Devil at Midnight (22 page)

“Not honor?”

“It is my experience that honor is mostly pride. Men seek it because they worship public opinion. Virtue is much the same. The virgin with her thighs locked together merely dreads getting caught.”

Philippe brushed a wavy lock of hair from his face. He truly was a lovely creature, with his natural elegance and his unknowingly naive youth. Add to that his warrior’s strength, and Nim Wei would have no trouble enjoying him.

“You are too young to be so cynical,” he said.

Because—in that moment—she liked him, she allowed her smile to soften. “I am old enough to know that love, however true it seems, always fades with time. Its bonds are easier to break than its most avid followers conceive.”

Her pity unsettled him. Philippe looked away, the clatter of the horses’ hooves filling the silence that had opened in their repartee.

“Why live, if not for love?” he asked.

“Because you wish to. Because an enemy can be as interesting as a friend. To live for love makes one a pawn of forces beyond one’s power to control.”

He met her gaze, no guard or pretense shadowing his own. “You do not wish to be loved?”

Without willing it, her fingers tightened on her reins. As if it were a curse, Edmund Fitz Clare’s visage rose in her mind, still handsome in his white-haired old age. I
would rather rot in the ground than let you change me,
he had declared from his deathbed.
Your dark soul shall never taint me or mine.
Brave words, given that another
upyr
stood ready to transform him. Naturally, Lucius—his savior—had been one of her sire’s rabbit-loving shapechangers.

Edmund had not been worthy of the promise Nim Wei kept by coming back to him.

The horse missed a step beneath her, and Nim Wei forced her hands to relax. “I wish to be intrigued,” she said light as air. “I wish to meet my equal on the battlefield and in bed.”

“On the
battlefield
,” Philippe repeated with a soft male laugh.

Nim Wei lifted her brows at his condescension. “Never doubt a woman can fight.”

Her compassion had evaporated beneath the burn of her memories. She pushed her power at him, through his soft gray eyes and into his human veins. He did not have the wherewithal to resist. He shifted in his saddle as his flesh began to react, swelling, stiffening, until the discomfort of his erection drew a flush up into his face. Nim Wei could see his color darkening, of course. Her eyes were as sharp at night as a cat’s.

“And so the appetite betrays the heart,” she murmured, too low to be heard by anyone but him.

He jerked his head away, breaking the connection. Nim Wei let him do it, satisfied she had made her point. Behind her, Christian’s gaze was a red-hot auger boring into her neck. He did not know what she had done, only that he disapproved of it.

You know how to stop me
, she thought.

He would not hear that, either. Their bond was not yet established, nor would she force it. And perhaps she did not want him to stop her, not so early in the game. These men of Durand’s were a toothsome bushel of fruit. She could take a bite of any one of them she wished.

 

 

G
race grew more uneasy as the night’s march wore on. As far as she could tell, Hans was fine, telling bawdy jokes to his neighbors that had them roaring so hard with laughter a few were crying. No, it was the front of their little column where the storm seemed to brew—with Nim Wei and Philippe and Christian, with Lavaux and the silver-haired man named Timkin whose pale, dead eyes gave her the willies. Gregori Durand led them all in solitary splendor, sitting like a king on his big bay horse, his cool eyes surveying the snow-capped peaks around them for new dangers.

From what Grace could see, the dangers came from within.

By the second hour, Matthaus had fallen to the rear to march beside Hans. Nim Wei and Philippe were no longer flirting, but that tension coiled between them a child could see. Their horses walked close together, and their lower legs were brushing. Even from the back of the line, Grace read disquiet in Philippe’s expression as he stole looks at the minstrel.

If Grace had been in Matthaus’s boots, she wouldn’t have wanted to watch, either. She’d seen this man alone with his lover. She knew how much they cared for each other. She realized she was getting caught up in more than Christian’s fate—which was stupid, even for her. Had he been aware that she existed, Matthaus wouldn’t have wanted her knowing what she did. He was more of a stranger to her than the popular kids at school.

None of this discouraged her sympathy. Though Matthaus could not feel it, Grace rubbed his arm. “It’s not Philippe’s fault,” she whispered. “The minstrel is using her power on him.”

