The Vampire Narcise (30 page)

This man who was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before.

“I thought—” She stopped herself. She had nothing to say to him. Nothing at all.

“If I didn’t feel such sympathy for the way you flayed those poor bastards, I’d have found the entire scene more than a little amusing,” he said, gesturing in the direction where the cowardly beetles had gone. “Is that why you were laughing?” His tone had softened, perhaps, a bit.

She drew herself up, still searching for that deep betrayed feeling, and replied, “No.” Her fingers were shaking and her insides were doing unpleasant and pleasant things at the same time.

Handsome as sin he might be, familiar and beautifully scented…but she couldn’t feel anything for him. Nothing but that old hatred and revulsion. She stoked it so that it burned stronger inside her, giving her a barrier behind which to hide.

She told herself that she had nothing to say to him, that she had no desire to even be near him, yet her mouth moved and the words came out before she could stop them. “Why are you following me? Surely you don’t think I need protection.”

“Are you going to Paris?” he asked, stepping closer, pinning her with his eyes.

“Are you mad? Go back there?
Never.
”

He nodded briefly. “I didn’t think you’d be that foolish.”

Giordan was very close now, standing so that his scent filled her every breath, overwhelming even that of the nearby sewer, battling for her consciousness. Her insides fluttered wildly and Narcise felt a rush of heat and desire. She swallowed hard, willing herself to step back and away…but her feet wouldn’t move.

His eyes found hers, holding her gaze and her heart thumped madly as he came nearer. She took a step back and he smiled knowingly.

“What are you afraid of, Narcise?” he taunted, his gaze melting into something hot and warm.

All she need do was turn and walk away from him. There was nothing more she needed or wanted to say to him. She didn’t want to even breathe him in the air.

But her knees trembled and she felt a rise of heat billowing, filling her. “I’m not afraid of you,” she replied, even though her veins were pounding and surging, reacting to his nearness. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, his lips slightly parted, full and beautifully shaped in the silvery moonlight.
No.

“No?” he asked sardonically.

“Why were you following me? Because you thought I was going to
Paris?
” she asked, desperate to change the subject…and to ease away from him. His glittering gaze made her insides tickle and flutter.

“Either that or you were making an escape from your vampire hunter,” Giordan replied. “Is that why you were sneaking off from Rubey’s? Have you tired of Chas Wood-more now that he’s served his purpose?”

She knew that to respond was just to bait him, to continue to keep him there, looking at her with his cold eyes. But, though she ignored his obvious lure into a discussion about Chas, she had to know something else. “Why would you think I’d go back to Paris?”

The moonbeams played over his face, swathing half of his square chin and mobile lips in silvery light and leaving the other side in shadow. His gaze searched hers and her heart skipped a little. She willed it to stop jumping around.

“Woodmore went to Scotland to see his sister. Weren’t you with him?”

“I couldn’t go into the convent,” she replied. “Luce’s hold
is too strong for me to enter. But I’d like to know how you were able to enter the old monastery—”

“So that’s why,” he murmured, half to himself. “He didn’t tell you what he learned about your brother.” A little ironic smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “He doesn’t trust you. Imagine that.”

“What are you talking about?” Narcise demanded stridently enough that a trio of passersby paused and looked over at them. She turned her back to them.

“Perhaps you’d best ask your lover what he doesn’t want you to know,” Giordan replied.

“How can you know about what happened in Scotland?” she said from between clenched teeth. How could
he
know when Chas hadn’t even told
her?
He’d been vague when she asked, telling her that Sonia hadn’t had a clear vision and he hoped to get a message from her later with more information.

Which meant that Chas had either lied to her or…something.

“I know because he told Rubey, and Rubey tells me everything,” Giordan said. His accompanying smile was both condescending and meaningful. “She has nothing to hide from me.”

Rubey
. A little shaft of pain zipped through her as she realized the layers of meaning there. Narcise struggled for something to say that would wound him right back. “Rubey?”

He merely held his smile in place and looked at her.

Narcise’s mouth tightened as a wave of memory and hatred rushed over her. She’d trusted him, opened herself up to caring about him…and he’d destroyed her. “I certainly hope she doesn’t have a brother,” she said stiffly. “I don’t think she’d take kindly to a betrayal when she’s served
her
purpose.”

Even in the faulty light, she saw his expression settle into one cold and hard. “There can be no betrayal, for there’s no love between us.”

Frustration and pain reared inside her and her vision tinged red. “There’s never any love with a Dracule. Lust and the moment of pleasure, yes, always…but love?” she scoffed. “Never.”

