Chapter 13
Jason
Isighed when I saw the apartment building.
After spending the morning with Ciara, after touching her so intimately, time with Francois wasn’t exactly the consolation prize I wanted.
Still, he had his own project that I needed to catch up on, and I needed to report back to Nic as to Francois’s behavior and if he was toeing the Dupont line.
It was weird to think I had power over the disgraced prince.
I could get him thrown back in Nic’s dungeons if I gave Nic the kind of news he didn’t want to hear.
I grinned at the idea Francois Ricard and Brock Dalton might room together at Nic’s pleasure.
They wouldn’t exactly be a match made in heaven.
But probably even I couldn’t do that to Francois. He was many things, but no one deserved Brock in the next cell over for the rest of their eternal lifetime.
The usual vampire guard was in place outside the apartment, and when I got upstairs, Basher was in his usual place on the sofa, his face blank.
He seemed to have an uncanny ability to totally ignore Francois, but I imagined that was necessary after so many hours of babysitting.
A thin tendril of guilt wound through my chest at the idea Francois was so under our control that we actively had someone sit with him.
We’d infantilized the man completely, and that was no small deal for a vampire who’d survived hundreds of years.
There was a great deal of arrogance in the way we treated him.
Especially when I considered what Francois truly was.
He was essentially Nic’s peer, matching Nic almost year for year and life milestone for life milestone.
Except where Francois’s father had been dark and twisted, Nic’s had been light and good—a benevolent king compared to émile’s rule of terror.
Then, when Nic’s father had died, Francois’s had only slipped in and out of stasis, barely hanging on to his life yet refusing to meet his final death.
His condition had been a mystery to all of us.
There were tales of family madness—but Francois had created his own with his dead man’s blood habit, so what had really been going on with émile?
I shook my head. Maybe that didn’t matter. I needed to concern myself more with current affairs than Francois and his complicated family. And my own life was fucking complicated enough right now.
I put my key in the lock and let myself into the apartment, glad vampire senses didn’t allow us to read minds. It was bad enough that Francois had heard my approach probably even before I entered the building. I didn’t need him to know everything in my thoughts, as well.
When I got inside, instead of sitting in his usual position on the sofa, Francois was hunched over the dining table, looking for all the world like he was completing his bookkeeping or something. He looked up and smiled at me, though, his grin completely disarming.
“Jason.” His enthusiastic greeting was almost infectious, and I had to hold myself back from returning it like he was my long-lost friend.
I glanced at Basher. “Everything okay today?”
The big dude shrugged, the movement slow, although I had no doubt he could move fast and be entirely deadly when the need arose. God alone knew where Sebastian had found him. Although finding people like Basher was more likely the remit of Kyle or Temple.
“Seems okay.” Basher was also a man of few words. And perhaps babysitting Francois wasn’t his idea of a good day’s work.
“Oui, bien s?r! Of course, yes, my day was just fine. But what of yours?” Francois wiggled his eyebrows in an annoying but knowing gesture, and I sighed.
Well, shit. There went my brief moment of almost liking the guy.
“How did it go?” Francois persisted.
I shrugged, determined to play it casual. “Fine.” See—just one word. Super casual.
But he raised an eyebrow. It was an inquiry. My one chance to tell him more of my own volition without him pelting me with questions I simply didn’t want to answer.
“She seemed to like the wolves. Liked seeing them there, anyway.” I shrugged again. It really was no big deal, right?
But Francois chuckled. “Oh, Jason.” He shook his head.
“You are…” He looked at Basher like he was seeking an audience, like our conversation was theater.
“How you say it? Na?ve? Oui. En Francais. In French. It’s the best word.
You’re na?ve if you think either of you has had a good day because you like wolves. ” He exaggerated the last words.
“Why then?” It was better to humor him than try to bring this conversation to an end before he was ready. He’d never let it drop then.
He sniffed the air. “You ask me why?” Then he laughed again. “As if you don’t know, Jason.” He darted a side-eyed glance at Basher like they were both in on some sort of joke. “Her scent is all over you…”
I dropped my head to sniff toward my shoulder like I was checking my pits.
“Relaaax…” Francois waved Basher toward the door. “I’ve got this chat, Bash. I’ll tell Jason what’s going on.”
