by Nancy Morse
She followed his gaze to the bulge in his breeches and gave him a warning look to maintain his distance. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Not only have we lost the book, but there’s a hunter close by.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. In a bored tone, as if to placate her, he questioned, “How do you know this?”
“Christophe told me.”
He looked up, his eyes brightening with interest. “Go on.”
She swept her hair up off her shoulders and twisted it into a knot atop her head. “He knows the hunter.”
Nicholas felt his ire rising. How could she be so damnably casual about something like this? “Who is the bastard? Who is he?”
“It’s not a man. It’s a woman.”
“That’s preposterous,” he said. “The Sanctum is—”
“Yes, yes, I know. First born sons of first born sons,” she said as she secured her hair in place with the pins she rescued from the floor. “But perhaps she is the daughter of a Sanctum member. Or the sister. Or the wife. Or the mother.”
Perturbed, he said, “I get your point. We have to find out who she is.”
“I already know who she is.”
He rushed to her and circled her forearm with a powerful grip, spinning her around to face him. “Prudence, this is not the time for games. You must tell me all you know.”
She winced from the painful pressure of his fingers biting into her flesh. “Her name is Delphine. She was the servant of—” She bit her lip. “You’re not going to like it.”
“There’s a lot about life I don’t like.”
“She was Stede Bonham’s servant.”
The unexpected mention of the pirate’s name took him aback. When she had used him earlier to help her forget, he had known it was the pirate she wanted to purge from her system. But even after their lovemaking, looking at her now, with her eyes lowered and unable to meet his, and from the tone of her voice when she spoke that name, he knew he had failed in eradicating the pirate from her memory.
“He’s not what you say he is,” she said. “The black bag isn’t his.”
“I know,” he replied stiffly.
Her gaze burned into his. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“I tried to.”
“But you didn’t try hard enough.” She twisted her arm free and stalked away from him.
“What do you want from me?” he said sullenly. “Did you expect me to just hand you over to him? To stand by and watch you fall in love with someone who could never love you as much as I do?”
“You, you, you. Must everything be about you?”
“My life is about me.”
“And my life is about me,” she argued. “And I’ll do with it whatever I please. And if that means falling in love with a man who will never love me back, so be it.”
“When you were thrown from a window and lay dying in a puddle of water on a London street, it was I who gave you life. When you were nearly burnt to death in the distillery fire that your fiancé set, using you as bait to destroy me, it was I who saved you. At great peril to myself, I might add. Or perhaps you think it was pleasant for me to bear those hideous scars for as long as it took my flesh to rejuvenate.”
“All right,” she relented, “I owe you my life, and for that I thank you.”
“It’s not your thanks I want,” he said broodingly.
“Nicholas, please, you ask for too much.” She turned away in aguish, knowing she was hurting him.
He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest. Beneath his bare flesh she felt his heart thumping savagely against her back. His voice was a ragged breath at her ear.
“Perhaps I do ask for too much. But I have waited so long, so very long. I have watched people I loved come and go over the centuries. Each time it left me feeling bereft of hope. I had begun to think that I was destined to go through eternity alone, a pitiful, solitary creature not worthy of love. Until you. You revived my hope and gave me something to believe in. You’re wrong, Prudence, when you say it’s all about me. Since the day I met you my life has been all about you.”
Her head fell back against his chest and she closed her eyes to the rise and fall of his breath. Into her being she breathed the scent of him, the sweet ambrosia of the vampire and the lingering scent of the mortal man he had once been. Were they destined to go through eternity battling and brawling, hating and loving each other? He understood her as no one else did. Not even her dear papa understood the emotions that drove her—the all-consuming obsession with mortality and the undeniable lust that drew her again and again into the vampire’s arms. He was her lover, her savior, her creator. It would have been so much easier for them both if only she loved him.
“It is a mistake for you to love me,” she said weakly.
“Perhaps. But it’s a mistake worth making. There is one thing I would ask of you, though.”
She turned in his embrace and looked up into his astonishingly green eyes that had the power to mesmerize as they had the first time they made love when he had charmed her with his eyes into acquiescing to his will. She needed no mesmerizing now as she felt desire surging anew within and would have given in to anything he demanded just to experience all over again the exquisite torture of his possession “What would you have me do?”
“Spend the night with me.”
It was not what she expected.
He bent his head and nuzzled her neck, nipping at the tender flesh. His breath tickled her ear. “We could hunt together and then come back here. I want you to hear the piece I composed just for you. You can do your shopping in the morning.”
She thought back to the piece for solo violoncello he had written and played for her all those years ago which he called A Bridge of Light, named for the London Bridge on which they’d met and the light she brought into his life, or so he said. There was an expectant, almost pleading, look in his eyes as he waited for her answer.
After a long moment of silence passed, she said, “I’ll stay on one condition.”
He laughed, a low, melodious sound from deep in his throat. At this point he would have promised anything, even his soul, if he had one.
“There will be no more talk of love.”
