Chapter 15
Jason
Awave of intense fear hit me before the screaming started. So much screaming.
Ciara.
I’d heard the phrase heart in mouth before, but I’d never felt it. My old heart was truly in my mouth, in my throat. I was fucking choking on it as it swelled with every beat.
I raced from my room, but at first glance, everything was fine.
Only Francois stood in the open front doorway and Ciara’s scent lingered in the air.
“What the hell have you done?” But I was past him and out of the door before he could reply.
“I…I don’t know…”
I glanced over my shoulder to see confusion in Francois’s eyes. It looked genuine, backed by pain.
For fuck’s sake I didn’t have time to go hold his hand and coach him through his lost memories right now. Apparently—some might have said conveniently—Francois didn’t remember what a bloodthirsty asshole he’d been while he ruled New Orleans during his father’s bouts of stasis.
Francois and émile didn’t belong in my head, though. Not while I was racing after Ciara and fear was tingeing her scent ever more bitter with each step I took.
I leapt down the stairs as she reached her car, and her hands shook as she fumbled her keys. She dropped them and bent to retrieve them, panic telegraphing itself in every one of her movements.
As she stood to try to insert the key in the lock again, I reached her, pressing my hand to her shoulder, my touch light.
But she leapt as if she’d been scalded and whirled around, already lashing out, her fists striking my face.
The blows were useless. Her fists were…for lack of a better term, puny, and she’d never so much as mark me, never mind render me unable to fight back.
“It’s me.” I spoke quickly and quietly, as she rained more well-aimed punches at me. She had that at least.
Someone had taught her to fight well. Someone in her pack understood her vulnerability as the lone human in the wolf’s den.
“Ciara.”
“Get off me.” She lashed out again and I caught her fist in my hand.
“It’s me.” My mate was scared, and I had infinite patience to calm her. “It’s me.” I rested her hand on my chest, pressing it there with my own. “It’s me. This heart beats for you. Feel it.”
Her screams died down and her breathing began to steady. She raised large, glistening eyes to look at me, and my chest tightened. Even scared, she was beautiful.
But I could do something about her fear. I could fix it. I’d always take it away. “You’re safe,” I said.
“What. The. Hell.” She spoke every word as its own sentence.
“I’m so sorry.” I hadn’t intended Francois to scare her. I’d planned to open the door myself. Have Francois out of the way. I didn’t know, really. Anything but this.
“What the hell,” she said again, “is he doing here?”
“What do you know about him?” I didn’t answer her question because I didn’t want to give any of Nic’s secrets away.
She laughed, a short barking sound. “Francois Ricard? Mad prince of New Orleans? Why the hell is he your roommate?”
I hesitated. She and the rest of Conri’s pack had been more closely tied to Baton Rouge during the Ricard reign, so what did she truly know about the politics here during that time? “He’s here on the orders of the king. He’s working for Nic.”
“Working?” She spat the word. “Why is that monster working for the new king?”
“What do you know about him?” I repeated. If I understood that, I was better placed to calm her.
“He’s a monster.”
I chuckled. “You said that before. But what do you actually know?”
She lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. “Why the hell are you laughing at me? He is a monster. He killed women for sport.”
I shook my head and looked up at the apartment building behind her. Luckily, we were used to a bit of screaming around these parts. Ciara’s fear hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention. “Not sport exactly…” How could I explain what Francois had done and why?
“His pretty little flowers…” She shook her head, and I closed my eyes at the sudden memory of the shallow graves that had littered the Ricard gardens, all created by Francois as he’d tried in vain to discover his true mate and drive away the madness that the dead man’s blood had caused.
The smell of the death in that place still haunted me, and rose in my memory now. I coughed, trying to rid it from my nasal passages.
“His reputation is a strong one.” Ciara’s voice was more even now.
She’d recovered herself, and for that, I was grateful.
“There isn’t a soul in New Orleans who doesn’t know about him.
Even newcomers. Stories about him are told like tales of the boogeyman, and his picture is shown to keep children in line.
Be good, or the mad prince will come for you. ” She almost whispered that last part.
I nodded. I understood that. “He’s had a…” Shit. There was no good way to phrase this. “A lot of problems.” It was a ridiculous way to finish that thought, and Ciara scoffed.
