“As I love you,” he reminded her.
“You’re also the only other vampire on earth who is as fucked-up as I am.” She touched his chest, tracing the ridges of one of the scars he carried. “Humans did this to you. I know if they get the chance, they’ll do it again. But they won’t, because I will kill anyone who tries.”
Now he understood. “The Brethren are human, Nicola, but they declared war on us. Defending ourselves against them is not the same as what Helada did to those children.”
She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Gabriel. Whatever Elizabeth did to me, I’m still human inside, and I won’t lose that. Not ever. If that means I have to leave the Kyn, you’re going to have to let me go.”
He stroked her back. “Then I will come with you.”
“Forgive the intrusion, my lord.”
Gabriel eyed the mortal male standing a few feet away. He spoke in French with an Italian accent, and on the lapel of his jacket he wore a black cameo etched with a rose, the symbol of the tresoran council. “Name yourself.”
“Sergio Benetta, my lord. Field operative of Padrone Ramas of the tresoran council.” He bowed low and then went down on one knee. “My master sent me and a dozen men to provide any assistance you and your lady might require.”
“Secure the premises and search the house. Remove all video recordings from the mirrored room in the east wing.” Gabriel looked down at Nicola. “Send them by private courier to Richard Tremayne. Keep your men here and wait for further instructions.”
“As you command, my lord.” Benetta stood, bowed again, and left.
Before Gabriel could speak, Nicola said, “We have to track Korvel, and it’s going to be light soon. We’ll talk later, okay?”
Gabriel heard the weariness in her voice, which troubled him as much as what she had said before Benetta had arrived. “The hill trails here are too narrow to drive. We’ll need horses; can you ride?”
She nodded. “There’s a barn full of them back that way.”
Once they had saddled and mounted two of the stock horses, they followed the track of Korvel’s scent out to the front gates and along the dirt path that circled around to the château’s side wall. There he spotted the hoof prints left behind by the mount that had carried Korvel away into the hills.
“The horse was carrying a heavy burden,” Gabriel said after inspecting the depth of the tracks. “I think it was the female mortal who walked alongside the mount.”
“She was probably leading it.” Nicola pointed to small, dark red stains forming an irregular line in the soil beside the mortal’s footprints. “That’s his blood.”
They rode through the hills until the trail came to an old manor house surrounded by several small outbuildings and large gleaned fields.
Gabriel dismounted along with Nicola, and tethered the horses to a fence before they approached the house from the back. As soon as he saw the clothing hanging in the yard—among them several nuns’ habits—he stopped. “This is a convent.”
“Maybe.” Nicola closed her eyes briefly. “Korvel was here, but he’s gone now.” She looked at Gabriel. “So is everyone else. The place is completely deserted.”
Saint Paul stood over the basket of clean laundry as he chewed on a shred of gray fabric. Beneath his hooves lay the rest of Simone’s best Sunday habit, along with all her white head veils.
She looked around the empty laundry before she spoke to the stubborn old goat. “That will only make you sick again.”
Saint Paul swallowed the fabric. “You should have killed me the first time,” he said in Pájaro’s voice before he bent his head and tore another strip from her skirt.
Through the window she saw a shadowy figure walking back and forth in the yard. Too large to be Flavia or any of the sisters, the shadow moved in a jerky, agitated fashion.
She went out into the moonlight and saw it was the Englishman. He held a bunch of white roses against the side of his face and was talking to himself.
“.…#x200B;the lines will be restored?” He stopped and scowled. “That is unacceptable. I don’t care about the storm.”
“Girl.”
Simone turned around and found herself out in the rose garden. Large, perfect blooms adorned every bush, but as she went to touch one it shrank in on itself, turning brown and then black as the entire bush withered.
A skeletal hand emerged from the soil and clamped around her ankle as her father’s voice whispered, “You will keep the bargain.”
Simone screamed, twisting and yanking as she tried to free herself, but the hand dragged her down, pulling her into the ground, into the earth, where everything was soft and silent and dark—
“Be still.”
She gripped the arms around her, expecting to feel bones but finding cool, hard muscle. The dirt smothering her paled and flattened into soft linen, and the heavy weight holding her down eased back as she stilled. Aware now that she lay facedown in a large, comfortable bed, she opened her eyes and rolled over as an arm reached past her to switch on a lamp.
