Chapter XI. Like Dark At Dawning
XI
LIKE DARK AT DAWNING
GAbrIEL DE LEóN, Black Lion of Lorson, Savior of Nordlund and Sword of the Realm, hung his head.
He’d returned to his armchair, leather creaking as he sat, palms pressed against his temples.
Jean-Francois could hear the tempo of his pulse, a sirensong luring him ever closer to perilous rocks.
The vampire was writing swiftly, smooth script flowing from his quill.
But at last he reached the ending, those three fateful words—not as dreadful as two or awful as one, but portentous nonetheless.
“I’m thirsty.”
“So you said, Gabriel.”
“Jean-Francois…”
The Last Silversaint leaned into the light, and glancing up, the historian again glimpsed the darkness welling behind the blood-red scrawl across his eyes.
Jean-Francois could see the weight of the past few nights on his prisoner now.
The effort of dredging these sorrows up from the past had wrought a toll, deeper than the Marquis had realized.
It was as Gabriel had said—the only weapon in the war against yourself is yourself.
And all great weapons break in the end.
“Please.”
The silversaint wrung his hands and shuddered.
“God help me, I need it.”
Gabriel stared, the historian matching his gaze.
Sucking the plump swell of his lower lip into his mouth, the vampire bit down softly, eyes burning now.
He’d be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t wanted this.
If kith dreamed at all, he’d surely have been dreaming of it every night.
Dark chocolat eyes roamed those strong hands, those broad shoulders, up, up to the silversaint’s throat.
He surely couldn’t linger there—that silver would burn his tongue to cinders.
But not every part of the silversaint’s body was inked.
Nothing below his belt, presumably.
God, he was beautiful.
He’d be dead soon, Jean-Francois knew it. The Liathe spoke truth when she said his Empress would not suffer the silversaint to live. And if de León was to be torn apart for the amusement of the Voss, what better place than here?
What better time than now?
He was dangerous, of that there could be no doubt.
But Delphine and his cadre were right outside that door, and if the silversaint were foolish enough to attempt violence again, Jean-Francois could use the gifts of his blood as he’d done last time.
Splitting apart into the verminshape and leaving Gabriel with naught but a handful of clothes.
Assuming he was wearing any by then …
Images flickered across his mind’s eye; bloody lips roaming silken skin, warm flesh prickling beneath wandering hands, throbbing heat and pulsing veins and open, hungry mouths.
Jean-Francois imagined the silversaint pressing in behind him, predatory, strong hands knotted in his hair, pulling his head back, oh, oui, harder.
He pictured the silversaint before him now, Meline sinking to her knees and unbuckling Gabriel’s belt as Jean-Francois brushed long ink-black locks away from that delicious milk-white neck.
Would he make him beg?
Just how much would he enjoy it?
This might be his last chance to find out.
“Meline.”
The door swung wide on silent hinges. His faithful majordomo awaited on the other side, hands clasped like the eternal penitent.
“Master?”
“Our guest is thirsty, love.”
“Your will be done, Master.”
Their eyes were still locked, silversaint and vampire, as the thrall slipped into the room. She stepped toward the little table, intent on the empty bottle, the dry goblet. But she froze as he spoke again.
“Shut the door a moment, would you, love?”
Her pupils dilated at that, pulse running swift.
She swallowed thick, gaze drifting from the silversaint to Jean-Francois.
The vampire was motionless, eyes still on Gabriel’s, smoldering.
But the silversaint broke, stealing a swift glance; creamy bosom swelling above the bounds of her bodice, the pale heaven of her throat beyond.
“Your will be done, Master.”
Meline turned, trembling like a doe. The thralls outside watched, stern and silent, Delphine’s brow arching as she closed the door between them.
Meline paused, smooth brow pressed against the timbers, taking one long breath to steady herself.
But she sighed as she sensed him, rising slow, looming behind her now, skin prickling.
Turning, she looked up at him, swallowed completely in the storm grey of those hungry eyes.
“Say please, madame,” Gabriel growled.
Her breath caught at those words, heart running ever quicker. Meline glanced to Jean-Francois, still in his armchair. The tome was set aside now, the quill tucked away, the vampire’s clever hands upon his folded lap.
