Chapter 1 Jason #2
I remained quiet. Perhaps if I didn’t give him anything to reply to, he’d lose interest and just work quietly.
“I’ve never heard of it before.” He was murmuring now, almost like he was talking to himself.
“I’m not sure there has ever been a pairing between a vampire—sireling of a born vampire, a king no less—and a member of a wolf pack.
Our ways are too…” His lip curled. “Too different. We vampires are refined. Shifters are—” He waved his hand again. “Smelly, dirty, disorganized.”
I started to shake my head because I hadn’t found them that way at all. But I stopped. There was no point arguing with Francois. Not when his opinion was shared by a lot of vampires, anyway.
“That’s the way my father felt, anyway.” He grimaced as though acknowledging his father was painful. “And he certainly killed enough of them to ensure we all knew his views.”
What? I snapped my head around to look at him although I didn’t ask the question out loud. I’d never heard of émile taking out shifters, and I wasn’t sure Nic had, either. “Your father killed shifters?”
Francois didn’t reply, just took a deep breath like his next words would be more like a monologue. Or something self-absorbed, anyway.
“You know what? Let’s just finish this,” I cut in, and we moved the rest of the furniture in silence. I didn’t have time for Francois theatrics right now.
But the newest revelation about émile played in my thoughts.
Once everything was in the apartment, I moved the truck to a more convenient place to return to the rental company the next day. When I returned to the apartment, I locked the door behind me, blowing out a soft sigh of relief as I did.
“Look at this place.” The words exploded from Francois’s mouth as I turned to him. “We are to live like paupers.” He jabbed a finger against his chest. “But I am Francois Ricard. I am no pauper.”
I cast my mind back to the decaying mansion Francois had spent most of his life living in.
This place was almost an upgrade. But I didn’t say mention that.
“You’ll get over it. Stop acting like the spoiled little prince you no longer are.
You’re only here due to Nic’s grace—just a pauper, really, living off the kindness of your new king.
” Francois needed to stop acting like he was better than the rest of us.
Or maybe I just needed to keep our conversation to a minimum if it wasn’t about the Ancients.
That would certainly save my sanity, anyway.
Francois huffed and sat down, the familiar thud of his boots hitting the table echoing around the nearly empty room. This place certainly wasn’t a home.
After a while, he became still, going to that place vampires went when we had nothing better to do.
It wasn’t like the apartment was littered with activities to keep us busy, and our evolution had allowed us to almost pause ourselves or at least retreat into a state of solitude that was useful for relaxation or simply waiting for a human to make a decision or answer a question we’d asked.
Sometimes, humans behaved as if they had all of the time in the world in their short, little lives, when really, their time was borrowed from the moment of their birth.
A knocking sound disturbed my thoughts and I half turned to the door.
Shit. Who could that be? We weren’t expecting anyone.
No one was even supposed to fucking know we were here.
Maybe I’d misheard. Although that was unlikely.
Vampire hearing was a series of blessings and curses, but I very rarely misheard anything.
I focused, listening intently and picking up the sound of soft, regular breathing. Someone was definitely there. And thank fuck they were human. I didn’t want our cover blown with the Ancients before I’d even gotten any information out of Francois.
An uninvited guest certainly wasn’t on my list of things to take care of today, but just because someone was there didn’t mean I had to answer. They’d get bored and go away soon enough.
The knocking sound came again. A little bolder this time, and I’d just started to walk away, clearly signaling my disinterest, as Francois jumped up from his position on the sofa.
“Fantastique!” he cried. “Our first guest. Isn’t this exciting, Jason?” He strode purposefully toward the front door, and I moved to intercept him.
The last thing I needed was Francois opening the door and creating our first impression with whoever was out there.
But I was too late.
Francois swung the door wide open, a huge grin already fixed on his face. “Bonjour,” he bellowed in the direction of the petite brunette standing in front of us. Then he swept a fucking bow, too, before taking her hand and bring it to his lips. “Enchanté,” he murmured.
“Oh!” The woman brought her free hand to rest lightly on her chest and giggled as her cheeks pinked. “I’m Penelope. I live across the hall.” Her eyes widened as her gaze landed on me. “Hello.”
