by Renee Ahdieh
“It isn’t your place to protect her, Bastien,” Boone continues. “If you care about Celine, let her live and love among her own kind.”
The pain is so sharp that I cannot speak. The tendons in my fists stretch until my fingers turn bloodless. No matter how much I wish it were a lie, I know Boone speaks the truth. I have no right to feel anything when it comes to Celine Rousseau. She asked to be forgotten, just as she asked to forget. It is selfish of me to desire anything more. She gave up her memories to save me. I owe it to her to respect that decision.
But that feeling—that feeling of wanting to unmake the world—rips through my chest. If this Sunan character is real, I would find him. I would have him unmake me. No matter the cost.
“I hate the Brotherhood even more than you do,” Jae says, his eyes like obsidian. “But Michael Grimaldi will keep her safe. And we will always watch over her. Make no mistake.”
Even as I nod, biting back the taste of bile, I want to defy them. I want to stand before Celine and tell her all that I feel. I want to take Michael apart with my bare hands.
I want. I want. I want.
ÉMILIE
The wolf spoke in a low growl, a hairsbreadth from Émilie’s ear.
His words reverberated through her mind like the clang of a bell, but she took care not to react. She was beyond a place of anger. Beyond a place of retribution. Hers was a fire of blue flame. Pure and uncompromising.
When Émilie’s spy left the small, darkened garden, she stood straight and began to pace.
Her brother lived. Sébastien Saint Germain was alive.
The wolf who spied for her—the one who listened and reported on the mutterings of the magical folk throughout the city—had just informed her that Bastien had been seen last night, walking along Rue Royale as if nothing were amiss. As if he had not been attacked by a vampire and had his throat torn out a mere six weeks ago.
Incredulous, she paused and looked toward a night sky spangled with stars. To her right stood a towering bald cypress, its uppermost branches cloaked in strands of Spanish moss.
Though many people loved the haunted look of the moss, it had irked Émilie since childhood. Spanish moss was a weed. If left untended, it could weigh down the branches of even the healthiest tree, choking the life from it over time.
Émilie laughed to herself and continued pacing.
Sébastien was like this weed. No matter how many times fate tried to rip him out by his roots, poison him, or starve him of sunlight, he continued to flourish. To choke the life out of everything around him, even members of his own family and his first true love.
Émilie touched the raised scar of the burn along her collarbone. A burn from the fire her brother had inadvertently started twelve years ago, the day her human life had come to an abrupt end. Heaven knew how it had happened. She supposed such a thing did not matter. Little boys played with fire, and when they did, other people burned.
When Émilie realized her younger brother was still trapped on the top floor of the burning building, she had been the one to break through the line of men and women struggling to extinguish the blaze. A boy in the fire brigade had tried to stop her, but fifteen-year-old Émilie had not cared about the danger. Had not given it a second thought.
Her little brother might die. She could not allow that to happen.
After an agonizing search, she found six-year-old Bastien cowering in a third-floor closet. She raced for the stairs with him in her arms, only to realize the wooden landing and banisters were engulfed in flames. As a last resort, she’d thrown her brother out the window, smoke choking the breath from her body. He’d landed in a sheet a group of men had splayed in the courtyard below. It was a miracle Bastien had not been injured, though the smoke had rendered him unconscious. A moment later, the eave above the window collapsed, preventing Émilie from escaping the same way. But not before she saw her uncle Nicodemus staring grimly at her from the world below, his walking stick gripped in one hand.
Émilie had found herself in a tomb of fire. She’d backed into a corner, her eyes burning, her hair beginning to smolder. When a lick of flame touched the sleeve of her dress, it had ignited before she could muster a scream. The fire had singed her skin, the blaze roaring in her head, her heart raging, begging to be set free.
Fear had overcome her. She’d breathed deeply of the fiery air, letting it burn through her lungs, praying for a reprieve.
She had not seen the figures moving through the flames until the last instant. Until she’d believed them to be angels sent from above. No human could move like that. With such grace and speed, even when threatened by the fires of Hell itself.
When she’d awoken, she’d been on the cusp of death, her body wracked with pain.
“Émilie,” a gruff voice had said. “You don’t have much time.”
She’d struggled to open her eyes.
“You’re dying, but I can stop it,” he’d continued. “I can give you the power to cheat death.”
“U-Uncle?”
“No. I am not the coward who stood by and watched you die a fiery death. But I am here to give you what you wanted from him. What he refused to give to you.” The man leaned in until his mouth was beside her ear. “The power to overcome your weaknesses. All you have to do is nod.”
Émilie did not have to think twice. The burns on her skin were raw. Every motion she made was excruciating, but she managed a single nod. The man bit her arm, and the pain that spread through her limbs caused her to lose consciousness. When next she woke, she was a werewolf. Meant to cast aside her worldly desires along with all her earthly loyalties.
From that moment onward, Émilie was no longer a Saint Germain. The very utterance of the name caused hot anguish to race through her veins. The Saint Germains had brought her nothing but death and suffering, just as they had with the wolves, who’d lost everything for casting their lot with the vampires. In the end, her uncle—the one who was supposed to protect them all—had stood by and watched her die.
