By My Choice...: A Valentine's Day Story (Valentine's Day Stories) (3 page)

The temperature in the train carriage, which had seemed to rise with every kilometre they had come closer to the French capital, had left her skin overheated, making the sudden exposure to the elements even more miserable for her. At least here her lack of luggage was of advantage — she was able to weave her way through the crowds of passengers greeting relatives, or collecting their belongings, to hustle out of the cold rain on the platform into the station proper.

Her eyes searched for the signs denoting the closest taxi rank when she spotted a short man holding a placard with her name in large cursive script over his balding head. Jennifer Ashton. It seemed the court of Paris had at least sent a car for her — or was it a jailor to ensure she made it all the way to the palais at the Tuileries? It mattered little; she had grown up among the paranormals and knew too well that there was no escape from this, no place on this earth she could run to where
they
could not find her, if not the vampires then any of the other races owing allegiance to the courts. A broken contract, a forsaken oath, was no laughing matter in her world and the punishments were severe.
 

Still, for just one moment her crazy brain dangled the image of her ducking out the side entrance, disappearing into the crowds never to be seen again, before her eyes. She had been travelling for almost twenty-three hours across four nations and at each change, each stop, the same fantasies of simply disappearing had risen — and had been discarded. It was not even because her chance of success would have been so low, or the practicalities of an escape so complicated. On TV it might be easy to get fake id and escape the badies in an untraceable car, but Jen was a normal middle class woman, or as normal as you got growing up among paranormals. She had no idea how any of this would work but the fact she had considered it said something about her state of mind. She also had discarded any each and every half-formed plan.

The problem was, she had been formed by the paranormal courts just as much as their non-human members had been. No matter how much she had raged at Fabian, how she had scoffed at his oaths and talk of the responsibilities of a vassal to his liege, in the end she was not willing to forsake her word, or her honour, either. The realisation brought a smile to her lips but not even the most absent-minded passer-by would have considered it to hold even a hint of amusement. The realisation of not being human enough, not where it counted, was hard to swallow for Jennifer. With a sigh, Jen turned towards the sign proclaiming her name to all and sundry.
 

“Mademoiselle.”

The man had the look shared by a thousand drivers of a thousand car services all across the world, only the little bow held a distinction one was tempted to call French. And even though her inner critic wanted to accuse her of stereotyping, it was hard to ignore a thought already formed, in particular in face of the automatic charm the small, moustached man exuded. She bet he made lots of tips with the older crowd of the female persuasion. Not being above eighty and on a shopping spree to spend her pension and amuse her poodle, Jen was left cold by his practiced demeanour. She offered him her hand instead, daring him, with her eyes, to even consider kissing it. With one look at her face he refrained from it. Smarter than he looked then.
 

Despite his too practiced charm he was polite, and mildly amusing, as he led her through the bustling station hall towards the exit.
 

“Is Mademoiselle on her first visit to our beautiful city?”

“Yes.” He seemed little perturbed by her taciturn answer.
 

“Pleasure of business? I hope pleasure. A beautiful, young woman like you should never come only for business.”

She was drawn into his ridiculous banter despite her best intentions. Still, it was not designed to make her forget the reasons for which she had come to town for.
 

“Business. Only business.”

“Ah, but it is the city of love. You might be surprised by it.”
 

 
There was a gentle self-mockery in his saccharine tone which invited the listener to take part in the joke at his expense. It made her grin, even if only for a split second. It also made her think.
 

He was human. It had taken her a little time to be sure of it, but she now was. Moreover, she was sure he was unconnected to, even unaware of, the paranormal courts. The second puzzled her. It helped, helped to keep her mind from running endlessly over the fact that her best friend had sold her vassal contract to another. It helped with the impotent fear and loneliness boiling in her mind.
 

She wanted those churning emotions to stop, to go away so that her mind could think again. She knew this world, even knew her new liege a little. As long as she fulfilled her duties, there was no need to be afraid. What was the difference, if she did her job in Tirana or Paris? Well, she assumed the inhabitants of both cities might object to her cavalier treatment of their beautiful towns, but to her, there was no difference where she worked. She did her job, curled up in her room, then repeated the process. Sun in Tirana, rain in Paris — not much of a difference for her life.
   

But for the first time in her adult life she would be without her best friend. She should hate him, wanted to hate him, but somehow was unable to. Under her fear, under her anger, her mind was constantly trying to find excuses for him. Flashing back to memories of their shared past. The laughter when he had found her dancing in the library, his face so grave and serious before. The times he had quizzed her first few dates until the Lady herself had told him to leave her be. Not that it had helped her dating life much — it was interesting how many cousins, uncles, friends of the family (none of whom looked anything like her) one could run into when going to the cinema. The joys of growing up among apex predators with overprotective tendencies. The thought made her smile in homesick appreciation.
 

It was strange to be here without Fabian, to start a new chapter of her life without him. She never had had to. Jen remembered the way he had celebrated her first job with her, ridiculously pleased at her success, and the times they had rested in each others company. How could this man, her confidante of so many years, have deserted her, given her away like a piece of furniture?
 
As so many times over the last months, emotions became too much to bear, her ability to disengage her mind failing every day more.

She had no idea when it had started but by now there were times when touching an object, running her hand along the side of a table for example, became an agony of overload. She felt everything, unable to filter out even the smallest aspect of awareness. The sound of her skin on wood filled her ears, the cold of the surface was strong enough to make her feel burnt, the texture grated on her fingers. Emotions, good or bad, had become her enemy, swamping her mind with relentless, and conflicting, pressures. Headaches became her constant companions.
 

