The Mistress (30 page)

“Into thin air?”

“Almost. I’ll go north to my mother’s convent. I’ll bribe them if I have to, and they’ll let me in. And that’s where I’ll stay the rest of my life.”

“Giving up? That’s not like you, Little One.”

“Not giving up at all. I’ll be so busy I’ll need the quiet of a convent and no distractions. I’m going to write books about us, you and me. And Kingsley and Juliette and Griffin and Michael and Zach and Grace. That’s what I’ll do with my last years.”

“I told you that you weren’t allowed to write about me.”

“You’ll be dead. What do you care?”

“My ghost will be most put out with you.”

“But will your ghost put out?” she teased.

“If you’re good.”

“I won’t be good.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “I’ll be wicked until my last day. I’ll write one wild, wicked book after the next. I’ll change our names, change the locations, change the dates, the details. But it’ll be us, our story. I’ll write the books in third person so Zach won’t kill me. He hates first-person novels. Plus if it’s third person I can write about how beautiful and sexy I am and it won’t sound arrogant.”

“Good plan. Will these books be comedies or tragedies?”

“Both. Just like life.”

“Will I be a hero in your stories? Or the villain?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Nora confessed. “But I promise you this...I will give you the last laugh.”

“Then that’s all I can ask.”

“And after I give you the last laugh, I’ll put my pen away and I’ll fall asleep. And when I wake up, you and I will be back together. I’ll be fifteen again and you’ll be twenty-nine and it will all start over again—you and I. That’s how I’ll know I’m in heaven.”

“My Little One...”

“I love you,” she said, not able to go on any longer without him hearing those words, without her saying them. “I always loved you. I never once stopped loving you. All those times I said I hated you, I never meant them, not once. I loved every part of you, every secret, every sin. I love what you are and what you do and how you make me feel so scared and so safe all at the same time. God, I wish I had my collar.”

“You don’t need it. I know who you are, who you belong to.”

“I promised you forever.” Nora remembered that day in the police station when it seemed her life would end at age fifteen, and this man, this priest, who said he would save her if she promised to do everything he told her to do forever. Forever, she had said. “Forever isn’t long enough.”

“And I promised you everything in return,” Søren said. Nora looked at the dagger in her hand, the gun at Søren’s head. “I meant it.”

“Enough,” Marie-Laure said. “My feet are getting tired and you’re both starting to bore me. Damon, if she doesn’t kill him in one minute, kill her.”

Nora kissed Søren and he returned the kiss ardently, longingly, deeply, with such love it felt as if he kissed the very heart of her.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered against her lips. “This life is nothing but one blink of God’s eyes. He’ll blink again, and we’ll be back together.”

“Are you sure I’ll go to heaven?”

“Of course. It wouldn’t be heaven without you.”

Marie-Laure reached down and pulled out Søren’s white Roman collar. Brusquely she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open. Seeing her touching him, baring his chest to the entire room, Nora felt the rightness in what she was about to do. To let any hands other than hands of adoration, devotion and love touch Søren’s body seemed the greatest abomination, the deepest blasphemy, the unforgivable sin. Better to see him die than suffer that indignity. Better for them both to die.

“Now.” Marie-Laure was still standing so close she would feel Søren’s last breath on her feet when he fell.

Nora heard Damon checking his clip.

“Now,” Søren said. “Don’t hesitate, Eleanor. Do it because you love me, as you love me.”

“I do love you,” she said, and knew it might be the last words he ever heard from her. “Forever.”

Nora gripped the handle of the dagger and started to raise it.

She prayed a final prayer.

God...give me good aim and the strength to use it.

In less than the time it took God to blink, it was over.

33

THE KING

T
he words on the note Søren left him told Kingsley everything he needed to know.

I would have done the same for you.

Kingsley saw the words and believed in them, which is why, even with the woman he loved thousands of miles away and carrying his child, he knew he would have to risk death, risk anything, to save this man who would have risked all to save him.

He drove to Elizabeth’s house at breakneck speed, cursing Søren’s noble, foolish heart the entire way there. He couldn’t waste a moment coming up with a plan or a strategy. He’d either save Søren and Nora or he would die with them.

Once at the house he willed himself to stay calm, stay quiet. He went through the window again but instead of hiding in the pantry, he raced around the house until he found them. At the library door he paused and took a deep breath. He had two guns fully loaded and cocked. He prayed it would be enough.

Peering in the door he saw he wasn’t too late. Nora and Søren were still alive, still breathing, but they both had guns aimed at their heads. And Marie-Laure stood close, staring at them and smiling, smiling and waiting.

