by Kat Ross
“So you felt you owed him a debt?”
“No. D’Ange did it for his own reasons, just as I have mine. Haiti is free now, but others still suffer. It is my Christian duty to help them. And the Order shares my enemies.”
Miguel Salvado nodded in agreement. “My tale is less dramatic, but I too despise the colonialists. And I’m tired of serving corrupt men.” He fingered the cross around his neck. “D’Ange is a true servant of God. I am content to follow him.”
Jean-Michel leaned forward. “He only joined because I did,” he whispered to Anne. “I tried to get rid of him, but he follows me like a lost puppy.”
Miguel made some retort and then the two of them were happily bickering again and the mood lightened.
“Don’t make me gag you with bonds of air,” Anne threatened.
“Could you really do that?” Miguel asked, sobering.
“Oh, yes.” She bit back a smile. “Take care you don’t offend me. I could snap my fingers and you’d both find yourself naked as jaybirds.”
The look on their faces was priceless.
“Well, gentlemen,” she said with a yawn. “I think I’ll go shopping. If you’ll excuse me?”
They shot to their feet as she stood. “Have a pleasant afternoon,” Miguel said faintly. Jean-Michel gave her a smart bow.
Anne made her way to the Saint-Hubert Royal Galleries. She bought a new pair of gloves, but the shops were closing by the time she started looking at dresses. Black it was again.
Gabriel was waiting in their room when she returned.
“How did your meeting go?” she asked, giving him a proper wifely kiss.
“Very well. They’re working on getting the guest list and details of the security arrangements, Bekker’s in particular.” He slipped his arms around her waist. “What did you do today?”
“Ate chocolate and played chess. Miguel found a good spot.”
“For chess?” he teased.
“For shooting at the king.”
“Yes, I saw him on the way in. He congratulated me on my marriage.”
“I told them a bit. Not everything, but they know what I am.”
“I’m glad you trust them.”
“I have to.” She paused. “But I think I would anyway.”
Gabriel smiled. “I still want to take you to the opera,” he said. “Tonight.”
Anne frowned. “Is it wise for you to go somewhere so public?”
“I paid for a private box.” Gabriel ran a thumb along her cheekbone. “This isn’t exactly the honeymoon I imagined, but we can still try to enjoy ourselves.”
Anne was touched. “I’d love to.”
He grinned. “But I do agree it might be best to change my appearance first. Would you cut my hair?” Gabriel glanced at a pair of scissors waiting on the dresser.
“How short do you want it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Short.”
Gabriel sat on a low stool. She laid a towel across his shoulders and began to snip. Sun-bleached locks drifted to the floor. The hair underneath was darker and stuck up like a brush. Anne smoothed it down with a dampened comb. It felt silky under her hands, like fur.
The bathroom had a small oval mirror above the sink. Gabriel went in and started fussing with the contents of a make-up box. When he emerged, she looked him over.
“Hmmm,” she said, stroking her chin. “Something’s different. I can’t quite place it….”
“My nose?”
“Ah, that’s it.”
He waggled his eyebrows. She had to admit the overall effect was convincing if one didn’t look too closely. The beard obscured his features and the nose…. Well, it was realistic enough.
“You look like a Shakespeare villain,” she said. “Can’t think which one though. What are we seeing tonight?”
“Carmen.”
“What’s it about?”
Gabriel stared at her. “You’ve never heard of Carmen?”
“Sorry. I don’t go to the opera very often.”
“It’s by Georges Bizet.” He put on a dark coat and ran his hands through his hair, rubbing the back of his head. “It feels so strange.”
“Sung in French then?”
“Yes. Carmen caused quite a stir when it debuted in Paris. Bizet broke all the old conventions with his wild gypsy heroine. I won’t spoil the end for you, but it’s bloody.”
“What time does it start?”
Gabriel laughed at the speculative gleam in her eye. “Soon, I’m afraid. The curtain goes up in less than half an hour.”
“Let me just get ready.”
Gabriel nodded, unbuckling the blade from his waist. “I’ll leave the sword with Julian. Meet me downstairs?”
Anne nodded. She brushed her hair and pinned it up, then donned her new gloves. When she opened the door, she heard soft voices in the stairwell below. She didn’t try to eavesdrop, but her hearing was acute and their words were impossible to miss.
“I don’t begrudge your happiness,” Julian said. “It just seems so quick.”
Gabriel sounded annoyed. “It’s not your business, brother.”
“It is if she’s here. After what happened, I can’t help—”
“Peace.” There was a hard edge of warning in his voice. “You’re very close to crossing a line you don’t ever want to cross with me.”
Julian was silent for a long moment. “Do as you will,” he growled, footsteps striding away.
Anne shut the door and went down the stairs. Gabriel looked troubled, but he turned with a smile when he saw her and offered his arm. “We should hurry,” he said. “Better to arrive after the rest are already in their seats, but I don’t want to miss the opening chorus.”
She decided to put Julian out of her mind and simply enjoy her husband’s company. They stepped into the cool evening together. “How does it begin?” she asked.
