Ravel, Anna and I got to our feet. Reluctantly, we followed her downstairs.
Eva and Quentin were indeed there, the former looking a little pale. She hugged Anna fiercely, and Anna hugged her back just as hard. When they got into the same carriage, I just sighed inwardly, and got into the carriage with Quentin.
As usual, he was in the mood to talk. “This land, Devlin, it is so rich! There is so much more here than I thought there would be! The men in Europe talk as if this was a backwater pigsty, but there are fine shops here, and so many opportunities—”
It was always money with him. I ignored him, and instead focused all my attention outside.
He was right. This new country was growing fast. There were numerous villages, and in each, many new buildings were going up. While there was definite energy in the small cities and towns we passed through, I enjoyed more the vast tracts of wilderness between villages. Though the roads were poor, and there were no gaslights beyond the big cities, there was something about the land and the trees that I favored. It finally came to me that I liked the rural feel of it, that it reminded me of my days singing, and of being mortal, and of the days when I first knew Anna, as suspenseful as they had been. Fontainebleau had been beautiful, but it hadn’t been as soothing to me as this new, untamed land was.
Quentin, of course, was not feeling soothed.
“Devlin, have you heard a word I’ve said? What do you think of investing in some more land? Apparently there is much up North that is for sale, thousands of acres.”
“Yes,” I said suddenly. “Invest in whatever you can around the central tract of what is already mine.”
“I was talking about west of here,” Quentin said grumpily. “About the Midwest, as they are calling it. That land of Lewis and Clark’s—”
“No, here,” I said flatly. “I do not want to go to that land you say, it is described as being dry and barren. I want large trees and green grass, and I want it near land I already own. I do not want to be driven from my home ever again, Quentin.”
“As you wish,” Quentin said, throwing his hands up. “I will look into it at the next village. There is a lawyer there who has handled some of your affairs.”
“What is his name?”
“I can’t remember,” Quentin said nastily. “Must be from not having enough blood these past weeks. I’ve missed Jezebel sorely. Eva was not the most willing bedmate.”
I gave him a look. “You bedded her? My Oathed One?”
“Spare me your bullshit,” Quentin said in exasperation. “She has been bedding another man the whole of your oathing. It was only a few times, when she was in the mood. God, you wouldn’t know that woman was werewolf, the way she avoided the shaft.”
Probably was your winning way with words, Q. I rolled my eyes. “So long as it was her will, I’ve no problem. But I take it you both weren’t looking for a lasting commitment?”
“I was not,” Quentin said hurriedly. “She cried a lot for Levi. I did my best to comfort her, but I didn’t know what to say.”
He seemed sincere. “There is nothing to say,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “But now we are here, I’ll see if she wants to strike off, and find another mate. Surely Ravel or his sister can remove her marks.”
“They will if that’s their plan,” Quentin whispered. “I can’t help but feel as if they are pushing us toward some kind of conclusion of their own design. I don’t like feeling in the dark, while others make plans for me.”
“Nor do I,” I said in a low voice. “Nor do I.”
Chapter Nineteen
We finally arrived at my land in summer, close to July 1, I think. The year was roughly 1819. I loved my land on sight—the large forest, the springs, and a bluff that overlooked a long sloping meadow.
“We’ll build there,” I said tenderly, holding Anna. “There on that bluff. A large house for you and me.”
“We do not need a large house,” Anna said practically, slipping into what I called her wife-mode. “Not for you and me.”
“And L’Amour,” I said gently. “She is going to have her kittens soon, Love.”
Anna gave me a piercing look and then turned her eyes away. Before I could ask her what it was for, Uther descended and gripped me in a hug.
“It is good to see you again,” he rasped. “We were worried you wouldn’t make it to this safe haven.”
“That is what we will call it,” I said, inspired. “Haven. Quentin, write that down.”
Quentin muttered something, but he wrote it down in his little notebook.
