Chapter 5 Francois #2
That realization jarred me. My entire world had shifted, and maybe nothing illustrated that better than this exact moment. Everything I knew had changed. Nothing was the same. Not even me.
I sat on the chaise as I waited, until a shadow loomed over me.
“Come.” The voice was deep and resonant, but it belonged to a young vampire. I hadn’t seen him before, but he was dressed the same as the guards from earlier.
It seemed the Ancients were very security conscious.
I sighed and stood. Showtime. I followed the vampire through hallways as familiar as my own face. Mon Dieu…I’d played in this house probably even before this guy was born the first time, let alone when he was turned, and now here he was presuming to show me the way to our destination.
The dining room, of course. The house had barely changed during my latest stay here. Part of me was relieved the Ancients hadn’t ripped through and changed anything, but the other part of me was merely amused.
Of course they hadn’t changed anything. If Clémence was right, and Father had been one of them, they probably all had similar tastes. I grinned. Taste was such a subjective concept. I’d only modernized one room in this house, but I’d had plans for more.
My nose twitched. It had been a long time since I’d smelled food in these halls. And it was interesting, because that suggested this dinner wasn’t vampires only, although how humans factored into the interest of the Ancients, I couldn’t say.
It was more information I could gather for Nic, though.
The young guard stopped just outside the dining room, and he almost bowed as I continued past him. It had been a long time since anyone had bowed to me, and I quashed the feeling of being back where I belonged. There was a seductive satisfaction there that I didn’t want to take hold.
I glanced around the room of assembled people. Apparently, important people. A few were vampires allegedly loyal to the Dupont cause. I paid particular attention to them, memorizing their faces for when I’d have the chance to settle the score.
Unexpected feelings of loyalty for Nicolas rushed through me. I’d ensure the traitors in his house were dealt with.
But merde. When had I become as good as a Dupont myself? Merely a year ago, I would have accepted any bargain the Ancients presented me with. I would have secured my reign—Father’s reign—at the expense of anything and anyone else. That would have been easy for me.
Only they wouldn’t have helped control my blood like Nicolas did. They wouldn’t have shown mercy. I would have been utterly theirs to command.
Perhaps Nicolas had allowed me freedom at his own expense. Certainly it seemed a little that way now. I could have been plotting to overthrow him all along. Did he doubt me? The thought stung.
I sat in the first empty chair I arrived at, more determined than ever to prove to Nicolas that I deserved a place in his territory.
The silence that had fallen when I entered the room became covered with chatter that escalated as each voice competed with the next to be heard, to make the owner the most important person in the room.
My nose twitched again. Not at the scent of food still drifting on the air from the kitchens, but from a sudden hint of warm bodies and perfumed hair. Human females. My fangs pushed at my gums, and I rubbed my hands over my face, seeking control.
They were led into the room, each unfamiliar, although I scanned each one, looking for the familiar curly hair that belonged to Ciara.
Or the red flames that belonged to my mate, lighting my heart.
Neither were there, and I breathed a small sigh of relief.
That was a small mercy—although I tried not to consider the worse alternatives to them not being here.
The humans giggled, the anxiety on show as they twisted their hands in front of them before being led to empty seats. Each was seated away from the next. They were adrift in a room of vampires, and it was unlikely they knew.
Plates were set in front of the humans, and they glanced nervously at those of us not eating before their instincts took over and they forked large amounts of food into their mouths. There were no manners here. Simply pure, animalistic hunger.
There was another noise at the door, and two guards appeared. I sat up straighter. This day just grew more and more interesting.
When the first Ancient stepped inside, I inhaled. Not because I needed the breath, but because the surprise prompted an instinct older than I was.
Ruse, the man who’d just entered the room, looked around, his gaze lighting on me as he did.
I fought the urge to shrink back, make myself smaller.
Last time I’d seen him, I’d been a boy. I hadn’t known what he was, only that he had power that rolled off him and chilled any room he entered. He’d been as good as my boogeyman.
He nodded, apparently acknowledging my flash of recognition, and I inclined my head in return. I was grown now. No longer scared of these powerful vampires. Out of the two of us, I was arguably more crazy, anyway.
Clémence stood briefly as she waited for Ruse to take a seat beside her.
I looked more carefully at the assembled vampires.
Aside from Nicolas’s assorted traitors, I recognized more than I’d originally thought.