Gabriel brightened. He loved to tell stories. “In Seville, where a group of soldiers are standing watch at the foot of a bridge. There’s a cigarette factory on the square. The bell rings and the girls come off their shift and start bantering with the soldiers….”
Part III
“As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.”
―Georges Bizet
III.
Chapter 14
La Monnaie opera house, known as the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg by the city’s Flemish citizens, or more simply, De Munt, sat in the center of a large square. It resembled a Greek temple, with eight columns supporting a pediment carved with a bas-relief called the Harmony of Human Passions. They arrived a minute before curtain call and the twelve-hundred seat auditorium was already full.
Gabriel addressed the attendant in Dutch as he handed over the tickets, making some joke about how late they were that made the man laugh. The harsh syllables rolled easily off Gabriel’s tongue and Anne realized he had the kind of face that blended in almost anywhere in Europe. With his blonde hair, brown eyes and skin that could be either sun-dark or milky pale, he was a chameleon. Adding his fluency with languages, which rivaled Anne’s brother Alec, Gabriel passed for a local wherever he went.
They made their way upstairs to the box and sat down just as the house lights dimmed.
The set was just as he’d described. Anne had never been able to follow opera very well, but the plot was simple enough. A soldier named Don José is due to meet his childhood sweetheart. She comes looking for him at the guardhouse, but he’s not yet arrived for duty. She declines to wait and leaves. Then the sultry gypsy Carmen appears. Don José does his best to ignore her, but Carmen taunts him by tossing a flower at his feet to claim him as her lover.
Don José turns out to be a pathologically jealous type and the story goes downhill from there, though Gabriel had refused to reveal the ending.
Now he leaned over. “She will sing L'amour est un oiseau rebelle.” His hand rested on
Anne’s knee. The heat of it sank straight through her skirts. “Love is a rebel bird. Also known as La Habanera. One of the greatest arias ever written.”
Carmen strode across the stage, dress swishing. The actress was a mezzo soprano with long, dark hair and a lovely voice. The two-four rhythm of the song reminded Anne of a tango.
When will I love you?
Good Lord, I don't know,
Maybe never, maybe tomorrow...
But not today, that's for sure!
Gabriel never turned his head, but Anne felt the hem of her gown begin to creep up as his fingers bunched in the material. “When I met you at the opera house in Strasbourg, you ruined L’Orfeo for me,” he said softly.
A smile hovered at the corners of her lips. “How so?”
“I was plagued by impure thoughts. I tried praying, but it was useless.”
Carmen prowled among the soldiers, a red rose in her hair, flirting shamelessly. It was clear why Parisians had been shocked. Anne had never seen such a display on stage before. It was quite daring — and great fun to watch performed in front of such a stiff audience.
“You poor thing,” Anne whispered.
Gabriel’s palm found her knee. “But now that I’m your husband, I can do as I please.” One finger slid to the edge of her stocking, lightly tracing the strap of the garter. His innocent gaze was still fixed on the stage.
“Oh, really?”
“Unless you tell me to stop.”
Anne didn’t reply. Her breath caught.
“You’re not wearing knickers,” he murmured.
“I forget sometimes.”
“Very careless of you.”
She gripped the arm of the chair. The aria was gaining momentum, Carmen declaiming that love was a rebellious bird none could tame, a gypsy child who has never known the law. Don José smoked a cigarette at stage left. He pretended disdain, but he kept glancing over at Carmen’s antics.
Then Gabriel’s fingers tightened painfully around her thigh. Anne jumped and the pressure eased. He muttered a distracted apology. She followed his intent stare to the row of seats just before the orchestra, which were even more expensive than the boxes. A muscle worked in Gabriel’s jaw as he leaned to her ear. “Jorin Bekker is here,” he said in a low voice. “And Balthazar is with him.”
Anne could only see the backs of their heads, but she knew right away which one he meant. The tallest man in the row, with black hair and a lean, muscular build. She’d only seen him for a few seconds atop the tower at the Chateau de Saint-Évreux, but he’d left an impression. Balthazar had a dangerous, magnetic quality Anne had noticed even in the midst of her own misery at what she’d just done.
“We should leave,” she said firmly. “Before the intermission begins.”
Gabriel nodded but seemed unable to tear his eyes away. She searched for the heavyset, bearded profile of Constantin but didn’t see him. Jorin Bekker must be sitting near Balthazar, though she didn’t know what he looked like.
“Now, Gabriel.”
He let her take his hand and pull him from the box. The final notes of the aria were fading as they hurried down the stairs and through the lobby. One of the attendants looked at them with surprise.
“My wife is unwell,” Gabriel muttered, striding through the doors.
Anne didn’t relax until they’d passed the Saint Hubert shopping arcade, halfway back to the hotel. Gabriel seemed lost in dark thoughts. “That mercenary piece of merde,” he said at last.
“How do you know him?”
“He served Neblis, too. He was her lover.”
Anne could only imagine what sort of man he must be. Neblis was a daēva who had learned to call the spawn of the Dominion to her service. She’d used necromancers to control them. The wicked queen vanished centuries ago, yet many of her Antimagi still walked the earth.
