Each of the Dracule had a specific weakness, the proximity of which tightened the lungs and weighted the limbs, making one feel as if they were trying to slosh through water. The nearer it got, the more helpless one became until, at the mere touch of the item, one felt as if one were being branded.
Thus, Giordan, who’d given up death and age, had also given up his pet to become his Asthenia as soon as he laid eyes on Chaton that morning.
It was a sacrifice he bitterly regretted, a hundred fourteen years later.
He turned his attention from the blue-eyed cat, who’d positioned itself to watch him with an unblinking stare, and toward the east. Toward the roof of Moldavi’s home, which would soon be lit by the pink icing of dawn.
Cezar owned a narrow house near the edge of Le Marais, but most of his living quarters were located safely under the ground. Giordan had walked through skull-lined catacombs well beneath the rue to find his host. The subterranean lair was radically different from where most Dracule resided, and he couldn’t help but wonder about the reasons for it.
Security, most likely. To keep both him and his valuable sister safe.
Giordan took another sip and at last allowed his thoughts to go where they wished.
It had been two weeks since the evening she was here, the night things had changed. Since he’d fallen in love with her…just like that.
Ever since the moment she’d fed on him, her full lips pressed to his skin, her teeth sinking into his flesh, he’d known. He’d never felt such strong emotion. Such…completion. Such—
A raucous burst of laughter exploded in the silence, and Giordan turned as someone called his name.
“There you are,” cried Suzette, a made vampire who’d shared his bed—and blood—on many occasions.
She and a small group of his acquaintances were just emerging from the door that led to the rooftop. They chatted gaily, bottles of wine and ale dangling from their fingers. And, of course, in their wake trailed two of Giordan’s well-trained servants, available to set right anything that might go amiss.
“Whatever are you doing up here alone, darling Giordan?” asked Felicia, another sired vampire with whom he’d traded bodily fluids. She slinked her way over toward him, and Suzette merely rolled her glowing eyes and turned to the man on her arm. Jealousy was not one of her vices.
He smiled at them, his host smile, his not-quite-mirthful-but-very-friendly-one, and gestured out to the City of Light. “But I was merely waiting for you to join me. The view is lovely, no?”
“Not nearly as lovely as this,” crowed a drunken Brickbank, one of Voss’s friends. He was leering down Suzette’s exceedingly low-cut bodice, which, due to the size of her breasts and the way they were plumped up, had a deep, dark vee between them into which a man might slide his entire hand, sideways. Giordan knew this from personal experience, and although the thought might have tempted him in the past…tonight it did not.
“What sort of treat do you have planned for us this evening?” asked the Comte Robuchard, walking idly about the small space. “Some music perhaps? A blazing fire on which we can roast chestnuts?” He was one of the few mortals who knew about the Draculia, and who was invited to some of their activities. Paris was rife with secret societies, but the Dracule was one of the few that was truly underground and unknown, even by some of the upper class.
Ever the good host, Giordan pushed away his lingering thoughts of Narcise and immediately responded, “I thought perhaps I might jump from the roof tonight.”
This suggestion—which he’d only just thought of—was met with squeals of delight and masculine roars of approval.
“That will be even more exciting than the night you danced among the flames in front of a crowd of varlets,” cried Felicia. Her fangs had slipped free, and now they dipped into her lower lip as she smiled. “They thought they were witnessing the Devil himself!”
“It would be most exciting,” Suzette agreed, her arm now slipped through that of a different one of their male companions. “Shall you do a flip, or merely swan dive from the edge?”
“Hmm,” he said with a grin. “I must do something fantastic, no?” Giordan had begun to peel off his favorite coat of bronze brocade, and he tossed it to one of the ladies with whom he hadn’t shared a bed. Loosening the ties at the knees of his breeches to give himself more freedom of movement, he looked down to the street below.
A fall or dive wouldn’t injure a Dracule, unless, by some unhappy event, he or she impaled oneself on a piece of wood, through the heart. Or if some guillotine-like metal happened to be there on the way down to slice one’s head from one’s shoulders. Neither of which were the case.
Such a feat would, to be sure, frighten or startle any mortal who might witness it, but that was part of the thrill. This was no worse than a mortal riding a horse at full speed and leaping over a high fence: dangerous but hardly lethal unless something went wrong.
And nothing would go wrong for Giordan. He was an entertainer, not a fool.
“Bernard,” he said, gesturing to one of the hovering servants, “go below and ensure that I have a clear area to land.”
Once having ascertained that there was nothing that might hinder his fall from this angle, he undid the cuffs of his shirt, rolled up his sleeves and poised at the edge of the roof.
Amid the shouts of his friends, his companions, those who filled his nights with activity, he flashed a bold smile and jumped.
He’d purposely launched himself at an angle away from the roof, and caught the railing of a lower balcony on the same opposite building where the cat had been. He swung briefly, then released and somersaulted away from the landing, flipping so that he ended feetfirst onto the narrow cobblestone street.
The force of landing on half-bent legs caused him to stagger into another two steps, making it less than perfect—but at least he didn’t land on his arse or head. Then, breathing heavily, Giordan looked up at the shadows lining the edge of his rooftop and executed a neat bow.
Cheers and applause filtered down, and a pair of hack drivers gaped from where they’d been chatting next to his faithful servant Bernard, but despite the commendation lauded upon him, Giordan didn’t feel like smiling.
He’d entertained. He’d gifted his acquaintances with food and drink and entrée to his home and club. He had conversationalists all around him, at all times.
But inside, Giordan felt as if he was missing something.
And he knew exactly what it was.
3
Narcise swung around, saber high above her head, and slammed the flat of its blade against her much taller opponent’s skull.
He staggered, his red eyes springing wide-open, and his arms flailed awkwardly.
Her teeth gritted in a feral smile, she followed through on the stroke, spinning on the balls of her bare feet, and then nearly gasped, and definitely slowed, when she saw Giordan Cale sitting next to her brother.
He hadn’t been there a moment ago.
The angry roar of tonight’s opponent dragged her attention back to the battle, and Narcise tightened her suddenly sweaty fingers over the sword’s grip just as he lunged at her. She couldn’t lose focus; she couldn’t let her guard down.
She’d been ready to finish this off, and would have ended with the blade against his throat if the sight of Cale hadn’t distracted her.
He was sitting slightly behind her brother, as if a chair had been pulled up for the late arrival at the table, which boasted several other spectators. Though they were in shadow, she could tell that his eyes were fastened on her, and even from here, she felt the heat in them.
I would have intervened.
Damn him to hell, he might have to intervene tonight if she couldn’t get her concentration back. Not that Cezar would let him.