Seducing the Vampire (20 page)

R
HYS ALMOST WALKED PAST
the thin girl in tattered dress and no shoes, but her bird chirps were too sweet to ignore. She held a tiny carved shape in her frail hand. The long beak of it immediately told the species, and his heart pulsed.

She asked but six sous, a pittance that would likely buy her a loaf of bread. Rhys pressed a gold louis d'or into her palm and told her to spend it at the bread shop on rue Dauphine, one of Orlando's favorite haunts. He knew the proprietress would give the girl correct change and not steal from her.

Striding the bridge, which crossed at the end of the Tuileries, Rhys shoved a hand in the deep pocket sewn inside his frockcoat and felt the wooden bird. Smooth and small, so delicate. Like Viviane's trust.

He strode by the hawkers and merchants edging the bridge and landed the soft grass fronting the octagon pool at the end of the royal gardens. The day had been overcast and now night had fallen, an eerie fog hung level with the second-floor windows. Rain sprinkled his face. The weather had cleared the park of the finer crowd who did not care to get their clothing wet or muddied.

Happiness carried him through the heady perfume of roses and greenery and toward the rue Saint-Honoré. Despite the weather, the street was abustle with carriages headed toward the Palais Royal for a night of gambling,
drink and debauchery. He had never felt the desire to drink himself to oblivion. In Viviane's arms he'd found a sweet surrender beyond bliss.

He'd not been able to face her after speaking with his brother. He'd needed time—and needed to shrug off the change that had begun to shift him to werewolf. He'd sent word to the Council today that his efforts had uncovered a suspect but that he needed confirmation.

He'd then gone to the brothel and given Annabelle more than enough gold to see her put up in an apartment on the left bank, with the prospect of doing seamstress work for the landlord. It goaded at him that Orlando cared for one of such little means. And though Orlando must leave the city, he could at least allow that he would know Annabelle would be well in his absence.

A scream cracked through the cluttered streets like a pistol shot. Rhys followed the carriages and people through twilight's glitter of street lamps toward the noise. They gathered about someone.

Stretched at an awkward angle, her head back and one leg wrenched under, the young woman's arm bled, the flesh shredded at her shoulder. Held by an elder woman, her close-spaced eyes were wide, her screams frantic and laced with bloody spittle.

In the middle of the cobbled street, sprawled across the muddy gutter, lay a wolf, blood oozing from its midsection.

A wolf in the city? The sight clenched at Rhys's gut. It was larger than the average natural wolf. It had attacked the woman; Rhys knew to glance at the wounds. But the beast had not done fatal damage—it hadn't time.

The wolf's killer, poised over it, her hand still on the knife blade, did not see Rhys approach. She panted, her arms strong, muscles flexing and fingers firm about the
knife handle. Jaw gritted tight, she finished dragging the blade from sternum to gut.

Brave to approach a wolf attacking another. Yet so vicious, animalistic, as she remained over the kill, breathing in its death scent.

“It attacked without provocation,” someone muttered from the crowd circling the hideous scene. “She is so strong.”

“It was ravenous.”

As he approached, arms spread in placation, Rhys bent cautiously to allow the killer to see him. He heard a whisper from the crowd, “Wolf slayer.”

The killer turned to him, her blue eyes vibrant. Blood smeared her lips.

“Viviane?”

Recognition softened her tense jaw. She released the knife and it clattered onto the cobblestones.

Rhys moved quickly to pull her from the wolf's body. She did not fold herself into his embrace, nor did he do anything more than hold her back when her body wanted to remain crouched over the kill.

“Mon Dieu.”
He recognized the fur, a unique ginger fur, the belly streaked with white. Such knowledge cut him through the sternum with an intangible blade.

He pushed Viviane aside.

Aware she stumbled and landed her palms on the street, Rhys muttered a negligent apology. His focus remained on the wolf's body, not long dead.

“There is nothing to see here!” he shouted to the crowd. Anger crackled his words. Heartbreak delivered them with a tight cut. “The beast is dead.”