“I loved you.” He spoke so quietly his words were nearly lost by the sound of a passing carriage…yet they rang hard and cold and angry.

“You
used
me, Giordan. I believed you were trying to build my trust, that you truly cared about me. You did everything so perfectly when all along, you had other interests. It took me some time, but I finally realized why you never wanted Cezar to know we were…were friends. Lovers. Because you didn’t want to ruin your chances with him. He was the bigger prize, wasn’t he?”

She hardly comprehended what she was saying, just that she’d waited so long to spew her hatred and agony at him. She wanted him to understand what he’d done to her. She wanted to inflict the same pain on him, but she didn’t know how, other than words. “Of course you would want him. He was the one with the power, with all of the money and control. I was merely a way to get to him.”

“You believe that?” he said, his words choked and low. His hand whipped out and his fingers closed around the front of her gown. “You truly believe that I wanted Cezar? Even after
this?
” He gave her a rough jerk and she flew up against him.

His mouth covered hers, hard and warm and angry, and Narcise closed her eyes at the familiar taste of Giordan, the demanding press of his lips, sliding against hers…roughly
forcing her mouth open to take the sweep and slide of his tongue.

Her hands settled on the front of his shoulders, fingers curling around the top of his wool coat, the edges of his curls brushing their tips. She kissed him back, keeping the kiss one of ferocity and fury instead of tender and sensual, trying to remind herself how much she loathed him…how well she’d despised him…even as their lips mashed together, sliding and caressing in all the sleek, sensual heat.

She pressed herself against him, angry, wanting him to want her as much as she’d wanted him…then. Wanting him to feel the rise of desire—and hope—only to have it torn away.

Her breasts shoved into his chest, his arms closed tightly around her as one hand caught the back of her neck and held her immobile. He delved deep, matching her now with temper, his tongue hot and slick and strong, his mouth firm and knowing. A rolling, expanding heat filled her, turning her damp and soft, in spite of the undercurrent of violence, and she closed her eyes, trying to keep hold of her hatred.

Narcise bit deliberately at his lip, her teeth sharp and fierce as she nipped, then pulled sharply, drawing blood. Her fangs had come forth and when she eased back, his red eyes glowed down at her, the tips of his fangs showing beneath well-kissed lips, now bloodied and gleaming with a red mark.

He was breathing heavily, his irises blazing around steady dark centers, and she lunged forward to taste his lips again. The bit of warm, coppery blood settled over her lips and tongue, shooting desire down, deep into her core.
Giordan.
Narcise sucked on his lip, drawing the blood, and realized that little sample was not enough.

She tore at the collar of his coat, baring the side of his neck, and pulled away from his lips. Just below his ear, she
viciously sank her fangs in—hating him and wanting him at the same time. Giordan jolted against her with a low cry, and the surge of blood flooded her mouth, exploding as if released from a dam. She sighed in relief, sucking in the clean, warm lifeblood.

Desire and memories filled her, his scent and taste became her world: his strong shoulders and powerful body, the soft silk of his curling hair, the hot erection swelling against her beneath layers of clothing…it was Giordan, after so long, after such pain and deep betrayal…

And yet it was not him. Not the same.

Never the same.

He was shuddering against her, his arms tight but trembling, his body sagging somehow back against the half wall along the sewage canal. She found warm skin beneath his shirt as she tore it from his breeches, her fingers brushing the dust of hair on his belly, the smooth muscles that shuddered at her touch. When Narcise pulled away to look up at him, he bent to capture her mouth again—roughly and with some deep, driving anger, his fingers curled deep into her braid, gripping her head. She tasted heat and blood, felt his fingers tightening against her, his fangs scraping against her lips. He seemed to want to punish her.

It was a battle—their mouths, their bodies, there on the street, now in a shadowy corner: lips, hands, teeth, tongue. Hot, sleek, pounding.

He covered her breast with one rough hand, sliding his palm over her curves as she leaned against him, still angry, still hating him, but unable to stop. Unwilling to.

Narcise twisted her face away and caught against one of his fangs. Her lips split and now her own blood mingled with his, in the air and on her tongue.

Giordan stilled, his chest moving with rough heaves
against her, and she saw desperate hunger in his eyes. She licked her lips, watching him, tasting the blood—their blood, together—warm and rich and potent.

“Do it,” she taunted softly, holding his gaze, her breathing unsteady. “Taste me. Take me, Giordan.”

He shoved her away, suddenly, his mouth flat and hard, streaked with blood. His eyes furious and filled with revulsion, burning her, as he dragged the back of a hand over his mouth.