Matthaus might have sensed something, because he shivered. His rough-skinned face lifted to the sky. “Why is it that moonfall always makes the night seem colder?”

“Our eyes are dreamers,” Oswald, the one-eyed cook, answered from the row up ahead. “They mistake the moon’s fire for the real article.”

“Why, Oswald, you are a poet!” Charles exclaimed.

Oswald rewarded him by clouting his head. Charles danced away, laughing, and pretended to clout him back.

“Disrespectful ass,” Oswald growled.

“
Your
fires warm men inside and out,” William offered diplomatically.

“His fires are not the only ones,” Mace quipped.

As if they were hooked onto a single guide rope, the men’s eyes rose and fastened on Nim Wei. Seen from behind in the saddle, her torso was a delicate hourglass, her black hair falling straight down her swaying back.

“She could warm me,” Mace said. “Forsooth, she is welcome to burn me to cinders.”

A few of the mercenaries made noises of agreement, but their joking didn’t sound humorous. To Grace, they seemed wolfish, ready to break into snarls at the least excuse. For the first time she wondered if Nim Wei knew what she was doing. If her admirers got out of hand, could she really control these rough-mannered men? Wasn’t she worried she might be hurt?

“She is a bitch,” Matthaus muttered.

“Better a bitch than a cold fish,” Mace observed.

His mild words broke the tension, though Grace didn’t think they improved the mood. That remained strained right up until they made camp.

Christian’s father chose a ruined castle as their stopping place for the day. Its crumbling fortifications offered protection against the wind, as well as providing a perch for the guards to watch for uninvited intruders. Nim Wei’s tent went up behind the soundest of the ancient walls. She disappeared inside it while the men broke their fast. Grace had noticed the minstrel didn’t like eating with the soldiers. Not that it mattered. No one could forget she was there. Nights were long now. Full dark would not lift for hours, and she was burning candles inside the black enclosure. Their glow allowed the red of the inner lining to penetrate. Within that somewhat hellish illumination, Nim Wei’s moving shadow was indistinct.

Grace knew all the mercenaries were asking who she would pick tonight.

 

 

W
ith the gifts she had at her disposal, Nim Wei knew how to gauge the nuances of danger to a fraction of a degree. The hunger of the men-at-arms was just as she liked, their lust a sweet perfume to her
upyr
nose. Judging it time to bring out another of her weapons, Nim Wei retrieved her lute from the padded sack in which it traveled. Her minstrel role was more than a disguise. The instrument she carried to the central fire was well exercised.

“Shall I play for you?” she asked as the men looked up.

A few cast glances toward Gregori, who—petty tyrant that he was—sat higher than the others on an upended barrel. He had finished eating, and a metal cup rested on his thigh. Nim Wei suspected its contents were mild. The elder Durand preferred to keep his faculties in firm rein. A quick rummage through the men’s minds also told her he was no aficionado of the musical arts.

Personal preferences aside, he could not fail to note the hopeful looks the men sent his way.

“Just this once,” he said indulgently. “I am sure your discipline will hold up under the pleasure.”

“You are too kind,” Nim Wei said, inclining her head to hide her amusement. This was hardly the most gracious acceptance he could have made.

Someone snickered at his faux pas—the carrot-haired boy—though she doubted any ears but hers caught the sound.

“Here,” Charles said, leaping up. “Allow me to offer you my seat.”

His seat was a section of fallen log. The man he had been sharing it with, the hulking giant with the vicious scar on his neck, jumped up a beat later. He seemed too stunned by her appearance to step aside for her. His mouth hung open while through his mind ran thoughts so unabashedly erotic they actually intrigued her.

He must have a great deal of stamina if he planned to do all of them.

“Mace,” Charles hissed. “Spread your cloak over the log for Mistress Wei.”

Mace spread it, then jerked away like a poorly operated string puppet. The ever courtly Charles led her to the now-padded seat. The wool was pleasantly warm from the human who had been wearing it.

“Thank you, Charles,” she said, flashing a smile that temporarily dazzled him.

