Shadowing the Beast

by Beyond the Page Publishing

  His eyes opened. Their gazes met. Awareness flowed between them, as if they both realized there was nothing left that needed saying. He lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her palm, a gesture somehow more intimate than the traditional kiss bestowed on the softer back of her knuckles. “We will not fail you, I promise.”

  “I know you won’t.”

  He rose immediately, fully awake and alert. “Go now. I’ll alert Alex and Claude. Remember, you’re to bring Reynard in through the patio so we can attack him there. We need the advantage of sunlight.”

  “But sunlight’s your enemy too.”

  “Not as much as it’s his. He’ll be in agony by the time he arrives here, and I doubt you could lure him back outdoors if you brought him in through the house. I’m sending Claude to watch you from a distance. He’ll signal Alex and me if things aren’t going according to our plan. Be careful, my darling. You deserve a long happy life, not the horrible death Reynard has planned for you.”

  A long happy life. Stefan’s words rang in Julie’s ears long after she and Noodles went out to set a trap for Reynard. A long life with Stefan?

  • • •

  He’d deal death in the daylight. Something he’d not done before, yet it appealed to his sense of drama since he’d gone to great pains to make his d’Argent pursuers think he was even more sun-sensitive than he actually was. Louis slathered his face and hands with sunscreen designed for infant humans. Digging into his luggage, he found a white long-sleeved shirt and light khaki pants he’d bought because they reflected the sun’s light. Once dressed, he donned a hat and dark glasses before venturing out of his hotel room.

  The overcast sky was a pleasant surprise. A good omen. The sun lay low, barely peeking from the horizon, looking almost as though it were rising slowly from the depths of Lake Michigan. His skin prickled from the light, but a brisk breeze off the water kept him from suffering excruciating pain. Julie would be walking that nasty little dog any minute now.

  There. She let herself out through her patio gate and took off toward Lincoln Park.

  Louis followed her, taking care at first in case one or more of the d’Argent pups had made himself invisible to try and trick him. They wouldn’t succeed. Louis could feel the presence of other vampires, particularly ones younger and less powerful than he. His senses on the alert, Louis approached Julie, moving slowly until he was certain she had no invisible guardian.

  As he always did in the hours before a kill, he focused on his victim. Unlike the others, this one had undoubtedly been warned and knew his intent. She’d be expecting him, and on some plane that fueled his passion. Three d’Argents guarded her, thought that together they could take him down. The stupid pups! They were so confident, they’d set up the victim to be Louis’s bait. They soon would learn the folly of their plan.

  Louis allowed himself the luxury of anticipating the kill, hearing the rush of Julie’s blood. He could almost smell her scent—her fear. His fangs itched for the sustenance of her blood, for the revenge he’d vowed against Alina and her miserable clansmen.

  He’d hoped she’d have taken that obnoxious dog of hers to walk in the shady park, but no. She chose to stroll along Lake Michigan instead, where the early morning sun was slowly roasting him despite all the precautions he’d taken. Adjusting his hat to shade his face as much as possible, Louis fixed his features to look benign.

  Time to overtake his victim. He walked faster. “Fine morning, isn’t it?” he asked once he reached Julie’s side.

  “Why, yes. It is.” Julie sounded cordial, but Louis sensed her apprehension. Her d’Argent lover had undoubtedly persuaded her that he, Louis, meant her great harm. “Could—could I offer you coffee? I feel bad that we haven’t been able to get together.”

  It was going to be even easier than Louis had hoped. As he’d gathered, the arrogant bastards indeed were using Julie as bait. They wouldn’t succeed, though. Louis was too smart not to catch on, too wily to walk blindly into what might mean his destruction. He knew what he’d face, felt confident he’d prevail. “I’d appreciate it. The hotel’s fare is not to my liking.”

  It seemed that every minute the sky grew brighter and his skin grew hotter. But Louis wouldn’t back off. He’d take Julie up on her offer, but being forewarned, he’d be ready. Ready to destroy the d’Argents as well as his twenty-first victim.

