by Julie Plec
“Thank you,” she said, straightening her skirt.
Marguerite’s thin shoulders rose and fell in a huge sigh. “Well, I suppose if you were going to kill me you already would have. It seems you’re telling the truth.”
It was youthful recklessness at its finest, risking her neck—literally—to find out if the vampire at her window was also a liar.
“I lie when it suits me,” Rebekah admitted, “but tonight I have no reason. The morts-vivants are dangerous, and your mother is out of control. And I think she’s done something to a—a friend of mine. My sister-in-law, actually, except I don’t think it’s really her.” She knew she was rambling, but so much had happened in the last few weeks that it was becoming difficult to avoid. “Look, Marguerite, I can’t offer you proof or an unassailable reason you should trust me. So don’t consider me at all. Think about what you know about your mother, and what you’ve seen and heard here recently. I suspect you already know things I could never convince you of, no matter how hard I tried.”
Marguerite twisted her long hands together, glancing at the window as if half-expecting to see more vampires waiting outside. “My mother doesn’t tell me about things like the morts-vivants or their plans for them. Apparently, she doesn’t tell me much of anything. But I do know where she does her spell-work, and I guess I could find out for myself.”
“We could really use your help,” Rebekah pressed, stepping forward. Marguerite took a simultaneous step backward, and Rebekah clasped her hands behind her back and tried to look as unthreatening as possible. “And your help could go a long way toward righting the wrongs your people have committed—to redeeming your kind, the way your grandmother always hoped to do. I’ll keep you safe from whatever comes next. I promise you that.”
Marguerite’s spine straightened a little, and suddenly she looked more willowy than awkward. Rebekah could see the woman she might become if she could break free of the poisonous influence of her mother. “I know you’re not here because you want to help us,” she replied, with less softness in her voice than had been there before. “But I also believe you’re telling the truth.”
“And to expose all truths, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to save Lily,” Rebekah admitted. She knew it would be better to lie, to tell the girl that her family would come through this whole and happy, but she couldn’t do it. It wasn’t true, and it wasn’t fair. If Klaus managed to break the link between himself and Lily Leroux, her life would be over. Marguerite was taking a huge risk by trusting a Mikaelson, and Rebekah wanted to deserve that trust.
Marguerite brushed her hair back and took another deep breath. “I understand that.” She glanced at the window again, where the first traces of dawn were starting to turn the sky pink. “My mother will be back soon,” she warned. “She never sleeps anymore, and she’ll spend the day working. I’ll find out what I can today, but you can’t be here until she leaves again. Come back this afternoon. She rides out with the morts-vivants nearly every night now, and I’ll be able to show you whatever you want then.”
“Thank you,” Rebekah told her sincerely. The warmth she felt toward the girl was so intense that it was almost unfamiliar, but Rebekah knew it had served her well. A spy was worth more than a hostage any day. “I know this must be confusing, but you’re doing the right thing.”
“It’s nothing,” Marguerite mumbled, suddenly becoming a teenager again, letting her auburn hair fall across her face to hide the emotions on it. “You’re right that my mother has lost sight of what that is. She’s in over her head, and she’s trying to pull the entire clan down after her. I hope I can save her, but at the very least I have to save the rest of us.”
“You’re a good girl,” Rebekah assured her, brushing the hair back. Marguerite had nothing to be ashamed of. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks, little witch. I’ll be back this afternoon, and we’ll find a way to end this nightmare together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE SUN WAS still too newly risen for its rays to reach Elijah’s prison, but he could see the sky lightening above him and knew morning had come. As if on cue, he heard the grating sound of the iron cover being removed from his pit, and one grinning werewolf’s face after another came into view.
“I thought your leader intended to keep me down here until moonrise,” he reminded them as he climbed the ladder they let down. He had known William wouldn’t be able to wait that long. His kind wasn’t known for patience. “It would be wiser.”
“Shut your mouth, vampire,” an older werewolf muttered, shoving him back toward the clearing.
William was already there, dressed like a common human hunter in breeches and a long tunic that seemed to blend into the switchgrass. But his face set him apart, grim and hardened around the blue flares of his eyes.
“Last night we heard your proposal,” the werewolf leader told both Elijah and the assembled Pack. “Today you will hear the crimes for which you have yet to answer.”
Killing his father must figure prominently on that list, but there were plenty of other items to choose from. “I know my crimes,” Elijah told him, keeping his voice low enough that he might have been speaking to the other man alone. “They are numerous and unforgivable.”
William raised an eyebrow, an expression of skepticism that somehow made him look even more menacing. Birds sang in the trees around them, greeting the new day, unaware of the standoff on the ground. “In that case, I think we can skip right over the trial and go straight to the sentence.”
“You intend to try to kill me?” Elijah asked politely. “I think we could all find better uses for our time.”
