Bond of Fire (6 page)

She began to jerk her chemise over her head.

Fire jolted through, demanding fulfillment, from his spine, through his balls, to his cock. By the time her chemise joined her hoops and petticoats on the floor, his breeches were in the same untidy heap as his coat and waistcoat.

He lifted her onto the bed, pausing only to kick off his shoes and drop hers onto the floor.

He cast a single possessive glance at
his
lover—her green eyes dark with passion, her golden curls tumbling across the white sheets, her swollen mouth, supple tongue. Her taut breasts lifting toward him, her narrow waist begging for admiration. Her curving hips and sweet rump, which he hadn’t
yet
explored the wonders of. Her long legs gleaming in their silken stockings, leading to her beautiful golden delta, her plump feminine folds, creamy now with lust and welcome for him.

His dream.

“Jean-Marie,
mon bébé
.” She lifted her arms toward him.

His wits dropped into his cock, and he joined her, logic gone.

Her hand closed around him, pumping his cock gently.

He threw his head back, groaning like ten kinds of fool. He knelt between her legs and gathered her up to him, slipping his arms under her shoulders.

She delicately stroked his balls, and he all but howled.

He found her entrance easily, gliding in on the warmest of welcomes. She was scalding hot, glove tight, and oh so very, very wet. Perfection.

He forgot to breathe.

She tightened herself around him, pulling him in, and locked her arms around his hips. “Ah, yes…”

Heaven, heaven on earth.

He thrust again, in…and out. In…and out. Faster and faster. Every stroke matched by her, her body arching to meet his, her core reaching out to hold him longer. Eager, desperate, as he was.

Red touched his vision. He could see little, feel little except her and the blood pounding through him, the seed rising from his balls into his cock to fill her, the hard drumbeat of desire in his muscles and bones. Nothing except this mattered.

She shifted under him—and his cock slipped deeper inside her. She jerked, and her nails scored his back, drawing blood for the first time. The salty, sweet smell filled the air—and he raced helplessly into orgasm.

She screamed and bit down on his neck. Climax rocked unmistakably through her and her channel rippled around him.

He jetted again and again, locked in an orgasmic dance with her. Every spasm, every pleasure that ran through one was given back to the other, spinning him through a galaxy of stars.

She gasped, one last pulse running through her, and collapsed back onto the bed.

The last stars burst behind Jean-Marie’s eyes, and his eyelids closed tight, bringing welcome sleep.

At least Hélène wouldn’t think of the night’s events for a time.

Hélène pointed her toes under the sheet and wiggled them. An hour or two, perhaps three, past dawn, and surely it was time to start a new life.

It was amazing how being sore and tender in so many places, both inside and out, could make one feel so marvelous.
Cher—cher?
What a joy to be able to say that again!—Jean-Marie had kept her so delightfully busy last night, she’d scarce had time to sleep. But it was no hardship, not when he’d shown her time and again by his tenderness how much he cared for her.

Surely she must mean something to him, else he wouldn’t have stood up for her against
Monsieur
Perez.

She sniffed. The arrogant, high-handed brute—to think he could dictate exactly how those around him should live. She’d file a complaint against him this morning and see him thrown out of France immediately.

The door into the small dressing room opened silently, revealing Jean-Marie, immaculate except for his coat and waistcoat, which he carried over his arm. He bowed politely to her. “
Bonjour
, madame.”

Hélène jolted upright in the bed, clutching the sheet to her. A formal greeting after last night’s passion? She tried to return to the intimacy they’d agreed upon after those—
vampiros
had appeared. “
Salut
, Jean-Marie.”

“I do not believe it wise for you to address me in that fashion, madame.” His expression was forbidding above his fingers, fastening his waistcoat as if they closed off both his body and any relationship from her. “Pray do not do so again.”

“But—but we agreed!” She rose from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her.

“That was yesterday.” An ice flow would have been warmer than his voice. “I am departing now, and nothing like last night will ever happen again.”

