Chapter 10
Nyx
The journey back to Quebec seemed endless.
I had a first-class seat to myself, Jerome and Manny in the seats behind me.
I stared into the darkness beyond the window, fighting the slow creep of doubt.
Had I made a mistake? Should I have taken Cain up on his offer, escaped Quebec City while I still could?
But it was too late now.
We crossed into Canadian airspace, and I forced myself to lean back. To breathe despite the tight band wrapped around my chest.
You made the right choice. The only choice.
The lights of Quebec City appeared, shimmering against the blackness. And then we were gliding over the St. Laurence River and descending toward Jean Lesage Airport.
Just one more month. I only had to hold out until the gallery money came through. I’d survived this long; I could make it another four or five weeks.
A discreet black limo met us at the airport, a QCS soldier at the wheel.
He conveyed us to the outskirts of the city and my father’s sprawling lair beneath a decaying cemetery.
Nazaire owned a gorgeous Old Town mansion and a ski lodge in the Laurentians, but this was his favorite lair—and the one I’d grown up in.
We left the limo in an underground garage, the air thick with exhaust and old stone.
Jerome led the way into a tunnel that burrowed underneath the street to the cemetery.
I fell in behind him, Manny and the driver bringing up the rear with the suitcases.
The damp walls swallowed us, our footsteps the only sound in the dark.
We surfaced in a crypt, the Marchand family vault.
The Marchands had died out long ago, and the dead didn’t care that their bones guarded the entrance to a vampire lair.
I breathed in the crypt’s familiar dusty scent as Jerome touched his palm to the biorec pad, hidden in the base of a shrine to the family’s patron saint.
When Nazaire first brought me here, he’d tucked me into a nursery as far from his apartment as possible. I’d never left, just traded the child-sized bed for a bigger mattress, the toys for paint brushes.
But somewhere along the way, this place had stopped feeling like a home and started feeling like a prison.
A hidden door slid open, revealing a flight of worn metal steps.
We descended into the hushed, stale quiet below.
At the bottom, Jerome peeled off toward the main part of the lair, leaving the others to deliver my suitcases to my apartment.
We wound through a series of smaller tunnels lit by kerosene torches, their flames throwing restless shadows across the stone walls.
The air grew cooler, the silence heavier, each step pulling me farther into an underbelly I no longer wanted to belong to.
As we neared my apartment, brisk footsteps sounded ahead, and Perla emerged from the gloom—rich brown hair coiled into a neat bun, her curvy showgirl frame wrapped in a gray silk blouse and tailored black pants. A former thrall in her mid-forties, she was the closest thing I had to a friend.
“Welcome back, Madame,” she said, dipping her head with practiced grace.
I gave a slight nod, aware of Manny just behind me, observing.
Perla and I both knew the rules—show too much warmth to a servant, and they disappeared. So I kept my face blank, my happiness at seeing her buried.
She unlocked my apartment door and ushered me inside. As I crossed the threshold, my lungs expanded on the first deep breath I’d taken in hours. These two rooms, along with the art studio next door, were the only places I could be fully myself.
The velvety green walls of the living room enveloped me like a forest at twilight.
Pumpkin-colored throw pillows warmed the space, and the massive fern beside the couch unfurled its fronds in welcome.
Along the far wall was a collage of paintings and second-hand treasures—ornate frames, tarnished mirrors, and other oddities.
It was part boho, part goth, and all mine.
Perla directed Manny to put the suitcases in my walk-in closet. He complied, and then with a jerk of his chin in our direction, left.
The door clicked shut behind him, and Perla opened her arms, pulling me into a warm hug and kissing both my cheeks.
“How was Paris? You enjoyed yourself?”
I hugged her back, letting myself lean into her for a moment. Her scent, lavender and fresh soap, wrapped around me.
“Yes, of course,” I said, the words I wanted to say crowding my throat.
That the gallery had been packed. That the crowd of world-weary vampires had lined up to buy my paintings like they were newly unearthed Rembrandts.
Perla had encouraged my painting from the time she’d taken over management of the lair.
I’d been a lonely thirteen-year-old aching for someone to talk to about art, and she’d listened to me ramble on for hours about everything from oils to natural-hair paintbrushes.
Then she’d helped me set up a studio, working it so my father believed it was his own idea, something that would improve my worth in the vampire world.
Not because I’d become an artist, but because I could talk like one.
