The Vampire Narcise (Regency Draculia #3)(39)
Author: Colleen Gleason

If the damned cat didn’t move…he’d burn. He had nothing to cover himself with, nowhere to hide.

"Go!" he shouted, but his voice was weak. And perhaps it even lacked conviction.

The cat, of course, didn’t move, and although she continued to watch him with those wide eyes, her expression was not haughty.

It was determined.

Giordan closed his eyes when he felt the first brush of the sun’s warmth.

It was an impossible juxtaposition of pleasure and pain…the warmth, as if someone’s hand brushed over him, warm and tender…and yet edged with sharpness, bespeaking of the agony to come.

He huddled against the building, curled up like a cat-or a fetus-pressing as close against the bricks as he could. But the back of his shoulder was exposed, the only part of him that he couldn’t keep in the shadow, and the sun’s rays inched inexorably closer until at last they seared into his sensitive flesh.

A wave of agony screamed through him and he realized from deep inside the white pain that it was coming from his Mark.

The light poured onto him, battling with the dark, undulating roots that branded him Lucifer’s. They writhed and screamed with their own pain as the sun burned and burned and burned.

The last thing he remembered was a light…bright and white and pure, burning inside his mind.

Clarity.

And a voice, deep inside him, that said, "Choose."

In the decade that followed Giordan’s betrayal, as the Reign of Terror in Paris ended and the Revolution metamorphosed into a new era under Napoleon Bonaparte’s leadership, Narcise came to a realization: despite her inability to banish the memory of what Cale had done to her, there were other men who wanted her, ones who could love her. At least for a time.

There were other men who, if she found one who was infatuated deeply enough, could perhaps finish the job Giordan had begun-or at least had made her think he’d begun; she had no reason to believe Giordan had ever even truly meant to free her.

She firmly pushed away her pang of unease as she remembered his face during their final confrontation. Everything from those moments was a blur of pain and darkness, of sordid, hedonistic smells assaulting and pummeling her with the knowledge of what he’d done…everything except the dull shock in his eyes.

Narcise shook her head to banish the image.

Now, perhaps she could find a man who actually would help her escape from her brother.

She didn’t have to love him, or even care for him-she wasn’t certain she could ever open her heart again.

She merely had to make them want to help her.

Because it had become clear to her, with a bitter and terrifying finality, that she had no chance of escaping Cezar on her own. For too long she’d held out hope that she could find a way…but he was too smart and cunning. There were sparrow feathers, it seemed, everywhere in the house and in its adjoining tunnels, and he kept anything that could be considered a weapon far from her except when she was forced to entertain. Nor could she trust any of the servants, for they were all bound to her brother.

She was utterly alone, and felt that loneliness more acutely than she ever had before-now that she realized what it was like to love someone, and now that she had lost hope of finding escape on her own.

But if she had nothing else, she had strength and determination: the same characteristics that had helped her become a nearly undefeated swordswoman and had kept her from going mad during the years of rape and molestation.

Perhaps that was why Lucifer had chosen her. An iron core beneath a seductive, beautiful woman was a formidable weapon.

And so she looked more closely at her opponents when she faced them. Sometimes, she even allowed one to win, just to remind herself that she could still feel. Pain, pleasure, apprehension…whatever.

Just so she could feel.

London

Chas Woodmore was surrounded by vampirs, which would normally be a convenience rather than a concern, since he was, in fact, a vampir hunter. And a damn good one at that.

Some called those who shared his occupation Venators, but that was a completely different society-in fact, it was an entire family from Italy that spent their lives hunting and slaying the half-demon vampires that had descended from Judas Iscariot.

Woodmore happened to specialize in the hunting and staking of the very different vampirs that originated in Romania, where Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula, had made his own deal with the Devil in the late fifteenth century. Unfortunately for his progeny, the unholy covenant applied not only to Vlad himself, but also to any of his descendants selected by Lucifer to participate. They had to agree, of course, just as Dracula had done, but Luce was a master at manipulation and it was rare that any of them declined his juicy bargain-partly because it was most often made during their dreams.

Thus, some of the Dracule embraced their newly immortal lives, complete with bloodlust and damaged souls that belonged to the Devil for all eternity, and some of them existed more judiciously, realizing only after the fact that perhaps it hadn’t been such a good deal after all….

And then there was Woodmore’s employer, Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale, who fought the regrettable bargain with every breath he took, every single day.

It was because of his association with Corvindale that Woodmore was not only surrounded by some of the less rapacious vampirs at this very moment, but also comfortably unarmed-and playing cards with the lot of them. This lot happened to be safe from Woodmore’s lethal stake because they were of the mind that, for example, one didn’t have to murder a mortal in order to feed.

And Woodmore happened to be losing tonight because of one Mr. Giordan Cale, who seemed to have some sort of magic about him when it came to having the winning hand every time. Or at least when the pot was very large.

"By the Fates, Giordan," Corvindale said in disgust, tossing his cards onto the table. "You dragged me out of my study for this? What precisely is the benefit to me of being relieved of three thousand pounds in the space of two hours?"

A fleeting smile curved Cale’s lips as he collected the pound notes and coins from the latest winning pot. "A change of scenery," he suggested mildly. "Perhaps even some social discourse, no?"

Although he spoke excellent English, he had a trace of French in his pronunciation. Woodmore knew that Cale was originally from Paris, but had left the city ten years ago, near the end of the Reign of Terror, and hadn’t returned. He’d been in and out of London for the past decade, but they had only become acquainted a few weeks ago.

"Corvindale? Social discourse?" Lord Eddersley laughed, his gangly hands bumping the table, making the coins clink. "But Luce’s hell hasn’t yet frozen over."