“Master…”
“Do as you will, Meline. Leave if you wish. Stay if you want. But only if you want.”
Gabriel reached up, one sharp fingernail drifting down her throat, over her choker of dark lace and jewels.
His nail caught, hooked inside, dragging it down, down.
Meline’s pulse was near unmoored now, heart thrashing against her ribs as she gazed up at the man she so despised.
Jean-Francois knew what she wanted. What all of them wanted.
The bliss of the Kiss was a rapture unmeasured. But being Kissed twice over …
The choker snapped, Meline gasped, jewels scattered on the floor.
Jean-Francois rose from his chair, stalking toward his prey.
Meline watched over her shoulder through the haze of her lashes, shivering as he closed in behind, caught between the pair of them now.
Gabriel met his eyes, and Jean-Francois smiled as he saw that beast so oft mentioned, rising through those perilous depths.
He wondered if he might master it.
If it would try to master him.
Which would delight me more?
Gabriel’s hand was at Meline’s cheek now, turning her back toward him, breasts heaving above her corset as he traced the bee-stung bow of her lips.
Jean-Francois listened to the rush of her heartbeat as she kissed the silversaint’s fingertips one after another, tongue flickering, sucking his thumb into her mouth.
Her hand was at his belt buckle now, toying, slipping lower and caressing his cock through his leathers.
Jean-Francois laced his fingers through Meline’s braids, pulling back her head ever so slight, smiling as a low moan slipped from somewhere deep inside her.
Gabriel dipped his mouth toward her submission, breath hot against Meline’s skin.
But again, his gaze flickered to Jean-Francois.
“Say please.”
The vampire smiled, the thrall moaned, both now trembling. One word stood between them and bliss, between the chill of this cell and the ecstasy of the Kiss.
“Please,” they whispered.
Gabriel bit down, fangs sinking home, and between the three of them, Jean-Francois knew not who groaned the louder.
The vampire held Meline poised, the silk of her gown soft beneath his hands as he slipped it down, down, leaving shoulders and breasts bared.
Her hands were in the silversaint’s britches now, buckle loosed, cock set free, Jean-Francois shivering as he at last laid eyes upon it.
Flushed with blood, pulsing with hot, luscious life, God in heaven, he could scarcely wait.
But instead, he scattered cool kisses across the other side of Meline’s throat, down that thundering carotid, fangs scraping her skin.
Meline trembled in his arms, moaning as Gabriel swallowed deeper.
The silversaint was rucking up her skirts, layer upon layer of black chiffon gathered in his fists.
Jean-Francois’s lips wandered across the nape of her prickling neck, closer to where Gabriel drank.
Their cheeks touched, burning mortal skin against deathless marble, lips drifting closer to Gabriel’s own, still latched upon Meline’s throat.
Jean-Francois leaned in farther, almost near enough to kiss as he felt the silversaint’s hand snake into his hair.
A prickle of fear, of outrage, of shivering, belly-deep delight as Gabriel pulled him back, blond curls knotted in his fist. The silversaint broke from Meline’s neck, meeting Jean-Francois’s eyes now.
He loosed his grip, allowing the vampire enough slack to lunge for those lips, rouged with hot, fresh crimson.
Licking upward from Gabriel’s chin, Meline’s blood on his tongue, the vampire sought the silversaint’s mouth.
But snarling, smiling, Gabriel tightened his grip again, denying Jean-Francois his prize, instead forcing him down onto the punctures he had himself just bitten.
Jean-Francois groaned, adoring the place the silversaint had just kissed.
His tongue roamed sundered skin, tasting hot spit and blood, Meline moaning as he swallowed.
The rubied essence of life, burning with all hell’s heat, sliding down his throat into the hole naught else might fill.
He couldn’t remember when last he felt so alive, mind’s eye aflame with thoughts of what was to come; bodies bent and spit and riven hilt-deep, secrets soft and wet and warm, a bliss-drunk triangle of flesh, a song of sighs, only blood its end.
Gabriel sank lower, red kisses writ across Meline’s breasts, suckling, teasing, biting.
She’d near-swooned now, drunk with desire as the silversaint descended, past those rucked-up spools of chiffon, sinking to his knees before her.