Waiting for what?

Kingsley saw it, the knife in Nora’s hand. Marie-Laure was making Nora kill Søren. But Nora wouldn’t do that...not even with a gun to her head. She’d die first before she hurt him. And yet the knife rose higher and higher.

Her hand trembled only a moment before it steadied and she took a quick breath in.

Kingsley raised his gun. The first shot would start the war. If he shot the man at Nora’s back, the man behind Søren could shoot him. Shoot Søren’s guard and Nora would die. Shoot Marie-Laure and they all could die.

He made up his mind in an instant. He had no other choice.

He aimed his gun at Nora.

Part Five

CHECK

34

THE QUEEN

N
ora brought the dagger down and at the last moment turned and plunged it deep into Marie-Laure’s thigh. Her scream of shock and pain momentarily confused both Damon and Andrei into inaction. Bullets whirled all around her, bullying the air. Where did they come from? What was happening? She could see nothing. Someone had her trapped, pinned down. She could barely breathe.

Then the guns went silent as death, and she smelled death in the room. Copper and smoke.

But whose death? She feared opening her eyes. If she kept them closed, then she would never know the answer to her question. If she opened her eyes she would see who had died and she couldn’t face that, not yet. Someone held her in his arms, held her tight. She decided to keep her eyes closed and stay there.

Forever.

35

THE KING

T
he men shot wildly in their confusion and Kingsley killed the guards before they even saw who it was who brought death to their doorstep. Kingsley rushed toward Søren and Nora but soon had reason to regret that choice.

Marie-Laure wrenched the dagger from her leg and came at Kingsley with it. She thrust it through his side. He grabbed her, trying to restrain her. In such close quarters he couldn’t get a shot off without hitting himself. The gun clattered to the floor. She clawed at his face, fighting him like a wild animal. She managed to fight her way out of his arms. Dropping to the floor she grabbed the gun and aimed it at the corner of the room—right at Søren’s back.

From his pocket, Kingsley pulled out the razor blade. When she tried to kick Kingsley away, he sliced through Marie-Laure’s hamstring. She howled in agony and the gun fell from her fingers.

Panting and bleeding, she lay coughing on the floor.

Kingsley brought his hand to his side.

Blood...so much blood. He’d been hit. No matter.
Pas de problème
. One more wound. He’d add it to his collection.

Gazing around the room he saw the carnage. One man dead on the floor.

Two men dead on the floor.

One woman on the floor...still breathing.

Kingsley knelt at Marie-Laure’s side.

“You always were one for temper tantrums,” he whispered in French as his sister lay on the ground twitching, blood pouring from her thigh. “One tantrum too many.”

He laid his hand on her forehead, wiped a drop of blood off her face. After all these years she was still beautiful, his sister.

“We should have died,” Marie-Laure whispered, “you and I. We should have died on that train when Maman and Papa died. We should have died together....”

“We did. The whole Boissonneault family died that day. I’m only the ghost of Kingsley Boissonneault. You’re only the ghost of Marie-Laure.”

“I don’t want to be a ghost anymore.”

Her back arched, her face contorted in agony. Kingsley shushed her gently and pulled her close. Her hand gripped his arm hard and she dug her nails into his skin.

“He didn’t love me...” she whispered. “My own husband.”

“But I loved you.”

She nodded and breathed in deeply. It was her last breath.

“Merci.”
She whispered that final word and left Kingsley behind a second time.

36

THE KNIGHT

T
he moment Wesley realized where Søren had gone and where Kingsley was going, he knew he couldn’t stay in the house and wait for the world to end. He raced after Kingsley, knowing he would be putting himself in the gravest of danger. But that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Only saving Nora mattered.

He parked the car almost at the front door of the house and ran inside. Not knowing the layout at all, he could do nothing but run everywhere, searching every room. Finally he found the room, the library, and the bloodbath that it had become.

Kingsley knelt at a woman’s side. Blood seeped through his shirt. But he was vertical, breathing, alive.

One miracle.

“Nora!” Wes shouted. He called her name again. And a third time. Louder every time.

A large man with a gun lay on the floor, obviously dead. A few feet away lay another, smaller man—also dead.

Two miracles.

At last he saw something, someone, lurking in the corner of the room. A man dressed entirely in black.

Søren. Alive. Unharmed from what Wesley could tell.

Søren knelt facing the wall, his back to the room. As the guns had fired, as the bullets had flown, Søren had ducked and covered out of harm’s way. But he wasn’t out of harm’s way. He would kill the man himself for his cowardice, for letting Nora—

“I’m here, Wes,” came Nora’s voice, still and small and coming from seemingly nowhere and everywhere at once.

