Natalie glanced down at the book in her hands. She wasn’t wearing gloves. Blast. She’d taken them off to show Lucien her scarless skin. “Look, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now—”
“Of course! You have to go after him. That was so romantic,” Courtney gushed. “He has been moping over that book forever.”
Natalie frowned. “Really?”
“For reals. Totally.”
Natalie hesitated.
“And he’s super-hot.” Courtney waggled her eyebrows and popped her gum.
Natalie rolled her eyes, but still headed for the front door. She’d deal with Courtney later. She pulled the door open. “Luc—”
Lucien was walking up her garden path to her door, hauling a resistant Ned Henderson with him.
“Ned,” she gasped, then frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I got your text,” Ned said, trying to shrug Lucien off. He wasn’t successful. “I was heading out to meet with some friends and thought I’d drop my truck off tonight instead of tomorrow.” He tried to brush off Lucien’s grip. “Let go of me, man.” He winced as Lucien’s grip tightened.
“That’s very sweet of you,” Lucien said, his gaze alternating between her and her research assistant. “You must be fairly close to be able to call in favors like that, Natalie.”
Her frown deepened and sense of disquiet sparked at his words.
Lucien cocked his head as he smiled tightly up at her, his hold tight and unyielding on her research assistant’s arm. “What was it you said?” he asked casually. “My family for yours?”
His eyes flashed red, his teeth lengthened. Natalie’s eyes widened in horror as she guessed his intentions. She dropped the book and started running down her porch steps. “No!”
Lucien sank his teeth into Ned’s neck and Ned cried out in pain. Her friend tried to struggle, but his eyelids flickered and he slumped to the ground.
* * *
Lucien watched as Natalie’s expression paled.
“What have you done?” Natalie screeched as she skidded to her knees on the path. She pressed her hand to Ned’s neck, trying to stop the flow of crimson blood that was now staining her path. She shrugged out of her jacket, wadding it up in her hand to press against the bite. He saw her hands tremble as she tended to Ned.
“Exactly as you said, Natalie,” Lucien said calmly as he wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his lips. He watched as she tried desperately to save her friend. Much more effort than he’d expected, admittedly. He’d been right. For someone who had no one, she sure had a lot of photos of her students and coworkers. She might not admit it—she may not even be aware of it—but she had established connections with people in her life as Natalie Segova.
She glared up at him. “Fix him,” she demanded.
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’d like my help to save someone close to you, huh?” He couldn’t help the prod. He was so damn angry with her. He should have left, given himself time to calm down, to think rationally. But then, that would leave Natalie unprotected against his father’s guardian prime. He tried to rein it in, but it was difficult. He was angry. Angry that he was forced to do this. Angry that she’d totally turned her back on him. She’d felt lost and lonely, and would rather kill herself then reach out to him. He’d—Damn it, he’d loved that young woman, in his own way. And she’d been prepared to bleed it all down a drain. Rage simmered within him, burying his shock and despair at her confession, and those softer, warmer feelings that had woken with that kiss. He smiled, his lips tight.
“Agree to help me save my sister and I’ll save your...friend.” He eyed the young man, his skin a pasty white against the dark flagstone of the path. He was just a friend, right? Not that he cared, or had any right to query her on that. Still, the curiosity jabbed at him.
“You bastard.”
“So you’ve said. Clock’s ticking. He’s about to bleed out, Natalie. What’s it going to be?”
She glared at him with narrowed eyes, the gray brightening against the hazel. Ned’s breath started to rattle in his chest and she turned to her friend. She smoothed his brown hair off his forehead then nodded. “Fine. I’ll help you look into a cure for your sister. I can’t guarantee that we’ll save her—there’s never been a hint of a cure for the lycanthrope toxin,” she said in warning, then dipped her head. “But I’ll help you look. Save Ned.”
He glanced at her for a moment. “No more running.” It wasn’t a request.
The muscles in her jaw clenched. “Fine.”
