“Really?” I asked, trying to push away the jolt of jealousy that insisted on assaulting me. It didn’t make any sense to envy someone who’d probably been dead for a hundred and fifty years.
“Really. I was all of eleven years old at the time.”
I laughed, slightly relieved to realize that I’d envied an act of utter innocence.
“Don’t mock me,” Tristan scolded. “It was the most intensely sensual one-second peck on the lips that any boy has ever experienced.”
“Uh-huh. What was her name?”
“Josie Picard,” he all but sang, pretending to swoon at the thought of her. “I still remember her freckles. It was like a Cheetos bag had exploded in her face.”
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t have Cheetos two hundred years ago, Tristan.”
“No, you’re probably right.” He hit the accelerator, distancing us from the ancient memory.
“Josie Picard, you said? Her name sounds French.”
“It was. This whole territory was a French colony, remember.”
“Right, I’d all but forgotten my American history lessons.” A thought crossed my mind. “Wait a minute—Wolfe isn’t a French name, is it?”
He shook his head. “No. My original name was Leclair.”
“Leclair?” I asked. “Why didn’t you keep it?”
Tristan went silent for a few seconds before replying. “Let’s just say that man died a long time ago. It didn’t make sense to keep his surname.”
“But you grew up speaking French?” I asked.
“I did,” he said. “As well as English. My parents wanted us to be prepared for anything, any job, whether we needed to speak one language or the other. They didn’t want us to be excluded from society for seeming too much like we belonged to one side. I was too young to understand our local politics and the conflicts that were raging around us all our lives. Krane and I spent our days oblivious to it all, hunting in the woods, wading through the bayou, helping our mother around the house. Not until I got older did I start to realize how insane the power struggle had been between the colonies who’d taken over our country…not to mention the power struggles that had always remained secret.”
“You mean the power struggle between shifters,” I said quietly, hesitant to broach the topic.
“Yes. Though I didn’t know that shifters existed. Not until I went to work for the man known as Demarche and learned the hard way.”
I looked at him, waiting—hoping—for more. But I knew perfectly well that if I asked him to tell me about it, he wouldn’t. I’d learned from experience that Tristan never said more than he wanted or needed to.
He went silent for a few minutes as he steered us down a series of roads so narrow and hidden that I wondered if they showed up on any map known to man. After a time, he silently raised his right hand and pointed towards a location in the distance.
At first all I could see were trees. But as we moved along, I spotted a long, overgrown driveway that led away from the road to an ancient manor house which had probably once been very beautiful.
An immediate sense of dread overtook me. I could only have described it as the irrational feeling that the place was haunted with memories of wrongdoing, evils gone unchecked. My body tensed, my fingers digging into the seat’s upholstery.
All I knew was that I wanted to get as far away from the place as I possibly could.
I’d never felt that way about anything in this world, despite my fair share of past traumas. Never had I taken one look at a place and sensed with an abiding fear that it had to be the residence of pure malice. But Demarche’s plantation said it with a vengeance. Stay away. Do not come any closer, or you’ll regret it.
Tristan pulled the car to a stop some distance away. “That was the plantation where I worked,” he said, his eyes fixed straight ahead, like it was too hard to look back towards the place. “Krane and I were employed there for a time. We built an addition on the main house, as well as some outbuildings in the back.”
“Something tells me it wasn’t the best experience,” I replied, clasping my hands together to keep them from trembling.
“On the contrary, actually. At first, it was the best; it was everything I’d ever dreamed of. Solid pay, respect from a man who was one of the most powerful in the south. I was so excited to be working for him.” He turned to look at me. “But so fucking naive, too.”
“What happened there, Tristan?” I asked, my voice hoarse with concern.
“The worst days of my life happened,” he said enigmatically. “A fate I wouldn’t wish on my greatest enemy.”
“Why? Was it where…?” The words quaked. I was pretty sure that he knew the question I was going to ask, and I was completely sure that I didn’t want to know the answer.
“That’s a story for another day,” Tristan said, hitting the gas once again, a surge of detritus flying up behind our rear tires. “All I want right now is to forget the old memories…and to make some new ones with you.”
Chapter 20
We drove in tense silence for some time, the shadow of the Demarche plantation fading like a veiled memory into the distance. I couldn’t help wondering what it was about the place that had made it feel so haunted, so terrifying. Maybe it was the fact that my blood seemed to have turned cold the moment I laid eyes on it. Or the simple fact that it might have once held the secret that had led Tristan to become what he was now—a shifter with a hidden history, a man whose soul was concealed behind an immovable door whose key had been discarded lifetimes ago.
“I thought I’d take you into New Orleans for a nice southern dinner,” he told me after a time, jarring me out of my dark thoughts. “Have you ever had jambalaya?”
I shook my head, stunned at how casual he sounded now. For a deeply troubled man, he’d managed to return to normalcy awfully quickly.
“Nope. Remember—I’ve never been here.” I leaned forward to watch a large owl flap over the road from one tall tree to another, signaling that evening had come. “This whole place feels so strange,” I murmured, “like there’s an energy to it that I can’t quite figure out. It’s…witchy…or something.”