Groaning, she spread her legs wider, tangled her fingers in his hair, whispering, pleading as she dragged him in.
The vampire had slowed his suckling, allowing Meline’s pulse to do the work.
She bucked against him as Gabriel reached the shadow between her legs, but not long he lingered, Meline gone tense as two bowstrings as his kisses turned to the smooth silk of her thigh, the femoral artery waiting beneath.
Jean-Francois had switched shoulders now, pressing blood-slick lips to pale skin, Meline breathless with anticipation.
And as Gabriel bit down, so too did he, her spine arched and head thrown back as the Kiss took hold her soul.
“Ohhhh GOD…”
They drank her. Her every muscle taut, every breath a groan, ecstasy and agony all the same.
For three long mouthfuls, four, five, they shared her, a moment of perfect red communion, and so much more to come.
Jean-Francois’s thoughts were alight with it; what he would do to them, what he would make them do.
The silversaint was rising now, lips slicked red, up, up from the heat between those shivering thighs, Jean-Francois reaching for his cock, their eyes locking as his fingers finally found it, so hard and smooth and shockingly warm as Gabriel drew back his hand and plunged the silversteel dagger
right
into
his
heart.
The vampire gasped, eyes gone wide, the pain, oh God, the PAIN.
Gabriel twisted the blade he’d stolen from Meline’s thigh, pinning Jean-Francois to the door and hurling her aside, the thrall so drained she could do naught but crumple as she hit the wall.
Gabriel’s bloody breath was hot on Jean-Francois’s skin, one hand holding that awful silvered knife, the other slipping into his britches and seizing hold of his bollocks.
“I told you I’d make you scream.”
The vampire did just that, head thrown back as his blood began to boil.
The agony was unspeakable, but pinioned by that cursed silversteel, he couldn’t take the verminshape.
Helpless and writhing, he could only wail again, for his guards, for his mother, for anyone as his nethers shriveled and his skin turned black and his veins bubbled and cracked.
A roar came from outside, thralls smashing against the timbers.
But the silversaint had him pinned against the door, and flushed with Meline’s blood, Gabriel’s strength was obscene.
The door shuddered as Delphine threw himself against it, roaring the Marquis’s name.
Jean-Francois could only scream in reply, Gabriel leaning close, closer now.
Fingers sinking deeper.
Lips close enough to kiss.
“P-please,” Jean-Francois whispered.
He looked into the face of his ending. Fifty years of bliss and blood had all come down to this.
He’d known who and what he was serving. Who she had served in turn.
Yet he’d chosen to bend the knee all the same.
Because it was easier. Because he felt he owed her.
But more and most, because in truth, he’d enjoyed it.
“I don’t w-want to die, Gabriel.”
He looked into those storm-grey eyes, the hellfire awaiting.
“I don’t want to b-b-burn.”
His veins were dry as kindling, body one breath from annihilation. Their eyes met, a brief second of understanding, a smile on bloody lips.
“A believer at last,” Gabriel whispered.
He flung Jean-Francois aside, tearing the door open and letting in the thralls. Delphine came first, the silversaint’s strike so brutal that the dagger punched through the capitaine’s face and out the back of his skull.
Jean-Francois collapsed against the wall, Meline gasping beside him, so badly wounded he could only watch.
He’d spent nights listening to the silversaint talking of his battles, but he realized he’d never actually seen this man fight in the flesh.
Legend had it Gabriel de León was the greatest swordsman who’d ever lived, but at every opportunity, the silversaint had dismissed those stories as fancy, scoffing of tales swelling in the telling, and ever in the wrong direction.
But now, Jean-Francois saw the awful truth.
Gabriel de León was magnificent. A blood-drenched poet, carving the notes of some savage song into the flesh of the men around him.
Twelve beats of a mortal’s heart passed, twelve strikes of that blade fell, and at the end, twelve thralls lay dead on the stone.
Drenched red, not even short of breath, Gabriel de León bound his britches closed and turned toward the vampire, still lying blackened and helpless on the floor.
“I just gave you forever, Jean-Francois. Use it wisely.”
And like dark at dawning, he was gone.