Jen struggled to fix her mind on the important things, had started to limit her human interactions simply because she could not face the stimulus. And none of the doctors she had consulted, not the one Fabian had been aware of, nor the five others, had found anything wrong. When the last one wanted to commit her to the psych ward for a few nights, for her own good he had said, she stopped going and concentrated on the coping mechanisms she had developed over the months. The most successful tool in her mental repertoire was to detach herself from sensation and emotion by concentrating on something innocuous with all her might. She grasped for that now, concentrated on wondering about her driver’s human condition in more detail.
 

 
It was not impossible for a human to be part of a paranormal court, her parents were proof of this. In general, if the human had useful skills he or she was inducted to the court with an oath not dissimilar to the blood oath of a courtier, acquiring the protection and care of the Lord in exchange of exclusive use of their talents in service of the court. It provided lifelong security and the positions were highly sought after. Though, the emphasis was on lifelong here — betrayal or non-performance of agreed duties could easily shorted that life. Among the paranormal set a contract dispute did not end up in the justice system, at least not a human one.

The pertinent point here was that her driver had shown none of the telltale signs of a man used to dealing with paranormals, with Others. He was treating her as a job and she was almost certain that he truly was what he appeared —
 
a hired driver without any connection to the paranormal world. So the Lord of Paris had sent a car for her, but had not seen it necessary, or prudent, to send a member of his court. To the soundtrack of the car door falling closed behind her she wondered if it should insult or frighten her.
 

It took less than twelve minutes for the limousine to travel the five kilometres between the station and the Paris court in the centre of town and with each metre she felt the presence of the lord of the city more. It worried her. Not even in Venice, under the presence of Justitiana, whose power levels were considerable, had she felt the mental presence of the liege holding power in the town with such intensity. She felt smothered, slowly subsumed, a pressure rising, collecting as a weight on her chest, turning each breath into labour. The cold sheen of sweat rose uncomfortable on her skin, collecting as a salty layer. No matter how often she licked her lips, how convulsively she swallowed, she could not dispel its taste from her mouth, the scent of her own fear from her nostrils. By the time they reached the old palais in the Rue Bonaparte her knees were shaking. Her hand on the door handle, Jen had to wait for a moment, collect her thoughts, before she could allow the chauffeur to open the door.
 

Her eyes tracked upwards on the large, elegant building with its neo-classical columns and the hidden touches of playful Rococo. Three hundred years ago it had been purpose built for the vampire court of Paris, its elegant simplicity in intentional contrast to the human court, which had established itself in the exile of Versailles. The paranormal court’s then modest look had been an intentional slap at the human king who had to leave the field to the paranormal Lord after the accord of Poitiers. Jen had always thought it ironic that the young Louis XIV, who had had to hand his capital over to the reign of the paranormal courts in order to keep his nation from disintegrating into bankruptcy and rebellion, had gone on to become the most powerful European king in human history. She would have loved to meet that man, was almost certain she would have liked him. To pick yourself up and make the best of what you are given, showing all you could prosper where others thought you would fail, that was a characteristic she could admire. It was still the same paranormal Lord who held sway in this building three hundred years later.
 

Her steps sounded loud in the deserted foyer, bare of any sentient presence. If not for the distinct signs of recent inhabitation, the running computer at the front desk, the untidy stack of magazines on the little table by the armchairs, the scent of perfume and coffee, she might have thought the building abandoned. A chill travelled up her spine and she halted to take a deep breath. Something was wrong here, something was seriously off in this court. Even at her own … no, she needed to stop thinking of it that way. The court of Tirana was not her home anymore. The thought hurt, but everything had for so long now, the instinctive defence of hiding behind walls of disinterest and dispassion, came easy. Even
Fabian’s
court, a young court, bustled with activity at this time of the night.
 

Here, however, her breath echoed loudly under the high vaulted ceiling of the entrance hall. For a moment she felt disoriented, her eyes skimming the opulent gold fretwork, the deep colours of the tapestries displaying a level of luxury and wealth matched by few courts, not even Justitiana’s. Before her the two graceful staircases curved towards the arch of the first floor, their light wood in harmony with the intarsia of the floor below her. She had expected stone, granite and marble, instead the wooden curves and beams harked back to a time far older than the lavishness of the furnishings, or the lines of the facade.
 

Out of the cold February wind she could feel the uncomfortable heat under her skin. Whoever had set the thermostat on this building had seriously overestimated the necessary power of the furnace. To distract herself she let her hand caress the smooth surface of a cabinet, admiring the artist’s representation of a mythical picnic complete with fauns chasing centaurs inlaid in the wood, when the quick staccato of hurried footsteps reached her ears.
 

“I am so sorry, Miss Ashbourne, I was held up by an urgent matter and therefore am inexcusably late to greet you. I am Julien Rousseau, Lord Adrian’s Second. Welcome to the court of Paris.”

Jen turned to her right, facing the man striding towards her from the eastern hallway. He was tall, almost gaunt, his brown hair and almond shaped eyes making a striking image. His presence also made her grumpy. She had not expected to be greeted by the Lord of the court in his entrance hall, or at all, but being greeted by his Second was almost as bad without giving her the right to be annoyed. Where was her right to rage against the arrogance of the Lord if he sent his Second, a position she herself had held in Tirana, though there were mountains of difference between the two courts and the standing the two positions conveyed on their owner, to greet her?
 

She was tired and cranky, grimy as one only ever felt after twenty-three hours travel and a night spent curled up on a train seat. The back of her shirt was sticking to her spine, the ten minutes with her emergency makeup she had smuggled into her pocket, even though she had been told not to bring anything, had done little to cover the grey tiredness on her features and underneath the scent of Chanel No5, she feared a vampire would be able to smell her less than fresh skin. She wanted to be annoyed. In her state of physical and mental uneasiness she wanted the outlet to rage against the Lord’s arrogance and was deprived of that relief by the mere presence of his Second greeting her will all appearance of politeness and respect.