She stared up at Korvel. “What happened?” She glanced around the lovely but unfamiliar room. “What is this place? Are we in Marseilles?”
“I brought you to a hotel in Avignon.” He studied her face. “Who attacked you at the rest stop?”
She touched the place where the assassin had clubbed her. The excruciating pain had vanished, along with the swelling. “I can’t say.” She sat up and assessed her surroundings. “How did you get a suite like this?”
“The way I usually obtain what I want from mortals.” The side of his mouth curled. “I compelled them to provide it, along with a doctor. I told him that you fell and struck your head. The owner and the hotel staff believe we are married.”
“We might as well be. Every time I wake up, I’m in bed with you.” Mortified by her own words, she put a hand over her eyes. “I apologize, my lord.”
A phone nearby rang, and the bed rose slightly as Korvel went to answer it. She listened, but he spoke only a few low words before hanging up.
The sound of something rolling across the floor made Simone lift her hand. Korvel brought a white cloth-draped cart to her side of the bed; the top of the cart lay covered with porcelain plates topped by ornate silver domes. Two crystal goblets sparkled on either side of a bottle of dark wine and a small pitcher of clear water.
“I have been attempting to contact the high lord, but a storm has cut off communications to the island.” He uncovered two of the plates, which were filled with fruit, cheese, and bread, and reached beneath the linen to take out a tray for the bed.
She sat up and watched as he set the tray over her lap and transferred one of the plates. “What are you doing?”
“The doctor said you should eat and drink something after you awoke,” he said as he filled one of the goblets with water and set it beside the plate. “If this is not to your liking I will bring you the menu.”
“I appreciate your consideration,” she said, “but I’m not hungry, and we need to get back on the motorway.”
“It will be dawn soon. You will have the day to rest and regain your strength. No,” he said as she started to get out of bed. “Traveling in the daylight will also weaken me.”
“You need blood.”
“That can wait as well.” He took a raspberry from the plate and held it in front of her lips. “If I must, I will pinch your nose.”
She reached up to take it from him, but he caught her wrist. “I can feed myself,” she told him.
Glints of violet shimmered in the blue of his eyes. “Open your mouth, angel.”
Simone parted her lips, and he pressed the raspberry between them. As she bit down, the berry’s fragrant juices filled her mouth, so sweet and luscious she felt almost decadent.
“I remember these.” Korvel watched her mouth. “Do they still taste like wine and dark roses?”
“I can’t say. I’ve never eaten a flower.” Her throat felt tight, and she picked up the goblet of water and sipped from it. As she did, she smelled something faint and acrid, and realized the assassin’s sweat was still on her skin. “I would like to bathe.”
Korvel helped her up from the bed. “Do you require my assistance?”
The thought of his big hands on her naked body made her knees turn to jelly. “Thank you, Captain, but I can manage.”
She walked calmly across the room, and only when she closed the bathroom door between them did she give in to the weakness of her limbs and slide to the floor.
Pain she could overcome. Her training had taught her how to withstand the debilitating effects of injury as well as hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. But this was something else, something she had never felt. She wanted to be naked in the captain’s arms again, so that he could touch her the way he had back at the convent. She wanted it so much she was shaking with it.
If she did not regain control of her body it would betray her and render her useless.
Simone got up and went to the sink. The hotel had provided an enormous beribboned basket filled with pretty soaps, lotions, and other toiletries, and from it she took a soft cloth and soaked it under the tap.
The wet cloth cooled her hot face and cleared some of the frantic emotion from her mind. She would offer him sex again, and this time he would use her, and that would extinguish this unbearable longing.
But that had been Pájaro’s sin: using the excuse of duty to indulge his own vices. She had seen the excitement in his eyes whenever he had stepped into the circle with her or one of her brothers. Hurting others gave him pleasure; he had taught her that the night he had come to her room.
Simone had no illusions about herself. She might live as a nun, but she was the daughter of a ruthless killer and a drug-addicted prostitute. She had so feared becoming like her father that she had forgotten her mother’s blood also ran in her veins. Korvel had simply opened her eyes to the other half of her nature.