“Are there places for you and your kind?” I asked Uther.
He nodded. “There are natural caves in the forest, though they are too small for us to make homes of. My people have been building tunnels. They will do, at least for now.”
“Good,” I said, shaking his hand. “Do whatever you need to in order to make yourself at home.”
“We have built you a temporary shelter, Dev,” Uther rasped. “Come.”
I followed him, the others trailing behind me. Sure enough, there was a small one-room house built a little back from the bluff, hidden in trees. We entered, and saw it had a roughhewn bed, a dresser, and a cast iron stove. There was a loft above, where another bed lay.
“Underneath is a tunnel, which leads to our home,” Uther rasped. “If there is danger, run to us, and we will do our best to get you to safety.”
I felt overcome, that after all he’d suffered because of knowing me, he’d worked to make me safe and comfortable. “Thank you,” I said brokenly. “You have been a good ally, Uther.”
“What are friends for?” he rasped, and then smiled, baring his long fangs.
I hugged him then, even though he recoiled a little, clearly uncomfortable. After a long minute, he finally hugged me back.
* * * *
We settled in nicely there. No one bothered my friends and I. Part of that was I’d learned my lesson, so to speak; Quentin and I did not bite humans around us, settling most nights for animal blood. He bitched about it at first, but when I told him to shut up or leave, he shut up. After a few weeks, when I began to feel forgetful, I risked Rene and Ravel teleporting us to Plymouth, that we might go to a brothel there that serviced vampires and their special needs. That worked for him and myself, even if it wasn’t optimal. As always, so long as Quentin got laid regularly, he was mostly amiable.
The other reason we were not bothered is that Quentin and I journeyed to see the Vampire Lord of New York in Albany in that first week, where we swore allegiance to him and his rules. Surprisingly, there were few: no killing sprees and no killing humans unless you could cover it up and the victims were not prominent citizens.
He was no nobleman, this Lord; in fact, I hesitate to call him a Lord. He never called himself that, saying he was Chief Vampire. That fit, as he was clearly a native, by his look and his name, which I made no attempt to pronounce and have long since forgotten. I knew by the look he gave me that he knew who I was, and what had happened in France, but I could also see he was not the kind of monarch Louis had been. He was content to be paid lip service, and he didn’t care what I or any other vampire in his domain did really, so long as blood didn’t run in the streets, and he didn’t have to do much but sit on his throne.
Part of me wanted immediately to overthrow him, as he was lazy, having no real guards to speak of, just as Guy had done. Then I remembered Anna, and knew I could not put her through that again. Maybe we did not have the mansion I’d wanted for her, or the pretty things. But we had each other, and L’Amour and our friends, and that was enough, at least for me. I was content to live in peace in my rural estate, and let vampire society as a whole forget my existence.
But as it turned out, destiny intervened.
A month passed, and then two. My investments were doing well, and I’d purchased more land, increasing it to about two thousand acres. Our home was taking shape on the hill. I had planned it big enough so that the small cabin we inhabited would eventually
be part of it.
Anna and I were happy together. She cooked and sewed, and went walking with Eva. She tended L’Amour, and her five kittens, fussing over them as if they were children. Our nights together were sweet and tender, as they had been in the better times.
Eva seemed happy too. It was easy to see she still missed Levi, but she had found a wolf pack that lived nearby, and despite they were fully animal, and she was not, keeping company with them seemed to keep her content.
Uther and his people were also happy. Game was plentiful, and out here, there was no one to see them—who could not go missing easily—and no hunters to come and hurt them. Some of his womenfolk had become pregnant, and would soon give birth.
Rene and Ravel we did not see much, save for their taking Quentin and me to town. They kept to themselves in a small stone house they had erected by some magic almost overnight, and what they did there together, I did not guess or desire to know.
Quentin alone was disgruntled. He missed the city, he missed hunting humans for blood, and he missed the finer things in life. “What good is being immortal?” he whined one night. “We are living in the forest like peasants! We might as well be farming! This is not who we are, Devlin. This is not who we were meant to be.”