Perhaps she’d been naive to place so much faith in the first man she’d given her body to, other than the marriage arranged upon her exit from a convent. But she’d lived in the world for ten years, run a marquis’s estate, kept accounts, judged men’s verity. She was no child to be fooled by a pretty face. She could not believe she’d been entirely wrong in everything she’d read in Jean-Marie’s attendance upon her these past five months—and the sweetness of his attentions last night. Surely there was something more, something worth fighting for.

“Will you come back with me to the Vendée?” She pushed her hair back from her face so she could see him better. She ground her pride ruthlessly into the dust for the one man who’d interested her since
cher
Bernard’s death. “Leave the court’s corruption behind and the
vampiros
, for the countryside’s purity? I have a manor at Sainte Marie des Fleurs near the coast, which is very beautiful. Or we could build something larger, if you’d prefer…”

“What?” He paused, staring at her. He shook his head violently and resumed shrugging himself into his coat. “You must be insane.”

“Why not, Jean-Marie?” She pressed herself against him, letting the sheet droop to offer what had so excited him last night. His eyes traveled downward before jerking back up to her face, glittering like steel. His expression closed into an icy mask.

Merde
.

She gambled on another asset, one every other man had found irresistible.

“Do you have a personal fortune greater than mine? I also have monies flowing in from the marquis’s inventions. We could live very, very well anywhere you like.”

“No.” The refusal was as emphatic as a mine’s detonation. He pushed her away from him by the shoulders before stepping back.

For an instant, she thought she saw grief and a ravaging loneliness pass through his eyes. But his words erased the impression.

“There can be nothing more between us, ever, madame. If you wish a husband—or a lover—look elsewhere.”

Jealousy gripped her. Lover? Did he have someone else? Ah yes, of course!

“You’re returning to that Spanish woman! All I’ve been to you was a momentary diversion, a way to make her jealous while she played so freely with other men at court.”

Almost gibbering with rage, she swung for him. But his hand shot up and caught hers, just before it reached his cheek. “Do not try that again.”

She glared at him, chin high. “Brute! You deserve the hatred of every woman for treating me so.”

He inclined his head, his expression completely unreadable.

She sniffed and yanked at her hand, praying her sheet would maintain her decency with its one-handed fastening. It was bad enough to know one had been used to make a Spanish woman jealous. But for a Frenchwoman to appear maladroit would be truly appalling.

He finally released her, white marks on her wrist from his fingers’ grasp. She refused to rub them, knowing she’d be bruised for days to come. Terrified she’d nurse the marks and long for their maker.

His eyes lingered on them for a moment, a bitter curve to his mouth. He bowed again and turned to leave, his shoes striking with a cold finality on the wood parquet.

“I will tell the king about your
vampiro
friends!” Hélène flung after him.

He glanced over his shoulder, one hand on the doorknob.

“I pray that you will have a surgeon close at hand if so, madame.” His face was utterly, chillingly serious. “Death will come all too quickly in that event.”

The door closed softly and finally behind him.

Hélène collapsed onto the bed in tears, where her maid found her a few minutes later.

“Madame? Madame, what is wrong?”

Hélène drew herself up, determined to set one thing right according to rational and scientific principles. She had to tell the authorities about the
vampiros
.

“I need to report…”

Her throat tightened.

What? She hadn’t said anything of note yet. A small voice whispered that
Monsieur
Perez had instructed her not to mention
anything
about last night’s attack.

Even so, she had a duty as a citizen.

“Madame, what are you trying to say?”

“I…need.”
Mon Dieu
, every word was an effort. “To…”

She clutched at her throat, completely unable to breathe.

“Madame?” Her maid shook her. “Madame!”

Hélène’s vision grayed, and her heart pounded in her chest. Her maid’s screeches were coming from farther and farther away.

Report…Report…

She was dying. If she told anyone, her own body would strangle her.

Damn
Monsieur
Perez. If she never saw the man again, it would be too soon. If she never saw another
vampiro
again, it would definitely be too soon.

“Talking isn’t worth dying for.”

“Madame? Ah, thank God!” Her maid dropped to her knees beside the bed, weeping and kissing her rosary.

Hélène managed to pat her on the shoulder before closing her eyes.

Jean-Marie’s face swam before her.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

If the Lord was very good to her, he’d send her someone else to dream about.