The sight of Nicodemus’ golden gaze staring up at her through the smoke had been etched onto each of Émilie’s memories for more than a decade. It fed her. Sustained her hatred.
In the end, it was Luca and his family—especially his father, who had turned her—who gave her what she’d desired for so long. A place to call her own. They answered any and all of her questions. All the things Nicodemus had denied her, they gave without reservations.
And Émilie had become one of them.
From Luca, she’d learned how vampires and werewolves had once lived in the Otherworld, in a land of perpetual night known as the Sylvan Wyld. He told her how the vampires and werewolves had consorted with one another to lord over the mortal domain. How the vampires had attempted to sell immortality to the highest bidder. How they’d all been banished from the Sylvan Wyld for the vampires’ actions.
How the vampires had eventually forsaken the wolves in their quest to achieve dominance in the mortal realm.
Over time, Luca professed his love. And Émilie returned it, in her own way. She loved him for being her family. For always putting her first. But Luca wanted to marry her, and a woman like Émilie was not meant to be contained. When she gave love, it was without restraint, to men and women alike. And whatever she offered was hers to give, to whomever she chose, whenever she chose to give it. Something men like Luca or her uncle or even her younger brother would never understand.
Wrath took hold of Émilie, all but strangling the breath from her body. What was it about young men like Sébastien Saint Germain that blessed them with the nine lives of a cat? No mortal could have survived his wounds. Émilie had been specific when she ordered Nigel Fitzroy to murder her brother that night in Saint Louis Cathedral. For everything their uncle Nicodemus had done to Émilie in life—for all Bastien had taken from her—her little brother was not to breathe in the free light of day ever
again.
If you must, separate his head from his body. But make sure he does not survive.
Those had been her very words.
She stopped short again.
If Bastien’s wounds were intended to kill a mortal man, that could only mean one thing. Nicodemus had turned the last living member of his bloodline into a vampire.
Which meant he’d broken his treaty with the Brotherhood.
A slow smile unfurled across Émilie’s face. She should tell Luca at once. Let her erstwhile lover know that their decade of peace with the Fallen had come to an ignominious end. What followed would ensure at least several years of war between the vampires and the werewolves. And war was a time for great strides to be made, especially for the industrious.
Of which Émilie was and always would be.
Since no one in life had drawn attention to her myriad talents, she would be the one to do it now. If a mediocre young man could crow to the world about his mediocrity, then why should a superior young woman not do the same?
Yes. Émilie should tell Luca. It was past time.
But she wouldn’t. Not now. Not when she still had a winning hand to play.
Her grin widened. Her wolf spy had told her something else. Luca’s younger cousin Michael was falling in love with Celine Rousseau, the girl Bastien had died trying to protect.
Fortune truly did smile upon the bold.
A simple mind might think it sufficient to upset the balance between these immortal foes by telling Luca what she had learned. But Émilie wished to wreak more than temporary havoc. She wished to destroy the very foundation. A foundation that put her in second place, no matter how much more gifted or worthy she might be to those lauded above her.
It would be a victory to savor when Michael was drawn into their world. A world from which Luca endeavored to spare his cousin for the whole of the young detective’s life. Though the blood of the wolf ran through Michael’s veins, he managed to evade the curse bestowed on his kind by the Banishment. He had not yet turned, nor was there much chance of him turning. If things continued in this fashion, Michael could live his entire life removed from this world of dark magic.
Émilie had no intention of keeping Michael removed, especially after what she’d learned. True, it was unfair to the boy. But boys like him played with fire, and when they did, other people burned.
Now that the tables were turned, should it be any different?
Delicious to think Nicodemus Saint Germain’s heir and the youngest cousin of Luca Grimaldi could be set on a path of mutual destruction. The events that were sure to follow would be delightful to witness and exploit.
But first . . . but first . . . Émilie had much to consider.
Unlike vampires, there were three ways for a wolf to be made.
The first was to be the immediate heir to the legacy. The eldest remaining male of the bloodline, which was how Luca had inherited the role, following the death of his father during the last war with the Fallen. Indeed, Luca’s father had only earned the position a handful of years prior, after Michael’s father had perished in battle.
The second way to be turned was to be bitten by a wolf. This was the way Émilie had become a member of the pack. It was risky and painful, for the mortal in question had to forfeit their human life in order to undergo the change. Many succumbed to their wounds or died during the agony of their first full moon.
It was a risk Émilie had gladly undertaken. Fire was necessary to forge a weapon of steel.
The last and most heinous of all ways to become a wolf was to kill a member of your own family within the bloodline. Often the wolves who were turned in such a manner were shunned. Hunted by the rest of the pack for daring to murder one of their own.
Émilie tilted her head toward the sky.
How . . . thrilling a prospect.
And in the ensuing chaos, if a star were to rise from behind the shadow of a waning moon, who would hesitate to gaze upon its light?
Émilie la Loup had plans. Plans upon plans. And it was time for her to execute, in more ways than one.
Perhaps she would start with a wedding.
