Reluctant Partnerships (36 page)

Pascale smiled and took Adèle’s hand, leading her toward the bedroom. “You can get your hopes up as high as you’d like. I ordered a nightgown from an online site, and when it got here, their sizing and mine disagreed, but it wasn’t worth the hassle of sending it back to exchange it. Give me a second to find it.” She dug in a drawer full of a froth of silk and satin, the sight making Adèle wonder if she could convince Pascale to model them all for her at some future point. A moment later, Pascale straightened, a Nile-green nightgown in hand. “The color even suits you. You can change in the bathroom if you’d rather not change in here.”

Adèle took the garment and went into the bathroom. She stripped down to her underwear and pulled the nightgown over her head. It was short, barely brushing the tops of her thighs, and it was tighter around the bust than she usually wore, but she was covered, at least, and more comfortable than she would have been sleeping fully clothed. Taking a deep breath, she walked back into the bedroom, arms crossed over her chest protectively.

 “Don’t hide from me,” Pascale said, kissing her gently and easing her arms down to her sides. “You’re beautiful and I want to see you.”

“The nightgown’s a little tight,” Adèle muttered.

Pascale smiled, taking a step back so she could admire her new lover more easily. The nightgown, which had reached mid-thigh on her, barely covered Adèle’s hips, highlighting her legs, which seemed to go on forever, making Pascale want to feel them wrapped tightly around her as she nibbled her way up them or as she licked the wizard to climax. The gown clung to the dip of Adèle’s waist and then drew tight again over her full breasts. Pascale’s mouth watered as she imagined peeling the satin away and feasting on the taut nipples she could see pressing against the fabric. “I’m not complaining.” She traced the swell of Adèle’s breast. “The other marks are gone.”

Adèle shrugged dismissively. “The reasons to remember him were gone, so there was no reason to leave the scars. I’d rather have your marks on me than his.”

Pascale leaned closer, running her lips over the skin where the scars had been. “It will be my pleasure,” she promised.

Adèle shivered at the provocative caress. Pascale’s lips were softer than most men’s, and her face had no hint of stubble to scratch tender skin, but other than that, the touch did not feel all that different from a man caressing her the same way. Perhaps being loved by Pascale would not feel so foreign after all.

Chapter 22

D
ENIS
stared morosely at the one photo of Noël he could not bring himself to put away, wishing he could drink himself into oblivion the way his mortal peers could do when in the grips of the kind of melancholy that had overtaken him since he left l’Institut three days ago. His mind and his heart warred with each other over what to do about Martin, whether to take the chance on a relationship. He had no more answers than he had had then, but he missed Martin terribly, and not just how he made Denis feel when they ended up in bed. He missed the man’s sense of humor, his sharp intelligence, his seeking curiosity.

“I need to get over myself and accept this partnership, don’t I?” he asked the picture as if it could answer him.

The sound of a crash in the courtyard startled him, but he ignored it. Someone’s dog getting into the garbage cans, no doubt. He had returned to his contemplation of Noël’s picture and his current conundrum when a shout followed another crash.

A shout that sounded suspiciously like Martin’s voice.

Frowning, Denis crossed the room to the large window that opened onto his tiny second-story balcony. He pushed open the vertical panes and stepped out, looking for the origin of the noise, and felt his heart stop.

Martin lay on the ground, struggling weakly against a vampire who had him pinned and was feeding from his throat. With a scream of pure rage, Denis vaulted over the railing, the drop to the stones below nothing compared to his need to drag the interloper from his lover, his
partner
.

He hit the other vampire at a full run, knocking the man away from Martin. They rolled across the cobblestones, each vying for dominance. In the pale light of the moon, Denis caught sight of the attacker’s face. “Renaud,” he spat. “What are you doing here?”

Renaud ignored him, his hands reaching for Denis’s throat. Denis broke their hold, springing away from Renaud’s grasp. “Taking back what’s mine,” Renaud shouted.

“You and what army?” Denis demanded, looking around quickly to make sure no other vampires lurked in the shadows, but he saw only Martin, still lying prone on the ground.