William stripped off his tunic. His torso was lean and strong, without an ounce of wasted space. His skin was crisscrossed with scars that looked like they had come from fangs and claws, and some still looked fresh. Elijah could feel the werewolves around him shifting eagerly, their taste for vampire blood mounting. “My father raised me on stories of you,” William went on, as if he hadn’t heard Elijah’s interruption. “We will be stronger under the light of the moon tonight, but so will you. As it is, only that ring on your middle finger keeps you from burning alive.”
Elijah glanced around at the crowd, ready for whichever of them would be the first to make a play for his daylight ring. The sun hadn’t cleared the tops of the trees, but it was high enough for him to feel it, to remember how it would sear his skin. The werewolves would die by scores if fighting broke out now, but Elijah found that he had no taste for that kind of carnage. There was already more than enough violence to go around.
“Let us agree that I deserve to die,” he suggested, raising his voice now to include the entire bloodthirsty crowd. “More deaths and more vengeance still won’t get you what you want.”
“Unless vengeance is what I want,” William argued, but Elijah could see an amused turn to his lips. He might have spent his entire life preparing to kill vampires, but William had other instincts beyond that. “What could you possibly offer me that’s better than that?”
“I will restore your lands,” Elijah announced, and the silence that fell around the ring of werewolves was so sudden that even the birds hushed, suddenly afraid of the change that had come over the clearing. “The old Werewolf Quarter, a seat in the council, and everything in this region that was held by the Navarros on the day before the hurricane struck in 1722. It would be the least I could do in recognition of your help against the new threat the witches have brought down on our city.”
It was a generous offer, but at least he had worded it to exclude the Mikaelsons’ mansion. Rebekah would never have let him hear the end of it if he had traded that away.
A whisper ran through the werewolves as they absorbed his words. Elijah could pick out anger and distrust in their muttering voices, but he could also hear hope. Even William looked intrigued, although far from enthusiastic. “An honorable
man wouldn’t have stolen it from us in the first place.”
“Your Pack was in no position to administer all that territory,” Elijah pointed out smoothly. “So perhaps we can say that my siblings and I have been holding it on your behalf for all these years? And in exchange you will fight beside us in the coming war.”
“Beside you?” the older werewolf who had escorted him from the pit scoffed, so outraged that he didn’t even wait for his leader to speak. “You want us to pad the front lines so your precious vampire army doesn’t have to get its hands bloody.”
That sounded like a good enough plan to Elijah, but that wouldn’t get him what he wanted. “We will work together to take out Lily Leroux,” he promised. “I ask only that none of your venom find its way into the veins of my people, and I can guarantee that mine will treat yours as equals.”
William’s eyes narrowed as he considered the proposal. “You’d say anything now, when you’re surrounded, with the sun rising. Why should I believe your word will be worth anything once night falls again?”
“You’re a leader, and you have led your Pack well,” he answered. “Although my loyalty is to my family first and my kind second, I also bear responsibility for the innocent citizens of New Orleans, and I take that seriously. They need protection, not another war. If we forge a true alliance, it will put an end to the backstabbing and suspicion.”
“Nobility from a vampire,” William mused, his broad shoulders relaxing slightly. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Do we have a deal, then?” Elijah stepped forward optimistically, one hand outstretched, but William held back.
“Not quite,” he countered. Dangerous yellow began to blossom in his eyes. “I’ve waited a long time to fight you, monster, and I’d hate to let a petty alliance get in the way of my life’s work. Let me make you a counter-offer: If I can best you in single combat, we win our lands back and you go on your way. If you can defeat me, I’ll bring my army to your war.”
Elijah smiled, shaking his own shoulders loose....If that’s what the werewolf wanted, Elijah wasn’t one to turn down a fight. “I accept your terms.”
William struck with stunning speed, and then was out of Elijah’s reach as soon as his first blow had hit home. The werewolves roared their approval, but it was short-lived. The Pack leader was fast and well-trained, but he couldn’t hold his own for long against an Original vampire.
Elijah feinted at his adversary’s head before landing a blow to his stomach. William was knocked off his feet, but he spun in the air and landed in a crouch, kicking off hard against the grass to drive his fist into Elijah’s throat.
Elijah saw stars for a moment, but his other senses kept reporting William’s movements back to him. He caught the werewolf’s arm and threw him, hearing a thud and the breath knocked out of William.
Part of him was tempted to hesitate, to give the wolf a chance to take some measure of the revenge his family was owed. But to earn the Pack’s respect Elijah needed to win. He spun and pounced, pinning the man to the ground and baring his fangs. He stopped less than an inch from his opponent’s throat, watching the yellow in his eyes fade back to clear blue.
“My father is turning in his grave,” William grunted, resisting for a moment and then allowing his shoulders to sag back against the dirt.
Elijah stood and offered his hand, and this time, William didn’t hesitate in taking it. The werewolves howled and cheered, every bit as enthusiastic as if their leader had won. In a way he had, Elijah supposed—he had faced off against a Mikaelson and lived to tell about it.