Narcise took a breath to steady herself, her insides twisting at the ugliness in his eyes…yet her heart was pounding from desire as much as from anger. At herself and at him. She trembled with pain and lust as they glared at each other.

“See,” she managed to say, licking the last bit of blood from her lips. “Lust and pleasure, even in the face of such hatred. I could have lifted my skirts right here, but I’d still loathe you afterward.”

“Narcise—” he began, his bruised lips hardly moving.

But with the pleasure and the familiarity, she’d fallen back into those horrible memories, the black, dark days of his betrayal…the pain was fresh and raw once again.

“By the Devil’s dark soul, yes, I hate you. I
saw
you. With Cezar. It’s hard to miss the expression of erotic pleasure on a man’s face—the Fates know I’ve seen enough of that.” She swallowed, her throat dry and scratchy. “I believed you. I believed
in
you.
You destroyed me.
” Her voice broke a little at the end and she swallowed again hard, angry at her show of weakness. “And I’ll hate you forever for it.”

There was a long silence as they stared at each other. Loathing and dark emotion vibrated between them as they faced each other on the dark and busy street.

“Forever is a very long time,” he said at last, his voice a mere rumble.

“And we’ll both be alive for it, won’t we? Goodbye, Giordan,” she said, and walked off, her knees trembling, her insides twisting. She squeezed her eyes closed against threatening tears.

She suspected that he would follow her again, and when she got to the end of the street, she looked back covertly.

But he was walking away, his hair and the tops of his shoulders dusted with moonlight as he strode off.

G
iordan hardly made it around the corner before his belly rebelled.

By God, he hadn’t even fed on her, but it didn’t seem to matter. His body was reacting to the unfamiliar and fierce show of violence and hatred he’d just lived. As he sagged against a brick wall, emptying his stomach, he prayed that Narcise wouldn’t see or hear him.

When he finally finished, still trembling with the force of it all, he swiped the back of a hand over his mouth as he walked off into the night.

Wrung out from more than simply the evacuation of the contents of his stomach, aware that Narcise hadn’t finished off the bite on the side of his neck so that it still oozed a bit of blood, Giordan found himself back at Rubey’s, where he’d been going when he first saw Narcise leaving. He’d been briefly at Rubey’s private residence earlier, where he’d been keeping his own rooms for the last few months. She’d told him the news from Woodmore about Scotland, and Giordan was on his way to meet her at the pleasure house when he spied Narcise. He had no choice but to follow her.

“Giordan, bless the Virgin, what has happened?” Rubey said when she came rushing into the private chamber he’d taken over, ordering one of the girls out. As the current fa
vorite of the mistress, and soon to be investor, he had that power. “Are you ill?” she asked.

Even here, in this place, he could scent Narcise…and the very aroma made his insides unsteady. “Not anymore.”

Rubey came over and brushed the hair from his temples, which clung to the warm, damp skin. She
tsked
when she yanked at his shirt collar to reveal the bitemarks. “And you’re about lying to me, Giordan Cale.” She smelled of rose and gardenia—sweet and floral, without being too cloying.

He closed his eyes at her touch, trying to subdue the sharp, sudden yearning for something else. Something more.

Something he’d once had.

He’d betrayed his own heart and soul by fairly attacking Narcise. He’d wanted to hurt her—with words and deed—even as he desired her. Craved her.

How shameful and ironic that he’d resorted to such a frenzy. He would have sunk his fangs into her, taken and seized what she’d offered…but somehow sanity had at last reigned.

The destructiveness had come not only from mere thoughts, but from his body. He’d been in control of such fury for so long…what had happened tonight?

“What’s gone on, Giordan? Will you not tell me?” Rubey, who should have been very busy attending to her girls and clients, sat next to him, giving him her full attention.

“There is nothing to tell,” he said, suddenly wondering why he’d come here. He should have gone back to his rooms and sent for Kritanu.

It was the elderly Indian man who’d helped him understand what was happening to him after that pivotal, sunny day in the alley when his Mark had burned. Drishni, one of the vintages at Château Riche, had done her best to help him when he came back and kept vomiting every time he
fed…but it wasn’t until Giordan spoke with Kritanu that he’d begun to understand how he’d changed.

His body weakened and abused, he’d spiraled so far down into darkness and despair, violence and devastation…hopelessness…Kritanu had told him, that his mind had opened to
moksha
. Enlightenment.

That some strong bit of that powerful serenity and peace had found its way past the darkness of the Devil.

“And you’re after lying to me, Giordan Cale, but I can see you won’t change your mind.” Rubey offered him her wrist as she eased herself back onto the bed next to him, propping up on the other elbow. “I can also see that you’re in need of me in another way.”

