Chapter 7 Francois
Francois
The room was empty of humans and their remains now—technically and actually devoid of life. The other vampires moaned their satisfaction like the drunks I’d seen in The Neutral Zone, when that had been my club, before Nicolas put Sebastian in charge and changed things.
I stiffened in anticipation of a wave of regret, but I felt nothing. Literally nothing. I no longer cared about ruling New Orleans or being the center of political machinations here. I’d been Father’s stand-in during his times of stasis, and I’d thought I wanted to be his heir… But maybe I hadn’t.
Maybe I didn’t.
I glanced around the table. Especially if being his heir meant being an Ancient.
Their paper-like skin seemed to glow almost eerily in the lengthening shadows of the early evening. I’d never really noticed the same characteristics in Father. But of course he’d shared them. It was all so clear now that I could look back, untainted by living in that moment.
Ruse stood, the movement abrupt as he didn’t even attempt to conceal his vampire speed. I’d grown far more used to lazy movements if I was trying to conceal my true nature rather than scare local humans away.
“And now for a tour,” Ruse said, his voice booming with fake geniality, a fang peeking from under his top lip. “Francois, if you would be so kind?”
If my attention had been wandering before, I focused on him now. He expected me to give them a tour of my home? What was I? The after-dinner entertainment?
He narrowed his eyes at my silence, and pain shot between my temples.
Then I also stood, my movements jerky and uncoordinated as I fought against whatever force was compelling me.
“Now, now, Francois.” Ruse’s voice remained cheery, but his face was hard, without a trace of amusement. “I’m sure you’d like to show us around this lovely home.”
“Indeed.” I gritted my teeth as pain flashed through my head again. “Where would you like to start? Upstairs?”
Ruse shook his head. “Oh, no, I think the lower floors are far more interesting. Particularly anything subterranean in this city. Impossible rooms belonging to impossible people, don’t you think?
” He looked around the table, inviting the rest of the Ancients and guest vampires to share his enthusiasm.
“Impossibilities proving just how much is possible for our kind here.” When he nodded, everyone around the table nodded along with him—even me, although again, my movement wasn’t my own.
“Right this way.” My teeth were still clenched as I left the table and walked toward the door, barely even pausing to ensure I was being followed by the collective in the room.
I wasn’t a good tour guide. I didn’t keep up an interesting patter of family anecdotes or facts about the house. Ruse had an ulterior motive for wanting to look around, and he probably wasn’t truly interested in any of the past my family had built here.
I reached the door that led to the basement.
Only basement sounded too grand. The rooms were barely serviceable.
They’d been speedily and roughly carved into the spaces beneath the house before being enchanted by magic strong enough to keep them dry.
Even with that protection, there was still an undeniable odor of damp and swamp, like nature hovered, threatening to retake what we’d stolen.
“Why down here?” I paused with my hand on the doorhandle and spoke my first words since leaving the dining room.
Ruse shrugged, his grin malevolent. “Humor me.”
Aleron sneered behind him, the slight movement of his mouth almost making his thin skin rustle. “Just like his father.” His voice was little more than a wheeze. “Too much independence in him. Not enough thought for his family.”
“Open the door.” Ruse bit out a command in the same tone my father had always used, and my hand moved as if by itself, pushing the handle down and opening the door.
A wave of cooler air met us, a sweet scent twined in the usual damp aroma, and my nose twitched. I walked toward the source of the scent as though compelled, although I was fairly sure Ruse wasn’t doing anything this time.
“What’s this space?” Aleron interrupted my instinct to keep moving forward as he touched my shoulder to get my attention.
I flinched away from him then consciously relaxed. Showing them any weakness at all was a bad thing. But sudden adrenaline thundered through me, as if the situation had just ramped up, and I didn’t entirely understand why.
I swallowed and waved an arm, trying to channel my usual disposition. “Oh, the holding cells.” I cringed a little as I spoke, at the memories of the humans I’d held down here.
So much waste.
I’d only seen potential. Each of those humans could have been the one. My one. Except they weren’t.
And they never would have been.
My one had shown up here without any guidance or…encouragement from me. Fate had brought her right to my door.
I almost laughed.