He hid his disappointment behind a casual reply. “Very well.” He withdrew his arms and went to the armoire from which he withdrew a fresh shirt. “I’m thirsty,” he said as he slipped it over his head. “You’re looking a little more pallid than usual, so I’m guessing you haven’t fed today. What do you say we find ourselves a nice fat throat to drink from?” Taking her by the hand, he grasped his coat from the back of a chair and led her from the room.
In the parlor he swirled her cloak around her shoulders and fastened the clasp at her neck.
She drew his hands away and looked at him earnestly. “Remember what I said.”
“I give you my solemn vow that not a word about love will be spoken.” He smiled stealthily to himself. He didn’t need words to show her much he loved her.
***
As they strolled the narrow streets of New Orleans together, he imagined that others who saw them envied him for having such a beautiful woman on his arm, and that they whispered to themselves, “Look at that handsome couple. They must be very much in love.” Well, he scoffed ironically to himself, it was half-true.
At the entrance to one of the myriad dark alleys, he stopped and told her, “Wait here.”
He selected his victim, a nefarious chap concealed among the crepe myrtles waiting to pounce on unsuspecting passers-by and relieve them of their purses, subdued him and sank his fangs in deep. Returning to her, he smiled broadly and said, “I have a present for you.” He led her into the alley and presented her with the prize in much the same way a cat drops its catch of a bird or a mouse at the feet of its master.
He watched with almost paternal pride as she drank from the neat round puncture wounds, making sweet little noises of contentment wi
th each swallow. Dropping to his knees beside her, he lifted his victim’s limp wrist to his mouth, pierced the flesh, and drank. How quaint, he thought with devilish delight. We’re just like any other couple out for an evening of fine dining.
Infused with the elixir that kept their kind alive—if indeed alive was what they could be called—they returned to his cottage on the bayou and engaged in more heated lovemaking. Her boundless capacity for pleasure thrilled him. Although the mortal women he’d had over the centuries had often marveled at his prowess, their frail human bodies could not withstand more than one round of such fiercely punishing sex. It was not a bad way to die, he’d often thought with grim amusement. But Prudence, ah, what a gluttonous little creature she was. No mortal man could give her what she needed the way he could.
In all the centuries since his making he had used countless women to sate his unquenchable lust, but he had never loved one nor slept beside one as he did now. With his arm wound around her shoulders, hugging her possessively to his side, he watched her as she slept. He had no doubt that if he were to awaken her, she would submit to his overtures. But he did not awaken her. Instead, he rubbed his cheek against her hair. Relaxing his embrace, he sighed deeply, aching for heryet choosing not to do it, content just to hold her and dream about how it could be.
He fell into a deep, untroubled sleep. Sometime before dawn, when the sky was still dark and the birds were just beginning to stir in the treetops, he opened his eyes and reached for her, but she was gone, and with her went the dream.
He rose from the bed they had shared and stalked naked around the room, his steps making no sound against the floorboards despite his rising anger. Was this how it was destined to be with them, with her coming to him only when she had need of comfort or a favor, offering her body in return and nothing more? He damned her, but mostly he damned himself for wanting her and not knowing how to stop. A groan of anguish ripped from his throat, rising to a wail of grief that overflowed the small cottage and spilled out into the bayou. It rustled the moss hanging from the trees and skimmed across the still water, startling the creatures of the swamp with its dark and lonely sound.
At the window he pressed his cheek to the pane and looked out at nothing in particular. He had no idea how long he remained like that gazing into the darkness. A curtain descended over him shutting out all conscious thought and leaving only that which could be felt—the coolness of the glass, the wind like a long and sad lament sifting into the room through a splintered timber, the breaking of his heart. For the first time since his making he felt truly and literally dead.
By degrees he became aware of a brightness infiltrating the tangled swamp, of creatures scurrying through the muck and decay, of insects burrowing through the earth. The awareness coalesced into thought. His face was serious, his mouth set in a moody scowl. Ah, well, he thought as he turned from the window, what relationship doesn’t have its ups and downs?
He went to the parlor and removed his instrument from its velvet-lined case. Sitting naked behind it, he drew it to his breast and began to play the new sonata he had composed for her. But it was no use. He could not continue. Something nagged at him. Prudence, yes, with her plump breasts and her legs spread invitingly. But it was more than that. He dropped his forehead to the violoncello and groaned. What was it? And then he remembered.
It was the story Prudence told of the woman hunter. What was her name? Delphine, yes, that was it. The unease he’d felt listening to the story returned to him now. The Sanctum was a well-guarded secret among its members. It was not likely that a member would reveal the true mission to his wife or sister or mother or daughter. No indeed. The women were never to know that their husbands and brothers and sons were cold-blooded killers. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end, and every instinct he owned, every impulse he had honed to sharp perfection over the centuries, told him that if a hunter was close at hand, it was not Delphine.
Chapter 29
What was she thinking? To share a bed with him as if they were a happily wedded couple was sheer folly. What false hope must it have given him that they could romp through eternity together?