  Venom surged through his body, but he made no effort to stop it. It didn’t matter now that the whites of his eyes were turning red, or that he was sprouting a tail—actually, more a bump at the base of his spine than a real tail. Julie wouldn’t live long enough to notice, once he’d dispatched the d’Argent pups. “I believe your dog has finished its business,” Louis said. His strength would be short-lived if he had to remain out in the sun much longer.

  Julie’s shudder at his touch convinced Louis he was right. The d’Argents would attack him the moment he set foot in her pleasant town house, where one of the arrogant pups had passed each day since coming here. “Come, I feel a real need for the refreshment you offered.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Here they come now,” Claude whispered from his vantage point atop the ivy-covered brick wall that surrounded the patio. “He knows we’re here.”

  Stefan fingered the rowan stake, checking its point for sharpness. Satisfied, he set it down on a round wrought iron table next to a razor-sharp cleaver he’d appropriated from Julie’s kitchen. Adrenaline surged through his body as he and Alex stood on either side of the spiked patio gate, waiting . . .

  Alex flexed his fists, obviously eager for the battle. Claude perched on the wall, hidden from view of the access path by heavy new spring foliage on a branch of a gnarled black walnut tree. Stefan raised his head, caught Julie’s scent, the fetid stench of Reynard. A cold, calculating rage—a predator’s rage—rose in him. He felt it reach out, join him to the others.

  In that moment they were at their darkest, their least human, blood being their only intent. Blood of one of their own kind. Of evil incarnate.

  “Go for his throat.” Baring his fangs, Alex stood poised to strike. The seldom-used hinges of the patio gate creaked. Stefan watched the gate inch its way open, saw Noodles leading the way. “Now!” he said as Julie pulled away from Reynard and raced for the kitchen door.

  Claude leapt from the wall, colliding with Reynard and bringing him down. Reynard rolled him over, sank his fangs deep in Claude’s neck. The flash of a dagger caught Stefan’s eye as Reynard’s free arm came up in time to fend off Alex’s impulsive lunge. Alex dodged away, came at Reynard again as Stefan joined the melee.

  He grasped Reynard’s shoulders, pried him off Claude. Alex moved in, dodging fangs filled with venom that could kill, coming in low, pummeling Reynard with vicious blows of his fists. Stefan took a glancing hit from Reynard’s dagger but managed to shove Claude out of harm’s way.

  No time to try to help Claude now, for it took all of his and Alex’s combined strength to grapple Reynard to the dewy ground. From the corner of his eye he saw Julie standing in the open doorway to the kitchen, her expression one of horror. “Get inside,” he shouted.

  She turned, but Noodles broke free. The little dog sank her teeth into Reynard’s leg, earned a violent kick. She yelped. “Noodles,” Julie yelled, scrambling forward into the fray.

  Stefan cursed as Reynard burst free and lunged for her, but Julie ducked under the arc of Alex’s leaping body as he vaulted over her and collided with Reynard, knocking the killer back into Stefan’s hold.

  He saw a flash of blade. Felt searing pain. Reynard’s dagger had hit bone. Stefan gripped his shoulder, saw Julie was still in harm’s way. “Damn it, Julie. Protect yourself. Do it now!” She ignored him, dragging Claude from the battlefield, her hand pressed against his deepest wound, Noodles anxiously dancing behind her.

  Stefan let go of his injured shoulder, grabbed and held on to Reynard. He’d die before letting the bastard get to Julie. He dodged the killer vampire’s lethal fan
gs while wrestling him for control of the dagger.

  “Hold him.” Alex raised the stake. “Reynard, you’re history.”

  Reynard flailed about. Stefan hung on. He couldn’t let go. Not now. Not when they were so close. “Hurry, damn it.”

  His aim sure, Alex lifted the stake high, brought it down in a vicious arc.

  Just as Stefan lost his hold on Reynard and rolled away, his shoulder in agony now.

  Alex’s stake vibrated, sunk deep into the earth where their prey had been seconds earlier. “Fuck.” Alex wrenched the stake from the ground, charged at Reynard again. “I’ve got you now, you murdering bastard,” he snarled, impaling the other vampire on the sharp point of the stake.

