Chapter 19 Arabella ‘Then’
Arabella
Then
BERNHARDT’S BALLOON MAKES EMERGENCY LANDING
In the early hours of this morning, the actress Sarah Bernhardt landed her hot air balloon in the Tuileries Garden, toppling a Rodin statue into the duck pond.
It’s reported that a member of their party was rushed away from the scene, possibly taken ill from the airborne revelry. Bernhardt herself was spied drinking champagne from the mouth of a bottle and swinging a sword at passers-by. She is positively scandalous!
I’M DROWNING. I’M FIGHTING FOR AIR. Hands wrap around my neck, tugging, choking, fighting to free the jewels—
I wake with a wild jerk from the cold death of daysleep, my head pounding, my limbs weighed down by an invisible force.
Immediately, I know things are wrong. I’m not in my dark, windowless apartment in the coffin I have fashioned out of Parisian architecture. I am shrouded in silk, which is good. Arabella Macquart doesn’t sleep in anything less. But candlelight flickers all around me.
And I hurt.
My limbs are made of a fire that bites and gnashes. My fangs scrape against my lip. They’re heavy in my mouth, like I’m biting two coffin nails. My vision swirls, and I fight against the fogginess of my mind, searching for answers.
I force my hands to move, to rise to my throat and feel for the heavy weight of my collar.
It’s still there. I still have my magic.
As the room comes into clarity, I don’t see answers, but I do see Gideon. He peers down at me, a wobbly smile on his face. He looks a mess – his hair unkempt, his eyes ringed in dark circles, a line of stubble along his chin giving him a violent edge.
“You’re awake.” His smile cracks wide open. He calls over his shoulder, “She’s awake!”
“Shoo, shoo!” A female voice cries out. My heart thuds against my ribs as Sarah Bernhardt – dressed in a flowing opera gown and fur stole – waves away a horde of medical men. She slams the door behind them.
Panic rises inside me. Those medical men must have examined me. They would have drawn my blood. Will they figure out what I am?
No. I have my necklace. The magic will protect me, as it has protected me all these years.
I wrestle with the silk sheets, frantically trying to untangle myself. Gideon reaches out to press me back into the bed, and I fling him across the room.
He crashes into a tea table, sending fine china and wood splinters in all directions.
Oops.
My breath heaves in my chest. My lungs are made of molten metal. They’re not working as they should. I kick my legs out of the sheets. I have to get out of here. He smells too delicious…
“You should rest a while more,” Sarah says breezily, as if all of this is completely normal. “You took quite a turn. Giddy has been nursing you for three days and nights.”
He has?
Snatches of memory come back to me. We were in Sarah’s hot air balloon, and I was having such a grand time, I didn’t realise I’d stayed out too late until the sun peeked over the horizon. The last thing I remember is Gideon catching me as I collapsed and—
“Ow.” Gideon picks himself up and rubs his head where he hit the table. “I brought you here. I didn’t know what else to do. I have no idea where you live, and I didn’t think you’d want anyone at La Petite Mort to see you like this.”
I slump back against the pillows, my head spinning and my stomach growling with hunger.
My sire made me all too aware of the effects of the sun.
I’ve avoided it up until now, not wanting to put myself in a vulnerable position.
But I was having such a good time that I became careless, and look what happened.
And Gideon… what does he think? Has he seen my fangs? Has he figured out what I am? He can’t have, because if he had, he would have run far away or called the commissaire de police.
The magic is still protecting me.
I touch my collar as Gideon kneels beside the bed, his hand stroking my forehead. “You’re still so cold. Should I have the fire lit?”
“Do stop fussing, Giddy. Let her catch her breath.” Sarah floats across the room, picking up one of her lipsticks from the vanity and reapplying the crimson colour with intense concentration.
Gideon looks so worried. My chest pangs – a sharp pain that I’m afraid has nothing to do with my malaise. No one has cared about me like this since my mother.
I need to get out of here before I say or do something to reveal myself and place everything I’ve built in danger… but the simple act of sitting up against the silken pillows leaves me light-headed. Gideon places my hands in his. I don’t have the strength or the desire to pull away.
“Arabella, what happened up there? We were having such a lovely night, but then you fainted. And your skin blistered.” His voice cracks.
“It was horrible. You looked as if you were burning, but I could see no fire. Sarah landed the balloon in the Tuileries Garden. We wrapped you in Sarah’s furs and brought you here, but none of the doctors could help you.
They forced all these horrible concoctions down your throat.
They wouldn’t tell me what was in them but they smelled delightful.
” He makes a face. “I thought I lost you.”
“Drink.” Sarah passes me a goblet.
Gideon’s eyes widen. “She probably shouldn’t have wine in her state.”
“Give me that.” My hands tremble as I lift the goblet to my lips. The scent of blood hits me in the face, and it’s all I can do to sip like a lady instead of guzzling the whole thing. I finish the drink and wipe blood from my lips.
I needed that. It’s not a miracle cure, but I do feel steady.