Giordan swallowed and hesitated…but she was right. His body felt so battered and tormented that he knew he needed sustenance. And although it wasn’t what he craved, it was what he needed. And so he took her arm and slid his fangs in to drink.

Back when he was still recovering from the event in the alley, it was only by accident that Giordan had discovered he could still feed…if he were careful. This after three weeks of violently expelling the contents of his stomach after any attempt to gain sustenance. He could keep nothing down—and the lifeblood he ingested spewed forth with debilitating force, leaving his belly sore and his throat and mouth raw and parched.

His body was rejecting anything related to violence.

But at last, the tiny, dark Drishni came to him and offered herself. And when he felt the rush of her lifeblood in his mouth, pure and clean and sweet, Giordan nearly wept at the relief…because he
knew
. He knew she was the answer. It wasn’t until later that he learned why: because she ate only vegetation, nuts and grains.

She ate nothing that had been acquired through death or violence—and it was that addiction to death and violence that his body was fighting, now that the white light of peace had found him.

During the anguish of the aftermath, Giordan could close his eyes and find the light. The same light that had flashed into his mind when he succumbed to the burning sun in the alley.
“Choose.”

Now, as Rubey’s warm, clean blood flushed into his mouth, Giordan thought again how thankful he was that she could help him. And that she was willing to do so, and was intelligent and pragmatic about it all.

It would have been a great deal easier if he could have loved her.

He drank without greed, easily dismissing the little tingle of awareness and arousal that began reflexively during the process. Although her breathing shifted, and he felt her body begin to respond to him, Rubey made no attempt to touch him as she might normally do. It was as if she realized he couldn’t.

“Corvindale is here,” she said after a short time, perhaps after judging that the color had seeped back into his cheeks. “He has news.”

Giordan withdrew immediately and looked at her in surprise. “Why did you not tell me at once?” he said, swallowing the last bit.

“I could see you were in no good mood for it. You must be attended to first.”

“I’m no fragile flower,” he snapped, sitting up.

Rubey offered her arm for him to finish off and patted his cheek with the opposite hand. “If you could have seen yourself, Giordan, my darling, you wouldn’t say such foolish
things.” She ended the little pat with a tender caress over his jaw.

He frowned, but attended to her wound with his lips and tongue. She tremored a bit beneath his mouth now, and her eyes sank half-closed. He could scent the heightened musk wafting from her body and his own gave a little shiver in response.

“By the Virgin, if you weren’t ruined for any other, I’d be tossing my glove into the ring for you, Giordan, rich and handsome and kind as you are,” she said, her voice dusky and filled with the Irish. “But you are ruined,” she said, sitting up and sliding her legs off the bed. “And so I’ll tell you the bad part. That Corvindale’s news is about Narcise.”

“Where have you been?” Chas demanded as he burst into the chamber where Narcise was sitting.

He’d been frantic, looking for her first throughout the pleasure house, and then trying to find her by searching the streets nearby, interviewing servants and pedestrians to see if they’d noticed her. No one had, and he’d begun to be certain that somehow, Cezar had managed to take her from beneath his very nose.

Narcise leveled a calm stare at him. “I went for a walk.”

There was something in her eyes, something different.

“You went for a walk without telling anyone where you were going? Did you not think I might be worried that something had happened to you?”

“What can happen to me in London? I’m a Dracule, and use a sword better than any man I’ve ever met,” she replied, still calm and unemotional. “No one can harm me. Nor do I answer to anyone any longer.”

“What if Cezar were here? What if he’d sent his makes
after you?” Chas continued, uncaring that he sounded almost as shrill and controlling as his bossy sister Maia.

Narcise—God in heaven, how could anyone be so utterly breathtaking?—fixed him with those blue-violet, black-ringed irises. Her hair hung in a long, single braid over her shoulder. He knew that it would still be smooth and straight as a bolt of silk, shimmering like a blue-black waterfall, when the plait was undone. His heart thumped and swelled, thinking about the moment they might share later, when he did just that.

Her cheeks were flushed a bit more pink than usual, and the hem of her gown was dirty and damp. The filthy, worn toe of a slipper peeped from beneath and her face had a smudge of dirt—and…blood?—on it. On her lips, too. As if she’d been cut.

“What did Sonia tell you?” she asked.

Rubey. Damn and blast.
Chas sat in a chair next to the sofa on which Narcise was sitting. He’d known he had to tell her…he just hadn’t been ready to so soon. He’d needed time to think about it all.

And as he sat here now, looking at her, he knew things were about to change.