“Hello.” In relation to Francois’s flamboyant greeting, mine was a curt grunt—verging on rude. I nodded my head, but it probably looked curt and dismissive rather than being a polite acknowledgment.
Humans weren’t part of our plan for living here—especially not with Francois’s past experiences with them.
The memory of the special garden he’d created at his family home with all of his failed attempts to find and turn his true mate tasted bitter in the back of my throat.
So many unmarked graves. So many unmissed women.
“I just called around to welcome the newest family to the building.” Penelope glanced over my shoulder into the apartment, and I moved to obstruct her view.
Francois let loose a peal of laughter. “Family? Really, Penelope.” He raised an eyebrow. “Jason is merely my roommate. Not my family.” He laughed again as if to punctuate the end of his sentence.
He still hadn’t released Penelope’s hand from his, and I drew him away from the door. “Come on, we’ve still got work to do in here.”
This was another distraction I didn’t have time for. I’d need to speak to Nic and say this wasn’t going to work.
“Thanks for stopping by, Penelope.” I started to close the door.
“Oh, well, if you need anything…” Her voice faded behind the closed door.
Then I latched it and fastened the security chain.
“Stop opening the door.” I directed my words to Francois, who’d already returned to the sofa. “We’re going to need some rules if this is going to work.”
“Meh.” He uncrossed his ankles before crossing them the other way and folded his arms before glancing at me. “Well?”
I sighed. Really? I’d spent all of my time in New Orleans wrangling wolves and now I was on duty minding this dick. It wasn’t the action I’d hoped to be involved in when I’d requested to stay in New Orleans rather than return to Baton Rouge. Maybe this hadn’t been my most brilliant idea.
Only… Only Ciara. When I’d first elected to stay in New Orleans, it had been to help Sebastian. Not to do this, and not to discover my mate. Conflicting thoughts about returning home and staying to claim what was mine crashed through my mind.
I heaved an audible breath and counted in my head, focusing on Francois. The one problem I could hopefully solve in the next ten minutes.
“Yes, rules.” Damn, I sounded like a teacher. Someone responsible, anyway—except the only thing I was responsible for was this shitshow.
“If you insist. You may proceed.” Francois smiled as he waved his hand slowly in front of him, the very vision of benevolence.
My blood simmered in my veins, but I took another deep breath. It wasn’t necessary. It was a pause moment. And his attitude didn’t matter. I couldn’t control Francois…only my reaction to him. And I didn’t need any aneurysms or a case of stress-induced hives right now.
“Right.” I held up my hand and started ticking off my fingers. “Rule one, stay out of sight.”
Francois chuckled, the sound lazy.
“As out of sight as possible,” I amended.
“I mean it. No fraternizing with new neighbors or any other random humans. Nic wouldn’t like it.
” I nearly cursed as I spoke the last words.
Invoking Nic made me look weak and like I didn’t have a handle on this task under my own authority.
“Rule two, no drinking blood from the vein.” As his eyes narrowed, I shrugged.
“It’s kind of made obvious by rule one, but probably still worth stating. ”
“Drinking from the vein…” His voice was soft and almost dangerous as he used the tip of his forefinger to trace a path on the arm of the couch, all of his attention focused on that movement.
He was hyper-focused, and I could almost imagine how the man would be with actual prey. Because he’d definitely been a predator. I wasn’t wrong to call him out on that.
“Yes.” I made my voice hard. “No drinking from the vein. Dupont vampires don’t. Nic—” I stopped.
Enough invoking Nic.
“Rule three,” I continued, even though Francois was still quiet and still. “You do as I say at all times.”
Francois moved suddenly as if something had snapped him out of his change of mood, and he laughed again. “Mais, oui.” He nodded and paused. “Except when you need to check with Nic, of course.”
Damn Francois. He never missed anything, and my slip-up about bringing Nic into this would probably be something he’d refer to for a while.
“I’m the only word you need.” I stayed firm. “We don’t have time for humans to hang around. We don’t want humans hanging around. We have a job, and I have shit outside the Ancients that I need to get wrapped up.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. All of his movements were elegant. Dignified. “And what exactly do you have that requires so much of your attention?”
I hesitated. Sure, none of it was a state secret, but I didn’t exactly trust him, and we weren’t best buds just because we shared four walls. But if I could buy some goodwill by sharing the nonconfidential details, maybe that would smooth things out for our time here.