Renaud did not answer, lunging at Denis instead. Denis dodged him, using the momentum to slam him into the wall, pinning him and forcing his arm behind his back. “Why did you attack Martin? He’s done nothing to you, and I know he didn’t give you permission.”

“He’s mortal. He’s nothing,” Renaud scoffed, slamming his head against Denis’s, knocking the chef de la Cour back. Denis lifted his hand to his nose, scowling when it came away wet with blood.

“That kind of attitude will see us all staked in the sunlight,” Denis warned, circling Renaud, looking for an opening. “How many people have you turned without their permission?”

“Two, ten, twenty?” Renaud taunted. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Tired of the game and conscious of Martin still not moving, Denis charged Renaud again, pushing him backward, his hand around the vampire’s throat as he squeezed. He had to knock the other vampire unconscious or risk him escaping into the night as he went to tend to Martin. He needed to tend to Martin, but he could not let Renaud escape. This might be his only chance to capture the other vampire.

Renaud kneed Denis in the stomach, knocking the breath from Denis’s lungs and breaking his grip. Denis braced for another attack, but it did not come, Renaud disappearing into the night. Denis almost went after him, but the compulsion to check on Martin outweighed the desire to see justice done. Still coughing from Renaud’s parting blow, Denis stumbled across the courtyard to Martin’s side, feeling blindly for his pulse.

It beat weakly beneath his fingers, but with each pulse, more blood oozed from the multiple wounds on Martin’s throat. Lowering his head, Denis licked at the wounds, knowing his saliva would help close them. The flavor of Martin’s blood exploded onto his tongue so strongly he nearly gave in to the desire to feed for himself, but he could not take that risk, not when he had no idea how much Renaud had taken or why Martin was unconscious.

Convinced he had done all he could to seal the wounds, he dug through Martin’s pockets in search of his cell phone. He dialed l’Institut the moment he found it.

“Bellaiche.”

“Oh, Jean, thank God,” Denis said. “Martin’s been attacked. I need help.”

“Where are you?” Jean said.

“The courtyard of my building,” Denis replied. “I don’t know why he was here, but I heard a noise and—”

“Tell me about it later,” Jean said. “Does he need a doctor?”

“I think so,” Denis said. “He’s still breathing, but he isn’t moving.”

“Feed from him,” Jean ordered.

“I can’t,” Denis said. “He was attacked by the
extorris
. I don’t know how much Renaud took.”

“Lightly,” Jean said. “Enough that the partnership bond will kick in and help him.”

“He isn’t my partner,” Denis insisted, though the taste of Martin’s blood on his tongue assured him he had already crossed that line. To do more without Martin’s permission….

“It’s going to take time for us to get there,” Jean said. “Raymond will know who to call, but it’s going to be a few minutes, minutes Martin might not have. He’s spent the past three days miserable because he didn’t know how to make you understand how serious he was about you. Put the phone down and bite him. You aren’t newly turned. You can monitor his well-being through his blood. Do it now. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

The line went dead before Denis could say anything else.

“This is not the way I wanted our first time together to be,” Denis whispered to Martin as he lifted the limp body in his arms and lowered his head to feed.

The few laps of Martin’s blood Denis had taken to close the wounds in no way prepared him for the full banquet of Martin’s blood when his fangs pierced flesh and he drank from the source. A feeling of strength and homecoming he had not known since Noël died flooded through him, the connection so strong that Denis wondered why he had ever questioned it. He forced himself not to gorge, knowing Martin was too weak for that. Instead, he focused on the connection between them that had slammed into place the moment his fangs broke skin. The thready pulse worried him, but it did not weaken more, so Denis left his mouth in place, not actively feeding so much as nursing the fledgling bond between them.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Keeping Martin cradled protectively against him, he turned his head as much as he could. A woman he did not know approached first, followed immediately by Jean, Raymond, Alain, and Orlando.

“Constance is a doctor,” Raymond said as the woman knelt at Denis’s side. “She’s been studying how a partnership affects healing in injured wizards. Let her check him out.”

Denis lifted his head, giving the woman access to Martin’s chest and neck, but he did not move farther away than that.

“Renaud is the vampire we want,” Denis told the others. “I couldn’t go after him. I had to help Martin.”