Aleron sat a few seats down the table, his expression as disdainful as I remembered.
He’d always looked at me as though I might infect him with some sort of disease, and I’d enjoyed tormenting him by wiping sticky fingers across his fragile skin whenever I found the opportunity.
Yet while I was no longer scared of these men and women, the ones with the thin skin and the dried-out voices who’d visited Father and held meetings punctuated by low, vehement voices behind closed doors, a shiver of something akin to fear ran through me when Ruse remained standing and Clémence retook her seat.
“Thank you for coming.” Ruse sounded every inch the benevolent host. He held his arms out. “And thank you especially to our human friends, who might find our politics boring and our ways…unusual.”
The human female closest to me paused in her eating for a moment, lifting her gaze to Ruse before her plate recaptured her focus again.
Pity replaced my fear. The unusual ways of vampires rarely ended well for humans.
“As you know,” Ruse continued, “we’re here to consolidate, to educate, and eventually…
” He smiled coldly and looked carefully around as if to ensure we were all listening to him.
“To celebrate. New Orleans and Baton Rouge will come back under our rule. No false pretenders to the reign. We are the old guard returned as rightful rulers, and we will usher in a new era, here in the Americas. We’ve already started. New York City has fallen.”
There was a smattering of applause at this point, but I sat, listening, stone-faced.
Clémence glared at me, but I lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. Political posturing had always bored me. It could be dangerous to appear interested now.
“Loyalty has already been pledged all over Europe.” This statement earned him a few cheers, and he smiled in response.
“Not that we’re surprised, of course. Our homelands have always been loyal.
” He started to sit then seemed to change his mind, waiting a moment before he rose back to standing.
“And it’s loyalty I sense here in this room.
We are all blood, after all.” His glance at me seemed especially meaningful, and I fought to keep emotion from my face, instead nodding slightly again.
The movement itself meant nothing more than that I’d heard him, but Ruse didn’t know that.
“But now—” This time he really did sit as he laughed. “We eat.” He gestured widely with his arms, encompassing everyone at the table.
Nausea sat in my stomach. Our food was already at the table. Our food was eating.
At least Ciara and my mate weren’t here. They weren’t currently part of this ridiculous show in any way. I tried to see that as a positive even as I felt a nearly uncontrollable yearning to see my mate, smell her, taste her, hold her and keep her safe.
My ghost appeared by the door, silently watching. She’d told me to be strong but so far there’s been nothing I’d needed to be strong about—
I stopped myself mid-thought as Aleron leapt from his chair, his face already contorted to that of a killer with prominent cheekbones and descended fangs.
He ran, his movement almost a blur until he reached the female farthest from him.
He took her into his arms and moaned long and low as his fangs pierced her neck.
There was no seduction here, no showmanship, no peacocking or wooing, and I stared at my ghost as I curled my fingers around the wooden seat of my chair, holding myself in place.
She watched me back without recrimination or bitterness as the room filled with the sounds of sucking and bliss. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to see what the others were doing. I didn’t want to see anything else.
The human Aleron had grabbed had fought initially until her body slackened as the strength of his venom and its presence in her bloodstream wooed her into a false trap of safety.
My fangs pushed at my gums again, but I clamped my lips shut and closed my eyes as I fought to find my silence. I needed to will myself away from this room and the temptation to feed.
But before my self-control deserted me, the sounds of sucking stopped and I opened my eyes as the Ancients and other vampires let bodies thump to the floors and nearest surfaces. They’d drunk them dry.
I closed my eyes again, fighting the urge to order everyone from my house. They had to know the dangers, the risk of exposure. But I looked at my ghost and thought of my garden… I hadn’t always been so careful.
As if summoned by an inaudible bell, several servants and more guards entered the room and they efficiently cleared the corpses, lifting them without any regard for the life that had once been contained within them. They were just skin sacks, now. They held no worth to anyone here at all.
I steeled myself against a wave of guilt. I’d been that way. Before Nicolas.
But I’d always reasoned that I’d had a purpose. I was searching for my mate, for a cure.
It wasn’t enough.
I’d been a monster.
Perhaps I was still a monster but I had a new cause. I needed to find my mate and Ciara and we needed to get the hell out of here to help the Duponts. I couldn’t fail on any one of those three things.
The stakes were too high.