Maybe.

PARIS, 6 OCTOBER 1789

Jean-Marie slammed his fist against the mansion’s front door. There was a kitchen door somewhere, but he couldn’t remember exactly. He sure as hell was not about to enter Rodrigo’s house through a window. He barked with laughter at the thought of how fast he’d be caught and punished.

Assuming Rodrigo was still alive and well, unlike Paris’s
vampiros
. Every
esfera
in town, the territories whose possession was the subject of so much dueling and spite by
vampiros
, but which had always been hidden from
prosaicos
—all of them were gone, destroyed by the Parisian mob. After the common people had captured the Bastille, the fortress which symbolized royal tyranny, they’d lost themselves in an orgy of drunken slaughter that had extended across much of the Parisian slums. Anyone caught unaware, especially during daylight, was dead meat—and the
vampiros
had been the most hapless prey of all, either sound asleep when their former victims turned on them or collapsing into dust under the first rays of sunlight. Their vaunted mental and physical powers hadn’t saved them from the hordes coming against them, happy to find someone, anyone, to slake their bloodlust on.

Nom de dieu
, how the hot summer days and nights had echoed with screams, reverberating through the city’s stone walls and along the cobblestone streets…

Only
vampiros
like Rodrigo and Sara, who lived far from the slums and with a strong
comitiva
’s protection, had survived. Even so, most of them had fled to the countryside, trading a steady supply of food for the hope of a longer life.

God willing Rodrigo was still here, simply keeping his doors and shutters well locked. No respectable man tolerated trespassers, or allowed bullies of any kind onto his property. And as for the thought of rioters charging into his home, intent on destroying his wife…

Impossible to imagine in a civilized country. And yet…

Jean-Marie doubled over yet again, his stomach knotting like an anaconda. The innumerable bloodstains on his coat had dulled the once glossy silk into a dull black, concealing their mates on his waistcoat. His breeches and boots weren’t fit for a pigsty. He’d ripped off his shirt cuffs hours ago—or was it days? Probably hours, since they’d gone to cover the eyes of that young Swiss who’d…

His stomach clenched again.

The door opened.

“
Gracias a Dios
, you’re home, Jean-Marie!” Rodrigo yanked him inside.

It was a magnificent house, a true mansion, built for use in Paris by one of France’s great families. Rodrigo had bought it upon their arrival two years ago and cared for it well, adding to its glories from increased wealth wherever he visited.

Jean-Marie noticed none of that.

But when Rodrigo hugged him—the strong, simple embrace of masculine friendship—he returned the clasp as warmly.
“Mon frère,”
he murmured, his throat tight, “I must reek.”

“You do,” Rodrigo agreed. He released him, unabashedly displaying the tears on his face, and cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. “Which means I now have someone to play piquet with again.”

Jean-Marie managed a smile as he was intended to do.

“Any wounds?” Rodrigo asked, his dark eyes fiercely cataloguing every inch of Jean-Marie.

“All small and well within a
compañero
’s ability to heal. Most of this is from other men.”

“Jean-Marie!” Sara raced into the vestibule and stopped on the threshold. She swallowed hard and fanned herself rapidly. “You look…You smell…” she tried again. She turned away slightly. “Of course, I’m glad you’re home,” she finished in a rush.

He bowed in acknowledgment, a cynical smile touching his mouth.

Rodrigo signaled to a hovering servant and drew Jean-Marie into the drawing room, a painted and carved ode to French craftsmanship, and handed him a brimming goblet of Burgundy.

Jean-Marie poured it down, savoring for once the rich taste of Rodrigo’s mighty
vampiro mayor
blood, forgetting how long he’d craved such sustenance. Its power kicked him harder than a tankard of illegal apple brandy, screaming like fire through his bones and veins faster than cannonballs across a battlefield. His knees buckled, and he would have sagged except for Rodrigo’s quick grab.

“Easy there, easy,
mi hermano
.” He eased Jean-Marie into a chair, ignoring Sara’s brief squawk of protest over damage to the upholstery. “You’ll still need to feed and drink deep when you do. But this will keep you on your feet for another hour or so while you wash. The servants are preparing everything now.”

