,” she admitted, “except that it was you he fought. But the way he looked at me, I think he knows. What we—what I did.”
Klaus shrugged nonchalantly. “If he does, he didn’t learn it from me. I don’t go about bragging about being abandoned at sunrise by the woman I had loved all night.”
Vivianne looked as if she had been slapped. “I thought it would be the best way to say good-bye,” she whispered. “I thought I had to change, and I wanted to have one last night as myself. Can’t you see what that meant to me?”
“You ‘thought,’” Klaus repeated slowly. “You ‘thought’ you had to activate the werewolf within you.” Had she changed her mind already? What a cruel twist of fate that the full moon had brought if she was so inconstant in her conviction. Another few days and she might have forgotten the whole idea. Just as she had forgotten him.
Vivianne’s black eyes glowed hopefully. “You were right all along,” she breathed eagerly, hurrying to close the gap between them. “I should never have done it. You were the only person who has ever cared about what was best for me, and I was foolish not to trust you.”
Klaus watched, amused, for the moment when she would run into Ysabelle’s barrier. Vivianne was about to lift her right foot onto the porch when she rocked back, almost losing her balance. She gaped at him in confusion. “Your aunt was here,” he told her spitefully. “She helped us guard ourselves against unwanted visitors.”