BASTIEN
I cannot sleep, so I do not dream.
Perhaps it is impossible for a vampire as troubled as I am to dream. Perhaps such a thing is the purview of the living: to envision a life apart from reality. To hope for something better and richer than the wretched now.
I lie awake in my four-poster bed, the velvet curtains drawn. I stare at the golden lion medallion situated in the tufted canopy above me, my thoughts taking shape in the darkness like shadows coming to life.
Without warning, I sit up.
Sunan the Immortal Unmaker.
If I returned to the swamp and asked to speak with Cambion, what might happen?
Dark laughter rumbles from my chest.
I bested the tiger-beast in the ring using nothing more than sheer luck. I shamed him in front of his peers. In front of those he considered family. Cambion of the Swamp would not look kindly upon me, despite my sparing his life. It was clear the moment the portly master of ceremonies announced our bout that those who dwelled in the depths of the swamp had nothing but disdain for the vampires who ruled from their gilded thrones in the city.
But the wanting inside me continues to grow each day.
I want to learn more about this Sunan. Does magic like this even exist? Would it truly be possible for me to return the dark gift that made me a vampire? What would be the cost?
Is it possible to be human again?
These things plague me. Gnaw at my insides. Or maybe they are only distractions.
Maybe these are the kinds of dreams permitted me now. A chance to once again walk unencumbered in the sun. To go to Celine. To win her heart once more. To find a way to return her stolen memories. Or work to earn her love a second, a third, a thousandth time.
Love is a strange beast. It is not so different from fear. Both make us feel uncertain and on edge. Uncomfortable in our own skins. Hot and cold at the same time.
But only one of them is drawn from hope.
I think about what drew me to Celine in the first place. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t struck by her beauty. But the Crescent City has the loveliest young débutantes in the whole of the South. Belles of every proverbial ball. The last few years, my uncle has made several pointed introductions to daughters of important men throughout Louisiana. Each young woman was accomplished and articulate, spoke several languages, and understood her supposed place. Perhaps that is why I found none of them appealing.
I don’t want someone who understands and accepts the world she is given. I want someone who expects more. Who fights for it and isn’t afraid to dirty her sleeves in the process.
I want a girl like Celine Rousseau. No, not like her. I want her. The want consumes me.
Again I laugh into the darkness.
Such selfish thoughts. Even in my waking dreams, I think only of what I want.
My thoughts return to Sunan. If an unmaker such as he—or she—exists, there might be something about it in the written lore. The old library in the heart of the Vieux Carré contains many of the best-known accounts of fey creatures this side of the Mississippi. Additionally there is a bokor on Dumaine with a famous collection of mystical tomes. Alas, this particular voodoo priest would be unlikely to lend them to a vampire, as he is known to serve good mystères rather than evil.
Perhaps it is time for me to have my fétiche made so that I can walk about in the daylight and plead my case in person. Or maybe I should ask one of the mortal servants in my uncle’s household if they would mind borrowing a few books from the library for me.
I could also simply continue wearing the mask I have worn for the last six weeks, one of dissolution and debauchery. That is the easiest, most expected course of action for a newborn vampire.
If I wear this mask long enough, perhaps I’ll forget that I ever wanted anything else.
CELINE
The puppy bounded through the shop, her short legs causing her to tumble every third step. Nonetheless she righted herself each time, her stubby tail wagging with joy, her cheerful barks filling the space with the sound of happiness.
Then the little corgi squatted right in the center of the new rug, lolled her tongue at Celine, and began to urinate.
“Pippa,” Celine wailed toward the back room. “Collect your tiny terror or else she’s liable to ruin the entire establishment before we’ve even opened our doors.”
“Queen Elizabeth!” Pippa scolded as she rushed into the shop in a flurry of pale green linen, her white silk sash trailing behind her. The second the corgi saw Pippa, she rolled over and yipped once, her four little feet in the air. “Elizabeth”—Pippa pointed a finger down at the grinning dog—“we’ve discussed this. Your behavior is unbecoming of a monarch of England.” With an apologetic glance at Celine, Pippa swiped the protesting royal off the floor and passed the puppy to Antonia, who’d only just finished taking stock of loose merchandise to be sorted tomorrow.
“Such a naughty little cadela,” Antonia cooed, the Portuguese word rolling from her tongue. “Come sit beside me in the storeroom, minha filha. If you behave, I promise you a piece of ham and maybe a bit of bread and cheese.”
“No ham,” Pippa implored. “She’ll be a beast later.”
Laughter rumbled from the storeroom. “Quelle surprise, for she’s a beast now.” Eloise Henri emerged from the doorway, wiping her hands on an otherwise pristine apron. The smell of honey and lavender filled the room with every step the lovely Créole girl took. Her dark skin shone beneath the length of colorful fabric wrapped around her head, its ends folded in an intricate fashion resembling the points of a crown.
“Antonia?” Eloise asked. “Would you mind coming to test the latest batch of cold cream, tout de suite? I added more lavender oil, and I think it’s quite an improvement, especially with your suggestion of a rosehip infusion.”