by Julie Plec
“I thought you could use a bit of a diversion,” Luc suggested when the innkeeper fell to the floor. “Perhaps an inn full of them will take your mind off whatever troubles have driven you from New Orleans.”
Just then there was a noise on the staircase: a patron with the bad judgment to be an early riser. Rebekah smiled and positioned herself out of sight at the foot of the stairs, lying in wait as the man descended. She could have simply rushed at him, but Luc was right: After the night she had had, a little fun was in order. Playing with their food would be much more enjoyable, and Rebekah found herself growing excited at the thought of picking them off one by one.
By noon the body count included all of the guests of the inn, as well as the keeper’s husband, a milkman, and an exceptionally pretty young chambermaid. Rebekah felt nearly drunk on all of the blood she had consumed, and its heat radiated out from her skin.
She slipped out of her dusty traveling gown and then the shift she wore beneath it, letting her golden hair down for good measure. She could feel every tiny stirring in the currents of the air, she could hear earthworms pushing through the dirt two floors beneath her bare feet. She felt almost human again...only better.
The bedroom where they had ended their merry hunt was by far the best of the lot, although the windows were carefully shuttered against the view. But even in the semidarkness, Rebekah could feel the heat of the sun overhead as if its light were streaming out through her own skin. She raised her arms and Luc stepped into them, his lips crushing down on hers with even more passion than usual.
Rebekah helped him out of his clothes, not caring that his tunic landed on an ice-cold, bloodless corpse. They barely made it to the four-poster bed before they began to make love, their bodies moving together to the beat of their racing pulses. Luc invented a hundred new ways to worship her, reminding her over and over again of the urgency of his desire for her.
She had chosen well indeed. He was exactly the man to fill all of the idle hours between here and Mystic Falls.
CHAPTER THREE
ELIJAH WAS NOT usually a man to hide in darkness. No alleyway held any real threat to him—by his very nature he struck fear into others. He never needed to think about commonplace dangers, especially not in the city that he had called his own for so long. New Orleans had been his home for the better part of a century, and yet tonight he found himself hiding in its shadows, like any ordinary criminal.
Elijah had suspected for some time that Klaus was up to no good. The unconvincing reasons his brother had offered for moving out of the family mansion were proof on their own that he was hatching some troublesome plot. And then the vampires had appeared in the streets. Overnight there were more of them than the three Originals combined had made in the last twenty years, and there was only one plausible explanation: Klaus was raising an army and getting ready to make his play.
A man who had almost certainly been a dock worker the night before accosted a prostitute in the alley across from Elijah’s place of concealment. It would likely be her last night in her current job as well. By the next she would either be dead or a vampire herself.
Elijah waited until the pair was engaged to the point of distraction, then moved on. Vampires were unnaturally observant, with the heightened instincts of true predators. It wasn’t easy to pass near one unnoticed. But while Elijah had little enough experience with thinking like prey, he had recently learned a great deal about avoiding detection by other vampires.
He had been forced to practice that skill earlier that very night, slipping out of the mansion without being seen by Lisette. She seemed to be everywhere, waiting around every corner and behind every door like a lovely, flame-haired reproach. She had every right to her anger, but Elijah wasn’t prepared to bear the brunt of it every time he stepped out of his bedroom or study, and so he had taken to avoiding her.
Elijah had adored Lisette, and his time with her had restored more of his faith in the world than he had even realized he’d lost. But the Mikaelsons had enemies everywhere, including some exceptionally dangerous ones within their own family. Ultimately, their romance had simply been too public.
No matter how brash or capable she was, Lisette could never be more than a second-generation vampire. She was a hair slower and a shade weaker than Klaus and Rebekah, and worst of all she could be killed by a simple wooden stake through the heart.
She made Elijah vulnerable. Any danger to Lisette was a threat to him, and her own bravery, which bordered on recklessness, didn’t help matters. She refused to be careful, and she accused him of wanting to keep her locked up and away from the world.
She wasn’t wrong, but Elijah felt like his hands were tied. And when Klaus had threatened to decapitate her—for the hundredth time—over some minor dispute about using a werewolf-owned vendor at his precious whorehouse, Elijah had finally understood that he had no choice.
He knew Lisette would never forgive him for his weakness in ending their relationship, no matter how pure his intentions had been. It was easier to avoid her than to face the constant, silent accusation on her face, the reminder that he had given her up in order not to lose her.
Elijah had spotted her just outside the front door of the mansion that very night. At least she only put herself in his way—she had far too much pride to follow him. Elijah wondered what she would do if she happened to stumble across one of his meetings with Alejandra. Would knowledge of her free Lisette from her need to haunt him? Or would she decide to burn down his house—perhaps with him still inside it?
A pair of vampires burst out of a tavern in front of him. Momentarily caught almost out in the open, Elijah darted sideways into the slim cover of a doorway. That wouldn’t have been enough to keep a more experienced hunter’s eyes off him, but these two were newly made, and drunk on both blood and ale. Elijah held every muscle in his body perfectly still until they had passed, their raucous singing echoing along the cobblestoned street in both directions.
When the way was clear again, Elijah moved on, all of his senses alert, but his mind elsewhere. He had first seen Alejandra Vargas at the Southern Spot, of all places, when he had gone there to warn his brother that his raids on werewolf holdings weren’t as discreet as Klaus believed them to be. The wolves were starting to retaliate, disrupting the imports and exports Elijah had delegated to Klaus, and at this rate it wouldn’t be long before war broke out once again. Elijah had been prepared to bully Klaus back into line, but the sight of the brothel’s new fortune-teller had knocked the fight right out of his body.