  Through his pain Stefan saw it wasn’t a lethal hit. Not for a vampire as old and powerful as Reynard. “We’ve got to stake him again.” Stefan struggled to his knees. Had to get a hold on the killer again. Had to take him down for good. There. Got him. “Now, Alex. Hurry, do it.”

  Alex charged. With lightning speed, Reynard sank his fangs into Stefan’s arm, hard enough to break his grip. The bastard spun away as though he didn’t even feel the stake buried in his chest, close to his heart if not actually in it. Stefan struggled to stand but fell backward into a growing pool of blood. His own.

  Though he, too, had taken several cuts from the killer’s dagger, Alex launched himself at Reynard, but his hands slipped on the other vampire’s own blood. Reynard let out a piercing scream, a snarl that rang in Stefan’s ears. Defeated for the moment, the Fox limped away, struggling to get airborne and wobbling over the carnage.

  The sound that came from Reynard’s mouth was half laugh, half sob. An inhuman, evil sound that turned Stefan cold. “We’ve fought this one to a draw. I’ll encounter you again. If you survive your wounds.” Reynard’s parting words rang in Stefan’s ears before he sank into blessed oblivion.

  • • •

  Claude lay still as death on a cot in the living room, Alex at his side. Stefan slept now, his wounds stitched and cleaned, apparently healing quickly except for the venom they hadn’t been able to extract completely from the vampire bite on his arm. Julie sat beside him on her bed in the darkened room, her heart still pounding now, hours after the fight had ended.

  She’d never seen Stefan look so vulnerable. As though he needed the reassurance of her touch, he reached out, laid his uninjured arm along the curve of her hip. “Julie.” Her name sounded as if wrenched from somewhere in his subconscious.

  “I’m here, my love.” She’d always be there for him, if only he’d allow it.

  He shifted. A slight smile curved the corners of his mouth, as though he understood through the haze that surrounded his mind.

  “Claude.” He said it clearly, though his eyes remained closed.

  “Alex is caring for him.”

  “How . . . have to know. Have to . . .”

  “Hush. I’ll go, find out how he fares. You know, you told me you vampires were all but invincible.” Julie reached up and stroked Stefan’s brow, finding him warmer than usual—feverish from Reynard’s venom, Alex had said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Claude didn’t look invincible at all. He looked nearly dead, his face chalky from loss of blood. Julie met Alex’s solemn gaze. “How is he?”

  Alex put a finger to his lips. When he got up and went into the kitchen, Julie followed. Alex held a chair for her. “Sit. You look as though you could use some rest.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alex sat across from her. He looked battered too, though he’d insisted his wounds were superficial. “I didn’t want to talk about Claude in there. When Reynard nearly killed me a few months ago, my caregivers spoke about my chances in my presence, certain I couldn’t hear. I could. It upset me mightily that I couldn’t respond and tell them they were dead wrong when they kept saying I was about to die.”

  “I understand. Stefan is asking about Claude. I told him I’d find out—”

  “Reynard damn near destroyed him. Came close to destroying us all.” He paused, met Julie’s gaze, smiled. “And to think we all figured we could take him. Damn, but he has the strength of ten ordinary vampires.”

  Guilt slammed into Julie. “If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened. Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She reached across the table, used a napkin to wipe away a drop of fresh blood from Alex’s forearm.

  “It’s not your fault at all. Our cousin, the queen, dispatched vampire hunters across the globe long before the Fox singled you out as a victim. She charged us with protecting people like you and destroying Reynard. So far, we’ve racked up a pathetic record. So far, you’re the only one of his victims to survive, and the bastard—pardon my language—still lives. We’d best go report to Stefan.”

  “All right.”

  In the bedroom, Alex looked down at Stefan’s deathly pale body, his expression hard and resolute. “That murderer will not survive for long. I swear it. I will chase Reynard to the ends of the earth, if need be, make him sorry he did this.”

  Stefan stirred, and his eyelids fluttered as though opening them was almost too much of a task. “Alex. Let Reynard go for now. We’ve found him before, we can find him again. He’s broken his pattern. He might come back for Julie. Hot. I’m so damn hot.” He slumped against the pillows they’d stuffed behind his head and injured shoulder.