“They say all the Parishes are haunted,” Tristan said, “by more than mere ghosts. The old stories say it’s the memories that walk under the trees at night. Shades of the past, never releasing, never disappearing. They’re part of the air down here. Every inhale pulls them in, every exhale pushes them out. But they never leave you, not really.” With the last words, his voice grew thin, like some weakness had overtaken my lover. Maybe he didn’t feel so normal after all. “I’d almost forgotten how acutely I can feel them. How clearly I remember, even after all this time.”
I glanced over at his profile. For the first time since our arrival he looked tense, worried, like he felt that something awful was going to happen. Something had him on edge, though I had no idea what.
I reached over and laid a hand on his forearm. “You said you want to make new memories,” I said, “and we will. I promise. Let’s focus on that for a little bit.”
“You’re right,” he replied, taking hold of my hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing it. “I’m so damned grateful to have you here with me. It’s not an easy place to come back to.”
No, I thought. I don’t suppose it is.
The drive into New Orleans led us straight to the French Quarter. It felt like we’d driven into another country entirely from where we’d been only minutes earlier. Suddenly we were in tourist central, drunk young couples wandering the streets wearing brightly colored t-shirts with cartoon crawfish emblazoned on them, loud music blasting out of nearby bars.
The city’s signature iron railings, shuttered windows and hanging ferns greeting my eye everywhere I looked, picturesque relics from the past. I imagined the days when Tristan had been a young man, when candles would have flickered in second-story windows and horse-drawn carriages made their way down cobbled streets. The French Quarter was like a time capsule—though j
udging by the number of strip clubs we passed, at least a few of its elements had altered over the years.
Tristan pulled the car up in front of a little restaurant called Le Coq d’Or. A golden rooster stood proudly on its sign, beckoning us to enter. Large floor to ceiling windows opened onto the sidewalk, a series of small round tables all but jutting out in front of passing pedestrians.
When a waiter gestured to us to take a seat, we grabbed one of the tables and sat down side by side to people-watch. Most of the passersby seemed to consist of couples holding hands, pointing this way or that or studying their phones, trying to figure out which way to the Café du Monde or the nearest jazz club.
“I like the vibe of this town,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Something about it feels totally different, but totally familiar at the same time.”
Tristan threw me a quick smile, but I wasn’t sure if he was enjoying himself or still tense with thoughts of his sordid history. He still exuded a nervous energy that told me all was not well with him or the beast that lived inside him.
“Did you ever live here?” I asked, trying to pull his mind away from his worries and into something more like small talk. “In the city, I mean?”
He nodded. “I did, for some time, after…after it happened.”
“After the change, you mean,” I said softly, shifting my body towards his.
He nodded. “Yes, after the change. It took me a long time to get my body and mind under control, but eventually I moved here to help rebuild.”
“Rebuild?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“New Orleans had a massive fire in 1794,” he said. “It took years to reconstruct the buildings that were lost. I accumulated a team of men who could help me and set to work. It was how I started making my fortune.”
Just then, a waiter who couldn’t have been older than nineteen came and took our order. Tristan asked for shrimp jambalaya and two beers.
“So the change was really hard,” I said. I already knew the answer. Marcus and Kara had told me enough to gather that it could be a hellish experience.
“It was agony,” Tristan said. “Every single day was torture.”
I reached over and took his hand in mine, pulling it to my lips then pressing it to my cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault.” He pulled his hand away and took a swig of the water the waiter had poured for us. “Nights were the most unbearable.” His eyes moved up to the darkening sky, like he was cursing it for its past cruelty.
I looked around, searching for anything to take our minds off the subject. Down the street, a man was dressed as a creepy clown, juggling a set of colorful balls shaped like skulls while tourists took selfies with him. Across the way, I could hear a terrible cover band butcher the song Margaritaville.
Some jazz town this was.
“There are so many people here,” I said absently. “I wonder if it’s always like this.”
“Pretty much, as I recall from my last visit.” Tristan scanned our surroundings, nodding just as absently as his eyes roved up and down the street. But after a few seconds he froze.
Something—or someone—to our left had caught his eye.
I turned to see a man standing on the sidewalk several feet away. Irritated tourists made their way around his stationary form, glaring at him for taking up valuable real estate, though he ignored them. Apparently he was interested in only one person.
The man had dark hair, bronzed, leathery skin, and a set of broad shoulders. His pale, frightening eyes locked on my lover, and the expression on the stranger’s face said Get out of my fucking town, you infiltrator.
I could all but feel the hatred oozing from his pores.
I knew perfectly well what he was, though I’d never seen a shifter who looked quite like him. Whereas Tristan was polished and elegant, this man looked like he’d just stepped off the deck of a pirate ship. His face glistened with sweat, his hair a messy dark tangle that may or may not have been greasy with neglect.
There was a wildness to him that I’d never seen in another shifter.
“Who is that?” I asked, turning back to Tristan, who was still staring, his eyes narrowed and deathly bright. I could see that his wolf was on high alert, ready to explode from inside him at any sign of threat. I could only imagine what would happen if the two of them went at it on a busy New Orleans street at the height of tourist season.