Useless. Fate had brought my mate to my door when I couldn’t even access her.
My need for a well-timed Nicolas Dupont rescue grew ever more fierce. I’d seen him do it before. He’d fucking come for Leia’s father, for fuck’s sake.
But of course he’d come for Leia’s father. Leia was his mate.
I was not his mate.
And I’d killed Leia’s father.
Fuck. Putain.
I inhaled again—slowly, deliberately. My mate, she was down here.
“Next left, Francois.”
I automatically reacted to Ruse’s instruction, opening the door at my side before walking into a tiny viewing room. Immediately, goosebumps rose on my arms.
I’d spent many hours in this small room. Lurking. Watching. Plotting.
“Where are we?” Aleron sounded almost gleeful as he entered the small space. “Oh, my…” He merely breathed the words as he glanced toward the small viewing window.
It was a two-way mirror, and anyone on the other side of the wall had no idea they were being watched.
I looked up, my gaze focusing like a laser on the two women on the other side. Ciara…She was there. They’d put her in with a human. Poor human.
But…not any human. My nose twitched. That was definitely my mate’s scent.
I looked at the redheaded woman on the small cot. Even as I recognized that she was too thin, lust sparked to life in front of me.
“Now this is a feeding frenzy I’d like to see.” Clémence spoke quietly. “That one has far too much control.” She nodded at Ciara, and I made tight fists as I fought the growl of ownership that threatened to rumble through me.
Ciara had control. The idea was like a balm that soothed a little of my tension. Maybe my mate would be okay.
But I couldn’t function on maybes. I needed to be sure of it.
A flicker of movement in the cell caught my attention, and then a barely formed ghost sat next to my mate on the bed. She drew her knees to her chest and tucked her arms around her legs, a pose that was all too familiar from the way she’d sat in that room before.
This was different, though.
She wasn’t all out of hope. She was my hope.
“Do you know why they’re here. Francois?”
Lost in my thoughts, I jumped at Ruse’s voice. My mouth dried, but I forced out an answer. “Food?”
He laughed, but when Ciara glanced toward the wall between us, he lowered his volume. “Oh, Francois.” He pouted a little, the expression ridiculous on his face. He tutted. “Non, mon ami. Non.”
I shuddered as he called me his friend. I’d never be that. Not while he was trying to overthrow Nicolas, and certainly not while he held my mate in a cell.
Every fiber of my being vibrated with the need to tear the wall between us down and rescue her.
Claws began to form from my fingernails, the tips digging into the skin of my palms. I bowed my head in case my features started to change.
I couldn’t afford to lose control just now and I couldn’t let the others see.
“Your father—” Ruse adopted a tone like a genial grandfather might use to tell a favored grandchild a bedtime story, but I wasn’t comfortable or ready for him to begin.
There were too many other thoughts crowding my mind.
“émile,” he said unnecessarily—like I’d forgotten my own father’s name. “When he left us, he had with him an important book.”
“Oh?” I tried to sound midway between couldn’t care less and somewhat interested. Like it didn’t matter to me at all, but still, the more information I could learn, the better.
Clémence glanced at me, the look in her eyes sharp. “You need to pay attention to this, Francois. You’re the heir, and it’s in your best interests to help us reform.” Her gaze clouded a little. “Imagine the power we can amass when we are one again.”
I nodded. “I see what you mean.” I couldn’t have cared less what she meant.
“If I can continue?” Ruse intended to continue whether I granted my permission or not, so I remained quiet.
“Quite simply, we need that book back. So…” He gestured to the two-way mirror.
“You can see that we’ve already made use of your little dungeon set-up.
The vampire in there is the mate of one of the Duponts, and she’s also the sister of the local wolf shifter alpha, I believe.
” He passed and examined his nails. “That makes her really quite valuable.”
When I didn’t immediately respond, Clémence answered and looked at him with the kind of reverence I would have expected to have been reserved for if she saw a god walking among us. “Indeed.”
“The human is…probably expendable.” He frowned.
“But she has fire, so we brought her, too. If we can push the vampire into losing control through her, all the better. Eventually, she’ll turn on her.