She had not asked for this existence. On the contrary, she had refused his dark gift when he offered it. Then there was the whole Lienore debacle when she’d been thrown from the window and lay dying in a puddle of stagnant water. All right, so she owed him her life, such as it was, but that was all she owed him. She certainly did not owe him her love, as if she had any control over that. And even if she could control on whom she lavished her love, it would not be that arrogant, selfish vampire.
She tried to imagine the way he must have been as a strapping mortal hunting wolves in his homeland, his handsome face dark and magnificent against the snowy Carpathians, those green eyes enchanting every girl in his village and capturing the heart of the girl who’d almost been his wife. She could picture his broad shoulders hauling firewood and snowflakes dusting his dark hair, and hear the sound of his laughter, infectious and carefree, before the demon came and turned him into a vengeful creature of the night.
Her heart twisted with wild emotion. What was it about him that she found so compelling? His pale beauty, of course. And his icy touch stoking the embers of her deepest desires. And the powerful surge of bloodlust that both fascinated and frightened her. Even the venom that often dripped from his words. And the casual arrogance. It was all those things that drew her. But it was the look of desolation and the aching vulnerability that kept her coming back to him again and again. He possessed the strength, power, and killer instincts of a vampire combined with the fragility of an all-too-human heart.
Oh, what was she going to do with him, she lamented as she made her way to the French market to do a little shopping before heading home. She circled the coops of clucking fowl, baskets of live crabs, and barrels of pugnacious crawfish, and climbed the rickety wooden steps to the next level where market people hawked everything from fish to trinkets. The sky was beginning to brighten above the river as she hurried away from the crowded stalls and chatter of people all talking at once. Her steps slowed when she reached a quieter part of town where, except for the heavy wagons that rumbled by, she could hear herself think. So wrapped up in thought was she that she did not notice the emerging sunlight glittering on the round turrets of the cathedral beyond the Place d’Armes or the people lounging in the doorways of their shops. She walked with her head down, past dingy alleys where women were hanging the morning laundry, her head filled with thoughts of last night, when a figure that came bustling out from between the trees, startling her.
“Marie!”
Once again she was taken by the comely face so perfectly shaped, the diminutive nose a striking contrast to the generous mouth, the eyebrows thick and flat across the almond shape of her eyes, the parted black hair streaming behind her ears reaching to her waist. Delicate fingers clutched the woolen shawl she wore to ward off the early-morning chill. An empty basket swung on her arm.
The girl stopped abruptly, her flawless cheeks flushed from running. “I am so sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I am in a hurry.”
“Are you afraid all the food will be bought up before you get to the market?” Pru chided.
“He will be very hungry. I must be back before he awakens.”
Flashing a smile to convey the warmth she did not feel, Pru said, “Then I will not keep you,” and stepped stiffly aside.
“Adieu,” Marie cried as she rushed past her. She stopped in the middle of the banquette and turned around and called out, “I forgot to tell you. If you are still looking for Delphine, she has found employment at a house on Rue Bourbon.”
Pru froze with shock. Her heart gave a savage thump in her chest. It felt as if a giant hand had reached deep down inside of her and squeezed hard, making every breath an agonizing distress. Her thoughts flew in one direction.
Papa!
***
The emerging sun refracted off the stone crypts and mausoleums of
the cemetery, lighting the narrow paths with pale morning light. Christophe stood before the crypt of his beloved. The inscription on the plaque read simply Sabine Sejour, décédé le 31 Decembre 1803, ágée de Quarante-cinq ans. Name, date of death, age. Nothing more to signify the life of the woman he had known and loved.
Followers had already scratched X’s into the white stone, some in black with charcoal, others in rusty red using crumbling brick from other tombs. One follower had left an offering of a strand of beads hanging from a nail in the hope of securing a favor from the dead voodoo queen. In death, her spirit was as powerful as she had been in life.
But none of them knew her as he had known her, as a happy, carefree girl, a kind, charitable, almost saintly person. Her beauty was unrivaled. No one who saw her once ever forgot her. No doubt, that was how he lost her to Jean Laveau, her first husband, and then again to the Creole landowner who took her upriver. With the loss of her only daughter, Evangeline, her life seemed to spiral into darkness. When she returned to New Orleans, she was much changed. It wasn’t just the voodoo. Something sinister had taken hold of her. She had become a stranger to him, and he, to her, was someone to despise. He had his suspicions, but it wasn’t until that night on the bayou when he witnessed the terrible transformation that he realized what evil was at work within his beloved. And now she was gone, and he was alone with his grief and his memories and his dreams of what might had been, while everything around him was changing at a rapid pace.
He cast a dispassionate glance at the tombs lining both sides of the path and sighed. With the recent purchase of Louisiana and impending statehood, the influx of all those Americans was likely to overcrowd the cemetery. He found those opportunity-seeking Americans pushy, pointlessly ambitious and greedy, but since they seemed to like the Faubourg St. Marie and had to be buried somewhere, why not bury them there?