Prologue Francois
Prologue
Francois
Ilooked around and laughed. Well, well. A home away from home.
I was as comfortable here as I’d ever been at the family mansion.
They knew my father’s taste, that much was for sure.
The house I was some sort of honored guest in was old, ramshackle, probably falling down around my fucking ears.
But it was… I chuckled again. Refreshingly familiar, I think was the phrase.
The drapes were dusty and moth-eaten. An unkind guest might have referred to them as tattered and torn. But I was not that guest.
Non.
I was…far less fucking grateful to be here.
I was locked in for one thing, which was most unsatisfactory. The room smelled musty. I’d left this way of life behind when Nic had rescued me from Father’s house.
I’d long since stopped choking on that thought. The idea of Nicolas Dupont rescuing me, Francois Ricard.
It actually seemed like his thing. He was always rescuing people from shit. His mate from me, me from Father. Me from my addiction.
I needed him now.
I needed rescuing from this magically fucking sealed room.
There wasn’t even electricity here, and I’d grown tired of counting the hairline cracks in the paintwork and talking to the spiders. The spiders didn’t talk back, and their value as raisins after I’d removed their legs had long since lost any novelty.
I laughed, the squawking sound even more evidence that the madness from before was slowly returning.
They were feeding me blood here, but not with whatever antidote the Duponts always made sure I had.
That oversight was leaving enough scope for the remaining dead man’s blood in my system to replicate again. It would take me soon.
I spotted another spider. A particularly juicy one, but I waved my hand over my face, the large cuff of the sleeve on my shirt trailing over my skin. I snorted as I inhaled some of the lace.
I no longer looked my best. My clothes were dusty and dirty, and I’d taken to reducing spiders to raisins.
Worse, my dreams and even some of waking moments were plagued by intrusive thoughts and snippets of memories I didn’t really recall. I only knew they were memories because they resonated inside me in a way that the delusions didn’t.
I’d killed people.
Sickness clawed at the base of my throat at the images in my head. Bodies, their open eyes blank and sightless, their skin pale and bloodless. Not one spark of life.
Not even bodies. Merely corpses.
Waste.
All of them innocents and a simple search for a cure.
The search for my mate, because surely she alone could cure the evil lurking inside me, the curse of my bloodline?
I laughed suddenly, the sound drenched in the turmoil of my mind.
“Oh, Ni-ic,” I sang out, even though I so rarely gave him the shortened version of his name. “Nicolas Dupont. Viens ici, mon ami.” Oh, yes, come here, my friend, indeed. I’d never wanted to see that man more.
There were times immemorial in the past that the last person I’d hoped to see anyhow, anywhere, was that Dupont heir.
Now he was the only face I wanted.
He was the only man who could save me from this.
And I’d never planned to need a savior.
But I couldn’t continue to live the worst moments of my life over and over again like the worst gag reel of the world’s longest movie. I couldn’t see so much death. I didn’t want to relive it.
I wasn’t that man anymore. That man was a monster. He’d done things I couldn’t possibly comprehend. I paused while I picked a spider leg from between my teeth.
I was ready for Nicolas to save me now.
Before my sickness claimed me for good.
I wasn’t sure how many times I could stand so close to the edge and return unharmed.
Every time I peered over, into that endless void, I lost another part of myself to the dark.
At some point, there wouldn’t be enough of me to scrape back together.
There would be nothing worth saving. I closed my eyes and searched for the stillness that had never evaded me before, but it evaded me now.
All that existed in my head were turbulent thoughts and disturbing images, and the cries and screams of the women who’d failed to save me. Because they weren’t what I’d needed.
They couldn’t have helped. But I hadn’t known then what I knew now.
Every time I closed my eyes and tried to reach my stillness, I saw them. They spoke to me like visions of a past that had never happened or premonitions of a future I didn’t want.
And what I knew now couldn’t help me either.
I turned and twisted as the thoughts and ideas grew cyclical, wrapping themselves around me, tying me up until I couldn’t move and couldn’t draw breath to cleanse the worst of the memories away.
I was trapped.
I was dying.
Every time I moved on the bed I was lying on, another puff of dust mushroomed into the air.
