“If he wants to seize power in Atlanta,” Janvier said with the icy pragmatism of an almost-immortal, “he’ll have to eliminate Jean, Frédéric, and the others, too.”
Ashwini thought of the ruthlessness she’d seen in Callan’s expression as he spoke to the Beaumont vampire. “He’s capable of it. But, no matter what he says, he’s also susceptible to Monique.”
“There’s a chance Monique won’t want to be rescued,” Janvier pointed out, “not if she thinks she can get Callan ’round to her way of thinking.”
“Doesn’t matter. Nazarach wants her.” And not even the most ambitious young vampire would dare gainsay their sire. Angels had torture down to a fine art—and those screams locked in the walls of his home told her Nazarach was better at it than most. “You’d think,” she murmured, “that Monique would’ve had better sense than to ask to be Made after seeing the life Antoine and Jean lead.”
“There are advantages to being a vampire.” Janvier stopped to pick up and bring the trailing edge of a climbing rose to her nose.
The scent was decadent, luxurious. “Maybe,” she said, taking another perfume-laced breath, “but once Nazarach has Monique back, he’ll use her as he might use a chess piece. And she has to let him. For a hundred years, she’ll have no freedom, no self-will. She’ll be less than a pet.”
Dropping the rose, Janvier thrust his hands into his pockets. “You’ve never asked how I was Made.” His voice was missing its usual music, something brittle and hard in every syllable.
“You fell in love with a vampire.”
He froze. “Been researching me?” His anger was hidden but as apparent to her as the sickle-shaped moon in the soft summer sky.
“Didn’t have to.” She shrugged. “Man like you, your personality, doesn’t easily accept submission. But if you decided to give yourself to someone, you’d do anything for that person—even if the choice half killed you.”
“I’m so obvious?”
“No.” She met his eyes, stripped away a single fragile layer of her own shields. “You’re like me.”
“Ah.” That beautiful hair of his glittered under the moonlight as he began to walk again. “Have you ever trusted that deeply, cherie?”
Yes, and she bore the scars still. The marks on her back she could almost forget… but the ones on her soul? Those, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive. “We’re not talking about me. What happened to your lover?”
“Shamiya became tired of me after a few years. I was left to the most tender mercies of Neha.”
“The Queen of Poisons?”
A slow nod. “Being in her court was… part nightmare, part ecstasy. I’ve never experienced such pain as I did at Neha’s hands, but she also showed me pleasure I didn’t know could exist.”
Ashwini thought of the archangel, with her skin of dusky brown, her sloe-eyed gaze, her exotic sexuality. “Is that why you’re drawn to me?” She was no beauty, but her skin was the same Eastern shade, her eyes as dark. “Because she imprinted on you somehow?”
Janvier laughed and it was a truly delighted sound, one she’d heard from him only once or twice—usually when he bested her on a hunt. “Neha,” he said, “is as cold as the snakes she keeps as pets. You, my fierce hunter, are wildfire. Two more different women could not exist.”
The cold feeling in her stomach dissipated under the heat of his laughter. “So, what did you learn before Callan went to play tonsil hockey with Ms. Beaumont?”
“He asked me to stay on, join the Fox kiss.” His body brushed hers as they walked.
She wanted to get even closer, touch, be touched. Feel human. “I thought he’d know you aren’t the joining type.”
“I will fight for what’s important,” he said, his voice missing its usual amusement. “But this—petty politics—non.”
“Is that what you told Callan?”
“Of course. Anything else would’ve made him suspicious.” He nodded left and, seeing the lily pond in the distance, she acquiesced. “But now he accepts that I will not take sides.”
“Too bad he forgot the biggest player.”
“Only a fool forgets an angel.” Going down on his haunches by the pond, he put one hand on the back of her calf when she came to stand beside him.
Aching for contact that demanded nothing from her except the most human of sensations, she didn’t shift away, didn’t remind him of her rule against dating vampires. She simply stood there and let the warmth of him soak into her bones. He was an enigma, Janvier. She’d seen him ice-cold, a predator, and she’d seen him bathed in sunshine. Some might’ve asked which was the real man—she knew he was both.
“Do you love her still?” she found herself asking.
“Who?”
“The vampire. Shamiya.”
His hand squeezed her calf in gentle reproof. “A silly question, cher. You know love cannot survive where there is no light.”
Yes, she thought, he was right. “What was she like?”
“Why so curious?”
“I just wonder what kind of a woman would’ve captured a man like you.”
“But I wasn’t this man when she knew me.” He leaned his body against hers. “I was a callow youth. I’ve learned since then.”
Accepting the answer, she turned her eyes to the pond, where the sickle moon made the lilies shimmer with midnight shadows. For the first time in years, her mind was completely quiet, completely her own. The peace of it was extraordinary.
When she ran her fingers through Janvier’s hair, he sighed but held the silence.
Three hours later, the peace was a memory as they found themselves in an alcove in the corridor leading to the bedroom where Monique was being held. “You sure Callan’s still in his study?”
Janvier nodded. “I saw him return to it not long ago.”
“Good, but even if we manage to sneak Monique out of her room,” she murmured, peering around the corner, “how do we get her past the guards?”
Janvier fiddled with the lock pick kit he’d produced out of nowhere. “This would be much easier if we could use Nazarach’s name.”
“Games.” Seeing who’d come out on top. “He’s pitting the two vampires against each other, us against Callan. We matter nothing except for the weaknesses we expose in Callan’s operation.”
“Nazarach has grown old fast.”
“He looks in the prime of his life.”
“No. Here.” Janvier put a fist over his heart. “I’ve met Favashi, the archangel who rules Persia. She is over a thousand years old—but Favashi still has her heart, still has a humanity that is utterly lacking in Nazarach.”
Ashwini gave a slow nod. “There are vampires like that, too.”
“If I ever become one, my darling Ashblade, consider it a mercy killing and take me out.”
“Shh.” Spying Perida’s petite form coming to relieve the guard on duty, Ashwini motioned Janvier to step back with her. “We take Perida hostage, use her to get Monique out.”