He could tell at a glance that Alejandra was far too well-bred to make a living reading the palms of Klaus’s usual clientele. She was tall—nearly as tall as he was—with curling black hair and startling green eyes that seemed to pin him to the door the moment he walked through it. The purring accent Elijah heard when she spoke wouldn’t have been out of place in the court of King Fernando VII.
“Please sit,” she told him, an order masquerading as a request.
Elijah suspected that Klaus was in one of the back rooms with two or three of his more buxom employees. Ever since he’d won the brothel back for the fourth time, Klaus seemed dedicated to enjoying his ownership to the fullest. Elijah sat in the chair she indicated, and she settled herself across from him. Women moved in and out of the main room, mingling with customers and occasionally peeling off to more private areas. But Elijah only had eyes for Alejandra, and from the moment she took his hand in hers he would have sworn they were completely alone.
“You have interesting hands,” she informed him, brushing one fingertip along the lines that cut across his palm.
“I might say the same,” he replied. Her fingers were decorated with precious stones set into heavy, intricate rings. Each of them must have cost more than she could make in a year telling fortunes, and he wondered what had prompted her to seek out such work.
“Then perha
ps you should tell me my future,” she teased, catching his wrist more firmly and holding his palm toward the light of the nearest candle.
“You can’t read your own?” Elijah asked, twisting his hand so that he could study hers more closely. Her skin was warm and supple. “What kind of a gift is that?”
“I’m not so arrogant as to want to know my own future,” Alejandra said, “so whatever you see you may keep to yourself. But you, señor, have pride to spare. I can see it here”—she touched the base of his thumb, sending thrills up his entire arm—“and here as well.” Her fingernail rested in a second spot on his palm, and he stared at it, fascinated.
“You may have me confused with my brother,” Elijah murmured. “I simply prefer to be prepared for whatever might come my way.”
“Your brother?” Alejandra asked, adjusting the angle of his hand again. “You have more than just the one. Your family is closer-knit than most.”
Elijah chuckled at the understatement. “We can’t seem to escape one another,” he confirmed. Even Kol and Finn, staked by Klaus centuries before, had remained with their siblings. They slept deeply in coffins that the Originals had carried back and forth across the world. “Family is forever.”
Alejandra smiled as if he had reminded her of some private joke between them, as if they were old friends who each knew the other’s secrets. He wanted it to be true, to know her and be known, and he had to remind himself to be cautious. She was a stranger, however appealing she might be.
“I hope you like them, then,” she told him, her voice brimming with laughter. “This line here is your life line, and it is...exceptionally long.”
The words might have been innocent enough: Surely it was good for business to assure her customers of long and healthy lives. But there was no doubt in Elijah’s mind that she knew exactly what he really was, and that she had known it before he’d walked through the door.
He was thoroughly charmed, but forced himself to proceed cautiously. The last woman Elijah had found so intriguing had been used against him. Lisette was lost to him because he had pursued a life with her too eagerly.
There was a stirring in the darkness in front of him, and Elijah tensed, ready to fight. But it was Alejandra who stepped out into the starlight, her tall body swathed in a hooded black cloak. She had kept up her work at the Southern Spot to avoid raising Klaus’s suspicions, and she smelled of smoke, whiskey, and lust.
Beneath the hood he could just make out her sharp, strong chin, her high forehead, and the midnight curls of her hair. Elijah longed to push the hood back and kiss her right there, but he could hear more than one set of footsteps nearby, and he couldn’t risk being caught with her in the open.
He wrapped an arm around her instead, guiding her wordlessly toward the house he had prepared for their rendezvous. The previous occupant had been a politician who leaned a bit too far toward the werewolves’ interests for Elijah’s taste, so his death had served a variety of purposes all at once. “Here,” he said, opening the door and then stepping back to let Alejandra enter first.
He caught her in the hallway, spinning her back into his arms before the door had fully closed behind him and kissing her deep, red lips.
Copyright © 2015 by Alloy Entertainment
“The show was dark, it was twisted, and it was ridiculously delicious.”
—Entertainment Weekly on The Originals TV series
If you loved The Originals: The Loss, be sure to catch the rest of this compelling series of prequels to the hit TV show.
The Originals: The Rise
The Originals: The Resurrection (June 2015)
Available wherever ebooks are sold.
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Other ways to keep in touch:
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com
About the Author
Julie Plec skillfully juggles work in film and television as both a producer and a writer. She is the co-creator and executive producer of The Vampire Diaries and the creator of The Vampire Diaries spin-off, The Originals, which tells the story of history’s first vampire family.
Plec got her start as a television writer on the ABC Family series Kyle XY, which she also produced for its three-year run. She also collaborated with Greg Berlanti and Phil Klemmer on the CW drama The Tomorrow People, the story of a small group of people gifted with extraordinary paranormal abilities.
Julie wrote a screenplay adaptation of The Tiger’s Curse, which has Ineffable Pictures and Lotus Entertainment attached to produce, with Shekhar Kapur directing. She will also produce the feature @emma with Darko Entertainment. Past feature production credits include Scream 2 and Scream 3, Greg Berlanti’s Broken Hearts Club, Wes Craven’s Cursed, and The Breed.
ISBN-13: 9781460349229
The Originals: The Loss
An HQN Books novel/April 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Alloy Entertainment
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com