“I have to finish overseeing the deal with Conri—”
Francois interrupted me with a noise of disgust. “Of all the supernaturals to form an alliance with, you went for dogs. Look around.” He gestured vaguely with his hands.
“We’re in New Orleans. The opportunities to bring different groups to your cause are endless here.
I used to keep a census of all the types that lived here.
You could have stuck a pin in it and found more interesting types to spend your time with. ” He sighed dramatically.
I didn’t remind him that the reason we’d allied with Conri and his pack was to bring down the House of Ricard in the first place.
The wolves had helped end Francois and émile’s rule.
We couldn’t guarantee that any of the diverse groups already present here would have shown loyalty to Nic.
That, and Conri had terms he also wanted met…
For some reason, he wanted a chunk of New Orleans in particular.
Which was why I was still here. To ensure everyone was happy in the aftermath of the New Orleans takeover.
Only it wasn’t going as smoothly as I hoped.
Especially not now that Ciara was on the scene.
Anticipation and fear warred inside me. I’d found my mate but…shit. Now what? She was right here. But so far away. That offered a degree of safety. I wouldn’t do anything stupid—like go claim her on a whim, but it was also frustrating as hell. She was too far away.
I needed her close. Instinct wanted her as close as possible to me.
And I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to stay in New Orleans forever. There was a tug in my gut to go home, although the biggest tug right now was to claim my mate, and I wasn’t able to do either thing. So I needed Francois to fall into line and not make my life any more difficult.
“No one knows you’re still alive, Francois.”
His eyes took on a more distant gaze, as if he wasn’t still in the room with me. “Yes, I am alive.”
“Yes, and that’s very much thanks to Nic.” I made my reminder pointed. It was only due to the mercy of Nic that Francois and I were in this room together at all.
Any other vampire would have killed Francois for the things he’d done. But once Nic had realized that Francois was being dosed with dead man’s blood, that he was an addict with addled thoughts, he’d decided to rehabilitate him instead.
It hadn’t mattered how many of us had gently questioned that decision. The king’s will stood.
“Bien s?r. Of course,” Francois whispered. “I exist simply due to the whim of the current king. I am not unaware of that fact.”
I couldn’t tell how he felt about it. Did it make him angry?
Or was he grateful for his second chance?
How did I even want him to feel? I wasn’t sure.
A little bit of obvious gratitude wouldn’t kill the guy, but Francois left me conflicted.
He’d done horrific things, but I trusted Nic’s judgment.
So if Nic saw something worthwhile in Francois, then I had to trust it was there.
Hopefully, I’d see it for myself soon.
“Nic wants to keep your survival quiet.” I opened a box of books.
A shelf could come later. For now, I’d stack them somewhere.
“I bet.” For a moment, he sounded bitter but then he straightened and stood before grabbing another box and pulling it toward him.
Vampires generally traveled light. It wasn’t like we needed to stock the kitchen with cutlery and crockery, although we had enough to keep up the ruse of appearing human and make this into a normal home.
“You prefer your…illness being in remission, right?” I glanced at him quickly. Surely, if nothing else moved him to do as he was asked, the reminder of all that could go wrong if he didn’t do as expected would be enough?
I felt kind of bad using it. A quiet, nasty threat, and I’d never asked about his health, never even acknowledged it, but now I was half driven by curiosity, half driven by self-preservation.
I needed Francois onboard with Nic’s plans, or what the hell was I even doing here?
This was efficient and expedient to make him fall in line.
I could just finish up with the wolves, grab my mate, and head home.
I nearly laughed at myself. Grab my mate. Yeah, that sounded easy.
But it was a compulsion I almost didn’t want to fight.
“The addiction is under control—thanks to Nicolas, that part is for sure.” Francois didn’t look at me, focusing instead inside the box he was unpacking, and he gave Nic’s name his usual French pronunciation. He always made it sound so flamboyant.
I returned my attention to him as he spoke, though, trying to ignore the image of Ciara in my head.
“I can think clearer. My thoughts are my own. So I know who deserves my gratitude in this situation, and I…” He blew out a sigh. “I will cooperate with the Dupont desires.”
For now.
The unspoken words echoed between us, and a shiver rippled over my skin.