“It is who we must be for now,” I said firmly.
“For how long?” he whined, his golden eyes looking into mine forlornly. “This is not all I want to have for the rest of my life.”
“Nor I,” I assured him, watching Anna and Eva walking back from the woods with lanterns and berries, the six cats trailing them. “Be patient.”
“Devlin,” Rene said, stepping from the shadows. “I need to speak to you.”
I shot her a look. As usual, her hood covered her face.
“Fine,” I said. “Quentin, please watch the women.”
“Sure,” Quentin said prissily. “Go talk about your destiny.”
I left him, and followed Rene. She led me into the woods, to the cabin she shared with her brother.
As I followed her in silence, I wondered again who she was, that she had come halfway around the world to help me, dragging her reluctant brother with her. What was in this for her?
She let me inside, and then closed the door. Abruptly, I looked around and saw Ravel was not there.
“He is speaking to Uther,” Rene said. “He should not hear this.”
I wanted to shake her. “Hear what?”
“What I must say. Please sit down.”
I wanted to bite her now. “I’ll stand. Speak!”
“As you wish.” She strode over to the fireplace, and put another log on.
I thought that odd. The night was hot, not cool. Maybe she had done it for me, knowing I was always cool, and appreciated warmth.
She stood there so long I grew impatient. “Speak, or I am leaving, Rene. What is it?”
“What do you want, Devlin?” she asked, not looking at me. Or maybe she was, as she was still cloaked.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want? If you could have anything, what would it be?”
I looked at her suspiciously. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I have seen your future, and my own, till now,” she said. “But I cannot see beyond us being here, in this place at this time. When I try to, I see nothing, only cloudiness. And I feel that there is much evil that is to come, but there is much joy, too.”
I shivered a little, she sounded so sure of herself.
“So tell me what you desire,” she finished, stirring the coals. “And we can work towards that end.”
I came towards her reluctantly, to stand near her. “Has this happened before, that you could not see?”
“Sometimes,” she replied. “But only rarely. It worries me very much, that I’ve led you to this strange land, and now that we are here, my vision is clouded.”
There was a strange note in her voice, a familiarity with me that made me feel uneasy. I shook it off. “Do not be upset. You saved us, all of us, you and your brother. I am in your debt for saving Anna.”
She didn’t answer.
I pondered her question for a time. What did I want most? Forgiveness from Danial? Not anymore. It was true I still loved him, being brother and all, but I didn’t want him anywhere near Anna. An apology for his actions wouldn’t be unwelcome though.
Power? Not like I had before. I wanted to rule absolutely, or not at all. There was no point being Master if you had a Master to answer to above you.
Money? I was making enough, though more prestigious surroundings wouldn’t be unwelcome.
Sex? Maybe. Anna and I were as good as we’d ever been, but it was true we’d been together almost five years now. I’d never been with only one woman that long, not even a fraction of that time. Part of me missed an adventuresome woman, one who would seduce me instead of me seducing her, as Jezebel had tried to do. Anna was never unreceptive, but there is a difference between automatic response to a question and being the one who brazenly proposes the question, if you get my meaning. But I wasn’t about to hurt Anna for some sport, or let her go without my blood too long, so she turned into the kind of woman she’d been when I’d left her alone for a month. Maybe Rene could give her some kind of aphrodisiac, to make Anna lose some of her inhibitions about what a woman’s role in bed should be?
“Anything?” I asked. “Even something impossible?”
“Anything,” she replied. “With magic, most things can be done.”
“Tell me what happened the night we left.”
“You know, Devlin. You were there.”
I grated my upper and lower fangs together. “I meant what happened because of me leaving. What of Uther’s people he left behind? What happened to Jezebel?”
“That harlot left France the same night you did,” Rene said scornfully. “She has always been a coward, as you saw the night you saved her life.”
