“I hope you won’t think me rash,” the woman said, smiling. Her voice was deep and husky… sensual. She leaned back so that the folds of her robe revealed a subtle curve of breast. Her heart pulsed brazenly, just beneath the surface.
Montrovant didn’t speak immediately. He drank in her lithe, well-muscled frame, clearly visible despite the loose-fitting garments. She had a playful grin splashed across her face and her eyes made promises he doubted any mortal could keep.
“Beautiful,” he said, whispering the word softly so that it would not carry. He wanted her to hear him, but he did not want the others in the room to be aware. Too many of them had already proven more than they seemed. He had no intention of giving them a reason to pay attention to him.
He shifted his gaze quickly about the room. None of the other patrons seemed aware that she had joined him. Either that or they were too caught up in their own concerns to worry over it. Montrovant returned his attention to his new companion.
“Do you make a habit of joining strangers at their table?”
“I make a habit of doing what pleases me,” she replied so quickly that it nearly startled him.
“That is an interesting habit,” he replied at last. “It will not prolong your life, I’m afraid, but it will make it so very much more enjoyable.”
Smiling, the woman raised her glass, which he noticed for the first time was full of wine, just as his own. He picked his own glass up reflexively and raised it to meet hers above the table.
“To interesting times,” she said, taking a quick sip. Montrovant nodded, raising the glass to his own lips and letting the warm wine rest against the surface of his lips before setting it back on the table. He feigned a swallow, but he didn’t know if she bought it. It didn’t matter. He’d been looking for the perfect victim, and she’d dropped herself at his table without even an invitation. He only hoped that whatever business had drawn Claudius to the inn was going as smoothly.
“It’s warm in here,” she said, drawing her robes a bit farther apart. Montrovant gripped the table to calm himself. She’d turned her head, allowing him full sight of her pale throat. A wave of dizziness passed through him, and it took longer than he would have liked to regain control of his voice.
“Would you like to go for a walk?” he rasped, cursing himself inwardly for the break in his voice. “I’d like that,” she answered, reaching for his hand, “if we were walking to my quarters…”
Montrovant rose without a further word. He placed some coins on the table and met the innkeeper’s eyes a last time. The man wore an expression of indifference, but Montrovant would have sworn he’d seen something more dancing in the depths of those eyes. It was as if the innkeeper were laughing inwardly at some earthshaking joke the rest of the world was not aware of. Perhaps he was. Perhaps they all were.
He allowed himself to be led past the scattered tables and into the night beyond, barely aware of the buzz of conversation that rose momentarily at his departure. The sound was cut off by the clatter of the door swinging closed behind him. It was like walking into a different world.
She wrapped her arm about his waist, and he allowed it. The warmth of her was fascinating, and the tantalizing closeness of her fresh, sweet blood was dizzying. He let the sensations sweep him away. Claudius had abandoned him for the evening, and he’d not get a better invitation than this one. None in the bar had shown her the slightest attention, and there had been no protest when she left the establishment in the company of a complete stranger. Apparently it was a habit of hers. He knew he would be gone before any noted her absence the following evening, if indeed any noticed it at all. Alarm bells sounded deep within his mind, but his mind had little to do with what was happening to him. His hunger had supplanted all pretense at coherent thought. The beast within him was rising to the surface, and it would not be denied.
She seemed unaware of the change taking place within him, but Montrovant was no fool. The slight tightening of her arm about his waist, the hurrying of her steps, these indicated that she was aware that something was different. Even with the bloodscent blurring reality, he knew that something was—different. Victims did not hurry to bring the wolf to their home. Victims struggled, and bled, but they did not smile, nuzzling into their assailant’s neck and whispering endearments into his ear. Victims did not do anything he did not dictate to them, and this woman was doing whatever she pleased.
The woman seemed more impatient for them to reach their destination than he himself, and that was the thing that finally reached him. She was eager. She knew the danger he presented—possibly even his nature—and yet she dragged him onward as if it were she, not he, who was doing the stalking. He dragged his pace a bit, fighting to regain control of his senses. He fully intended to go through with his plans, regardless of what this woman thought she might be out to accomplish, but he needed to do so with his mind alert.
She hesitated for a second, turning to search his eyes. He allowed the glazed expression to return—leaning in a bit closer to her and leaning on her strength. She seemed satisfied, and moments later she was stumbling down a set of stairs behind the inn toward the cellars, giggling and dragging at his arm as if she were nothing but a young girl with a new love. He let her drag him downward. The darkness would serve him better than it would her. Now that he was making a conscious effort to sort things out for himself, something had begun to itch at the back of his thoughts. He tried to brush it aside, but whatever it was would not release him once it had his attention. There was something familiar about the girl at his side, something in her scent, or her eyes. He couldn’t imagine what could be of such importance in a mortal, but he knew now that he would have to find out.
She had ideas of her own. She fumbled open the lock on the door and the two of them tumbled into the shadows beyond. Montrovant’s vision wasn’t hindered by the lack of light, but he forced himself to trip over an empty bottle on the floor, maintaining what might remain of his facade of humanity. She only turned and looked at him oddly. There was no hesitation to her steps, and though she closed the door behind them immediately, she did not look away from his eyes. She could see as well as he. The games had begun.