I glance up at Sarah. She winks at me. Gently, so that Gideon doesn’t notice, she brushes her hand over the fur stole she wears around her neck, revealing twin dots of nearly healed fang marks.
Of course. Sarah moves in the same circles as Gideon’s boss, Lucien Vega.
While not a vampire herself – I would have smelled her – she is a Thrall.
She felt my fangs when she kissed me and understood instantly what I was.
Those doctors must know, as well. They must have been feeding me blood, trying to wake me up and hurry along the healing.
I run my fingers along my arms, over my neck. Gideon takes my hand in his and presses it to the swell of my breasts.
“It’s a miracle,” he breathes. “Your beautiful skin was so damaged, but you healed in just three short days. And you’re awake. You came back to me.”
Something cool slithers along my leg. I glance down, watching in numb fascination as the same something moves beneath the sheets, tipping over the discarded goblet.
Something that is very definitely not part of my personage.
“Cleo, no. That’s naughty.” Sarah leaps for the bedsheets and wrestles something out. My breath stills in my throat as a beautiful snake coils around her arm and undulates around her neck, its head raised and hood expanded to reveal a pattern of brightly coloured diamonds.
“This is Cleo II.” Sarah holds out her arm and the snake rears its head back, regarding me with reptilian curiosity. “The naughty minx must have escaped her enclosure. She’s intrigued by the scent of the wine.”
I bet she is.
“Why Cleo II?” Gideon asks.
“Cleo after Queen Cleopatra, of course.” Sarah pats the snake’s head affectionately.
Cleo’s tongue flicks out. “She’s an Egyptian Cobra, which is the snake Cleopatra likely used to kill herself.
And she’s Cleo II because she’s my second snake.
Cleo I sadly died when she swallowed an embroidered cushion. Snakes can be rather silly.”
The snake regards me from Sarah’s shoulder, her head gently swaying. She doesn’t look silly at all. She is majestic, in charge of her fate, ready to bite anyone who crosses her. Like Sarah.
Like me.
Sarah holds out her hand. “Would you like to hold her?”
Gideon recoils, but I nod. Sarah places the snake on the corner of the bed. Cleo II slithers towards me, head raised, eyes watchful. I hold out my hand, knowing I have nothing to fear. If the snake bites me, she cannot kill me.
But she doesn’t bite. Her cool body coils around my arm. I love the feeling of her muscles squeezing, her scaly skin sliding over mine, the beautiful diamond patterns shimmering in the candlelight.
“She likes you,” Sarah says as she powders her cheeks. “You may keep her if you wish. I’m to sail to America for my tour within the week, and I’d like to know that she has a good home. She’s nocturnal—”
Just like me.
“—although she enjoys sunning herself in the early mornings. Toads are her favourite food, but she’s an excellent mouser and she will frighten away any unworthy suitors.”
“That she will.” Gideon’s face is pale.
I hug Cleo II to my chest, my heart swelling, unable to believe how my life has expanded since Gideon walked into my theatre all those weeks ago. “I would be honoured to welcome Cleo to La Petite Mort.”
Sarah leaves for her evening performance. Gideon sets out bowls of food in front of me. All of it smells disgusting.
I shove the bowls away. “Bring me wine.”
He reaches for a white. I shake my head. “The bottle Sarah had before. The red.”
He picks it off her vanity and sniffs, wrinkling his nose. “It’s gone bad.”
“That’s the one I want, Gideon. Please.”
My voice cracks on the word. I’ve never asked for anything before. I never wanted to use that word with him.
I never asked for him to care for me like this.
Yet here he is.
Gideon rushes over with the bottle and pours me a tall glass. As I drink, he watches me intently. “You look so much better. I’ve been so worried.”
“You never left my side?”
He nods. My heart does an uncomfortable fluttery thing.
“Lucien Vega must have loved that.”
A shadow passes over Gideon’s face. “He’ll manage without me.”
He sets the food aside and climbs up onto the bed, resting his head on the pink headboard and stretching his long legs out beside mine.
He watches me as I drink the blood in long, hungry gulps.
Cleo II slithers up to nestle along my side.
Gideon shies away from her. “Are you going to keep that thing?”
“Don’t call her a ‘thing’.” I stroke the snake’s back, and she wriggles with delight. “Cleo and I have a lot in common. We’re cold-blooded, wear diamonds, and will bite if attacked.”
“I’m not frightened of you.” He glares at the snake. “Either of you. Maybe I’d like to be bitten.”
As if to prove it, he lays down beside me, wrapping his arms around my torso and pressing his body against me. Warmth radiates from his skin.
Cleo slithers over us. Gideon stiffens, but he doesn’t flee. She curls up in a ball in the back of his thighs, seeking the warmth of his living flesh.
We have that in common, too.
He strokes my hair. “You don’t have to be alone, Arabella. I’m here to take care of you.”
I should bite him, drain him and run. Because he’s wrong. I have to be alone. It’s the only way I know I’ll be safe.
Instead, I find myself sinking into his warmth, my head resting on the pillow as I fall into the dreamless sleep of a vampire who, for the first time, has someone to watch over her.