Well, it would do for starters. “Deal.” He held out his hand and waited for her response. She eyed his hand for a moment. Finally she clasped it briefly.
“Deal.” She let go almost immediately. “I hope you’re better at keeping your end of a bargain than you are a promise.”
His lips tightened at the remark, then his incisors lengthened as he pushed his coat sleeve up and unbuttoned his shirt sleeve, rolling it back. He bit gently into his wrist. He leaned over and pressed the open wound to the research assistant’s mouth, wincing as the young man tasted, then sucked at his offering. He pulled his wrist away.
The young man’s eyes flickered open as the wounds on his neck closed up. He flinched when he saw Lucien.
“Take your car and go home—sleep it off. You were too tired to visit Natalie,” he murmured, his voice deep, his gaze intensifying as he compelled the young man. “You won’t remember any of this. Oh, and Natalie doesn’t need your car anymore.” He helped the man to his feet and turned him in the direction of the four-by-four parked in the driveway.
“Will he be okay?” Natalie asked, rising. Lucien wondered briefly at her concern.
“He’ll be fine.” He turned to face her fully. “I appreciate your help, Natalie.”
She gave him a harsh look as she rolled her bloodstained jacket into a tight ball. “Like I had any choice,” she muttered.
“I just want to help my sister,” he told her quietly. It pained him that he’d had to go about it this way, but for every minute Natalie refused to help him, his sister slid closer to death.
“We have a deal, Natalie. I’ve saved your friend, in exchange for your help. If you try to run again, I will kill him, and anyone else you call friend here in Westamoor. If you try to break our deal, I will kill everyone you’ve ever dealt with here.” He kept his expression composed when she blanched, firmed his lips when the look in her eyes changed, dulled, and defeat crept onto her face. He stifled the regret that warred with self-disgust at forcing her to his will in this way.
Her lips curved, tinged with a sadness he wished he could remove. “Somehow, I didn’t expect anything less,” she murmured.
Pain speared him, and he straightened his shoulders in an effort to ward it off. “Where do we start?”
She pursed her lips and it was so obvious she hated the whole situation. “The institute. We might find something in the library.” She held up the jacket in her hand and indicated the blood splatter on her shirt. “I have to change first.”
He nodded. “I’ll wait.”
* * *
Natalie unlocked her office door and stepped inside, switching on the lights as she did so. Lucien followed close behind. She pushed her spectacles up on her nose into a more comfortable position. She’d almost forgotten to wear them. Shrugging out of her coat, she draped it over the coat hook next to the door, then crossed over to her bookshelves and started scanning the titles. She made sure to keep her gloves on.
Lucien frowned and jerked his chin in the direction of her hands. “Are you still cold?”
“Nope, just like wearing gloves, especially when I’m handling the books.” She kept her tone clipped, trying to ward off any more questions about the gloves.
Lucien came to stand by her side, gazing up at the wall of books. “I see some thing
s never change,” he murmured, a slight curve to his lips. “You always loved to read.”
She faltered at his warm tone, the indulgence of it, then continued to scan.
“Do you remember all those hours you used to make me read to you?” he asked, folding his arms and leaning a shoulder against the shelving to look at her. “One more,” he said in a soft, singsong voice. “Always one more. One more page, one more chapter, one more story.”
She steeled herself against the sweet memories he evoked. “Save it, Lucien. I agreed to help you. We don’t have to pretend to be friends.”
Lucien kept his gaze on her. “I always thought we were more than friends,” he said quietly.
Her fingers paused on a volume of Celtic mythology. She’d thought so, too, but then he’d pulled that stunt on her front path. No friend would do that to another.
“What about wolfsbane? Did you think to try that to neutralize the toxin?” She changed the subject in an effort to distract both of them.
“Yes. It had no effect.”
“Hmm. What about...silver nitrate? No, wait. That wouldn’t work.” Silver was toxic to werewolves, but it was also toxic to vampires. It might work on a human, but that particular remedy would probably kill a vampire.