“Where are you?” he called, rushing around, looking for her. Had she been shot? Was she hiding somewhere?

Slowly Søren started to turn and Wesley rushed toward him.

“Søren, where the fuck is Nora?” Wesley demanded, more furious than he’d ever been in his life. If he’d hidden while Nora had gotten hurt, he’d kill the priest with his own bare hands.

“I said I’m here, Wes.” Now he saw her.

She lay curled in the corner of the room, tucked tight into the fetal position, entirely unexposed to the battlefield all around them. Søren had shielded her from the bullets with his own body. With her head against his chest, with her eyes closed, Nora had never looked so alive, so beautiful.

So safe.

37

THE ROOK

G
race stood at the window of the house and prayed. She hadn’t done this in years, hadn’t given her faith any thoughts at all. Two days in Søren’s presence had turned her devout as a nun. She had no thoughts anymore, no fears. Her mind had turned into nothing but one prayer that she repeated over and over again until it became like the chant of the medieval monks.

Deliver us from evil...deliver us from evil...deliver us from evil...

She started as she heard the sound of a car coming up the road. It turned into the driveway and crawled toward the house, another car behind it. Grace couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, could do nothing but clutch her hands at her heart and stare.

The first car stopped and Kingsley stepped out from the driver’s side. Kingsley...bloodied but alive. He laid his hand on the hood and breathed, clearly in agony.

Another car door opened and Søren emerged, something in his arms. Not something...someone. He carried Nora to the house. But was she alive? Grace couldn’t tell.

From the second car emerged Wesley. He looked shell-shocked, pale as a ghost, but alive. Alive was all she cared about. Alive was all that mattered.

Wesley went to Kingsley and took his arm and put it around his own shoulders. Kingsley let his weight fall onto Wesley and Wesley half walked, half carried Kingsley toward the house. Towels, bandages...she’d find them and see to Kingsley’s wounds.

Grace ran to the door and opened it. Søren came in first.

Nora’s head lay on Søren’s shoulder. Grace gasped as two bright green eyes met her own.

“Grace? What the hell are you doing here?” Nora asked, as if they’d met at a party in Manhattan and not a house in the middle of nowhere.

“It’s a long story. Are you all right?”

“Oh...I’m fine,” she said as Søren carried her up the stairs and Grace waited at the bottom. “Is Zach here?”

“He’s in Australia.” Grace laughed the words. How absurd it was for her to be here—she wanted to be nowhere else in the entire world.

“Can you tell him something for me?”

“Anything,” Grace promised.

“Tell him my edits are going to be a little late. I have a good excuse, I promise.”

38

THE PAWN

L
aila awoke to silence. Silence, yes, but not stillness. The air buzzed around her as if something great and terrible had happened and the whole world still shuddered from the aftershock.

She threw off the blankets and raced into the hallway. She saw her uncle and her aunt disappear into a bedroom at the end of the hall. At the bottom of the stairs Grace stood with Kingsley, helping him take off his bloody shirt. And Wes, he stood in the middle of the foyer, leaning against the wall, taking short, shallow breaths like he was trying to stop himself from throwing up.

“She’s alive...” Laila looked at Wesley and started to head to her uncle’s door. He grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him.

“We should give them some time.”

Laila nodded and tried to calm herself, although everything in her wanted to run to her aunt, embrace her, cling to her, weep in her arms for unparalleled joy. But something told her Wes was right, she should stay here. She should stay with him. He’d taken her hand and hadn’t let it go.

She looked down at their hands and then back up at Wes. He stared down the hall, stared at the closed door behind which her aunt and uncle had their reunion. On Wes’s face she saw grief and relief wrestling with each other. The relief she understood. The grief...

It came to her then. Wes wasn’t merely a close friend of her aunt’s. His feelings went far deeper than a crush. He loved her. He was in love with her. And in her moment of greatest crisis, her aunt had clung to her uncle and not him.

It seemed such a travesty...such a waste. Here stood this beautiful young man who had everything to give and no one to give it to.

“I shouldn’t say this,” Laila said, summoning all her courage. When all her own courage wasn’t enough, she summoned some of her aunt’s and then some of her uncle’s. Finally it was enough. “But I will.”

“Say anything you want, Laila.” Wes still held her hand. She took that as a sign to say the words her heart demanded of her.

“If I were her...” she began before leaning forward and giving him the quickest of kisses on the cheek, “I would have picked you.”