It pained him to name it a beast. But better to clear the crowd quickly. He wasn't sure how much time he had.

“See to the woman,” he directed someone standing before him. “I'll remove the wolf.”

Legs shuffled and people were drawn out of their marvel to action.

He lifted the wolf's cumbersome body. Blood spilled from its gut over his chest and arms, soaking hot against his skin. Rhys tightened his jaw to keep his composure and hold down his rising bile. His hackles stiffened and his innate senses wanted to howl at the moon for this tragedy, but he bit off the urge.

Viviane held his gaze, the knife somehow again clutched in her hand. Her gaping mouth said nothing. There was nothing to say. She'd protected innocent mortals. Yet she had also committed a heinous crime.

Rhys nudged his way between two people. “Stand back! It may be rabid!” He gritted his teeth to speak the foul accusation. “Do you wish to be exposed?” That cleared his path.

He ran, Viviane in tow, down the street and dodged into the first narrow alleyway. He wanted to run from this cruel city and into the country. No time. And he would never get past the guards at the city wall with a dead wolf in his arms.

“Rhys, where are you taking it?”

“To safety.”

He heard Viviane flick her blade out at someone and say, “Do not follow! The beast is foaming at the mouth!”

He reached the Chevalier stables, and Rhys slipped inside and gently laid the wolf where straw had loosened from a neat stack. Blood pooled onto the dirt floor.

Viviane closed the door and stalked before the corpse. “I will not have that thing in here. It would have killed the woman!”

“You ensured that would not happen,” he hissed.

She reared from his vitriolic response. He had no patience for reassuring kindnesses now.

“Why would he have done something like that? He would not,” Rhys said firmly. “He must…not be well.”

“What are you talking about? It is but a beast. I don't know how it got through the gates—oh,
sacre bleu
.”

The shift began. Fur stretched and receded into flesh. When a werewolf died, or was murdered in its wolf form, it always, eventually reverted to were shape. Rhys had recognized the fur and was thankful he'd gotten to him when he had.

He would be more thankful had this hideous crime never occurred.

Viviane slapped her palms over her mouth. Her muffled scream disturbed Mordaunt, who snorted and heeled the floor. The horses hadn't so much as moved during the wolf's shift.

Rhys put a hand over the man's blood-soaked ginger hair and stroked it from his closed eyelids. His gut was split open, the intestines spilling out. The smell viciously assaulted his nose and he choked back a howl.

Viviane gasped. “It is the boy.”

“Orlando Thomas. His parents died when he was twelve. I've looked after him since. I considered myself a father to him. He never disputed that.”

“But—Why would he attack? Werewolves, they do not—”

“I cannot know. Orlando would never harm anyone.”

Forcing himself to look over the young man's body, Rhys winced at the sight of his genitals. The flesh was dotted with pustules, forming an angry rash. A symptom he had never before seen, but had heard of.

“Syphilis. He must have contracted it from a brothel
whore.” And he'd only just come from seeing Annabelle. He hadn't noticed her ill. “Damn, I should have kept a closer eye on him. Claude will never forgive me.”

“Sickness made him do this?” Viviane approached, but did not lean down. “I am so sorry. I…
Sacre bleu,
I've killed your friend. Yet another wolf…”

Yet another? Rhys closed his eyes. God help him.

Her skirt swished Rhys's shoulder as she turned away. Quick to react, he caught her at the open door and pinned her against the frame. “You did not know.”

“Please, do not think this is retaliation against the hurt you have caused me. I reacted,” her words warbled. “He would have torn off her arm. Or worse! His wolf was so big, standing on its hind legs. He was a monster!”

“In retaliation?”

“You do not love me. You just left me!”

Must they do this now? “I was busy today, with Constantine,” he said lowly. “We will discuss this when the time is appropriate.”

“Yes. Yes. Please, I cannot look at him. Take him away. Get him away from my home.”

He pressed her hard against the door frame, keeping her from escape. “You do not get to control this situation. He was my friend.”

Tears stained her cheeks. “I'm sorry.”