“All you need to know is that he’s someone I was acquainted with a long time ago,” he replied, his voice a cross between a growl and a whisper. “Someone I should have killed long before you were ever born.”
“Killed? Why would you kill him?”
Tristan didn’t answer, and when I turned to look again, the man was gone.
Frustration bubbled up inside me. I didn’t like when he ignored my questions. I was tired of his secrets, his insistence on closing himself off from me. I pressed my hands into the table, trying to force my growing anger to subside. “For God’s sake, Tristan—” I began.
“Don’t ask me about him again, Ariana,” he all but shouted, his voice tight in his chest. His eyes still glowed brightly, and I could tell that he was fighting to keep his wolf at bay. “Just…don’t. Please.” With that, he turned in his seat to gesture the waiter over. Apparently he’d unilaterally decided that the topic was officially closed.
“Excuse me, when’s our food coming?” he asked when our server approached. I clenched my jaw, trying not to scream with pent-up frustration.
“I’ll check,” the young man replied, a look of fear in his eyes as he took off for the kitchen. I didn’t blame him; Tristan looked like a man out for blood.
“Let’s just try to enjoy our meal, all right?” my lover said when we were alone again.
As I nodded I felt myself slouching in my seat, cowering, like I’d seen Marcus do more than once when a powerful shifter had been in the vicinity.
All of a sudden I wanted to kick myself for being submissive and letting him have his way. I’d done it too many times. What about me? What about what I needed? What about the fact that I wanted more than anything to understand him, so I could actually begin to share my life with him?
No. No way, I thought. I’m not doing this. I’m not going to let him just get away with hiding everything. We’re supposed to be honest with each other, damn it.
Damn his wolf. Damn his moods. Damn his stubbornness.
I needed answers.
“You need to find a way to open up to me, Tristan,” I muttered, holding back the tears that were aching to tumble down my cheeks. “Or this relationship of ours will never work.”
He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—look at me. For a few seconds he just stared into the distance, his jaw set in a stubborn refusal to speak.
But I waited, my eyes locked on his face—that perfect, aggravatingly sexy set of lips. That angular nose, the square jaw. Every inch of him was sexy. Every inch begged for kisses, for bites, for the stroke of a finger. It was hard to stay angry when he looked like that. But I was managing to hold onto my rage this time, to embrace it, to weaponize it. I wasn’t going to give in until he gave me something. Anything.
“I know,” he finally growled under his breath. “I know. I don’t want to lose you, beautiful. Not for anything. Just…give me time. I need time.”
Not good enough.
“Seriously?” I asked, slamming my palms into the table so hard that the cutlery leapt up like I’d startled it awake. When the other diners turned to stare, I lowered my voice to whisper-yell, “How much time do you need? You’re over two hundred years old. If you haven’t learned to open up yet, I don’t know what to tell you.”
He balled his right hand into a fist and lifted it to chin level, threatening to drive it down onto the tabletop and mirror my outburst. But at the last second, he pulled it back towards his chest, reclaiming the control that he’d nearly lost. “I’ve never wanted to open myself up,” he said. “Not once ove
r the course of two centuries. Not like I do with you.”
I spoke the words quietly. “So do it. Tell me about that man. Give me something to prove that you’re trying.”
Just then the waiter appeared, laid a large plate of delicious-smelling food between us, and took off.
Tristan’s eyes met mine again, and I saw again how alive his wolf had grown inside him, how close to the surface of his skin. That damned beast was a blessing and a curse at once. He was the reason Tristan was alive today for me to love. But he was also the reason my lover kept himself locked away from me.
“That man—the one you saw,” he said, “is known around here as the Marquis. He’s a wolf shifter. He serves the Seven, but I know him for other reasons.”
“The Seven,” I repeated. “I heard you mention them in the meeting of the Leaders, in Manhattan. Krane mentioned them, too. But I don’t really understand what or who they are.”
Tristan let out a sigh that told me it wasn’t a topic he was particularly crazy to talk about. To his credit, he proceeded. “The Seven are the most powerful shifters in the world. Seven creatures who could take down cities, if they chose to. One of them lives on each continent. They try to control shifters like me, to dictate how we rule over our districts. If we do anything that displeases them, they punish us for it. It’s like a game they play, only usually it’s not a lot of fun.”
I leaned forward. “You’re talking about dragons,” I whispered. “You have to be.”
“Yes, I am,” he said, eyeing me, one eyebrow raised. “Of course, I’d almost forgotten that you’ve seen one. You saw my brother in his shifted form.”
I nodded, recalling once again how I’d felt the night my eyes had met the horrifying silhouette of Krane’s inner beast. He was a nightmare in the sky, a shadow on my soul. I wasn’t sure how Tristan—or even an army—could protect me from that man if he ever decided to come for me. “He was pretty terrifying, in more ways than one.”
“Krane is almost tame, compared to some of them,” Tristan said. “He’s a pain in the ass, but there are a few who are truly monsters.”
Alpha’s Hunger Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 29