Michael speaks to Celine as if they share a secret. In return, she offers him a smile, and even from a distance, I can see how much it lightens his soul. He leans closer, and the demon inside me wants to take him apart like a clock, piece by piece, cog by cog. It is the same demon that almost killed Cambion in the swamp. The one my uncle wants to take control, no matter how much I might wish to be rid of it once and for all.
Michael’s fingers flex at his sides as they struggle to overcome an unspoken emotion.
Only a fool would deny the obvious.
Michael Grimaldi is in love with Celine Rousseau. It is in every word he speaks, every glance he spares, every tilt of his head toward hers.
I swallow the anger, the tendons in my knuckles pulled tight.
Though I have been forged in fury, I have no right to dwell in it.
I need to unmake this anger. To unmake who I have become. To seek out Sunan the Immortal Unmaker, whose name has haunted me since I first heard it in Cambion’s thoughts.
An immortal unmaker. One who could return me to my mortal form. The idea of such power taunts me, as it did my mother.
The irony of this is not lost on me.
Michael and Celine walk past us on the opposite side of the street. The instant she steps into my direct sight line, Celine stops. Appears to sway as if she might faint. I realize I have moved into the lamplight like a moth drawn to a killing flame when Jae takes hold of my shoulder, returning me to darkness.
“Sébastien.” Though Jae’s voice is firm, there is sympathy in the way he says my name.
I don’t care. I tug at his grasp until he is forced to restrain me.
Something is wrong with Celine. I can see it in Michael’s eyes. In the way he has to hold her upright, as if she were some kind of delicate flower. A feeling I know Celine would despise.
I breathe in through my nose. Out through my mouth, the muscles in my chest straining against Jae’s iron grasp. Celine tells Michael she wishes to return home. I turn to follow them, unconcerned with everything around me.
Boone takes hold of my other shoulder. “I’ll make sure she is safely ensconced in her home.” His grip hardens. “You should remain here with Jae.”
I know he is right. Instead I spin about, my nostrils flaring. “I’ll be damned if—”
“This is not a suggestion, Sébastien,” Boone interrupts. “Under no circumstances are you to learn where Celine lives. This is not about what you need. This is about her protection.” Lines etch across his forehead. “For God’s sake, think with your head and not your heart, brother. Her memories of you are lost. You are no longer of her world. What could you hope to bring her now but pain and misery?”
The rage turns bitter in my throat. I say nothing, only glare at him, my anguish a yoke around my neck.
“It isn’t your place to protect her, Bastien,” Boone continues. “If you care about Celine, let her live and love among her own kind.”
The pain is so sharp that I cannot speak. The tendons in my fists stretch until my fingers turn bloodless. No matter how much I wish it were a lie, I know Boone speaks the truth. I have no right to feel anything when it comes to Celine Rousseau. She asked to be forgotten, just as she asked to forget. It is selfish of me to desire anything more. She gave up her memories to save me. I owe it to her to respect that decision.
But that feeling—that feeling of wanting to unmake the world—rips through my chest. If this Sunan character is real, I would find him. I would have him unmake me. No matter the cost.
“I hate the Brotherhood even more than you do,” Jae says, his eyes like obsidian. “But Michael Grimaldi will keep her safe. And we will always watch over her. Make no mistake.”
Even as I nod, biting back the taste of bile, I want to defy them. I want to stand before Celine and tell her all that I feel. I want to take Michael apart with my bare hands.
I want. I want. I want.
ÉMILIE
The wolf spoke in a low growl, a hairsbreadth from Émilie’s ear.
His words reverberated through her mind like the clang of a bell, but she took care not to react. She was beyond a place of anger. Beyond a place of retribution. Hers was a fire of blue flame. Pure and uncompromising.
When Émilie’s spy left the small, darkened garden, she stood straight and began to pace.
Her brother lived. Sébastien Saint Germain was alive.
The wolf who spied for her—the one who listened and reported on the mutterings of the magical folk throughout the city—had just informed her that Bastien had been seen last night, walking along Rue Royale as if nothing were amiss. As if he had not been attacked by a vampire and had his throat torn out a mere six weeks ago.
Incredulous, she paused and looked toward a night sky spangled with stars. To her right stood a towering bald cypress, its uppermost branches cloaked in strands of Spanish moss.
Though many people loved the haunted look of the moss, it had irked Émilie since childhood. Spanish moss was a weed. If left untended, it could weigh down the branches of even the healthiest tree, choking the life from it over time.