“And tell you what happened.”

“If you wish to and are ready.” Their eyes met, and Jean-Marie saw a battle-hardened commander’s bone-deep, bitter experience there. Rodrigo would give him time—but only while silence endangered no one else.

“You need to know.” His body tightened again at the thought of reliving, even through retelling, that horror. He tried to think of a gentle, elegant summation and failed. He settled for bald facts.

“The Paris mob’s womenfolk have captured the royal family at Versailles and brought them back to be immured.”

“That’s impossible! What about their bodyguards? Or the Swiss Guards?” Sara demanded.

Jean-Marie shuddered, a thousand horrific images whipping before his eyes.

“Slaughtered.” He didn’t recognize his own voice. “All of them butchered. The mob fought over the pieces of their bodies and tossed the shreds about for trophies.”

“And you?” Rodrigo’s steadiness was a lifeline.

“Early last night—after I delivered Sara’s message to her, the
vicomtesse
asked me to wait while she composed a reply. I couldn’t sleep and was visiting some of my childhood haunts in the palace.”

He rose and began to pace, unable to sit still even now though the battle had ended.

“The howling crowd attacked unexpectedly in the dead of night. I heard them coming—so damn fast!—and took the dauphin to safety through the old secret passages. I found the king wandering aimlessly afterward and managed to get both of them to Marie Antoinette.”

He inspected the bottom of the goblet, decided he wouldn’t ask for any more of Rodrigo’s blood, and drank the dregs.

“After that, I went back to the guards but there was nothing…Even so, I tried. But all I could do was give them a decent burial.” Would he ever stop seeing their broken, scattered bodies? Or his childhood home, bloody and defiled?

Fire crackled on the hearth.

“The mob found the Royal Family hours later, when their bloodlust had been sated. They’re bringing them back to Paris. I doubt they’ll ever leave alive.” He studied his goblet again, before he headed for the wine. Rodrigo’s hand pressed down on his shoulder, and he reluctantly settled back into his chair. The big Spaniard refilled Jean-Marie’s glass and placed the bottle at his elbow.

Jean-Marie thanked him silently and gulped the wine greedily, even though it wouldn’t blur his
compañero
senses enough to make him forget. But it did bring him to the next step, understanding the implications for France—and by extension, his adopted family. “The monarchy is gone.”

“The break truly happened in July when the Bastille—that great prison—fell to the mob, because the governor lacked the
machismo
to shoot them.” Rodrigo’s big shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“And nobody else, either the monarchy or the elected representatives in the National Assembly, called them to task for killing men in the public streets and parading them like barbarians. Today’s events only confirmed it.” Jean-Marie couldn’t keep his bitterness out of his voice. Or his longing for his father’s iron hand, even with the sure knowledge that his father’s time was long gone.

“Society left Paris afterward, leaving only the queen’s dearest friends and the legislators.” Sara shook out her skirts with a snap. “Now your
belle amie
will surely never return to the capital, Jean-Marie, even though we’ve lingered here for two years. You can return to me.”

“Never! I will never share your bed again!” He sprang to his feet with a roar of denial. “A century ago, I was a foolish young man, vulnerable to anyone who’d speak softly and at least half-truthfully to me. You lured me into your arms with lies, saying that you cared about only me, not my father’s wealth and power. Telling me it would be for a few nights, not for decades and centuries to come.”

Rodrigo watched them warily from beside the fireplace, clearly ready to take action on a moment’s notice.

“Every word was true! I wanted you since the day Rodrigo showed you to me in his prison cell,” she snapped back, coming to her feet to face Jean-Marie, a febrile glitter in her eyes. “You belonged to me then, and you will be mine again.”

“All you have ever thought about was yourself. Of having a
concubino compañero
eternally at hand, eager to provide you with carnal pleasure. So that you would need no one and nothing else ever again for the emotion and blood you need to live on. Isn’t it?” He dragged Sara up out of the chair by her shoulders and shook her. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course! Why not? My life has been bitter. Why shouldn’t I have what I need and desire?” She glared at him defiantly.