She hesitated. “What about...null blood?”
“Too risky. It could possibly work on the lycan toxin, but it would also work on her vampiric biochemistry.”
Meaning if it nullified the werewolf’s toxin, it would also destroy anything vampiric in Vivianne. “She could wake up human...?” she suggested.
“Or maybe not wake up at all,” Lucien pointed out. Natalie grimaced. He had a point.
“Oooh, I didn’t realize we had a visitor,” a male voice said from the doorway.
Natalie glanced over her shoulder, then glanced quickly back to the books. Rupert had arrived. He materialized through the door, his white hair a little scruffy, wearing his customary attire of cream-colored shirt, red bow tie and a brown cardigan. He used the hem of his shirt to rub his spectacles clean, then placed them back on his face and blinked at Lucien.
She’d been expecting him. The institute’s resident ghost ambled further into her office and sat in one of the twin chairs opposite her desk. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“Look, if you want to find a vampire cure for a werewolf’s bite, then let’s just focus on that, shall we?” Her words were as much for Rupert’s benefit as Lucien’s. She pulled down a range of books on European history, pre-Troubles period, and turned toward her desk.
Rupert’s eyebrows rose. “Did I hear you right? A werewolf cure?”
She eyed her friend briefly as she handed Lucien one of the volumes. “Let’s go back to the very beginning.” She went to sit at her desk and opened one of the books. “The first rumors of vampiric behavior date back to the Ottoman Empire,” she said. “Let’s look through these chronicles...”
Lucien flicked open a random page and read briefly. His eyebrow rose. “Transylvania? Isn’t that a little kitsch? Besides, isn’t that now Melania? That’s been werewolf territory for nearly seven hundred years...”
“Hasn’t he ever read Dracula?” Rupert asked in surprise.
Natalie’s lips curved. “Yes,” she said to her ghostly companion. She’d made Lucien read it to her when she was fourteen. She realized Lucien was looking at her in exasperation.
“Well, if it’s just kitsch, why am I reading it?” he asked.
Natalie blinked, realizing her blunder, then turned as though she’d been speaking to him, after all. “As I mentioned the other day, folklore is largely based on fact. I believe Transylvania is the birthplace of vampirism.”
Lucien shot her a skeptical look and she folded her arms and leaned forward to rest them on her desk. “Think about it. Whenever you have a saturation of a certain breed, it’s either a stronghold or—”
He finished her sentence. “They moved in and took it over.”
She nodded. “Exactly. If Melania is a werewolf stronghold now, it’s either always been that way or they overran the vampires. Look up any reference to Vlad—”
“Dracula?”
“Uh, he’s not a total lost cause.” Rupert sighed and pulled a pipe out of the breast pocket of his buttoned-up shirt. Natalie ignored him.
“Vlad Dracul was the father. We’re looking at his son, Vlad the Third. Vlad the Impaler,” she clarified.
Lucien frowned. “Why do you think Vlad the Impaler might be of help?” He moved to sit on the chair that Rupert was occupying.
“Wait!” She held up a hand and Lucien froze. “Uh, that one’s more comfortable,” she finished lamely, pointing to the empty seat. “The other one has a spring in it.”
“Don’t think I’ve ever been referred to as ‘the one with the spring in it’ before,” Rupert muttered.
Natalie sighed, trying to keep track of the conversation she was having with Lucien. “I think we start with Vlad to search for a heretofore unknown cure for a werewolf bite, especially since he was the first person who understood how to kill the vampires.”
“I thought he was rumored to be one?”
Natalie cupped her hand on her chin, her brows dipping. “I don’t subscribe to that point of view. He may have been a human trying to rid his area of vampires.”
Lucien shook her dry look. “By impaling them?”
“With wooden stakes,” she pointed out.
Lucien’s eyebrows rose. He nodded briefly, as though acceding to her point, and started to read the book in his hands.