” He shrugged, making it clear how little that fact bothered him, and I couldn’t smother my growl this time.
Clémence gave a lazy, throaty chuckle, but her fingers were steel around my upper arm. “Why such an interesting reaction to the fate of a human, I wonder?” She tapped her free forefinger against her lips and raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow.
I shook her hold from me as I took a step away from her. Then I let my fangs show. “Simple hunger, my sweet Clémence.”
She grinned and touched the tip of her tongue to one of her own fangs. “I think I know what you mean.”
I almost sighed in relief—the last thing I wanted any of these vampires to know was how important that human was. She’d become my whole world the moment I saw her, and I needed to hide that fact from them if I didn’t want them to have anything to use against me—or her.
Humans who belonged to vampires, who were destined to be their mates, had always been used as leverage.
After all, we were territorial creatures with very few scruples.
Being long-lived shed a lot of the minutiae of being human.
Over time, we simply learned to live without regret.
Without compassion at all, really, for some of us.
I’d been headed in that direction myself before Nicolas had shown me unexpected kindness.
Aleron watched me. Damn that man. He always watched me, and there was always something like suspicion in his gaze.
He was trying to catch me out. The Ancients might have told me they needed me, but Aleron certainly didn’t want to need me.
And maybe he’d do anything to prove to the others that I didn’t belong.
“Simply put, Francois,” Aleron said—as though he’d decided to handle this negotiation now. “If you don’t get that book for us, both of these females will die.”
My rage screamed inside my head until I couldn’t hear anything else.
It took me a moment to regain control. “Then why have you taken a Dupont mate? Do you not think that will bring Nicolas Dupont to our door before we’ve discovered the book’s location?
Not to mention the local wolf shifter population.
Do we need a house overrun with wolves?” Even to my own ears, I sounded dismissive. I needed to sound dismissive.
It would be dangerous to sound too invested.
“Wolves?” Aleron laughed loudly, not bothering to conceal the fact we were here.
“Fucking wolves? We’ve been putting those dogs down for years.
But they just won’t stay down. Too many pups.
No, let them fucking come. This way, we can eradicate the whole pack at once.
Still, if you don’t want to be distracted by the New Orleans pack, I suggest you find our book quickly. ”
As he looked away like he’d grown bored of our conversation, and I stared at my mate in the other room.
Hell, the stakes were rising. I had a mate to protect, a book to find, a pack to prevent from slaughter…
How could I do all of that? The Ancients didn’t even feed me properly.
Any moment, my madness could reclaim me.
“My mind…” I blurted the words, clutching at straws as my mate’s scent teased my nose. Could the rest of them not smell this? I was lucky if they couldn’t.
“What’s on your mind, mon chou?” Clémence ruffled my hair. “You always were a sensitive soul, even as a child.”
“Dead man’s blood.”
She retracted her hand as she gasped. “What? You’ve tainted your blood with a drug?”
I nodded. “I’m the crazy prince of New Orleans, didn’t you hear?” I cast her a sidelong glance.
Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. “But now…” She paused. “Now I don’t even know if you can fulfil…” She looked at Ruse, and he shrugged.
“There’s a method I’ve been using to keep things at bay.” I raced ahead, speaking before I could think about the wisdom of my words. But if there was a way, any way…
“Oh?” Clémence lifted her eyebrow again.
I nodded. “The blood of virgins. I keep the madness at bay by drinking the blood of virgins.” There was more to it than that, and I was pretty sure Nicolas had been dosing me with something, too.
Probably the cure, but never enough to quite cure me, although even that assumption wasn’t enough to make me hate him.
I was still alive because of him, and now I’d found my mate—she was right in front of me, close enough to keep and protect if I could only get close enough.
“We all like the blood of a virgin, honey.” Clémence gave her throaty chuckle again as she drawled her words.
I shrugged. Again, I needed them to think I didn’t care. “It keeps my mind working. It’s medicine, pure and simple.” And this virgin was my mate, too. Perhaps she’d even be my cure. I’d always believed so.
My steps shuffled slightly as I moved forward. “There’s a virgin in there, and I want her.” I turned to Ruse. “And if you want me to find your fucking old book, you want me to have her, too.”