“Even when it destroys a young man’s life?” Rodrigo slapped the carved marble with a force that set portraits shaking on nearby walls.

“Rodrigo,
por favor
…” Sara shrank from his rare open display of wrath, as Jean-Marie released her, turning to open another bottle of Burgundy rather than maul her again.

“France’s armies could have used him decades ago, and she needs him more today. Yet you have tied him so completely to your apron strings that he must travel wherever you go or die within a few weeks.” Rodrigo towered over her, his dark eyes flashing. “I thought our long captivity had left you too much of a child to ever deliberately destroy someone else. I have cared for you, protected you, and been glad to see your wits return. But I will do so no more.”

“Rodrigo, what do you mean?” She caught at his arm.

He regarded Jean-Marie, completely ignoring her. “
Amigo
, there is one other alternative to being her
concubino compañero
.”

“You’ve never mentioned that before.” Jean-Marie’s head came up, and he stopped uncorking the wine.

“
Compañeros
are very rare outside of Asia,
concubinos compañeros
even rarer, and those whose
vampira primera
is a
vampira mayora
are possibly the rarest of all. Something I suspect Sara was counting on to protect herself.” Rodrigo’s voice gained the slick deadliness of a Toledo blade. “Am I not correct?”

She made a rude gesture more suitable to a gutter than a fine mansion and flounced out the door, silently confirming his story’s truth.

“What is the option?”

“I doubt you will like it.”

“What is my other choice?” Jean-Marie repeated, ready to lunge at his old friend.

Rodrigo’s dark eyes were troubled but honest under the brutal scar.

“I, too, am a
vampiro mayor
and a century older than Sara, which makes my blood more potent than hers.”

“As I already know. You’ve saved my life more than once with its ability to heal.” Jean-Marie shrugged impatiently. “What of it?”

“You’ve probably also noticed that I—enjoy the company of both women and men.”

“As does every other
vampiro
I’ve met. But you linger with none of them, and you’re always careful of their pleasure, no matter what their gender.” Jean-Marie rolled his eyes, wondering when the Spaniard would get to the point. “Why are you telling me the obvious?”

“A
compañero
’s addiction to one
vampiro
can be overwhelmed by an addiction to another, older
vampiro
.”

“You?” Jean-Marie all but dropped the wine bottle.

“Myself.” Rodrigo inclined his head. “However, since you’re a
concubino compañero
, whose bond was originally based on blood and sex, any new bond would have to include both elements.”

“Take you as a lover?” Jean-Marie’s legs were suddenly very unsteady. He’d always, only thought of himself as an admirer of women.

“For the rest of your life, although I would, of course, never be a demanding one,
amigo
.” Anger flared briefly in Rodrigo’s voice before being pushed back.

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re too much of a friend to force yourself where you weren’t invited.” Jean-Marie smiled briefly, his brain whirling.

“Gracias.”
The other’s face lightened.

Jean-Marie tried to think clearly. If he agreed to Rodrigo’s offer, he’d be tied to a friend, who’d support him in his interests. Who wouldn’t be petulant, irrational, jealous, drag him away from places he loved and things he cared about doing…

But he’d have to have sex regularly with another man. He’d never done that, ever. Not when he’d been a young boy or even during some of the more extravagant orgies he’d attended. Always, something inside him had jerked him away.

He knew very well that in
vampiro
society, the odds of survival increased rapidly with the ability to find willing, sensual partners to enjoy sex with, starting with those of the opposite gender. Refusing Rodrigo could shorten his life span, given how much more often these dizzy spells were starting to occur.

But he couldn’t do it. He’d rather be in bed with a woman, preferably someone like Hélène d’Agelet.

“I’m sorry—but no.” He shook his head. “I appreciate your offer but…”

“All you can see are the ladies, and a particular one at that?” Faint humor lit Rodrigo’s eyes. “As you wish,
amigo
. But the offer remains open. If you ever change your mind, all you have to do is say so.”

“I will never…”

Rodrigo held up his hand in warning. “Do not tempt the Almighty,
amigo
,” he said entirely seriously. “He has a remarkable way of persuading one to follow paths one would never have thought possible.”