Chapter 13 Francois
Francois
Every word seemed forced from me. The truth—such an ugly truth—didn’t come easily. And it put the focus on the wrong reason for wanting a mate. Like her only use to me was her blood, like I’d just sullied every other mated vampire pairing out there.
The blood cure wasn’t everything in my heart, and I wanted to express myself fully, to say everything that needed saying, but now wasn’t the time. We had too much to do, and Ciara was looking at me as if she wanted to personally remove my heart and assure my final death.
I wasn’t sure I could blame her, but she couldn’t argue that I hadn’t looked after Maeve before. She’d returned fed, at least. I hadn’t been able to keep her with me or protect her in the way I most wanted to—in the way our bond demanded I needed to.
“We’re looking for a book of spells.” Maeve murmured the words quietly to Ciara as she walked to one of the bookcases we hadn’t looked on yesterday.
Ciara followed her, unease clear in her stiff movements. She cast a glance at me over her shoulder like I might pounce on either of them.
I wanted to protest everything she thought to be true, but I couldn’t really blame her for her mistrust. I’d done all of the things she’d said. I’d probably done more, but thankfully those memories were hazy, and I didn’t have to relive those past misdeeds.
The knowledge of them was enough. And being back here meant no escape. The ghosts still appeared to me daily, the strongest one among them speaking to me like she had some sort of right to comment on and guide my life.
Perhaps she did. Perhaps she had more right than anyone to interfere, seeing as I’d ended her opportunity to experience everything for herself. Regret was heavy inside me. But I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t go back and make myself a better man. I could only focus on the future.
On my mate. On our life together.
I walked the opposite way to the women, finding a bookcase in the back of the room. It was almost out of sight but not quite—far enough away to allow the women a sense of privacy, if that was what they needed, but close enough that I could still watch over Maeve and ensure her well-being.
The books here weren’t grouped like the others. Every other bookcase seemed to have been arranged by someone with a very particular kind of library-based OCD, but here the books were neither arranged by height nor color nor seemingly even by subject.
As I stood and contemplated what to do, a light breeze brushed over my right cheek, but I was standing away from the windows, and those weren’t even open. It wasn’t as though the house had air conditioning, either. Father had never favored modern inventions.
He’d always been secretive, though. And I’d always believed there might be secret passages and rooms here.
Certainly I’d hoped so as a child. But I’d believed I’d searched everywhere.
I’d probably avoided the library, though, but only because the dusty attics full of sheet-covered furniture and abandoned antiques held more appeal for my explorations.
I glanced at my feet. Another thin, ornamental rug with faded colors.
I’d heard many times that the more worn they were, the more value they held.
The rug butted right up against the base of the bookcase, and anticipation skittered over my skin—the kind I’d always felt as a child but thought I’d long grown out of.
Did this house still have secrets to reveal to me?
I bent down before lifting the edge and peeling it back.
Keep going, Francois. My ghost’s voice was distorted as she flickered briefly into view, but then she was gone again.
I hadn’t needed her encouragement, but my excitement definitely grew, and it grew again at the scuff marks I revealed on the wood floor. I glanced up at the bookcase. Was it truly a bookcase or was it a door?
I glanced at where the women were. The temptation to shout my findings was great but too many people in this house had super hearing now, and any one of them could have been stationed just outside the door—Ruse, especially.
He’d taken far more of an interest in the search for the book than I’d expected.
I pushed the rug back into place and strolled to where the women were. I didn’t want to alarm wither of them or let them know I might have found something.
“Maeve.”
She glanced up as I whispered her name.
I beckoned to her, and she grinned before approaching me. Ciara touched her arm briefly like she might hold her back, but I caught her eye and signaled for her to come closer, too. Her reaction was the opposite of Maeve’s and her revulsion was almost a visible physical ripple under her skin.
I waited until they came closer. “I think I found something.” I barely spoke the words, but Ciara’s eyebrows lifted in response, and she turned and whispered against Maeve’s ear.
Maeve’s eyes gleamed, and I grinned at her before turning and trying to remain casual as I returned to the bookshelf and rug.
“It’s here.” I pushed the rug back again to reveal the scuff marks. “I think it’s a door.”
“The bookcase?” For a moment, Maeve drew her eyebrows down in a vision of perplexity, but then she almost jumped. “Hell, yes!”
I motioned her to be quiet, and her cheeks pinked.
“Sorry,” she mouthed. Then she whispered like I had. “Hell, yes! Of course, the bookcase. Eat your heart out, Scooby Doo!”
I grinned at her enthusiasm.
“We need to open it.”
“On it,” Ciara replied as she started lifting books in turn. “One of these has to be release the mechanism, right? Isn’t that how it usually works?”
“Absolutely it is.” Maeve started working up the case from the bottom, moving books and running her hands over the wood. “We’re looking for any strange catches or niches or dents in the framework of the shelf. It might just hang on a hinged book.”
Ciara nodded. “Okay.” Then she grimaced. “Wait. I might have found something.” Her grimace quickly expanded into a grin. “Yep. This is definitely something.”
As she finished speaking, there was a soft click. And the shelf moved, swinging towards us the smallest amount as whatever had held it fully closed released.
Maeve covered her mouth. “It is a door.” She glanced toward me. “Not that I ever doubted you.”
I tugged at the edge of the open bookcase and a waft of musty air raced toward us. Maeve coughed and turned her head.
“Oh my God,” she murmured. “How ancient is that space? The air tastes like dust.”
A torch on a wall a little way down the passage flared to life and I blinked.
“Magic,” Maeve whispered, as I looked beyond the torch to the ethereal vision of my ghost. She smiled faintly before fading from view.
Ciara and Maeve hesitated at the entrance to the passageway, Ciara’s posture one of distrust, Maeve’s more like uncertainty.