“Your father should be proud,” he assured him. “I don’t remember the last time a werewolf gave me so much trouble.” William was a superior fighter, and if he was anywhere near as capable a general, then Elijah was getting an even better ally than he had hoped for.
“No more, though.” William shrugged his tunic back on over his head. “We’ll save the real fighting for our enemies.” He raised his voice, shouting so loudly that the ground beneath their feet trembled. “Tonight, when the moon rises, we take the witches down.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KLAUS COULDN’T REMEMBER a longer night in the past thousand years. The heavy wooden door seemed to have become a permanent part of his back, and the stone floor had grown icy cold as the hours crept on. But worst of all was the screaming.
Vivianne had howled like a woman possessed for most of the night. When her voice broke, she changed to softer appeals. For a few horrible minutes, she had attempted to seduce him, promising all sorts of lurid things. He hadn’t imagined that she knew what all of those words meant, and it was a relief when she had returned to her hoarse screaming instead.
Klaus could still see Vivianne standing alone among the bodies she had desecrated in the courtyard and feel her inhuman strength as she fought to get away from him. He had been holding on to those memories all night, keeping himself strong against her pleas. But the more he listened, the surer he was that, at last, something had changed.
He stood up slowly, focusing on the sound. Vivianne’s voice sounded drained and hollow, resigned to the idea that he wasn’t really coming back for her. It was entirely different from her angry threats and unsettling promises. At last she was his Vivianne again. He could hear it, now that he had spent so many hours listening to the dark thing inside of her.
He slid the bars aside, then paused for a moment, fortifying himself against whatever was on the other side. But he still wasn’t entirely prepared for the ruin.
Vivianne had splintered casks and shattered bottles in her rage, and the earthen floor was covered in shards of wood and glass. The stink of the wine assaulted his nostrils, and beneath it lurked the scent of old blood, and of things that had been dead for far too long.
Vivianne herself didn’t look much better than the cellar she had torn apart. Her hair was matted with substances he didn’t want to think about, and her nightgown was stained with so much blood and wine that no one could have guessed its original color. She had torn at her own face and arms with her fingernails, and beneath the wounds she looked pale and gaunt.
“It’s all right,” she told him, then swayed dangerously, her eyes rolling upward.
He caught her just before she fell, lifting her away from the debris that littered the floor. “It will be,” he promised her, then kissed her on her forehead to show her that he meant it.
Klaus carried her up one set of stairs and then another before stripping off her ruined nightgown and setting her gratefully into a steaming bath. The villa’s well-trained servants must have noticed their absence or even heard the disturbances, because while the brazier was piled with additional buckets, Klaus had never caught so much as a glimpse of whomever had placed them there. The water turned red at once, and he refilled it again and again until it finally stayed clear. Vivianne watched him as if he were her only anchor in this world.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and he startled to hear the sound after they had spent so long in silence. “The hunger comes over me, and I try so hard to control it. I just couldn’t anymore, and the more I ate the more lost I felt. I think...” She frowned, trying to remember. “I think I tried to hurt you.”
“I’m not so easy to hurt,” he reminded her. Only his heart, which could still feel this devastating wound. “Vivianne, how long has this been happening to you?”
She bit her lip and looked away from him for the first time since he had opened the cellar door. “It wasn’t so bad at first.”
Her evasiveness was every bit as revealing as if she had answered straightforwardly. Something had been wrong with his wife since the night she had come back from the dead, and it had taken him nearly a month to see it—love truly was blind. Even Rebekah had caught on more quickly than he had.
He knelt down beside the bathtub, caressing her shoulders. Her skin was flus
hed pink from the heat of the water, and there wasn’t a trace of blood left on her. But he couldn’t erase the stains it had left no matter how he wished they could just forget the whole thing. “This isn’t your fault, my love,” he assured her.
“I think your witch cast another spell on me, in addition to the one that brought me back.” Vivianne sank her shoulders back against his hands and closed her eyes. Even now, after all she had been through, her mind kept working. “We already know that Lily took advantage of you in the deal you made, but there’s no reason to think we know everything she did. At every turn we discover some new trap she’s laid for us, and I think that whatever is happening to me is no exception.”
“I would have traded anything in exchange for you,” Klaus said, still bitter at the memory of how the witch had used him. He would do it all over again, but how long Lily did intended to make him pay?
“Lily knew that,” Vivianne reminded him. “But she was still afraid there would come a time when you realized she was demanding too much. She knew you had limits, even if you didn’t know it.”
“Not when it comes to you,” Klaus insisted, but he understood the point she was making. Lily had demanded Esther’s opal pendant so that Klaus couldn’t kill her when he learned what she was really up to. Why assume that she had finished with her schemes? Being linked to an immortal vampire could protect her from a whole lot of sins.
The bathwater sloshed as Vivianne pulled herself up onto her feet. Klaus reached for a thick, white towel and wrapped her in it, studying her face intently. There was no sign of anything but Vivianne, no mark of whatever curse haunted her.