“Who are you?” he asked, sliding a few feet away from her and bracing his back against the wall. He must have looked in some way comical, because she covered her mouth with one slender hand and giggled at him, offering no answer. She took a slow step toward him, loosening her shirt another notch. Her gaze was locked on his. He exerted his will, expecting her to break the contact, or at least to struggle. She leaned into the draw of his mind, releasing herself and slipping across the stone floor into his arms in a rush.
He was assaulted at once by the heat of her flesh and the wanton offering of her throat. She’d turned her head to one side as she moved forward, nearly impaling her soft skin on the tips of his fangs before he could snap his jaws shut and push her away. She was quick. Before he could disengage her from his arms she was pressing forward again, speaking softly.
“Please,” she murmured, sliding back into his embrace. “Please. You want it—I know you want the blood. Take it. Make me as you. I burn for it. My nights are consumed. Make me as you, and I will serve you for eternity…I will hunt for you. I will entertain you…”
Montrovant ducked beneath her arm and crossed the room like a streak of dark lightning. She followed, but he moved away again, staying far enough away that the hot pulse of her blood was not clouding his thoughts.
She knew. That was the first and most important thing that stabbed into his fogged mind. She knew, and he could never let her leave this room with that knowledge. She was also right. He wanted her—badly. It was more than just the blood—he could have returned to the shadows beyond the inn and found a more suitable meal. He did not want that; he wanted her. Forever.
It was a sensation that had not plagued him since his Embrace. He’d never thought to bring another under the shadow. Eugenio was his companion and sire, how could he have sought
another? Certainly none had ever begged him for that Embrace. Damn her, how could she know? There had to be something he was missing, something that set her apart in a way that he could understand.
She moved toward him again, tentatively. She knew he could evade her if he wished, so she tried a different tack. She lowered her head, letting the dark locks of her hair fall forward across slender shoulders and moved toward him, never looking up to see if he still waited or if he’d gone. Her hands she held out before her, crossing them submissively. “Take me,” she said softly. “Oh, please take me…”
His resolve was crumbling. Her bare skin fairly glowed with the life that flowed through her veins. Her movements were sensual, graceful to a degree that escaped most mortals. The scent of her blood blended with the aromas of a hundred years of wines, ale long aged in wooden casks, and a hundred dried spices lining the shelves of the small room.
“Who are you?” he mumbled a final time as she reached him, kneeling and dropping her hair in a cascade across his boots. She did not speak, and he found that he no longer cared for the answer.
With a roar of desire and frustration, he grabbed her, drawing her up to him and twisting her head roughly to the side.
“Oh!” she cried. He thought she might be coming to a realization of what her reckless plunge into his arms would truly mean, but as her eyes passed his, as her face turned away, all he saw in her eyes was delight—delight and triumph. It fueled his hunger, and he dropped his lips to her soft throat. He never touched her flesh. There was a sound from above, then a rush of wind, and he felt himself yanked off his feet. He was tossed across the room like a sack of grain, and though he rolled aside with a quick grunt as he crashed into the cellar wall, he wasn’t quick enough. Strong hands held him by his throat, pinning him to the floor, and he found himself thinking of the girl’s blood. It was a worthy final thought. “Alphonse!”
The word broke the silence like ice shattering on stone. It was Claudius’s voice, and the grip on Montrovant’s throat was released as quickly as it had taken hold.
“Claudius, he is mine. He would have taken her
—would have taken her soul.”
“You know the truth of this, Alphonse. I will not ask you twice to leave him be.”
Montrovant rolled to one side. He could see a thin, wiry figure crouched a few feet away from him, and Claudius’s tall form framed by the doorway, backlit by the moonlight from outside. Gwendolyn had crawled into a corner and was sitting with her knees clasped before her. She did not seem concerned with the scenario playing out before her. If Montrovant had had to put a guess to her thoughts and expression, he’d have said she was pouting. What in Hell was going on?
“She is not for you,” the thin Cainite spat, turning to face Montrovant. He made no further advance, but neither did he back away, even though Claudius had taken the last few steps into the cellar and stood between them.
“I thought you told me you could look after yourself?” Claudius said softly. The tone of his voice belied his calm. “I told you what I was doing was important—couldn’t you have gone to the fields and found a peasant?”
“She found me,” Montrovant said, wishing momentarily for better control of his own tongue. “She knew me.”
“Of course she knew you,” Alphonse growled. “Gwendolyn is my daughter. She has tasted my blood—it was necessary for her own protection. You—you would have Embraced her.”
Montrovant said nothing, but he turned to where Gwendolyn sat alone in the corner.
“I would have shared his Embrace, if I could,” she said, finally raising her eyes. “You tantalize me, show me your powers, then deny me. You claim you love me, but you torture me daily and nightly, and there is no escape. If I cannot be as you, I wish I were dead.”
Claudius paid no attention to her. His eyes were cold with anger, but there was a distraction to his movements that spoke of other concerns. “Come,” he said at last.