It caught the light and reminded me of a galaxy, an andromeda.
A whole other life. Sometimes I moved just to see those other lives, the ones that beckoned enticingly like possibilities and potential I hadn’t reached yet, and other times I stayed as still as possible because I didn’t want to dream.
I moved now, though.
I moved because there was something outside the door. Something that didn’t sound like my usual guard with inferior blood for me to exist on. Something noisy and argumentative and unusual.
The door flew open, and three women were flung inside the room with me. The force of the magic used sent them sprawling over the floor, and at first, I trailed only a lazy glance over them.
If this was a new food source, I had limited interest. Blood from the vein should have been exactly what I wanted… but apathy made me lazy. That, and I was weaker. Without my antidote, with my madness creeping back in and fogging the edges of my thoughts, I was less.
One of the women looked up at me, and her eyes widened as she shoved her hair over her shoulder.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream… No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t fear. She had rage. Jason’s mate was filled with rage and more. She was no longer human. She was true.
She was vampire.
As I watched her, she backed away, patting the shoulders of the other two and pulling at their limbs to draw them away, too.
“It’s the mad prince,” she said, and I laughed.
Yes, mad indeed.
This was interesting. I sat, ignoring the clouds of dust this time.
Then a familiar voice spoke, and I focused on one of the other women. What...? The human from the apartment building? The one who’d rushed to introduce herself to her two new neighbors the night we moved in?
What the hell was she doing here? But maybe it made sense. Her apartment had been ripped apart as well. She was probably just collateral damage. A pawn they’d grabbed on a whim.
“It is you!” She actually sounded pleased to see me as she tried to move in my direction.
Jason’s mate grabbed her shoulder, her uncontrolled vampire strength making the human wince.
“Yes, it’s me.” I bowed slightly mockingly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance again, beautiful Penelope.”
Jason’s mate still looked at me with a mix of horror and fury and—I sniffed the air, the gesture the same delicate one I’d always used—yes, I’d been right. She’d been claimed.
I should probably have offered my congratulations, but the occasion seemed wrong. She had nothing to fear, anyway. Another man’s claimed mate… I shuddered. I’d already been there. It wasn’t a position I wanted to revisit.
She whispered frantically to the other two girls, tugging them to her so they sat in a huddle like they could somehow guard and save each other by being one big mass of human female.
When I leaned a little closer, Jason’s mate growled, and I moved back instinctively.
But why? Vampires didn’t scare me. She was a fledgling. No threat to me. I could break fledglings as easily as I made them.
I sniffed the air again. There was something…something I couldn’t put my finger on. She was different.
It was like the last time, but this time, the noise hurt my ears. It reverberated inside my head, and I rolled off the other side of the bed, putting it between us as I walked to stand by the wall on the other side of the room.
I couldn’t hurt any of them from over here, and in truth I’d only moved closer because that girl seemed so familiar. Something about her tugged at my memories. Those eyes. Something from when I was much younger. Shifters. Fleeting memories of screaming and bloodshed and death.
Then a young new alpha.
I leaned against the wall and small pieces of plaster flaked around me, raining paint chips to the bare wooden floorboards. I could study them from here without being threatening.
The mate didn’t tempt me. She was too loud, and she was Jason’s. Even if he barely tolerated me, I wouldn’t pursue his mate. Jason was a Dupont by association, and Nicolas had spared me at the moment he could have ended my life for good.
I wasn’t sure why she was here. Well, I could guess why the Ancients had taken her, but why house her with me if not to speed my descent into madness?
Or perhaps that was the purpose of the other two women in here. I sniffed the air again, inhaling the delicious scent.
Virgins, both.
Virgins… I concentrated. Only one of those virgins mattered.
Mate. My mate. After all this time I’d finally found her, and it was in this hellhole.
My fangs burst from my gums, and I pushed my hand over my mouth to try to conceal them as Jason’s mate growled again, her posture stiffening as her eyes glowed a vivid blue.
“Stay away.” My voice was muffled as I sought to regain control of myself. “Stay away. I will not harm you. Restez-là où vous êtes.” Stay where you are.