Émilie laughed to herself and continued pacing.
Sébastien was like this weed. No matter how many times fate tried to rip him out by his roots, poison him, or starve him of sunlight, he continued to flourish. To choke the life out of everything around him, even members of his own family and his first true love.
Émilie touched the raised scar of the burn along her collarbone. A burn from the fire her brother had inadvertently started twelve years ago, the day her human life had come to an abrupt end. Heaven knew how it had happened. She supposed such a thing did not matter. Little boys played with fire, and when they did, other people burned.
When Émilie realized her younger brother was still trapped on the top floor of the burning building, she had been the one to break through the line of men and women struggling to extinguish the blaze. A boy in the fire brigade had tried to stop her, but fifteen-year-old Émilie had not cared about the danger. Had not given it a second thought.
Her little brother might die. She could not allow that to happen.
After an agonizing search, she found six-year-old Bastien cowering in a third-floor closet. She raced for the stairs with him in her arms, only to realize the wooden landing and banisters were engulfed in flames. As a last resort, she’d thrown her brother out the window, smoke choking the breath from her body. He’d landed in a sheet a group of men had splayed in the courtyard below. It was a miracle Bastien had not been injured, though the smoke had rendered him unconscious. A moment later, the eave above the window collapsed, preventing Émilie from escaping the same way. But not before she saw her uncle Nicodemus staring grimly at her from the world below, his walking stick gripped in one hand.
Émilie had found herself in a tomb of fire. She’d backed into a corner, her eyes burning, her hair beginning to smolder. When a lick of flame touched the sleeve of her dress, it had ignited before she could muster a scream. The fire had singed her skin, the blaze roaring in her head, her heart raging, begging to be set free.
Fear had overcome her. She’d breathed deeply of the fiery air, letting it burn through her lungs, praying for a reprieve.
She had not seen the figures moving through the flames until the last instant. Until she’d believed them to be angels sent from above. No human could move like that. With such grace and speed, even when threatened by the fires of Hell itself.
When she’d awoken, she’d been on the cusp of death, her body wracked with pain.
“Émilie,” a gruff voice had said. “You don’t have much time.”
She’d struggled to open her eyes.
“You’re dying, but I can stop it,” he’d continued. “I can give you the power to cheat death.”
“U-Uncle?”
“No. I am not the coward who stood by and watched you die a fiery death. But I am here to give you what you wanted from him. What he refused to give to you.” The man leaned in until his mouth was beside her ear. “The power to overcome your weaknesses. All you have to do is nod.”
Émilie did not have to think twice. The burns on her skin were raw. Every motion she made was excruciating, but she managed a single nod. The man bit her arm, and the pain that spread through her limbs caused her to lose consciousness. When next she woke, she was a werewolf. Meant to cast aside her worldly desires along with all her earthly loyalties.
From that moment onward, Émilie was no longer a Saint Germain. The very utterance of the name caused hot anguish to race through her veins. The Saint Germains had brought her nothing but death and suffering, just as they had with the wolves, who’d lost everything for casting their lot with the vampires. In the end, her uncle—the one who was supposed to protect them all—had stood by and watched her die.
The sight of Nicodemus’ golden gaze staring up at her through the smoke had been etched onto each of Émilie’s memories for more than a decade. It fed her. Sustained her hatred.
In the end, it was Luca and his family—especially his father, who had turned her—who gave her what she’d desired for so long. A place to call her own. They answered any and all of her questions. All the things Nicodemus had denied her, they gave without reservations.
And Émilie had become one of them.
From Luca, she’d learned how vampires and werewolves had once lived in the Otherworld, in a land of perpetual night known as the Sylvan Wyld. He told her how the vampires and werewolves had consorted with one another to lord over the mortal domain. How the vampires had attempted to sell immortality to the highest bidder. How they’d all been banished from the Sylvan Wyld for the vampires’ actions.
How the vampires had eventually forsaken the wolves in their quest to achieve dominance in the mortal realm.
Over time, Luca professed his love. And Émilie returned it, in her own way. She loved him for being her family. For always putting her first. But Luca wanted to marry her, and a woman like Émilie was not meant to be contained. When she gave love, it was without restraint, to men and women alike. And whatever she offered was hers to give, to whomever she chose, whenever she chose to give it. Something men like Luca or her uncle or even her younger brother would never understand.