Montrovant followed his sire out of the cellar. Behind him he could hear the girl’s voice rising to a screech of anger. He pictured her launching herself at her father, scratching futilely at his eyes, begging and receiving everything except that which she desired. It was a dangerous situation. If she ever gave up on getting her way, she might turn on him. Better if, as she suggested, Alphonse allow her to die.
“You have disappointed me,” Claudius spat, “but I have no time for it. Great forces are at work, historic events at hand, and it seems that we are to play our part in them. At least I must…
“Grondin has passed. There are few as ancient as I, and the balance of Clan power is shifting.”
Montrovant stopped in his tracks. He’d known his sire was old, but he’d never stopped to wonder just how old.
“My words were clear enough,” Claudius snapped. “You will have decisions to make in the days to come. I will not be free to travel, and I would not hold you in one place. You must decide your own fate from now on.”
Smiling darkly now…”You will be fine, my dark one, I call you that because even under my control you are arrogant; in the face of sanity you spit and turn away. Where others would not go, you travel freely and without fear. It will bring you the eternal death, but that is now your choice.”
Montrovant didn’t trust himself to speak. Too much had already happened for one night. Freedom. He’d dreamed of it, talked of it—yearned for it. Now, in the face of realizations Gwendolyn had brought to the surface of his mind, he knew it for what it also meant. Separation. Solitude. Eternity loomed dark and endless.
“Come,” Claudius said, turning and taking to the air in a rush of wind and shadow. “Let us feed. Tomorrow at sunset we leave for France.”
Le Duc was mesmerized. It wasn’t until the familiar weight of the sun rising to the sky beyond the walls that protected them had settled firmly over him that he realized just how long Montrovant had talked. He’d never heard his sire go on at such length about anything in the past.
Montrovant shook his head suddenly, as if he were just becoming aware of how much he’d said. “You must have thought a lot about this Gwendolyn,” Jeanne said softly. “To remember that time so vividly.”
“She was nothing,” Montrovant replied quickly, rising and moving to the base of the steps leading to the surface. “Help me check the seal on the door. We will have to move fast once the sun drops.”
Le Duc didn’t press the issue, but he smiled at Montrovant’s back. A sensitive side? Not likely, but interesting. He rose quickly and joined Montrovant in his careful checks of the light seal. It was only an empty gesture, something to defuse the tension that had followed Montrovant’s tale.
‘We will follow Owain,” Montrovant said at last, breaking the silence. “It is possible that such a course will take us nowhere, but it is as good as any. A great deal of information passes through the streets of Holywell. There are those who will share that information with us—others that can be coerced.”
“And the rest?” Jeanne asked.
“We will see about them when we get there,” Montrovant replied. He made his way to one of the cots lining the walls and lay back in silence.
Le Duc followed his example. He had a great deal to think about, but it could wait for the night. The sun was rising, and his mind was slipping into cool, protected darkness.
Beyond the sealed entrance to the wine cellar, daylight crept slowly across the ruins of the village. Shadows shortened. Through those shadows, a single figure moved slowly closer to the remnant of the inn. The wind caught in her hair and caused it to dance about her softly. Her lithe, slender figure was complemented by tight leather leggings and a long robe of deep green material that shimmered in the growing light. Her eyes were hidden deep within the folds of the robe, but a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.
She noted where Montrovant and le Duc had tethered their horses. With a quick whistle she summoned her own mount and calmly secured it with the others. There were a lot of hours before sunset, and sh
e needed to find some shade and get to sleep. The sunlight didn’t have the same kind of terror for her that it would for those below, but it wasn’t pleasant, either. She preferred the light of the moon and the caress of shadow.
There was a ruined home nearby that still had three of its four walls and a bit of roof left to it, and it was there that she headed. Her pack would make a fine pillow, and she had a drape to string across the area where she would sleep. It would block the worst of the sun and her natural desire to sleep during the daylight hours would take care of the rest. She hadn’t yet been able to shake the draw of the earth, as her sire had assured her that she would. He had, of course, several centuries of experience over her.
Gwendolyn lay back with a smile and closed her eyes. It was going to be an interesting reunion. A night to remember. She reached impulsively into her pack and pulled free the letter, sealed in wax and imprinted with her sire’s mark. She clutched it to her breast. It had been a long time since she’d seen Montrovant, and he’d failed her that night, but it would be good to see what the years had done with him. One thing her sire had told her had proven true. In the face of eternity, it was best to keep things interesting.
FOUR
When they rose and exited the wine cellar, she was waiting for them, seated on a slab of stone that had once been the lower corner of one of the houses. Her head was lowered, so her eyes were not visible. Montrovant stopped short, holding up a hand to stop Jeanne as well. No normal woman could have crept up on them so easily. They would have heard her, smelled her, sensed her in a thousand different ways. Montrovant felt a tingle of something familiar, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. When she raised her head and her eyes met his, the silence grew tense. She was smiling, but if there was any humor present in that gaze, it was not near the surface. She did not so much look at them, as through them…at something far away.
To Speak in Lifeless Tongues: Book 2 of the Grails Covenant Trilogy (The Grails Covenant Triloty) Page 4