She knew just how ridiculous it was. “Problems? Is that what you call them?”
“They were drug induced.”
“Drugs?” She rocked back a little and her touch on my chest was gone as she folded the hand into her other one, clasping them in front of her. “I didn’t know vampires were susceptible to drugs.”
I withheld my sigh. We were really doing this then. Out here on the street. “We’re not. Generally. But there are particular…substances…that affect vampires and their behavior. They can drive them mad.”
“And make them do…things? Kill people?” She raised one eyebrow, her skepticism obvious.
“Francois was under the influence of something that affected his behavior. But he was essentially trying to discover his true mate.”
“True mate?”
Fucking hell. I was just digging myself deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole. This really wasn’t the time or the place. But it also seemed like there was no turning back.
I reached for Ciara’s hand. “Come inside. It’s better to talk in there.”
She shook her head, though, and reached for the car door handle instead. “I don’t think so. There are things I need to know before I’ll step foot inside that apartment.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Ask me. I’ll answer.” I couldn’t just watch her drive away. Not when she didn’t understand anything. She might never come back—and I couldn’t lose her.
“What’s he really doing here?”
“I told you. He really is here at the request of the king, of Nic, doing some research for us. His ties to New Orleans are better than any of ours. He has…history.” That sounded weak, but it was probably the best explanation I could give her, no matter how much I trusted Ciara. Maybe trust of a mate was instinctive.
And it wasn’t a lie. Nic wanted him here because of his history during the Ricard reign and because of his age and previous status, which should have made him equal to Nic now.
Ciara shook her head and tapped her foot, her hands on her hips.
“I can’t believe it’s at the request of the king, like the king just knows the mad prince is back and we’re all supposed to be okay with that.
” She threw up her hands as anger seeped into her tone.
She tapped her foot faster. “Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.”
The corner of my lip twitched in a movement that wanted to be a smile.
“Francois has some contacts that we need information from. And…” I paused for a moment.
I almost felt protective of Francois these days.
I’d seen a more vulnerable side of him from time to time in the apartment.
“Nic is helping him rehab from the drug that affected his mental state. Nic’s a very fair king.
” I nodded as I finished speaking. “He believes in second chances and doing the right thing.”
“And I guess you can’t end up with a yard full of dead women when you only have a balcony?” She rolled her eyes, and this time I chuckled.
“Oh, that won’t happen again. Like I said, Francois was a bit off the rails searching for his true mate.”
“And there are those words again. What’s a true mate?”
“A…a…” Shit. I hadn’t planned to have this discussion with her right now.
Perhaps I could keep it low-key. Except there was nothing at all low-key about a true mate.
I watched her for a moment longer, absorbing all of her beauty before I spoke again.
“A true mate is the other half of a vampire’s soul.
The rumor is we don’t have a soul at all.
But we do. It’s just out there wandering around in someone else’s body.
Only the luckiest among us find them—our matching half.
A true mate is the one we were made for.
Perhaps we are made for each other.” I shrugged.
“I don’t know the answer to that. I only know I was made to love one specific person for eternity.
To protect her. To be her flame-keeper when there are others who would blow her flame out.
I will always guard her against people who would hurt her or want her to fail.
But a true mate is also someone who is…untouched.
” Shit, this was getting a bit too close for comfort.
I was in danger of baring my whole self before either of us was ready.
But she ignored most of what I’d said as she wrinkled her nose. “Untouched?”
I nodded and swallowed. “It sounds a little archaic, I know. Untouched. A…A virgin.”
Her skin paled and her eyes widened as panic sized her expression. Perhaps that low-key thing was a nonstarter.
She gripped my forearm with surprising strength. “He was killing virgins?”
“Y…yes?” I turned it into a question. The way it sounded when she said it was way worse than the thought had been in my head.
“Then I can’t go back up there. I can’t…” She shook her head. “I can’t be around him.”
My heart rate increased. “You’re…?” I couldn’t ask the question. I mean, I’d hoped…and maybe I’d suspected, but it was too perfect to just assume. Plus, I didn’t know if her association with her pack was throwing her scent off. I hadn’t dared hope that I would simply know.
She nodded. “Yeah. I’m the human virgin in a shifter pack.”