“He could be anywhere by now,” Orlando said.

“You can track him,” Denis reminded them. “All you have to do is take a little of Martin’s blood. He fed minutes ago. Please, Jean. Don’t make me leave him.”

Jean looked at Raymond for a moment before kneeling next to Denis. “I can’t. His blood would make me sick.” Raymond’s hand settled on Jean’s shoulder. Jean reached up and squeezed it gently. “I made a promise I can’t break.”

“What promise?” Denis asked, looking from the brand on Alain’s neck to the unmarked skin of Raymond’s.

“I need to take him to Paris,” Constance interrupted. “He needs a transfusion, and he needs it now.”

“What do I do?” Denis asked Jean.

“You let Constance take him and take care of him, and you lead the rest of us after Renaud,” Jean said. “You can’t help with Martin’s treatment any more than you’ve already done, but you can help make sure no one else is attacked the same way.”

“Do it,” Denis said, looking at Constance.

“You know how to reach me,” Raymond reminded her.

She nodded and cast a spell, disappearing and taking Martin with her.

“What promise?” Denis asked again.

“Not all bonds are public ones,” Jean said simply, rising to his feet and offering Denis his hand. “Not all bonds need to be public ones.”

Understanding dawned slowly. Somewhere on Raymond’s body, hidden by clothes or magic, it did not matter which, Raymond had a brand to match the one on Alain’s neck, proof of the Aveu de Sang he and Jean had made.

“Let’s go,” Raymond said, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Alain and Orlando knew, of course, but he and Jean had deliberately chosen not to tell anyone else, even their friends. He had never envisioned a scenario in which they would have to tell a near stranger, but it could not be helped. “The longer we wait, the harder he’ll be to track.”

“Can you sense him?” Jean asked. “I have no idea how monsieur Lombard did it except that he tasted Alain’s blood and led us to Orlando.”

“It’s like a pull in a certain direction,” Denis said, starting toward the gate. He glanced at Alain and Raymond. “Can you keep up?”

Jean laughed. “Magic makes ‘impossible’ such a relative term.”

Denis had no response for that, so he led them out of the courtyard in the direction he sensed Renaud’s presence. He only hoped the vampire would not try to grab some other victim to hide his trail. Then again, Denis had not known about the ability to trace a vampire this way until relatively recently, so perhaps Renaud was equally ignorant and would focus on hiding on a physical rather than on a magical plane.

They raced through the streets of Autun, heading toward the countryside that surrounded the town. “It’s going to be hard going if he gets out of the city,” Orlando said.

“For him as well as for us,” Denis replied. “For a while, I could feel him moving, but I think he’s gone to ground now. If we can keep him from realizing we’re coming, he’ll have no reason to leave his safe place.”

“If he doesn’t know we’re coming and we can figure out where he is, we can cast a magical net around his location,” Raymond offered. “We don’t have time to cast it so it only traps him, which means whoever goes after him will also be trapped until we release the spell, but you won’t have to worry about him slipping through your fingers again. Or we could wait for dawn to trap him completely.”

“I defeated him once before,” Denis said. “I’ll do it again. I don’t need sunlight to trap him, and I don’t want to wait that long to check on Martin.”

“And this time you won’t have to do it alone,” Orlando added. “And don’t argue. He endangered all of us with his actions. You and Jean named him
extorris
. I know he attacked your partner, not mine, but this is still our fight, all of us, not just yours.”

“We want him to stand trial,” Alain added. “All any of you have to do is lure him out so Raymond or I can get a binding spell on him. This doesn’t have to be a fight to the death.”

“And don’t argue,” Raymond finished. “Neither Alain nor I have any intention of watching our partners get hurt.”

All three vampires scowled at the two wizards, but they did not argue. Denis slowed as he felt Renaud’s presence grow stronger in his mind. He zeroed in finally on a small hut built into the side of the hill. “I think he’s in there,” Denis whispered.

Raymond and Alain nodded, moving to opposite sides of the building. At a look from Raymond, Alain began casting the net, sending his magic out to mesh with Raymond’s. When the two spells had knitted together completely and Raymond could feel Alain’s magic completely entwined with his, he gestured for the vampires to continue.