But an alliance with Bekker didn’t fit with what Anne knew about Balthazar. He’d helped Alec and Vivienne at the Picatrix Club. Alec in particular seemed to like him.
Gabriel glanced at her. “Do you remember when I told you I was sold as a child?”
“Of course. I’d hardly forget it.”
“Well, he’s the one who bought me.” Gabriel gave a mirthless laugh. “He became my mentor, for lack of a better word.”
“Is he Duzakh?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, but I never trusted him. He’s hard to read. Unpredictable. Every time I think he’s changed, he does something self-serving. If he’s with Bekker it complicates things. Balthazar is … not a man to be trifled with.”
“Will you call it off?” she asked, trying not to get her hopes up.
“No.” Gabriel’s mouth tightened. “But I owe him double now.”
She could see the vengeful, obsessive, calculating thoughts spinning through his head plain as day.
Gabriel said nothing more as they walked back to the hotel. Nor did Anne. But the moment the door to their room closed, she pulled the dress over her head and stood there in her stockings, a challenge in her eyes. Gabriel’s gaze darkened. Wherever he’d gone for the last twenty minutes, he was back now. He wordlessly stripped his clothes off, remembering the fake nose at the last moment. It left a trace of glue on his upper lip. He started to make a joke and Anne pushed him back on the bed.
“Wait—” he managed.
But Anne was already straddling him and he was ready for her. She knew the landscape of his body intimately, knew what he liked and how to push him hard, straight over the edge.
“Slow down,” Gabriel muttered. “Anne…. Nom de dieu, please….”
She wouldn’t. She rode him until he bucked under her, hands twisting in the sheets, jaw clenched against the moans in his throat. The walls of the hotel were cardboard thin. When Gabriel finally grew still, she slipped away. She felt his eyes on her back as she poured a glass of water from the pitcher.
“Anne?” He sounded tentative. “Come kiss me.”
She drained the glass and poured another. “In a minute.”
“You’re mad at me,” Gabriel said quietly.
“No, not you.”
“Then why do I feel like I was just punished?”
She turned and lifted an eyebrow.
“In the nicest of ways,” he amended hastily. “But still.”
“I don’t know.” And that was the truth. She did feel angry. Close to breaking something.
“Come here. Please.”
This time she relented. Gabriel settled her on the pillows, then crawled down to the bottom of the bed and took her foot, propping it on his chest. His thumb pressed into the arch. She couldn’t prevent a sigh of pleasure.
“Don’t shut me out,” he said. “It won’t work that way.”
“What won’t?” she murmured.
“Marriage,” he said placidly.
Anne barked a laugh. “We’re in trouble if you’re the mature one in this union.”
“See? You are mad.”
“It’s difficult when you’re rubbing my foot like that.”
“Then I won’t stop.”
He dug his thumbs into the pad of her big toe, not too hard but just right, and the tension started to bleed away. Anne stared up at the cracked ceiling.
“I know there will always be another,” she said at last. “I just don’t want to think past one at a time. Can we do that?”
“Yes. I will put Balthazar completely out of my mind.” Gabriel made a poof gesture with his free hand. “There, he’s gone.”
“That easy, eh?”
“What? I forgot whom we were speaking of.” He started massaging her calf with long, deep strokes along the muscle. “I’m sorry about tonight.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“We didn’t even finish La Habanera. It’s my favorite aria.”
She looked down at him. “Will you go to Brazil with me?”
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.
“Good.” She lay back. “Do you want to know why Brazil?”<
br />
“No.” And then he was crawling back up the bed. “Unless you want to tell me.”
His mouth was very close. “Later. Can I kiss you now?”
“Oui.”
Anne did. When she finally came up for breath, she gave him a stern look. “You know I could wrap you up in bonds of air and steal you away.”
He smiled against her lips. “I know.”
“Maybe I should make you my captive. Keep you in this bed forever.”
“I could think of worse things.”
Gabriel kissed her again, his body covering her with silky warmth, and this time it was slow and tender and neither of them cared who heard.
Chapter 15
Balthazar watched the performance with glassy eyes. He sat in the orchestra section, barely three feet from Jorin Bekker, but it might as well have been a mile.
The last few weeks had been an object lesson in humility. He’d started with high hopes but they faded as it became clear Bekker trusted him not a whit. Yes, he invited Balthazar to lunches and dinners and receptions — a mind-numbing parade of them — but his men subjected Balthazar to a painstaking search before each and every one. They were all minor functions with middling bureaucrats. Save for these brief occasions, Bekker was surrounded by his wolf pack at all times.
It had been the most tedious month of Balthazar’s long existence. He was coming to despise Brussels, and himself for being stupid enough to fall into the trap. Lucas had spent the time diligently monitoring Bekker’s two main properties. The townhouse in the city was just for show. Bekker only used it to Travel by gateway to his estate in the Ardennes, which appeared impregnable. Lucas had managed to get as close as the high wrought-iron fence. A cadre of armed guards watched it day and night. There was no way inside except by gateway and Bekker had not invited Balthazar to pay him a visit.