In a syndicate full of ancient, cultured predators, being able to toss around talk of technique, provenance, and artistic lineage—superficially, of course—made me useful. Someone who could smile and nod and glide through the circles my father wanted access to.
Art wasn’t just art; it was social currency, a way to play the charming, well-bred accessory his associates expected.
So yeah, I wanted to tell Perla what a triumph my art show had been. But I couldn’t do that to her, couldn’t put her in the position of having to choose between keeping my secret or lying to my father.
I gave her a last, hard squeeze and let the words die on my tongue.
She released me and stepped back. “Did you go out with your friends?”
“Friends?” I flashed on Cain, on his knees in the washroom.
The pleasure he’d given me. And then later on the hotel balcony when I’d returned the favor. The pure need on his face…
Stop it. It’s over. Done.
“What?” A knowing smile lifted my friend’s lips. She was a former thrall, after all, and one who’d enjoyed her work.
I mustered a shrug and changed the subject. “Bien s?r, I enjoyed myself. I mean, Paris… The shopping was fabulous and the art show was wonderful. I even bought a painting.”
The oil painting of Cain and the tiger was being shipped back to me under the ruse that I’d purchased it.
“But no men?”
Twice now, Perla had covered for me when I’d slipped out to meet Cain. Not that I’d told her outright, but I could tell she’d guessed—and that she approved, was silently cheering me on.
At my grimace, her perfectly plucked brows climbed. “So there was a man.”
My shoulders slumped. “Was. It’s over.”
“Then he is an ass.”
“No, I’m the ass for thinking he wanted me for myself.” I rolled my lips into my mouth, trying to swallow the pain.
“I’m sorry. But he can—” She made a graphic gesture that drew a reluctant laugh from me. “That’s better.” She patted my back. “I’ll unpack, yes?”
I trailed her into the bedroom, the familiar palette wrapping around me like Perla’s hug. Purple and black, walls soaked in shadow, the kind that felt protective rather than oppressive. The ebony headboard was my own design, etched with a crescent moon and a sprinkling of shooting stars.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I can do it later.”
“It’s no trouble.” She was already in the walk-in closet. She swung a suitcase onto a wide shelf and opened it. “What about the famous Haunt? You met her?”
I sent my friend a sharp look, opening myself to her emotions just to be sure, but all I sensed was natural curiosity. The Haunt had become something of an obsession in the vampire world, especially after Brien Leclerc—Cain’s primus—had bought three of my early works.
I shook my head. “No. She didn’t show.”
“Too bad.”
She sorted my clothes into small plastic laundry baskets—whites in one, colors in the other. When she reached the fishnet dress, she held it up, letting it dangle like a question. “This is new.”
I touched it. “I bought it in Paris.”
Her gaze flicked to mine. “Ah, oui? Very sexy.”
“I wore it to the opening.”
I flashed to Cain, the way his eyes had seemed to eat me up. Like I was the only thing in the gallery worth looking at. That look had made me feel seen. Wanted.
Now it just hurt.
“For this man?” Perla asked, her voice gentle.
I just shook my head.
She eyed me for a few seconds, then nodded. Allowing me my secrets because we both knew they were dangerous.
I swung the second suitcase onto the shelf and unzipped it.
She clucked over the tear I’d made in the fabric. “But it’s ripped. I’ll mend it.”
“Just throw it away, okay?”
I scooped up my dirty underwear and shoved it into the laundry basket. Like if I did it forcefully enough, I could bury the memory of Cain and what I’d done in that dress.
“Very well.” She stacked one basket on top of the other. “Nazaire is in the lair,” she said with a sidelong glance at me. “He’ll be calling for you in an hour, maybe less. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Merde.” My pulse kicked up. “I’d better clean up.”
My father liked to surprise me. Not because he didn’t trust me—like I’d told Cain, he believed I was exactly what he’d made me: obedient, broken in, too weak to rebel. But he liked to keep me off balance. It amused him.
“Yes.” She faced me, her teeth worrying her lower lip. “I wish…things could be different for you.”
My gaze snapped to hers. A beat passed. I almost said it—almost told her that that I was leaving. That by next month, I’d be gone.
But I didn’t.
“It’s not so bad,” I said instead, turning away so she wouldn’t see the lie on my face.
There was a short pause, then she said, “You go clean up. I’ll finish up here. Oh, and I ordered steak frites. It should be here by the time you’re ready.”
My favorite meal.