Basher shook his head like he knew Francois was crazy, and I couldn’t exactly argue, but he left anyway, heading toward the door like he was grateful to be making his escape.
I watched after him longingly. With him, it felt like my chance at being saved from Francois’s questions was slipping out the door, too.
“She’s your mate.” Francois’s tone was a careful balance between someone patiently explaining the facts of life to a child and someone impatient when that child had grown into a teenager and still didn’t seem to get the basics of the birds and bees.
“And there are things that a vampire will do for a mate.” He laughed, the sound hollow.
“Now, I’m no expert.” For a moment, sadness gleamed in his eyes before it was gone.
“I really don’t know much at all. But from what I’ve seen, a vampire will do anything for their true mate.
Everything in a vampire’s life becomes about her. ”
He turned away and grabbed a glass he’d obviously used to drink blood from, before taking it to the sink and rinsing it off. The noise of splashing water replaced our conversation, and I was glad for the reprieve.
I sat heavily on the sofa. Sweet fuck. Had Francois, the last man in the world I expected to understand any of my relationship with Ciara, just told me exactly what was going on in my life? Was I really that fucking obvious?
But he wasn’t wrong. Everything in my life had become about Ciara, Francois had that much right. Ever since the first moment I saw her, that first glimpse of her in the lake, I’d known.
My life hadn’t been the same. It would never be the same again.
And shit. I needed to tell her. She needed to know exactly what she was to me. What I could be to her. The potential of what we could be together… It blew my mind. I mean, I saw it in Nic and Leia, Sebastian and Kayla, Kyle and Sam… But I’d never imagined I’d have that same bond for myself.
Why would I be so lucky?
Only I was.
And I needed to tell Ciara.
But I didn’t know how to do that.
I shook my head and pushed the dilemma from my mind. Maybe I had time enough to think about how to talk to Ciara. The other guys had all managed it. My mouth twisted into what I was sure was an unattractive smirk. If Sebastian had done it, it could hardly be rocket science, anyway.
My primary thought couldn’t be Ciara tonight, anyway. “Enough about me.”
Francois smirked. He clearly disagreed, and I waited a beat but he—wisely—didn’t say anything.
“How are things going on your project?”
He shrugged, the movement huge and Gallic even after all of these years.
It was literally like he’d just stepped off the boat from France.
And of course, the gesture meant as much and as little as it did in the old country.
Everything and nothing were contained in that one lift of his shoulders, and Francois always deployed it with gusto and panache.
“It is as we thought,” he said and when I waited for him to elaborate, he didn’t.
“As we thought?” I questioned. After all, we already had intel on the Ancients and their return. “They’re awake? They’re coming to New Orleans to assess Nic?”
Francois pulled his mouth tight and flat, so his lips paled, almost disappearing. “Almost.” His voice was quiet, but I didn’t understand what he meant.
Almost? Which part had I gotten wrong?
“They’re not coming?” My words were hesitant as I voiced the best-case scenario.
If the Ancients didn’t come to New Orleans, there would be no challenge to Nic’s rule, and we only needed to concentrate on the basics of the new territory—bringing the new Dupont subjects to our side and appeasing Conri. Those two things certainly weren’t insurmountable.
But Francois shook his head. “Malheureusement, non.”
Okay. I’d known when he started his sentence with unfortunately that this wasn’t exactly going to go the way I wanted it to. “Then what?” I blew out a sigh. “How can we stop them coming?”
He shook his head, and that was the most pitying thing I’d seen Francois do. “I’ve been in touch with some of my…” He hesitated and grimaced. “Contacts.”
I glanced sharply at him. “Was that wise?”
His shrug was smaller this time. “How else am I supposed to find out the things you want to know?”
He had a fair point. We weren’t exactly making things easy for him to do what Nic had asked.
Always under watch, no contact with anyone.
No one in New Orleans to know he was here.
But that last part was vital. If Nic was to retain the trust of those who lived here, surely they could never know he’d returned the mad prince to their midst?
“Okay. What did you find out? I’ll need to let Nic know so he can make the appropriate arrangements.” Arrangements. Shit, that was a grand term. Did Nic even have a plan?