“When you gave her the button from Cezar’s coat, what did Sonia say?” Narcise asked again. “You told me she didn’t have a clear vision.”

Again he sensed that there was something different about her…something perhaps more confident, even peaceful…and yet something dark and unsettled lurked in her eyes. As if she were in some great pain.

Had he done that to her?

He bowed his head, then looked straight at her. “She did see something…I didn’t want to tell you, Narcise. I didn’t
know what it meant, and I didn’t know how you’d feel. Or react.”

“What did she see?” Her voice was tight and angry.

“She always sees what it is that the person fears the most. And what she saw when she held Cezar’s button was you, Narcise.”

“Me?” Narcise’s eyes had turned from flat and furious to shocked and wide. “She saw
me?
”

Chas nodded. Sonia had described the vision as Narcise, whom she’d met previously in the carriage, peering out from behind a fan. The ivory spindles were half-spread, covering the bottom of her chin and part of one cheek. Was the fact that her face was partially hidden somehow meaningful?

“How can that be? What does that mean?” Narcise said, but even as she spoke, he watched her face change into one of contemplation and consideration…which was just what he’d feared.

It would be just like his beautiful, brave Narcise to rush off to Paris and use herself to get back in to see Cezar. He’d intended to get her settled safely somewhere and then go back to France himself and put an end to Cezar Moldavi.

And then he’d come back to Narcise and they’d find a way to be together.

For, now that Chas had gotten the news about Dimitri’s great change, even more hope stirred inside him. Just three days ago, while he and Narcise were still traveling back from Scotland, Dimitri had gone through some great ordeal to save Maia’s life…and now he, too, had miraculously broken Lucifer’s hold on him. Whether it was because he’d finally learned how to do it through his studies, or for some other reason, Chas wasn’t certain. But the truth was, Dimitri had become mortal once again—his Mark from Lucifer had disappeared.

And the angry, austere earl had actually been seen to be smiling.

Just then, the door flew open to emit Rubey, who had no qualms about bursting into any chamber of her establishment without knocking. “Aye, I thought I heard you return. Dimitri is here,” she said to Chas. “He insists upon speaking with you immediately, Chas. Voss is here as well.”

He rose, at once concerned and relieved by the interruption.

“With your permission, Narcise.” He glanced at her and was rewarded with a cool look that told him she wasn’t finished with her pique. Ah, well, women were always annoyed about something. At least his sisters always were. He gave a proper bow and followed Rubey from the chamber.

One thing was certain. Chas wasn’t going to tell Narcise—or anyone, especially Rubey—what else Sonia had seen…when he gave her a handkerchief belonging to Giordan Cale.

According to Sonia, Cale’s greatest fear was Narcise. Dead.

Narcise stared after them as the door closed, suddenly furious and bereft at the same time.

The moment Rubey rushed in, she’d smelled him: smart, masculine, familiar. Giordan.
On her
.

Her throat seized up, tight and scratchy, and she’d hardly heard the ensuing conversation, for her entire body was swimming in disbelief and anger. Narcise’s vision darkened with shadowy, red edges. By Fate, Giordan must have fairly run to have made his way back here to Rubey first, and without Narcise seeing him.

And then he’d gone directly from Narcise to Rubey.

From kissing Narcise, devouring her, filling his hands with her…to Rubey. The whoremistress.

Rage flushed through her, and for the first time in weeks, her Mark eased into painlessness. Narcise closed her eyes and fed it, submerged herself in the darkness of anger.

And then, just as quickly as it had come, the fury eased into something more devastating. Pain.

I loved you
.

Had he really? She scoffed to herself, tried to push away the memory of his face…tonight and on that horrible day when he’d come to her afterward. Smelling of Cezar.

The starkness in his eyes had been the same then as it had tonight: deep and complete. Raw.

Narcise rose abruptly and began to pace the chamber, propelled by fear and hurt. If he’d loved her, why,
why
, had he done what he’d done? How could he?

How could he have imagined she’d accept him after he’d betrayed her?
Any
betrayal would have killed her, after what she’d experienced…but for it to be with a
man
…and her
brother
…how? How could he have thought she’d forget that?

Was it just his Draculean nature? To seek pleasure wherever it was offered? To focus on self, and only self?

Of course it was.

She was precisely the same way. The way Lucifer had turned them.

She couldn’t stay here any longer. She had to have air—clean air, not breaths tainted by his scent. She wanted to be back out beneath the open sky, the stars and clouded moon. She wanted to feel that power again, that confidence and worth of self from earlier tonight, before Giordan had ruined it.