  If only Julie could do something. Anything. Anything to help her vampire lover heal from the grievous wounds Reynard had inflicted. She itched to attack that sick, demented killer, hurt him as he’d hurt her lover. And Claude. Those nameless, faceless women.

  But she couldn’t. All she could do now was love Stefan, tend his wounds and pray he’d heal.

  “Is there anything I can do to help him?” she asked Alex.

  “He’ll sleep for hours, and when he wakes he’ll need to feed. You might call Gus at the bar we went to last night and ask him to send over a few pints of O negative.”

  “All right.”

  “Claude will need some too—if he comes to, that is.” Alex frowned. “Of course he’ll come around. He’ll survive. He has to. It would destroy Marisa to lose him now, especially since she’s carrying his child.”

  Claude’s mate was expecting? A vampire pregnancy must not be as difficult to achieve as Stefan thought. Julie looked through the open door toward Claude, who hadn’t made a sound since she and Alex left him. They’d made him as comfortable as they could, cleansed his wounds as they’d done for Stefan. Julie knew how it would tear her apart to lose Stefan. She couldn’t imagine Claude’s young bride surviving without him in an unfamiliar world, bringing up a vampire child alone. “Isn’t there any more we can do? Are you certain a doctor can’t help them?”

  “No. All we can do is wait. And see that they both get as much blood as they can tolerate.”

  Julie glanced at Stefan. “I’d gladly give him my blood.”

  Alex undoubtedly knew of Stefan’s determination not to turn a mortal lover—but surely now, when Stefan lay wounded and needed blood . . . Julie reached out and stroked his fevered brow. Alex stilled her hand, held it between his own scarred, bloody palms. “He won’t turn you. Has he told you why?”

  “He told me that long ago he tried to turn a lover, and she died. He’s said nothing else about her, not what she meant to him or why it haunts him so after all this time.”

  When Alex stroked her palm with his thumb, he reminded her of Stefan. They shared the ability to project their emotions with a touch, even a frankly assessing gaze of nearly identical, striking green eyes. “It’s not up to me to tell the tale.”

  Julie focused on his face, his expressive eyes. “I know her name was Tina and that Stefan feels it’s his fault that she died. Fill in the blanks for me. Please.”

  “All I know is hearsay, for when it happened, I was a child—still very much tied to my mother’s side.” Alex looked at Stefan, as if silently getting his permission to go on. “Stefan was younger than I am now, not even two hundre
d fifty years old at the time.

  “Napoleon had returned from exile in Elba and led the French Army to a resounding defeat at Waterloo. Louis the Eighteenth held the throne. The year was 1815, and Stefan had led a cavalry division against the Duke of Wellington. Many soldiers died in the battle, and more were gravely wounded.

  “After the battle ended, Stefan returned an injured captain to his home in the Beaujolais district and accepted the hospitality of the family, whose greatest asset was said to be Christina, the captain’s lovely daughter. Stefan fell under her spell, seduced her and fell deeply enough in love to pledge himself to her, even knowing he’d outlive her by centuries. Her father refused Stefan’s proposal, having made what he considered a more profitable match for her.

  “Convinced that the honorable thing was to leave and nurse his wounded heart, Stefan bade his sweetheart farewell. But she followed him, begged him to turn her so she wouldn’t be forced to marry the man her father had chosen. Stefan gave in, in spite of his youth and the fact he’d never turned a mortal—never even witnessed it being done—and took her to his castle on the coast of Normandy.”

  Julie looked at Stefan, prayed silently for his survival, his return to vibrant health and vitality. “So they married?”

  “No. At least I never heard that they did. The way the story goes, Stefan took her to his bedroom, made love to her, and . . .”

  “Go on. Please.”

  “At the moment of her climax, he bit her throat and lost control in the heat of passion, draining her blood and her life. The next morning he wakened from a sated slumber to find her lying beside him, not turned but killed. Cold and dead beyond redemption.”

  Julie shuddered. It was a heavy burden of guilt she must peel away if she was to gain what she wanted most. She looked at Stefan’s pale face, imagined that once he’d been as carefree as Alex. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth must have been evidence of bottled-up pain, not age as she’d first thought.