“Oui. I can go alone,” I muttered. “You needn’t come.” This was too dangerous a situation to plunge my mate into. I didn’t know what was in here.
As if the words had galvanized her into action, Maeve sprang forward. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Not happening. I’ve never seen anything this amazing. This is proper haunted house stuff.”
As she moved away from the open door, she grabbed the torch and held it slightly aloft. “There are stairs.” Her whispered words were clear to hear, and she didn’t stop or turn around before starting to walk down them. I sighed at her complete lack of self-preservation before following her.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Ciara’s grim sing-song behind me brought me pause as she fell into step, her breath almost teasing against my neck.
I should have laughed. I was following my mate so that no danger came to her, and Ciara was following me following my mate to ensure that no danger came to her.
If she hadn’t already been mated, I would have believed that he didn’t even know what the bond felt like.
As we took a step forward, she spoke again. “Better close this in case anyone comes into the library while we’re gone.”
The passageway was plunged into near darkness, the torch bobbing away from us as Maeve descended with the only light source. Still, Ciara had the right idea—we didn’t need to be joined on this quest by any of the Ancients.
“I’ve never been here.” I fought to keep my voice low, and I trailed my hand along the wall to my right as we walked. “I didn’t even know this existed.”
That had probably been Father’s plan all along. He would never have expected me to find it, and he certainly hadn’t tried to tell me about it—even after some of his longer bouts of stasis, when it had looked as though his final death was close.
When we reached the bottom of the steps, we entered a small room, a windowless chamber, really, and another two torches flared to life with unnatural fire. The entire room vibrated with a type of magic that prickled against my skin and my first instinct was to run.
Maeve sucked in a breath. “This room hurts,” she murmured.
“Witch magic,” Ciara replied, not even looking to me for an answering nod. When she did look at me, there was derision in her eyes. “I have no idea how you didn’t even know there was a whole secret room in your house, though.”
I shrugged. “Witch magic,” I replied. If they could put whole basements in New Orleans, they could certainly create rooms in pockets of space that didn’t appear to exist.
“But why?” Maeve stood in the center of the room, still holding the torch she’d brought with her.
“Safe room?” Ciara twisted her mouth as she looked at the various shelves in the space.
I shook my head. “Back-up plan.” The longer I stood here, the more sure I was.
Father had created this space to ensure he could defeat the Ancients if they ever came for him.
“There’s nothing here but stuff to fight, oui?
It’s where he planned to have a last stand if he ever needed one. We need to check what’s up here.”
Maeve nodded and handed me her torch, her fingers grazing against mine as she did. “See if you recognize anything?”
“I won’t. But I might know something important when I see it.” That was some hope. How the fuck was I supposed to know anything about Father’s previous life when he’d never breathed a word of it? Had he confided in Lo?c? My brother was the true heir, after all. I was just the failure who came next.
I almost laughed. I was the failure who was still here. That probably said everything I needed to know.
“Wow.” Ciara spun around, a large black sword in her hand, and she wielded it like she was a professional. As she pointed it at me, I backed away, the movement instinctive and automatic.
Power radiated from the sword in waves, filling the air with black magic with every movement Ciara made.
“What the hell?” Maeve paled and swooned a little.
“Put it down.” I bit the words out as I reached for my mate.
She was only human and didn’t have the same natural defenses against magic that we had.
“Come to this side of the room.” I gentled my tone as I spoke directly to Maeve, and I took her hand, enjoying the warmth of her skin as her fingers curled around mine.
Ciara hissed but I didn’t even look at her.
“Put it down,” I said again, my tone milder this time.
“We should avoid touching anything until we know what it does.” I kept my admiration for how well she’d handled it to myself.
Father’s room seemed dangerous, though. There was immense power up here; it was almost like I’d been sitting inside a nuclear bomb this whole time.
I led Maeve to a crooked set of shelves above some sort of old, dark wood desk.
Maybe a desk or perhaps a preparation area for spell casting, but Father had never given any indication that he could cast. He was an Ancient, though, so he could have simply hidden the ability.
There were certainly things I hadn’t known about him.
“What’s this?” Maeve jolted me from my thoughts as she spoke.
I glanced at the book she was pointing to.
She’d made the wise decision not to touch it.
Or maybe it wasn’t her decision at all. As I reached to pluck it from the shelf, it took all of my concentration to even touch it as the book itself seemed to repel me.
If Maeve hadn’t pointed it out directly, I might have even glanced right over it.
I set it on the desk and opened the cover. It behaved much better now that I’d lifted it from the shelf, but there was still a residual feeling of unease lingering inside me as I turned the pages.
The spells were written in Latin, and my use of the language was rusty, but key phrases I hadn’t known I remembered jumped out at me. “I think this might be exactly what we’re looking for.”
“Really?” The glance Maeve gave me was filled with such expectant hope that the desire to kiss her was almost overwhelming, if not for the fact that Ciara was here and I didn’t want my first kiss with Maeve to be a public event.
I nodded, still holding myself back from dipping my head closer and claiming her lips, ignoring when her gaze lowered to my mouth like she knew and wanted the same.
“I think this book might have the information in it that we need to kill the Ancients.” I stopped and tilted my head, considering.
That was a very bold claim. One I might not be able to back up.
“Or at least incapacitate them until we know what to do in the future. I just need to get it to Kayla and see what she makes of it.”
“Hurry up then. What do we do if one of them goes looking for us in the library? I closed the door but I couldn’t replace the rug. None of them will need to be Sherlock Holmes to find our location if they’re really looking.”
“Let me just check for anything else that might help us in the fight ahead.” I turned to the next set of shelves, but a loud bang sounded from the top of the stairs and the magical flames all flickered.
We’d run out of time.