“You’re not serious, are you?” Rupert asked as he removed a pouch of tobacco from his cardigan pocket. “A cure for lycanthropulism? My, you do find the most interesting projects. I thought the Cauldron of Daghdha was an ambitious undertaking, but you’ve outdone yourself with this one. Lycanthropulism...” Rupert started to chuckle as he packed the tobacco into his pipe.
“I’ll find it,” Natalie said in response, looking up at her colleague, and turned the page she’d been reading. The Cauldron of Daghdha was an ancient Celtic artifact rumored to leave nobody unsatisfied. At least that project had benefits for everyone. She’d found some maps of ancient Ireland and felt certain she was on the right trail for that.
Lucien looked up in surprise, then smiled. “We’ll find it,” he corrected. “We’re partners now.”
Her cheeks bloomed with embarrassment at being caught talking to the ghost, then realized how he’d interpreted her words.
“Oh, uh—”
Natalie placed her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. Ghosts. “That’s not what was meant,” she said, intending the words for Rupert, but glaring at Lucien. “We are not partners. You are blackmailing me to help you find this make-believe cure so that Ned and anyone else I know stays alive.”
“Oooh,” Rupert said, twisting in his seat to stare at Lucien.
“Which goes to prove my point that vampires can’t be trusted,” she said, glaring at the handsome man who sat across from her, staring at her warily.
“I can’t be trusted?” Lucien leaned forward in his seat. “You’re the one whose been playing dead all these years, Natalie,” he argued.
“Because a vampire killed me,” she shot back.
“Not just a vampire, though, right?” Lucien tilted his head and stared at her expectantly.
“Okay, fine. A vampire and a werewolf. Happy? For the record, I don’t trust either breed,” she muttered. She definitely didn’t trust Lucien, either.
She eyed him now. “The sooner we prove or disprove this cure, the sooner you can be on your way.”
Lucien leaned back in the seat and stared at her for a moment, then his nose twitched and he frowned. “Do you smell something?”
She glared at Rupert, who smiled back
at her as he chuffed on his pipe. “Let’s just read,” she said tiredly and turned her attention back to her book.
* * *
Lucien glanced over at Natalie. Her chin was cupped in her hand, her eyes blinking ever so slowly, her face pale and drawn. They’d been at this for hours. Natalie had made several trips to the library, and there was still a book trolley with a large number of tomes to sift through. They’d spoken occasionally, when one or the other had found something of potential interest, but had mostly read in silence. It hadn’t felt awkward, though. No, it had been eerily easy to slide back into that comfortable routine of reading alongside Natalie.
She’d changed a little, despite his attempt to cling to the past memories. Every now and then she’d shaken her head or nodded, as though having a silent conversation with herself. It was cute. Now, though, she’d been silent for the last half hour and looked to be fighting a losing battle against sleep. He wondered if she realized she’d been reading for the last two hours with her glasses perched on top of her head.
He closed the book with a snap and set it down on the pile that now reached the same height as the armrest of the chair he was sitting on.
“Come on, we need a break,” he said.
Natalie jerked upright, as though startled awake. She frowned. “No, we can keep—” she paused to yawn “—going.”
He glanced at the window behind her desk. The night sky was beginning to lighten. “I can’t. I have to go before the sun rises, and you need sleep.”
She yawned again then shrugged. “You’re right. I guess I’m not used to pulling one of these study all-nighters, anymore. I’m beginning to skim a lot of this stuff, and I might miss something.”
Or she might face-plant on her desk as she passed out from exhaustion. Lucien refrained from commenting.
“Okay, well...” She rose and walked around her desk as he stood from his chair. “I guess you go to whatever dark place you’ve found for yourself, and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow night.”
He remained where he stood and she had to halt in front of him to prevent herself from walking right into him. He surveyed her carefully. She looked weary. He realized this was her second straight night of little to no sleep, thanks to him. Guilt flared as she weaved a little on her feet, and he grasped her shoulders.
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