“I know you are.” Rhys touched her cheek, his fingers shaking. So difficult not to slap her, to deliver her punishment.
Wolf slayer
. “Give me time with him. Yes? Send the maid out with sheets, blankets, something.”

“Portia is—” She nodded, and he released her. “I'll be out with them right away.”

 

H
OURS PASSED AND
R
HYS
did not come inside. Viviane paced the vast music room floor, now empty of furniture,
including the harpsichord. She wondered all sorts of scenarios. Had he wrapped the young man's body in the blanket and taken it away to be burned or buried?

Or was he still out there, mourning a lost friend?

She had murdered his friend!

There had been times Viviane had walked right past a battling domestic couple or once witnessed a horse biting an old man. She tendered no concern for mortals and their pain. Yet the victim had been so young. Blond ringlets springing at each ear. Pretty in her blue gown. She may have been a fine lady's maid.
Like Portia.

Rarely did a wolf enter the city and attack a human, even in the winter when food was scarce.

Rhys suspected the boy had syphilis, which she did know could drive a man to insanity. In proof, the hospital Bicêtre overflowed with the sick and insane. How awful to have watched the wolf change to human form and then to see the injury cleaving open his abdomen. A cut she had delivered with macabre zest.

A vicious reaction she could have stopped, for that first stab had killed the beast, cut into the heart and ceased its struggles. But Viviane had continued to pull the knife through fur and cartilage to the soft, giving belly.

Some darkness in her had arisen. The same had emerged when she'd first journeyed to Paris. She'd wanted to cut out the untouchable wickedness within her. To release it. To punish it for her descent into an abyss she feared never escaping. And to strike out for Portia's death.

If she had accepted Constantine's offer that first evening after Henri's death none of this would have happened.

But self-preservation was firmly embedded within her psyche.

As she paced the floor, the hungry pining in her gut told her nothing could be as she wished. She needed a patron.
A consistent supply of blood so she would not wither from the weak mortal blood, which made her
believe
she were living.

Why were the females so weak? Male vampires who had been created required a few draughts from their creator to survive, and then they went on to patron their own kin.

She clasped her throat, feeling a genuine need for sustaining blood, which she had not got to answer before encountering the attacking wolf. But was it normal hunger, or a more life-preserving desire? She did not know.

“I am not weak. I refuse to be!”

Drawing aside the window sash, Viviane gasped at sight of Rhys, standing knee-deep in a large hole in the center of the courtyard. A body wrapped in a wool blanket lay at the edge of the hole.

Viviane leaned out the window. “You cannot bury him there!”

Dirt landed the mound at the head of the grave. Sweat and mud smeared Rhys's face.

“Bring him to Les Innocents!”

“He is my friend. He deserves more respect than tossing him into an abysmal mass graveyard.”

True, the cemetery was overflowing with centuries of bodies tossed unceremoniously upon one another, most during mass death such as plague. She'd had Portia taken there. Cruel of her.

“Then take him to the country. It is his real home.”

“I cannot get him out of the city without inspection and too many questions.” Rhys jammed the shovel into the dirt. “Here he lies.”

“No! I do not want him buried here.” Her conditioned disgust was difficult not to acknowledge. “He is a wolf.”

“What is wrong with a wolf?” Wrist resting on the
shovel handle, he tilted a condemning glare on her. “You suddenly hate us all, wolf slayer?”

Viviane gaped. “Do not name me that awful title.”

“But it is yours to own. You killed the wolf outside of Paris in the spring?”

“It was self-defense.”

Rhys smirked, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Please, don't be ridiculous. I know the boy meant the world to you, Rhys, I do.”

He climbed from the grave and stalked to the window. His jackboots were muddy, his bare chest smeared with sweat and dirt. “I wish you were not like the other vampires,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“You claim to care for me because you think I am safe. A vampire, yet not.” He looked at the ground. “Emeline accepted me when everyone else would not.”

“I accept you!”

“Yet why do you only see my wolf? Why does not my vampire threaten you?”

“Because you are a wolf in mind and heart. I accept that, Rhys.”