He recovered enough to bow. “I am, as ever, your servant.”

She sat the rounded body of the lute in her lap, making a show of tuning the pearwood pegs. They did not truly need the adjustment. Contact with her energy swiftly returned the instrument to its ideal state, including the precise tension for each of its eleven strings. Nim Wei used her fingertips to test them, having embraced the recent fashion for plucking notes by hand instead of using a quill plectrum. The new technique provided her a challenge, allowing her to play more intricate harmonies.

“Shall you sing, Mistress Wei?” the unctuous blade named Lavaux inquired.

“Not tonight.” She offered him a smile that did not mollify him. “I should not like to overwhelm an audience unaccustomed to much music.”

Clear in her intent, she ignored the murmurs of disappointment. Played unencumbered by any story, music spoke to deeper levels than the mind’s normal awareness. It stirred emotion, tugged memory, carrying her thrall past the most obstinate barriers. Stone vibrated for sound, after all, though it stood against battering rams.

She enjoyed the silence that fell like a blanket as she began.

Accustomed to improvising, she did not play a tune they would recognize, but a complex twining of melodies and rhythms her immortal fingers never lost track of. Here were children laughing, there a woman sighing on her pillow. Men marched to battle, fought with a clashing sound. Nim Wei sent her listeners the images she wished them to see. The mercenaries barely breathed in their desire to catch every note. Even Christian’s father, the music hater, had leaned forward. When she smiled at him from beneath her lashes, he shook himself and frowned.

As for Durand’s stubborn son, he was hardening. Nim Wei could almost taste the hunger in Christian’s flesh. His lips were parted, his breath coming shallowly.

She was tempted to test how far she could push him. Her body longed for his tonight. But it was too soon. She wanted him more willing and less coerced, and that balance was delicate.

She let her fingers dance freely, her left hand sliding up and down the frets as her right plucked skeins of magic from the catgut strings. She had no trouble performing many tasks at once, maintaining her human semblance being but one of them. The music only occupied a portion of her mind. The others she filled with thoughts of sex, of beautiful bodies writhing together by candlelight—male bodies in particular. Her hook perfectly baited, she turned her gaze to Philippe.

She had not given him her full thrall before. Philippe rocked back as if the force behind her eyes were solid, as if his entire body felt the shock of her attention.

He was sitting on a block of stone that had, once upon a time, formed part of the castle walls. Chances were, Nim Wei had been many centuries old when it fell. Naturally, Philippe was not aware of that. To him, she appeared younger than he was. Her body was slight and girlish, the signs of her youth triggering lifelong habits of protection. Her forwardness offended and confused him, with confusion being the stronger of his reactions.

How could he respond to her as he did? Why did his body burn to know hers as it had for only one person in his life? Oh, he had wanted men before Matthaus, but only his current lover made fornication seem like an act he could not live without.

And then—as Nim Wei let her song soften—Philippe remembered. There had been a girl when he was young, a townsman’s daughter whose face he had watched, whose hands had fascinated his boyish self. What if ...

He became aware of the distance between his stony seat and the rest of the company. In their different variants of envy, the other mercenaries had drawn slightly back from him. Across the popping fire, Matthaus sat between Christian and Charles, nervously rubbing one elbow. He was not looking at Philippe or the minstrel. He was looking at the ground as if he were ashamed.

Philippe regretted that. Matthaus’s eyes were the color of Spanish sherry, a striking contrast to his dark hair. Philippe loved the times he was free to stare into them.

But this was not where Nim Wei wanted his thoughts to go.

You could end both your shame
, she whispered to his mind,
if you let Mistress Wei seduce you. She is even prettier than that girl you watched. She is small and sweet and as clean as a mountain stream. It would feel so good to empty your lust in her. You never quite get enough with Matthaus. With her, you could sate yourself.

Philippe’s thoughts took over, as she hoped they would. He would not have to hide that he had been with the minstrel, would not have to face the speculation and the embarrassment. He shifted on his cold seat, aware that his prick had swollen inside his braies, so full and hard that it was hurting. Maybe he had been wrong about his true nature. Maybe Matthaus had as well. Maybe they could live normal lives.