“You knew of that?”
“I kept a close watch on you, Devlin. I spend many nights watching in my crystal. You were nearly seduced. Are you missing her claws?”
That made sense, I thought spitefully. Rene couldn’t go out in polite society with the way she dressed as a funeral mourner. “I had things well in hand, thank you. It’s a relief to know she remains in the Old World. What of Danial?”
“He is here, out among the frontiersmen.”
Angry as I still was with him, it was a comfort to know he was still alive. “And Louis?”
“That I cannot say,” Rene said regretfully. “Titus blocks my visions of him and of Samuel. But Anthony is not in these lands as yet. Is information all you want?”
I quickly mulled over a few more things I won’t list here. But after several more minutes, I was still no closer to a decision.
“Let me think on it,” I said finally. “I have many things I want. But I cannot decide what I want most.”
“Take your time then,” she said, not turning to me. “It is of no matter.”
I turned to go, and then looked back at her. “Why do you help me?”
“Leave,” she said gently. “Suffice to say that my fate and yours are intertwined.”
“How so?” I said, going to her and standing directly behind her, so that my head was near her cloaked one. “Please, tell me.”
“Leave,” she said again gently. “I promise, in time, I’ll tell you all.”
Part of me was captivated and part of me was curious. I reached up with my hands, and touched her shoulders. She froze under my hands. I ran my hands up her form, gently, and then I placed my fingers on the sides of her hood.
“Show me your face,” I whispered.
She grabbed my hands tightly in her gloved ones in a flash. “Leave, Dalcon. Leave now, or I will take my brother tonight and leave this place. And you will be on your own.”
I let her go with an angry hiss, and walked out, slamming the door so hard that the wood cracked with the force of the blow. I walked quickly back to my home, cursing her o
ddness, her talk of destiny, and her mysterious bullshit.
I got home to find Anna in bed waiting. Quentin was asleep upstairs, and Eva was out roaming with the wolves. L’Amour was lying in her bed, her five kittens sleeping beside her.
Anna saw I was upset, and comforted me. I took comfort in her body, and her blood, losing myself in her softness.
Afterwards we held each other. Then, out of the blue, she began to cry. I held her close, asking her what was wrong, what had happened, but she wouldn’t answer, no matter what I asked. So I bit my lip, stopped talking, and held her as she cried.
An hour later, she sniffled a few times and was silent. To my surprise, I discovered she had finally fallen asleep. I got up, and sat near the bed, looking down at her. Was this something I had done? Maybe being with me was driving her crazy. She was only human, after all.
I heard a noise, and went to the door, slipping on my pants. Eva was there, just slipping her dress back on from changing back from wolf.
“What is wrong with Anna?” I whispered to her. “She was crying tonight. Did something happen?”
Eva gave me a look that told me I was an idiot, clearly. “Something happened a month ago,” she said pointedly. “You’ve just been too much of a dolt to see it.”
I wanted to hit her, or bite her. But this was Anna we were talking about, so it was time for groveling. “Please,” I said, taking her hand. “Tell me.”
“Your cat had young,” she said flatly. “Anna knows she never will, so long as she stays with you.”
Her analogy was bad, but it had the impact of a fist to the gut. All the wind went out of me, and I shot an anguished look at Anna, still asleep in our bed. This was what she had meant that night she’d said I could never give her all she wanted. This was where all her frustration had stemmed from.
“Has she spoken of leaving?” I whispered.
“No,” Eva said, pushing past me. “She has not. She does not speak of this at all, but I am a woman, and it is easy to see. It’s what Levi felt when he found out I could not have his children. We tried so hard that first year, even enlisting magical help, with no success. It drove him to drink, as he loved me and he didn’t want to break with me.” She looked back at me. “There is more than one reason he faced Anthony that night, when he could have fled instead. I think it was easier than facing my barrenness and the rest of our lives together.”
Immortal Confessions Page 21