I needed them to stay exactly where they were. No sudden moves. I could bring myself back under my own control if they all remained still and refocused my thoughts.
I could do this. I wouldn’t succumb to my madness today.
“What’s he doing?” The female with red hair looked at Jason’s mate and as she moved, another delicious wave of scent rolled through the air toward me.
Her.
But I stayed still. I closed my eyes and willed myself away, into my head.
“He’s a vampire. A mad, murderous one.” Jason’s mate’s voice clogged my thoughts.
One of the other women screamed, the sound brittle and thin.
“I’ve changed.” I didn’t even open my eyes as I spoke. “I’ve changed. Just let me… Let me…” I struggled with myself against the sounds of their fear. Something about the scent of their adrenaline laid over the top of that of my mate excited me.
My eyes opened against my will. The madness inside me needed to see.
My mate, the redhead, was silent. She was looking at me like she could find something, like I had an answer to a question only she knew.
Then her graze dropped, and although I tried to form my hands into fist to hide the claws there, she saw them. She’d seen the true monster in my face and in my hands. She knew what she could become—what I could do to her, and she was afraid.
She screamed now, allowing her fear to take over any of her other instincts. “Help!” She drew another breath and called again.
Jason’s mate turned around and lunged for the door before beating on the enchanted wood with her fists. They screamed and banged, the cacophony providing an unwanted symphony of sound. Stimulus overload. I sank to the floor, my hands over my ears as I tried not to be aware of my mate.
So close.
But I had to control myself.
“I won’t hurt you. Any of you.” I looked at Jason’s mate as I spoke, my voice a mere croak.
She laughed as she met my eyes. “Can you see yourself?” Her tone verged on hysteria. “Why the hell would I believe you? Your reputation precedes you, your highness.”
There was no respect in the way she gave me my title. She spat it like the worst curse word she could summon. I glanced away. I deserved all of her vitriol and more.
“You’ve killed people,” she continued. “You killed and you fucking kept killing. You had your garden—your garden of pretty flowers. And that garden smelled like death. You killed them all.” Her voice rose, wavering and breaking as she said the last word, pain lacing through her tone.
“You’re as bad as your father, the man who killed my parents. My brother’s parents.”
She returned her attention to the door, hammering against it like she could break through the wood with her fragile human fists.
Then she was flung backward into the room, and one of the Ancients strode inside before bending to pick her up by her throat. The noise from the other women stopped immediately, and when I moved to help Jason’s mate, I was stuck. Something held me in place, and I could only move my eyes.
“Shut up,” the Ancient growled as he shook her. “What is the meaning of this noise?”
Jason’s mate croaked an answer as the Ancient shook her again. And she fumbled at the hand he had wrapped around her neck.
Her face reddened, and her legs flailed uselessly in the air as her movements became more frantic.
The Ancient seemed to realize what was happening, and he relaxed his grip, although he didn’t release her completely. “The screaming,” he repeated. “Why are you all screaming?”
She part turned as if to look at me, but his grip tightened again. “Dead man’s blood,” she whispered. “He has the illness, the addiction. He’ll kill us all. He’s mad.”
The Ancient’s face barely moved. Maybe a slight twitch of his eye to indicate he’d heard something he didn’t know before. He dropped Jason’s mate, and she hit the floor and cried out as she landed awkwardly.
Again, my instinct was to help her, but whatever force held me was strong, and I still couldn’t move. Not even if I concentrated all of my will. I watched helplessly as the Ancient walked to stand in the doorway.
“Come,” he barked out, and the women filed from the room, their heads bowed, each with a hand on the one in front, still behaving as though they were safer if they were joined, if they could feel the warmth of another human.
I would have laughed. Silly humans and their desire for contact with other humans…and the false security they found in that contact. Their lives were so fragile, so finite, and they battled against that for their entire existence.
The door closed behind them, the thud dull and echoing, and whatever magic held me released as my prison sealed once more.
Yet. I couldn’t relax. I was alone, but knowledge of my mate thrummed through me. I’d searched for her for years. I’d killed in her name.
I’d been wrong so many times.
But now I’d seen her, and I’d felt her presence.
She was my cure.
My everything.
I had to have her.